Remedy for preventing future oil spills

A new regulatory agency won’t fix the problem. Every industry pollutes the environment and degrades the surroundings and occasionally has massive accidents. Governments are supposed to develop infrastructure and fire departments to mitigate the environmental effects, help regulate safety concerns and provide emergency assistance during the inevitable accidents. To do so, they tax the industries. Industries naturally attempt to minimize the regulation, and the taxes by contributing to politicians, and cozying up to the regulators and spinning their PR. Then, rivers get contaminated with diseased run-off from chicken factories, or tailings piles collapse destroying a town, or a crowded cruise ship collides with an ice berg and there aren’t enough lifeboats, or a chemical plant suffers a leak and explosion and kills 10,000 people or banks start playing hanky panky with other people’s money, or an oil rig suffers a blowout and subsequent massive oil leak. You don’t need a new agency, you need an old agency with a long memory, and the moral courage to stick to their guns when a new kid with lots of money starts playing 3 card monte with the regulations.

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