Hang Her! Hang Mrs. O’Leary! It’s her fault. She should be held accountable – for everything. After all, it was her negligence that caused the Great Chicago Fire (October 8th, 1871), a fire which destroyed some 2000 acres of the city, as well as (per Wikipedia) some 17,500 buildings, and $222 million in property and left 90,000 people homeless, in addition to killing some 200 to 300 people.
The idea is, of course, ludicrous. (Particularly since the story of Mrs. Catherine O’Leary’s cow kicking over a lantern and starting the fire was a fabrication by a reporter.) The point is simply this: people, no matter whether they are negligent or not, cannot be held accountable for everything that happens after a mishap occurs – even if some lawyers insist that they should be. The theory applies whether we are speaking about Mrs. O’Leary or British Petroleum. What is the proper extent of their liability is a matter properly left to courts, and to some extent legislatures. But it is meaningless at this point in the problem before us.
But, there is an issue that needs to be addressed in the near term: what is government’s proper role and responsibility in a crisis or emergency?
The answer lies in recalling the essence of government: societies are formed, governments are created, to provide for common security, secondarily to assist in the development of those functions that are difficult for the individual to provide. Thus, governments provide police and armed forces, currency, the rules under which the society will operate and a means for enforcing those rules, and certain infrastructure, when it is too difficult for private citizens to do so. This explains not only armies and police forces, but also laws and courts, licensing and various business and construction codes, and public roads. (Some infrastructure has been privatized from time to time – toll roads, bridges, ports, etc., but they still must be operated so as to ensure public access, even if done at a fee.)
Governments also provide – since the earliest days of the Pharaohs – social stability. It is government’s responsibility to ensure that the society endures, even in the face of the death of leading citizens or in the case of the destruction of a large segment of a city. Or in the case of an oil spill. Stated differently, governments are responsible – broadly speaking - for crisis response. While there are certain narrowly defined, specific crises that can be handled privately (a ‘Life Flight’ helicopter for example), government is the prime respondent in crises for a number of reasons:
1) Authority. The government has the authority to act. Common understanding of public safety and well-being, concepts that date from English common law, and before that ancient Rome, places primary responsibility for public safety in hands of the government. Executive powers granted to most governors and to the President provide them with the ability to, through executive findings, circumvent standing regulations and the limits of certain laws to provide for rapid responses to the crisis. In the case of the United States, there is the obvious question of jurisdiction; is the crisis to be addressed by local government, state government or federal government? In fact, there is a fairly well developed set of rules that provides guidance to answer that question, which, while not perfect, does provide a workable solution in the overwhelming number of cases.
2) Resources. Governments simply have more resources on hand then do private citizens. This is particularly true of the federal government, which can raise literally billions of dollars at very short notice.
3) Assets. The Federal government has access to special assets which simply are not available anywhere else; from heavy lift aircraft and ships, to supplies to and equipment to support displaced people, to mobile command and control platforms to a wide range of surveillance and monitoring assets, the US government has assets that can be used to address a crisis unlike any other government or organization on the planet. The US government also has substantial strategic stockpiles of supplies to provide for extended support to any community.
4) Manpower. Governments have access to a wide range of manpower, both as a work force and as sources of expertise in most fields of study. Thus the Federal government can not only direct personnel from various departments and agencies to provide support, it can tap into virtually the entire nation’s array of corporations and universities both by appealing to them for support and by contracting for that support.
5) Moral Authority. The federal government, in the person of the President, represents the voice of the people. Use of that moral authority is a powerful tool in mobilizing and directing the citizenry to respond to nearly any situation.
Unfortunately, virtually none of this has taken place yet in response to the sinking of Deepwater Horizon. We have had some posturing and some childish behavior about kicking someone’s butt, and most recently the attempt to use the crisis to push a policy agenda. Beyond the work done by the Coast Guard, and the decision to send the Secretary of the Navy to the Gulf, little definitive has been done by the federal government to solve the problem. It is long past the time that this could have been addressed with a small ‘footprint.’ The American people, and particularly the citizens of the Gulf States, have a right to see some major ‘muscle movements.’ So, herewith some thoughts:
A) The President should immediately convene an emergency meeting of the following in New Orleans:
- The President, the Vice President, the Secretaries or Deputy Secretaries of Treasury, Energy, Interior, Homeland Security, Defense, Transportation, Commerce and Labor; the Directors of FEMA, MMS and the NTSB; the Commandant of the Coast Guard and the Commander of the Army Corps of Engineers; the Governors and the Commanders of the National Guard from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida; the Director of the National Science Foundation; the CEOs of BP, Exxon-Mobile, Chevron, Texaco, Haliburton, TransOcean, McDermott, Schlumberger and representatives from other key oil and energy industry leaders as well as industry related institutes. Representatives from universities with leading geologists and petroleum studies should also be included. Use government funds to facilitate travel and housing of these people while in New Orleans.
- The purpose of the meeting would be to spend a day listening to BP and the Coast Guard describe the current situation in detail. If necessary, have a representative from the Attorney General’s office available to grant immunity so that the complete facts can be presented. Then spend two days discussing emergency response options to close the ‘leak’ and contain the spread of oil. At the end of the third day select which options will be pursued and put money against it.
- Designate the Vice President as the lead and leave him in New Orleans to run the operation. If that means he moves to New Orleans for the next six months, OK, it’s a crisis. He can fly back to Washington in four hours if he is needed to break a deadlock in the Senate. Then he needs to immediately return to New Orleans. Each government department Secretary or agency Director should designate their Deputy Secretary or an Assistant Secretary to remain in New Orleans with the VP to help in orchestrating the solution.
B) From each of the ‘team members’ listed in A, identify supporting team members. Using a strategic planning team from the Pentagon’s Joint Staff (the military are the only people formally trained in the full breadth and depth of strategic planning, everyone else just pretends) establish a Consequence Management Planning Cell that would draw on the expertise of the support team provided by the ‘team members’ from paragraph A. Develop a Consequence Management Plan that provides a roadmap to return the Gulf to a ‘pre-crisis’ condition. The team has two weeks for the initial rough plan, and 90 days to develop a long-term plan.
C) Direct the NTSB to conduct an ‘aircraft mishap’ like review of operation on Deepwater Horizon and of the sinking of Deepwater Horizon. Expertise should be drawn from the American Bureau of Shipping, Lloyds of London and others to provide insight into the latest technology, techniques and practices from around the world. Identify what mistakes were made, what material and design failures occurred and provide recommendations to prevent such occurrences.
D) Establish a strategic planning team that is charged with: reviewing the findings of the NTSB, and then working with the Governors of the states that border the Gulf as well as the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the oil companies and the Department of the Interior (and others as appropriate) to develop long range plans that both sustains oil production in the Gulf and provides increased protection to fisheries, wildlife habitat and the interests of the citizens of the Gulf States over the long term. The plan should address handling future crisis caused by weather, material failure and mishaps, and hostile – terrorist – actions. The plan should be comprehensive and address improvements to systems to protect both oil production facilities and the coastline in the event of hurricanes of varying force.
- Charge the planning team with providing a comprehensive strategic plan within six months of the completion of the NTSB review.
As with all planning teams, the intention is to develop several options – each of which will satisfy the overall guidance and achieve the desired outcome. As each different planning team finishes its tasking the various options will be presented to the Governors, the President, and to the American people for their review and, eventually consent. In fact, within limits (because some information would be classified), each of the planning teams should provide regular and frequent briefs to the American people as to progress made and the options being developed by the planning teams.
This is a huge tasking. But it is precisely the kind of task that the federal government is capable of handling if properly led. What is certain is that no other organization has the means or the span of authority to handle this size of an effort. What is lacking is leadership. There has been enough talk about assigning blame and about advancing this or that agenda. It is time to find answers and move out. It is time for some leadership.
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