Re: back to the land policies

I think it's pretty clear though that the two oil men we elected into office weren't too keen on regulating the oil industry (in particular, if BP's well had been required to have an acoustic switch, as other countries require on underwater wells, the current disaster might've been prevented).

If oil companies were not exempt from full liability, you'd already have people in jail for the Gulf spill. Or the spill wouldn't have happened at all, most likely. Either because BP would've taken care to undertake all the security measures it didn't, or because it would've deemed the wells too risky to drill.

As it is, limiting oil companies' liability rewards taking unreasonable risk because all the profits are BP's but the liabilities end up going to the government (meaning, everyone as taxpayer).

And that is not because of too little regulation. It is because of too much. Every industry has full liability - until they get a NEW LAW exempting them from it. If the government hadn't distorted the natural market incentives, which include pay for it if you screw up, the oil spill wouldn't have happened or wouldn't have been as bad as it now is.

Add to it the growing limitations and opposition to drill on land or shallow waters in the USA; neither of which, even in a worst case scenario, would've caused such a disaster (and we know that: Saddam intentionally tried to cause it when he was forced out of Kuwait, everyone else yawned)

Of course, we shouldn't even be drilling oil by now. If nuclear energy had been developed unconstrained, BP wouldn't even have an oil division by 2010. But governments scared people into fearing Mutants and Terrorists.