Responsibility for Damages

Ok. Here goes.

Walking out of work last night I looked up, wondering who the hell would be tarring a roof at 4AM. My next thought was, "Seriously hazy for this early in the morning." Then I realized it was smoke from the slick burn.

Looking at the news this morning, the slick has expanded from the size of Rhode Island to the size of Puerto Rico in two days. While some experts say this is a false reading, ( contending satellites can't determine slick depth, weather, etc) it more than likely means that the main line is cracked much worse than originally feared. If that main line goes, it is an Exxon Valdez spill every two days.

For reasons too cumbersome to explain in this post, the plugging of this leak is at best 3 weeks, at worst months away.

So.

Let's be angelic advocates and say there was no negligence, no faulty drilling practices, no guidelines disregarded on the part of the BP personnel. It was an accident. BP was doing work vital to the economy of the United States and the world, employing people at a decent wage and providing benefits to lots of families. And now we're faced, as a nation, with the catastrophic economic disaster of the loss of the fourth largest job industry in the region. (Seafood and seafood related industries account for the fourth largest segment of employment in the Gulf Coast region, from Brownsville, TX to Key West, FL, behind the defense industry, oil, and casino work.) Tens of thousands of people will very shortly be out of work, with the residual effects that could last over a decade. (Oyster beds could be contaminated for generations. One needs to harvest the contaminated oysters to "clean" the beds, but the act of harvesting reintroduces contaminants into the water, contaminating the new oysters, and so on.)

The cries for what the federal government is going to do about the fishermen is what I'm asking about, not the clean-up. My cynicism towards federal intervention notwithstanding, the clean-up will be on BP's bill. The only thing our government likes doing more than spending money is spending someone else's money. Is BP responsible for the unemployment of thousands of self employed fishermen? Plus the people at the factories and processing plants?