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
Morris J. Berman oil spill response efforts could be improved. Several, though not all, of the things learned during this spill affected response efforts for future spills such as the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Morris J. Berman oil spill The Morris J. Berman oil spill occurred on January 7, 1994, when the "Morris J. Berman", a single-hull 302-foot-long barge, with the capacity to carry more than 3 million gallons of oil, collided with a coral reef near San Juan, Puerto Rico, causing the release of 750,000 gallons of heavy grade oil. The spill affected the tourism and fishing industries