A bill to increase the liability cap for oil spills from $75 million to $10 billion was defeated Thursday by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Bill S.3305, the “Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act” would cap BP’s liability at $10 billion, even if damages from the gulf oil spill surpass that figure. The company already estimates that spill will cost $450 million to clean up. Murkowski, a drilling supporter, has received almost $300,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. While Murkowski said that she supports raising the cap, she argued that the $10 billion figure would prohibit all but the biggest of oil companies from drilling oil offshore….
By now, I’d imagine that anyone who hasn’t been asleep since April 19th is aware of the oil spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20th. While the degree of damage seems to vary according to who’s talking and whose interests they happen to represent, there can be little doubt that offshore drilling has been exposed as not exactly safe and risk-free. Sober, honest reflection would seem to dictate proceeding carefully with multinational oil companies and their predilection for risky behavior, but there are those in Congress so beholden to Big Oil that they’re still willing to give offshore drillers everything they want…and then some.
DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!
Big Oil owns Lisa Murkowski in the same way I have clear title to my car. Murkowski has been bought and paid for several times over, and she’s proven herself to be a worthy and valuable foot soldier. She may have been sent to Washington by Alaska’s voters, but she’s far more beholden to the petroleum industry. Murkowski’s blocking of a bill to raise the oil spill liability cap is but the latest and most egregious of her devotion to an industry that not only owns her, but also most of Alaska. It’s the most basic application of the Golden Rule: He who has the gold, makes the rules.
For a Senator representing a state so adversely impacted by the 11 million gallons spilled into Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez, Murkowski seems to have learned little to nothing from the history in her own backyard. Then again, Murkowski represents Alasks, not any of the states along the Gulf Coast. And since the people who live along the Gulf Coast tend to be poor (they generally don’t have the disposable income to donate to GOP causes) and lack anything resembling political clout, Murkowski can essentially tell them to go pound sand. Holding Big Oil accountable is just simply bad business…and really, this isn’t about the environment, anyway. It’s about the bottom line…and we all know that government regulation is a job-killer, right??
By some estimates, the equivalent of the volume of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez is spewing into the Gulf of Mexico twice a week. Since none of Murkowski’s constituents will be adversely impacted (no dead dolphins or turtles washing up on Alaska’s beaches), she apparently sees no conflicts in continuing to to coddle those who gifted the Gulf Coast with this clusterf—k. Man, with friends like this, who need enemas?
DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!
