Raise BP liability cap to $10 billion?

Source: msnbc.com news services

White House backs Senate plan to raise from $75 million

updated 4:58 p.m. MT, Tues., May 4, 2010

WASHINGTON - As calmer weather in the Gulf gave crews a chance to help buffer the Gulf Coast from the massive oil leak still offshore, the White House and Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday moved to change a law that caps BP's liability for economic damages at $75 million. The goal: Raise that cap to $10 billion.

Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez is co-sponsoring a measure that would raise the liability limit for impacts like lost wages or dwindling tourism to $10 billion. Those payments would be aside from the total spill cleanup costs, which analysts estimate as high as $14 billion.

Menendez also wants it to be made retroactive so it can apply to the huge spill that began after an oil rig exploded in the Gulf on April 20.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the Obama administration supported Menendez's attempts to raise the limit retroactively. He also noted that if BP is found to have acted negligently or violated the law, the cap would not be in effect. The Oil Pollution Act was passed in 1990 in response to the Exxon Valdez spill.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36933743/ns/us_news-environment/

If their error winds up costing a trillion dollars to fix, I say put them on the hook for all of it.

There is a possibility that they deliberately disabled alarms or acted in violation in other ways.

I'm hoping they're found liable for the entire mess, including making whole the fishing and other industries that may be wiped out.

:patriot:

including oil leases.:evilgrin:

I said "entity" because who knows where they have assets hidden.

Clean them out and leave the empty husk.

unemployment and welfare increases found in the region, or all the difference in regional GNP figures.
Such approach would quickly lead to a radically different business model by all corporations

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

That just means any amount over that is a taxpayer bailout. Enough.

There are already tons of providers. I think the liability cap is as much for insurance purposes as anything.

That said, BP deserves to get ground into dust for this.

anymore. Then we take state control of the sites and divide ownership among the people. Profits come in a yearly check, and if we screw up, well, it's our profits and taxes at risk. The way it is now they take the majority of the profits and we take the majority of the risks. Enough.

for the same reason there is no public option, no real energy plan, no bank reform that make sense, farm subsidies to wreck agriculture, it's the golden rule,those with the gold make the rules. Issue # 1 is and will be the public funding of all campaigns. Or a blind trust to to dole out contributions. As long as our current system of payola is in place, we are doomed to dishonest rhetoric from our political leaders, and Obama has honed this crap to a fine edge. I am sick of it, but I don't count, and guess what ? You don't either.

Rpubs, Democrats, and the Finance folks, including Congress, the Administration, and that small percentage of people who control most of the assets of this country.

The Rpubs and the Democrats sit around and squabble about all of the above, while the third party just keeps on colleting assets.

We don't count cause we won't join together. For some odd reason we would rather spend our time bickering, even within our parties.

We don't count because we can't, as a group, see who the real enemy is.

We don't count, becaue it's us.

Thanks for that.

or they'll go the blackwater (woops) xe route

they'll just change their name to peebee and that will be it

they'R so easily predictable

BP loses $32 billion in value on spill
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/04/markets/thebuzz/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/bp-expects-partners-to-share-in-oil-cleanup-costs/article1556917/

That sucks, and hard, but it's true nonetheless.

Because the cleanup is still ongoing and the damage hasn't been completed yet.

I don't think it will matter. We are stuck eating the shit sandwich on this on.

a cap on profits. Any profits over the cap should be directly deposited into the US Treasury.

In order to get the oil companies to fund the 2.7 billion dollar Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. http://www.uscg.mil/npfc/About_NPFC/osltf.asp