Justice Department expects to sue BP

[kpete]

Source: CNN

Justice Department expects to sue BP
By Allan Chernoff, CNN
September 14, 2010 12:11 p.m. EDT


New York (CNN) -- The Justice Department expects to sue BP for damages from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill according to a filing made last night with the U.S. District Court in New Orleans, Louisiana.

"At this juncture, the United States expects that it may file a civil complaint related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster," the court document says.

................

Justice Department attorneys tell the court they may seek claims under the Oil Pollution Act, which was enacted in 1990 after the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, and the Clean Water Act, which gives the government the right to seek potentially huge penalties.

"The Clean Water Act authorizes the United States to seek civil penalties from various entities for oil spills like the DEEPWATER HORIZON spill, in amounts potentially up to $1,100 (and in some circumstances up to $4,300) per barrel of oil spilled," the filing states.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/14/bp.justice.legal.action/index.html

[Vincardog]

1. Which explains why they have been consistently lying about the 'spill' rate and amount.

[gratuitous]

2. Or, if not lying

BP has, from the get-go, been very cagey about how much oil gushed out of their busted well, deliberately concealing the amounts involved. You can bet that in any civil action over damages, BP will argue (and probably successfully) for the lowest possible figure of leakage, and even after the fine is fixed, they'll begin endless appeals about how nobody could possibly guess how much oil actually fouled the Gulf of Mexico, and even though they forced a low-ball estimate on the government in getting a settlement, they now realize that the amount was almost surely less, so please reduce the fine, couldja?

[crikkett]

3. They need to be taxed out of existence.

:argh:

[Devil_Fish]

4. could some one please do some math?

X*Y*1100=?
X*Y*4300=?
Where X=Bbl per Day and Y=#of days.