And should that sort of misfeasance or accident require the expenditure of $700,000,000 to prevent a recurrence? Might that be overkill? As noted in the last paragraph of the article,
A clean and healthy environment is good, but there are limits to how closely we can approach what some see as perfection. Excessive regulatory burdens are not good and the United States needs, rather quickly, to strike appropriate environmental balances while taking into account the potential difficulties and disadvantages of securing oil from unfriendly countries as well as from friendly countries subject to attack by others. Nevertheless, we continue increasingly to neglect these factors and therefore continue to fund hostile countries more handsomely than seems to be in our national enlightened self-interest. Lately, we have been galloping off in all but the right directions.
Some environmental regulations are good and reasonable. However, construction of modern refineries, energy independence and non-reliance on hostile nations for our oil supplies are also good and reasonable. Where environmental concerns intersect with those concerns, we seem to give undue weight to environmental concerns. That seems unwise. If, as some on the left complain (erroneously, in my view), we went to war to steal oil from an hostile country and in consequence killed and were killed, wouldn’t it be better if there were no need to do that sort of thing again?
