Quote:
Originally Posted by ijusluvit
I can only suggest initiating international agreements to address these real and potential issues. But should world leaders begin working toward such agreements, my hope would be that they establish 'insurance' funds to resolve problems caused by drilling and transport. What doesn't make sense about bonding exploration and transport according to the volume of materiel handled by individual governments or companies?
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And therein lies a big part of the problem. Our Congress has refused to ratify the UN resolution forming the committee that governs such things. The committee has been formed (see my post above) and is operating without the U.S. As best I can determine, the failure to pass our Congress was determined by votes totally along party lines. And the votes flip-flopped when the GOP took over control of the House from the Democrats. So it looks like we may have uncovered yet another important national issue wherein our elected representatives are practicing partisan politics at the expense of the country.
Geez, if there was ever a reason to throw every single one of them out of office and get a new president to boot, this is just another one. It's not that it's less important, but getting the public all excited about the Russians drilling for oil on their continental shelf and not even being involved in the UN decision-making on the issue probably just isn't sexy enough to get any good soundbites.