Suggestion of New Legislation that would address Corp Responsibility in event of oil spills...

[Blackhatjack]

In the event that a corporation is granted the right to operate an offshore oil drilling rig and an oil spill occurs, then the CEO, and board of directors, of the corporation shall be required to PERSONALLY arrive on site of the spill and engage in the clean up efforts until all the spilled oil has been removed and/or dispersed. Any CEO or member of the board of directors who fails to comply with this statute shall be subject to a PERSONAL civil fine of $1 million dollars per day, and said corporation shall be subject to a CORPORATE fine of $10mil dollars per day, until ALL THE SPILLED OIL has been removed and/or dispersed.

Personal and Corporate responsibility needs to be imposed in order to properly incentivize these decisionmakers to take appropriate action.

Of course the civil fines should be increased for each day they do not comply with this statute.

[tekisui]

1. I think this is a fine idea, but doesn't address the real problem.

Extracting oil will inevitably have accidents. The ecological and environmental damage cannot be valued monetarily. We need to enact legislation that will lessen the potential and severity of the inevitable accidents. We should also work towards not putting oil rigs in environmentally sensitive areas.

[Blackhatjack]

2. I agree with your analysis, but this would help in the transition away from offshore rigs...

It appears in this case that the operators saved $500,000 by not installing an automatic cutoff valve.

We need to make sure the people at the top know they will get it personally and corporately if they don't take responsibility for making those rigs as safe as possible, and make them weigh the consequences if they do not.