Obama Accomplishments pt12: Oil Spill Recovery Bill

Obama Administration Accomplishments List

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"The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before." Robert Frost Once By The Ocean

• Accomplishment: Introduced Oil Spill Recovery Bill to remove oil company liability cap. (ref)
• What is it? 
  Changes to increase current cap on natural resource and economic damages and add new measures to assist those affected.  The previous cap (maximum that an oil company would have to pay, no matter how much damage it caused) was $75 million on economic damages and $500 million on natural resource damages.  This bill also provides additional assistance those people who lose their jobs due to an oil spill. (ref)

• Why does it matter?
  The prior caps were based on the quantity of oil that was extracted and transported 20 years ago(ref).  Even disregarding inflation, oil spills now have a much greater cost, because so much more is being extracted and transported, so when it leaks or spills, there is more to spill.  Oil spills cause tremendous ecological damage, displace people, and cause loss of employment, plus, sometimes, loss of life by workers.  Additionally, there are the costs incurred from having the EPA and the Coastguard clean up spills.
  
  The higher cap of $750 million provides more of a cushion for covering expenses connected with large spills.  You may ask, "Isn't $750 million an awful lot to pay?"  Well, yes.  $750 million is an awful lot of money.  However, it is significantly less than the amount of damage created by many oil spills.  If anything, I would think the cap should be raised even higher.
  
  
  For perspective, imagine I pulled a Tim Taylor and dropped a crane on a your car.  I would be expected to pay for the car to be repaired: whether the car was a $4,000 junker or a $40,000 Cadillac, if I caused the damage, I would be expected to pay for it. 
  
  
  If it still seems like $750 million is too much to expect to be paid, no matter how much damage is caused, consider this: In a 4-year-timespan, BP earned $82 billion in profit (after all expenses are deducted).  This means BP had an average annual profit of $20.5 billion: that's $20,500,000,000.  The cap, i.e. maximum required to pay is $750,000,000.  $75 million is 3.66%.  If you took me to court after I dropped a crane on your beautiful, new, Cadillac, you would expect me to pay the full cost of damages, and not have some judge rule that it's too much to expect someone to pay more than 3% of their income in order to clean up after their accidents.
  
  
  I used BP as an example because they were highly publicized, and their income makes for a good demonstration.  However, the cap was somewhat irrelevant to their specific circumstance, since they took responsibility and agreed to pay $20 billion into a spill fund.  Yet, this example proves to emphasize just how low an estimate $500 million was for potential damage culpability.  Whether or not the $20 billion even was enough is debatable.  Many who lost their jobs due to loss of tourism or other side-effects were denied their claims.  One of the aspects of the bill was to increase government assistance for people who experienced those circumstances.  I feel the Oil Spill Recovery Bill was a big step in the right direction: it is my hope that the Obama administration will continue to push for increased caps.