Bill Nelson Slams Feds for Stiffing Gulf States in Oil Spill Response Contracts

With news breaking this week that a large part of the federal contracts to deal with the Gulf oil spill went to companies based in Massachusetts, Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson sent off a letter demanding answers to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as to why states impacted by the spill -- like Florida -- were left out.

For over six months, the people of the Gulf Coast have been experiencing economic devastation as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, wrote Nelson. Yet a recent Bloomberg news account reveals that companies far from the Gulf Coast are receiving a majority of the federal contracts for products and services related to damage assessment and cleanup.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded a substantial number of these contracts.