The oil business rakes in many billions of dollars in profits while you pay high prices at the gas pump and try to feed your family. But imagine how much more galling it will be to fishing, tourism and other business along the Gulf of Mexico coast as the economic fallout of last month’s Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill hits home.

As it stands now, British Petroleum, or BP, which was operating the doomed oil platform, has a $75 million cap on payments for non-cleanup and containment costs. In other words, if Louisiana’s $3 billion fishing industry is ruined, or if the Gulf Coast’s $100 billion tourism industry is staggered, they can stand in line to try getting a fraction of that cost from the company which seems to have caused it through negligence.

Fortunately, the Obama administration is trying to correct this problem, which was created by the 1990 Oil Pollution Act. Indeed, the administration is working with Congress to lift the $75 million cap to pay for oil spill damages, in order to help those who suffer financially in Gulf Coast states Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

How high would a new cap go? Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) wants it hiked to $10 billion. Already available is a $1 billion fund created by the federal government via oil industry taxes to help offset oil spill business damages costs.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs doesn’t want BP and other oil giants to forget about “small businesses, fisheries and local governments that will be left to clean up the economic devastation that somebody else caused.”

Jim S. Adler & Associates doesn’t want anyone to forget, either. The longtime injury law firm stands with those who are suffering economic damages due to the enormous oil spill, and it will fight to gain for them the kind of financial compensation — and justice — they deserve.

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