Obama Administration Supports Lifting Liability Cap For "Future" Oil Spills - NYT/Greenwire

The Obama administration maintains there should be no limit on oil companies' spill liability, but a top Justice Department official said it is not proposing to change the $75 million limit on BP PLC's Gulf of Mexico spill because the company has pledged to pay all legitimate claims.

"We are focused on the future," Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, the department's No. 3 official, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on the BP spill's 36th day. Still, Perrelli said, Congress would be on solid constitutional ground if it wanted to raise the liability caps retroactively on BP for economic damages. "Congress legislates retroactively all the time," he said.

Perrelli said the administration is determined to make sure BP lives up to its commitment to pay for the damage it has caused. In the future, he said, the cap should be eliminated. "We don't think there should be an arbitrary cap on financial liability," Perrelli said.

The nuanced position drew strong criticism from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "You may be one of the few people in the country who takes BP at its word," Sanders said. "A year from now, the television cameras will be gone, and it will be a fisherman who's trying to file a claim. And he's going to be by himself."

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/05/25/25greenwire-obama-administration-supports-lifting-liability-2382.html

And the WH gets to *say* they are *protecting the environment* when they have their hands out for more donations and votes in 2012.

*Perception* is the only thing this administration gets right. Toothless media darlings get to have their cake and eat it too....

That being said and the current disaster notwithstanding...

Do you really think lifting the liability cap for *future* spills would not serve to "protect the environment" and doing so only amounts to industry coddling by the Administration, which will benefit them in 2012?

I'm curious if you think the only thing Obama has gotten right is "perception" regarding this oil spill or overall. If the latter is the case, then there's literally nothing separating that point of view from one held by the most rabid, hardcore teabagger around.

it is not proposing to change the $75 million limit on BP PLC's Gulf of Mexico spill because the company has pledged to pay all legitimate claims. OK show me the signed document that states that! Or is it going to be OH! MY BAD - I misspoke.