BP Wants Unspent Spill Recovery Money Back
After watching a $5 million grant to Gov. Rick Perry’s office go unspent nearly four years after it was presented in the wake of the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP is asking Texas for its money back.
The funds were given to Texas in September 2010 to help with oil spill recovery, but few of the state and local officials who work on such projects were aware of the grant until a legislative hearing in May. Lawmakers at the hearing were angered and said the money should have been given to agencies with the expertise to spend it. BP was frustrated as early as last winter about the unspent funds and asked Perry to return the money, according to correspondence obtained by The Texas Tribune through an open records request.
“The State has allowed the funds to sit in its General Revenue account, earning $20,871.63 in interest over the past three years,” a BP attorney wrote in a letter to Perry last November. “As such, BP respectfully requests that the State of Texas return the unused and unneeded $5 million grant to BP.”
In January, Perry’s office responded, "respectfully" denying the company's request for a return of the money and arguing that “the State cannot accept an arbitrary deadline to expend the funds.” The letter went on to say that the money would be used for a “website and grant programs.”
More at http://www.texastribune.org/2014/07/09/bp-asked-unspent-spill-recovery-money-back/ .
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Hell no, they can't have that money back. They ruined the Gulf and this is the minor price they're paying.
Damn it.
