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Bill Nelson and Kathy Castor speak about progress of RESTORE Act

By Kelsey Sunderland on Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 10:36 am

Last year the House of Representatives passed a transportation bill that includes a provision of the RESTORE Act setting aside 80 percent of the BP fines to go toward restoration for the five Gulf states — Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and Texas.

This time around the legislation filed — called the RESTORE Act — aims to increase the liability limits for oil company negligence as opposed to gross negligence from $75 million to a $1 billion, Nelson said.

However the oil companies have been successful in delaying the margin increase.

A recent report by the federal Oil Spill Commission graded Congress with a D-plus for its handling of the continued cleanup.

"The reason we had a D and not an F was because we were able to join forces and pass the Restore Act that devotes 80 percent of the fines and penalties to gulf coast restoration," Castor said.

Citing the mutation of what he referred to as “critters,” Nelson said he believed that the public has been sensitized to environmental changes that occurred due to the spill, therefore making the awareness much greater.

Castor, who helped pass legislation in order to boost local economy, said that this opportunity should be taken advantage of to allow the Gulf to exceed its pre-oil spill state.

“This is our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to restore the Gulf of Mexico, not just better than it was before the blowout but to restore the Gulf of Mexico to its full potential,” Castor said.

Bill Nelson, Kathy Castor & Rick Kriseman were just some of those speaking at 3rd anniversary of BP oil spill at Demens Landing in St. Pete

On Friday morning Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Kathy Castor along with others discussed the progress and pitfalls of the bill to hold oil companies accountable in an event such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Marking the third anniversary of the spill which took 11 lives and spilled 210 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico, Nelson, Castor, various biologists and local advocates spoke at Demens Landing Park in St. Petersburg and made it clear that they are hopeful, but there is still a long way to go.

“Three years after you don’t know how much damage is in the ocean, you don’t know underneath the Gulf surface down at 5,000 feet where the spill occurred,” Nelson said. “We know that our people and the critters up near the shore have been harmed, but what about the critters down in the deep?”

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