In response to the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill at an offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico threatening the coast of Louisiana , Vitter introduced legislation along with Jeff Sessions of Alabama to increase the liability cap of an oil company from $ 75 million to its most recent annual profits ( or $ 150 million if greater ) . In the case of BP , the owner of the oil lease , its liability would be $ 20 billion . Vitter later introduced an amendment that would remove the cap entirely for this particular spill . Competing Democratic proposals would have raised the liability to $ 10 billion regardless of profits or removed the cap altogether . Sessions argued that large caps unrelated to company profits would harm smaller companies
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
David Vitter