Source; timesonline.co.uk
Oil companies face an immediate tax rise of 1 cent per barrel to help to pay for the clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico under proposed legislation rushed out by the White House yesterday.The measure, unveiled as BP began a new attempt to contain the ruptured well that has leaked millions of gallons of crude oil into America's southern coastal waters, would put an extra $500 million ($£340 million) over ten years into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which covers damage caused by such disasters.Under a $118 million spending plan outlined in the package, people affected by the spill $— such as fishermen who have lost their livelihoods because of the contamination — will be granted financial assistance, and federal agencies will get additional funds to monitor the slick and assess its impact.President Obama, said by a spokesman to be "deeply frustrated" that the leak has still not been plugged three weeks after it erupted, intends that BP will pick up most of the cost of his new plan.Hearings into the incident aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20 continued yesterday in Louisiana and in the US Congress, where Democrat Henry Waxman blamed a "calamitous series of equipment and operational failures" for the disaster. "If the largest oil and oil services companies in the world had been more careful, 11 lives might have been saved and our coastlines protected," he said.The way BP and its partners responded to the disaster, which began with an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, will also be a matter for investigation.Survivors have alleged that, after being rescued, they were held at sea while the rig's owner, Transocean, assembled its lawyers. After being brought ashore, traumatised ...
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