More than two months after the Deepwater Horizon sank, it is now clear the energy industry doesn't know exactly how to stop a blowout in deepwater or how to clean up a massive spill.
At a hearing on June 15, when Congress pressed oil executives on their readiness to handle the worst-case blowout scenario, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson responded frankly, "We are not well equipped to handle them. There will be impacts." He added, "That is why the emphasis is always on preventing these things from occurring." (Watch video of the oil CEOs testifying at the Congressional hearing below.)
So why are we out there in the first place? In the push to drill, drill, drill, did the oil industry, government and the public delude themselves into believing that deepwater drilling is safer than it truly is?
"This is a precious public resource. It doesn't belong to BP or Shell or me. It belongs to the public," said University of California Berkeley Professor Robert Bea. "And if we, in fact, need that resource, then perhaps that can be done safely, acceptable to the American public, acceptable to the government, acceptable to industry, and God sakes acceptable to the environment."