Help with my response

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how about not letting the industry write their own rules, for one? from npr, the thoroughly contemptible Halliburton is probably at the root of this with their shoddy cementing.

excerpt from NPR article

“Cementing contributed to half of the 39 U.S. blowouts between 1992 and 2006, according to a report that Danenberger co-authored in 2007. After that, the government pushed to change cementing standards, but let the industry write them. A cementing job done by Halliburton is also implicated in an Australian oil rig disaster last year that gushed oil into the Timor Sea for 74 days.”

my guess is that with most dangerous industries whose fallout impacts millions of people, it has to begin with stricter standards, and laws not written by oil lobbyists. similarly, they should not be getting out of punitive damages, like they are trying to argue. (if they clean it up they arent liable for anything else). if we had better industry safety standards and clear unavoidable and potentially crippling punishments, I dont think halliburton would be doing their shitty cement jobs with BP’s sign-off.

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Who exactly would you have write the rules/standards? That's like saying you would have somebody write rules regarding medical procedures who has never been to medical school. It just doesn't make sense. "The federal government doesn't own any drilling rigs. Everyone with the expertise to do these things is in private industry. No one in the federal government has ever built a containment dome. No one in the federal government has ever attempted to use undersea dispersants, or designed the "BOP on top of the BOP" solution that is being considered." You have to have experts in the field to design regulations and implement policy that is both effective and sensible, not Washington bureaucrats who would never dream of stepping foot on one of these rigs and living the life of a rough neck for even a little while.

Also, punitive damages and actual damages are two different things. If they clean it up, that doesn't mean they aren't liable for the actual damages that the thousands and thousands of gulf coast residents will be due for the blows to their livelihoods. Punitive damages add to that, a legal spanking if you will, to remind them we won't tolerate this type of behavior. You don't think they will have taken enough of a hit from the billion+ dollar clean up effort or all the bad press they're getting from this thing? If actual damages set people right, what is the need for punitive? Simply because it's the American way?

Another point, before jumping on your high horse about Halliburton, why don't you educate yourself about exactly what cementing is, and avoid regurgitating NPR like you or they know what they're talking about. Living in Louisiana, I have a highly vested interest in everything going on in the gulf right now, following the updates from the people actually in the field throughout the day. Nobody knows what happened out there, and the sad truth is we may never know. I've heard relief valves. I've heard cementing. I've heard human error. The point is nobody knows. So for you and NPR to take the statistics you have and jump to these conclusions is asinine. "Cementing contributed to half of the U.S. blowouts...." So if half of auto accidents after 12:30am are caused my drunk drivers, are we assume that EVERY driver that gets in a wreck is drunk? Its faulty reasoning. Yes, "Halliburton did the cementing on this well. No one knows if cementing was the problem. Halliburton was cementing wells before Dick Cheney was born. There are thousands of men and women, who have engineered well cementing for decades and all over the world for Halliburton. They are fine people who had nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq. They are just good engineers who make difficult things happen well. IF the cementing turns out to have been part of the problem, it won't have a single thing to do with all the reasons you hate Halliburton."

Lastly, if you're going to post an article, read it. "Still, experts say that even if cementing contributed, it was only one of a series of failures that resulted in an explosion that killed 11 people and sent millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico." Yet you say Halliburton is at the root of this. Use some common sense. Your article says some 20 hours before the accident, Halliburton was pumping cement into the well. Have you ever been around cement drying on a hot summer day? How long does it take? Can we expect cement a mile down and under the ocean to dry faster? I think not. Your article says oil was not supposed to be flowing yet.

Nobody wanted this to happen, specifically BP and "evil old" Halliburton. But speculation and uninformed gesticulating isn't solving or helping anything.

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