Laelia wrote:
They can be charged from $1100 up to $4300 for each barrel spilled. Their initial estimate was 1000 barrels per day, while the true amount is probably somewhere between 20 000 and 40 000 barrels per day. That adds up to a lot more money.
If the beef is that the estimate decides how big a fine they pay...then why was the fox guarding the hen house in the first place? It's like getting pulled over for a traffic ticket, the cop asking you how fast you were going, and you replying with a low-ball figure and the cop going with that. Is it wrong of BP to give a deflated estimate? If they did it on purpose, then yes, but where was the government? In what other matter would the perpetrator be the one taking the measure of their guilt?
Laelia wrote:
The $20 billion is being set aside for claims so that the money is there if needed for claims - it's not a payment to the government. If their liability ends up being less than $20 billion they get the money back, but whatever payments they have to make up to that amount are now guaranteed, and they can't drag things out in the courts for decades to avoid them. I think that's pretty reasonable.
I see a few problems with this setup:
#1: The idea that the federal government would get its hands on a pile of cash and not misuse it, spend it on unrelated matters, and/or give back any surplus runs contrary to the modern history of the US government. Hell, we had a tax until the 1990s that was put in place to raise money for
the Spanish-American War...and they're going to let $20 billion slip through their grubby fingers? You're off your nut if you believe that.
#2: When the price tag for claims exceeds $20 billion, BP is going to go all Pontius Pilate and wash their hands of the affair. "So sorry, old chap, but we gave you the funds to cover that, you were supposed to take care of it." Then we're going to find out the terms that were set down in that meeting the other day, and find out that something stupid someone in the administration said is going to somehow indemnify BP, and the taxpayer is going to be stuck with the bill.
#3: If a party other than BP needs to oversee the fund, it shouldn't be someone from the administration. I still strongly believe this creates an appearance of impropriety. There are plenty of third party groups that could administrate the fund and do it more efficiently and with less fraud than the US government, which has a piss-poor track record of administering aid funds. It would even be preferable, in my mind, for a coalition of the governments of the Gulf states to administer the funds.
#4: BP has not, unlike Exxon during the Valdez incident, been running to courts for injunctions and extensions. They've been processing and paying claims. I do see the wisdom in setting up an escrow account for this in the event that BP suffers serious financial meltdown, and would endorse legislation or judicial action initiating such a fund. I do not, however, approve of the executive branch assuming powers not granted to it by law to force this on private citizens/companies through the use of coercion, threats, and intimidation.
The problem we have here that I will assume you don't have in Canadia is that once we let one of our branches of government get away with something once, it is automatically assumed that they can do it again any time they want. I'm going to assume that the executive branch performing acts of extortion will be acceptable public policy in the future.
If it weren't for overblown environmental policy and rich people with beach houses not wanting their ocean views distorted by the equipment that fuels their Escalades, this well and others like it would have been placed in shallow water where this kind of incident would have been more easily handled.
Your Pal,
Jubber
