The Consequences of Offshore Drilling

[Patroklos]

There is a reason I quoted the comment I did.

 

[Cutlass]

Wow, that was a good one. No dice, though--like most snakes, I'm immune to my own venom.

My opinion has nothing to do with this. My opinion of private property? Irrelevant. Do I think somebody should be allowed to destroy another's property with impunity? Irrelevant. The fact is that most businesses care first and foremost (and sometimes only) about their pocketbooks. They want to avoid spilling oil because then they can't make four bucks a gallon off it.

Whether that incentive is enough to make you happy (which is probably impossible) is beside the point.

What is irrelevant is whether I'm happy or not. What is relevant is whether it causes them to modify their behavior. And since your method has a 100% fail rate at that, i have no faith in it.

 

[Murky]

A little secret I'd like to share: even with no oil rigs at all off U.S. coasts, the risk of an oil spill is already there--because the oil tankers that transport oil from the rigs to your gas pump UNLOAD that oil off our coasts. They've been doing it that way for decades.

With the oil rigs off our coasts, there will be fewer tankers sailing for fewer miles. In some cases, the oil rigs may be able to simply pipe their output directly to shore (which may simply replace oil spills via tanker accidents with oil spills via a burst pipe).


They already do. When an oil spill occurs, the company that spilled it loses millions of dollars' worth of oil.

How do you know there will be fewer oil tankers? Couldn't the oil companies both drill offshore and continue importing oil too? If that's the case then I see only an increase risk, not less.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Beach resorts could potentially lose millions in the event of a large spill. Who's going to pay for it?

With the way things worked in the Exxon Valdez case, that would be:
Resorts, fishermen, etc. absorb the bulk of the damage;
Court cases drag on for many years;
Oil producer/transporter eventually pays that fraction of the damages that can be easily quantified and proven, minus the lawyers' take.

Someone suggested to me that oil rigs should pay into some type of insurance program up front, money they get back after they decommission a rig. It seemed reasonable on that front, except that it was a barrier to entry.

That was me

As I say, the question is how comprehensive, and how large, the insurance they have to purchase is.

Whatever the worst historical case was, re-valued for today's level of property development, seems a good rule to me. If oil rig safety technology has improved so much, that should make the insurance reasonably cheap. Win-win!

(Of course, that's medium Win for average Joes, and medium Win for oil companies; whereas said companies prefer Risky Situation for Joe and Really Big Win for companies.)

 

[BasketCase]

How do you know there will be fewer oil tankers? Couldn't the oil companies both drill offshore and continue importing oil too? If that's the case then I see only an increase risk, not less.

Because the U.S. is an oil importer. If we drill it here, that means fewer tankers porting the stuff to us from the other side of the planet.

What is relevant is whether it causes them to modify their behavior.

You're presuming that a change of behavior is warranted.

You're just like the radical feminists that were always marching around my college campus. "One rape is too many", they were always saying. They'd set themselves up to fail from the start, setting an impossible goal and then blaming everybody else when that goal was not attained.

We need oil in order to survive, keep your car going, and supply electricity to that computer you're using right now (though, seeing as how you're reading one of MY posts, your computer is probably not making you happy right now ). No oil, no Internet. No CFC. Drilling is a risk you're just going to have to deal with. And, according to all the polls showing that a majority of Americans want more offshore drilling: they're willing to deal with it.

 

[GoodGame]

FEMA/EPA will try to, but forget to pay their phone bill.

If it happens in an election year, the phone bill will get paid, but after the response, it will trigger an economic crisis and a special session of congress.

Alternatively, we could contract the clean-up of the oil slick to 3rd world pirates. They're very efficient.

So if there's a big oil rig spill just off the coast of some tourist destination, who's going to pay for the loss of business?

 

[GenMarshall]

So if there's a big oil rig spill just off the coast of some tourist destination, who's going to pay for the loss of business?

Who cares, give me my tank of cheap gas. Keep our money out of the hands of nations that hate our guts.

Wake me up when we have a Powersat online or effectively look into Dark Energy as a source of power.

 

[Lay_Lay]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cutlass
The rig operator should still be required to pay 100% of damages, in order to keep them careful.

They already do. When an oil spill occurs, the company that spilled it loses millions of dollars' worth of oil.

See the flaw? You say, they already do pay 100% damages. But you obviously know that losing and then cleaning up the oil is not the same thing as paying for damage to private or public property that the oil spilled onto, which is what Cutlass meant by 100% of damages.

That could mean paying out lost tourism revenues to affected businesses, families.

 

[Cutlass]

Because the U.S. is an oil importer. If we drill it here, that means fewer tankers porting the stuff to us from the other side of the planet.


You're presuming that a change of behavior is warranted.

You're just like the radical feminists that were always marching around my college campus. "One rape is too many", they were always saying. They'd set themselves up to fail from the start, setting an impossible goal and then blaming everybody else when that goal was not attained.
.

And you're just like the misogynists who think that the rape victim should be put on trial to prove she isn't a slut.

By your reasoning, I should be allowed to dump toxic waste in your front yard. I can't see any reason why you might have a complaint about that.

 

[BasketCase]

And you're just like the misogynists who think that the rape victim should be put on trial to prove she isn't a slut.

No, but she does have to take the rapist to court and prove he did it.

Until then--he didn't.

Geez, this is the third Off Topic thread in a row where somebody tried to follow the rule "guilty until proven innocent".

See the flaw? You say, they already do pay 100% damages. But you obviously know that losing and then cleaning up the oil is not the same thing as paying for damage to private or public property that the oil spilled onto, which is what Cutlass meant by 100% of damages.

I know more about punitive responsibility than you do. More than most of CFC, in fact. A few months back my car got hit in the ass end by a driver who ran a red light. Her insurance company didn't pay me a dime.

The thing that's really at work here is the "deep pockets" rule. Neither Cutlass nor most others in this thread actually give a crap about what's fair. The guy who was driving the Exxon Valdez was the guy actually responsible for crashing his tanker into Prince William Sound. But nobody goes after him because he doesn't have two hundred million dollars to clean up the mess.

That's the only reason. People go after big companies out of envy. Nothing more.

 

[Cutlass]

No, but she does have to take the rapist to court and prove he did it.

Until then--he didn't.

Geez, this is the third Off Topic thread in a row where somebody tried to follow the rule "guilty until proven innocent".

Do you have any comprehension of what you post? at all? anything?

Your response had literally not possible stretch to what I posted. It was so vastly unrelated that it boggles the mind.

Are you a communist? Is that why you oppose the private ownership or property?

 

[BasketCase]

Don't preach at me. You're the one who stooped to using loaded questions, and you're the one who started writing unrelated posts such as that line about taking a raped woman to court (which was bullcrap for reasons I already covered).

The Exxon Valdez crashed because of the DRIVER. And also there are accusations that the U.S. Coast Guard screwed a few things up. We didn't see the Great Socialist Crusade stepping in to punish the driver or the Coast Guard, did we? Nope. They went after Exxon. Turns out it was Exxon who paid for all the safeguards to prevent oil tankers from crashing to begin with.

I already know the real truth (see my previous post).

 

[Cutlass]

You're the one who changed the subject to letting rapists off the hook.

What confuses me is that you still continue to argue that private property should be taken for public purposes. Do you, or do you not, believe in private property?

Because you have been arguing for communism this entire thread.

 

[BasketCase]

No. You're the one who changed the subject. Don't believe me (I know you never do )--read back through the thread yourself. You paved the road, I had every right to drive on it.

You impose an impossible standard on oil companies (one oil spill is too many) and then point the finger at them when they inevitably fail. You act exactly like the ********s I met at college, and if you can't see the parallel example, the problem is on your end.

Yes, I believe in private property. Whether property is private has nothing to do with it, and you went completely non sequitor by bring it up. If Cutlass blows up my house, as I'm sure he wants to , I don't throw Cutlass' boss in prison. I throw CUTLASS in prison. If Cutlass spills a million gallons of oil in international waters, you don't make Cutlass' employer pay for it. You make CUTLASS pay for it. Whether the damaged property is private or not doesn't change anything.

 

[Onionsoilder]

The U.S. consumes 25% of the world's oil production. We own less then 3% of the world's oil reserves. How much of a difference will offshore drilling make?

Ask yourself: Is it really worth it to invest all that money into offshore rigs, when we won't see any benefit at all until 2020, and when we do, it will be so minor? I think a much better solution would be to simply look into alternative energy now.

 

[BasketCase]

The U.S. consumes 25% of the world's oil production. We own less then 3% of the world's oil reserves. How much of a difference will offshore drilling make?

Using those numbers, if we fully exploit our own reserves, that's a reduction of a little more than ten percent. That is a LOT.

 

[Berzerker]

drill baby drill, just that sends a signal to oil markets and the price comes down.

 

[Cutlass]

No. You're the one who changed the subject. Don't believe me (I know you never do )--read back through the thread yourself. You paved the road, I had every right to drive on it.

You impose an impossible standard on oil companies (one oil spill is too many) and then point the finger at them when they inevitably fail. You act exactly like the ********s I met at college, and if you can't see the parallel example, the problem is on your end.

Yes, I believe in private property. Whether property is private has nothing to do with it, and you went completely non sequitor by bring it up. If Cutlass blows up my house, as I'm sure he wants to , I don't throw Cutlass' boss in prison. I throw CUTLASS in prison. If Cutlass spills a million gallons of oil in international waters, you don't make Cutlass' employer pay for it. You make CUTLASS pay for it. Whether the damaged property is private or not doesn't change anything.

Ok. So you admit that you don't believe in private property. You have made it explicitly clear that you do not. There's nothing you could conceivably say at this point that would make me believe that you believe in the private ownership of property.

comrade.

 

[BasketCase]

Straw man. Cutlass loses the argument.

loser.

 

[Cutlass]

At least I'm not the communist you keep claiming to be