[StBernard] Joint Release: Vitter, Sessions Introduce Oil Spill Response and Assistance Act

Westley Annis Westley at da-parish.com
Fri May 14 08:07:39 EDT 2010


Vitter, Sessions Introduce Oil Spill Response and Assistance Act

Bill by Gulf Coast senators increases BP liability cap to $20 billion


(Washington, D.C.) - U.S. Sens. David Vitter and Jeff Sessions today
introduced the Oil Spill Response and Assistance Act, which would
dramatically increase the liability of companies responsible for oil spills.
The legislation would establish a new liability cap equal to the last four
quarters of the responsible party's profits or double the -current limit,
whichever is greater.

"As it stands, the cap on damages is too low, which leaves
taxpayers exposed to the risk of paying the steep costs of cleaning up oil
spills. Making a company at fault pay their last four quarters of profits
is a much more effective way to ensure that energy companies actually pay
for their mistakes without chasing many of them out of business," said
Vitter. "And under our bill, the bigger companies would be liable for more
than the $10 billion cap others propose."

"The Deepwater Horizon incident is a very serious disaster, and it is
heartbreaking to think of the lives that have been lost and the
environmental damage that could result. Oil continues to spill into the
Gulf, and stopping it immediately must be our highest priority," Sessions, a
member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said. "There
are lessons to be learned from this crisis. This bill would provide for
important research and additional environmental safeguards to prevent this
sort of catastrophe from happening in the future. Our nation depends on
energy exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf, and we owe it to
ourselves to do all we can to make certain that oil and gas production is
conducted under the strongest environmental protections."

The OSRA bill would also establish much greater reserve requirements for the
amount of oil containment barriers, known as "boom," capable of withstanding
up to six-foot waves, and would direct work on technology to effectively cap
leaks like the one currently gushing in the Gulf. Additionally, the bill
would require a thorough report by September 1 from all agencies involved in
the response to the recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico to evaluate the
effectiveness of the practices and procedures used in the response.

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