http://floridaindependent.com/9708/qa-with-kenneth-feinberg-oil-spill-compensation-chief-admits-mistakes-and-confronts-new-hurdlesKenneth Feinberg knew what he was in for. The independent administrator of BP’s $20 billion oil spill compensation fund has put himself in charge of seemingly impossible situations before — as special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and as “pay czar” overseeing executive compensation at companies that got bailouts from the U.S. government.
But, in an interview with The Washington Independent this week, Feinberg says there were some surprises this time around. When he took over in August as administrator of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, he expected a smooth transition because BP had already been processing claims for months. But what he got was a massive backlog of claims and thousands of angry gulf residents.
Feinberg now says he “oversold” his ability to process claims quickly. And he admits, despite a marathon series of public meetings all around the gulf, that he did not communicate clearly enough with claimants, leading many to believe that they would receive payments within 48 hours of submitting their applications.
Reacting to criticism from the Department of Justice and many Gulf Coast residents and officials, Feinberg has instituted a number of changes in recent weeks, adding more staff to process claims, grouping similar claims together to speed up the review process and no longer determining eligibility of claims based on a claimant’s geographic proximity to the spill.
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