Liability Caps, From Oil Spills to Nuclear Meltdowns

[ensho]

http://counterpunch.com/wasserman05182010.html


And It's All Tax-Deductible!


As BP destroys our priceless planet, its lawyers gear up to save the company from paying for the damage. The same will happen-
--only worse---with the next atomic reactor disaster.

By law, BP may be liable for only $75 million of the harm done by the Deepwater Horizon.

Ask yourself why the federal government would adopt legislation that limits the liability of an oil driller for the damage it does to
us all.

Ask the same question---on another order of magnitude---about nuclear power plants.

Some lawmakers have tried to raise this cap so BP could be made to pay for the wounds they have not yet stopped inflicting.

By any calculation, BP did more than $75 million in harm during the first hour of this undersea gusher. That sum won't begin to cover even the legal fees, let alone the tangible damage to our only home.

But "free market" Republicans have resisted raising the limit. So BP will walk away virtually scot free. All this will be tax deductible. So will the millions they'll spend changing the name of the company, and dumping all those pathetic "Beyond Petroleum" pamphlets.

Now imagine a melt-down alongside the blow-out. See the Deepwater Horizon as a nuclear power plant. Think of the rickety Grand Gulf, a bit to the north, or the two decaying reactors at South Texas, a ways to the west.

Imagine that apocalyptic plume of oil ravaging our seas as an airborne radioactive cloud.

Feel it pouring like Chernobyl over the south coast, enveloping all of Florida, blowing with the shifts of the winds up over the southeast, irradiating Atlanta, then Nashville, then New Orleans, then Houston, all through Mexico and the north coast of South America, the Caribbean, then around again across Florida, through the Atlantic and all over Europe, then around the globe two or three times more.

The instigators of such a nightmare are currently on the hook for a maximum of $11 billion. Ask yourself why the federal government would limit the liability of a reactor owner for the damage it imposes on the public.

There's a clear historic answer: In the 1950s, when the bomb-making Atomic Energy Commission wanted a civilian PR front, it asked the private utility industry to build commercial reactors. The electric companies refused, fearing that a melt-down could cost them everything.

So Congress passed the 1957 Price-Anderson Act, limiting a reactor owner's liability to a paltry $560 million. They promised that private insurers would soon take up the risk.
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I keep wondering if the oil will be sucked up in the Fl. nuke plant water intake pipe

that should make for a fun time

[nashville_brook]

1. net recommendation 0 (your vote +1) -- guess we've got pro-limited liability turds here

or...those magical "thinkers" who hold that nuclear is "clean and safe."

[dipsydoodle]

2. As far as I'm aware

they've already spent more than USD$350 million. From last Thursday : http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/9075952.

I'm interested to see what happens if a change is made retrospectively and for what period of time as that may then also help other claims against companies such as BP America ,across the world, for environmental damage.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Cost now expected to reach $625 million

BP, for its part, on Tuesday doubled the estimate of how much oil it was managing to siphon from the leak in the Gulf of Mexico, as it also lifted the total bill for the clean-up to $625 million.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37205691/ns/gulf_oil_spill

[amborin]

5. $625 million----what a joke!

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. Kill a person with a gun and go to jail for a long time

kill millions with oil or fallout and go to your yacht and sip champagne. America - The land of the insane.