Aizle wrote:
First priority is obviously stopping the leak.
Stopping the leak is already BP's top priority with the situation. First, it's costing them actual money; second, it's costing them potential money. More importantly, it's destroying both political capital and economic goodwill. I realize both of those terms are kind of amorphous and ambiguous, but the reality is that BP is going to suffer for a lot longer than you think or are willing to consider over this mess. It's highly unlikely they will be able to drill in international waters or other territories for some time. BP relies on international goodwill for its product harvesting, which means less cooperation from countries that do hold untapped oil reserves. It also means if BP wants to keep putting end products in the hands of its consumers, it's going to have to buy oil from already establishing drilling facilities and companies.
So, I'm not worried about the leak getting stopped, inasmuch as it absolutely makes sense and every indicator points to it being BP's top operational priority at the moment.
Aizle wrote:
After the leak is contained, then there needs to be an investigation to determine what caused the issue. The investigation should focus on fact finding and root cause determination. Based on the results, I would expect recommendations around what (if anything) could have been done to prevent the issue, and recommendations on how to be prepared for a similar problem in the future.
This is already taking place, but the government has no people in place with the knowledge or ability to make such determinations. BP's Petroleum Engineers, and other petroleum engineers, are already working on this problem; as are the engineers that designed the blow-out preventer and other safety mechanisms in place to prevent this kind of disaster. However, we're talking about roughly under water. And recovering the defective hardware at this point will only complicate the matter further. So, we need to deal with whatever is going on at 2400 psi and cold enough to freeze methane gas the moment it hits the pipes. And that's no easy matter. Like I said, the best guess I've heard from informed people is that the directed charges which cause the blow-out preventer to work ignited the methane in the pipe and caused an explosion. If so, it's going to be, at a month, 2 or 3 years before we're in a place to recover the faulty device. And that doesn't include all of the other problems in the chain of events and parts related to this.
Aizle wrote:
If in the course of the investigation it was determined that there was criminal wrong doing, then I would expect legal action to punish those responsible.
What possible crime could have occurred? What reasoning do you have for even invoking criminality?
Aizle wrote:
Additionally, if it was determined that there are gaps in the regulation or oversight needed to help ensure a similar issue doesn't happen in the future, I would expect new bills to be produced to attempt to correct those gaps.
Why do you think oversight and regulation are the answer? What knowledge or ability does the government possess to prevent these things? Everyone and their mother knew that deep sea drilling was dangerous. Everyone and their mother knew that there could be unforeseen complications. Again, what failure of regulation occurred? Because something bad happened? Well, bad outcomes aren't exactly a reason to get up in and arms and ruin a corporation or put people out of work or call down the government banhammer. I mean hell, I had explosive diarrhea yesterday from something I ate. I can probably tell you where it came from and what it was. Should the government fine the restaurant that sold me the food when there's no humanly possible way to detect the problem without ridiculous amounts of equipment that would delay my meal by 45 minutes?
That's an appropriate analogy to your solution. You keep saying, this needs government; demands government; government is the solution. Except, it's not. It's simply a bad outcome from a risky maneuver that failed. Maybe we should start suing or legislating responses to bad outcomes in the laboratory. We did it with doctors after all; and, if you had your way, we're going to do so with this oil spill. I mean, hell, what the hell do ocean floor earthquakes do with oil and methane deposits? That's another cause, too. And sometimes, we just don't know about it ... we need to regulate those right?
Aizle wrote:
Finally, I would expect that those responsible for the leak to be held accountable for all of the costs for cleanup and economic impact to the affected regions.
BP is already being held accountable for both the immediate and tangential costs of clean up and repair. As for economic impact to affect regions ... what constitutes a meaningful impact? Second, do you have proof of negligence or wrong doing? Because, honestly, unless you can prove either, incidental harm is again dictating policy and punishment based on a bad outcome, not intent to harm or intent to ignore safety.
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Corolinth wrote:
Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.
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