The impending BP pipeline shutdown at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, which will bring another surge in the price of fuel at the pump, raises the questions, first, of whether this had to be, and, second, of how it could have been avoided.

BP, a $232 billion company, continued to earn record profits, including a 30 percent jump in the second quarter of the year, while it didn't see to the maintenance of the pipeline that could have prevented it from reaching its current potentially catastrophic state. Although the company said days later it might not have to shut down the entire oil field during the repair, what kind of corporate leadership that was masquerading as responsible allowed that to happen?

Also, why was there no federal or state oversight of the company's operations that would have caught the fact that it wasn't maintaining the pipeline and perceived the danger that was looming? This was danger in environmental terms as well as danger in the potential cost to the economy and the already tormented consumer. There are also serious implications for the people of Alaska who depend heavily on tax revenues from oil, so as not to have either a state sales or income tax. (If it just wasn't so far and so cold ...)

Now, 8 percent of America's petroleum production is going to go off the market, which will produce an initial 5-cent rise in the cost of a gallon of gasoline at the pump. And no one seems to be able to predict reliably how long the repairs to the pipeline will take. We do know that it will be at least months, not days.

So what is the answer to the questions of the absence of corporate responsibility and the absence of government oversight?

The first comes in observing that the general approach of the Bush administration to business is: deregulate and then let the companies earn as much profit as they possibly can. The "deregulate" part explains the lack of governmental oversight that has let the energy industry descend almost to the level of disorder of the airline industry. The "maximize profits" part explains why BP felt free to continue to pay big dividends to its stockholders and big compensation to its officers while cutting corners on surveillance of and repairs to its critical pipeline.

The general Bush administration "let them be" approach to BP and other oil companies would come from, first, the number of oil people in the administration, starting with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The second likely noncoincidence is the fact that a recent study released by the Center for Responsive Politics showed that in the rapidly growing lobbying field, the oil and gas industries gave 84 percent of their contributions last year to Republicans.

Regulation has its own problems, but wouldn't it be worth having the federal or state government assure that companies like BP spend more of their money on normal maintenance and less of it on high dividends and compensation?