GLOBAL CLIMATE DEBATE

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 liability limit.  That number will be negotiated with lawmakers.  There are already bills on Capitol Hill raising the limit to $10 billion.

The legislation will include provisions to speed funding of federal response activities, including food safety inspections and food and unemployment assistance to communities affected by the spill.  It would create special assistance for those not normally eligible for unemployment, such as self-employed fishermen.  It will raise the cap on claims against the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund from $1 billion to $1.5 billion per incident and the cap on natural resource damage claims from $500 million to $750 million.

Browner said the White House has spoken with members of both parties about the legislation, but she and Jeff Liebman, acting deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, said there's no agreement yet on how the legislation will be handled in Congress.  Liebman said the White House hopes to have it passed in the next few weeks.

The estimated cost of the bill is $118 million.  That includes $29 million to beef up Minerals Management Service enforcement.  Liebman said most of the balance will be costs charged to BP.