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The size of the fine is much less important than the fact that it will only be a fine. When things like this happen, people need to be prosecuted. We put guys in prison for years for selling a dime bag of pot on a street corner, but people who willfully ignore safety protocols and permanently pollute the entire gulf do not even get investigated.
Whoever made the decision to skimp on safety should be going to jail. Whoever was the proximate cause of this kind of unnecessary catastrophe should be made PERSONALLY liable for monetary damages. That is how you prevent other people from doing the same kind of short-sighted stupidity in the future.
These corporate fines will all be passed along to consumers.... However, they can't pass along a 3 year jail sentence to consumers... and they can't get back their summer home from consumers if it is taken from them in a personal bankruptcy proceeding.... which is what they should be facing individually.
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