BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG
We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Rep joe barton, republican neo-nazi facist pig from texas doesn't want to live in a country that can force a corporation to pay for a disaster of their own making like the bp Gulf of Mexico oil spill. HEY JOE....BYE BYE, AND DON'T LET THE DOOR KNOB HIT YA WHERE THE GOOD LORD SPLIT YA! The rest of the gop and their tea-baggin allies are just as bad, condemning big government on one hand and demanding the government do something about the bp mess in the Gulf at the same time. Come on gop, tea-baggers and fox news, make up the nation's mind!
Republicans on the Hill have calculated that President Obama's successful demand that BP set up a $20 billion escrow account to pay out claims is ripe for political attack. In the wake of Wednesday's White House announcement, a host of GOP officials are raising questions about both the process by which the deal was made and the deal itself -- going so far as to apologize to BP on America's behalf.
"I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) during a hearing on Thursday morning with BP's CEO Tony Hayward." I think it is a tragedy in the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown -- in this case a $20 billion shakedown -- with the attorney general of the United States, who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the American people, participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that's unprecedented in our nation's history, which has no legal standing, which I think sets a terrible precedent for our nation's future."
"I'm only speaking for myself. I'm not speaking for anyone else, but I apologize," Barton added. "I do not want to live in a county where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, [it is] subject to some sort of political pressure that, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown."
Airing criticisms against the notion of forcing BP to fork over $20 billion in liability revenue would seem like a fairly risky proposition considering just how reviled the oil giant is in the current political environment. And Democrats quickly jumped on the congressman's remark, as well as those from other Republicans, as evidence of a lack of sensitivity for the victims of the spill.
"What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. "Congressman Barton may think that a fund to compensate these Americans is a 'tragedy', but most Americans know that the real tragedy is what the men and women of the Gulf Coast are going through right now. Members from both parties should repudiate his comments."
"While the President has worked to ensure that BP is held fully accountable to the families and small businesses of the Gulf, Republicans and Joe Barton are proving that they are only accountable to BP and the oil industry," added DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan. "While the President has secured a guarantee of at least $20 billion for Gulf Coast residents, Republicans and Joe Barton have lined their pockets with BP contributions and stock dividends. While the President has gotten BP to rightfully apologize to the American people for their reckless behavior, their inexcusable response and their insulting approach, Republicans are apologizing to BP. Republicans could not have this more backward, and it raises serious questions as to why they are on the side of BP and the oil companies instead of that of the American people."
WATCH REP joe barton r-tx LICK SOME BP ASS HERE
Indeed, despite saying he was speaking on his own accord (and not on behalf of the Republican Party) but Barton was far from alone. The Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative members of the House, was even less diplomatic with a statement describing the Obama administration's actions as a "Chicago-style political shakedown."
"These actions are emblematic of a politicization of our economy that has been borne out of this Administration's drive for greater power and control," wrote chairman Tom Price (R-GA).
Price was echoed later in the evening by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who said during an appearance on CNN that the president appears to be using BP as a "permanent ATM card," with eyes on taking over "private industry."
None of the critiques, however, matched the more philosophical pushback offered by Mississippi Governor Hailey Barbour, who objected to the idea of forcing BP to invest money for the purpose of paying out claims when the company could simply use that money to expand offshore drilling so that they could make money to pay out claims.
"If they take a huge amount of money and put it in an escrow account so they can't use it to drill oil wells and produce revenue, are they going to be able to pay us?" Barbour told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
For certain, Barton, Bachman, Price and Barbour's comments represented some of the more extreme remarks aired on the issue. But they aren't isolated within the GOP tent, nor are they far removed from the sentiments of party leadership. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office has not commented directly on the escrow account, an aide confirms. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), meanwhile, immediately distanced himself from Barton, telling Fox News on Thursday that he didn't know the context for the apology offered to the oil company, but "I'm glad BP has accepted responsibility for their actions."
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, however, has been critical of Obama for not placing his focus on the right venue.
"I don't want to pile on the president, but people need leadership right, and the President has not offered any plan to help the people right now who need it most," the congressman said in a statement. "We're facing a real environmental catastrophe right now and the President has taken no demonstrative action to show that he has a plan and is going to get it done. I do commend the President working with BP to establish the fund, and clearly BP has to pay. For their part, they've stepped up and taken responsibility. But the President still has not offered a fix to the problem at hand, which is plugging the leak and cleaning the mess."
On Thursday morning, meanwhile, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) tried for the fourth time to eliminate the $75 million cap on liability for economic damages that oil companies must pay in the wake of a spill. His effort for a unanimous consent agreement was rejected, once more, by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who said the policy would make drilling offshore economically prohibitive for smaller oil companies.
These right wing republican hypocrites make me sick....screaming about big government during the health care debate, and about the bailout of Wall Street and the auto industry but now demanding the Federal government take over the handling of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico from BP WHILE ONE OF THEIR OWN, SEN. JAMES INHOFE BLOCKS RAISING THE LIABILITY CAP THAT WOULD BE APPLIED TO OIL COMPANIES FOR CLEANING UP THEIR MESSES FROM $75 MILLION TO $10 BILLION. Big mouth Bobby Jindal, having already proven what a hypocrite he is by condemning the federal stimulus package while using the stimulus checks for political photo ops needs to be called out by the administration and the Democratic party and forced to explain his hypocrisy on the national stage.
The words "government takeover" were originally injected into the discourse by Frank Luntz in the early stages of the health care reform process and have been repeated in the pejorative sense by Republicans across the board.
Despite the fact that thousands of Americans die every month from a lack of affordable health insurance, the Republicans have argued that the government isn't allowed to "takeover" the industry. It goes without saying that the president wasn't proposing any such thing and, in fact, publicly denounced single-payer health insurance, but okay. The Republicans truly believe the health care reform bill is socialism and a total takeover of the industry. It's not.
Likewise, the Republicans and tea party people have been screeching about the bailouts. They insist that the banks and financial institutions (and GM) should have been allowed to fail, rather than receiving emergency loans from the government in order to, at the time, prevent the American economy from being dragged down along with these institutions had they not been hoisted with an infusion of cash.
Speaking of which, the Republicans also loudly opposed the recovery bill, which included, as a total dollar amount, the biggest middle class tax cut in American history as well as a considerable amount of funding for the states. Yet the Republicans, once again, screeched about state's rights and tried to block the funding.
In his response to the president's first address to a joint session of Congress, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana famously mocked such obviously hilarious things as volcano monitoring in the recovery bill. Volcanoes? Why should we monitor those?
The dominant centerpiece to all of this outrage has been the Republican idea that the states and the free market should be left alone to deal with problems and crises on its own without "socialist" -- or even "communist" depending on which AM radio station you listen to -- interference from big government and our America-hating president. No government takeovers. Freedom! Liberty! And no stupid volcano thingees also.
Americans dying from a lack of health insurance? Too bad. No government takeover. The economy about to sink into a second Great Depression? Too bad. No government takeover. The Earth growing warmer due to the burning of fossil fuels? Too bad. No government takeover.
That is until last month.
A major corporation, not unlike General Motors or Bank of America or WellPoint, failed to properly outfit one of its deep-water oil drilling platforms with the proper failsafe mechanisms and a chain reaction of death and destruction ensued. The Transocean Deepwater-Horizon oil rig, leased by British Petroleum, exploded and eventually sank 5,000 feet to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, snapping its drilling riser in several places which, consequently, is spewing black gushers of oil into the ocean at a rate of upwards of a million gallons per day.
And suddenly all of these state's rights, anti-government takeover Republicans are demanding a government takeover of the capping and cleanup process. (If only someone had blasted uninsured Americans in the face with reddish-brown crude oil, the health care reform bill might have received a few Republican votes.)
Bobby Jindal, the state's rights small government governor who tried to block stimulus money from entering Louisiana (though it didn't stop him from eventually accepting giant checks during photo-ops), is demanding that the federal government take over the handling of the disaster.
Jindal said in his now infamous TV address, "Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C."
Zing! POW!
But now, with a different kind of eruption 25 miles off the shores of Louisiana, Jindal can't walk past an open microphone without begging for the federal government's help in cleaning up BP's mess. A government takeover of a private corporation's mess for the sake of protecting American jobs and natural resources? Sounds not unlike the justification for the recovery bill and the bailouts.
Last weekend, Sarah Palin appeared on Fox News Sunday with her shrill, staccotto word salads and made a similar case. She very clearly contradicted Rand Paul, whom she endorsed, by wondering why President Obama is "taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there..."
So one half of the 2008 Republican presidential "drill, baby, drill" ticket which, by the way, accepted $2.4 million in contributions from oil companies (double the amount donated to the Obama-Biden ticket), called for a government takeover of the BP situation, and lamented that it wasn't happening because the president's campaign accepted oil money. This is such a twisted, Mobius Loop of backwards logic and opposite-day thinking, it's difficult to summarize it without also becoming trapped in the same tangle of stupid. Something tells me that's the whole idea. Anyway. Here's Sean Hannity, who very likely repeated the Luntz "government takeover" meme more often than any other Republican last year, complaining that the president and the federal government "outsourced" the oil spill crisis to BP -- the very company that's responsible for actually creating the mess. "Outsourced," we're to assume, as opposed to spending taxpayer money to solve the crisis.
Hannity himself said, "This is the worst environmental disaster and [the administration] did nothing from day one." And, "Bobby Jindal has been begging for help and it's not been forthcoming."
In the U.S. Senate, the anti-bailout, anti-spending Republicans have been filibustering any Democratic effort to lift the $75 million liability cap on oil spill damages, effectively bailing out the oil companies and potentially forcing the federal government to cover any damages above and beyond the limits of the cap. Put another way, once an oil company reaches $75 million, American taxpayers take over, and Republicans like Senator Inhofe are working hard to keep it that way. Once again, just like the bailouts, the Republicans are embracing privatized, free market profits, but socialized losses.
Now that crude has begun to wash upon the shores and wetlands of Republican red states, any superficial bumper sticker griping about socialism has been temporarily forgotten.
That's the bitch about building a party platform around specious, shallow platitudes. They might be effective in terms of rallying the easily-led, low information base, but as soon as practicality steps in, all sloganeering is dropped in lieu of confronting and dealing with reality. Subsequently, these alleged free market state's rights small government anti-regulation southern conservative cardboard standee Republicans continue to demand federal help and socialized taxpayer money. The Republicans are demanding redistributed wealth from Pennsylvania and Vermont and Illinois and New York and Massachusetts with all of its socialist bleeding heart tree-hugging environmental wacko liberals.
However hypocritical the Republicans might be on this, they're ultimately correct. The federal government has a responsibility to protect our economy, our natural resources and our lives from the destruction that's often wrought by irresponsible corporations. Thanks, Republicans, for finally catching up.
Click the header to go to the website to contact your Senators and tell them BP must be held responsible for all the cost from their Gulf of Mexico oil spill!
As the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig continues to spill over 1 million gallons of oil into the Gulf every day, Republicans are demanding less regulation for companies like BP and Transocean while also looking for a taxpayer-funded bailout of BP.1 Yeah, I'm serious.
After a month of oil spewing into the Gulf, the cost of cleaning up BP's mess is $542 million and counting. But a group of Republican senators lead by Lisa Murkowski of Alaska want the company to pay for only the first five days of the cleanup and put taxpayers on the hook for everything else.2
That's right, Murkowski and her pals want to "Bail out BP."
We need to tell Murkowski and her Senate colleagues that this is not OK. Can you send a message to your senators that it's time to end offshore drilling and focus on clean energy instead?
BP makes over $3.9 million EVERY HOUR.3 In the 31 days since the rig exploded, they've earned over $2.8 billion. Meanwhile, BP lawyers are working overtime to make sure that they are on the hook for only $75 million of the cleanup cost. And Murkowski and her allies think that's just fine because, to them, fewer rules are a good thing.
First, they wanted less regulation for Wall Street and the banks (look where that got us). Now, they want to do the same for oil companies. It's outrageous. We need oversight that protects our communities and environment -- not another taxpayer-funded bailout of the oil companies.
Congress needs another wake-up call to remind them that we're watching. Congress can't continue to let corporate America avoid responsibility and then bail them out when they can't clean up their own mistakes.
Tell your senators to say no to the BP bailout and to focus on clean energy solutions instead.
My letter to Sens Webb & Warner on this issue 21MAI10
Dear Senators,
The oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a timely reminder that oil is a dirty and dangerous source of energy.
But some of your colleagues, lead by Sen. Murkowski, are proposing less regulation for companies like BP and Transocean and leaving taxpayers on the hook for cleanup costs when things go wrong. This is an outrageous bailout of BP and other big oil companies. BP, Transocean and Halliburton can not get away with sticking the cost of this cleanup and the environmental and economic damage on the American taxpayers like Exxon did after their spill in Prince William Sound. This is not going to be another BOHICA experience (Bend Over Her It Comes Again), we will not tolerate it and Sens Murkowski and Inhofe must not be allowed to place the corporate interest of these companies ahead of the physical, economic and environmental health of the nation.
Instead of risking our air, water, health and safety by perpetuating our addiction to oil, it's time to build a clean-energy economy that means more jobs, less pollution and real energy independence.
Please, oppose all plans to expand offshore drilling and limit oil company liability for spills and focus on clean energy instead.
Republicans for the second time blocked legislation that would increase oil companies' liability for oil spill damages, setting off criticism from Democrats seeking to make BP pay for the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) on Tuesday blocked a bill Democrats have put forward to raise the liability cap from $75 million to $10 billion. He said on the Senate floor he agrees the cap should be raised, but the Senate should "wait and see where the cap should be."
"If you have it too high you are going to be singling out BP and the other four largest majors and the nationalized companies, such as China and Venezuela, and shutting out the independent producers," he said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) blocked the legislation last week.
President Obama released a statement saying he is disappointed by the Republicans' objections.
"This maneuver threatens to leave taxpayers, rather than the oil companies, on the hook for future disasters like the BP oil spill," he said. "I urge the Senate Republicans to stop playing special interest politics and join in a bipartisan effort to protect taxpayers and demand accountability from the oil companies."
Roll Call reports that Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), one of the sponsors of the legislation, reportedly asked, "This is really about whose side do you stand on? Do you stand up with the taxpayers or with multibillion-dollar oil companies?"
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), another co-sponsor, similarly derided the GOP.
"What we're watching here is a sham," Lautenberg said, Politico reports. "We see our friends on the other side--correct that, the people on the other side... not friendly in this case, [and we want them] to stand up and say, 'Yeah. You did it? Pay for it.'"
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that a $10 billion cap is inadequate.
LONDON (Reuters) - The total bill related to the oil spill drifting toward Louisiana from a well operated by BP Plc in the Gulf of Mexico, could exceed $14 billion, analysts said. 2MAI10
Since an explosion almost two weeks ago on the Deepwater Horizon rig, a disaster scenario has emerged with hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil spewing unchecked into the Gulf and moving inexorably northward to the coast. The responsibility for the cleanup operation lies with the owners of the well, led by 65 percent shareholder, London-based oil company BP Plc.
BP said last week that it was spending $6 million a day on the clean up but admitted this figure would rise sharply when the slick hits land.
Neither the company or its 25 percent partner, explorer Anadarko Petroleum, have put an estimate on total costs, although BP CEO Tony Hayward told Reuters in an interview on Friday that he would pay all legitimate claims for damages.
The final bill for cleaning up the spill could be $7 billion, Neil McMahon, analyst at investment firm Bernstein said.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley put the figure at $3.5 billion, while analysts at Citigroup, Evolution Securities and Panmure Gordon put cleanup costs at under $1.1 billion.
Compensation that must be paid to those impacted by the slick could also amount to billions of dollars.
The cost to the fishing industry in Louisiana could be $2.5 billion, while the Florida tourism industry could lose $3 billion, Bernstein predicted.
BP will also have to spend $100 million to drill a relief well to try and stem the flow of the well, while the loss of the Deepwater Horizon well represents a hit of around $1 billion for its owner, Swiss-based drilling specialist Transocean.
COMPENSATION FOR WORKERS
Eleven workers are missing, presumed dead, following the rig explosion and compensation will have to be made to their families.
BP was forced to pay out $2 billion in compensation after 15 workers died in an explosion at its Texas City refinery in 2005, although Peter Hitchens at Panmure said it was likely liabilities related to the rig would be Transocean's responsibility.
BP and its partners in the oil block where the leaking well is located will have to cover the cleanup costs and damages on a basis proportionate to their shareholdings, which will leave BP with 65 percent of the bill.
The company self-insures through its own insurance company, named Jupiter. Contrary to press reports, Jupiter does not lay off risks onto reinsurers or syndicates at Lloyds of London, a spokesman said on Sunday.
Hence, BP will end up paying any costs out of its own pocket.
However, it is possible BP and Anadarko could seek to reclaim any damages from Cameron International Corp, the supplier of the well head equipment which has been blamed for the accident or companies involved in maintaining the drilling machinery.
The oil is leaking because a shut-off valve that should automatically kick in when a problem occurs, has not functioned.
The valve, known as a blow-out preventer, was supplied by Cameron and operated, as an integral part of Transocean's rig.
Oil services provider Halliburton said it performed a variety of work on the rig.
If BP could prove that Halliburton or Cameron did something wrong, they could lay part of the blame on them, Mike Breard, an energy analyst with Hodges Capital Management in Dallas said last week.
Shares in BP have fallen around 13 percent since the accident, wiping out $20 billion of the company's market value.
Shares in Anadarko, Transocean, Cameron and Halliburton have also been hit.
If regulators find any wrongdoing or incompetence on the part of the companies involved, it could levy fines, although analysts said that going by previous fines, these would likely be in the range of tens of millions -- immaterial to the total bill.
In such a situation, the courts could also award punitive damages.
Exxon Mobil was hit with $5 billion in punitive damages after the its tanker Valdez leaked 258,000 barrels of heavy crude into Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989. The award was based on the fact Exxon had not taken due care when it employed a man with a drinking problem to skipper its tanker.
However, the damages against it were subsequently reduced to around $500 million on appeal.
All analysts agreed that the final bill for the Deepwater Horizon incident will depend on how much damage is caused.
Bernstein said the experience from the first Gulf War in 1991 suggested the damage across Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi
and Florida could be less than many expect because of the warm water in the area.
"The Iraqi army opened valves on the Sea Island terminal, dumping up to 450 million gallons (around 11 million barrels) of crude into the sea in order to obstruct a potential landing by coalition forces," McMahon said in a research note.
"While the magnitude of the spill was vastly greater than the Exxon Valdez, it actually did relatively little long-term damage, as it dispersed in the warm waters," he added.
(Reporting by Tom Bergin, editing by Bernard Orr)
BP facing a wave of pressure, but not from its balance sheet By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 11, 2010; A12
Standing outside BP's Houston offices Thursday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that the company's "life is very much on the line here."
BP's financial wounds from April 20 drilling-rig explosion might be serious, but they probably won't be fatal. One analyst report, issued by Citigroup, even declared in its title, "Reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil leak is a buying opportunity."
Even though most investors have soured on BP, driving down its stock price by 19 percent and wiping out $36.7 billion of its market value since the explosion, the business remains a behemoth. The company has a market value of $152.6 billion, bolstered by a global marketing network, a lucrative oil venture in Russia, a promising contract to boost production in a giant Iraqi field and scores of other large interests. It remains the largest oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico. Measured by revenue or assets, it is among the world's five largest companies.
Citigroup analysts said stockholders' reactions seem "disproportionate to the likely costs to the company." It noted that punitive damages against Exxon for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil-tanker spill were originally set at $5 billion in 1994 but were reduced on appeal. The company agreed last year to pay less than $1 billion, including interest.
For now, at least, BP's prodigious costs combating the oil spill in the Gulf are outweighed by prodigious profits.
On Monday, BP said it spent $350 million in the first 20 days of the spill response, about $17.5 million a day. It has paid 295 of the 4,700 claims received, for a total of $3.5 million. By contrast, in the first quarter of the year, the London-based oil giant's profits averaged $93 million a day.
The amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico has been estimated at 5,000 to 25,000 barrels a day. In the first quarter, BP produced 2.5 million barrels of crude oil a day worldwide -- and it received $71.86 for every barrel.
BP has strong borrowing capacity, too. Analysts say it could get as much as $20 billion without exceeding its debt targets. "Even a pretty large digging into the pockets would be within our capacity to handle," said Andrew Gowers, a BP spokesman.
The company does, however, have large needs -- with a $20 billion capital spending plan for this year and $8.4 billion needed for acquisitions, mainly of assets from Devon Energy.
Now, cleanup costs must be added. Relief wells being drilled to intercept the damaged one could cost more than $100 million each. Scores of lawsuits have been filed. Legislation passed in 1990 after the Exxon Valdez accident makes BP and its partners responsible for cleanup costs and up to $75 million in damages.
BP officials said Monday that they expect to exceed that. "A $75 million liability is not where our head is at this moment," said David Nagel, an executive vice president.
On Friday, Standard & Poor's affirmed BP's credit rating but revised its outlook to "Negative" from "Stable." "Provided BP can stem the well and clean the spill within a reasonable time, the company has adequate liquidity and financial headroom to meet immediate costs," said a report by S&P credit analyst Simon Redmond. "However, it is still too early to estimate with any degree of confidence the full future impact on BP from the spill."
BP will survive, analysts say, but damage caused by the rig disaster that killed 11 workers was still huge. Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst at Oppenheimer, said the accident was "a major disaster with catastrophic implications not only for the companies involved, but also for the offshore oil industry and the economies of the Gulf Coast."
For the second time in less than a week, a Republican senator has blocked efforts by Democratic leadership to raise the cap on the economic damages that oil companies pay in the wake of a damaging spill.
On Tuesday morning, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okl.) blocked a unanimous consent measure to increase the liability faced by companies like BP from $75 million to $10 billion. The Oklahoma Republican said he wanted to raise the cap as well but thought that the figure introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) was arbitrary.
"I don't often agree with President Obama," Inhofe said from the floor. "Right now he is unsure of what that level should be. I'm unsure of what it should be. Maybe it should be the level that we're talking about right now. Maybe it will be. We don't know that... Certainly we need to raise these limits. Now, where it should be raised, I don't know."
Speaking shortly after Inhofe at a hastily convened press conference, Menendez insisted that the Republican Party was blocking efforts to stand up "to Big Oil" and help the taxpayer with cleanup and recovery from the current spill in the Gulf.
The debate, however, is more nuanced than just that.
The Republican Party has put out a counter-proposal that attaches a number to the punitive damages an oil company would have to pay in the wake of a spill. That number is the equivalent of a year's worth of profits or $150 million (whichever is bigger). Menendez rejected the idea on Monday, noting that some companies -- including one currently involved in the Gulf catastrophe, actually didn't earn money this past year. A $10 billion liability, they argue, may be randomly set. But it is certainly better and more concrete than liabilities based on profit margins.
On the floor Tuesday morning, Inhofe pushed another common GOP complaint with Menendez's approach. Raising the liability too high, he insisted, would make it prohibitively expensive for smaller oil companies to operate offshore.
he White House hasn't explicitly endorsed Menendez's cap. But it has pushed back against this line of GOP criticism -- arguing that it is shortsighted to allow companies to drill offshore if they don't have the funds to cover major economic damages should a spill occur.
"I think somebody has to understand that if the project that you're undertaking has the potential to cause the type of damage that exceeds what is -- what could or may happen, that the law take that into account regardless of the size of your firm," Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on Monday. "I think if -- I think that's, quite frankly, a series of steps based on common sense to ensure that the protections are there for people in the event that something catastrophic does happen."
With each side fairly dug in, there is some concern on the Hill that legislation might not get done in a timely fashion (though anything passed will be considered retroactive to include BP and the Deepwater Horizon spill). A Senate leadership aide, however, tells the Huffington Post that another vote on Menendez's legislation is likely to come on Wednesday with plans to continue pushing the legislation until progress is made.
