Last Thursday at the New Orleans Hilton Riverside, Kenneth Feinberg and Senator Mary Landrieu were part of a panel at the Gulf coast Leadership Summit. The question and answer session ended early when angry comments outweighed questions. Once again Feinberg seems to be talking out of both sides of his mouth. He says at one point that private non-profits should be the ones helping those sick and out of work, while at the same time denying BP money to those agencies that are trying to help.
... twice during the meeting he[Feinberg] indicated that he thinks public money - not BP's money - should be used to pay for people who are sick or out of work because of the oil spill.
"We enlisted Catholic Charities to figure out what to do and what to do about subsistence claims," Feinberg said.
He did not say, however, that both BP and the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF), which he oversees, recently refused to help Catholic Charities with any money to ease the nonprofit's operating deficit.
Immediately after the oil spill one year ago, BP gave Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans $1.25 million. Catholic Charities spent $700,000 of it right away on food vouchers for the people who had lost their jobs to the oil spill. It spent the rest quickly on bringing resources to hard-hit communities.
The charity's bank account has been slammed by the oil spill; it estimates it can continue operating only until June unless more money comes in.
When Catholic Charities appealed to BP for more funds, they were told by Iris Cross (BP's human resources manager in new Orleans) that they had to apply to Feinberg's GCCF.
From his personal email account, Feinberg denied Catholic Charities' request on April 6.
"Under the GCCF protocols for payment of claims and under the Oil Pollution Act, these losses would not be considered losses of profits and would not be compensable by the GCCF," Feinberg wrote.
Still, during the meeting Thursday, Feinberg recognized the need for nonprofits to address the human disaster left by the spill.
"Nonprofits don't get the press, they don't get the thanks," Feinberg said. "I don't think this country could be what it is without the nonprofits."
So...Feinberg says that nonprofits are best able to help the sick and out of work. Non profits get their funding from where? Not the companies that caused the illness and unemployment. I am speechless, and if I weren't, I couldn't publish it here!
And Feinberg wasn't the only clueless one.
Kindra Arnesen of Venice, La., 33, the wife of an offshore oil worker and mother of two, asked Sen. Landrieu why offshore drilling is continuing, though blowout preventers are just 65 percent effective.
Landrieu sidestepped the question, saying many families in Louisiana have both oil workers and fishermen.
...
Landrieu said more oil is dumped into the ocean from tanker accidents, such as the Exxon Valdez, than from well blowouts, and that tanker accidents are the unfortunate byproduct of drilling too far away and of having to transport oil.
The Deepwater Horizon accident was "horrific" Landrieu said, but not normal.
"The wives of the men who died in the [Deepwater Horizon explosion], sitting at my kitchen table, said: 'Mary, if our husbands were alive, they would be right out there drilling oil,'" the senator said.
Landrieu continued: "We're here to make it safe. But we're not here to stomp all over the industries that are here."
Can you believe that she would bring the wives of the dead into her idiotic argument!
But almost as good, she told one man who had been trying to get his medical claim paid after faxing his medical records to the GCCF six different times.
"Believe me," Landrieu said, "the country doesn't have the kind of research to help you as much as we should."
Mary, he wasn't asking for research...just asking that his bills get paid!
Attorneys that were present reiterated the need for judicial oversight of the claims process. Seems like a no brainer.
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