You Spill It, You Own It, Says Polis
You break it, you buy it – it’s a simple store policy that everyone understands. When my wife and I went to an antique store, and I accidentally broke an old ceramic tea pot I was looking at, I knew what I had to do. I broke it, so I couldn’t just place it back on the shelf. I bought it, even though it wasn’t in the original condition, because I was the one who had caused the damage to it, ruining the chance for the store to sell it to someone else.
At the beginning of this month, Congressman Jared Polis sought to bring the basic economic sense of the you break it, you buy it policy to the offshore drilling industry. He introduced, H.R. 5661, the Oil Pollution Taxpayer and Environment Protection Act.
Among the legislation’s provisions is the following clause: “any royalty under a lease under this section shall apply to all oil that is removed under the lease and discharged into waters of the United States or ocean waters.”
The key word to understand here is “discharged”. Discharged oil, as defined by the legislation, can include oil that’s spilled, intentionally dumped, or spewed out in any other way without being collected – intentionally or unintentionally. At present, companies drilling oil from public territory in our nation’s waters don’t pay royalties to the federal government on discharged oil. This loophole is practically a reward for sloppy offshore drilling, as if the federal government is saying to the oil companies, “Don’t worry about paying for the oil you spill. That’s on us, no charge.”
Actually, spilled oil isn’t just pollution, it’s a lost public asset. Petrolem under American waters is a public resource that belongs to the American people, and it’s lost to us whether it’s gathered or spilled. If oil companies can’t keep control of the oil they drill for, that ought to be their loss, not the loss of the American people.
The Oil Pollution Taxpayer and Environment Protection Act seeks to end this dirty arrangement, sending a clear message to Big Oil: You spill it, you buy it.
