Spillionaires Revisited: Gov’t Official’s Associates Got Big Contracts After The BP Oil Spill

Last month, Craig Taffaro Jr., the president of Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish, lambasted a ProPublica story while testifying before a congressional committee.

The story, published in April [1], described how some local powerbrokers and others, aided in part by Taffaro, cashed in after the BP oil spill, winning lucrative jobs related to the cleanup effort and earning the nickname "spillionaires." The story also showed how some who profited from the spill then donated to Taffaro's campaign. On June 2, Taffaro told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform [2] that the story was "a hatchet job" with "no factual data."

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