Using the $20B BP “Escrow” Funds
[Guest post by DRJ]
The right and left are abuzz today over Congressman Bart Stupak’s claim that it is legitimate for the government to use some of the $20B BP escrow funds to pay for victims’ health care needs. I don’t know what Stupak meant by this exactly but this is another example where the law could be helpful, if the Obama Administration would be transparent enough to use it.
The term escrow has a specific legal meaning:
“Money, property, a deed, or a bond put into the custody of a third party for delivery to a grantee only after the fulfillment of the conditions specified.”
The average person runs into the concept of an escrow account when they buy or sell a house. The buyer’s money and the seller’s deed are placed in escrow and transferred only after both are received and any further conditions of the sale are fulfilled. At that point, a title company or lawyer will release the seller’s home title to the buyer. Without this legal technique, a buyer could pay money and never receive title from the seller, or the seller could convey title and never get paid.
Here, we don’t know if the report is true that the Obama Administration wants the BP money to be put in escrow or what the conditions of the escrow are. This could be the Obama Administration’s way of suggesting BP’s money is safe — an Al Gore-like lock-box — and will be used for the purpose of helping people hurt by the BP oill spill even though there is not an actual escrow. Or it could be Attorney General Eric Holder was present at the White House meeting with BP because they plan to establish a legal escrow account, and thus lawyers needed to be present.
We don’t know because the White House hasn’t told us whether there is a legal escrow agreement or the details such an agreement. To my knowledge, no one asked BP CEO Tony Hayward any questions about this yesterday. Thus, this is another reason Patterico is right that the GOP should have asked questions and gathered facts yesterday … and leave the pontificating to bloggers and everyday Americans on the internet.
— DRJ
My nomination for most overused, meaningless, cliche of the last 2 years, “transparency”.
Though the use of the word does represent an interesting logical proposition The president has been referred to as “an empty suit”, at other times, his presidency has been characterized as “the emperor has no clothes”. Both of these of necessity include the concept of “transparency”. So, how is it that one can be both transparent and non-transparent at the same time?
I’m sure Painted Jaguar would have something to say about this, but he is not available for comment at this time (probably eating a meal with his family, as he does not golf and he forgets to keep his claws in playing basketball.)
MD in Philly (5a98ff) — 6/18/2010 @ 8:20 amAnother view of the $20B “escrow” fund from Powerline.
In response to the notion (not necessarily yours, I understand) that Obama’s generated $20B for US taxpayers, I’d like to to offer some admittedly sloppy calculations.
First, you said yesterday US citizens own 40% of BP. Looking at my Schwab account right now (I own BP stock myself), I see their market capitalization presently stands at $99B.
If their stock price has fallen by 40%, that means the market cap was (before all this ass-kicking started) around $165B — so the value of the stock has fallen by $66B. 40% of that loss, or around $26 billion of it, was sustained by Americans if we hold 40% of the stock.
So the net cost of this drama to the taxpayers is $6B and counting. And that is assuming that $20B is distributed fairly. Perhaps they can put ACORN in charge of it.
Now, I would call this shakedown (oops) a double dip into BPs accounts. The war on BP costs them $26B, then the “escrow” will take another $20B. Thus, Obama has cost them $46B, not 20.
Taxpayers, on the other hand, are still out $6B. It’s just another case of spreading the wealth around. Taking from those who own stock to give to those who don’t.
Mike K (82f374) — 6/18/2010 @ 8:28 amObama is going to OK payments to his and Democrat campaigns as repayment for damages for the BP spill.
PCD (1d8b6d) — 6/18/2010 @ 8:34 amEscrow, hell. It’s a political slush fund controlled by an unnacountable, Obama-appointed, Czar. Who’s to say that, in parallel with Stupak’s greedy move to grab part of it for ‘health care’, that the White House doesn’t devote a goodly chunk of that $20 billion to its own re-election campaign, with a major media attack on their political opponents thrown in to boot?
Insufficiently Sensitive (8906ed) — 6/18/2010 @ 9:32 amBP now has the luxury and privilege of financing ACORN/SEIU/AFSCME, and all the other Obamabots.
AD - RtR/OS! (3b92f0) — 6/18/2010 @ 10:37 amIf they (BP) are smart (but, that would be arguable, since they’ve engaged the “services” of Jamie Gorelick as a legal advisor),
before they send the first Dollar into that fund, they should march their sorry behinds into the nearest Bankruptcy Court and file for Chapter Eleven.
Let the Government argue with the Court for the money.
The slush fund extorted by Obama probably is more accurately characterized as a trust fund, since it will supposedly be held in trust for the benefit of yet to be identified injured parties.
Like Chicago thugs, Acorn, SEIU, and broke Democrats in general.
Btw, BP had to “volunteer” the fund because their was no constitutional way to extract the money without, you know, injured parties and damages. All that funny law stuff that gets in the way of doing the right thing. Which is not to be confused with that “regulation” stuff which is getting in the way of doing the right thing because regulations are more important than laws.
Capisce?
iconoclast (b4a45c) — 6/18/2010 @ 11:50 amWelcome to Barack Obama’s America, where the Chicago Way has replaced the Rule of Law.
BP is about to learn the lesson already taught to the GM and Chrysler bondholders. Trivial things like “rights” and “due process” count for nothing when there is income to be redistributed and favorites to be advanced.
Beldar (a6fff6) — 6/18/2010 @ 1:57 pmRather than thinking about the 20Billion as an ‘escrow account’, we should rather think of it like the Social Security ‘lock box account’, you know the one where the government has set aside all of our social security payments in a secure account so that it will be there when we retire?
eaglewingz08 (1e4d33) — 6/18/2010 @ 3:52 pmOh, never mind…
It is really an O’Dumbo slush fund that will magically disappear within a few months. I doubt there is one honest person serving in the regime or as a democrat in congress.
Scrapiron (4e0dda) — 6/18/2010 @ 4:39 pm