The Seven Biggest Oil-Spill Questions Obama Faces Tonight1

The Seven Biggest Oil-Spill Questions Obama Faces Tonight1

Who pays for this mess? Under current law, BP has to pay all the cleanup costs, but only $75 million in indirect damages (which includes, for instance, wiping out the livelihood of shrimp farmers along the coast). Obama could call on Congress to lift this liability cap. Administration officials have also been talking about forcing BP to open an escrow account as big as $20 billion to compensate victims in the Gulf, instead of using that money to dole out scheduled dividends to BP shareholders.Office 2007 makes life great!

Can future spills be prevented? Now this is a vexing question. Is deepwater drilling inherently accident-prone? Or does it just need better oversight? Odds are, Obama will take the latter view. He'll probably push for a flurry of new regulations (regulation aficionados can see a long list here), and maybe require the sort of deepwater rig safeguards that other nations employ. Of course, that won't eliminate spills entirely: Just last August, an Australian rig blew out and flooded the Timor Sea with oil for ten weeks, so the Gulf disaster wasn't just a result of uniquely lax U.S. rules.Office 2007 download is on sale now!

Should offshore drilling be stopped altogether? In theory, Obama could argue that deepwater drilling is just too difficult and dangerous to allow and push for a new moratorium. But he'd get a lot of blowback from Gulf senators like Louisiana's Mary Landrieu. Plus, it's not like this addresses the demand issue. If we restrict offshore drilling in the United States but continue filling up our cars and tanks with endless amounts of gasoline, then that oil still has to come from somewhere. And it'll come from places like the Niger Delta, where Shell and other companies leak the equivalent of an ExxonValdez tanker into the water every year. Not exactly a feel-good option.Office 2010 key is for you now!