Barack Obama plans to punish BP with tax hike as Gulf spill worsens
Oil companies face an immediate tax rise of 1 cent per barrel to help to pay for the clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico under proposed legislation rushed out by the White House yesterday.
The measure, unveiled as BP began a new attempt to contain the ruptured well that has leaked millions of gallons of crude oil into America?s southern coastal waters, would put an extra $500 million (?340 million) over ten years into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which covers damage caused by such disasters.
Under a $118 million spending plan outlined in the package, people affected by the spill ? such as fishermen who have lost their livelihoods because of the contamination ? will be granted financial assistance, and federal agencies will get additional funds to monitor the slick and assess its impact.
President Obama, said by a spokesman to be ?deeply frustrated? that the leak has still not been plugged three weeks after it erupted, intends that BP will pick up most of the cost of his new plan.
Hearings into the incident aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20 continued yesterday in Louisiana and in the US Congress, where Democrat Henry Waxman blamed a ?calamitous series of equipment and operational failures? for the disaster. ?If the largest oil and oil services companies in the world had been more careful, 11 lives might have been saved and our coastlines protected,? he said.
The way BP and its partners responded to the disaster, which began with an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, will also be a matter for investigation.
Survivors have alleged that, after being rescued, they were held at sea while the rig?s owner, Transocean, assembled its lawyers. After being brought ashore, traumatised and exhausted by two nights without sleep, they claim that they were taken to a hotel and ?coerced? by Transocean representatives into signing liability waivers before being allowed to see their families.
According to Steven Gordon, of the Houston legal firm Gordon, Elias and Seely, the waivers are now being used against the workers as they attempt to seek compensation for emerging psychological problems that have left some too afraid to work at sea again.
?These people went through holy hell. They have probably just gone through the most traumatic period of their entire lives. They needed counselling ? not ?Please sign here that you?re not hurt? ,? said Mr Gordon, who is representing Christopher Choy, a rig worker. ?When they asked him to sign this, he hadn?t been allowed to sleep and have his first nightmare.?
Mr Choy, 23, teamed up with a firefighter on the rig to try to rescue a crane operator who was trapped by the fire. ?They couldn?t get to him because he was in flames. These guys watched their friends burning,? Mr Gordon told The Times.
Alwin Landry, the captain of a cargo ship that was moored alongside the rig, told a hearing in New Orleans that mud began pouring down on him ?like a black rain?, followed by a thunderous hiss. ?I saw the green flash on the main deck. Time kind of slowed down. I heard the explosion,? he said, adding that minutes later came a radio call: ?Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! The rig?s on fire. Abandon ship.?
Workers leapt eight storeys into the sea to escape the flames, but even the water was on fire. The last to climb from the rig on to Mr Landry?s boat was the rig?s captain, Curt Kuchta, who tried to hit the ?kill? switch to shut the oil well. ?He acknowledged he pressed it and didn?t know if it worked or not,? Mr Landry said.
Oil companies face an immediate tax rise of 1 cent per barrel to help to pay for the clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico under proposed legislation rushed out by the White House yesterday.
The measure, unveiled as BP began a new attempt to contain the ruptured well that has leaked millions of gallons of crude oil into America?s southern coastal waters, would put an extra $500 million (?340 million) over ten years into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which covers damage caused by such disasters.
Under a $118 million spending plan outlined in the package, people affected by the spill ? such as fishermen who have lost their livelihoods because of the contamination ? will be granted financial assistance, and federal agencies will get additional funds to monitor the slick and assess its impact.
President Obama, said by a spokesman to be ?deeply frustrated? that the leak has still not been plugged three weeks after it erupted, intends that BP will pick up most of the cost of his new plan.
Hearings into the incident aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20 continued yesterday in Louisiana and in the US Congress, where Democrat Henry Waxman blamed a ?calamitous series of equipment and operational failures? for the disaster. ?If the largest oil and oil services companies in the world had been more careful, 11 lives might have been saved and our coastlines protected,? he said.
The way BP and its partners responded to the disaster, which began with an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, will also be a matter for investigation.
Survivors have alleged that, after being rescued, they were held at sea while the rig?s owner, Transocean, assembled its lawyers. After being brought ashore, traumatised and exhausted by two nights without sleep, they claim that they were taken to a hotel and ?coerced? by Transocean representatives into signing liability waivers before being allowed to see their families.
According to Steven Gordon, of the Houston legal firm Gordon, Elias and Seely, the waivers are now being used against the workers as they attempt to seek compensation for emerging psychological problems that have left some too afraid to work at sea again.
?These people went through holy hell. They have probably just gone through the most traumatic period of their entire lives. They needed counselling ? not ?Please sign here that you?re not hurt? ,? said Mr Gordon, who is representing Christopher Choy, a rig worker. ?When they asked him to sign this, he hadn?t been allowed to sleep and have his first nightmare.?
Mr Choy, 23, teamed up with a firefighter on the rig to try to rescue a crane operator who was trapped by the fire. ?They couldn?t get to him because he was in flames. These guys watched their friends burning,? Mr Gordon told The Times.
Alwin Landry, the captain of a cargo ship that was moored alongside the rig, told a hearing in New Orleans that mud began pouring down on him ?like a black rain?, followed by a thunderous hiss. ?I saw the green flash on the main deck. Time kind of slowed down. I heard the explosion,? he said, adding that minutes later came a radio call: ?Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! The rig?s on fire. Abandon ship.?
Workers leapt eight storeys into the sea to escape the flames, but even the water was on fire. The last to climb from the rig on to Mr Landry?s boat was the rig?s captain, Curt Kuchta, who tried to hit the ?kill? switch to shut the oil well. ?He acknowledged he pressed it and didn?t know if it worked or not,? Mr Landry said.
