After coming out of the gate full of promises, then suffering criticism in more recent months for its rigorous paperwork requirements, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility is shutting down three of its 12 satellite offices at the end of the month. Actual claims related to last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will still be accepted until August 2013, an attorney for the GCCF told lawmakers Monday. The GCCF was created last year with $20 billion from BP. GCCF offices in Morgan City, Grand Isle and Lafitte will no longer be in operation as of May 31. “The decision was just made in the last two weeks and is based on the number of people coming into these offices each day,” says GCCF attorney Matthew F. Block. “In every case, there is another facility located nearby.”
The news was delivered during the first official meeting of the Joint Select Committee on Oversight of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which was created earlier this year by legislative leaders to “expedite legitimate claims.” Block says that as of Thursday, there had been a total of 512,000 claims made through the GCCF, which have resulted in $4 billion being paid out. In Louisiana, 200,000 claims have been filed and $1.3 billion awarded. Claimants can also join the multidistrict litigation that’s pending in New Orleans, Block says. On the horizon, he says, there is another appeals process being developed for “larger value” claim denials. Jack M. Weiss, chancellor of LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center, is helping create the three-judge panel to oversee that process. —Jeremy Alford
