Obama administration is not proposing to change $75 million limit on BP spill

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

Obama Administration Supports Lifting Liability Cap for 'Future' Oil Spills
By MIKE SORAGHAN

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...

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."

what's another foreclosure or two - at least the corporations are protected

Just let me walk!

Anyone who believes that BP will pay for the disaster is a fucking rube, president or no.

Has a rather familiar ring.

Those usually mean that the people are about to get screwed again.

:hi:

"...the company has pledged..."

For fuck's sake, the Administration is acting like a goddamned battered wife who actually believes her husband when he say's he'll never beat her again! :crazy:

Obama -- he's always about "the future" -- be it war criminals or BP. :mad:

Nice work if you can get it, what a swell party this is.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana

:dem:

Now, where have I heard that before?
:eyes:

and yeah I do remember that one. :grr: :argh:

Nice way to live in denial IMO.

:kick:

Meanwhile, environmental protesters go to prison over their signs. :eyes:

Congress. Is that not true? The AG can raise limits already set? Just like that?

I am sure uncomfortable with the whole moving forward meme, but I don't think this ball is in the AGs court.

to pay everything. Without the cap being removed, the most they can get is the $75M.

Wow, we are sad sacks.

"because the company has pledged to pay all legitimate claims."

Pledges, promises and hope. We are so screwed.

I fear this will NOT end well.

:puke:

God Bless Bernie Sanders!

And just who will be the ones to determine if a claim is legitimate???
Because you know we can trust the big companies to do the right thing.

God what a clusterfuck... :banghead:

and so it goes...

You can't apply such things retroactively. It would never stand up in court.

:kick: