I don’t understand the law all that well, but it appears that back in 1986 the oil companies bought Congress themselves a maximum liability of $75 million for damages related to any oil spill. They are responsible for cleaning up the mess, but who knows what that means when oil has destroyed 40% of the coastal wetlands in the country and most of its fisheries. I don’t think this geyser of oil will ever be cleaned up and so it would take an infinite amount of money for BP and the other responsible companies to meet their legal obligations. So, my solution is to just take everything BP owns and make it the property of the American people. All of us will get a dividend check each year from the proceeds of BP’s oil profits. This program can be modeled on Sarah Palin’s socialist Alaska Permanent Fund. Alaska, after all, is the only socialist state in America, and it was even socialist prior to the Exxon Valdez catastrophe. By why limit this to Alaska. Sarah Palin shouldn’t be the only one who gets to spread the wealth around. Let us all own a piece of British Petroleum. Then, maybe, we’ll want to let you drill offshore again.
