Bill Nelson: BP Needs to Do More than Just Clean Up

By: Lauren Seifert
Topics: Domestic Issues ,; Washington Unplugged

On Tuesday's Washington Unplugged, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) spoke with CBS News Capitol Hill Correspondent Nancy Cordes, reacting to BP's unprecedented plan to contain the massive oil spill with a metal container that will be lowered onto the leaking pipe to try to suck in the flowing oil.

Nelson said, "If it works, presumably all that oil coming from the well head would go up into that container, then up a pipe to a tanker. Let's hope it works."

While oil companies are on the hook for clean-up costs they are not obligated to pay costs exceeding $75 million to business and communities affected by these disasters.

"Existing law only limits a company to $75 million in damages, and you can imagine that this is going to be one of the worst environmental and economical disasters," Nelson said.

He and Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) introduced the Big Oil Prevention Act to ensure that oil companies are not allowed off the hook when it comes to paying for economic damages as a result of future oil spills. It would raise the liability cap from $75 million to $10 billion. It would also eliminate the $1 billion per incident cap on claims against the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, a government reserve for handling the immediate costs of dealing with disasters.

Watch the interview above, or watch all of Tuesday's Washington Unplugged here, also featuring CBS News National Security Analyst Juan Zarate with the latest on the failed Times Square attack and suspect Faisal Shahzad.

Special Section: Gulf Coast Oil Disaster
Oil Spill by the Numbers
Gulf Oil Spill Containment Efforts

"Washington Unplugged," CBSNews.com's exclusive daily politics webshow, appears live on CBSNews.com each weekday at 12:30 p.m. ET. Click here to check out previous episodes.

Lauren Seifert
Lauren Seifert is an associate producer for CBSNews.com.
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by ThimbleDreck May 5, 2010 2:32 PM EDT: Congress passed this cap in the first place in order to get the oil companies to contribute to a cleanup fund which now has billions in it. What happened to that money and how come nobody is talking about using it? Could it be it already was spent on free cheese?

Passing a law to increase the liability cap after the government got the cleanup fund money is a dirty double cross. Not only that there Article 1 section 9 of the Constitution forbids ex post facto laws.; Reply to this comment


by ConstitutionGal912 May 4, 2010 6:52 PM EDT: BP definitely did more than wrong. Don't worry though. The Dems are introducing a new bill to raise the Oil Disaster Fund from $75 million to $10 Billion. I guess Obama's wish for us to be paying $8 to $10 a gallon will come true. And if the Gov't oversees this fund, you know they will spend it right away on other stuff, putting an IOU in the box.; Reply to this comment


by sjc_1 May 4, 2010 5:44 PM EDT: If you hit BP hard enough for their recklessness, then next time the oil companies will not fight the sonic trigger devices that could have prevented this.; Reply to this comment