Daily Astorian: "Wyden closes Cheney's loophole"

Americans are right to be mad about a foreign oil company uncorking a vast bottle of high-pressure poison at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. But not enough of us fully understand how the Bush-Cheney administration's favoritism and incompetence were main ingredients in this disaster.

The U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed a bill last week that will help avoid sequels to the BP well blowout. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden played a valuable role in shaping the legislation.

In a disquieting echo of Gen. Colin Powell's "you break it, you own it" caution about Iraq, the oozing destruction of the Gulf can be laid directly at the feet of devil-may-care Bush-Cheney officials. Sloppy decision making, lax agency management and a relentless focus on turning government policies into corporate profits created the conditions for this latest catastrophe. Like Iraq, no real effort was put into preplanning what the response would be if things went wrong in the Gulf.

If this gusher is the Creature from the Black Lagoon brought to life, Dick Cheney is its daddy and Cheney's infamous energy-policy task force was the delivery room. It was this secretive group that designed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, a package that fulfilled the oil and gas industry's fondest wish list. Along with other pro-industry rules, the Energy Policy Act's Section 390 allowed the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) to rubber stamp drilling applications based on a company's yes or no responses to generic checklists.

Based on this sketchy and deliberately weak process, the MMS ruled in 2007 that any spills or blowouts wouldn't make a significant difference to the Gulf Coast. For one thing, this was because MMS concluded Gulf Coast communities were dying anyway from erosion and subsidence. In other words, the Bush-Cheney MMS didn't think it mattered a damn whether BP avoided a disaster. (It should be noted that for all his loud bellyaching now, all this information was completely available to Louisiana Gov. Piyush Jindal.)

The obscure MMS leapt into the news several years ago when it was first revealed that its personnel were literally cavorting - sexually and otherwise - with employees of the industries it was supposed to be regulating. But as with many other federal agencies, its propensity for corruption and conflicts of interest is hardwired into the MMS. But even more than usual, MMS's top people are often recruited from industry and revolve back into those jobs after their time in government, usually with hefty raises. Isn't it funny how far you can get when your decisions determine who gets to tap expensive public assets like petroleum reservoirs?

It is this appalling misuse of government connections that Wyden seeks to curtail, or at least delay, with new ethics rules for the Department of the Interior, which includes the MMS. Part of this aims to slow down the revolving door between agencies and industry. Wyden cited the example of recent MMS director Randall Luthi, who approved the Gulf drilling permits before immediately finding himself a lucrative job a trade group that lobbies on behalf of drillers. "The rest of the story," as broadcaster Paul Harvey used to say, is that Luthi also has deep personal and professional links with Cheney.

Wyden is 100 percent correct in pursuing an end to the Washington, D.C., culture of parlaying government jobs into personal wealth in ways that compromise the fundamental interests of the American people. We should be furious that it has been allowed to go on so long. This fury should be directed at Cheney and his hangers-on.

Posted on July 8, 2010 in Changing D.C., Clean Energy.

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