White House Adding Oil Spill Liability Bill to Congress' Hopper

The Obama administration will ask Congress to raise private company liability for oil spills, speed money for federal response activities from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, and raise the excise tax on oil by a penny a barrel to ensure the trust fund has enough money.


Carol Browner, assistant to the President for energy and climate change, said the legislation being sent to Congress will apply retroactively to the current spill, from BP's wrecked Deepwater Horizon drilling platform.

Current law requires BP to pay the cleanup costs, but limits its liability for other costs like environmental damage to $75 million.  Browner said the White House legislation does not yet include a new...

Visit Clean Skies for the full story.