Political Quotes

“An orphan site is one of the issues to be addressed, as we do under the Superfund Act. Yet the order of priority for response under the law, its first responsibility, is for the responsible party to act to the limit of its liability under the Oil Spill Act. We have to address that limit of liability. The hearing yesterday explored the range of dollar amounts of liability from the current $75 million to some greater number, including unlimited liability. That is something we are going to have to discuss in committee. So far, BP has, as the responsible party, spent $1 billion, and they are responding. Yesterday, when I made the announcement at our committee hearing that the Coast Guard had billed BP for $69 million, we still do not have a response on what the status is of repayment by BP into the trust fund, but we will have that information. Thirdly, I agree with the gentleman that the trust fund is not a piggy bank for BP.”