FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Rob Menendez introduced a bill to raise the cap on oil spill liability from a ridiculously low 75 million to 10 billion. This is the cap on the amount that oil companies have to pay if they fuck up industry due to oil spills. Murkowski blocked it b/c she's a whore.
My question is: why is there a cap at all? This liability cap allows oil companies to drill without having a realistic assessment of the total amount of damage their oil drilling can do. If a well were truly to dangerous to drill because of how close it was to the shore, they'd be heavily penalized due to all the insurance they'd have to buy, and they'd have to have top notch safety regulations to bring those insurance prices down. As it is, this liability cap presents us with a market distortion, allowing oil companies to rack up the benefit of offshore oil drilling without paying any of the price. If the spill is big enough, oil companies should absolutely be faced with the prospect of having their entire company reduced to scrap heap to pay for it.
It's not that I'm saying that regulation before hand isn't necessary, just that corporatist government interference in the market has also played a role here.
My question is: why is there a cap at all? This liability cap allows oil companies to drill without having a realistic assessment of the total amount of damage their oil drilling can do. If a well were truly to dangerous to drill because of how close it was to the shore, they'd be heavily penalized due to all the insurance they'd have to buy, and they'd have to have top notch safety regulations to bring those insurance prices down. As it is, this liability cap presents us with a market distortion, allowing oil companies to rack up the benefit of offshore oil drilling without paying any of the price. If the spill is big enough, oil companies should absolutely be faced with the prospect of having their entire company reduced to scrap heap to pay for it.
It's not that I'm saying that regulation before hand isn't necessary, just that corporatist government interference in the market has also played a role here.
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