Washington, DC - Congressman John D. Dingell (D-MI15) today endorsed the idea of increasing corporate liability for economic damages caused by oil spills. Currently, the cap on economic damages is only $75 million. The economic damage resulting from the horrific recent and ongoing oil spill at BP’s Deepwater Horizon drill platform in the Gulf of Mexico will quickly surpass that amount. Said Dingell, “Polluters must pay not only to clean up the spill itself, but they must be on the hook to help clean up the economic disaster that follows.” In addition, Dingell called for increasing the tax on oil companies to fund Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. The Trust Fund currently has only $1.6 billion in the fund. Oil companies are taxed at eight cents a barrel for the oil spill fund. A strong believer in the polluter pays rule, Dingell calls on Congress to hold immediate hearings on what the proper fee per barrel should be.
Dingell has called for stronger penalties for BP before. In 2007, BP PLC and its subsidiaries agreed to pay $50 million in criminal fines because of the 2005 explosions at the company’s Texas City refinery. Dingell said after the penalty was announced: “I note with curiosity that when an average citizen commits a felony it usually leads to a prison sentence. Yet, apparently, when a big oil company commits a felony that causes 15 deaths, it pays a criminal penalty equal to less than a day’s corporate profits.”
Additionally, Congressman Dingell, an avid hunter, fisher, and a lifelong conservationist and Member of the Migratory Bird Conservations Commission, called on Congress to act quickly to protect the precious wetlands at risk in the Gulf region. “Emergency funding is needed to protect the valuable wetlands in the Gulf region that are susceptible to irreversible damage by this horrific oil spill. In addition to protecting the Gulf region’s economy in the short-term, which we must do, we also must protect the long-term economy and fragile environment which includes the coastal wetlands.” Among the 400 different threatened species are numerous rare birds, waterfowl as well as sea turtles and dolphins. ”Ultimately, BP must pay for cleanup, but Congress can’t wait on the company to act. The Congress must take action to protect these areas.”
Dingell has spent years investigating BP – between the Texas City incident and Prudhoe Bay pipeline closure due to corrosion in pipelines leading up to the Alaska Pipeline which led to one million liters of oil in Alaska's North Slope. In a hearing in 2007 regarding Prudhoe Bay, Dingell said, “Workers were often forced to forgo safety measures to save money and to ultimately increase BP’s profits” and “yet these [safety] programs in many cases appear to have been halted or cut do to budgetary reasons. This is the core of what we’ve learned about the way BP managed Prudhoe Bay. Until BP fully acknowledges the role cost cutting and budget pressure played in creating this mess, I fear other problems, like this, may be incurring at other BP facilities through the United States.”
For more on Dingell’s work investigating BP, please see the following link:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=868&catid=67&Itemid=58
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