VoteVets.org Republicans, 25 percent Independents, and 20 percent Democrats. In May 2010, VoteVets launched an ad campaign in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The massive $1.5 million television and web ad campaign was the first to make the connection between the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and American national security. The ad campaign features a veteran who served with the Louisiana National Guard, cleaning up the massive spill, speaking from a polluted shoreline of Louisiana. In the ad, Louisiana resident and veteran Evan Wolf makes the point that the necessity of using the Guard to help
Gulf of Mexico BP reached an $18.7bn settlement with the US government, the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, as well as 400 local authorities. To date BP's cost for the clean-up, environmental and economic damages and penalties has reached $54bn. According to the National Response Center, the oil industry has thousands of minor accidents in the Gulf of Mexico every year. On May 12, 2016, a release of oil from subsea infrastructure on Shell's "Brutus" oil rig released 2,100 barrels of oil. This leak created a visible 2 mile by 13 mile oil slick in the sea about 97 miles