I realize that small businesses will save us all and thus must be praised and made obeisance to, but this is ridiculous:
On the Senate floor a few moments ago, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J), and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) asked for unanimous consent to pass their Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act of 2010, which would raise the liability cap on offshore drilling accidents from $75 million to $10 billion. Unanimous consent simply means the bill passes without all the usual Senate procedural folderol.Yes, it is. One seriously wonders whether Murkowski has lost her mind. Given the capital requirements for exploration and equipment, how many small drillers are there in the oil patch, anyway? Posted by Linkmeister at May 14, 2010 10:33 AM | TrackBackNow, ask yourself: Who could object to this? Does anyone really think BP should only have to pay $75 million -- a drop in the bucket relative to what's necessary; an even smaller drop in the bucket of BP's profits -- to clean up the Gulf oil catastrophe? What possible justification could there be for objecting? Surely if anything deserves unanimous consent, it's this, right?
You underestimate the Republican party. None other than Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski stood up to object. Yes, the senator from the state that got hammered by the Exxon Valdez spill objected to raising the liability cap.
And what was her argument? If the liability cap is raised, that might exclude small oil companies from being able to get the insurance and financing necessary to drill offshore. After all, only the oil giants could afford $10 billion. That is to say: only the oil giants can afford to clean up after themselves.
You're not dreaming. That's really the argument. Murkowski wants small, independent oil companies to be able to privatize the profits of offshore drilling but offload the financial risks to the public. And she frames it as avoiding a "Big Oil monopoly" on drilling. She's just defending mom-and-pop oil shops! The gall is breathtaking.