What is the Libertarian response to the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico?

[Relztrah]

I've read a couple knee-jerk articles about how "the government should stay out of it or it will just make things worse," but what is the Libertarian answer and how should it be implemented?

[Mik]

I agree that saying keep the government out is a knee-jerk reaction, and a sound libertarian approach involves much more than just addressing the response to an oil spill. There is a brief and somewhat scattered discussion on this topic here:

http://www.lppa.org/smf/index.php?topic=34426.0

Perhaps you could bring some focus to that thread.

This issue encompasses a host of other issues, including the nature of property and rightful ownership of things like land and natural resources. It also involves responsibility for pollution of the natural environment and the policies of the federal government toward resource extraction and pollution. There are several topics of discussion on these issues if you care to look at them here (note: You must be signed onto the forum to post to these boards):

http://www.lppa.org/smf/index.php?topic=34020.0

and here:

http://www.lppa.org/smf/index.php?topic=34296.0

and here:

http://www.lppa.org/smf/index.php?topic=34439.0

and here:

http://www.lppa.org/smf/index.php?topic=34084.0

and here:

http://www.lppa.org/smf/index.php?topic=34045.0

There is no doubt that government involvement can be a big problem, but it is often not where even many Libertarians think the problem lies. Certainly a federal government policy of having cheap energy does not help the situation. An incoherent and often contradictory approach to protection of the natural environment on the part of the federal government and many states does not help matters, either.

I think a more fundamental problem is when government works to secure privilege over individual rights. I have no problem with there being privilege, but when privilege and rights collide, it should be privilege that gives way. This is where the concept of limited government comes in. It is not necessarily less government, but less authority of government to subvert human rights and a smaller scope of government to limit the promotion and enforcement of privilege.

It is not that the government should not be involved at all, but it should be involved in a manner that preserves the rights of people to enjoy, use and access the commons. Government should not be promoting cheap energy on one hand and then decrying the result of rampant enforcement of corporate privilege with the same hand. If you look at the referenced discussions, perhaps you will begin to get a picture of what a libertarian answer may be. How it can be implemented is another question entirely. 

[vmays]

The problem I see wiith government is not that they don't have the ABILITY to help with the oil leak problem it's that they don't have the WILL to do what is necessary.

The house is burning down and they are sitting in the living room holding hearings.  Put out the fire (plug the leak) and THEN worry about who is to blame.

[Mik]

A similar accident in the Gulf on a Mexican oil rig a few decades ago was only stopped after drilling several relief wells, and that was in only 170 feet or so of water. That took about nine months to accomplish. This is complicated by the depth at which they are working, and it appears a big reason for BP drilling at that depth was because the federal government waived the royalty payment for resource extraction for deep water wells and provided direct financial incentives for companies to drill deep water wells.

So I suppose a short answer that the government should stay out of it is applicable to a degree, but I think it is misleading to say the government should stay out of securing the rights of those impacted by the accident. I also think there is a role that government could play in the response to the accident, although it has done rather badly so far.

There is a role the government can play in the response to the rig explosion and fire, in the form of emergency response, medical evacuations, and things like assisting with spill response and cleanup. The government could be addressing areas where public goods and negative externalities from business operations are involved. Having a federal government claiming to be "in charge" or having a President running around trying to figure out whose bottom to boot is not helping matters.

Many of these issues are addressed in some of the political discussions as well. I'm sure there are many things the federal government could do in response that in the long run would not be very helpful. They do have a lot of those unused nuclear weapons sitting around. Perhaps an artificially generated tsunami would help to clean the oil off of the impacted beaches.

If the federal government can assist with logistics, getting ships in place or providing information to aid in spill response or efforts to stop the uncontrolled oil flow, or even coordinating international assistance efforts, that's fine. The bottom line is that this is a problem for BP to address, and BP should be able to take all of the steps necessary to limit impacts. For government to limit that ability in any way is only drawing liability, and putting the burden of addressing the impacts on the shoulders of every citizen and resident.

[vern]

There's a lot of discussion about preventing this sort of thing in the future, and how to go about it.  And a lot of finger pointing, however correct, at who's responsible for the disaster and the events leading up to it.

And then there's today, with reality gushing out of a hole in the ground, and no engineering solution to prevent it.  We can discuss ways to prevent a Chernobyl disaster, but there's really nothing we can do in the wake of it.

This oil well posed a major threat to millions of people and to "the commons" that government is supposed to protect.  There should be no tolerance for people who would threaten the rights of others, be it with nuclear warheads, armies on our borders, or reckless oil drilling.

In hindsight, our government failed miserably at protecting us.  And now that the invasion of oil is underway, perhaps unstoppable, we can only hope to minimize the suffering.  That's what the 20 billion fund is supposed to do I suppose.

This is a crime, and it has victims.  Wealth shouldn't insulate anyone from Justice.

[Mik]

This is a crime, and it has victims.  Wealth shouldn't insulate anyone from Justice.

I don't know. Accidents happen without there necessarily being criminal actions involved. That may be the case with the deepwater horizon incident. This does not mean there isn't liability for actions that cause harm. Wealth should not insulate anyone from responsibility.

The problem is that there are shields from responsibility, both through the privilege of the corporation, which limits personal responsibility, and the corporation itself has limited liability through specific legislative action. Couple this with the fact that the corporation was provided incentives to drill where they did, and now the liability waters become very cloudy, so to speak. This has a negative effect on the ability of the government to secure the rights of the individual, if in fact the government shares some liability and has an interest in securing the privilege and maintaining the liability shields.