Raise BP liability cap to $10 billion?

[IDemo]

Source: msnbc.com news services

White House backs Senate plan to raise from $75 million

updated 4:58 p.m. MT, Tues., May 4, 2010

WASHINGTON - As calmer weather in the Gulf gave crews a chance to help buffer the Gulf Coast from the massive oil leak still offshore, the White House and Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday moved to change a law that caps BP's liability for economic damages at $75 million. The goal: Raise that cap to $10 billion.

Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez is co-sponsoring a measure that would raise the liability limit for impacts like lost wages or dwindling tourism to $10 billion. Those payments would be aside from the total spill cleanup costs, which analysts estimate as high as $14 billion.

Menendez also wants it to be made retroactive so it can apply to the huge spill that began after an oil rig exploded in the Gulf on April 20.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the Obama administration supported Menendez's attempts to raise the limit retroactively. He also noted that if BP is found to have acted negligently or violated the law, the cap would not be in effect. The Oil Pollution Act was passed in 1990 in response to the Exxon Valdez spill.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36933743/ns/us_news-environment/