Yup that's our wonderful government for you. Here is one along the same lines - we could take care of 99% of all the oil in the gulf very easily. There is cyclone technology that BP has and could use that would vacuum up all the oily water, separate out 99% of the oil and discharge the "clean" water back into the gulf. But the EPA won't let it be used because the resulting outfall has 1% oil in it. Sure sounds like a better solution than what the government is now doing skimming a fraction of the oil. Sometime laws just get in the way of common sense.