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From: Alexander Kragie [mailto:alex.kragie@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 3:10 PM
To: Alex Kragie
Subject: Reed Hundt Oil Spill Post


Supporting Participants-

This morning, the CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital, Reed Hundt,
published a post on Talking Points Memo regarding the BP Oil Spill. You can
find the piece linked and in text below:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/17/a_real_remedy_for_the_big_sp
ill/


Long after the 1989 Exxon-Valdez spilled its oil into a pristine Alaskan
inlet, neither the environmental recovery nor the ensuing litigation was yet
complete. Indeed, in 2008 -- 19 years after the damage was done -- the
Supreme Court overturned the punitive damage award of the courts below. This
case of justice delayed is what we do not want to repeat in the wake of the
Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

Instead, Congress now should pass a law directing that the Department of
Interior be given discretion to impose a penalty in an amount proportional
to the cleanup costs, the amount of natural resources damages, and any
compensatory damages awarded in the inevitable Deepwater Horizon
litigations. That penalty should be deposited in a wholesale, non-profit
Green Bank that will finance clean electricity and electrified
transportation.

The law otherwise should bar punitive damages. No matter what, litigation
will surely ensue from the current calamity. Some legislators have already
introduced bills that would raise the amount of compensation British
Petroleum or others would have to pay for the spill. News accounts report
that Alabama Attorney General Troy King has told British Petroleum that it
should stop circulating settlement agreements to Alabamans on the Gulf
Coast-- allegedly BP is offering $5,000 in return for giving up the right to
sue.

Eventually BP or others will pay huge sums for clean up. But under existing
law, no penalty will be meted out quickly, and no penalty will ever be
dedicated to the truly useful purpose of moving the whole nation towards
clean electricity and electric transportation.

I am the CEO of a non-profit called the Coalition for Green Capital, which
has been advocating the creation of a national Green Bank. Congressman Chris
Van Hollen proposed such a bank in a bill introduced in March 2009. Under
the name Clean Energy Deployment Administration ("CEDA"), the Green Bank
passed the House as well as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee with large bipartisan support. If CEDA were to be capitalized with
penalties from any and all oil spills, it would be able to cause new
investment to be made in clean technologies that wean us from dependence on
oil. Eventually we would no longer need to drill for hard-to-find oil in
places that can produce accidents of staggering dimensions.

The United States has long led the world in using courts as a forum for
seeking justice. The current Gulf disaster is certain to breed tens of
thousands of hours of legal work. Regardless of how liability is
apportioned, it would be better for all concerned if any fault finding led
not just to punishment, but also to the funding of the first national
wholesale, nonprofit financing authority for funding the conversion from
oil-based transportation to clean electricity and electric carriage. We can
all put ourselves in the shoes of those who live, work, and play on the Gulf
Coast. Wouldn't they -- and all of us -- be better off using electric cars
and consuming clean electricity, as opposed to waiting for busted rigs to
kill workers and ruin the way of life of humans, fish, and fowl for decades
to come?


--
Alexander Kragie
202.579.2354
alex.kragie@gmail.com