re: #142 Liberal Classic

I feel motivated to defend British Petroleum, Transocean, Halliburton, Cameron, and etc. While you’re not wrong to be concerned about the environmental impact of the spill, we may never know the cause with absolute certainty. I am expecting a lot of fingerpointing in the coming weeks and months from the above companies, but the truth is prospecting for minerals is often a dangerous and risky operation. These rigs are highly complex pieces of machinery, working at the limit of technology at very high pressures and temperatures. While there may be a factor of human error, there may not be. There may be factors totally outside human control that led to the accident. You may not realize the lengths to which people who work on these rigs go to to ensure the safety of their employees and the environment. The reporting and maintenance required by government regulations is often the bare minimum of what you want as an operator. BP and Transocean are liable as operators for the environmental impact. They have insurance policies to help them pay for the cleanup. If they were criminally negligible, they deserve to be fined and charges brought against responsible parties. But “seize them for the public good” is a dumb thing to say. You may call me biased and a shill for the corporations because I worked in the oil industry and my dad designed offshore rigs, but I regret hearing Hugo Chavez-style rhetoric regarding the oil industry on LGF. Like the government could really run them better.

1) As a regular citizen with an oil tank in my backyard, I am responsible for damage it may cause regardless of what precautions I may take. If it develops a leak, it’s my responsibility, even if it’s an act of God like a lightning strike that causes the tank to leak.

2) I was not talking about seizing the companies and having the government run them. I am most definitely expecting them to run from their responsibility above a bare minimum and try to avoid paying the damages. If I were to do that in the backyard oil-tank example, neither you nor any reasonable person would object to the City of Baltimore seizing enough of my assets to pay for the cleanup. That’s the type of seizure I’m talking about, and I would cry no tears for Big Oil if it happened.

3) I was expecting someone to come along and bring up Hugo Chavez. Ding! You win. Bite me for that one.