Today’s BP settlement is great news for the Gulf Coast economy, which still suffers mightily from the damage BP and its contractors caused. The President and his Department of Justice deserve credit for hammering out this deal, and keeping their focus on the victims of what the President rightly calls the "worst environmental disaster America has ever faced."
If the settlement is to have the impact on the region that we all hope it will, we’ll need to be sure that the money is well spent, not siphoned off for political favors or otherwise misused.
It’s important to remember that this money will flow to the region, and not simply into federal coffers, as a result of a hard-won battle to pass the RESTORE Act. That law is applicable only to this spill, so were another catastrophe of this sort to occur, God forbid, there’s no guarantee that civil penalties would end up going to the states and people that were harmed.
Finally, a word of caution: $18 billion is a lot of money, but the damage this spill caused was similarly vast. Workers died, livelihoods were lost, and the impact on the ecosystem was and remains enormous. The hard truth is that $18 billion may never cover all the damage done. So let’s hope that one thing this $18 billion buys is greater commitment on the part of oil companies and those who regulate their drilling to be better stewards of the Gulf.
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Robert Verchick | July 2, 2015
Today’s BP settlement is great news for the Gulf Coast economy, which still suffers mightily from the damage BP and its contractors caused. The President and his Department of Justice deserve credit for hammering out this deal, and keeping their focus on the victims of what the President rightly calls the “worst environmental disaster America has […]
Evan Isaacson | July 1, 2015
Editors’ Note: This is the sixth in a series of posts on measuring progress toward the 2017 interim goal of the Bay TMDL. The first five posts cover the region as a whole, and then Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia, Future posts will explore the progress of the two remaining jurisdictions. Like New York, […]
Thomas McGarity | June 30, 2015
Yesterday, the Supreme Court in Michigan v. EPA threw out EPA’s regulations protecting the American public from mercury and other hazardous emissions of power plants. In another instance of judicial activism by the Roberts court, the majority refused to defer to EPA’s decision to ignore costs in deciding whether to regulate power plant emissions. The […]
Rena Steinzor | June 30, 2015
President Obama’s approval rating is up to 50 percent for the first time in two years after a stellar period of national reconciliation and the safeguarding of Obamacare, his signature, and truly momentous, achievement. The president, in fulfillment of his noble promises to help the middle class, is about to put his weight behind a […]
Lisa Heinzerling | June 30, 2015
In Michigan v. EPA, the Supreme Court reviewed the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to regulate power plants under section 112 of the Clean Air Act. Section 112 is the provision regulating toxic air pollutants, such as mercury. The question before the Court was whether EPA reasonably interpreted the Clean Air Act to allow EPA to decline […]
Robert Verchick | June 29, 2015
Today the Supreme Court blocked a key effort by the Obama administration to keep unsafe levels of mercury and other toxins from spilling into our air. The ruling, issued in Michigan vs. EPA, is a loss for the EPA and public health advocates. But the damage can be contained and will hopefully not prevent the agency from […]
Thomas McGarity | June 29, 2015
In a sweeping display of judicial activism the Supreme Court has made it much harder for the EPA to protect Americans from the dangers of exposure to mercury emissions. The Supreme Court today tossed out EPA’s regulations protecting the American public from mercury and other hazardous emissions of power plants. Justice Scalia refused to defer […]
Lisa Heinzerling | June 26, 2015
The Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell is, of course, most important for its central holding that the Affordable Care Act’s federal subsidies are available even on federally established health exchanges. The decision preserves health insurance subsidies for millions of people who have begun to benefit from them and avoids the ridiculous spectacle of taking the […]
Erin Kesler | June 26, 2015
Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2576, an update to the long-outdated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which governs regulation of toxic chemicals. CPR Member Scholar and University of Richmond Law School professor Noah Sachs and CPR Executive Director Matthew Shudtz wrote a piece for The Hill, highlighting some crucial problems with the bill the House […]