{"id":3205,"date":"2015-02-03T20:52:32","date_gmt":"2015-02-03T20:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=3205"},"modified":"2015-02-03T20:52:32","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T20:52:32","slug":"penalty-phase-begins-in-bp-oil-spill-disaster-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=3205","title":{"rendered":"Penalty Phase Begins in BP Oil Spill Disaster Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

by John Michaelson\/TNS<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas – The third and final phase in the civil trial over the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began Tuesday, January 20, 2015, and will determine the penalties which British Petroleum (BP) will ultimately receive for violations of the Clean Water Act.<\/p>\n

The company was already found \u201cgrossly negligent\u201d and largely responsible for the environmental disaster. Now, the trial turns to how much the British oil giant will be fined.<\/p>\n

David Muth, director of the Gulf Restoration Program for the National Wildlife Federation, says the range is from about $3 billion to a maximum of just under $14 billion.<\/p>\n

\"The

The penalty could be as high as $13.7 billion for BP, as the final phase in the trial over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico began Tuesday, January 20, 2015. Photo: U.S. Coast Guard.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cBecause the judge has ruled gross negligence, one would expect something moving toward the higher end,\u201d he says. \u201cYou spill it, you clean it up. You pay for the cleanup, you pay for the response.\u201d<\/p>\n

The amount will be based on evidence presented during this phase on BP\u2019s response to the spill, along with the judge\u2019s determination that more than three million barrels of oil ended up in the Gulf.<\/p>\n

Eighty-percent of the fines levied will be sent to Texas and the other states along the Gulf Coast for recovery efforts under the RESTORE Act. Muth says among the most notable impacts is the apparent link between the spill and the decline of the world\u2019s most endangered sea turtle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Kemp\u2019s Ridley has a significant breeding population on Padre Island, and those young Kemp\u2019s Ridleys were out in the middle of the spill and coming back to Texas for nesting,\u201d says Muth. \u201cFor Texas it was really about the resources that were affected, more than the beaches that were oiled or the marshes that were oiled.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster happened on April 20, 2010, when 11 people lost their lives in the explosion and fire aboard the offshore oil platform.
\nAlso found to be liable, although to a much lesser extent, were BP contractors Transocean, which owned the mobile drilling rig, and Halliburton, which was responsible for the rig\u2019s cementing operations.<\/p>\n

The RESTORE Act acronym stands for Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities and Revived Economies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by John Michaelson\/TNS SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas – The third and final phase in the civil trial over the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began Tuesday, January 20, 2015, and will determine the penalties which British Petroleum (BP) will ultimately receive for violations of the Clean Water Act. The company […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3207,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions\/3207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}