Well, last night's humdrum speech suddenly got a little better today:
The White House and BP tentatively agreed on Wednesday that the oil giant would create a $20 billion fund to pay claims for the worst oil spill in American history. The fund will be independently run by Kenneth Feinberg, the mediator who oversaw the 9/11 victims compensation fund, according to two people familiar with the deliberations.
The agreement was not final and was still being negotiated when President Obama and his top advisers met Wednesday morning with BP's top executives and lawyers. The preliminary terms would give BP several years to deposit the full amount into the fund so it could better manage cash flow, maintain its financial viability and not scare off investors.
I got a bit nervous last night when Obama said he would "inform" (not ask or request) Tony Hayward that BP was to set aside a fund for compensation, and that the fund "will" (not should or in theory) be administered by an outside third party. But lo and behold both are true. The third party, Feinberg, is widely respected for his previous such work.
Obviously details won't be known for some time. And I guess from the above that the i's still need to be dotted. But this counts as an Obama win. I'd love know what the conversation was as it went down in the Oval Office this morning. At any rate this is the sort of thing the guy was elected to do, facilitate dialogue and achieve a reasonable and amenable outcome. Now if Hayward would just slip Senate Republicans a little bit of what he's been drinking, things might change in this country.
