Why is the Gulf cleanup so slow?

This is criminal.

First, the Environmental Protection Agency can relax restrictions on the amount of oil in discharged water, currently limited to 15 parts per million. In normal times, this rule sensibly controls the amount of pollution that can be added to relatively clean ocean water. But this is not a normal time.

Various skimmers and tankers (some of them very large) are available that could eliminate most of the oil from seawater, discharging the mostly clean water while storing the oil onboard. While this would clean vast amounts of water efficiently, the EPA is unwilling to grant a temporary waiver of its regulations.

Heath care, anyone? 
And this:

(CNSNews.com) – Billy Nungesser, president of New Orleans’ Plaquemines Parish, sensed that a chart showing 140 oil skimmers at work -- a chart given to him by BP and the Coast Guard -- was “somewhat inaccurate.” So, Nungesser asked to fly over the spill to verify the number. 

The flyover was cancelled three times before those officials admitted that just 31 of the 140 skimmers were actually deployed.