David Vitter committee. In response to the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill at an offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico threatening the coast of Louisiana, Vitter introduced legislation along with Jeff Sessions of Alabama to increase the liability cap of an oil company from $75 million to its most recent annual profits (or $150 million if greater). In the case of BP, the owner of the oil lease, its liability would be $20 billion. Vitter later introduced an amendment that would remove the cap entirely for this particular spill. Competing Democratic proposals would have raised the liability to $10
Deepwater Horizon oil spill figure, saying that the government overestimated the volume. Internal emails released in 2013 showed that one BP employee had estimates that matched those of the FRTG, and shared the data with supervisors, but BP continued with their lower number. The company argued that government figures do not reflect over of oil that was collected or burned before it could enter the Gulf waters. According to the satellite images, the spill directly affected of ocean, which is comparable to the size of Oklahoma. By early June 2010, oil had washed up on of Louisiana's coast and along the Mississippi, Florida, and