Indiana Allows BP To Pollute Lake Michigan

An anonymous reader writes "Indiana regulators exempted BP from state environmental laws to clear the way for a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow the company to refine heavier Canadian crude oil. They justified the move in part by noting the project will create 80 new jobs. The company will now be allowed to dump an average of 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of sludge into Lake Michigan every day."

Comments

Re:Free trade and multinationals

[zig007]

Well, regulating markets is financial suicide in the long run, so you can't keep them(the regulations) forever.
At some point you must open up(when it will cost too much), and if you wait for too long, your industry will be dangerously uncompetitive due to a long time lack of..yes, competition.
This has already happened to your steel and car industry. Probably others as well. Wasn't paper hit as well?

Wouldn't a better way be to legislate that all fuel(this may of course be applied to other goods) sold in the U.S. must have been produced using methods that meet certain environmental and humanitarian requirements? Like the ones in the U.S.?

This would level the field in a kind of fair way. Sort of. Don't you think?

invasive species in the Great Lakes

[falconwolf]

Heck, they even refuse to stop ships from wherever from coming in and dumping bilge water contaminated with all sorts of invasive species into the lakes.

You mean like the Zebra mussle?

Falcon

Bullcrap

[MosesJones]

Seriously what a load of tosh. The idea that the US (the world's largest per-capita polluter by a mile) has had strong environmental laws that are being "weakened" due to competition is laughable. Auto-manufacturing is suffering due to from competition from... Japan (hardly "3rd world"). Canadians (NAFTA) have stronger environmental legislation than the US.

Claiming environmental legislation is being weakened in the name of free trade is just rubbish. I'd bet pretty heavy money that had BP been building this plant in Sweden, or even across the lake in Canada, that they would have been subject to tighter environmental restrictions.

Free trade generates jobs, its what made the USA the economy that it is. Economic protectionism is actually what is destroying the environment in the US, e.g. subsidising non-green corn for bio-fuel while punishing much cleaner Brazilian ethanol. Corporations always try and get away with things, governments should enforce things. Unfortunately in the US the environment is just an excuse for bad subsidies and anti-competitive behaviour rather than using the Free market to adopt solutions that are working elsewhere.

Blame NAFTA, Blame Japan, Blame China. In fact Blame Canada... anything rather than admit the problem is rather closer to home.