BP Agrees to Expedite Claims

Administration get oil giant to pay damages faster

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 10, 2010 3:32 PM CDT

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BP Agrees to Expedite Claims — House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, left, accompanied by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., talk to reporters outside the White House in Washington, Thursday, June 10, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Pressure from the Obama administration convinced BP to speed up the payment of claims to those affected by the Gulf oil spill, the Washington Post reports. BP promised to "implement a more expedited claims process" said Tracy Wareing of the DHS, in order to compensate shrimpers, fishermen, hotel owners and others whose businesses will be devastated as a result of the spill.

President Obama, who met with families of workers killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion, said that the US needed to "update" the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, which limits the liability of offshore drillers at $75 million per accident. That law "was passed at a time when people didn't envision drilling four miles under the sea for oil," Obama said.
(More President Obama stories.)

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