The US Supreme Court has rejected BP’s bid to decrease the settlement it agreed to pay to businesses and individuals. British Petroleum (BP) is well known for having produced the biggest offshore oil spill in history.
In 2010 BP’s Deepwater Horizon exploded killing 11 people and spewing almost 5 million barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. The environmental effects of this spill are being felt to this day.
A study published in October showed how there is a 1,235 square mile ring of coagulated oil residue on the ocean floor.
Another study published in March found that the BP oil spill has caused morphological abnormalities including heart deformities potentially leading to heart failure in several large predatory fish including Atlantic Bluefin tuna, Yellowfin tuna and Amberjacks.
Gulf area business suffered across the board but BP only wants to pay those who can prove that there is a direct link between the oil spill and their losses. On Monday December 8th, the Supreme Court refused to hear BP’s argument. So far BP has paid out 2.3 billion of an estimated 9.7 billion to plantiffs. The ruling means that BP will have to pay an additional 7.4 billion to plantiffs.
This is but the latest attempt of BP to shirk its multi-billion dollar responsibility. Just a month earlier BP tried to get the courts to reduce their fines for “gross negligence” under the Clean Water Act from 18 billion to just over 12 billion.
While BP was seeking a multi-billion dollar gift this Christmas, all they got from the courts was a lump of coal.
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