Bob Menendez: “the amendment I rise to offer today as a second-degree will do something several of my colleagues and I have been…”

“the amendment I rise to offer today as a second-degree will do something several of my colleagues and I have been seeking to do on the floor for the last 2 weeks or so; that is, to make absolutely certain that big oil polluters pay for oilspills and not the taxpayers--not fishermen, not small business owners, not coastal communities, not States, not municipalities. This amendment would eliminate the artificially low liability cap that is currently in place--a cap that is currently set at $75 million--which means companies such as BP are only on the hook legally for less than 1 day's profits. BP made nearly $6 billion in 3 months of this year in profits--not proceeds, profits. That comes out to about $94 million a day. So the present liability cap--the cap that says, yes, you have to be responsible for all the cleanup, all of the efforts, but to the extent you have damaged shrimp fishermen, commercial fishermen, to the extent you have damaged coastal communities--to all of that extent--there is a $75 million limit. Well, if we let that stand, that would be less than 1 day's profit for BP. So we want to make sure they are legally on the hook and their spill, which wreaks complete economic devastation on small business and local communities and our environment that could very well last for years to come, does not allow them to get away with not being fully responsible.”