1. Government officials are not omniscient. They can not predict all modes of failure, and have solutions and regulations against all of them in place in advance.
2. What government officials do know ahead of time is political donations . . . in this case political donations from big oil companies . . . therefore laws and regulations are written accordingly . . . to maximize political donations.
3. Offshore drilling pipelines are much longer than typical ships or submarines.
4. The source of the spill is in the hole in the seabed itself. Having multiple segments along the pipe wouldn't stop the spill at all.
5. Considering that natural oil gushers happened/happens even on land . . . one has to assume that natural oil gushers happen on the seabed quite often. Some marine microbic ecosystem may well live off those gusher opportunities just like pioneer species and even pine trees maintain their competitive edge through forest fires on land.
6. How is land owner rights vs. mineral rights resolved on land? in case of pollution from exercising the mineral rights? It seems to me that property rights to serene environment/view on the waterfront vs. fishing profit opportunity vs. oil drilling are a set of inherently conflicting rights/profit-opportunities. In a normal market economy, a web of insurance policies would be evolve to offset one against another; if the water-front property owners and fish-eaters pay up enough, there wouldn't be drilling due to insurance premium being too high. Now it seems the taxpayers will be footing the bill to pay all three parties without collecting any insurance premium apriori regarding the particular eventuality . . . any wonder why water-front properties became inordinately expensive?
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