Steve Cameron: BP's $75 million cap

There are some pretty stupid laws floating around, but when you're looking for the

topper ...

How about the federally mandated limit of $75 million for which oil companies are responsible in the case of accidents or negligence?

These are people who make billions.

Each quarter.

If you don't believe in the idiocy of that $75 million limit, just spend a few minutes watching any news channel.

Just sit back, get comfy and watch those videos of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico because of BP's horrendous errors -- the mistakes and ignorance that led to the Deepwater Horizon rig blowing itself to pieces.

It's been more than a month now, and various agencies are still guessing how many millions of gallons of oil wash into the Gulf every single day.

This has been a particularly emotional week for everyone involved on all sides of this tragedy -- starting with revelations that BP failed to conduct proper tests and ducked all sorts of oversight procedures leading up to the explosion.

Among other things, I'd like to know why company executives -- people who can be identified as having dodged lawful drilling regulations -- are not indicted for manslaughter at the very least since 11 workers died in the inferno.

While we hear about that, and all sorts of tales emerge about cozy arrangements between the oil industry and government's Minerals Management Service, BP was frantically attempting to stem the flow with a procedure known as a "top kill."

It began Wednesday afternoon -- 37 days after the rig exploded and with the Gulf Coast now slick with crude oil that has killed wildlife and destroyed the area's fishing and tourism industries -- and at some point, perhaps BP and its government advisers will get the leak stopped.

So process all that, and please explain why there is a law capping BP's liability -- at least in the eyes of the U.S. government -- at $75 million.

To give you an idea of how absurd that number really sounds, Louisiana alone has a fishing industry -- now halted entirely -- that creates $2.4 billion per year.

Assuming, I suppose, that fixing something after the fact is better than ignoring it completely, Congress is attempting to pass a law removing that goofy $75 million cap on any oil company's liability.

This one ought to be a no-brainer, right?

I mean, BP and its partners that ran the Deepwater Horizon will owe trillions in damages before this stupid, needless catastrophe finally runs its course.

Can anyone object to that?

Oh, yes!

Who do you think those oil company lobbyists have been paying all these years?

Any vote on the bill to strip away that $75 million liability cap already has been blocked three times in the Senate.

OK, who in the world would actually step forward and defend oil companies at a time like this? Who would side with BP and argue that we American taxpayers should pay for this mess?

Well, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski was the first senator to block voting on the bill.

That's rich.

Murkowski, who is actually pro-choice and considered wildly moderate on every other issue, has an environmental voting record that makes her look like a board member of Shell Oil.

So there's one BP ally.

The next two votes were blocked by the same guy, Oklahoma's Jim Inhofe -- perhaps the dumbest clown ever to serve in the Senate and an outright puppet of the oil industry.

I just wish that Murkowski and Inhofe would have the guts to visit Louisiana this week, step in front of a town hall audience, and explain why "Big Oil" should get off almost free no matter what it does -- while Gulf residents and taxpayers everywhere else pick up the tab.

Good luck with that, you oil company shills.

Steve Cameron is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at stevecameron1000@gmail.com.