Interesting headline above. I have seen it now on half a dozen sites.
So, apparently a study determined how much money was needed to clean up just California’s oil extraction and processing sites and that amount of money is near ten times the amount those businesses will reap the rest of their lifetimes.
So, I have a suggestion as to how to resolve this issue. If we, the public, are to be stuck with the cleanup bill, I say confiscate the businesses as being bankrupt and in violation of the law. Nationalize them (state-ify?). The decisions they made to pollute and profit have consequences.
Sell off what parts there are that can be sold and then start the cleanups because they are going to take decades, if only to spread out the costs.
Then go after the parent companies. Bill them for the cleanup. Hound them like their collection agencies hound us if we have a debt we haven’t paid.
Uncommon Sense 
In the meantime oil companies, as well as every other corporate entity, is making RECORD PROFITS!
The covid log jam is pretty much gone. No excuses for corporations to be raking in RECORD PROFITS, as our prices go up and up and up on EVERYTHING, daily. Nothing to blame our inflation on but old fashioned greed. And quite likey RECORD BONUSES for corporate execs.
When our government happily jumped into the pockets of the corporations, that pretty much spelled our doom. There is no way to fix it when our Reps and SCOTUS are making $$$$ hand over fist just to make sure the greed pump continues rolling.
I fail to see how much different this is from the King raising taxes on tea. We are getting royally buggered right now, yet no one seems to be noticing.
Nobody, but common folks like us, gives a shit how much it will cost to clean up after the oil companies. They sure as hell aren’t going to pay it. That would cost them $$, which is the antithesis to making $$. They, polticians/corporations, will kick the can down the road, as they rake up as much cash as they can, until climate change or the sun going red giant kills us all.
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Comment by shelldigger — May 20, 2023 @ 9:42 pm |
It’s not just old oil and gas wells. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of abandoned mines out west dating back to the middle of the 1800s that are leaching toxic waste into the local watersheds. My youngest son is a geologist and when he was out there a few years ago they surveyed several of those, one leaking hundreds of gallons of water contaminated with lead, arsenic, cadmium and other nasties into the local river. As you said, there just isn’t enough money out there to clean all of them up. The companies made their money and ran and leave us to live with the toxic mess they made.
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Comment by grouchyfarmer — May 20, 2023 @ 10:50 pm |