Whose Mess Is It?

In the gooey aftermath of three spills, Congress is putting pressure on Big Oil to prevent accidents and do a better job of cleaning them up

The scene has become painfully familiar this year: exhausted workers struggling to scoop up a noxious tide of inky goo. A major cleanup campaign was under way once again last week in three different spots in the U.S.: the Delaware River, Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay and the Houston Ship Channel. Crews were deploying rakes, hand-held skimmers, oversize absorbent pads and "supersucker" vacuums to scoop up the oil spilled in the accidents. While all the slicks were much smaller than the 10.5 million-gal. spill of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska last March, the timing of the latest mishaps, which all ! occurred...

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