Oh Boy-Dead Dinosaurs

Wouldn't it be great if we could just say no to oil drilling? In my world, it would go the way of the great beasts whose remains we refine and pour into our gas tanks. Well, not gonna happen, probably not until we suck the last drop out of the veins of planet Earth. What to do? 1. Make it safer. 2. Make it pay us back, the real owners of this country.

Effective Legislation for Offshore Drilling
We want regulation and laws in place to, ideally, prevent and, realistically, reduce, both oil spills from all water drilling operations, including deep water ones and to address the removal of American resources from our sovereign lands to create private profit.
Therefore, this law will have 2 component parts.

Drilling Operations & Fees

1. In order to operate within United States waters, all drilling rigs must be registered under the American flag and follow all relevant laws regarding hiring persons with federal legal right to work in these United States of America. Hiring and firing practices must conform to relevant state hiring guidelines.
2. All rigs must conform to OSHA guidelines for worker safety and paper work to that effect must; a. be filled out by the appropriate inspector who is not an employee of the drilling or refinery company; b. displayed prominently in both any employee rest area and the main office area on the platform.
3. Whistleblowers, who inform on failure to conform to safe drilling practices or workplace safety guidelines, are protected from condemnation, termination or being blacklisted by their employers. Those employers who engage in this sort of activity face both a fine and a suspension of their license to operate for a minimum of 2 weeks.
4. Drilling leases and all attendant fees cannot be exempted for corporate entities with a gross income over a billion dollars. This cannot be adjusted for net operating costs.
5. Blow out preventers are now mandatory. There are no exceptions.
6. No drilling can be done without an up-to-date spill prevention and spill clean-up plan. Both shallow and deep water drilling of wells must be done concurrently with the drilling of a relief well. Deep water wells must have 2 concurrently drilled relief wells.
7. All drilling companies must pay a .25% fee based on net profits every quarter, that funds a monitoring services for old, out of use wells. This oversight fee will allow the management agency to pay for inspection and maintenence to prevent old wells from causing environmental damage down the road. Companies can avoid this fee if they provide bi-annual inspection of prior drilled wells they have made.
8. Old platforms that are out of use and in danger of falling into disrepair must be cleaned up by the companies that created them. 3% fees of gross income will be reserved by the federal government to provide dismantleing services. This fee can be reduced by 2%, if said companies provide the environmental cleanup and remove abandoned platforms while responsibly recycling or disposing of materials.
9. In the event of a disaster, the company that has either caused or had it happen to them, must halt all drilling operations for a minimum of 1 month for immediate inspection and the affected rig area must be made available for investigation immediately. Said 1 month down time must include unemployment pay for affected workers at the expense of said company.
10. While the responsibilities of funding the clean-up must be on the company who is at the heart of the incident, attendent agencies such as the EPA and NGO providers with a track record of experience can and shall be allowed to participate in the clean up process. They shall co-operate with the Federal Incident commander on-site.

American Resource Reclamation
This portion of the bill addresses the lack of American citizenry profiting from the use of American resources.

1. No company can drill in American waters without hiring from the local area of business at least 80% of it’s workforce.
2. No company can get a permit to extract resources from American waters or land without agreeing to reserve 30% of all materials extracted strictly for the American market.
3. There shall be no exceptions to the above stipulation.
4. Due to the risks to other American resources from drilling and mining, there can be no cap in the event of damages or disaster caused due to negligence, misconduct or malicious intent or any combination of those factors.
5. In clear cases of acts of god, damages may only be capped at 50% of posted profit for the last financial year. There may be no adjustments to the prior years profits after an event has occurred.
6. “Damages” in this case can include business losses, loss of income for workers, physical, mental or emotional damage,but in the event of a negotiated emergency fund being created for a long term disaster, the funds for the emergency fund cannot and may not be added to the sum total of the damages cap.
7. Any judicial oversight, in the case of potential legal action, must disclose potential conflict of interest and said judge, in the event of conflict, can be exposed to litigation by those affected if they elect not to remove themselves from the case, if judgement is deemed to be biased.