OK - It's been over a month since the oil rig disaster started, and little seems to have changed since day one. What is so frustrating is that there is nothing government could do once the disaster started - it had no experts with enough knowledge to take charge of things.
So what do we do?
First, let's stop all the noise making and really look for policy changes that will help prevent problems like this from happening, or will lessen the degree of headaches they will cause.
Second, let's get the Army Corps of Engineers involved with developing "best practices" for every risky technology. That will mean that over a period of 20 years or so, they will have to be in-place observers of industry, learning by doing - but not part of industry. We can then use the list of practices just built for a repeatable set of procedures which industry can follow to prevent disaster.
Third, let's clean up MMR. At first, we'll still have political hacks in charge. But over time, we can find places for the elite from the Army Corps to enter civilian life, and regulate the industries they observed as honest umpires and rule makers. (Even Lou Durocher believed in having good rules, so he'd have an idea of how he could cheat.)
Fourth, to gradually eliminate the need for imported or high risk oil, let's take this as an opportunity to enact Pickens' Plan - a gradual conversion to a natural gas and wind power economy. We have enough natural gas for a 200 year supply, and we export this gas to the rest of the world. Wind power is inexhaustible.
These are simple changes for which we have a short window of opportunity to get politicians to do our will.... So let's write legislative representatives and get things moving!!!!
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