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Taxpayers won’t pay oil cleanup bill, Murray says

By Kathie Durbin
Published: June 16, 2010, 12:00am

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., joined other Senate Democrats Tuesday in vowing to protect American taxpayers from the cost of cleaning up after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and making its victims whole.

Murray, who is running for her fourth Senate term, is a co-sponsor of the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act, which would eliminate the $75 million cap on oil company liability in the event of an oil spill. Congress passed the bill after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

She also called on BP executives to establish a $20 billion fund to pay for cleanup and damage compensation, and said she was frustrated that BP officials have not yet come before her Senate Subcommittee on Workplace Safety to discuss what she described as their poor safety record.

“As we close in on two months since the deep-water explosion that set off the Gulf Coast oil spill, the toll of this disaster continues to mount,” Murray said in her floor speech.

That toll, she said, extends “from the oil-soaked pelicans we see on the front cover of the newspaper each day, to the tar balls that dot a previously pristine coastline, to the closed fishing grounds and half-empty hotels, to the human impact felt in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and throughout the Gulf Coast region.”

“This disaster has reached into our economy, our environment, and the way that we see our energy future. But there is one place that it also threatens to reach — and that’s into our pocketbooks,” she said.

Murray invoked the Exxon Valdez oil spill as an example of “what happens when big oil is allowed to make promises and not required to take action.”

Exxon promised to pay for the economic and environmental damage, she said. “And then I remember them fighting tooth and nail — all the way to the Supreme Court — to deny fishermen and families from my home state the compensation they were due.

“I’m not ready to take the word of a company with a track record of pursuing profit over safety,” she said. “I believe BP needs to be held accountable for the environmental and economic damage of this spill.”

Murray said she would fight to make sure taxpayers don’t get stuck with the bill. She also vowed to address what she called “a deplorable record of worker and workplace safety” by the entire oil and gas industry.

“We need to make sure every worker is treated properly and protected — and that companies that mistreat workers are held accountable,” she said. “We know that the oil industry is able to operate under stricter safety standards and regulations, because they are already doing so in Europe, Australia, and even in Contra Costa County, Calif., where the county has a set of stricter guidelines that have reduced injuries and fatality rates.”

In addition, she said, the Senate must insist that the oil and gas industry find ways to reduce fires, hazardous spills and releases of toxic gases.

“When accidents do happen,” she said, “we need to record them, learn from them, and build on a program to prevent them from ever happening again.”

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dino Rossi, who is running to unseat Murray, said through a spokeswoman, “BP should fulfill their promise to pay for all cleanup costs associated with this tragedy in the Gulf. I fully support raising the liability cap for oil spills, as taxpayers should not be on the hook to bail out companies who engage in risky behavior. It’s too bad Sen. Murray found religion on bailouts only after she voted for the massive bailouts of the banks and car companies.”

On the proposal to require BP to set up a $20 billion escrow fund to cover damages and cleanup costs, Rossi said several unanswered questions must be resolved before “rushing this proposal through,” including who would administer the fund and whether BP would voluntarily contribute money or whether the government would seize its assets.

Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.

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