Mike Rowse A voice from New Mexico

$8 a gallon gas and…

A great post from Redstate: Imagine if the government required automobile drivers to purchase liability insurance against the Worst Case Accident: totalling a 2010 Maybach Laundalet with four newly-minted orthopedic surgeons aboard. Worst case liability: $50 million or so.

With a $50 million liability insurance requirement, who would drive? Only the wealthy.

The Deepwater Horizon incident pointed up the inadequacy of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990’s $75 million economic liability limit for operations involving high pressure, high-volume deepwater oil.

Some Congressional Democrats would like the liability cap to be set at $20 billion; some want no cap at all. They don’t even acknowledge the fact that shallow water operations are orders of magnitude less risky than deepwater oil; to them, an offshore well is an offshore well.

Independents, small to large, will have no way to insure against a liability of this magnitude. Without insurance, they will cease operations, leaving the Gulf to the only companies with sufficient assets to self-insure. That group would include Exxon, Shell, Chevron and BP among the private companies, plus the National Oil Companies of Brazil, China, Spain and others.

But one thing Vladimir doesn’t point out is the jobs lost. By most estimates if you kill U.S. drilling in the Gulf you will kill 150,000 jobs. Jobs in drilling, support services, manufacturers, restaurants and so on. It constantly amazes me how much the liberals talk about “hating” big business and wanting to protect the jobs of the average Joe; but their policies consistently favor big business, big banking, big auto, big oil and cost U.S. jobs in every industry.