Offered without comment, some excerpts from an article in today's New York Times, titled:
Oil Companies Weigh Strategies to Fend Off Tougher Regulations
- ... executives and industry analysts say the daily images of oil wafting onto the coastline will make it tougher for them to fend off calls for tougher regulations that extend far beyond BP and the Deepwater Horizon spill.
- “It’s amazing to see the impact that one company can have for all sorts of other people,” he said. “When a plane crashes, you don’t just shut down every airline in the fleet until you find out what happened.”
- “The most difficult challenge confronting the whole industry at this point is regaining the confidence and trust of the public, the American people, and regaining the confidence and trust of the government regulators and the people who oversee our activities out there ..."
- But the political pressure on the entire industry will keep growing as long as the spill lasts, bringing with it daily images of soiled coastlines.
- “The oil companies know that if this is not resolved quickly, the well has been poisoned for everybody,” said Lawrence Goldstein, a veteran energy economist. “They are going to be painted with a broad brush. They are on the hook here.”
Discuss.