BP's oil spill - should Statism come to the rescue?

BluePlanet

It has now been over 30 days that BP's deep water oil spill has been spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.
They've tried a few mitigation techniques, none have worked, bar the insertion of another tube to capture some of the oil.
BP has consistently lied about the quantity of the oil spewing and how much they are capturing.

There is a growing chorus of people calling for the US Government to take over. Infact the opposition in the US - The Republicans are taking (political) shots at Obama for not taking control.

from CNN:

With the Obama administration under increasing criticism for its handling of the spill, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the government considers BP the responsible party.
"But we are on them, watching them," she said after a flyover of the affected area Monday.

Republican Strategist Mary Matalin, who toured the damage by boat Sunday, said the White House should cease "saying they have their boot on the neck of BP. They don't have a ballet slipper on the neck of anybody."

Presidential historian Doug Brinkley, a longtime resident of New Orleans, Louisiana, warned that Obama's political stock could hinge on the administration's response.
"I think that the president has to get control over this situation," he said Monday night. "Right now, there is a feeling in the country that BP's in charge, but BP is the one that has been grossly negligent."

But Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, the Obama administration's point person in the Gulf, said removing BP from the cleanup efforts is not an option.

The government, he said, has neither the equipment nor the expertise to undertake the operation itself.

"To push BP out of the way would raise a question, to replace them with what," he told reporters at a White House briefing.

Are people right to ask Statism to take-over?
BP have not done a particularly good job so far and people no longer trust them.
While it's certainly a good point that the Government may not have the equipment, experience or expertise in this area (who does?), i believe they could take-over the operation and force BP's hand.

Or, do you think the best course of action is for the government to remain sidlined and let "the market" solve this problem?
But how would that happen?

sceptre

<offtopic but curious>

Where did this "statism" thing come from? It's been occasionally popping up lately like a lingering odour. Virtually no-one is using it in a way that reflects the general meaning of the word, which under most definitions reflects a little more than mere government interference, meddling or pushed direction.

</offtopic but curious>

BluePlanet

sceptre wrote: »

<offtopic but curious>

Where did this "statism" thing come from? It's been occasionally popping up lately like a lingering odour. Virtually no-one is using it in a way that reflects the general meaning of the word, which under most definitions reflects a little more than mere government interference, meddling or pushed direction.

</offtopic but curious>

It comes from Ayn Rand.
But more specifically around here, it's been penned by Donegalfella and his Libertarian soapboxing.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

SlabMurphy

BluePlanet wrote: »

Or, do you think the best course of action is for the government to remain sidlined and let "the market" solve this problem?
But how would that happen?

Well Libertarianism always has comes up with the comment about how the utopia known as "the market" can solve everything.

ei.sdraob

SlabMurphy wrote: »

Well Libertarianism always has comes up with the comment about how the utopia known as "the market" can solve everything.

I hear the Russians offered to blow up a small nuke to seal the well as they have done on several occasions in the past

for a small fee of course...

Overheal

TBH I seriously dont understand why the Obama Administration has held out this long. I figured he'd jump at the chance to go Superhero on this and give BP the bill after the fact.

Frankly this is not a Private Sector snafu, its an Ecological Disaster. And frankly screw the turtles for a moment, but the Tourism sector across the Gulf has shut down and its not going to recover this year thanks in whole to this.

On a perverse level I almost wonder if this is a Democrat response to Drill Baby Drill - almost as if they want some example to placard for the next 30 years about why oil is a bad thing.

Wolfe Tone

Overheal wrote: »

TBH I seriously dont understand why the Obama Administration has held out this long. I figured he'd jump at the chance to go Superhero on this and give BP the bill after the fact.

The fact is that the govt can do no more than BP can. They are the world leaders in this field. Obama doesn't want to take over and be seen to do the same, or even worse than BP. So he is now content with some saber rattling about stepping in, so when BP do fix it people can say "wow the pressure really paid off" Don't be alarmed though, when a situation arises were Obama can be sure there wont be a humiliating failure he will jump on it.

BluePlanet

But there are things the government could do.
They could put the boot on BP's throat.
They could repeal that law that protects oil firms from damages litigation.
They could descend on them with auidtors and inspectors.
They could shut down other BP operations.
They could threaten that company with penalites.
They could freeze the assets of that company.

Just use your imagination.

Plus the government has resources of manpower far exceeding what BP is doing regarding cleanup.
They could call up the National Guard and put hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground (and in the water).

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Wolfe Tone

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

And if I recall it was actually a subcontractor. I am sure BP could have engaged in long legal battle to get out of this but to be fair to them they have faced up to it and maintain that they will foot the bill.

BluePlanet

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I'm not sure how exactly putting the National Guard on cleanup duty equals shutting down BP.

But FYI i am only brainstorming things that the government could do, i am not arguing (at this point) what they should do.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

BluePlanet

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

It's certainly in USA's best interest to find out if BP is running deepwater drilling platforms in other locations. Maybe they've doctored their safety reports and this incident could be repeated.

Aside from the environmental damage presently occuring, lets not forget that 11 workers also died.
What sort of safety record is that?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Knarr

Are people right to ask Statism to take-over?

No. The free market will solve it. (Mathew 4:11)

Knarr

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

So what is the 'non-statist' solution to this environmental catastrophe Donegalfella?

If there were more 'statism' there could have been better regulation in every regard relating tto the oil platform, its procedures, its manufacture etc.

JamieBly

I read that the oil platform won a safety award from the US gov't last year...

Edit: At the bottom of this article (which talks about how the federal inspections weren't any help)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100516/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_inspections

Knarr

JamieBly wrote: »

I read that the oil platform won a safety award from the US gov't last year...

With criteria based upon what safety limits?
What is defined as 'safe' is arbitrary.


That article is an example of why a lack of state intervention fails.

"In fact, the agency's inspection frequency on the Deepwater Horizon fell dramatically over the past five years"

Less state activity regulating safety = disaster.

JamieBly

yeah that's what i thought too...

fontanalis

SlabMurphy wrote: »

Well Libertarianism always has comes up with the comment about how the utopia known as "the market" can solve everything.

It's actually the invisible divine hand of the market.

Anonymous1987

Overheal wrote: »

TBH I seriously dont understand why the Obama Administration has held out this long. I figured he'd jump at the chance to go Superhero on this and give BP the bill after the fact.

Frankly this is not a Private Sector snafu, its an Ecological Disaster. And frankly screw the turtles for a moment, but the Tourism sector across the Gulf has shut down and its not going to recover this year thanks in whole to this.

On a perverse level I almost wonder if this is a Democrat response to Drill Baby Drill - almost as if they want some example to placard for the next 30 years about why oil is a bad thing.

The Obama administration may be worried about their plans to open the east coast from Maryland to Florida as part of the new climate bill. I guess this throws a spanner in the works for it. Might explain it a bit, initially it was thought the oil spill was minor and maybe they thought it wouldn't significantly impact on their proposals but know it won't seem as attractive.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

BluePlanet

From FAIR, a nice review of what the corporate media have been at:

You know, there are a lot of serious people looking at, "Are there ways that we can do drilling and we can do nuclear that are--that are nowhere near as risky as what they were 10 or 15 or 20 years ago?" Offshore drilling today is a lot more safer, in many ways, environmentally, today than it was 20 years ago.
--David Gergen, CNN's Situation Room (3/31/10)

Some Americans have an opinion of offshore drilling that was first formed decades ago with those pictures of oil on the beaches in Santa Barbara, California. Others see it differently. They say time and technology have changed things. They say in order to lessen our dependence on foreign oil and keep gas prices low, we've got to bring more of it out of the ground and from under the sea.
--Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News (3/31/10)

The technology of oil drilling has made huge advances.... The time has come for my fellow environmentalists to reassess their stand on offshore oil. It is not clear that the risks of offshore oil drilling still outweigh the benefits. The risk of oil spills in the United States is quite low.
--Eric Smith, Washington Post op-ed (4/2/10)

Some of the most ironic objections come from those who say offshore exploration will destroy beaches and coastlines, citing the devastating 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska as an example. The last serious spill from a drilling accident in U.S. waters was in 1969, off Santa Barbara, California.
--USA Today editorial (4/2/10)

Since the big spill off the coast of California about three decades ago, the big oil companies have really put a lot of time, money and resources into making sure that their drilling is a lot more safe and environmentally sound.
--Monica Crowley, Fox Business Happy Hour (3/31/10)

Drilling could be conducted in an environmentally sensitive manner. We already drill in an environmentally sensitive manner.
--Sean Hannity, Fox News' Hannity (4/1/10)

And even in terms of the environment, we're going to consume oil one way or the other. It's safer for the planet if it's done under our strict controls and high technology in America as opposed to Nigeria.... We've got a ton of drilling happening every day today in the Gulf of Mexico in a hurricane area and it's successful.
--Charles Krauthammer, WJLA's Inside Washington (4/4/10)

We had a hurricane on the Gulf Coast and there was no oil spill. If Katrina didn't cause an oil spill with all those oil wells in the Gulf....
--Dick Morris, Fox News' O'Reilly Factor (3/31/10)

The two main reasons oil and other fossil fuels became environmentally incorrect in the 1970s--air pollution and risk of oil spills--are largely obsolete. Improvements in drilling technology have greatly reduced the risk of the kind of offshore spill that occurred off Santa Barbara in 1969.... To fear oil spills from offshore rigs today is analogous to fearing air travel now because of prop plane crashes.
--Steven F. Hayward, Weekly Standard (4/26/10)

---

And these messages didn't entirely disappear after the Gulf of Mexico disaster unfolded. In its May 10 issue, Time magazine had a small box headlined, "Offshore-Drilling Disasters: Rare But Deadly," which listed a mere four incidents--the most recent in 1988. But it doesn't take too much research to turn up a slew of other incidents that raise concerns: the Unocal-owned Seacrest drillship that capsized in 1989, killing 91 people; Phillips Petroleum's Alexander Kielland rig that collapsed in 1980, killing 123, and more. The list managed to overlook at least three well disasters in the Gulf of Mexico that resulted in oil spills--two incidents off the Louisiana coast in 1999, and the Usumacinta spill in Mexican waters in 2007.

A previous Time.com story (4/24/10) had noted that the Minerals Management Service, which oversees offshore drilling, reported 39 fires or explosions in the first five months of 2009 alone; though the magazine said the "good news" is that "most of these" did not result in death. The website Oil Rig Disasters tallies 184 incidents, dozens of which involved fatalities--and 73 of which occurred after 1988.

Clearly there are different ways to measure such things, but it's hard not to feel that Time's point was to suggest that drilling disasters are really too rare to worry about.

Since the BP/Deepwater disaster, many news outlets have run investigative pieces detailing the long history of negligent oversight of the offshore drilling industry. But when the New York Times tells readers (5/25/10) about the "enduring laxity of federal regulation of offshore operations," one can't help but wonder why this apparently well-known problem got so little attention before the environmental catastrophe.

Knarr

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

The state has the capacity to direct greater resources towards disasters such as this.

I mean, what you are asking is like if my house is on fire, and private individuals are responsible for sorting out their own fire management, how would the state be better prepared/positioned to deal with it.

Well my answer is that it would not be. But neither would I, and thats why the state must be prepared for potential disasters/fires in the first place by having a fire brigade service or nationally co-ordinated oil disaster teams, equipment and facilities.

Unfortunately this was left to the market/private sector and BP cant deal with it. Profit margins and all that.

Indeed. Maybe we should just regulate ocean drilling out of existence,

Nah, sure who needs regulation. If people feel so strongly about oil pollution and a bad safety reputation then they will not buy oil from those companies. The free market will solve things. If only.

and adopt the "statist" solution to oil shortages: dropping bombs in the Middle East.

I would have thought the USA was a market economy. Maybe im wrong.

Overheal

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I really dont know how i missed that political cartoon but it was a goodie.

Valmont

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I'm going to cut to the chase here and use my psychic abilities:

BP only wants money, ergo safety and everything else is put to the side, endangering everyone and everything that get between them and their cash.

The government only wants to step and protect innocent victims of BP's cruel profit motive.

This was a tremendous disaster and someone will eventually take full responsibility for it, just like the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989. Using this as some sort of example to show us how the "free market" is bad is missing the point entirely and I think it's a shame to try and profiteer ideologically from this incident.

P. Breathnach

Valmont wrote: »

I'm going to cut to the chase here and use my psychic abilities:

BP only wants money, ergo safety and everything else is put to the side, endangering everyone and everything that get between them and their cash.

The government only wants to step and protect innocent victims of BP's cruel profit motive.

This was a tremendous disaster and someone will eventually take full responsibility for it, just like the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989. Using this as some sort of example to show us how the "free market" is bad is missing the point entirely and I think it's a shame to try and profiteer ideologically from this incident.

That's a load of bollocks. One of the great weaknesses of the free market model so beloved of libertarians and other right-wingers is the problem of externalities, and pollution is an important externality. It hardly counts as ideological profiteering to point to a dramatic illustration of the problem.

Knarr

Valmont wrote: »

BP only wants money, ergo safety and everything else is put to the side, endangering everyone and everything that get between them and their cash.

Sounds like what happened in Bhopal.

The government only wants to step and protect innocent victims of BP's cruel profit motive.

If only statism did that before the Bhopal disaster.

This was a tremendous disaster and someone will eventually take full responsibility for it,

Like Bhopal. How many have served time for that again?

Using this as some sort of example to show us how the "free market" is bad is missing the point entirely and I think it's a shame to try and profiteer ideologically from this incident.

Shame on those calling for greater safety regulation and intervention in the operations of private companies, Shame!

Come off it.

Fratton Fred

Err, BP are losing a fortune each day as their prime commodity pours into the sea, why would they not want to clean it up.

I worked for BP for a while and their attention to safety is, at times, restrictive as they are paranoid about it. Making a rig safe is a lot cheaper than forking out millions to 11 dead workers families.

I think they seriously underestimated the original extent of the spill at the beginning, but I have no doubt that money is now no object when it comes to sorting this out. The government can kick them aroind, freeze assets or do whatever it likes, it isn't going to ehlp with the immediate objective which is sorting this mess out.

Knarr

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Err, BP are losing a fortune each day as their prime commodity pours into the sea, why would they not want to clean it up.

They dont have the resources, facilities and equipment to clean it up.

I worked for BP for a while and their attention to safety is, at times, restrictive as they are paranoid about it. Making a rig safe is a lot cheaper than forking out millions to 11 dead workers families.

You could say that about the Bhopal disaster too. 16,000 died.

The fact is - without state regulationa and intervention - safety comes after profits. Disasters caused by lack of regulation demonstrate this.

I think they seriously underestimated the original extent of the spill at the beginning, but I have no doubt that money is now no object when it comes to sorting this out.

Its kinda too late isnt it.

Thats like saying "oh I wish I had forked out a fortune on private healthcare insurance before I got a serious illness." - you didnt - and that market rationalising beforehand wont save you now.

Hence why ""statism"" is needed beforehand rather than relying on market and private sector forces.

The government can kick them aroind, freeze assets or do whatever it likes, it isn't going to ehlp with the immediate objective which is sorting this mess out.

Your right. But they should have had the ''statism'' in place before the disadter happend.

Fratton Fred

This is nothing like Bhopal. There is already very very strict regulation in place, but something went wrong.

I have seen a very thought provoking film about a guy at an Exxon refinery and he talks about how he cut corners to save time, with disastrous consequences.

He had all the safety equipment, he had the safety talks and knew he was breaking the rules, but he was being lazy. Short of having a safety inspector shadowing every employee, what more can a company do?

Knarr

Fratton Fred wrote: »

This is nothing like Bhopal. There is already very very strict regulation in place, but something went wrong.

I have seen a very thought provoking film about a guy at an Exxon refinery and he talks about how he cut corners to save time, with disastrous consequences.

He had all the safety equipment, he had the safety talks and knew he was breaking the rules, but he was being lazy. Short of having a safety inspector shadowing every employee, what more can a company do?

If you read the article posted by Jamiebly there, the regulations were not enforced and inspections were not being carried out by state authorities frequently enough.

How do you know it was nothing like Bhopal when a proper analysis of the cause has not been carried out.

Fratton Fred

Knarr wrote: »

If you read the article posted by Jamiebly there, the regulations were not enforced and inspections were not being carried out by state authorities frequently enough.

How do you know it was nothing like Bhopal when a proper analysis of the cause has not been carried out.

Bhopal was a company exploiting lax regulation in a developing country. Iirc, they wouldn't have been allowed to even produce those chemicals in the US.

I know BP and they way they work. They have been heavily fined in the US for breaching safety rules over an explosion at a refinery and they are putting **** loads of effort into repairing their reputation, to the extent where lots of very senior people have been replaced.

Once this is sorted, there will be some serious arse kicking internally at BP, I wouldn't be surprised to see the head of exploration and production (the division responsible for extracting dinosaur juice from the ground) losing his job.

P. Breathnach

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I know BP and they way they work. They have been heavily fined in the US for breaching safety rules over an explosion at a refinery and they are putting **** loads of effort into repairing their reputation, to the extent where lots of very senior people have been replaced.

Once this is sorted, there will be some serious arse kicking internally at BP, I wouldn't be surprised to see the head of exploration and production (the division responsible for extracting dinosaur juice from the ground) losing his job.

What this amounts to is that BP attend to safety (and probably other matters of interest to the public, like pollution) because of regulation and the costs of legal penalties.

Bloody state: interfering with business.

Knarr

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Bhopal was a company exploiting lax regulation in a developing country. Iirc, they wouldn't have been allowed to even produce those chemicals in the US.

I know BP and they way they work. They have been heavily fined in the US for breaching safety rules over an explosion at a refinery and they are putting **** loads of effort into repairing their reputation, to the extent where lots of very senior people have been replaced.

Once this is sorted, there will be some serious arse kicking internally at BP, I wouldn't be surprised to see the head of exploration and production (the division responsible for extracting dinosaur juice from the ground) losing his job.

At the end of the day FF, we will have to wait for the outcome of an inquirey into the cause.

Essentially we are talking about two different things here, and I dont entirely disagree with you. One is whether market or state forces are best at managing and preventing disasters, the other is outside of that and into micro management and individual mistakes -which is what I think you are discussing.

Fratton Fred

P. Breathnach wrote: »

What this amounts to is that BP attend to safety (and probably other matters of interest to the public, like pollution) because of regulation and the costs of legal penalties.

Bloody state: interfering with business.

BP do whatever is best for their share price. Regardless of the direct cost of this whole affair, the damage to their share price has cost them millions as well.

Executive Steve

The invisible hand of the market will clean it up.

As soon as some benevolent megacorporation figures out how much people like clean oceans they'll figure out a way to make a buck out of it far more efficiently than the government could.

I think I'll give libertarianism a shot tbh, it seems so logical

P. Breathnach

Fratton Fred wrote: »

BP do whatever is best for their share price. Regardless of the direct cost of this whole affair, the damage to their share price has cost them millions as well.

Money has no inherent morality and neither, to any significant extent, does "the market". Share price is affected by current profitability, expectations of future profit, dividend policy, asset backing, and such matters. Not by dead birds.

Just to be precise: a fall in share price does not not cost a corporation anything unless it happens during a share issue. It can cost the shareholders, and a corporation is usually run principally for the benefit of shareholders.

If BP is hit with a huge bill for the cleanup, then of course it affects the bottom line. Were there a libertarian disregard for externalities, the only effect the spill would have on profitability or share price would be the lost production.

jank

They should just plug the hole!! End of!
After the mess is cleaned up, they should be given a bill for the entire cleanup operation and loss of revenue for the drop in tourism.

I wonder how their bottom line is then?

On a side note i guess the mantra of "drill baby drill" wont be a GOP saying in 2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drill,_baby,_drill

Overheal

jank wrote: »

They should just plug the hole!!

i believe they've tried that already...

SLUSK

BP should be forced to pay all the costs, including the loss of income to fishermen in the area, if this leads to the bankruptcy of BP I don't care. We cannot allow private corporations to pass the costs over to the taxpayers.

ei.sdraob

P. Breathnach wrote: »

That's a load of bollocks. One of the great weaknesses of the free market model so beloved of libertarians and other right-wingers is the problem of externalities, and pollution is an important externality. It hardly counts as ideological profiteering to point to a dramatic illustration of the problem.

externalities yes

Nobel Prize-winner Ronald Coase further undermined interventionist welfare analysis with the publication of his paper, "The Problem of Social Cost," in 1960. Coase demonstrated that as long as property rights are clearly defined and transaction costs are low, the individuals involved in these situations can always negotiate a solution that internalizes any externality.

Consider the case of river pollution from the foozle factory. If the people downriver from the factory have a property right in the river, the factory will have to negotiate with them in order to legally discharge waste through their property. We can't say what solution the participants might arrive at-the factory might shut down, the people downriver might be paid to move, or the factory might install pollution control devices or simply compensate those affected for suffering the pollution. What we can say is that, within a system of voluntary exchange, each party has demonstrated that it prefers the solution arrived at to the situation that existed before their negotiations.

Furthermore, we should note that negotiating between the parties affected allows them to use the "particular circumstances of time and place," with which they alone are familiar, to arrive at a solution. The factory owner may be aware of an alternate foozle material that does not pollute the river, or the people downriver might know that the river is stinky anyway and that it's best to move. Regulators generally cannot take such specific knowledge into account in their drafting of edicts.

Case studies have illustrated the resourcefulness of voluntary exchange in accounting for potential externalities. An oft-used example of a positive externality in economics is in the production of fruit trees and beekeeping. The growers of fruit trees provide a benefit to beekeepers: flowers. And beekeepers provide a benefit to the growers: pollination.

The standard analysis, however, contended that neither party had an incentive to take account of the benefit to the other. Thus, there would be "too few" orchards and beekeepers. Economist Steven Cheung has studied these markets, however, and has found that the parties involved had accounted for the externalities quite well, contracting with each other to raise production to optimal levels.

ei.sdraob

SLUSK wrote: »

BP should be forced to pay all the costs, including the loss of income to fishermen in the area, if this leads to the bankruptcy of BP I don't care. We cannot allow private corporations to pass the costs over to the taxpayers.

Yep thats exactly what should be done

they made the mess, they clean it up and pay for it

just like banks should have been left to wallow in their own excrement


none of this "socializing" the risks nonsense being sprouted If the government steps in its effectively a bailout of BP

and does the US government even have the know how to deal with deep drilling?

BluePlanet

In one way, we are fortunate that the oil is heading towards USA's coast.

Just imagine BP's response if it were heading toward Mexico or some other "insignificant" Central American country.
I doubt they'd be so bothered as to maintain a "Live Feed" of the leaking pipe!
Also, they would surely maintain their gross underestimation of the leak, and their overestimation of how much they are capturing.

I'd imagine those countries would have to make representations to their Statist counterparts in the USA, who in turn would have to be bothered enough to lean on BP. Then BP would run to the coroporate media for a good ol whingefest about how unfairly their being treated for such an "act of god" and surely our thoughts should instead be with those families whom lost loved ones, blah blah blah, spin spin spin.

BluePlanet

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Yep thats exactly what should be done

they made the mess, they clean it up and pay for it

just like banks should have been left to wallow in their own excrement


none of this "socializing" the risks nonsense being sprouted If the government steps in its effectively a bailout of BP

and does the US government even have the know how to deal with deep drilling?

How long should people wait around for BP to destroy the environment?

It maybe true that the US government doesn't have the know-how, but apparently neither does BP.

ei.sdraob

BluePlanet wrote: »

How long should people wait around for BP to destroy the environment?

It maybe true that the US government doesn't have the know-how, but apparently neither does BP.

If the government steps in now, that means BP have to step aside

and that will mean more wasted time and more pollution

the question you should be asking is: how long would it take the US government to stop the leak?

BluePlanet

ei.sdraob wrote: »

If the government steps in now, that means BP have to step aside

and that will mean more wasted time and more pollution

the question you should be asking is: how long would it take the US government to stop the leak?

It would depend on how many resources the USA would throw at it.
Those Statists over there have put a man on the moon remember.

ei.sdraob

BluePlanet wrote: »

It would depend on how many resources the USA would throw at it.
Those Statists over there have put a man on the moon remember.

You didn't answer my question

you can throw the whole US army at it and without the expertise of doing things 5 kilometres 5000feet down they will not know what to do

all while the leak continues to spew


and i did post a link to russians offering to plug the hole for a fee with a small nuclear explosion, tho I don't think the americans like the sound of that pragmatic solution :P (which was used before)

need I remind you that these "statists" are not even capable of putting a man in orbit anymore with the shuttle retiring never mind the moon


edit: Americans use feet not meters :P my bad

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

ei.sdraob

http://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-48135020100430?

"We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honour them. We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that," Tony Hayward told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

United States federal law limits BP's liability for non-cleanup costs to $75 million unless gross negligence is proven.In a letter to administration officials, BP said it would pay for all cleanup and remediation “costs and damages, regardless of whether the statutory liability cap contained in the Oil Pollution Act applies.” Nevertheless, some Democratic lawmakers sought to pass legislation that would increase the liability limit to $10 billion. Analysts for Swiss Re have estimated that the total insured losses from the accident could reach $3.5 billion. However, according to UBS, the final bill could be as much as $12 billion

they caused this mess and they are willing to clean it up

the government stepping in now with NO PLANS will only ensure BP are let of the hook and the environment suffers

An April 30 Merrill Lynch report found that five companies connected to the disaster, BP, Transocean, Anadarko Petroleum, Halliburton and Cameron International, had lost a total of $21 billion in market capitalization since the explosion

whats that? the market punishing the companies involved?? who would have thought