BP Oil Spill: As Pay Czar Promises Money, Workers Turned Away From BP Claims Center

Source: ABC News

Kenneth Feinberg arrived at the Louisiana State Capitol today in Baton Rouge with a mandate from President Obama -- get the money flowing to the people of the Gulf.

Millions of dollars worth of claims have been filed by businesses and people who've lost their livelihoods because of the BP oil spill, but 60 days into the crisis, lawmakers say the company has paid only 12 percent of them.

Feinberg promised that will soon change and encouraged workers to file their claims. President Obama this week named Feinberg as his "pay czar" for BP's oil spill escrow account.

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But even as Feinberg made that promise today, ABC News watched as BP turned workers away from a claims center in Mobile, Alabama. They were told they didn't have the right paperwork -- the trip tickets, deposit slips, bank statements and tax returns needed.

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For Gulf Coast workers like deckhand Dan Wolfer, the relief can't come soon enough. He filed a claim a month ago but, so far, hasn't received a single check. Wolfer had to give up the family car after they couldn't make payments, and his wife is now walking to work.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-ken-feinberg-promises-money-abc/story?id=10956385

where nothing is declared & no real records are kept. You know there has to be all kinds of those businesses down there.

1974. It's always tempting to not declare all income, but I always chose not to take that route. In then end, while I watched others not be able to get Social Security and other stuff like that, due to their hiding of income over the years, my decision has turned out to be for the best.

It's always risky to work under the table. You might not get caught at the time, but it can come back and nail you when it's least convenient.

at least this was the case before the Bushstravaganza decade.

the potential for fraud here is HUGE.....you cannot blame a company for wanting some kind of proof before paying out, no matter how fucked up that company is

Gulf skeptical of Obama's " PART-TIME" recovery chief
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill_cleanup_cz...

Gulf skeptical of Obama's " PART-TIME" recovery chief

By MATT APUZZO and EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Writers Matt Apuzzo And Emily Wagster Pettus, Associated Press Writers – Fri Jun 18, 3:01 pm ET

JACKSON, Miss. – Gulf Coast environmentalists and business owners are skeptical of President Barack Obama's plan to have his point man for recovery perform his job part-time. And they're worried the cleanup will become mired in bureaucratic deliberations.

Obama tapped Navy Secretary and former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus this week for an amorphous second job leading the environmental and economic recovery. His job is no less than rebuilding a region that was still suffering from Hurricane Katrina and beset by decades of environmental problems even before the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

Unlike President George W. Bush's pick to lead Katrina's recovery, Mabus is not stepping down from his day job, in which he oversees 900,000 Navy and Marine personnel.

"The president is confident that Governor Mabus is going to be able to provide the leadership that's necessary to do both these jobs," White House spokesman Bill Burton said Friday.

Others felt differently, adding to their criticism that Obama has not responded quickly or forcefully enough to the spill.

Source: ABC

BP Oil Spill: As Pay Czar Promises Money, Workers Turned Away From BP Claims Center
Feinberg Says Money is on the Way; Coast Guard Defends Spill Response, Saying Regulations Got in the Way

By SHARYN ALFONSI, DAVID MUIR and BRADLEY BLACKBURN
June 18, 2010
................

Millions of dollars worth of claims have been filed by businesses and people who've lost their livelihoods because of the BP oil spill, but 60 days into the crisis, lawmakers say the company has paid only 12 percent of them.

But even as Feinberg made that promise today, ABC News watched as BP turned workers away from a claims center in Mobile, Alabama. They were told they didn't have the right paperwork -- the trip tickets, deposit slips, bank statements and tax returns needed.

Feinberg promised that will soon change and encouraged workers to file their claims. President Obama this week named Feinberg as his "pay czar" for BP's oil spill escrow account.

"We'll decide who will get paid," he promised, saying "we're going to get them paid immediately. .... A matter of days."



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-ken-feinberg-promises-money-abc/story?id=10956385

oilfield service related companies... they should submit the names of these people and it should be as if nothing happened, they should continue to get a check. They did not cause this.

If I work for a company that sells services to another company and that company stops buying services from my company and, because of less business I get laid off, why should I "continue to get a check" from my or any other company? I can see maybe collecting unemployment, but that's about it.

"...their livelihoods because of the BP oil spill."

And, no doubt,

"Millions of dollars worth of claims have been filed by businesses and people who've lost nothing because of the BP oil spill."

Feinberg's comments are mildly disturbing. After Katrina, there was an outcry because of overpayments and improper payments. Then there was an outcry because many of the people who got the money improperly were asked to pay it back but were poor.

In this case, there's no downside to improper payments. The issuing agency has no fiduciary responsibility, as far as has been mentioned, to the owner of the money. If improper payments are caught, then there's every reason *not* to seek reimbursement--after all, there's political fallout from seeking reimbursement and no financial benefit; there's no upside to looking for improper payments. At least with Katrina, the US Treasury would get the money and that's formally the same organization FEMA belongs to.