WASHINGTON /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Bread for the World is urging leaders and experts not to forget hungry and poor people who are being impacted by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as British Petroleum begins compensating workers and businesses affected by the company’s leaking oil well.
“Many of these people were suffering a disaster before the disaster,” said Rev. David Beckmann, World Food Prize Laureate and president of Bread for the World. “There is no doubt that the Gulf oil spill will have untold costs for the hungry and poor people in that region.”
The coastal counties under the greatest threat in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are among the poorest in the country. In those counties, about one in four children participates in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps). Mississippi has the highest rate of hunger and food insecurity in the country.
Along with high unemployment, an increasing number of the region’s low-income workers are likely to face cutbacks in their hours because of the oil spill’s economic impact.
“The situation in the Gulf should compel Congress to redouble efforts to strengthen tax credits for the working poor and fund the needed increase for the child nutrition programs,” said Beckmann. “Now more than ever we must not forget that there are extremely poor people in this Gulf region who are being made even worse off by this environmental and economic crisis.”
Rev. Beckmann was recently named a 2010 World Food Prize Laureate — the Nobel Prize equivalent for food and agriculture — for his efforts to end hunger and poverty for millions of people around the world.
Bread for the World (www.bread.org) is a collective Christian voice urging our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad.
Related Articles:
- Florida Church Backpack Drive Will Help Louisiana Families Affected by Oil Spill
- The Bible.is for iPhone App Released
- Christian Broadcasting Network and Hispanic National Association of Evangelicals Establish Partnership for Ethnic Outreach
- Bethany Reports Adoption Increases Up 26 Percent for 2010
- The ‘CITY OF DAVID GOSPEL FEST & CAR SHOW’ Features Top Gospel Artists, Classic Cars, and Great Food in a Favorite Motor City Summer Tradition
The oil spill is nothing to laugh at but I just saw a kid wearing a t-shirt that cracked me up. BP – We’re bring oil to America’s shores. I died laughing because BP’s billion dollar image change to their new sunflower logo is forever going to be associated with the worst environmental disaster to strike America. Check out the shirt here – http://bit.ly/bJAuTb
We need a comment from the Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry. Landry’s done this before—she oversaw the 2003 spill in Buzzards Bay, Massachussets . Then, as now, her initial reports of the spill total were way off. Landry, a Coast Guard rear admiral, has gone from taking reporters’ questions at the White House to giving reporters tours of the damage, but there are also reports that the Coast Guard is keeping reporters and photographers from getting a full picture – and doing so at the behest of BP. (The Coast Guard says they are accommodating as many media requests as they can; Landry hasn’t commented). We have got to ask how the response to the Gulf of Mexico spill compares to the 2003 Bouchard B 120 oil spill in Buzzards Bay,Massaacusetts? Two things come to mind. First the U.S.Court of appeals never allowed the state of Massachusetts to enforce the Massachusetts Oil Spill Prevention Act of 2004. The Coast Guard appealed the rules because of an intercoastal turf war leaving the state with no new laws to protect the bay. Second the residential property claims of thousands of residents have been tied up in the Massachusetts court system for the past eight years. How will residential property owners around the gulf have to wait? On April 27, 2003, eight years ago the Bouchard Barge B-120 hit an obstacle in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts creating a 12-foot rupture in its hull and discharging an estimated 100,000 gallons of No. 6 oil.
The general motor oil spill in the general gulf serves as the general most eminent distaster I can remember. BP has therefore a lot of answer to for.