TPMMuckraker

BP Spent $93.4 Million On Advertising Between April And July

Rachel Slajda September 1, 2010, 1:08 PM

BP spent $93.4 million on U.S. advertising efforts between April, when the Deepwater Horizon exploded, and the end of the July.

According to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who’s heading one of the investigations into the oil spill, that’s three times the amount BP spent on advertising in the same period last year.

BP told Waxman it spent most of its money on local and national TV and newspaper advertising, and a smaller amount on Internet ads. It advertised not only in Gulf Coast states, but also in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast.

Waxman noted that BP said it had “increased advertising expenditures for a number of
reasons, including to keep Gulf Coast residents informed of issues relating to the oil spill and recovery and to ensure transparency during the recovery process.”

The company also spent $89.5 million in grants for tourism agencies in the states affected by the spill.

The news comes at the same time BP’s command center in St. Bernard Parish has been issued an eviction notice for not paying more than $3 million in rent and expenses like fuel and security.

“We’re calling on BP to step forward and make these things right,” the parish president said in a statement. “We continue to hear commercial after commercial that says BP is here until everything is cleaned up. BP is here to make this right. Well this is an opportunity to make this right.”

BP told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that it hasn’t paid the landlord and other companies in St. Bernard’s Parish because the invoices did not include enough detail.

“BP, like most responsible companies, requires certain basic documentation accompany invoices submitted for payment. This documentation is used to verify that work submitted on an invoice was authorized by the company, and to help verify that the work was actually completed. Many invoices received from St. Bernard Parish work did not include this basic documentation.”