Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Lousiana governor Bobby Jindal is mad at the Coast Guard because they shut down some oil skimming barges while they confirmed that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board. Doug Mataconis sympathizes:

I’m not against martime safety, of course, but it strikes me as more than a little absurd that the Coast Guard it worry about life vests and fire extinguishers while the Governor of Louisiana is worrying about stopping the oil from entering the Louisiana marshes. At the very least, it would seem reasonable that, in an emergency situation such as the one the Gulf Coast has been in since April 20th, the enforcement of rules like these could be modified so that they don’t interfere with actual productive work.

If there is a reason to fault the Federal response to the oil spill, I think it can be found in actions like this where the blind adherence to rules stands in the way of reasonable efforts to get the job done.

It’s pretty hard to take the other side of this argument. But I wonder. We are, after all, talking about barges that are sucking up oil, and the last time I checked oil was pretty damn flammable. Everyone wants the cleanup operation to proceed with breakneck speed, but that’s exactly when people get tired and sloppy. And I wonder what everyone would think of the Coast Guard’s ridiculous rules if they waived them and then some boat went up in a huge fireball because a spark caught somewhere and no one had a fire extinguisher handy? Do you think we’d all understand and give the Coast Guard a pass for not enforcing its own safety rules because this was, after all, an emergency? Or would there be a raging 24/7 media-fueled hysteria about yet another government agency that hasn’t learned the lesson that you can’t cut corners on obvious common-sense safety rules? Do I even need to ask?

Anyway, the boats were only idle for 24 hours. Maybe the Coast Guard screwed up by making them wait even that long, but it’s not quite the open and shut case Jindal thinks. Ditto for all the other ideas that local authorities have. Some of them are good and the feds should green light them. But you know what? I’ll bet a fair number are kind of stupid too, and the feds are right to put their resources elsewhere.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate