Which in many cases is quite limited, where relevance even exists.

Transocean built it, but BP seems to have done most of the day to day operations. See this article, which I linked in an above reply:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/08/oil.rig.warning.signs/index.html

Note that's a BP (not Transocean) official making the decision that may well have caused the explosion. I'm not sure how you want to go about "proving" failsafes "in the wild; " are we to look for examples of acoustic and other blowout preventers stopping explosions electrical ones alone would have allowed? Because that seems much like proving a negative, and thus very difficult. About the only thing we can know for sure is that the additional preventer controls are better than electrical alone, and that the latter is what BP (not Transocean, not the US government, not even Halliburton, much as I loathe them) chose purely for reasons of cost. To the observation that a lot of BP stock is owned by Americans I can only ask wtf difference who owns how much of the stock should make to the response? Because if we went after them hammer and tongs only to realize "oh, crap, WE own a lot of that plummeting stock" and back off, that seems a lot worse than nailing to the wall a company in which a lot of British pensioners happen to be heavily invested.

The cost:benefit isn't worth it anymore? You DO realize Exxon is about the only company that makes larger annual profits than BP, right? The same Exxon that spent a decade fighting the $2 billion judgment in the Valdez spill (which, until a month ago, was the worst oil spill in US history, though BPs Prudhoe Bay spill a few years back was pretty bad, too. ) The same Exxon that just a few years later was breaking all time quarterly profit records for ALL corporations, records they'd set the PREVIOUS quarter. Yeah, as the demand for oil and its availability continue rapidly diverging investors are really going to run screaming from a company that. Shell comes ahead of BP but still behind Exxon on this chart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Big_Oil.svg

but at $274 BILLION in annual revenue, BP brings in more money than the GDP of 150 NATIONS.

No one planned this, but it's just as obvious from what was involved in BP obtaining the lease and gaining drilling rights, as well as how the operated the rig they leased, that almost no one EXPECTED it, and those who did were dismissed (in some cases, literally. ) It's exactly like Valdez all over again: Exxon decided the double hulls that were standard in the rest of the industry (as backup blowout preventers are in other nations) were too expensive, and the result was the worst oil spill in US history. Yes, that it was allowed to happen is a consequence of our dependence on oil to the point we don't ask our dealer too many questions about how he got it to us, but that doesn't absolve him of guilt when he murders children who stumble into his poppy garden.

Show me another way to travel the 33 miles (one way) I have to go to work and I'll take it. Believe me, I resisted even having a license, let alone a car, for a dozen years before finally bowing to the inevitable. That's not why BP chose not to install the same blowout preventer controls REQUIRED in Brazil and Norway (hmmm, Britain is never mentioned in this list; wonder what THEY require for North Sea drilling... ) or pre-drill the relief well mentioned in Rolands thread.

I don't disagree for a moment that our President needs to stop talking and start doing, but all the way back to his US Senate campaign his critics have alleged that's his problem: He's all rhetoric and no policy. I think it's safe to say, however, that British Petroleum bears a fair sight more liability here than the American President or the American public. Not because they're horrible evil British people, but because they screwed up royally when they had ample knowledge of the risks and could've easily and significantly reduced them, just like horrible, evil AMERICAN Exxon did in Alaska.