The Bureaucracy Out of Control

One of the most shocking passages in Warnings is the story of the Katrina rescuers being sent to Atlanta to take a mandatory sexual harassment course rather than to New Orleans to rescue the people dying the in the post-Katrina floods. I was reminded of this when I read the story this morning about the barges being shut down by the Coast Guard.

Eight days ago, Governor Jindal of Louisiana ordered barges to begin vacuuming the oil from the Gulf. Yesterday, they were shut down by the U.S. Coast Guard:

The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges.

I am OK with them checking each boat to make sure it has the proper safety equipment. We don't want anyone hurt while they deal with the flammable oil. But, that takes ten minutes per boat. There was no reason to shut down the entire fleet and there was no reason to contact the people who built the barges. Either each boat had the proper equipment or did not.

The federal bureaucracy is out of control. It, too often, is an unaccountable menace.