[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8] [Senate] [Page 10441] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]BP'S RESPONSIBILITY Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about the START treaty briefly. Before I do, let me mention, as I have previously, that I have been sending messages to the Justice Department and others. I was pleased with the Attorney General's comments today about the oilspill in the gulf, the gusher of oil that continues in the gulf, and about BP's responsibility. There is no question that BP has said they pledged to cover legitimate costs as a result of this oilspill. The question I have is, Is that a binding agreement? And the answer from the Justice Department at a hearing recently was, no, it is not binding. If that is the case, if it is not binding--and I believe it is not--we need to move to take steps to make that pledge binding. There are people today who are trying to figure out how on Earth do they get through this situation. In addition to oil spilling out into the gulf--and it has been doing that I think for 52, 53 days--there are people on a dock in a small town somewhere who are fisher men and women. They have a boat and they fish for a living. But their boat is idle at the end of the dock because they cannot fish. Yet they have to make a payment on that boat at the end of the month. Up and down the gulf, there are significant consequences of this situation. The question is, Who is going to reach out to help those folks? They did not cause these problems. I think it is important for BP to be asked to put a significant amount of money into a fund, a recovery fund of sorts, and that fund be handled by a special master and perhaps by a counselor from BP. In any event, it is important to turn this from a pledge into a binding commitment and to do so soon so that money begins flowing to those who are substantially disadvantaged by what has happened and this disaster that has occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. ____________________