Political Quotes

“I want to thank Chairman Rahall and Chairman Oberstar, in particular, for their hard work on this bill and for their collaboration on this amendment. I am joined by Congressman Holt and Congressman Welch, who co-introduced this amendment to ensure that oil companies cannot shift oil cleanup costs onto taxpayers by allowing subsidiary companies to go bankrupt. Under current law, if an oil subsidiary is responsible for a spill, it can declare bankruptcy and not sell its assets, in which case the parent company would not inherit cleanup liabilities. A profit-maximizing parent company would allow a subsidiary to go bankrupt and not sell liabilities if the value of cleanup and liability costs exceed the value of the subsidiary's assets. This is a realistic scenario given the high cost of the cleanup of oil spills. Even a well capitalized company worth several billions could be responsible for an oil spill costing tens of billions. The Exxon Valdez spill cost more than $2 billion to clean up, and that was just 10.9 million gallons of oil. The Deepwater Horizon spill already has cost $3 billion, with total cleanup cost in the tens of billions at the very least. Through this act, oil companies could be responsible for much greater costs. The fishing industry in the gulf is worth $5.5 billion annually. Losing 50 percent of western Florida's tourism would cost that State $10 billion.”