BP Should Pay: Holding Corporations Accountable for Environmental Damage

[Office_Shredder]

They should have gotten out of the way of those barge skimming operators, whoever they are. They should get out of the way of the half million gallon per day skimmer the A-Whale, whoever owns it, and other foreign crewed ships http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703426004575339650877298556.html?mod=googlenews_wsj" And so on.

http://www.marinelog.com/DOCS/NEWSMMIX/2010jun00152.html

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/06/oil-spill-foreign-help-and-the-jones-act/

I don't really understand the intricacies of shipping laws and who's allowed to do what but the claims that Obama is actively hindering the process by refusing to grant waivers seems false. The Jones act applies to shipping between ports, it was lifted during Katrina because goods needed to be shipped there. The cleanup boats aren't shipping goods, they're cleaning up oil

Also, a claim is made that some gulf governors are not using all the national guard troops available. You demand a source, pointing out that some of them were in fact used a month ago. I post a source, and the best thing you can do is debate whether the word debacle is an apt description? I assume this means you concede that the guard troops were not used very efficiently

 

[KalamMekhar]

an update:

Rainy Lake Oil gets their oil from Murphy Oil, and they supply all of the gas stations in my city.

 

[mheslep]

Also, a claim is made that some gulf governors are not using all the national guard troops available.

Not quite, the claim was not qualified as 'not using all', it was "haven't even deployed the national guard."

You demand a source,

To be clear: not from you, and not just on this sub-topic.

pointing out that some of them were in fact used a month ago. I post a source,

Thanks for the source. We've established that not all of the guardsman are employed in the oil cleanup effort. The question is how is that relevant to the cleanup effort. Note: guardsman is synonymous with 'barge operator', or 'boom layer' and the like.

and the best thing you can do is debate whether the word debacle is an apt description? I assume this means you concede that the guard troops were not used very efficiently

"Guardsman debacle" is a bumper sticker, not an explanation or accurate summary. Bumper stickers unless used very precisely distort the underlying facts. In this case I want to explore the details of whether or not the federal government is impeding local government and other efforts to clean up. The only relevant undisputed facts in the CBS story (and others) are that 1) the governors requested the guard be released to the effort, and 2) not every guardsman is being used. So? It is in dispute as to why, and we don't have much information at all (in this thread) as to what they would be used for.

 

[KalamMekhar]

The National Guard has much more important things to do than to mop up oil. When people cry for BP to pay for the clean up, and then ask for the National Guard to be sent in, is astounding to me. You pay the NG's wages, and quite frankly, the NG is not the right tool for the job (cutting cast iron pipe with a porta-ban when you have a chain break right next to you.) A volunteer/partially paid force of diehard helpers is what is needed. If they want to see the beach cleaned up, they can head down there themselves.

 

[mheslep]

http://www.marinelog.com/DOCS/NEWSMMIX/2010jun00152.html

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/06/oil-spill-foreign-help-and-the-jones-act/

I don't really understand the intricacies of shipping laws and who's allowed to do what but the claims that Obama is actively hindering the process by refusing to grant waivers seems false. The Jones act applies to shipping between ports, it was lifted during Katrina because goods needed to be shipped there. The cleanup boats aren't shipping goods, they're cleaning up oil

Yes I agree that seems to be the position of the Coast Guard.

Yet there seems to many confirmations that the Dutch offer of a vessel was turned down some time ago:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/7043272.html

Three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help.

It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.

The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,'” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.

 

[mynameinc]

an update:

Rainy Lake Oil gets their oil from Murphy Oil, and they supply all of the gas stations in my city.

Interesting, at the least.

The National Guard has much more important things to do than to mop up oil. When people cry for BP to pay for the clean up, and then ask for the National Guard to be sent in, is astounding to me. You pay the NG's wages, and quite frankly, the NG is not the right tool for the job (cutting cast iron pipe with a porta-ban when you have a chain break right next to you.) A volunteer/partially paid force of diehard helpers is what is needed. If they want to see the beach cleaned up, they can head down there themselves.

Agreed. Why can't BP pay the workers to clean it up? It's their monster.

 

[mheslep]

The National Guard has much more important things to do than to mop up oil. When people cry for BP to pay for the clean up, and then ask for the National Guard to be sent in, is astounding to me. You pay the NG's wages, and quite frankly, the NG is not the right tool for the job (cutting cast iron pipe with a porta-ban when you have a chain break right next to you.) A volunteer/partially paid force of diehard helpers is what is needed. If they want to see the beach cleaned up, they can head down there themselves.

Interesting, at the least.
Agreed. Why can't BP pay the workers to clean it up? It's their monster.

Per the Pentagon, BP is paying for the Guardsmen:
http://www.marinelog.com/DOCS/NEWSMMIX/2010apr00303.html

"In response to the BP oil spill, the Secretary of Defense is authorizing under Title 32 the mobilization of the Louisiana National Guard to help in the ongoing efforts to assist local communities in the cleanup and removal of oil and to protect critical habitats from contamination. As the responsible party in this incident, the government will hold BP accountable for the costs of the deployment."

 

[KalamMekhar]

Well there we go, I personally don't think the NG should be doing this, but whatever floats Obama's boat.

 

[Char. Limit]

Well there we go, I personally don't think the NG should be doing this, but whatever floats Obama's boat.

Right now, the substance floating Obama's boat is oily water. Let's see if we can fix that before winter... odds aren't looking good.

 

[nismaratwork]

Lets assume that the weather goes the way it is predicted, and the fed and BP suddenly cooperate in a truly implausibe manner; wouldn't this still be a disaster? I can't see a way to fix this, especially given the dispersants, in anything short of decades. I don't think the assets to fix this, the booms, absorbants, and skimmers exist to handle this, and with so much of the oil suspended beneath the surface, and more to be churned by hurricanes...

...Well, you get the idea. In the end, a lot of what happens from here on out, not all of it, but most... was written the moment this well failed catastrophically. That may be why the blame game is so appealing, as it distracts from the reality that there IS no solution for this anytime soon. That, once again, goes back to BP, TransOcean, and our government, especially rules from 2007, and the MMS as a whole.

 

[SonyAD]

Thom Hartmann on corporate personhood, what difference a word makes.

 

[mynameinc]

Thom Hartmann on corporate personhood, what difference a word makes.

Corporations get the rights of a person, but don't always get the responsibilities.

 

[brainstorm]

Why do you regard the State as some sort of Parent, KalamMekhar?

This is a good point, but ironically it is not only the state that individuals' regard as a parent, but also any form of institutionalized authority, which they view as responsible for practically everything that goes on outside of their own sphere of direct control as individuals.

If you would look back to when gas reached $4 a gallon, you would see that consciousness of the free market forces of supply and demand, and the way they regulate pricing, had reached a high among the public. People were talking about ways to flood the market with oil to push supply-side competition so that speculation on a lower oil price would ensue and drive down the price at the pump.

The public had become very savvy, but they were also pushing for loosening (offshore) drilling restrictions and increasing the number of wells to flood the market with cheap gas. Ironically, this spill is even more of a "flood" than was intended. The fact is that when you push for more gas at a cheaper price, is it really any surprise that this would result in more risk-taking that could result in a spill or other disaster?

Now people want to blame BP for responding to public demand or they want to blame the government for not sufficiently regulating BP's response to that demand, but what about blaming the demand itself? What about the fact that after who knows how many years of escalating gas prices, people did not sufficiently adjust their everyday driving habits to sustainable levels?

The reason they didn't is because too many view themselves as powerlessly responding to external authorities. They think they have to work too far from home or live too far from work to walk or bike. They maintain a workplace culture of traditionalism that prevents them from fully implementing the possibility to work from home and telecommute instead of coming into the office every day.

If it was the case that the consumers and businesses that demand oil had done everything possible to reduce consumption and demand, I would say that this spill was more due to corporate management practices. However, what I really think is that the corporate managers work for the investors and the consumers who pay them, and when they are under pressure to produce more, the probability of taking risks and making mistakes goes up.

Now, people want to sell their stock in BP and boycott BP gas out of disapproval, yet the law holds BP accountable for the cleanup, so all people are really doing by boycotting is taking money out of the cleanup fund. Maybe this is not such a bad thing, since the cost should really be spread among everyone who consumes oil and gas. But the irony remains that people are white washing their consciences of responsibility as consumers by driving past the BP station for the next gas pump.

Until cultural reforms and technological innovations create sufficient diversity of alternatives for current oil-dependency culture, I think periodic spills and other disasters like this one involving oil drilling are going to be an inevitable facet of global economics.

People get tired of hearing about individual responsibility and continuing to go greener in their cultural habits, but how else are the consumption practices that require such high levels of energy as to necessitate fossil-fuel use supposed to change? Renewable sources cannot keep up with current per-capital demand levels. Conservation has to meet energy-source reform halfway. Consumers can't have their cake and eat it too.

Government could help by creating policies that facilitate better integration of workplace and residential zoning so people could live close to work. Management could help by becoming more flexible in allowing for telecommuting and scheduling that helps stay-at-home parents to work part time close to home without having to work so much to afford a second car, insurance, and gas/maintenance costs. Business entrepreneurs and city-planners could help by creating more local/neighborhood activities for kids and families to reduce the pressure to drive around the city or region in search of activities for kids and families.

Ultimately, it is possible to live well without much combustion transit but it requires pro-active approaches to achieving it. Without those, people just keep reacting to the lack of local amenities by getting in their car once again and driving off to the next thing, skipping the BP pump and filling their tank at the next potential polluter.

 

[nismaratwork]

This is a good point, but ironically it is not only the state that individuals' regard as a parent, but also any form of institutionalized authority, which they view as responsible for practically everything that goes on outside of their own sphere of direct control as individuals.

If you would look back to when gas reached $4 a gallon, you would see that consciousness of the free market forces of supply and demand, and the way they regulate pricing, had reached a high among the public. People were talking about ways to flood the market with oil to push supply-side competition so that speculation on a lower oil price would ensue and drive down the price at the pump.

The public had become very savvy, but they were also pushing for loosening (offshore) drilling restrictions and increasing the number of wells to flood the market with cheap gas. Ironically, this spill is even more of a "flood" than was intended. The fact is that when you push for more gas at a cheaper price, is it really any surprise that this would result in more risk-taking that could result in a spill or other disaster?

Now people want to blame BP for responding to public demand or they want to blame the government for not sufficiently regulating BP's response to that demand, but what about blaming the demand itself? What about the fact that after who knows how many years of escalating gas prices, people did not sufficiently adjust their everyday driving habits to sustainable levels?

The reason they didn't is because too many view themselves as powerlessly responding to external authorities. They think they have to work too far from home or live too far from work to walk or bike. They maintain a workplace culture of traditionalism that prevents them from fully implementing the possibility to work from home and telecommute instead of coming into the office every day.

If it was the case that the consumers and businesses that demand oil had done everything possible to reduce consumption and demand, I would say that this spill was more due to corporate management practices. However, what I really think is that the corporate managers work for the investors and the consumers who pay them, and when they are under pressure to produce more, the probability of taking risks and making mistakes goes up.

Now, people want to sell their stock in BP and boycott BP gas out of disapproval, yet the law holds BP accountable for the cleanup, so all people are really doing by boycotting is taking money out of the cleanup fund. Maybe this is not such a bad thing, since the cost should really be spread among everyone who consumes oil and gas. But the irony remains that people are white washing their consciences of responsibility as consumers by driving past the BP station for the next gas pump.

Until cultural reforms and technological innovations create sufficient diversity of alternatives for current oil-dependency culture, I think periodic spills and other disasters like this one involving oil drilling are going to be an inevitable facet of global economics.

People get tired of hearing about individual responsibility and continuing to go greener in their cultural habits, but how else are the consumption practices that require such high levels of energy as to necessitate fossil-fuel use supposed to change? Renewable sources cannot keep up with current per-capital demand levels. Conservation has to meet energy-source reform halfway. Consumers can't have their cake and eat it too.

Government could help by creating policies that facilitate better integration of workplace and residential zoning so people could live close to work. Management could help by becoming more flexible in allowing for telecommuting and scheduling that helps stay-at-home parents to work part time close to home without having to work so much to afford a second car, insurance, and gas/maintenance costs. Business entrepreneurs and city-planners could help by creating more local/neighborhood activities for kids and families to reduce the pressure to drive around the city or region in search of activities for kids and families.

Ultimately, it is possible to live well without much combustion transit but it requires pro-active approaches to achieving it. Without those, people just keep reacting to the lack of local amenities by getting in their car once again and driving off to the next thing, skipping the BP pump and filling their tank at the next potential polluter.

All sad, but hard to refute. It's almost the kind of learned helplessness you see in victims of long term abuse, who could escape, but believe to their core that they cannot.