Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange sharply criticizes BP claims czar Ken Feinberg
Published: Tuesday, March 22, 2011, 7:00 AM
MOBILE,
Alabama -- The Gulf Coast Claims Facility “appears inappropriately
proud” of having processed half of BP
oil spill claims while it
has rejected many applicants for no apparent reason and left others
desperately waiting, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange wrote
in a letter Monday.
“Quit dragging your feet and stalling the large majority of claims to a point where victims are so desperate that they settle for anything,” Strange wrote in the letter to oil spill claims czar Ken Feinberg. “Remember, your job is to compensate the victims — not magnify their problems by playing games with BP’s money (to BP’s benefit.)”
The claims facility last week announced that it had reached an “important milestone” of processing more than half of the 256,000 final oil-spill claims applications it had received, including about 100,000 quick payments that require recipients to waive their rights to pursue further legal action over the months-long spill.
A spokeswoman for Feinberg didn’t respond to a request for comment.
On Monday, Strange joined Gov. Robert Bentley at a
news conference on the docks of Bayou La Batre before meeting with
other leaders in Gulf Shores.
Deadline approaching
While criticizing the claims process, Strange also urged coastal residents to remember that April 20 is the deadline to join a federal lawsuit over the spill and recover damages from one of the defendants, Transocean, owner of the exploded rig.
Bentley said he and the attorney general are collecting and organizing evidence for the lawsuit, which “had not been done as much prior to our administrations.”
“We’re going to fight for this area because we truly believe that Alabama was damaged more than anyone else,” Bentley said.
In Gulf Shores, Strange pointed to the psychological impact of the spill. He said he was driven to write the letter to Feinberg because of talks he had last week with law enforcement officials like Baldwin County Sheriff Huey “Hoss” Mack, who saw a considerable increase in crime last year.
“There is a tangible impact on families based on what’s happened in this oil spill,” Strange said. “It is not just business, anonymous people. It is human beings who are hurting because of this oil spill. And it is essential that he take action now to pay the people of Alabama what he should.”
Drug cases south of U.S. 98 doubled between 2009 and 2010 in Baldwin County, Mack said in the news conference, with the number leaping from about 425 to more than 950.
“This is the tragedy that keeps giving,” Mack
said. “While the oil well may have been capped, and while a majority
of the oil may have been cleaned from the surface, we’re still
dealing with this. I don’t think yet we know the impact that this is
going to have on our community.”
A long-term effect
Richard Powers, medical director for the Alabama Department of Mental Health, pointed to studies that showed the oil spill’s impact on children, who see changes in their summer lifestyle and are surrounded by the economic stress of their parents.
“Our anecdotal data clearly indicates that we are not past the worst part of this,” Powers said. “We anticipate that the long-term psychological aftermath of the BP oil spill in the acute phase will last for at least another year. And, we anticipate that we will see increased demand for mental health services in this region between the next two and five years.”
In his letter, Strange wrote that Feinberg’s claims operation has failed to be fully transparent, overplayed the issue of fraud in the system and offered many claimants “meager payments.”
He pointed to what he called “the demoralization, and often humiliation, of strong-willed, independent citizens who have been reduced to begging for handouts from an organization whose primary mission seems to be turning them down.”
In federal court, Feinberg and BP are waiting for a judge’s ruling on whether his court will take a supervisory role in the oil spill claims process.
Plaintiffs lawyers and attorneys general from the Gulf Coast states have asked a federal judge to rule that the Gulf Coast Claims Facility violated the federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990. They want the judge to force several changes onto the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, ranging from throwing out any lawsuit waiver that the facility has received to appointing monitors to review decisions of its adjusters.
Feinberg and BP have argued that the court has no jurisdiction over the process, and even if it did, the operation is running according to law.
Staff reporter Dan Murtaugh contributed to this report.
Cross on Gulf State Park Beach removed by new superintendent
Published: Saturday, March 19, 2011, 7:30 AM
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full size
A driftwood cross that had been in place
for 3 years has been removed by the new
superintendent of Gulf State Park, who
cited church and state issues in the
removal. (Orange Beach United Methodist
Church)ORANGE BEACH, Alabama — A driftwood cross that stood near the Cotton Bayou beach access for 3 years is gone.
As one of his first acts as superintendent of Gulf State Park, Mike Guinn removed the cross from the state land because of “separation of church and state,” he said.
But Guinn, who was named to the position March 1, acknowledged Friday that he may have acted hastily. Guinn was not aware of the history of the cross or that it belonged to the Orange Beach United Methodist Church until this week, when he was contacted by the Rev. Alan McBride.
“It still would have had to come down,” Guinn said. “I did go about it wrong. I jumped the gun, but I don’t want anybody to believe it was an anti-Christian thing.”
A father and son who are members of Orange Beach UMC, Jonathan and Mike Langston, built the cross from driftwood found in the back bays of Orange Beach, McBride said. It stood about 10 feet tall and weighed nearly 200 pounds.
“The thing that’s most striking to me is that if there were a change of policy, or if there had been a complaint, if the state had come to us and said we need to take the cross down, we would have done it,” McBride said. “The Bible says we’re to be under the authority of governing powers, and we certainly wouldn’t have argued.”
Site of services
Since planting the cross in the sand about 20 yards from the boardwalk, the church held evening services on the beach every Sunday from May through August.
Thirty-five baptisms had been performed in front of the cross. It endured heavy storms, spring break and summer tourists, and most recently served as a place for prayer vigils throughout the 2010 Gulf oil spill, McBride said.
The church initially got the OK to put the cross on the beach in 2008 from Orange Beach officials and from Guinn’s predecessor, Hugh Branyon, who retired last year. When Guinn took over, he said, he was concerned about the legal ramifications of allowing a religious symbol on state property.
The whereabouts of the cross were unknown Friday. Guinn said he believes that his maintenance crew had the cross thrown away.
Guinn has worked for the park since April 1989 and lived on the land for much of that time. He served as the manager of the Gulf State Pier from 1996 until 2004’s Hurricane Ivan.
He said he sympathizes with the church and takes full responsibility for removing the cross.
He and McBride are set to meet Monday afternoon.
“We are going to try and make it up to them immediately,” Guinn said.
McBride called the cross a “sentinel” for the coastal community.
“Even for non-religious people, the cross is a symbol of hope, it’s a symbol of the enduring human spirit,” McBride said. “It’s offensive to me that someone had so little regard for even finding out why it was there in the first place.”
Gulf Coast oil spill claims facility facility touts 'milestone'
Published: Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 5:23 AM
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Ken Feinberg addresses questions from local residents and
business owners during a meeting at the Orange Beach Community
Center on July 30, 2010, about how his Gulf Coast Claims
Facility would operate. On Monday, March 14, 2011, the facility
announced “an important milestone” by processing more than half
of the 256,000 final oil-spill claims applications it received.
(Press-Register/Kate Mercer)
MOBILE, Alabama -- The Gulf Coast Claims Facility announced Monday that it had reached “an important milestone” by processing more than half of the 256,000 final oil-spill claims applications it received.
Included in the calculation are about 100,000 quick payments of $5,000 for individuals or $25,000 for businesses. Such payments are available to any claimant approved for spill damages during the facility’s emergency phase last year.
Quick payment recipients must sign a waiver giving up their rights to pursue further damages or legal action in connection with the spill.
Of the 155,000 applications submitted for full or interim payments, the facility has processed 25 percent, according to the facility’s data. Less than half of those processed applicants were offered payments.
According to the latest claims operation data, which covers the entire Gulf Coast:
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78,127 individuals have received $5,000 quick payments.
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21,062 businesses have received $25,000 quick payments.
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156,634 individuals and businesses have applied for interim or full payments.
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18,562 applicants for interim or full payments have received offers; 40 percent were for interim payments.
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6,632 applicants have accepted interim or full payments, collecting a total of $66.6 million.
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19,413 claimants have been told they did not have sufficient documentation for any payment.
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3,100 claimants were denied payment, and 2,277 were told they would receive no more money because their losses had already been covered by last year’s emergency payments or by BP PLC’s claims program.
David Wright, the owner of a south Baldwin County homebuilding company that lost several contracts after the spill, said that four of his former workers were notified by the facility that they can’t get further payments. The facility, he said, ruled that the workers would experience no further financial loss from the spill, despite the fact that three of them are still unemployed.
One worker, Wright said, was making about $2,500 a month before Wright had to lay him off. But the worker was unemployed for the first half of 2009, so when the claims operation compared his 2010 income to 2009, it found that his entire losses had already been covered by a $19,000 emergency payment he received last year.
“They’re saying they had no loss when they’re unemployed,” Wright said. “How can you say there’s no loss? You try to feed a family with no job.”
In Alabama, about 16,000 people and businesses have received about $170 million in quick payments.
About 23,000 have filed for full or interim claims. The facility has made offers to 2,700 of them, and about 750 have accepted a total of $10.5 million.
Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon said he believes oil spill claims czar Ken Feinberg is finally starting to understand the urgency that Gulf Coast businesses are feeling.
“I’m praying that by the end of March, everything will be settled one way or another,” he said.
(Press-Register Staff Reporter David Ferrara contributed to this report.)
(MONTGOMERY)— With the one year anniversary
of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill approaching, Governor Robert
Bentley and Attorney General Luther Strange today released a public
service announcement regarding an upcoming deadline in the Gulf oil
spill lawsuit.
A New
Orleans federal court is overseeing litigation against companies
involved in the oil spill.
Filing a federal court claim
will not supersede or interfere with the normal GCCF process. In
other words, the federal claims and any GCCF claims can run on
“parallel tracks"
A trial date has been set for February 2012
and will determine whether Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater
Horizon oil rig that exploded on April 20, 2010, can limit what it
pays claimants under Maritime law.
"There
is an important deadline approaching that Alabamians need to know
about. In order to preserve the ability to recover money damages
against Transocean and be included in the February 2012 trial, one
must file a claim with the federal court by April 20, 2011,"
said Governor Bentley. "I am dedicated to
working with General Strange to make sure Alabamians are informed of
this fast approaching deadline."
Individuals and
businesses which experienced personal injury, loss of earnings,
property damage, business loss, or other economic loss from the oil
spill may be able to participate by filing a form to preserve their
rights. The Court has simplified the process to file a claim against
Transocean by approving a Direct Filing Short Form.
The Short Form is available by calling
1-800-831-8814 or visiting
www.AlabamaOilSpill.info. Filing this
Short Form may also join the claimant in the master lawsuit that has
been filed against BP and the other defendants. No one is required
to use the Short Form.
The deadline for
filing claims against Transocean regardless of whether the Short
Form is used is April 20, 2011.
There is no filing fee and a lawyer is not
required to file the Short Form. However, anyone needing legal
advice regarding their legal rights or about filing this Short Form,
should contact a lawyer.
The
Attorney General's Office has a website and toll-free hotline for
individuals seeking more information regarding this process and
obtaining free legal assistance or referrals. The website is
AlabamaOilSpill.info and toll free hotline is 1-800-831-8814.
"Filing with the Gulf Coast Claims Facility is not the same as filing in court. The federal lawsuit is separate from the claims process in the GCCF. A claimant may be able to participate in the federal lawsuit even if they already filed a claim with the GCCF," said Attorney General Luther Strange. "The coordinated and united efforts of the Governor's Office, the Attorney General's Office, United States Senators Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, Congressman Bonner, the local Gulf coast mayors and commissioners, and the Alabama State Bar Association, are significant and strong. I am proud of this team that has committed to work tirelessly until Alabama recovers from the 2010 Gulf oil spill tragedy."
Linda Whitlock
President/CEO
Alabama Gulf Coast Area Chamber of Commerce
