BP claims administrator Ken Feinberg last Wednesday released the set of protocols for final payment of damages following a deluge of last-minute emergency claims that came in prior to the Nov. 23 deadline.

A week before the Legislature goes into special session, there was little agreement on just what oil-related items it plans to take up, though it became clear Monday that the Senate, at least, wants to go beyond the governor’s call and provide economic relief to the spill-weary Panhandle.

The Senate’s Select Committee on the Economy on Monday discussed a list of economic issues lawmakers should address when the Legislature convenes a special session ordered by Gov. Charlie Crist to vote on a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban offshore oil drilling in Florida.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio floated the creation of a "Gulf Empowerment Zone" Monday while dismissing Gov. Charlie Crist's cleanup efforts as a "photo op."

"The economic impact of this spill is as big as the environmental impact," Rubio said during a teleconference in which he hammered both the Obama administration and Crist, his chief rival in this fall's U.S. Senate race.

The people of Florida haven’t been so mad at a British guy since English General James Oglethorpe launched a barrage of cannonballs at the Castillo de San Marcos at St. Augustine in 1740.

Tony Hayward, the chairman of British Petroleum, is the current whipping boy, and the barrage is now going the other way and will continue this week as nearly every Florida politician running for office launches an attack on the company for the oil it has sent to the state’s money-making shoreline.