As you’ve no doubt heard, BP’s own liability for the damages the Deepwater Horizon spill will cause may be limited to $75 million (though it will have to pay for cleanup). Next time some DC politico gets $5000 from BP, I hope they reflect on the fact that that’s all BP wants to pay for putting a family’s entire livelihood on the line.

The U.S. government thought ahead; it expected a certain amount of spills and cleanups where oil is involved. So they created a tax on oil to create a trust to use in the event of a disaster, not unlike what we’re seeing now in the Gulf of Mexico. But the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund may work for a floating oil slick the size of Duluth, not Puerto Rico.