The Republican meme on the gulf oil spill is that it is "Obama's Katrina".
But as Plaintiff's lawyer Michael Papantonio - suing BP concerning on behalf of fisherman and local businesses hurt by the oil spill - just revealed, Dick Cheney is partly largely responsible. As summarized by Eric at Daily Kos:
Mike Papantonio [said] An 'acoustic switch' would have prevented this catastrophe - it's a failsafe that shuts the flow of oil off at the source - they cost only about half a million dollars each, and are required in off-shore drilling platforms in most of the world...except for the United States. This was one of the new deregulations devised by Dick Cheney ...
Here's the video of Papantonio making pointing the finger at Cheney:
The Wall Street Journal has confirmed:
Cheney has caused a lot of other disasters as well. See this and this.The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.
The lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig last week.
Of course, BP is also at fault. BP fought tougher safety regulations as recently as September 2009.
And Halliburton has also been implicated.
