I would think that 75 BILLION would be a lot closer to the actual costs. And even that's probably too low. I'm a fair person, so I'd probably set up a payment plan for them if I had the power to do so. Let's say an even 20 billion per year to be split by all the municipalities around the gulf with another 10 billion to be spent on clean-up efforts by BP themselves.

There really needs to be a bigger deterrent to issues like this beyond the minor PR inconvenience. 75 Million is chump change. That's the kind of money you drop on the floor and don't even bother stopping to pick up if you're this large and wealthy a company.