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Sensing an opportunity after Lisa Murkowski stood up for poor oppressed oil executives and blocked consideration of a rise in the liability cap for companies implicated in oil spills, Democrats plan to bring up the Menendez-Nelson-Lautenberg “Oil Company Bailout Prevention Act” again and again next week, daring Republicans to continue to block it. So in response, Republicans have put together their own bill, raising the liability cap to a floating, easily gamed number.
A day after Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski shot down a Democratic-led effort to lift the liability cap on oil companies, Florida Sen. George LeMieux and three other Gulf Coast Republicans introduced legislation they say would “dramatically increase” the industry’s liability.
The legislation — which also has the backing of Sens. David Vitter, R-La., Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. and Roger Wicker, R-Miss., would set a new cap equal to the last four quarters of the responsible party’s profits — or double the current limit, whichever is greater.
“BP is already responsible for the costs of the cleanup, but we must ensure taxpayers are not forced to pay for associated damages,” LeMieux said. He said economic damage from the spill will “far exceed” the current $75 million cap, and that under the bill, BP’s liability would jump to $17 billion dollars.
Obviously, the question becomes “what year is applicable to the cap,” and if it’s in the same year as this spill for BP, for example, that cap suddenly shrinks. If the company loses money in a calendar year, do they become not responsible at all (for a startup company with capital expenditures, that’s entirely possible)? Plus we’re putting the calculations in the hands of the accountants for the responsible party. Does that seem viable to you?
I hope the Republicans try to put this bill on the floor, so everyone can see exactly what side they’re on. Plus they can keep repeating the fact that BP made $17 billion dollars last year and yet gets politicians to do their bidding and stop them from paying their fair share.
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What is painfully obvious is that the $75 Million cap was set far too low because our Senators are far too accommodating to Big Oil.
Now what is painfully obvious is that when our Senators are in danger of being seen by the public as in the pockets of Big Oil they will do absolutely anything to remedy the picture … after the horses are out of the barn and still flowing out of the Gulf.
What is also obvious is that corporate regulation need to be there BEFORE the crisis hits. We didn’t need massive bank de-regulations over 30 years, just a little loosening in the early ’80s would’ve been enough. What we didn’t need was to let GMO foods go unregulated BEFORE the crisis hit (well, we still have some time to get that right). What we didn’t need was for Big Oil to go along without big competition while we face continual problems and practically no punishments.
We need regulations to protect the environment and people from banks, Big Oil, GMO foods and all the other predators out there.
Watching Senators scurry to appear to be ‘the good guys’ is hilarious.
We are a Country of the Rule of LAW as the Republicans beat into our minds daily when they were trying to impeach Clinton.
It is said, “That anyone can sue anyone.”
Then, “Why can’t we sue the Republicans for all the deregulation that caused all these problems?”
Why can’t we sue them for holding up re-regulation?
Why can’t we sue them for all the damage they did to the People, Our Economy, and Our Country?
Why? The answer is they have stacked the Courts and all of our bodies that would allow us to do it.
I haven’t followed this and am confused. When was Murkowski provided control over the Senate?