News bites: Lawyers ask judge to reel in Feinberg’s rhetoric, revised Michigan oil spill numbers, and more

The New York Times reported earlier this week that a group of lawyers asked a judge to force the administrator of BP’s $20 billion oil spill compensation fund to reel in his rhetoric about the benefits of compensation over litigation.

“For months, lawyers suing BP have fumed as Kenneth R. Feinberg, the administrator of the $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the Gulf Coast oil spill, has encouraged people to seek relief from the fund instead of through the courts,” the Times says.

“On Tuesday, they asked a federal judge in New Orleans to order Mr. Feinberg to be more even-handed when he talked to people who considered themselves victims of the spill, and to tell them about the potential rewards of suing the company.”

The owner of an oil pipeline that burst in Michigan earlier this year raised its estimate of how much oil spilled.

“The revised spill estimate was 20,082 barrels (843,444 gallons) of crude, the company said in an e-mailed statement. That’s up 3 percent from the initial spill estimate of 19,500 barrels,” Bloomberg reports.

And the Baltimore Sun reports, “Conservationists filed suit Wednesday to block the start of Maryland's first industrial wind project, contending the turbines built atop the state's highest mountain in Garrett County threaten to harm federally protected rare bats.”