Corporations need to start taking more responsibility for their own actions, and if it means backbreaking financial penalties, then so be it. This is fundamental to driving proper corporate environmental ethical behavior that is still sorely lacking across many industries. However, while oil is still spewing out at 200,000 gallons of oil per day, the blame game is already well underway.

The CEO of BP has been on a PR media campaign taking some responsibility, but more importantly trying to place ultimate accountability on their Oil Rig lessor, Transocean, and Haliburton, who was responsible for capping/pressure control. "We are responsible, not for the accident, but we are responsible for the oil and for dealing with it and cleaning the situation up," chief executive Tony Hayward said Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America." He said the equipment that failed and led to the spill belonged to owner Transocean Ltd., not BP, which operated the rig, the Deepwater Horizon.

BP attorneys are well aware that the law caps the company's liability for economic damages - such as lost wages, shortened fishing seasons or lagging tourism damages - at 75 Million according to government regulations, but what should be interesting is the amount of compensation that will be paid out to account for liabilities under the Natural Reserve Damage Assessment. Under this legislation, there is no payout cap for damages BP is deemed responsible for, and the damages are looking severe.

The valves that failed at the blowout point are tied into a reservoir that's under extreme pressure, so any hopes of a natural slowdown in leakage from this oil reserve due to lowering reservoir pressure are far off. There will be attempts to release pressure at another drill point, but that event is at least 90 days off, Secretary of the Dept of the Interior, Ken Salazar said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "You're looking at potentially 90 days before you ultimately get to what is the ultimate solution here and that's a relief well." Three 70 ton relief containment domes to be placed over the leaks may be a success and much of the public is watching how this plays out closely.

Just last year we had the Coal Ash Spill in Tennessee that was compared to the Exxon Valdez, and now only 16 months later we are experiencing the BP gulf spill. If you pay heed to the opinions of experts in oil rigging, this will wind up being worse than those two environmental disasters combined. Many are not aware that small communities in Alaska are still reeling after the Valdez spill, as oil still lingers on some beaches a full 21 years later. The damage to marine life and birds was devastating and post mortem reports being released just recently later are still finding deeper and deeper layers of environmental damage that is frankly saddening. This will be just as saddening as federal agencies have already banned fishing in large parts of the gulf with local fishermen and related economies feeling the pain.

BP can attempt to push responsibility onto the contractors equipment and processes that failed, but the highest ethical responsibility needs to be fully placed on those who are reaping the highest financial rewards for harvesting these natural resources. That means BP needs to pay the highest in damages, period. Otherwise a terrible message will be sent, supporting large corporations that are increasingly making a habit of outsourcing their liability to smaller companies. At the end of the day, when things go very wrong, many of these smaller companies do not have the financial deep pockets to pay for these damages, and they essentially become compartmentalized scapegoats. We need and should demand healthy environmental ethical corporate behavior, not the privatization of gains and socialization of losses that we should all be extremely tired of by this point.