BP asked Federal Judge Carl Barbier on Friday to cap its potential oil-spill pollution fines at a maximum of $12.3 billion.
Prosecutors have said BP could owe up to $18 billion per EPA rules that trigger fines up to $4,300 per barrel for the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The Coast Guard has set fines at $4,000 per barrel.
BP wants the judge to set a maximum $3,000 per-barrel penalty – which would reduce its liability by nearly a third.
According to the website Fuel Fix, the British oil giant argued in court papers the judge should disregard the higher penalties in Environmental Protection Agency and Coast Guard regulations because, it claimed, neither agency has the authority to raise maximum penalties above Congress’s $3,000-per-barrel cap for environmental liabilities under the Clean Water Act.
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