"Pay Up"

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has two words for BP – pay up. Last week, that court rejected the oil giant's attempt to stop businesses in the Gulf from collecting on losses resulting from the 2010 oil disaster. BP claimed that the companies were trying to recover “fictitious losses,” but the New Orleans court didn't buy it. In a 2-to-1 ruling, the judges upheld an earlier ruling against BP, and said that an injunction on BP payments to Gulf businesses should be lifted. These payments are part of a settlement that BP agreed to back in 2012 – a settlement that the oil company said was “good for the people, businesses and communities of the Gulf, and in the best interests of BP's stakeholders.” The company is simply trying to back out of the deal after underestimating the full amount of claims from local businesses. Instead of the $7.8 billion dollars that BP planned to spend, they estimate that the total cost of claims will be over $9 billion. But the fact is, there's no dollar amount that can replace our sea life, and no price high enough for destroying our Gulf. If BP wants to avoid future claims from oil-related disasters – there's one easy way for them to do so – stop drilling for toxic fossil fuels.