Markey: Spillcam was game-changer in BP disaster response

[underpants]

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN) -- As they furiously typed computer code through the night in a small Capitol Hill office, little did they know they were about to change the way Americans would view what has become known as the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

"Once they saw it, once they could understand the damage that it was doing to the environment and to the livelihoods of the people in the Gulf of Mexico, that's when the spillcam became something that changed the whole course of the way in which the government and BP was responding to this disaster," Markey says.

The oil industry itself and the Department of Interior have taken the lead in putting new safety and preparedness measures into place since the explosion. The much-maligned Minerals Management Service, previously under investigation for being too cozy with the oil industry it regulates, was shaken up in the wake of the spill. Now the newly named Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement has split its regulatory divisions so the people who monitor safety and leasing for oil drilling are not the same division that collects royalties. The government has also implemented new, tougher standards for well design.

This month, Markey's Republican colleagues passed three new bills out of committee that would allow oil companies to get permits faster to drill offshore, open new areas of the United States to offshore drilling and increase offshore drilling in the Gulf. With gas prices approaching $4 a gallon, Republicans say these bills strike a balance between safety and the demand for oil.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/04/20/markey.bp/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

[NCarolinawoman]

1. Markey is a good-guy crusader. He seems fearless.

I have always liked him.:thumbsup:

[underpants]

2. He is absolutely right about this - corporations are all about image and branding

clearly our business schools and the society they live in is more concerned with image that basic business sense - see GM run privately vs. run publicly.

[madokie]

3. So have I

He's a straight shooter.

[rpannier]

4. Rep. Ed Markey's now defunct Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming

Tea Partying repubs strike again?

[snagglepuss]

5. K & R nt

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Sorry, not enough.

What with 'no reporters on the beaches! No cameras! No Pictures! No talking to the cleanup crew! No overflights for media! No press on the Coast Guard vessels!'

And on and on. Yeah, the spill cam was great for what it was, pretty much our only source of info. The rest of the media response was completely stonewalled by the corporation, and state and federal government.