Regulatory Capture And The Deepwater Horizon

The Obama administration's efforts at fighting BP's Deepwater Horizon oil leak would have been a lot easier had all federal agencies been on board in the fight to correctly monitor federal agencies. By that, I mean Minerals Management Service within the Interior Department essentially abdicated its responsibility to protect the public. Instead, it became a textbook example of regulatory capture. How does this happen? Gifts from the oil industry. It also helps when Republican presidents appoint political puppets with ideological dispositions to believe that government regulation is inherently bad.