According to an interview that was apparently on Anderson Cooper 360, the blowout preventer had dead batteries and the company knew it. If true, this story will gain a lot of traction pretty quickly. This speaks to what the root of the problem is - ENFORCING CURRENT LAWS.

It's like the gun-control debate. Every time some criminal goes on a rampage there's a call for new laws, ignoring the fact that the criminal isn't following the OLD law, why would they follow the NEW law?

So here we have the regulation that says "gotta have blowout preventers". Fat lot of good it does with dead batteries.