Even if the EPA were negligent in its handling of the operation, fixating on that does seem to miss the point that they were only in that position because a pri

Even if the EPA were negligent in its handling of the operation, fixating on that does seem to miss the point that they were only in that position because a private company created it and left it for someone else to handle. That's also the point you're missing from the analogy. I don't think it's unexpected that an agency in charge of cleanups like this is going to have some blunders. Should they have handled it better? Fine. But that's not much of a statement. I think you'd have to make a claim about the EPA's net impact/value to say something interesting here.