By: Kenric Ward
| Posted: September 8, 2010 1:00 PM
A report found a string of failures by "multiple companies" led to the deadly Deepwater Horizon disaster, and BP is taking the blame for the blowout that spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
While emergency responders girded for an expected landfall of oil on Florida’s coastline within the next few days, political figures mapped out plans and threw a little mud as frustration mounts over what has become the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.
British Petroleum agreed Monday to give Florida another $25 million to pay for an advertising campaign promising that the state’s beaches remain open and fishing is going strong even as the company struggles to stanch a massive oil spill off Louisiana’s Gulf coast.
The cash comes on top of $25 million the company has already pledged to help offset the state’s costs in preparing coastal regions for a possible landfall of the oil, which continues to mass roughly 350 miles from the St. Petersburg shoreline.
An explosion on a BP oil rig last month that has resulted in the biggest oil spill in recent history has spurred at least eight lawsuits in federal court from Panhandle residents whose livelihoods could be upended by the spill.
Commercial fishermen, real estate executives, beach front property owners and restaurateurs have all filed suit against BP, in addition to rig owner TransOcean and contractor Haliburton Energy Services.
