Quote:
Originally Posted by RDFrame
No. As long as the US government can prove in court that the negligence of BP (or any of its contractors) was responsible for the oil spill, then BP is on the hook for everything.
And from what's come out so far, I doubt it'll be very difficult for BP to be found guilty of negligence.
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Not true...
"The Oil Pollution Act of 1990, or OPA, was put into place after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which focused national attention on the oil industry’s responsibility to plan for, prevent, and eventually clean up its oil spills. As everyone on this committee knows, the OPA imposes several limits on the liability of a vessel or drilling facility owner in the event of a spill. These liability limits depend, for vessels, on the size of the vessel and whether it is a single- or double-hulled vessel; for facilities, the limits depend on whether the facility is onshore or offshore. For the purposes of the current disaster, the OPA provides that the facility owner is liable for all cleanup costs, but that its liability for longer-term effects on natural resources and the economy are limited to $75 million. Beyond this, damages are paid out of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which itself has a spending cap of $1 billion per incident, of which no more than $500 million may be paid for natural resource damages. Beyond that, the costs are ultimately the responsibility of the taxpayers and communities affected, sometimes for decades, after an oil spill."
Government regulation at its finest... providing a giant shield to oil companies for their disasters... down with the regulation! ;)
But instead the talks are about raising the .08 cent tax to like $0.64... FUCK THAT the consumers don't need to pay for their disasters, THEY DO. Again, like I stated... no amount of additional regulation will cause the oil companies to do more than they have to because the regulation shields them. The ONLY way to correct this problem is to remove this regulation and make them 100% liable for all damages.