According to this Reason TV video, if the president is serious about punishing those responsible for what is shaping up to be one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history, “he should save some room for a swift boot to his own derriere.”
Obviously, BP is ultimately responsible for the spill and for the clean-up, but the federal government is a major player in the problem. (Sounds just like something I would write about the federal government’s role in the financial crisis, doesn’t it?)
Reason TV editor-in-chief Nick Gillespie gives three main reasons why the government deserves a good spanking:
1. It owns the property on which the oil well is located.
2. It regulates offshore drilling.
3. In order to protect small players in the drilling industry, it capped economic damages from this sort of spill at just $75 million, a way-too-low cap that encourages risky behavior.
Am I the only one who derives some guilty pleasure that this is happening to BP, the most pretentious of the “we are so green” oil companies?