An overwhelming majority of likely voters across the country and across the political spectrum support congressional action to direct oil spill fines to the Gulf Coast, according to survey results released Monday. More than 4 in 5 respondents nationwide said that the spill penalties should go to “restoration of the Mississippi River Delta and Gulf Coast” rather than to broader purposes, such as paying down the national debt. Nearly 70 percent felt strongly about this, according to the survey, which was conducted jointly by two Washington, D.C.-area polling groups and released by environmental advocates. Gulf Coast members of Congress remain at odds over how much money that each state should receive, and the rules for spending it. As a result, legislation to direct the penalties to the Gulf has made little progress. Clean Water Act fine money is expected to total between $5.4 billion and $21.1 billion. Casi Callaway, executive director of the environmental group Mobile Baykeeper, said that the widespread support for sending billions to Gulf states could ebb if lawmakers cannot come to terms and people’s memories of the spill begin to fade. “That ball is rolling. We’re either with it or we’re under it,” Callaway said. “We need leadership today.” 
The administrator of BP’s $20 billion oil spill fund says Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood could undermine the claims process by urging a court to intervene and by making allegations that border on defamation. Hood called those statements, made Tuesday in a court filing in Louisiana, “surreal.” Hood said he just wants the fund’s administrator, Washington lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, to make the process more transparent so people will know if he’s looking out for best interest of oil spill victims or BP PLC. The dispute heated up after Feinberg’s lawyers filed the 12-page motion Tuesday in federal court in Louisiana. It accuses Hood of making “unsupported and damaging assertions” about the claims process. Feinberg was responding to documents has filed that ask the court to audit the claims process. Hood told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he believes Feinberg’s claims facility is intentionally delaying and denying legitimate claims to force people to take the so-called Quick Pay option. Quick Pay gives individuals $5,000 and businesses $25,000. They are required to sign a waiver that they won’t sue and won’t seek more money from the claims facility. Feinberg says 110,000 people in Mississippi and other states have taken that option. “At some point, I’m going to put his tail in a chair and make him raise his right hand in a deposition and get to the bottom of whether him and BP conspired to force people into the Quick Pay process,” Hood said.
Rusty Costanza, The Times-Picayune
Birds returning to Louisiana’s fragile shoreline from South and Central America continue to run the risk of being exposed to oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill, bird experts with the National Audubon Society said Wednesday.
A year after the disastrous gusher fouled miles of shoreline, the conditions along Louisiana’s coast make it imperative that Congress move quickly to require that the majority of fines paid by BP and other responsible parties go to coastal restoration efforts, they said. “Last year, we described BP as irresponsible and negligent,” said Audubon President David Yarnold. “Well, the same is true for Congress now. It’s been nearly a year and we’re still waiting for Congress to make sure that BP penalty funds are going to be used to clean up BP’s mess.” BP and other companies that assisted in drilling BP’s Macondo well could be liable for between $5 billion and $21 billion in fines under the Clean Water Act. But the National Audubon Society’s bigger concern is to the health of a variety of threatened and endangered migratory species that are stopping in Louisiana this spring, including brown pelicans, roseate spoonbills, royal terns and great and snowy egrets. Some are nesting, while others are stopping to rest before heading north to other nesting areas.
Protei is a fleet of pollution collecting sailing drones charged with cleaning up oil spills such as the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf. Cesar Harada, who lives in New Orleans, is a young designer turned ecological activist. He presented this idea at the latest TED conference in Long Beach, CA.
To learn more, visit their Kickstarter.
Eric Gay, The Associated Press archive
Shrimp boats collect oil in Chandeleur Sound last May, during the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Imagine this. A reporter is invited on a state-funded fishing trip by the Louisiana Charter Boat Association. One caveat: His story must inform readers the oil industry lives in harmony with recreational fishing and, in fact, is beneficial to that sector.
Shocked? So was Eric Sharp of the Detroit Free-Press. “Of course, I told him I couldn’t do that — I couldn’t accept any trip with pre-conditions,” he said. “When he told me the money and the conditions had come from your Department of Natural Resources, I was really surprised.” I wasn’t. Not even after the story was confirmed by DNR Undersecretary Robert Harper. His agency is spending $10,000 on that campaign, he said.
There are several things wrong with this program, starting with the most obvious: It’s not true. In fact, the opposite is true.
