) – firms went to court seeking to lift a six-month freeze on deepwater drilling as the US government slapped BP with another major bill for the Gulf of Mexico disaster. The White House sent BP a bill for 51 million dollars, the third sent to the British giant and its partners for government expenses incurred in efforts to halt the oil spill under a US law requiring oil firms to pay for cleanups.
Two earlier bills to BP and other responsible parties this month amounting to 70.89 million dollars have been paid in full.
BP also said it has spent two billion dollars so far on cleaning up the spill and compensating residents and businesses facing ruin nine weeks into the nation's worst ever envirometal disaster.
Some 32 US firms, whose crews and equipment have been left idle since US President Barack Obama imposed a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf, were urging federal judge Martin Feldman to ease the restrictions.
"There's an ecosystem of businesses that are being harmed every day by this moratorium," Carl Rosenblum, an attorney for the oil companies, insisted in a reference to the environmental damage being inflicted on southern US shores.
But government lawyer Guillermo Montero replied that deepwater drilling was more complicated than many other industries and the government had to review and, if necessary, update its safety protocols.
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