Cap on what BP has to pay for their mess.

Looks like there is a $75 million cap on the amount a oil company has to pay for clean up. You would hope they would step up to the plate and pay whatever it cost to clean up the mess but you never know. I think I read that they had alread paid out $40 some million and thats nowhere near what it's proably going to take.

They are trying to up the $75 million cap now.

[url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/25/exclusive-menendez-introd_n_588867.html[/url]



Also heard that if a hurricane did pop up and push inward to the coast that it could possibly carry oily rain into a few inland states. Now that would be bad.

Man a hurricane would be pouring salt in the gaping wound. Let's hope and pray that doesn't happen.
I'm on the fence about changing the rules like this. It sounds great but is it neccessary? Will it in fact hurt the little guys with enormous insurance costs to do business like our healthcare system is burdened with? We hear all the time about the cost of healthcare being directly proportional to the cost of liability insurance that the doctors have to pay.
Is this the beginning of that slippery slope?

[QUOTE=DJD;417848]Man a hurricane would be pouring salt in the gaping wound. Let's hope and pray that doesn't happen.
I'm on the fence about changing the rules like this. It sounds great but is it neccessary? Will it in fact hurt the little guys with enormous insurance costs to do business like our healthcare system is burdened with? We hear all the time about the cost of healthcare being directly proportional to the cost of liability insurance that the doctors have to pay.
Is this the beginning of that slippery slope?[/QUOTE]

It's going to get paid for by someone and like I said you would hope BP or any of the big oil companies would step up and pay for it all. I don't know if the little guys are doing the deep water offshore stuff so if something was to happen to a pipe or whatever it would be a lot easier to get to and fix before a massive amount of oil leaked out and caused $75 million plus to clean up. I could be completely wrong and they are doing the deep water stuff also.

But anyways I look at it this way, even if a small oil company did go under because of something like this and people lose jobs....... is it any worse than the people who make a living fishing, shrimping, tourism in that area........ losing their jobs because a oil company caused it? I say too bad oil company and take what they pay for clean up and train/hire the fisherman, shrimper...... to do the cleanup. JMHO

My point is that it doesn't stop with the big deep water guys. Once the ball is rolling along it's hard to stop. My fear would be that the "greenies" step up their money contributions to attack inshore oil drilling or gas stations or and place that holds fuel and or oil. I just think that this approach of "taxing" more right off the bat is wrong.
Fix the leak, make them pay, get everyone paid who helps clean it up and if BP wants to continue drilling oil in our boundries insure they take care of this with 100% cooperation.
I don't know how to do that. I know how we do it in construction projects and when companies are faced with fines and non payment of invoices they act much more quickly.
When you let the company in question run their own course of action for fixing problems they take the path of least resistance. Obamy should have been in conference with these folks from the start. Hearing last night he has not done alot in meeting with BP. Not even a phone call! That should be what we are doing not playing law maker and pointing fingers.
Fix the problem worry about the legal mumbo jumbo later. Heck do both but fix the leak.

This really pisses me off now that teh CEO has a commercial out where he swears they will " make it right"...what a load of manure... if he were to make it right, he would volunteer BPs money to pay teh unemployment of those on teh gulf now out of work due to his companies negligence instead of leaving the burben on teh tax payers...

and dont get me started on the government inspectors who failed to see teh problems on this rig before teh fact...

It seems the 87,000,000 assest against BP didn't faze them one bit. The 75 mill cap is a bad idea, but at least its something, the small fry is going to have an enoumous outlay to drill in deeper water, what happens if an accident occurs? A workmans lien against BP would be almost futile to enforce. Could a border line company afford trhe clean up of this size? doubtfull.It took almost 18 years to finally get the judgement against Exon settled, and thats an american company.Of course thwe flip side of the coin is, the damage has been done, so what more could go wrong?If there are underwater plumes that are moving toward the atlatic ocean, 75 million will be a drop in the bucket.