BP Will Receive Tax Hike As Punishment, Lawyers Attempt To Deny Oil Workers Benifits

As a result of the recent oil spill and lack of clean-up, President Barack Obama plans on punishing BP with a tax hike on barrels of crude oil.

From the Times article:
Oil companies face an immediate tax rise of 1 cent per barrel to help to pay for the clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico under proposed legislation rushed out by the White House yesterday.

...would put an extra $500 million (£340 million) over ten years into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which covers damage caused by such disasters.
Meanwhile BP's lawyers coeherced survivors into signing waivers that were used against them to deny benefits:
Survivors have alleged that, after being rescued, they were held at sea while the rig’s owner, Transocean, assembled its lawyers. After being brought ashore, traumatised and exhausted by two nights without sleep, they claim that they were taken to a hotel and “coerced” by Transocean representatives into signing liability waivers before being allowed to see their families.

According to Steven Gordon, of the Houston legal firm Gordon, Elias and Seely, the waivers are now being used against the workers as they attempt to seek compensation for emerging psychological problems that have left some too afraid to work at sea again.
“These people went through holy hell. They have probably just gone through the most traumatic period of their entire lives. They needed counseling — not ‘Please sign here that you’re not hurt’ ,” said Mr Gordon, who is representing Christopher Choy, a rig worker. “When they asked him to sign this, he hadn’t been allowed to sleep and have his first nightmare.”
Mr Choy, 23, teamed up with a firefighter on the rig to try to rescue a crane operator who was trapped by the fire. “They couldn’t get to him because he was in flames. These guys watched their friends burning,” Mr Gordon told The Times.
Workers leapt eight storeys into the sea to escape the flames, but even the water was on fire. The last to climb from the rig on to Mr Landry’s boat was the rig’s captain, Curt Kuchta, who tried to hit the “kill” switch to shut the oil well. “He acknowledged he pressed it and didn’t know if it worked or not,” Mr Landry said.
Also note that last year BP reported profits of $14 billion. [Source]

I am not particularly fond of the way the oil clean-up situation has been handled and even more disgusted that the oil companies are trying to deny benefits and compensation of oil workers as a result of the accident.