One possible justification for the punishment of BP is that while BP may not be causally responsible for the unsafeness of other companies’ oil rigs, BP is the only oil-drilling company whose procedures were provably unsafe.
In other words, if the government decided to ban drilling because it suddenly realized, with p ~ 0.9, that drilling, on average, caused more harm than good, then of course the payments for displaced workers should come from the general public treasury, or, at worst, from the drilling industry as a whole.
What actually happened seems to be that the government continues to have no idea whether drilling, in the abstract and done cautiously, causes more harm than good, but that the government has suddenly updated its estimate that an arbitrary currently existing dirller is negligent from ~ 0.01 to ~ 0.3, and has suddenly updated its estimate that BP is negligent from ~ 0.01 to ~ 0.95. Given that “data,” and without making any attempt to vouch for the accuracy or precision of the government’s conclusions, it does make sense to punish BP, not punish other drillers, and shut down drilling.
It makes sense to punish BP because BP was almost certainly negligent, whereas Rachel Carson was not negligent; she warned of the dangers of DDT in good faith and with ample consideration of the risks of causing economic inefficiencies.
It makes sense not to punish other drillers because there is no way for the government to cheaply prove their negligence; a massive investigation of the entire industry would consume too much political capital. Although the government suspects that many, if not most drillers were negligent, no one driller (besides BP) is so clearly negligent as to deserve the punishment of being held responsible for displaced workers.
Finally, it makes sense to ban drilling, because, even if individual negligent drillers (besides BP) cannot be reliably and cheaply identified, it seems clear that there are at least a few other negligent drillers in the marketplace right now, and that allowing drilling while knowing that there are probably some negligent drillers out there is expected to do more harm than good.
One possible justification for the punishment of BP is that while BP may not be causally responsible for the unsafeness of other companies’ oil rigs, BP is the only oil-drilling company whose procedures were provably unsafe.
In other words, if the government decided to ban drilling because it suddenly realized, with p ~ 0.9, that drilling, on average, caused more harm than good, then of course the payments for displaced workers should come from the general public treasury, or, at worst, from the drilling industry as a whole.
What actually happened seems to be that the government continues to have no idea whether drilling, in the abstract and done cautiously, causes more harm than good, but that the government has suddenly updated its estimate that an arbitrary currently existing dirller is negligent from ~ 0.01 to ~ 0.3, and has suddenly updated its estimate that BP is negligent from ~ 0.01 to ~ 0.95. Given that “data,” and without making any attempt to vouch for the accuracy or precision of the government’s conclusions, it does make sense to punish BP, not punish other drillers, and shut down drilling.
It makes sense to punish BP because BP was almost certainly negligent, whereas Rachel Carson was not negligent; she warned of the dangers of DDT in good faith and with ample consideration of the risks of causing economic inefficiencies.
It makes sense not to punish other drillers because there is no way for the government to cheaply prove their negligence; a massive investigation of the entire industry would consume too much political capital. Although the government suspects that many, if not most drillers were negligent, no one driller (besides BP) is so clearly negligent as to deserve the punishment of being held responsible for displaced workers.
Finally, it makes sense to ban drilling, because, even if individual negligent drillers (besides BP) cannot be reliably and cheaply identified, it seems clear that there are at least a few other negligent drillers in the marketplace right now, and that allowing drilling while knowing that there are probably some negligent drillers out there is expected to do more harm than good.