And, you aren’t going to believe where it has gone
BP Plc paid more than $5 billion to 204,434 claimants in the past year from a fund created to compensate victims of its 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the worst in U.S. waters.
The Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which draws on $20 billion set aside by the London-based oil company after the spill, has received more than 947,000 claims from 50 states and 36 nations, according to a summary released today by claims administrator Kenneth Feinberg.
What about the other 8 states? (Cheap shot). Why would they even consider people from states other than the Gulf ones, not to mention other nations?
His firm, Feinberg Rozen LLP, is being paid $1.25 million a month by BP to run the facility and has drawn complaints from Gulf Coast residents and policymakers who said payments have come too slowly and in smaller amounts than sought.
“The only success Mr. Feinberg has had is in coercing desperate victims of the spill to have to accept whatever was offered,†Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said in a statement about the $5,421 paid to state businesses and $5,297 to individuals. “It looks like he did a good job for BP, not for Mississippians.â€
Not surprising.
Residents and businesses in Florida received about $2.02 billion, or 40 percent of the total. Louisiana collected the second-highest total, about $1.52 billion, or about 30 percent, followed by Alabama and Mississippi, according to the summary.
I hope it is high in Florida due to the Panhandle.
So, when are they going to pony up the rest? Isn’t Obama or Sheriff Joe supposed to be monitoring this?
Teach, if they spend all the money in the Southern Gulf States, then there won’t be any left over for Tanzania, Croatia, and all the other states that were affected by the spill.
Seems a bit like Obama’s way of shaking down BP to redistribute the wealth elsewhere.