Becker and Posner on the Oil Leak

Gary Becker and Richard Posner at the University of Chicago weigh in on the Gulf oil leak. Did BP make a good-faith estimate of the risk entailed by deep-water drilling or was it negligent? Becker continues: “It would be unfortunate if this disaster led to permanently much greater restrictions by the U.S. on offshore drilling for oil since that is at present the most promising source of additional U.S. production of oil. The likelihood, and cost, of future spills has to be weighed against the gains to U.S. national security and energy independence from having greater access to domestically produced oil. Since I believe these gains are substantial, I expect offshore oil production to continue to have an important place in U.S. (and other countries) production of oil since offshore oil is the last frontier in the search for new deposits of oil.”