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Public Citizen Questions BP Trust Fund

By Brian Wolfman

Public Citizen has raised concerns about the $20 billion BP Trust Fund meant to compensate victims of the oil spill. To quote Public Citizen's President Rob Weissman:

Public Citizen has identified a series of concerns about the structure of the fund, which may be of interest. Our concerns include:

• The trust fund appears to be capped at $20 billion (contrary to what Ken Feinberg had reported to us, as his understanding of BP's plans), with the $20 billion drawn down not just by Feinberg-ordered payments, but reimbursements for state and local response, natural resource harms, and payments pursuant to class action and other civil action awards.

• The party responsible for paying into the trust fund is BP Exploration & Production, Inc., the entity that controls BP's leases in the Gulf, but which appears to have no other assets. We believe this will deter the administration from imposing stiff fines and penalties related to the disaster and from aggressively addressing the systemic problems in BP's Gulf operations.

• The trust agreement lacks any affirmative disclosure requirements, and specifically states that trustees "shall not be required to render any annual or other periodic accounts" other than those mandated by Delaware trust law.

Go here to read Public Citizen's complete analysis of the trust agreement and here for the agreement itself.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on August 17, 2010 (boomark / email).