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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (83824)	5/12/2010 11:02:48 AM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224756

No the argument I have been making doesn't vaguely resemble "we should not have the most stringent safeguards". I didn't address the level of safeguards that we should have. I addressed what we do have, and I address the faults in your arguments. But turning to that issue, the assumption that we should always have the most stringent safeguards possible is ridiculous. You could spend a billion dollars per well making them safer, but if your going to do that it would make more sense not to have wells since that would (in isolation, not considering what else you will have to do to get energy) be safer yet, and the well isn't going to be profitable at such costs. There are always trade-offs, you can't reasonably say we should do anything possible to increase safety since doing so will lead to suboptimal results, and if you include the indirect effects even make us less safe. If you just means that we should always have the most stringent safeguards that anyone in the world has, then your no longer making a ridiculous statement, but its still rather unreasonable. Other governments may impose requirements that only increase safety by a very small amount, and impose a great cost. (They also could impose safety requirements that don't increase safety at all, but arguably those aren't really "safeguards") If your making the more limited statement that for deep offshore wells we should adopt the specific safeguards that are currently adopted by the country that has the tightest requirements, well than you might actually have a point. But to see if you do we would have to know what specific additional safety regulations you are arguing for, and why you think they would make an important and cost effective difference. You provide no information about the safeguards (other than the acoustic switch, which is only required by Brazil and Norway, and only for new rigs). And you provide no argument as to why this device, or any other requirement you want to impose, would have helped prevent this specific spill, or to support the claim that requiring such devices or techniques would generally be effective and cost-effective. It might be that the regulations impose by Norway or some other country would be effective and cost-effective to apply here, but you make no argument for it, you just assume it it so.