Lessons we should take from the Gulf oil spill

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Wow. That oil spill just keeps getting worse. And now everyone’s blaming everyone else for the mess. This week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger  withdrew his support for a plan he championed to allow new offshore oil drilling off Santa Barbara County, citing the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

So this week’s question is: What lessons should we take away from this spill?

JIM BACA, blogger, former director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Albuquerque mayor, state land commissioner and recently retired natural resources trustee:

Oil is dirty.  It causes destruction and pollution from the exploratory stage to the production stage to the transport stage to the refining stage to the internal combustion stage.  Can we get off it completely any time soon?  The answer is no.  Can we get off it at some time in the future?  Of course but it will take a sea change in how we power our economies.

The lesson we learn from the current spill in the Gulf is that no matter how good we think we are at containing the harm from oil, we are actually not that good. ( This makes things look bad for nuclear energy too.)  Even stricter regulation and safety requirements are necessary.

One lesson we can learn is that we must keep the oil and gas industry isolated from influence on politics.  We must pass legislation on a national level limiting any extractive industry from providing campaign funds to politicians, committees and parties.  Or, a constitutional amendment I suppose.  We need tougher people in the Federal Government policing these folks.  The industry’s political influence makes that difficult and so it seems we always have to wait for a disaster like the current one for action to occur.  Kind of like the giant financial meltdown caused by greedy and not so smart bankers and traders on Wall Street.

Now lets look at the oil and gas industry’s influence in New Mexico.  The GOP is run by Yates Petroleum.  The oil boys seem to own some of the current candidates for Governor.  Just yesterday republican Susana Martinez came out with a TV commercial railing against environmental regulations on the oil industry, which had just given her $110,000 in donations.  Even Democrat Lt. Governor Diane Denish continually praises the oil boys and their importance to the state’s economy, although she will not be owned by them.

PAUL GESSING, president of the Rio Grande Foundation:

We haven’t even found out what caused the spill at this point, but there are certainly a few issues and takeaways, even at this early stage.

For starters, we must come to grips with the fact that our entire society is reliant — not addicted — to oil and fossil fuels in general. There are certainly things that can be done to reduce demand over time, but oil goes into too many products to eliminate offshore drilling. We all benefit from these products in terms of higher living standards, mobility, readily available electricity, and heated/cooled homes. So, we must understand that all forms of mining or oil drilling have certain risks associated with them. These risks must be mitigated to the best extent possible.

One thing that should not happen is to retroactively change a law that caps BP’s liability for economic damages at $75 million by raising that cap to $10 billion (this cap does not apply if BP is found to have acted negligently or violated the law). This law — which was adopted by Congress after the Exxon Valdez — also set up up a system under which BP and other oil companies put money away in the unfortunate event of an oil spill.

The best lesson we can take from this tragedy is that we don’t want them to happen again. While humans are imperfect, we must aim to come as close to perfection with regard to unmitigated environmental and human disasters like this spill.

ARTHUR ALPERT, veteran newsman, columnist and blogger:

Ho-hum. Another reminder that our oil addiction kills humans, flora and fauna and damages livelihoods. Even as it misdirects the national economy long-term. And subverts foreign policy.

This addiction rewards oil producers, oil field support companies and businesses dependent on oil and gas. Given that there hardly exists a concept of the national interest different from business interests, look for corporate America to emerge with its rewards unscathed – after a  lot of  sound and fury, of course, signifying nothing.

That’s the lesson.

RICHARD ANKLAM, president and executive director of the New Mexico Tax Research Institute, former director of tax policy for the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department

We hear a lot about the spill, with differing thoughts and opinions on its size, scope, solutions, speed of administrative response (i.e. “Obama’s Katrina”), ranging even more inanely into what state the spill resembles, in size or shape.  Not being an expert at all, what I find woefully inadequate is the amount of information and dialogue around the specific cause, what’s in place to keep this from happening, and what the driller’s and government’s plan is if it happens anyway.  Was there more prevention that could or should have been done by the driller?   Were the rules and regulations followed?  Is the status quo in that regard reasonable, or does more need to be done to ensure this  doesn’t happen again.  We certainly need our oil but we don’t need oily beaches and environmental catastrophes.  Off-shore drilling comes with much more cost, complication, and environmental risk than on-shore, so the answers are really important and if the discussion focused less on the sensational and political and more on the facts that matter, the answers would be much more evident already.  The same thing happens when they talk about taxes…

TERRI COLE, president and CEO, Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce:

We’ll know about “lessons learned” when we discover what went wrong with the safety valves that were supposed to work…but didn’t.  I hope we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water when we find that out but stay smart about how to create a safe but more plentiful and independent oil supply for the US in the future.

CARTER BUNDY, political action representative, AFSCME:

One of the shocking things from this oil spill is how suddenly all the anti-government folks are expecting government to clean up (literally, figuratively, and financially) a private company’s disaster.  Even more shocking is the libertarian Rio Grande Foundation’s insistence that BP not pay for the damage it causes (in fairness, they’re OK with BP paying $75 million, which is less about one days’ worth of profits–not revenue, profits).  Normally, even libertarians believe that if you cause harm to others, you should be held accountable.

The RGF’s protection of BP from liability is stunning, but maybe it has to do with RGF’s funding.  Much has been made over the funding of liberal groups over the past few years, and to their credit, the most highly-criticized progressive group, Center for Civic Policy, did disclose donors’ names.  I’d love to see how many mega-corporations and foundations with mega-corporation money are behind RGF and NM Watchdog.  By way of full disclosure, my union’s revenues come 100 percent from member dues and voluntary political contributions from nurses, corrections officers, police officers, fire fighters, groundskeepers, people who investigate child abuse, and dozens of other noble professions.  Some retirees from those positions also contribute.

My main takeaway is that oil companies and others with the potential to do tens of billions of dollars in harm should be accountable for every penny, including to all the private businesses like fishers and hotel owners along the Gulf Coast.  If BP has to sell every single asset to make this happen and go into bankruptcy, so be it.  But future BPs (read: every oil company in the country) should have to take out major insurance to pay the victims of these types of tragedies.  Why aren’t the libertarian/watchdog thinktanks concerned about small private business?  Follow the money.

So much for conservative/libertarian “principles” of accountability and paying for your deeds.  This oil spill has highlighted not only the dangers inherent in deep-sea drilling, but the fundamental hypocrisy of conservative and libertarian leaders in America and New Mexico.