Washington, D.C. - A lawmaker on the Senate Commerce Committee is demanding answers to a newly published report that the federal government has given most of the BP oil-spill response contracts to companies in a state far removed from the Gulf Coast.Florida Democrat Bill Nelson sent a letter to Gary Locke, secretary of the Department of Commerce, requesting a full accounting of his agency’s contracts for damage assessment and cleanup in the wake of the spill.
A spokesperson for Nelson said the request was spurred by an earlier news account by Bloomberg. The news service reported Nov. 17 that Massachusetts-based companies received twice as much money in federal contracts stemming from the oil spill as the combined total of the five Gulf Coast states where the oil washed up.
“For over six months, the people of the Gulf Coast have been experiencing economic devastation as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” Nelson wrote in his letter to Locke. “Yet a recent Bloomberg news account reveals that companies far from the Gulf Coast are receiving a majority of the federal contracts for products and services related to damage assessment and clean-up. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded a substantial number of these contracts.”
The oil spill occurred after an explosion and fire sank the Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Louisiana on April 20. In subsequently administering the Vessels of Opportunity Program, even BP agreed to use local labor, Nelson noted in his letter.
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