Two years after the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion, Louisiana’s Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu says the recovery has been slow. The senator receives hundreds of calls a month reporting troubles still caused by the BP oil spill.
Senator Landrieu says complaints remain about lingering environmental damage from the oil spill.
“It moves from area to area, but there are some areas where the fishermen have been very disappointed, you know, in their catches. There have been other areas that have been basically back to normal. We still get reports of oil being visible along some areas of the marsh.”
Landrieu is leading the Senate drive to pass the Restore Act, which would designate 80 percent of BP’s Clean Water Act fines to the five Gulf Coast states affected by the spill.
“Shared, by formula, between Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, and used specifically for the restoration of our wetlands, for coastal protection, flood protection, and then smart investments in economic development to help restore vitality to our important industries, whether it’s tourism, ecotourism, the hospitality industry, fisheries, which is a very important industry, or the oil and gas and maritime industries themselves.”
Those fines could be as much as $20 billion. She says the money will also fund research on how to prevent oil spills, and develop better strategies to revitalize damaged ecosystems. Landrieu says she’s confident the region’s bipartisan effort will get a plan to the president’s desk.
