Under the moral principle that most three year olds learn from their parents: "Clean up your own shit".

If you build an oil platform in a known hurricane area, well, you're responsible for cleaning up when a hurricane hits your (shocker!) insufficiently prepared oil platform.

(I vaguely remember there's also a children's story about people building with the cheapest shit and not wanting to take responsibility - "Three little pigs")

This is exactly what the OP referring to when he referenced negative externalities. This problem only exists because the oil company took a risk in order to make profits. The potential risk (the negative externally) materialized. If society eats up the cost, we encourage business practices that might be a net-negative for society as a whole. If the oil company has to pay for the cleanup, the market forces can determine if drilling the way they did, where they did is economical.

If a hurricane causes an oil platform to release oil, the platform was by definition not sufficiently prepared. The bar for "sufficiently prepared" might be prohibitively high, but that should just be the cost of business.

>The bar for "sufficiently prepared" might be prohibitively high, but that should just be the cost of business.

I don't agree, and neither does centuries of established moral legal arguments adopted by developed nations.

And I'm saying I think you (and those nations' standards) are wrong. We're letting companies profit off of the environment without being responsible for cleaning up after themselves when shit goes sideways.

All designs break at some point. There is no such thing as hurricane proof. In this case the sub-surface safety valves designed to prevent oil spillage, failed. To take another industry, there are design risks when it comes to seatbelts, brakes, crumple zones, tires, fuel lines, etc, etc. Better designs for each of these safety features already exist. You can't simply wave a magic wand and ban cars with older designs. We have been making progress on all fronts when it comes to safety. I have family who has worked on oil rigs, and what we have now is a hell of a lot better than the rickety explosion-prone rigs from 60-odd years ago.

>We're letting companies profit off of the environment without being responsible for cleaning up after themselves when shit goes sideways.

That is just a hyperbole and is not grounded in reality. Ironically, in this case, the company lost the oil, lost the 'money', wasn't able to profit, and went out of business. Looks like you got what you wanted. :)

>They didn't cause the hurricane. Your moral principle is invalid here.

They caused the hole in the oil bed that the oil is gushing out of.

If the street is wet and I lose control over my car and run you down with it because of that, who is going to pay for your hospital fees?

"I work out and stay healthy."

You are aware that this is not a 100% plan for staying healthy ?

Unfortunately, a fire in one person’s yard is not likely to stay just in their yard. Even if you feel like the people who are responsible should burn to death if they don’t have their own private fire service, unfortunately, their neighbors and possibly the entire community are likely to suffer if the fire is not extinguished immediately.

So in this example it’s your fault you were walking down the street and because you work out being hit by a car won’t hurt you?

Fault is a loaded word, and is inapplicable in this context. The burden of the cost is borne by the party that society that chooses using whatever framework exists. Maybe it was "mob justice" a thousand years ago. Today, maybe its in the form of a lawsuit. Maybe its a social safety net that pays for your medical expenses.

Continuing to allow businesses to take out loans against the environment is a net negative for society as a whole if those loans are never expected to be repaid.

There are few industries that break down binary "free market or bust" logic. This happens to be one of them and you cannot apply some global, arbitrarily defined, rule of responsibility when the real world is more nuanced than that.

They decided to take on the risk of possibly having their rig knocked over by drilling in a dangerous place because the potential reward while it was pumping was large enough according to their calculations (do note their calculations may or may not have cynically included wondering if there are enough people who are thinking like you are) and lost that bet.

Vegas never seems concerned I thought the other team was going to win.

We actually don't need morality for this one (or much of anything).

"Although the company called the event an “act of God” that was unprecedented, the study said a similar event happened during Hurricane Camille in 1969. Eleven years later, a report commissioned by the Interior Department identified areas in the gulf that were susceptible to mudslides. Mississippi Canyon 20, the site of Taylor Energy’s platform, was one of those areas."

So they chose to build in an area susceptible to mudslides, and then their platform was knocked down by a mudslide. No morality here, just a factual observation.

I would prefer Taylor Energy to participate in the cleanup of this spill, and provide some reassurance they are working to prevent future spills, because they are willing to do so. If they are unwilling, maybe there is some other way to get the same result. I've always thought that the U.S. could just start bribing these companies to take a long vacation: just send everyone home and keep paying for them to have the quality of life they desire, without releasing toxic material into the world ocean. I think such an endeavor would be worthwhile because the photosynthesizing organisms at the ocean surface provide two thirds of the oxygen we breathe and oxygen is something everyone requires to sustain life. The industrial chemical activities in the gulf and other places have created massive dead-zones where nothing can live, let alone produce the oxygen which we all need to live. Again, no morality here, just factual, concrete observations.

I'll give a consequentialist argument:

If way make a policy of forcing oil companies to pay for damage due to leaks caused by hurricanes, then they will choose not to build oil platforms for which the expected damage caused by such leaks exceeds the expected value of using the oil.

Exactly. Instead, the corporations can extract all of the value of the oil, and we the people feel the losses of the resulting environmental damage for years. If the the expected damage exceeds the expected value, then they should not be building the platforms. In America someone eats the losses, but not them.

I don't agree with such a policy for any industry. Do you want to send developers to jail because of a bug in some medical, or otherwise critical software? There is your consequence.

If bad code causes the failure of somebody's medical equipment, then the company that released said code should absolutely be held responsible. I wouldn't go so far as to hold individual developers responsible because there should be a complex QC process in place before life-critical software makes it anywhere near market, but certainly the company as a whole, and potentially whatever executive fast-tracked the release of said software, is at fault.

Agreed. Similarly, the whole internet of shit phenomenon looks a lot like environmental pollution to me: People cutting corners and shirking responsibilities to increase profit leading to an internet environment infested by botnets and worms...

In certain cases. For example, there are some people at Equifax that should be held accountable. Doctors and perhaps civil engineers can be held liable in the US.

What is the consequence exactly?

Why are the rest of us responsible for their mistake of building a non-hurricane proof oil platform in an area known for hurricanes?

Well, we can only deal with whats reasonable. There is no such thing as a "hurricane proof" oil platform, or an "earthquake proof" home, or a "tsunami proof" boat, or a "hacker proof" operating system, or a "idiot proof" UI, or a "bullet proof" vest, etc, etc. The level of damage that nature can deliver far far far surpasses anything us puny humans can build :)

In any case, it would be interesting to see if the data shows that the level of fortification that was used was not sufficient compared to what other oil platforms in similar situations do.

It would be interesting. So interesting you might find reading the article worthwhile.

> Although the company called the event an “act of God” that was unprecedented, the study said a similar event happened during Hurricane Camille in 1969. Eleven years later, a report commissioned by the Interior Department identified areas in the gulf that were susceptible to mudslides. Mississippi Canyon 20, the site of Taylor Energy’s platform, was one of those areas.

Your comments here purporting legitimate uncertainty about whether this is an externality Taylor Energy is responsible for read very much like unnecessary FUD. This is as clear a case you can get of privatized gains and publicized losses.

>It would be interesting. So interesting you might find reading the article worthwhile.

I did not find a comparative analysis of the various oil rigs w.r.t engineering and safety. Link?

>Your comments here purporting legitimate uncertainty about whether this is an externality Taylor Energy is responsible for read very much like unnecessary FUD.

I have an open mind, unlike some. Also you can either hurl accusations, or have a dialogue and be respectful of others opinions. Pick one.

If its impossible then they shouldn't build it. Simple as that.

You can't just put a barbecue pit in an apartment living room, burn down the building, and then throw up your arms and proclaim it was impossible to do safely so you're absolved of responsibility.

And let me be clear. I really don't mean to say regulation is enough. My point is that no matter the regulation the responsibility is theirs. If that bankrupts the company, so be it.

You can have endless debates over what’s reasonable. However, there’s an easy way out: don’t even attempt to define it, and just make companies liable for their pollution. They will then do whatever hurricane-proofing is cost effective given that liability, which is also the most economically efficient amount.

If it can't be done safely and the cost of the cleanup exceeds the value of the operation, we shouldn't do it.

If the concern is cost of the outlier accident, then that seems exactly like the problem insurance companies solve.

Right. So there's a risk to building the platform. If the company solely had to foot the bill for any cleanup, it could make a calculation of risk factoring in potential profits, the risk of a bad event and the cost of protecting against such an event.

But they don't have to do that. They can take the rig profits, install the minimum protections under the law and know they won't have to carry the full cost of cleanup.

the moral principle of being responsible for your external costs upon society