Last Call

Seems like a necessary closing of the barn door after the horse has escaped, but still...

President Obama on Wednesday proposed a package of measures that would provide at least $58 million in additional funding for oil spill relief efforts and raise the tax that oil companies pay to maintain an emergency fund.

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi requesting congressional approval of the package, Obama said oil giant BP -- which owns the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico -- was responsible for all clean-up costs. In addition, Obama said, the government would seek full compensation for all damages from BP.

"We cannot allow the potentially protracted pursuit of claims to prevent us from swift action to help those harmed by this spill," Obama said in the letter.

The proposals would increase by 1 cent the current tax of 8 cents a barrel that oil companies pay into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, and also increase the amounts that could be spent from that fund on single incidents. 

That's good, because...you're really going to need that trust fund to clean this up.



Then you're going to need several more hundreds of billions of dollars on top of that.