Senator tells claims czar: don’t let BP off the hook

U.S. Senator Bill Nelson

“BP doesn’t need to be protected from the citizenry. It’s the other way around.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson charged today that BP is trying to break its promise to residents and businesses in Florida’s Panhandle by trying now to limit future Deepwater Horizon oil spill claims.

Nelson leveled the charge in a letter to Kenneth Feinberg, the attorney in charge of administering the payment of loss claims stemming from the April 2010 oil spill off Louisiana. News broke Friday, July 8, that BP wants to limit future claims because the company argues the Gulf coast economy has recovered enough and there’s no evidence to suggest that the effects of the spill will be long-term.

However, Nelson, in his letter to Feinberg, noted that the fishing industry near the Exxon-Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989 never fully came back.

“BP doesn’t need to be protected from the citizenry,” Nelson wrote to Feinberg. “It’s the other way around.”

It was Feinberg who set up the process to cover future losses if, for instance, more oil surfaced and drove away tourists or tainted seafood. He did that in February.

BP is now asking Feinberg to abandon the process; according to a 28-page document, it sent Feinberg July 7. Under BP’s scenario, it could end up paying out less than $5 billion of the $20 billion it initially promised to set aside right after the Deepwater spill.

“BP made a commitment,” Nelson wrote. “People are still hurting. And we don’t know what will happen in the future, plus there are still claims in an appeals process and large claims that haven’t even been submitted yet.”

Nelson said he thinks it could take years before we know the full extent of damages and based on that, alone, BP should not be allowed to change the claims process.