Environmental Policy and Deep-Water Drilling
Both the state and the federal governments have a responsibility towards the environment. However, it is not always that the two levels of government agree on a policy that governs the environment. Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90) the cost of oil spillage is capped. Under the State Spill liability law of Texas, there is uncapped strict liability for the damages caused by the spillage (Cohen et al. 30). Because of the difference in these policies at the state and the federal level, there exists a gap liability on the social costs of an oil spill.
When a spillage occurs, like in the Deepwater Horizon, the impact spread across the state and federal waters, and thus the cost of cleaning the waters falls upon the state and federal governments. Allowing the capped liability federal law to take course on oil spillage, mean that the economic and social costs of the spillage will not be covered. For example, the federal law put a $75 million liability cap on the company responsible for the spillage (Richardson 3). However, allowing such a cap can leave a heavy burden on the authority to clean out the waters.
The Federal government should consider revising the Oil Pollution of 1990 that is under the Clean Water Act to make uncapped liability and third party monitoring mandatory. The policy change aims at creating a federal and state policy that is comprehensive and stringent to enforce environment safety in deep-water drilling operations. The policy is intended to make changes to the OPA 90 law to increase the financial liability to the involved party and to engage monitoring to improve safety measures in oil drilling to prevent accidents.
By uncapping the liability under the OPA 90, it would help the state and the federal government to minimize financial responsibility of cleaning the waters (Cruden, O’Rourke, and Himmelhoch 81). The new uncapped liability law should be based on the case sample of the Deepwater Horizon. OPA 90 law cap is at $75 million, a figure that is way below the estimated cost that was undertaken by both the Federal and state government that was estimated between $20 and$60bilion(Cohen et al. .43).
The policy will help create a cautious organizational culture for companies engaged in deep-water drilling to avoid spillage. It will be an essential approach to protecting the environment as the only company with the capacity to pay the heavy liability cap will be able to engage in deep-water drilling. Allowing third-party monitoring will help increase safety as government monitoring is not enough (Cohen et al. 34. By allowing the third party to evaluate deep-water drilling will make the drilling contractors of the possible risk and will mitigate such risks.
The state and the federal government will receive regular reports from third party monitoring activities on the safety of the drilling. Oil spillage through Deepwater drilling activities can prove detrimental as experienced during the Deepwater Horizon. The spillage had a negative impact on the environment and can cause a crisis between countries when it spread to the waters of another country. Thus, by changing the state and federal policy on deep-water drilling, it will allow the two governments to increase environmental safety.
Works Cited
Cohen, Mark A., et al. “Deepwater drilling: Law, policy, and economics of firm organization and safety.” Vand. L. Rev. 64 (2011): 1851.
Cruden, John C., Steve O’Rourke, and Sarah D. Himmelhoch. “The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Litigation: Proof of Concept for the Manual for Complex Litigation and the 2015 Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” Mich. J. Envtl. & Admin. L. 6 (2016): 65.
Richardson, Nathan. “Deepwater Horizon and the patchwork of oil spill liability law.” Backgrounder. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future. http://www. rff. org/rff/documents/RFF-BCK-Richardson-OilLiability. pdf, (2010).