The_Dunedan

RB, I think this may be one of those situations were you and I should put our heads together and see if we don't come up with something.

I personally, of course, am not a fan of the Government regulating things. But as this incident (among many others) has shown, it's not usually a good idea to leave the fox guarding the metaphorical hen-house.

My thinking on this specific situation (and others like it) is basically this.

A: The only reason BP/Transocean/Halliburton are able to get away with this kind of laxity is because no effective method of sanction is in play. Part of the reason for this that, as "Corporate citizens," such entities are a very lucrative source of funds for our cash-strapped Government: the US has the second-highest corporate taxation rate in the world (.5 of one percentage point behind Japan), and this makes "don't bite the hand that pays you" a serious dynamic in all such cases. If the Gov't sanctions such a company too aggressively, that company might just pack up and leave, depriving the Government in question of access to billions of dollars in tax revenue. Additionally, the nature of Corporate Personhood means that actually -hurting- these companies (and the people within them making boneheaded decisions) is very, very difficult.

B: Since the Gov't will not or cannot sanction such Corporations effectively, consumers and the market should step in. This is where I regard the de-legitimization of Corporate Personhood as essential. Using the Deepwater Horizon accident as an example, an environmental catastrophe like this -should- be opening up the principal actors (BP, TO, HB) to enormous and crippling lawsuits by millions of plaintiffs. Those lawsuits should stand, and those lawsuits should STING. But because the Gov't is dependant upon Corporate tax revenues (while at the same time being beholden on the individual-legislature level to Corporate lobbyists), neither is likely. If past behaviors are any example, the lawsuits may be allowed to proceed, but none of the principal actors (or their numbnutted employees who made these decisions) will pay a cent. Twenty years on, and Exxon -still- has not paid a red cent of their fine for the Prince William Sound spill.

C: As a result, I am in favour of a multi-part approach such as the following:

1: Remove the market distortion known as Corporate Personhood. I've made my thoughts on this step clear in other threads and earlier here, so I won't elaborate.

2: Consumer's groups (J.D. Power & Associates, for example) should step up to the plate and compile the same kind of quality reports for oil/gas firms, nuke plants, etc...that they already do for automobiles, consumer goods, etc. If a firm or product passes below an acceptable threshold, that firm should be slapped with the kind of bad press that sinks gunmakers (Smith & Wesson), electronics firms (Fuji) and auto manufacturers (Chrysler). If that product causes actual -harm- (as in BP's drilling fuckup)...

3: Lawsuits. BIG ones. Lots of them. Against not only the offending firm (BP, say) but also against the persons -within- that firm responsible for the decision(s) which led to the litigable harm. If the CEO of British Petroleum had to come to the US (or send his lawyers) to defend against lawsuits from essentially the entire Gulf Coast of the US, -plus- the Mexican east coast, -plus- all the people (seasonal workers, tourists, travel-agents, seafood resteraunts, etc) who have been harmed by this...methinks he'd make sure his company was a bit more careful.
It like "Fight Club" in reverse. What if, instead of figuring out if a company could afford lawsuits more than they could afford a recall, "Jack" had to have been employed as an auditor looking out for lawsuits-in-waiting because, should he -miss- one and someone get hurt, his jackass boss would have been sued down to his skivvies along with the company itself? Combine this with the power of the advocacy groups mentioned above, and the possibility exists for a very responsive and very thorough feedback/sanction system which would not only provide a marvelous incentive to deal with these kinds of problems pro-actively. If negligence of this scale was enough to sink a company and impoverish its' officers, this kind of thing would be a -lot- less common.

4: Unions. I know, I know, you never thought to hear a right-wing loony like me advocating Unions. But here is where I think they could have a serious impact and in the best possible way. Unions should step in to say to their employers "Look, if you guys get stupid, we're all out of a job. So we're here to make sure you don't get stupid. We'll help you find the stupid and get rid of it...but if you bring it back, we're walking out. All of us." And I think this is one area where Unions still have a very, VERY big voice and need for existence: keeping their employers smart. This is pro-active: if the Union decides or observes that the company is getting dumb, they can put pressure on the company from within well -before- something goes catastrophically wrong. If a Shop Steward representing even 50% of the workers on Deepwater Horizon had emailed BP and said "Look, we just finished a pretty important test out here, and my guys are getting edgy 'cause a big piece of safety equipment failed on us. This needs fixin' or we're outta here, 'cause we don't wanna get caught in the fallout when this thing goes kablooey" it would have gotten somebody's attention. Even moreso if that Shop Steward hit everybody on his/her email address-book with that same email. All of a sudden every manager and safety wonk in BP would know something was up, and every Union member would too. And just because someone doesn't join a Union doesn't mean they can't act in support of that Union when it's releasing vital safety/employment-related information. A general Union/non-Union walkout, or even the threat thereof, is the kind of thing that could make BP or someone like them sit up and pay attention, especially since it would be the kind of thing that would presage the likelihood of crippling lawsuits and bad press (as above).

Just my notions and ruminations. YMMV.