Republicans in the U.S. Senate want American taxpayers to foot most of the bill for the cleanup of the disastrous, ongoing Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In other words, they want us to bail out BP. Yep, I know, it’s just completely unbelievable, but the GOP senators want to bailout yet another major corporate screw-up — and a corporation that’s a relentless environmental polluter to boot. That's what will happen if the Senate GOP’s tactics work and they successfully block a bill designed to make BP clean up its own mess (if a spill the size of the two Carolinas combined can be called a mere “mess”). GOP senators, led by Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Oklahoma’s James Inhofe, have repeatedly blocked a bill that would raise the cap on oil companies’ liability from $75 million to $10 billion.

So far, the cost of the cleanup has hit around $600 million and is going up every minute, so as of now (May 24,  noon), the GOP's idea for cleaning up BP’s mess would already cost American taxpayers $525 million.  Experts estimate the total cost of the current spill cleanup could be anywhere from $1.5 billion to $14  billion; the latter figure includes payments to ruined businesses along the Gulf Coast.

As pointed out by True Majority, “BP makes over $3.9 million EVERY HOUR. In the 31 days since the rig exploded, they've earned over $2.8 billion.”  The current spill is expected to wreck the Gulf Coast’s fishing and tourist industries, not to mention the untold damage to the Gulf’s already-threatened wetlands, but that’s apparently not a problem for the clueless millionaire’s club running the GOP caucus in the Senate.  There are apparently no depths to which some oil company stooges in Congress won’t sink in order to appease their greasy overlords.