The new laws are full of common sense changes such as requiring the company to have the money to fund an oil spill, but that’s not stopping Big Oil from pushing back. The updated laws come a year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster and as the oil industry prepares for deep water drilling in Europe. The lack of accountability has always been an issue in this industry but with the increasingly dangerous drilling, it accountability has to be required. The Guardian:

Under the commission plans, tough rules would apply to all drilling sites within 200 miles of the coast. Previous piecemeal EU attempts to regulate oil drilling extended only to wells within 12 miles of shore, a limit that would have exempted BP’s Deepwater Horizon operation. The rules would cover the boundary with international waters where the legal standing of wells is unclear, and mean virtually all offshore oil drilling operations within the EU being covered.

Oil companies would have to prove they could pay for any damage caused, either through an obligation to buy sufficient insurance, or by paying into a fund. They would also have to submit detailed plans on dealing deal with any accident.

Mobile oil rigs, like BP’s Deepwater Horizon floating platform, would also be covered, with new tough rules on the kind of equipment to be used, such as blowout preventers, the failure of which was a key factor in the BP catastrophe. At present, laws requiring a high standard of safety equipment are limited to fixed rigs.