The Gulf Oil Spill Didn’t Have to Happen
April 29, 2010 at 5:50 PM Leave a comment
A man named Walter Hang, of Toxics Targeting, was on “The Ed Show” on MSNBC just now (6:32 p.m. ET). He said there is a device that can be installed on underwater wells like the one in the Gulf that burned and tipped over a last week. That well is now spewing 5,000 barrels (not gallons) of oil a day, oil that in a matter of hours will hit the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi. He described it as a thing that immediately caps the well if there is a problem above sea level. Both Norway and Brazil require that they be installed on all off-shore wells there, but they cost $500,000 and the U.S. government, lobbied by the oil companies, natch, hasn’t required that technology here.
Hang said at the very least, oil companies should be required to post bonds and get insurance that will cover the cleanup (the government should have to foot that bill — we might as well call that a bailout) and remunerate people who are harmed (like fishermen and landowners) if there is a spill.
Amen to that.
So, anyway, as always, (1) it’s about the money, and (2) the corporations win and We the People lose and the birds and the turtles and the fish lose.
Entry filed under: Corporatocracy, Nature, Science, Technology, The Environment, Weather, Etc.. Tags: .
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