GLOBAL JOURNALIST: Implications of the Gulf oil spill

Charles Davis, National Freedom of Information Coalition, Missouri School of Journalism: We have recently been bombarded with news of the BP oil spill. Reports each day provide varying estimates of the amount of oil flowing into the Gulf or the different techniques used to try stopping the flow. Today we delve deeper into the implications of the Gulf oil spill. President Obama has called for a six-month moratorium on offshore drilling. He told the country it is time to embrace a clean energy future and to shift away from reliance on fossil fuels. Across the globe, disastrous oil spills have been taking place for years. Yet governments let oil companies regulate themselves. Can this multibillion-dollar industry be properly regulated? Could this event create a shift in energy policy? To answer some of these questions, we have Charles Ebinger, director of Energy Security Initiative, The Brookings Institution; Jorge Pinon, international energy consultant, Cuban Research Institute; David Olive, business and current affairs columnist, Toronto Star; and Erikka Askeland, reporter, The Scotsman, Edinburgh, Scotland. What has gone wrong thus far with stopping the oil flow in the Gulf region? Why is it proving so difficult to stop?