re: #203 Dark_Falcon

They lease the rig, so it’s not an outright ownership. That complicates matters some, but they do have legal obligations to act where they are liable and culpable. They’re the public face of this crisis, so they’ve got to act to mitigate the oil spill done at a facility leased by BP. The owner of the rig is also liable, particularly if it turns out that the owner was somehow responsible for the incident leading to the fire/spill.

As for the liability limits/fund limits, consider that these laws were written following Exxon Valdez, and the costs/fees/fund limits didn’t keep pace with the rate of inflation and costs today, so they would have to be adjusted for inflation to keep them at levels consistent with today’s situation. The law should be written with a CPI inflation measure - so the levels rise periodically and don’t leave a funding gap in case of a disaster.