BP has publicly committed to pay the actual clean-up costs (and I'm just gonna keep on breathin' while I wait for THAT to play out), which will amount to $$$ BILLIONS! it's true, I just watched a BP spokesman on TV say so.
BUT... (there's ALWAYS a but - and this is a BIG one), federal law caps their consequential damages liability at $75 MILLION!!! Businesses, families, workers and governments depend, directly and indirectly, on the Gulf's rich biological diversity and environmental beauty for their livelihoods. And that's GONE! Those costs will far exceed the costs of the clean-up itself (see Prudhoe Bay, Exxon Valdez for further information), and there's no real help out there. The SCOTUS precedent on the Valdez basically set a standard no one could meet anyway.
The greatest costs are going to be borne by those least able to afford them... the folks who work the Gulf for a living, and the businesses and governments that depend on them.
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Comments: 150
Some man on the news this morning was paying for all the clean up in his little slice of home. He would not say how much, but it sounded like a lot!!
How much are we willing to pay to have what we want??
Why do you bother to say pointless things like that? Kind of lives up to the icon.
The $75 million is the limit for covering the consequences of the spill... lost wages or income, damage to boats, equipment, property, etc. Hence "consequential" damages.
After the all insurance companies get hit, then we can do another financial bail out! So in effect,you are right Chuck, guess the taxpayers will get to pay after all.
Let's not kid ourselves, though, it will be years before the money trickles down.
Anyone stop to wonder what might happen to the fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico if the fishing fleets have no fuel?
Anyone stop to wonder what might happen to the farming industry if there is no fuel for the tractors and harvesters?
Anyone wonder what might happen to trees if plastic bags were no longer available?
Yep ... knee jerk idiot reactions to an oil spill is the best way to find working solutions.
Shit happens, but we don't kill all dogs that shit on the sidewalk.
Oil spills happen ... but I guess we must shut down a key industry and kill our own economy.
Yet there are voices on this thread that insist that drill baby drill is stupid while starve baby starve is enlightened.
THIS POST, since you obviously haven't read it, is about who pays to clean up the mess, and who pays the starving fisherman, oysterman, shrimper, charter captain and their families so they can EAT. Money sure ain't gonna come from their jobs this year (or the next several).
NOW, Ms. TICA... what, exactly, is your problem with THAT?!?
Did it ever cross your mind that the liberal ecology nuts have been saying that we ought not to let ourselves be so dependent on a non-renewable resource that creates huge amounts of pollution? Did you listen to them? They have been saying it for over 30 years. They predicted that we would face disasters like this. How did you respond to their pleas then?
Oh yeah... politicians have our government subsidizing the oil industry, and that's been going on for decades...
*grumble*
Oh, and you're right... biodiesel is a LOT more available than folks think. DTE is making a major switch to using it as a significant percentage of our diesel.
Just add the link.................
But it is obviously more important to decide whom to get mad at than to try to fix the problems we are currently facing.
As far as my sarcasm is concerned ... I think it is appropriate. When faced with a crisis that liberals cannot exploit to their political benefit, liberals always make deciding who to get mad at more important than arriving at workable solutions to difficult problems; especially if the solution to a given problem requires courage or intelligence.
As for a solution to the problem of offshore drilling …. How about onshore drilling? If there is a problem with the well, technicians would find it easier to repair … or even prevent … if the well head is on the surface rather than hundreds of feet below water.
It is not at all important to decide whom to get mad at. That is pointless and solves nothing. Of course it is a way to deflect blame away from ourselves and that always feels good but it solves nothing and accomplishes nothing that helps others. We need to change the system because that is what's broken. There have been multiple oil spills every decade under every Administration and we go right on doing stupid things.
That was just stupid.
Watch the lame stream media carry on about who to blame, while the heroic efforts in the gulf are ignored as not quite news worthy. It is better in their world to castigate than to celebrate.
I mean, heck let's just shut down all the gas pumps right now! The heck with farmers. The heck with the fishermen. Let's all starve, that'll show them! Hmmm, think maybe they will appreciate what the oil patch does do for us. Nah, I don't either.
Ever seen oil on a natural lake in Southern Illinois or the bogs of Louisiana? Mother Nature at her best spreading the oil around, bubbling up out of the ground!
Okay libs, you win, oil patch bad bad bad...
Gentlemen, Start your windmills! Let's go!
Almost 70 years with no major incident in the gulf....
Burn baby burn!
That's the problem.
The hysteria over this oil spill is way over blown. Over time, salt water will disperse the oil, the well will be capped and the ecosystem will be restored. British Petroleum might even be able to pay for it ... if they aren't sued into poverty before they can actually repair the damage that has been done.
Interesting that the first people that Obama sent to Louisiana were folks from the justice department. Yep, those subpoenas will really help clean up the mess in the gulf. Way to go Mr. President!
I am amazed at how ... suddenly and out of the blue ... everyone here is an instant expert in all things petroleum.
The over reaction of environmental extremists, who know very little about the oil industry, could do more harm to the economy of South Louisiana than this oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could do. If producing oil offshore were so very ill advised, then the hundreds of other rigs in the Gulf of Mexico would be in the same condition as the one controlled by British Petroleum.
It takes a small army of both skilled and unskilled people to produce oil. It is interesting that this rig, and others like it, withstood several hurricanes quite recently. But by all means, put the folks in south Louisiana out of work because one rig failed.
Eleven workers died in that disaster. There have been rough sea and high winds off shore until just recently. The facts as to why the rig exploded in the first place are not in.
But please don't let facts get in the way of any deeply held commitment to hysterical and mindless fear.
BINGO!
Name-calling and pointless ridicule usually means that the name callers have lost their argument.
But, it's nice to see Clark is out of rehab again......or jail?
Hmm...That statement reminds me of a riddle that was popular when I was in 7th grade:
Q: What did the polar bear say when he sat down on the ice?
A: Radio
Yup, makes just as much sense but isn't nearly as funny.
As for the McDonald's coffee case, the woman received third degree burns, was in the hospital over a week getting skin grafts, and had another couple of years of medical treatment. The jury award (yes, a jury, in a full legal case in accordance with American law) was $2.86 million, but the judge immediately reduced the amount to only $640,000. During the appeal process she and McDonald's settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
But hey, apparently in a non "liberal" world any pertinent American laws should just be ignored because, hey, we all know better than that dang court system and jury. Kind of like the way it was in the old west and during the slave trade days.
Does that mean that we can honestly say that Barak Hussien Obama is IRRESPONSIBLE? What a great president we have. Irresponsibility is the new nobility.
Sheesh!
The federal government.
Stupid people need to realize they can't have it both ways.
Lets see .... hmmmmm..... 9/11 happened less than a year into the Bush presidency, and everything 9/11 was Bush's fault.
Obama has been president for almost a year and a half .... yet this government's POLITICAL response to an ecological and economic disaster ... is STILL Bush's fault!?!?!
Exactly WHEN will Obama become the president of the United States?
1. BP repeatedly assured the world, small leak, we have it under control.
2. Coast Guard was involved immediately.
Go back you your little nap rug.
The safety protocols that were in place, which would have allowed this oil to be burned off were not implemented ... Could fear of over reaction by the EPA and wacko environmentalist have had something to do with it?
The government could have cordoned off and burned the initial leak... but nopey no, sitting on the duffs, make it really bad so they have an excuse to shut it all down.
Well, hmm, suppose those states with oil will still drill? Hey! I have 160 acres in Oklahoma, if I drop my own rig, hmmm drilling a "water" well, I just might have my own fuel.... not going to share with any lib though.
Just ask Hillary.
As for the rest of it -- we'll see -- but I'm hearing the legislation can be amended.
A law passed in response to the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska makes BP responsible for cleanup costs. But the law sets a $75 million limit on other kinds of damages.
Additionally..."Kenneth Baer, spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, also noted that if BP were found to have acted negligently in the spill or to have violated federal laws, the damages cap under the Oil Pollution Act would be lifted.
Baer said BP could also be held liable under additional federal or state laws. HERE
"Farmer, I think Gail is referring to just that, she and I discussed it yesterday!"
Yes...I was agreeing with Gail....that's why I said "right Gail". I then expanded on what she had said because I hadn't seen that information in THIS thread....I didn't know what Gail said "yesterday".(!)
I haven't seen the specs from BP to TransOcean, has anyone here making these preemptive guilty judgments seen the specs? Analyzed the cause of failure? nah, didn't think so...
Gosh, the Challenger had a bad O ring, wonder why they didn't just shut down everything space related permanantly!
Will any legal action save the life of one single sea bird or turtle?
The wild life in question at the moment is fish. Do you contend that the fishing and shrimping industry should be shut down so as to save the wild life?
Irresponsibility seems to be the new mantel of the left.
Sniping at the government is only permitted when republicans are in power.
Interesting.
From the Wall Street Journal:
The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.
The lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig last week...
... regulators in two major oil-producing countries, Norway and Brazil, in effect require them. Norway has had acoustic triggers on almost every offshore rig since 1993.
The U.S. considered requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism several years ago, but drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness, according to the agency overseeing offshore drilling. The agency, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, says it decided the remote device wasn't needed because rigs had other back-up plans to cut off a well.
The U.K., where BP is headquartered, doesn't require the use of acoustic triggers.
follow the story here
If that were REALLY the case, then why is it that only one rig out of hundreds is damaged?
Don't let a logical argument get in the way of your bigotry.
Look at Amtrak’s idiotic pricing and routing. There is your government at work. I would love to get my work done without a car. If the government gave as much of a damn about the 'good' of the American people as they claim to, then there would be a national, public transportation system being built, even as we speak.
Could that be shovel ready jobs that some one in Washington was mentioning in some speech or the other?
What if there were a car stop every hundred miles or so, where cars could be loaded and unloaded as needed. The rail line and tunnel between France and Great Britain seems to be a good working model for this.
If someone had to make a trip between Seattle and Orlando, they could load their car and then ride in greater comfort in a railroad passenger car. They could sleep, eat, read a book or watch a movie. They could even use their cell phone without any legal consequences ... while traveling.
The federal government all ready owns most of the real estate. Trains use far less fuel per mile than do cars and trucks. This industry could simply be an expansion of one that all ready exists. So many people would be required to build and manage this that our current unemployment problem might be improved. To top it all off ... Americans would use less fossil fuel ... and the goddess of the environment would love us!
You might even have to go back to abusing draft animals or enslaving your fellow human beings, if you chose to abandon the benefits of petroleum byproducts.
WTF are you talking about? Or should I say WTF are you talking about this time? Who said ANYTHING about not wanting petroleum? Why'd you pull that wild hair out that limitless expanse where most people have a brain? |
My comment, since it flew over your head, was directed at your party: I'm just waiting for them to throw themselves on their swords for BP.
Nora;
I read it in the MAINSTREAM MEDIA! What it has to do with this is pretty irrelevant though.
If there were no petroleum available, then there would no longer be any of the modern goodies that make our lives so much more pleasant that what our great grand parents endured.
Without petrochemicals, there would be no plastics. Your nice electronic keyboard would not exist. You would have no plasma or light emitting diode screen to look at. You would not have cheap fizzy sugar drinks in disposable bottles.
Without petroleum to power tractors, draft animals would have to do the hard work of farming. Work done by mechanical harvesters would have to be done by hand. Slaves or grossly underpaid field hands did this sort of work before machines powered by petroleum byproducts came along.
There has been a rant from the left about the evils of petroleum for decades. That is the genesis of my comments.
Thanks for posting this to Dicks Cafe.
I think that cost estimate has been revised up a wee bit like to 10 billionWhen we allow our country leaders to ignore the rule of law in favor of profit we all bear the cost and the blame.
This is a brief history of our involvement with BP
The National Iranian Oil Company was formed as a result, displacing the AIOC. The AIOC withdrew its management from Iran, and organised an effective boycott of Iranian oil. The British government - which owned the AIOC - contested the nationalisation at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, but its complaint was dismissed.
By spring of 1953, incoming U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorised the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to organise a coup against the Mossadeq government with support from the British government. On 19 August 1953, Mossadeq was forced from office by the CIA conspiracy, involving the Shah and the Iranian military, and known by its codename, Operation Ajax.
OK, Did you know...that the reason bP didn't have the fail-safe mechanism on this (and other American rigs) is because good ole Dick-head Cheyney WAIVEDtheir compliance for doing htat? He made a little profit off of it and 'saved'the ocuntry the expense of it. BP uses this safety thingy on ALL other rigs they drill throughout the North Sea and elsewhere;this wouldn't have been able to happen if Cheyney hadn't been underhanded, again!
And also, by the time Exxon paid out the damages, most, if not all the people were dead who needed payment!
The North sea. Whcih is a wild and wooly ride compared with even Katrina-type weather, on a daily basis and I can't recall this happening to the many rigs that have been there for decades. Because, the EU is more stringent on the safety of humanity than the people who let BP drill off our shores!
Go get yourself a tissue Georgiana S. The grown ups have work to do.
Grown-ups don't talk school-yard rhetoric as you do. I was born in 1949, where you been?
The only effort the republicans are busy getting down to is passing the blame and drilling more! accidents happen right? BS
It is nice that republicans have been drilling more, despite the insane efforts of democrats to destroy an industry as vital to our economy as petroleum production.
If you care to notice, there are typically more jobs and greater prosperity under republican administrations than under democrat administration. Unemployment under Bush was about half of what it is under Saint Barak. There were far more people working when Reagan was president than when cousin Jimmy the peanut farmer diddled in the White House.
I worry that this oil spill might fuel the insane, anti-oil production mindset of the liberals in the United States and give them the excuse that they need to halt all domestic oil production. The economic consequences of such a stupid action would be devastating to our economy. No government program could 'rescue' the economy from such blatant stupidity.
But you could become a really great little victim (weep, sniffle, whine) ... when, absent any domestic oil production, the price of gasoline at the pump doubles yet again. I notice that no one is weeping about the price of gasoline today, now that Saint Barak rules the roost.
You are a stupid, stupid girl. really. do you not see that the spill is costing more now, and in future environmental catastrophes, than a feww thousand barrels of oil could create? Don't you see the loss of livlihood of fishermen and transportation and restaurants, right down to waiters and waitresses. LOSS OF JOBS because of the oil spill. We need to get off our dependence of oil altogether. Alternative energy is the only alternative. The earth has a limited supply of fossil fuels, drain the earth of all resourses and you will have to go live on an asteroid or somewhere sometime in the future because if you use it all up now, future generations won't have anything. Greedy, selfish Republicans! I always find my investments falter when there is a Repulican in office. I am disgusted by your attitude. At lest now, ALL oil drilling has been halted. good for President Obama!
Stop with your poor little victim sh*t!
Take a look at the interstate highway system in this country. There is ample real estate there in which to lay railroad tracks, without seriously interrupting car and truck traffic.
What if there were a car stop every hundred miles or so, where cars could be loaded and unloaded as needed. The rail line and tunnel between France and Great Britain seems to be a good working model for this.
If someone had to make a trip between Seattle and Orlando, they could load their car and then ride in greater comfort in a railroad passenger car. They could sleep, eat, read a book or watch a movie. They could even use their cell phone without any legal consequences ... while traveling.
The federal government all ready owns most of the real estate. Trains use far less fuel per mile than do cars and trucks. This industry could simply be an expansion of one that all ready exists. So many people would be required to build and manage this that our current unemployment problem might be improved. To top it all off ... Americans would use less fossil fuel ... and the goddess of the environment would love us!
If you are as troubled by the loss of jobs in the United States as you say, then why aren't you a supporter of the TEA Party position on run away government expansion and oppressive taxation?
By the way ... the trains that I suggest could be fueled by the same nuclear energy engine that currently powers our sub marine fleet. It is a proven technology.