Nancy Pelosi (left), accompanied by Sen. Harry Reid, speaks to reporters Friday after a meeting with President Obama about the Gulf oil spill. Pelosi demands BP end dividends

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her sharpest rebuke yet of the oil industry, said Friday that BP should not make dividend payments to stockholders until those affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are made “whole.”

“I’m saying that they should not be paying dividends until they make these people whole and make a better effort to do it in a timely fashion,” Pelosi told reporters. “These people are coming to us and saying ‘I have to take out a loan,’ . . . . which I can ill-afford to repay because BP is not, you know, is not paying. BP has the money, it made $17 billion last year. They went up, what, 12 points on the stock market yesterday?”


BP’s paying dividends to stock holders has grown controversial in recent days, as Gulf shore residents have complained about the speed in which the company has responded to loss of income claims.

The Times of London reported Friday that BP was preparing to defer payment of its next dividend and instead put the money in an escrow account until the full scale of the company’s liabilities from the spill can be determined.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday he would “stay out of their legal obligations to shareholders” but added that the company shouldn’t “nickel-and-dime anybody in the Gulf” if it could redistribute profits and run pricey television ads.

Pelosi’s view was less nuanced.

“I thought dividends were something you paid because you made such and such a profit, I didn’t know it was something you paid off before you took care of your expenses,” she said.

Pelosi’s hard line on BP wasn’t limited to dividend payments. She said company officials were not truthful when they told the federal government BP had the technology to drill at extreme depths in the Gulf of Mexico.

“BP stated that they had the technology to drill deep, that they had the technology to prevent a blowout and that they had the technology to clean up, and none of these things happened to be a fact,” she said.

Legislatively, Democrats have the wheels in motion on their own response. They are aiming at reforming the Minerals Management Agency and reshaping offshore drilling policy.

Pelosi threw her weight behind some legislative proposals, including amending the Death at High Sea Act – a century-old law that imposes strict limits on recouping damages for dying in the ocean. She said she specifically is looking to peel back provisions which limit payments based on how far the death occurs and a provision that disallows families from obtaining payments based on emotional suffering.