I think that deep water drilling should be 100% legal and number of leases increased

[WeDidIt]

I think the increase of leases should be five or six times the level currently available, but only after the regulations are increased. Furthermore, any company with a lease should be required to put up a $10 billion deposit against future claims. Also, there should be no cap whatsoever on liability claims, nor should there be a cap on punitive damages. Punitive damages for any spill should be equivalent to five times any realized liability for losses and that number should be MANDATORY in the event of any spill. Bottom line, any spill from any drilling rig results in six times the damage done being paid out.

On top of that, compliance regulations should require that any company should pay for five compliance inspectors for every worker on any rig.

That should be enough to insure that though legal and available, there is never another deep water drilling rig at all.

[Junkdrawer]

1. Until we get a handle on the methane hydrate issues (among others)...

new deep sea leases should be put on hold.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

2. ..........

:popcorn:

[dipsydoodle]

15. No place like it

even if it is ever so 'umble. :hi:

[PurityOfEssence]

3. Money's no comfort to a dying bird

But then, they don't vote, do they?

[WeDidIt]

4. The idea is to make the cost of deep water drilling

higher than any potential profit.

That will stop it cold.

[gateley]

7. That's the only way to get a response/action - through their pockets. nt

[yodoobo]

Well if that's the idea.. then lets just ban it.

Don't be surprised if the oil industry gets creative and finds a way to -technically- comply with all your proposed rules. Especially if they teamed up with the corrupt financial derivatives industry.

[WeDidIt]

9. I don't see that as a politically viable option

41 votes in the Senate is all it takes to stop that cold, and drilling is still very popular. Regulation is acceptable, though, and that could get through the Senate.

[Xicano]

11. .....

"in the event of any spill"

Some things you cannot put a price tag on. Our planet I would suspect is one of them.

"The idea is to make the cost of deep water drilling higher than potential profit. That will stop it cold."

A much simpler way would be to just outlaw it - period. It would seem that your previous posts from another thread yesterday and this posts suggest you fail to understand the lobby bribe game in Washington by the money powers. It would appear that Gore Vidal was correct when he said "we live in the United States of Amnesia". Jack Abramoff and K-Street (a prime example of this corruption) just happened recently all in the news.

[WeDidIt]

17. Outlawing it is politically impossible

41 no votes in the Senate is all it takes to shut that down and drilling is still extremely popular nation wide even in light of the current mess.

Regulation is nearly as popular as drilling and through regulation you can at least make deep water drilling cost prohibitive through regulation.

[Go2Peace]

6. And it is not just about "dying birds".

The ecological costs of even a single large accident, like this one are huge. So are the economic costs. There will be toxins in our food supply and some additional disease like cancers as a result as well.

On edit, I misunderstood the point of the OP.

[KittyWampus]

10. You totally missed the point. It's about making deep sea drilling unattractive to

corporations that don't give a shit about birds or anything else.

[yodoobo]

5. most of it sounds good, but the compliance inspectors part might need work

5 inspectors for every worker would lead to a strange setup where you have 500 people watching 100 workers. If 5 is good, lets make it 10. That way 1,000 people can watch 100.

You would probably have to build bleachers around most of the work so that inspectors could gather.

I read an interesting study once where a company found that the more inspectors they put on an assembly line, the worse the quality was. Apparently once they passed an optimal number of inspectors, more inspectors lead to a strange result where the workers were more lax because they could be confident that someone would catch it...and inspectors were more lax because they were more confident that other inspectors would catch it. A variant of tragedy of the commons developed.

I'm sure this is an optimal number of inspectors that should be onboard and required, but I suspect that an arbitrary number like 5 to 1 isn't it.

[KittyWampus]

8. Problem with that- Democrats lose control of Federal Government and Republicans eliminate

all money Oil Companies have to hold upfront.

[WeDidIt]

12. Anything the Democrats do will be killed by the Republicans

if they retake power.

What's your point?

[msongs]

13. or we could conserve 5-10% and make that drilling completely unnecessary nt

[taterguy]

16. Well, we could

But we won't.

Good idea though.

:toast:

[On the Road]

14. Another Alternative

that also depends on industry and financial incentives is to require X amount of insurance for offshore drilling. The insurance companies can impose whatever conditions they need and require whatever inspections they can get the client to agree to. Apparently France does this with the nuclear power industry with good success.

[Scuba]

18. Betcha would. It would still be profitable.