Rachel made her points and prevailed with her arguments. It was an informative interview... much to Rachel's surprise at the end. Kind of an odd way it ended... with Rachel sooooo surprised and shocked. But Rachel did GOOD w that interview. Quite proud of her how she handled engineering topics.

What struck me was Rachel; her inablility to POUNCE all over giant argument gifts when presented them:

When Bromwich said a "Blowout PREVENTER" isn't a fail-safe device, the next comeback in the next mili-second from Rachel or anybody should be why the government & industry collude to label for a gullible public... it a ""Blowout "Preventer""? And thus issue deep water permits based on that smoking gun fallacy? Why not be more honest with the public and label it a Blowout Hail Mary device... or retarder, or limiter, or Blowout resister... or Rachel would love this, a Blowout UNICORN??? Bromwich focused on other measures, and Rachel kept coming back to the "PREVENTER".... which obviously, even to Rachel and her main argument, isn't a preventer AT ALL. But didn't nail down that point. Bromwich's reply could only have been... "you're right". And the lack of questions on why pre-drilled relief wells aren't put in place, the ultimate fail-safe, apparently... BEFORE drilling starts as other nations mandate was maddening to say the least.

But I say what strikes me is Rachel, because it is simply emblematic of other areas she gives total free passes & get out of jail cards to as well... like when republicans are saying via clips on her own show: "Helloooooooooo, we're broke!" ... Rachel (and everybody else) don't shoot back at the republicans that it was them under Bush Jr and a republican congress that turned Clinton's legacy and gift to America, SURPLUSES AS FAR AS THE EYES COULD SEE into the detonating nightmare debt time bomb they now speak of via their tax give-a-ways to the rich! Hellooooooooo! Obviously we have a unsustainable revenue slashing, operational suicidal problem, much more so than a spending problem! Why aren't Republicans singing the praises of Clinton and becoming fiscally responsible Dems!? Or the DOZENS of tax-cut bills Clinton needed to VETO in order produce the Clinton surpluses! Or Bush's wars financed with... unsustainable TAX CUTS! Or Reagan's Revolution that kicked the national debt to today's $14.3 Trillion principal + the $5.5 Trillion we've already paid out in Net Interest to carry the debt... not to mention turning America into a net deficit trading nation via $8 Trillion in accumlated trade deficits since the Reagan Revolution, AFTER our nation's lifetime of earning our prosperity by being a net surplus trading nation, AFTER Reagan inheriting only a $1.0 Trillion national debt in 1981... after 205 years as a nation!!! $28 TRILLION!!!! in a mere 30 yrs with in your face comebacks to republicans who state: "Hellooooooo, we're broke!", as repub Mike Pence stated in a Rachel clip of all places! Where is Rachel POUNCING all over statements like that????? AWOL. MIA.

Rachel appears to be in the business of passing out "Get out of Jail" cards when she doesn't POUNCE on all these argumentative gifts. But it is sooooo much more than simply making argumentitive points. It's about demonstrating how voters, where the BUCK STOPS if you think for one second about it, VOTERS have been voting against their own economic and national interests when voting republican these past 30 years. $28 TRILLION! That's staggering. But the worse for it is OUR hollowed-out American economy via factories and jobs fleeing overseas due to the $8 Trillion trade deficit, cheap imported goods addiction Reagan hooked America on, crack cocaine of trade, representing BORROWED PROSPERITY on an epic scale. Cheap imported goods replacing good paying AMERICAN jobs. Borrowed prosperity. And now the cheap goods...are INFLATING. The fleeting Republican shell game, Phase I & II. Phase II started this year, after a 30 yr Starve the Beast Phase I. And Americans continue to be the republicans' shell game victims.

"Hellooooooo, we're broke!", Republican leaders are now saying; thanks to their Starve the Beast policies, during apparently their 30 yr Phase I reign of fiscal & trade terror: Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, and republican's 12 years of controlled congresses. Phase II kicked off with 2010 elections: slash & burn ALL governments, because they say: Helloooooooo, we're broke!

Connect the dots people. And demand better of our flag bearers. Rachel is not connecting these dots... as she should be. Rachel needs to pick up her game even higher. And she's the best flag bear we've got... given her natural skills & soapbox.

I {tough} LOVE Rachel!!! =)

Folks, we're faced with a national policy ARMAGEDON. Rachel needs to the progressive warrior goddess she's capable of, not simply the culture war goddess. But it's going to take growth, and some significantly ramped-up fiscal acumen on her part because gross fiscal irresonsiblitiy and generational embezzlement are the republican's/conservative's soft underbelly of that dragon. Tivo The Dylan Ratigan Show everyday, Rachel. You'll get your second Ph.D with Dylan. And then bring that education and adult discussion to your own show, for your national primetime soapbox. Start leveling with progressives... and wising up conservatives. Our nation's future is at stake.

Blowout unicorn. Awesome.

Much to Rachel's credit, she went down to the gulf and walked around in this muck first hand. Blowout Preventer is a blowout unicorn indeed. She's personalized it, as well as recognized it as the ecological H-bomb it is... first hand I-witness. And it shows in her diving into the topic on a sustained basis. I do love her for all that... and so much more. She is thee Left's flag bearer.

Now, what about the de facto Fail Safes: pre-drilled relief wells, before drilling for oil?

Cebes: This is an excellent observation.

He has to be exceptionally brilliant and cynically Machiavellian to survive and not cave to the demands of the fossil fuel freaks over regulation of the industry.

Also, thanks for the link. Bromwich has had a fascinating career in Washington. I'm unclear from your post as to whether you think he is being reasonable or a sell out?

I have now watched this interview carefully three times since the live broadcast, because I am deeply disturbed with its content. This is Obama's guy. He is in charge of of regulating this industry. We all understand that regulations are useless if they are unenforced. Everyone screams about that already. What is frightening about this interview is that it is clear the regulations are *insufficient*. Enforcement is therefore moot.

He defends the insufficient level of protection provided by the regulations. He asserts"better" is an okay compromise here. It is not. Lives are at risk. The environment is at risk. There cannot be compromise on the safety regulations. It's like giving a serial killer a gun with only one bullet in it because it will theoretically reduce the number of his inevitable victims.

If we know the blowout preventers are a proven, demonstrated, deadly problem, we must eliminate them from the equation. Completely. Improving the contingency plan is fantastic. Failing to regulate the blowout preventers adequately is unacceptable. He does not agree, and as Rachel pointed out, he's the guy.

You can't be a little bit pregnant. You also can't be a little bit dead. If a deadly disaster can occur because a piece of equipment is known to be faulty, then the piece of equipment should not be legal to use. Period.

This is a very Machiavellian man. He is also very dangerous. If blowout preventers are allowed to be used, he has caved to the fossil fuel freaks. Hollow regulation is as effective as none.

Interesting. Mr. Bromwich started his legal career defending white collar criminals in private practice. Then he switched to the other side working for the government, "...conducting special investigations into allegations of misconduct, defective procedures and incompetence...." Then it seems he worked both sides of the fence in private practice again before being tapped for his current post. He's a slippery lawyer. Hard to pin down and even harder to stomach.

What is really scary is that the NRC isn't any better. Despite the events in Fukushima, which bring to the public eye the dangers inherent in every US nuclear reactor.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has concerns about these safety issues, as they have been long known. The fact that they haven't been addressed points to issues with the NRC's ability to enforce and regulate the industry safely.

http://benecoyote.newsvine.com/_news/2011/04/07/6426259-ucs-dr-ed-lyman-to-congress-nrc-allowed-safety-margins-to-decrease-too-far

AN NRC presentation seems to indicate that in a station blackout US reactors could release radioactivity in as little as 3.5 hours after losing power, and core damage could happen in an hour. In an 'open mike' moment, it also talks about how to spin a serious accident to the public. What is concerning is that this report was done in 2009, so they've known about issues for awhile. It is also interesting how much the spin from nuclear folks has followed the NRC script.

http://benecoyote.newsvine.com/_news/2011/04/08/6434907-do-these-nrc-docs-realy-show-that-us-nuke-plants-could-have-fuel-damage-within-1hr-and-leak-radiation-in-as-little-as-35hrs-after-losing-power

I live in a gulf state...unfortunately they would. The only thing that talks around here is money....oil money!

By the way, great interview, Rachel. Keep on keepin' on. We count on you.

Maybe you should not vote at all then because I think he is doing the best he can. John F Kennedy did not have to deal with a blown out Economy. By the way if you do not vote blame yourself if things get worse once Obama's gone

Well, maybe someone who will stand up against the t-party will run in 2012. I'd love to see Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kucinich run on a progressive ticket. The repubs are gonna hafta face a t-partier, so, since they are gonna split anyhow, the right wing vote will be split, so all a Patriotic Progressive would have to do is beat the other guys. 26% would win, and there are enough disenfranchised liberal and independent voters to get that pretty easily.

I had the audacity to vote for Obama, but through his actions he has repeatedly dashed my hope that he can be believed in. By 2012 I think America will be sick of the 12 years of Dubbya's legacy, and ready for actual tangible change for the better.

Global Warming is not as man made as you think. It happens everytime right before an ice age. Perhaps a lesson or two in paleoclimatology or archaeology would do you some good. This is simply the first time in recorded history that we are witnessing this event first hand. The other times it was passed down orally as most pre-history was. Man has very little to do with the climate. We have had an impact, yes. However to blame it all on ourselves is just naive and ignorant. You probably believe that the Mayan 2012 prophecy is apocolyptic as well, huh?

Scott, perhaps you should look at actual data before you make the sweeping pronouncement that global warming happens every time before an ice age. If you do, you will see that your assertion is patently ridiculous. What you are saying is that before it gets cold, it gets warm....duh! Ice ages and warmings are cyclical, at least in the data sets we have from ice cores going back 840,000 years. Temperatures rise globally, then they drop precipitously, and we have an ice age. Why is this warming so different? Because no other warming period in that time period has been this rapid, and explanations for previous ice ages, such as the Milankovitch cycle, would indicate that we should currently be COOLING, not warming at an unprecedented rate. So what could be causing an unprecedented rapid warming, even when we might actually be expecting some cooling? What is the one thing so different from all previous times in the past 840,000 years? Could it be a couple hundred years of humans pumping tens of millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, changing its composition?

In science, we declare that the simplest theory that explains the facts is likely to be the correct one. Anthropogenic warming is the simplest theory that fits all the facts we currently have.

man is as connected to the climate as is the moon. the more stuff we do to our land, it changes everything. from run off of dirt into our bays and oceans to stripping our oceans of a food cycle. waves are connected to the sea bottom as is the waves are connected to the climate.

our nation had one of the worst droughts on this land from major farming. that is every indicator how much we effect change on climate.

Good on you, Oldmanhall. I find this similar to the drill-baby-drill crowd preferring to use the abbreviation ANWR instead of the proper term, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. When they say ANWR, they don't have to acknowledge that the place they want to ruin is a national refuge for wildlife.

Correct. When facts and details are inconvenient but out in the open, spin-doctors gloss over them, hoping to make them is invisible as possible.

Facts matter.

The anti safety folks at VT Yankee Nuclear Power Plant say that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, not there own facts. They also give there opinion that Yankee is safe clean and reliable. I encourage everyone to challenge opinions given as facts.

I called their bluff and have been fact-checking nuclear power. The more I learn, the more I realize how risky it really is, and more frightening, the more the NRC has been complicit in allowing this to happen.

BOEMRE is scary, but it is not as scary as the NRC.

As for spin doctoring, this NRC powerpoint presentation includes an open mike moment where the NRC explains how to spin severe nuclear accidents. It's down below the part that shows that nuclear reactors in the US could release radiation in 3.5 hours after a power outage, and that fuel could be damaged in an hour:

http://benecoyote.newsvine.com/_news/2011/04/08/6434907-do-these-nrc-docs-realy-show-that-us-nuke-plants-could-have-fuel-damage-within-1hr-and-leak-radiation-in-as-little-as-35hrs-after-losing-power

I agree with you, Doug. I love constructive criticism...I am sure Rachel appreciates it, too.

Nice!

I mean really, he has no clue why there are fewer fatalities in Europe? No idea? I would think that if they noticed that Euprope had fewer fatalities relating to deepwater drilling, that we would go over to study that to find out how we could improve our systems here.

This circumstance alone should be sufficient to indefinitely suspend permits until the reason is determined and addressed. And it's not even on his radar.

He is on the t-party side of Oil, Natural gas, and Nuclear. He's not even a moderate, he's been as reckless as Dubbya.

I have to agree. Rachel had a specific answer she wanted and refused to accept the fact that she is perhaps asking the wrong question. Disappointed in that.

@ peter. "maddow didn't like the 10-17 day estimate for containment after a spill given by bromwich. would she like 5 days better? one hour?"

did you miss the point of the question? blow out preventers don't work, there are on going reviews of tests that prove this. it's the reason there were millions of gallons of oil dumped into the gulf.

does this new containment actually work? or is it just more smoke and mirrors?

your boy bromwich looked like a fool and proved his agency is nothing but a puppet of the oil industry, there is nothing new to fail safe for human error and greed. it's only a matter of time, and bromwich's interview will become infamous.

so, to answer you ridiculous question, yes. we want assurances that prevention measures have been fixed, so it isn't a "containment" issue that bp failed over and over again.

Perhaps if anything, Rachel didn't go far enough and get to the heart of the matter. The question is not "how long to cap the well if the BOP fails", but, "why are you even allowing drilling to go on without multiply-redundant methods to prevent a blowout, and without visible proof via trials that your methods will work as advertised?". Let's imagine that NASA wanted to send up a shuttle just after the Challenger disaster without making any significant changes to the shuttle, simply assuring us and the astronauts that they will respond faster when the inevitable disaster occurs? Only 7 people died when the Challenger exploded, yet a massive effort was undertaken to understand what went wrong in the design, what went wrong in the launch process, and major changes were made, and tested, before the shuttle flew again. Yet, we are now once again letting the SAME players do the SAME thing, with little more changed than an assurance that they will respond faster when the inevitable disaster takes place, despite the fact that not only did more people die in the last accident than died on the Challenger, but that the last spill caused tremendous economic damage to many thousands of individuals and businesses, as well as untold damage to the environment that we simply don't know about yet. Why is a disaster so many magnitudes greater than the Challenger disaster treated as so much less? Lots of answers to that one. For one thing, despite what repubs may think, government actually was far more interested in a thorough investigation and taking measures to prevent a recurrence of the disaster. Corporations in the same situation....not so much. For another, there wasn't any money involved in halting the shuttle program while the investigation and mitigation went on. For the Gulf oil disaster, powerful money interests were pushing for a quick resolution, focussed more on PR, lobbying and fingerpointing than investigation and mitigation to prevent a future disaster. In other words, they did as little as possible in as short a time as possible, so that there is absolutely no reason there won't be a recurrence of the oil spill at some time in the future, most likely many times.

I heard that there were new regulations. I didn't hear how those were tested or how they'd actually work. Moreover, as Rachel has pointed out on her show, the blowout preventers being sent out now are EXACTLY THE SAME as the ones that were on Macondo. Yes, regulations can be updated as time goes on, and it's not going to be perfect, but I'd prefer to see at least some minor changes to the fail safe system before it's put into use in the ocean. I thought Mr. Bromwich came off snippy and dismissive, particularly since he didn't even feel the need to dignify the question about how four times more American workers die in accidents on oil rigs than Europeans with more than a "No" and a shrug. Rachel may be hyperbolic at times, but I know I wasn't satisfied by his answers and annoyed by his approach to the interview.

In case you are not aware, the blowout preventers on Macondo did in fact deploy. The reason the arms of the blowout preventer did not completely seal the pipe is that the explosion on the rig shifted the pipe, leaving a space of several inches that were not sealed, through which the oil, under very high pressure, escaped. The blowout preventer is a last ditch backup. There are many, many other systems on oil rigs designed to prevent a catastrophic spill, as Bromwich intimated. I believe he gave some examples of additional spill prevention measures (not just containment measures) in the interview. Maybe that should have been further elaborated on. But Bromwich's point, which I found persuasive. is that Maddow has been focusing solely on the blowout preventers and ignoring other spill prevention measures AND containment improvements. Again, is it perfect? No. Do they need to keep working to improve safety and spill prevention? Absolutely. But given the criticality of offshore drilling, I did not come away with the impression that the government is being cavalier.

And yes, I know, I know, Maddow and her crowd are horrified by the notion of corporations wanting to make a profit (Gasp!). How terrible.

"why are you even allowing drilling to go on without multiply-redundant methods to prevent a blowout, and without visible proof via trials that your methods will work as advertised?".

exactly.

i clicked on the link in one comment to a summary of bromwich. i see he is heavily trained in law enforcement - which is good. but he has no background in environmental studies, specifically oceanic.

In my humble opinion, the more dire consequences of any failure may be, the more redundancy and mitigation efforts that need to be incorporated in a system, and that goes from the failure of the least significant piece of technology in our lives, whose failure means nothing, to the biggest pieces of technology, whose failure can cause catastrophic effects. If the LED in my car's turn signal fails, no big deal. No one dies or is injured by one LED failing. However, if the possible consequences of a major oil spill include the deaths of people and ecosystems, and a major economic loss that stretches over years, then it is your moral and ethical responsibility to do absolutely everything in your power to ensure it never happens, and that means multiply-redundant systems, highly trained and motivated people, and management that puts responsibility ahead of profit. Depending on business to police themselves fails every single time, because they only care about profits, and buying politicians that help them get out of trouble when their attitude causes a disaster.

maybe he needs to think of a spill as being a terrorist. 17 days late is 17 days of loss of life.

every second counts.

Bromwich made his points intelligently and coherently and directly and persuasively contradicted every point Maddow made.

I agree with intelligent, coherent, and direct. Then you lose me.

While nothing is foolproof, ignoring a faulty design is foolish. Accepting some inherent risk is not the same as disregarding a safety hazard. I found Bromwich unpersuasive because he absolutely failed to address Rachel's points at all. He tried to change her focus, not engage with her.

As for Rachel's interviewing style... She does color her interviews with her opinion, but let us not forget this is the known slant of her show. I give her kudos for maintaining a high level of civility in this interview. Every time she is challenged with an extremely opposing viewpoint in her interviewee she improves. Remember how uncomfortable the Rand Paul interview became as it spiraled? This interview could have gone down the same road, but it did not.

Uff, you hit it on the head. Why is it that after the Challenger catastrophe, we had such overhaul at NASA, but when the rig exploded, barely any concern?

I don't know if it's because NASA is non profit (making vast improvements costs money, money that the oil industry would clearly prefer to put in the pockets of its executives) or if it's because NASA is a scientific organization and the oil companies are not. Or perhaps it's because we have footage of the doomed astronauts trying to get out of the shuttle where they were burned alive, and that footage shocked and horrified and motivated people to make sure that it never happened again. 11 people died on that oil rig, but nobody actually saw it happen. We have no footage with which to shock and motivate people to actually affect change. I guess the video of the rig burning and the huge plumes of oil just isn't horrifying enough.

No, I got the point precisely and did not shoot from the hip. Maddow's primary point is and has been that it is outrageous for the government to grant permits again when blowout preventers are still being improved, as acknowledged by the government and Bromwich. She has harped on that incessantly. When she pointedly asked Bromwich whether he disagreed with any of the facts she's presented in recent shows, he correctly pointed out that she has completely ignored other safety issues and improvements that have been worked on. A critical factual omission of fact is as misleading as a factual misstatement. Bromwhich correctly pointed out that the blowout preventers are not perfect and are still being improved, but also noted that there a myriad of other safety measures in place that have been improved. He made a good analogy to car airbags (we didn't ban cars with only front impact airbags simply because a better safety measure -- side impact airbags -- are avialble).

You ask if I would like it if I knew of 17 days in my life where I couldn't feel safe? Well, no, I prefer to feel safe all of the time, but I realize that life has risks and being 100% safe all the time is not possible.. Living near Indian Point nuclear power plant, as I do, has risks. Living above natural gas pipelines that criss cross our country has risks. Bromwhich's point, in a nutshell, is that significant improvements have been made since the BP spill and that the anticipated containment time has been reduced to 17 days (about an 80% improvement over the BP spill containment time)? Is that perfect? No. But in his judgment, that is reasonable and good enough to start drilling again AND they are working on further improvement. Reasonable minds might disagree, but Maddow's reaction -- essentially asserting that Bromwhich is cavalier, irresponsible, and/or unreasonable, simple is not supported by the facts or the interview she conducted.

I ask again, what level of containment improvement, what level of assurance do YOU demand, sir? 5 day containment? 1 day? 1 hour? At some point don't you think that it becomes technologically infeasible to contain a spill at a faster rate? Bromwhich was honest and straightforward, and made a convincing argument. Sorry if you prefer to ban offshore drilling (which is what I suppose what you would like), but that ain't happening given the current energy situation.

banning offshore drilling would be a good thing. all the oil spills we've had prove that it's not good for the environment. drilling is very dangerous on land. it's toxic. spills on land happen - it's a part of drilling. spills deep underwater is a different ballgame.