Securing Protections for the Injured from Limitations On Liability Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much.

Madam Speaker, I would first like to thank our chairman, JOHN CONYERS. He is always on the case in a timely fashion, providing leadership that is so desperately needed on issues such as this one.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5503, the Securing Protections for the Injured from Limitations on Liability Act, that is, the SPILL Act. H.R. 5503 is a good first step and must be passed to immediately assist the victims who would otherwise be denied adequate compensation under our current laws. I am very disappointed at some of the arguments that are being made against this bill by my friends on the opposite side of the aisle.

One of the arguments that they make is the DOHSA provisions of the SPILL Act will allow surviving families to receive undue compensation. Well, let me set the record straight. DOHSA currently provides outdated and uneven compensations for victims on the high seas because it fails to award damages for pain and suffering, loss of care, comfort, and companionship in many cases, including an accident like the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

The changes to DOHSA are not intended to single out any particular industry. The SPILL Act will make Federal law consistent so that the families of all victims on the high seas can receive the compensation they truly deserve. These gross inequities exist because DOHSA, enacted back in 1920, has undergone only one significant update, in 2000, 4 years after the TWA Flight 800 crash.

I would simply ask for support and a vote on H.R. 5503, recognizing the families who have been harmed.

However, we cannot discount the critical needs of entire communities and other individuals whose way of life has been severely impacted by the oil spill. The outlook for little-known communities of black oyster farmers is especially bleak. These small villages of black fishermen have been self-sufficient for generations, relying on the region's wetlands for their economic independence. The challenges these oyster farmers will face must not be excluded in our efforts to help the Gulf Coast. We must ensure that BP and other responsible parties are held liable and accountable to the hundreds of thousands of lives they have destroyed at the expense of cutting costs.

Therefore, while I fully support H.R. 5503, I am very disappointed that critical amendments to the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) as well as my amendment that would have legally nullified BP's original attempts to make their $5,000 payouts legal settlements were taken out of the bill. All we have now is BP's word that they will not enforce these waivers or honor the $75 million liability cap current law provides. However, this is unacceptable.

In the same manner that the federal government responded to the 9/11 attacks and the economic collapse, we must be equally as vigilant in responding to the crisis in the Gulf Coast.

DOHSA currently provides outdated and uneven compensation for victims on the high seas because it fails to award damages for pain and suffering, and loss of care, comfort, and companionship in many cases--including in accidents like the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

The SPILL Act will make federal law consistent so that the families of all victims on the high seas can receive the compensation they deserve.

These gross inequities exist because DOHSA, enacted in 1920, has undergone only one significant update--in 2000, four years after the TWA Flight 800 crash. Because many of the TWA victims were children who earned no income, Congress narrowly amended DOHSA to grant non-pecuniary damages to family members of commercial airline victims on the high seas, but not for any other deaths on the high seas.

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