{"id":3901,"date":"2015-07-17T18:33:52","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T18:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=3901"},"modified":"2015-07-17T18:33:52","modified_gmt":"2015-07-17T18:33:52","slug":"bp-settlement-would-send-additional-788-million-to-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=3901","title":{"rendered":"BP Settlement Would Send Additional $788 Million to Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>by Eric Galatas\/TNS<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3902\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3902\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3902\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gr-46995-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"Pelicans and many other species suffered in the 2005 BP oil spill. BP announced an $18.7 billion settlement Thursday. Texas\u2019 share would be $788 million. Photo: U.S. Dept. of the Interior.\" width=\"600\" height=\"395\" srcset=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gr-46995-1-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gr-46995-1-1-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gr-46995-1-1-405x267.jpg 405w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gr-46995-1-1-60x40.jpg 60w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3902\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pelicans and many other species suffered in the 2005 BP oil spill. BP announced an $18.7 billion settlement Thursday. Texas\u2019 share would be $788 million. Photo: U.S. Dept. of the Interior.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>AUSTIN &#8211; Texas conservation groups say the BP settlement announced last Thursday is a big step forward giving certainty that the funding will be there to restore the Gulf coast ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p>It comes just over five years after the BP Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and releasing almost four billion barrels of oil.<\/p>\n<p>BP will pay $18.7 billion to the five states affected; Texas\u2019 portion is $788 million. David Muth, director of gulf restoration with the National Wildlife Federation, says this is completely separate from the billions BP has already spent on the immediate cleanup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese monies are for the damage they did to natural resources,\u201d he says. \u201cSo, it\u2019s not to clean up oil it\u2019s to put back what they destroyed. Secondly, it\u2019s the punitive fine for violation of the Clean Water Act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The settlement will have to be approved by the court. The agreement comes as a federal judge was just about to rule on how much BP would have to pay in fines.<br \/>\nTexas Governor Greg Abbott said in a statement that the money will allow Texas to \u201creinvigorate the economic and environmental health of the Gulf Coast.\u201d Muth says much of the restoration money will go to shore up Texas wetlands, coastlines and deep ocean ecosystems.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an incredibly positive step,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been waiting five years to get to the point that we can actually begin the job of restoring the Gulf and we\u2019re there.\u201d<br \/>\nAccording to Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton, nearly $638 million in settlement money would go to restoration projects in the state. And some $150 million would help compensate the state for economic damages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Eric Galatas\/TNS AUSTIN &#8211; Texas conservation groups say the BP settlement announced last Thursday is a big step forward giving certainty that the funding will be there to restore the Gulf coast ecosystem. It comes just over five years after the BP Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and releasing almost [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3901","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\/3901","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=3901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3903,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901\/revisions\/3903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}