Oil Industry Watchdogs Too Sluggish

No one at the Interior Department had ever even considered that an oil spill of the magnitude filling the Gulf of Mexico could happen, according to one review of government documents. This lack of foresight, among other problems, signals how far regulators of the oil industry lagged behind the businesses that they were supposed to be watching, the Los Angeles Times reports. Because watchdogs weren't prepared, there were no regulations in place as to how to respond to 5,000 barrels of crude oil seeping into the Gulf each day. This has left BP scrambling to invent a solution which could stop the spill.