One Year Later: BP Oil Spill

A look back through pictures from the Telegraph from one year ago regarding the Deep Horizon accident.

While the above link isn't really a "Finance Friday" topic by itself, the industry, the fall out, the continued lack of drilling permits as a result of the ever moving "rule" target by the Interior Department, has certainly been one cause for oil to head back above $100 a barrel.  Not the sole reason, but one of the reasons and certainly one that can find blame with the Obama appointee Ken Salazar.

Have the processes and safety protocols really improved?  It is hard to say.  I plead ignorance as to the current impact upon the Gulf of Mexico and its ecosystem because both the enviro-wackos and the right have their respective spins on the issue.  The one thing I do know is that we are witnessing government central planning stall the plans of private business to the point that it has wreaked havoc upon the market.  While the cash that finances the industry is fungible to where geo-political and environmental concerns aren't as big of a concern, US based companies continue to loose the capital necessary to explore, extract, and mitigate the environmental costs associated with oil production.  Not to mention the roughnecks who are unemployed or forced to travel to foreign lands to make an honest living, or the rig builders who have now lost productivity to await the new regulations.

As usual, what the government doesn't know, it attempts to regulate and thus, snuffs it out of existence.