Market meddling led to BP oil spill  Naomi Klein is correct that
the mere $20m spent on accident prevention and spill response
goes "a long way" toward explaining this disaster (Gulf oil
spill, 19 June), but the story is incomplete without asking why
BP had such priorities. The answer is the Oil Pollution Act of
1990. The ironically named act gave BP a liability cap of $75m
for oil spills, with the provision that the cap is invalid only
in the case of extreme negligence. The $20m it spent on accident
prevention and spill response was really nothing more than a
gesture to show it had done its due diligence, thereby
sidestepping the extreme negligence provision. What reason would
they have to spend more on accident prevention when the most
they could possibly lose for any given accident is $75m?  Now
the spill has received such massive media attention, the cap is
basically meaningless, but that fact is irrelevant – the damage
has already been done. All that matters is that, when BP was
allocating budget funds,