How Playing Politics is Hurting the Oil Spill Clean Up

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is turning into a political blame game. Of course, this shouldn’t be a surprise. Why not use one of the biggest environmental disasters to further your own political agenda?

An article in the Huffington Post quoted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as saying: " ‘Democrats tried to rein in big oil over time’ while Republicans ‘have always protected big oil.’ "

On the flip side, it seems everywhere you turn, Republicans are blaming President Obama for the spill–for not getting down to Louisiana quickly enough, not having strict enough legislation…

It’s the nature of politics: Blame the opposing party, advance your own.

That doesn’t make this any less shameful though.

What we need now is for legislators to stop pointing fingers. Should we find out why there was an oil spill? Of course. Do we need laws for stricter safety codes and bigger penalties for not following them? Definitely.

But right now the focus needs to be on stopping more oil from spilling out into the Gulf of Mexico, and cleaning up the oil that did spill out.

There will be time to play politics later. There always is.

By Jessica Livingston

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