[QUOTE=alvis;38125]It doesn’t sound like the government has the knowledge or equipment to kill this well. I do wonder if the government could take over the kill and cleanup operations and then turn around and subcontract these operations to BP. Then the government would have control of things. Dell or other legal eagles, would this even be legally possible?[/QUOTE]
Alvis,
I think–but am NOT sure–that BP, by the terms of the lease, would have had the responsibility not to have leaks, and to do cleanup. And so, that’s the way it was addressed at the start. The volume of the spill is obviously far beyond what even BP was equipped and ready to handle. The feds could, I expect, step back in, under the terms of the lease, if BP was doing (blank) inadequately/improperly.
Geodude raises a good point that I agree with, and it would not have to be BP and its contractors that would get the bids. Instead, it would be open to federal contracting procedures (which, as you remember, has the ‘shovel-ready’ projects under way THIS summer). There are also ways to speed this up enormously, as in the 9–11 cleanup, but I don’t know how those mechanisms work.