U.S. Senator Jeff SessionsWASHINGTON—U.S.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a senior member of the Senate Committee on
Environment and Public Works,
issued the following comments on Thursday regarding the announcement that BP
had reached a financial settlement with the government on criminal
charges arising from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill:
"After
the oil spill, I was emphatic that BP should be held accountable to the
fullest extent of the law and even to the extent
of its existence. This deadly and costly tragedy was avoidable, and
those responsible should be held to account. While we have not yet seen
all of the settlement terms, today's agreement on criminal liability
appears to be a strong step forward in that process.
My firm expectation is that the Department of Justice will also
zealously pursue recovery of the maximum amount of Clean Water Act civil
fines. As Congress determined in the RESTORE Act, which I fought for
along with other Gulf Coast members, the Clean Water
Act civil penalty dollars are critically important to the long-term
economic and environmental recovery of the Gulf Coast."
