Senators Push BP Accountability, As EPW Committee Lifts Liability Cap

Democrats renewed their push Wednesday to hold BP accountable for the monster oil spill continuing to foul the Gulf of Mexico. A key committee voted to eliminate the cap on the damages the oil giant would have to pay, and several senators pressured Republicans to stop blocking a vote on several bills designed to hold BP responsible.

Meanwhile, a new public opinion poll indicates Americans have turned against offshore drilling.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved S. 3305, the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act of 2010, legislation introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) to lift the cap on liability for damages from oil spills.

The bill passed the committee by voice vote with an amendment, offered by the panel's chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), to eliminate the cap on liability for responsible parties at an offshore facility, as well as amendments to improve oil spill contingency plans and improve the claims process.

Under the Oil Pollution Act (OPA), liability for damages related to a spill from an offshore facility is limited to $75 million for each incident. Menendez's bill would amend the OPA to increase the liability cap from $75 million to $10 billion. The amended version the EPW panel approved Wednesday would remove the limit on liability applicable to offshore facilities.

The Menendez bill now goes to the full Senate for consideration, where Republicans have filibustered the earlier version of the legislation on several occasions.

Menendez, and Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) held a press conference Wednesday to put pressure on Republicans to drop their obstruction of the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act of 2010 and other legislation designed to hold BP accountable for what has become the worst oil spill in the history of the United States.

“The oil is still gushing into the Gulf, and the damages already have far exceeded the measly $75 million cap on oil company liability,” says Lautenberg, a co-sponsor of the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act. “Oil is now washing up on the Gulf coast shores, tourists are canceling their vacation plans, and fishermen have been forced to close their operations. Yet Republicans stand firmly on the side of Big Oil and have blocked repeated attempts to move this bill quickly through the Senate. Today we have taken an important step forward in our mission to ensure that polluters, not taxpayers or innocent victims, pay the full cost for oil spill damages.”

Shaheen offered a bill to give subpoena power to National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, which was created by President Obama to investigate the cause of the BP oil spill. A similar bill passed the House by a nearly unanimous vote of 420-1, but Republicans Wednesday again blocked passage in the Senate.

The subpoena power would give the commission more teeth to compel testimony in its work.

“Providing subpoena power to the commission tasked with investigating the BP oil spill is not and should not be a partisan issue,” Shaheen says. “It wasn’t partisan in the House where this legislation passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. I don’t understand why it continues to be blocked in the Senate. It is unbelievable, after everything the people of the Gulf region have endured and this country has witnessed, that anyone is still standing with the oil company that caused this disaster instead of the victims who are suffering from it.”

Meanwhile, a new poll indicates that the BP disaster has seriously cut into public support for offshore oil and natural gas drilling. A majority of the public—52 percent—opposes offshore drilling, and support has fallen to 44 percent, according to a new Pew Research Center poll. Back in February, before the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon platform that caused the oil spill,
63 percent of the public supported more offshore drilling as a policy response to address American energy needs, compared to 31 percent who were opposed.

Menendez suggests that Republicans could be caught in this turn of opinion if they continue blocking bills designed to hold BP accountable.

"We’ve put forth some pretty simple and common-sense pieces of legislation that provide chances for us to show that we stand with coastal families instead of oil companies, but Republicans consistently side with the oil companies,” he says. “The American people have shown clearly that they want oil companies held fully accountable, and we are working to do just that. If Republicans continue to oppose our efforts, they will be run over by public opinion."

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