Few lessons learned from spill 

(Fling wide the gates  (headline)

OUR OPINION: A year later, the Gulf is recovering but still terribly vulnerable to more pollution (deck)

The tourists are back, the commercial and recreational fishing industries are at work again and the Gulf of Mexico’s waters still gently lap the white sands of Florida’s west coast. Tar balls are few and far between again in the Panhandle, and life is largely back to normal one year after the nation’s worst oil spill began on April 20. (Hook, Introduction)

But what appears to be normalcy a year after British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 men and, ultimately, spewing an estimated five million barrels of oil into the Gulf, masks the ongoing damage from the massive spill. And, with a gallon of gas at $4, the rush is on once more to expand deep drilling for oil and gas in the Gulf. (background information)

Few lessons have been learned, it appears, from the summer of gushing crude fouling one of the nation’s great fisheries. Congress has refused to act on the recommendations offered by a presidential commission, co-chaired by Florida’s former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, to tighten drilling regulations. Instead, a U.S. House committee just passed three bills to give the drilling industry quicker and wider access to the Gulf. Frightening. (State your position) (reason, specific)

One bright note is that the U.S. Department of Interior has steadily improved its drilling regulations without waiting for Congress to act. There are new safety measures, like requiring the development of deep-water containment systems for blowouts, and tougher, more-independent oversight. 
(concession)

Clearly, though, we as a nation are no closer to resolving our dependency on both domestic and foreign oil, no nearer to developing a national energy policy that would wean us away from oil toward cleaner renewable energy sources. (Destroy concession with brilliant response )

As for the Gulf itself, scientists agree that a lot of the oil has evaporated, been skimmed or eaten by microbes. Still, some oil sank, and it is smothering coral beds and continues to take a toll on wildlife. This year there has been an unusually high spike in dolphins stranding along the coast — more than 170 have been found dead, nearly half of them babies, since January.(concession2)  (Destroy concession with brilliant response )

And if the five effected Gulf states are in recovery mode, many thousands of people who saw their livelihoods plummet during the four months it took to cap the gusher still await payouts from the $20 billion fund established by BP, which so far has paid out only one quarter of that. The numerous court cases stemming from the spill will take years to settle. Litigants now include the Miami-Dade Public School District, which joined a lawsuit at the request of board member Raquel Regalado, a lawyer who will help pro bono to recover revenue lost when tourism dropped considerably. (reason, specific)

Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi are opting not to include Florida in the Gulf states’ lawsuit against Transocean, the oil rig’s operator. They say they will get the state’s fair share of reparations by filing claims against BP under terms of the Oil Pollution Act, thus saving legal costs. Their decision has elicited both praise and criticism from legal experts, leaving Floridians to scratch their heads but hope for the best.

Ultimately, the Deepwater Horizon spill looked like an environmental and economic disaster of epochal proportions. Happily, it didn’t live up to the worst expectations. That said, the country as a whole must share responsibility to make sure that this Gulf spill is the last one of any magnitude to sully our shores. (Conclusion)