"Dan Rather Reports" Investigates Government Payouts to Victims of the BP Oil Spill

Rather interviews Ken Feinberg, Administrator of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility to track progress one year after the spill began - TONIGHT, Tuesday, April 12 at 8:00 p.m. ET

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Apr 12, 2011, 11:51 ET

DALLAS, April 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Tonight's "Dan Rather Reports" presents an in-depth interview with Ken Feinberg, Administrator of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, for a closer look at the current state of compensation for Gulf Coast victims who claim damages from the giant BP well blowout.

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Feinberg was asked by the Obama Administration and British Petroleum to design, implement, and administer a process to pay eligible claimants. So far, Feinberg says, "We have paid about 300,000 claims in nine months. We've paid out about $3.8 billion."

British Petroleum has pledged to put up $20 billion to help the Gulf Coast recover from the spill and the G.C.C.F. has received over 750,000 claims to date from all over the United States. Half of those claims have been denied by the G.C.C.F. and they are currently looking at reviewing another 150,000 pending claims.

And the claims continue to pour in at a rate of 500 claims per week; however, claimants will only have until August 13, 2013 that's when the program will go out of existence.

"Dan Rather Reports" also discusses the current state of the Gulf with Feinberg and how he and the G.C.C.F. determined what Feinberg calls a "reasonable" assumption about the Gulf returning to "normal" by the end of 2012.

BP has disagreed with this saying the Gulf will be "perfect in the next three to six months."

And this isn't BP's only disagreement with the Administrator.

"BP is not happy," said Feinberg. "First, they say that providing a final payment based on damage through 2012 is way too generous. The final payment should be based on damage through the middle of this year. The other complaint is they think I've been, on some claims, too generous."

Also on tonight's program, Rather and his team look at Afghanistan's largest foreign investment project – a copper mine, now controlled by the Chinese government.

Don't miss "Dan Rather Reports: The Mother Lode" premiering on HDNet, TONIGHT, Tuesday, April 12 at 8:00 p.m. ET with an encore at 11:00 p.m. ET.

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