Hold On There!

It’s comforting to know there are still some “honest” politicians in Washington [if your definition of “honest” is one that stays bought no matter what happens.] Pitch hitting for Mary Landrieu, the Senator for the Oil industry from Louisiana, is Lisa Murkowski, the Senator for the Oil industry from Alaska.

Lesley Clark of McClatchy reports that Alaska’s Murkowski blocks Senate on higher oil spill liability

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats Thursday lost a bid to raise the liability cap for oil companies to $10 billion when Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski raised objections. They vowed to try again.

Murkowski said she supports lifting the cap from $75 million, but contends the $10 billion figure would prevent smaller, independent companies from drilling along the Outer Continental Shelf.

The debate came as Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that caught fire and sank, touching off an oil leak that is still dumping 210,000 gallons of crude in the Gulf of Mexico daily, sought in federal court in Houston to use a 1851 maritime law to $27 million.

Referring to the Deepwater Horizon in the feminine, the petition said that because “she” was lost, her owners are responsible only for damages up to the rig’s salvage value, which they pegged at $26,764,083. The peititon describes the offshore rig as “having a burden of 32,588 gross tons” and at the time of her final “voyage” being “tight, staunch, strong, properly and sufficiently manned, supplied, equipped and furnished.”

Obviously Transocean is pining for the days of sail when the vessels with the most cannon usually won, however I doubt that anyone in 1851 would have considered the Deepwater Horizon a “vessel”.

I assume that these “smaller, independent” drilling companies exist on the same planet as the family farms that Republicans are always talking about. Corporations have killed off those entities on this planet with the help of the Republicans.