Byrne slams Alabama's BP settlement: This deal is 'way out of whack'

A pelican found on the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of the BP oil spill (Flickr user Louisiana GOHSEP) — A pelican found on the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of the BP oil spill (Flickr user
Louisiana GOHSEP)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alabama Congressman Bradley Byrne (R-AL1) slammed the recently announced $2.3 billion BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement on Monday’s broadcast of Yellowhammer Radio with Cliff Sims, calling the remuneration “way out of whack,” and “not a good deal” for his constituents.

“This area was devastated by that oil spill, and devastated in just about every way you can imagine,” Rep. Byrne began. “A year or so afterwards, Congress passed a law called the RESTORE Act, and the intent of that law was to make sure that the vast majority of the dollars recovered that would have to be paid by BP as a result of the spill, would flow into local communities down there, either directly to the cities or counties or through this council that was set up under the law called the RESTORE Act Council.

The intent, Byrne explained was that local people and the RESTORE Act Council would make the decisions of where the vast majority of where settlement funds would flow.

“If you look at the settlement,” the Congressman continued, “the vast majority of dollars are flowing through the federal bureaucracy or through state government into the General Fund, which we know has so many problems. So this settlement goes against the intent and, and I think in many ways, the actual wording of the RESTORE Act.

“It’s hurt the people down here by depriving them of the money that should have been coming down here to help us continue to recover and to be resilient against the next spill, if there is one.”

Though the public was made aware of the overarching results of the settlement last week, Sims highlighted the fact that no one outside of BP, the U.S. Justice Department, the Alabama governor’s office, and the Alabama Attorney General’s office knows the exact terms of the agreement which ends the state’s suit against the oil company.

“This is flowing under a federal law, the RESTORE Act, I made phone calls, my staff made phone calls on Thursday when it came out, we were told that a lot of the details we were looking for were confidential, and could not be released,” Byrne revealed. “So here are public entities, the U.S. Justice Department, the state Attorney General, agreeing… to keep it all confidential, except for the top line terms.

“I can understand why BP wants it to be confidential—if I were in their shoes I probably would too—but I don’t understand why a federal agency like the Justice Department, why state agencies, would want to keep this confidential.”

“This was reached by a handful of people,” Byrne continued, “including people in the Obama Justice Department, and I think it has ended up being something that is not a good deal for the people in my district.”

Byrne also expressed discontent with the amount of the settlement being sent directly to the parts of the state that were hit the hardest, both economically and environmentally by the spill.

“Of the $1.9 billion that has been identified, only $308 million actually comes to the RESTORE Act Council down here to be spent by them, through their purview however they want,” he explained. “There’s another $290 million that they’ll get that they have to spend specifically for certain categories of environmental work down here.”

Byrne added that the state could certainly still funnel the money through the local councils, but he isn’t optimistic that it will.

“They’re so hungry for that money to help solve the problem they’ve got in the General Fund budget, I think they may use every bit of that to try to solve the General Fund budget problem, which as I’ve said before was not caused by this oil spill. So the people who were hurt by this oil spill are not going to get the benefit of this recovery money, and that’s unfortunate.”

The proportion allowed to be used by locals is “way out of whack,” Byrne stressed. “To see a billion dollars go to the state, and see $308 million come down here, I think that is very much a disproportionate term.”

Yellowhammer Radio airs daily in central and north Alabama from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. on Superstation 101.1 WYDE and can be streamed online or through the TuneIn app. Listen to the entire interview with Congressman Byrne in the audio clip below.