Angry Gulf Coast Residents Take It To The Halls Of Congress

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/13679

Submitted by Doug Cunningham on June 10, 2010 - 4:58pm
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Angry Gulf Coast residents have begun taking their frustrations to the halls of Congress. Jesse Russell reports:

Frustration continues to boil up along the Gulf Coast as workers try to figure out what the next step is as their livelihoods slowly succumb to oily seas. This point was driven home on June 9 as Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski began to make comments during the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee hearing. Texas commercial fisherwoman Diane Wilson interrupted the Senator, dousing herself in syrup intended to look like oil, and shouting that the cost is tired of being “dumped on”:

We’re tired of being dumped on in the Gulf. I’m a commercial fisherwoman from the Gulf of Mexico and we’re tiered of being dumped on…

Murkowski is one of the Senators who helped block proposals by Congress to raise the liability on oil companies involved with oil spills. That liability currently stands at $75 million. According to opensecrets.org three of Murkowski’s top five campaign contributors are energy companies. In the last five years she has received more than $682,000 from the energy and natural resources sector making up a third of her overall campaign contributions.