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Rep. Tom Cole on oil spill: ‘Acts of God are acts of God.’

Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), an ardent supporter of the oil industry and adherent of the “drill here, drill now” chant, appeared on KTOK radio yesterday to discuss BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf. Like Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who dismissed the oil spill catastrophe as an “act of God,” Cole sought to downplay dangers inherently associated with offshore drilling. Cole said more could have been done to deal with the spill, but the oil spill itself was more or less unpredictable because “acts of God are acts of God”:

COLE: We probably should have forced BP to mobilize more in the way of vessels. There’s still a lot that can be done. But again, acts of God are acts of God. And you know, FEMA is not, you know, can not cope with everything.

Watch it:

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Officials at BP, as well as those in the administration, are similarly downplaying the oil spill as an “unprecedented” surprise that could not have been predicted. However, as ThinkProgress’ Alex Seitz-Wald noted, oil is an incredibly dangerous business. Since 2007, there have been 39 oil well blowouts worldwide and more oil is spilled in Nigeria’s terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the BP spill thus far.