Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today chaired the third in a series of hearings on the disastrous BP oil spill underway in the Gulf of Mexico.  Today's hearing focused on liability and financial issues relating to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.  BP has pledged to pay for cleanup in the wake of the disastrous spill; today's hearing will help determine what changes in federal law must be made to protect against future problems.

Testifying before the committee were Thomas Perrelli, Associate Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and David Hayes, Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Interior.  The hearing can been seen here.

"The purpose of this hearing is to closely examine the liability, financial responsibility and penalty provisions of the law related to this accident.  There is urgency in our effort.  We need to ensure that those harmed by this accident are fully compensated, and that a system is in place that properly allocates these risks and losses," Bingaman said.

Current law caps the responsible parties' damages – other than clean up costs – at $75 million, nowhere near the damages which will result from this accident.  The hearing also examined legislation introduced in Congress to raise the cap to $10 billion.

Bingaman visited the Gulf Coast on Monday to learn more about BP's plans to plug its leaking well and to clean up.

"Yesterday I spent the day in the Gulf area observing the consequences of this accident and the joint response of our government agencies, BP, and many volunteers.   It's a sobering reality to see oil begin to impact the shoreline, and to know that this well is not yet under control.  However, I also saw many people who have been working day and night for weeks to fight this spill and protect the Gulf, and I think we all want to express our gratitude to them for their extraordinary service," Bingaman said.