Democrats Introduce Bill Increasing BP Liability Limit From $75 Million to $10 Billion!

A trio of Democratic Senators are introducing legislation on Monday that would dramatically raise the amount of money that oil companies like BP would have to pay in economic damages in an event of a spill.

Authored by New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, and co-signed by fellow Garden Stater
Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, the (craftily-titled) "Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act" would raise the economic damages liability cap for offshore oil spills from $75 million to $10 billion.

The impetus for the legislation were reports that surfaced over the weekend that British Petroleum, the company responsible for the disastrous spill in the Gulf Coast, would face limited responsibility for covering costs beyond cleanup and containment.

The oil company, in addition to others, pays money into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund -- a kind of rainy day piggy bank for handling the immediate costs of dealing with disasters. Under the charter of the federal law that created the $1.6 billion fund, however, operators of the offshore rig face no more than $75 million in liability for non-cleanup and containment damages. And in a region like the Gulf Coast the cost to local industry of a massive oil spill can easily skyrocket well beyond that total.