Posted on 07/25/2010 11:43:04 PM PDT by Nachum
One of the biggest of the big oil companies may be responsible for the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, but Washington's response to the BP PLC spill would give an advantage to such major oil companies while threatening to put their small competitors out of business.
Energy legislation that Senate leaders said they may take up this week would sharply raise or eliminate a $75 million cap on oil company liability for economic damage from spills — a change that poses no great threat to giants like BP, which is setting aside $10 billion out of its huge profits and assets to pay for claims related to the spill and has already paid out billions.
But opening up smaller companies to large or unlimited liability would make it prohibitively expensive for them to get the insurance they need to drill and would force many of them out of the deep-water drilling business, analysts say. Even some major oil companies might see open-ended liability in America's famously litigious society as a reason not to drill in U.S. waters again.
"This would effectively eliminate deep-water drilling in the Gulf and send oil companies to other countries to do the drilling,"
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
How convenient for BP. All their competition destroyed, US funding of low liability drilling in Brazil, American consumers chained to foreign production for decades.
Keep in mind that a lot of the cost stems from not permitting the skimmers offered nearly immediately from around the world to intercept oil on the water tens of miles from shore because of EPA regs, and you can smell the rot in this regulation. So much of the expense of cleanup and liability can be directly tied to government interference it isn’t funny.
This disaster was handled with all the skill and finesse of a Chinese circular fire drill. Can you ever imagine, say, Russia or Canada getting bound up in its own legal chains like that if either had a problem with a runaway well? Fix that (with a GOP Congress this will be possible) and all can breathe a little easier.
BP must be paying off Obama big time.
They will get rid of these drillers just like they
did the owner-operator truckers...
As usual, the Leftists demonize ‘big business’ while they destroy small business ensuring only big business is left for them to control. And Americans continue to ‘not get it’ in alarming numbers.
“with a GOP Congress this will be possible...”
Send some of whatever it is you’ve been smokin....
The DC Rinocrats will never yield power electorally....
Obama’s America haters won’t do it but liability could be put on a sliding scale depending how big your oil drilling outfit is. But they’ll never bother because the Obama-tron assholes have never done a lick of real work but are academics and lawyers. They are faggy degenerates (and they know it) and are jealous of the men who actually produce real world products for America such as oil and gasoline on those offshore rigs and refineries
The same thing was said when OPA-90 became law.
They were right.
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