国际英语新闻：U.S. experts want severe penalty, strict regulations to prevent future oil spill

LOS ANGELES, June 11 (Xinhua) -- U.S. experts said more severe penalty and strict regulations on oil drilling will likely prevent similar environmental catastrophes as it has happened in the Gulf of Mexico from happening again.

Thomas Azwell, Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management in the University of California at Berkeley, who has developed low-cost and environmentally safe bioremediation technologies for hydrocarbons and toxins found in crude oil and dredge spoils, told Xinhua in a recent interview that there are laws and regulations governing companies drilling oil at sea, but the problem is how to enforce them.

In his opinion, the penalty of 75 million dollars for any single accident is too low. Comparing with the big profits, the penalty is not enough to make those companies to take more precautions to prevent any accident to happen.

Azwell said the profits are too high but the risk is too low, that is a problem. "If you make it more expensive, they will take more precautions," said Azwell.

According to Azwell, it is capitalism and greed that caused the biggest environmental catastrophe. To raise penalty to make it more expensive will change the industry.

Azwell said the impact of the oil spill on the environment can be bigger than any previous oil spills before, and the impact will last for five to 10 yeas.

He said there is technology to stop the oil spill, but it takes time by traditional way to drill relief wells. It will take several months and nobody is going to wait for that long.

Asked whether there are better technologies to stop and collect the oil spill, Azwell said there is a better technology that has been produced by Sweden.

He said it works like an umbrella, which covers the above, and it is effective because it allows the gas to go through it but does not allow the oil to pass. That will catch the majority of oil that has been spilled.

However, the technology is rather new and has not gone through many experiments, and big companies would usually turn to traditional technology to stop oil spill, but this time the traditional way doesn't work.

He said the U.S. should invest more money in developing new technology, and it is better for the government to fund research from universities, but so far most of the research is funded by the industry. In his opinion, universities are more objective in doing research.