Some 32 US firms, whose crews and equipment have been left idle since US President Barack Obama imposed a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf, appealed in court Monday to federal judge Martin Feldman to ease the ban.
   "There's an ecosystem of businesses that are being harmed every day by this moratorium," Carl Rosenblum, an attorney for the oil companies, insisted in a reference to the environmental damage being inflicted on southern US shores.
   But government lawyer Guillermo Montero replied that deepwater drilling was more complicated than many other industries and the government had to review and, if necessary, update its safety protocols.
   "The Deepwater Horizon incident was a game-changer. It really showed the risks inherent in deepwater drilling," he told the New Orleans court hearing.
   Feldman said he could rule on the case as early as Tuesday, but certainly no later than noon  Wednesday.
   BP says it is containing around 25,000 barrels of oil per day from the spill which is now into its third month, and has called in more ships and equipment to boost the effort.
   But the oil giant has admitted the spill will not be permanently capped until it has completed two relief wells, with the first set to be finished in August.
    A US lawmaker who has emerged as one of BP's fiercest critics over the weekend released an internal BP document showing that the company had a worst-case scenario estimate that as much as 100,000 barrels of oil per day could actually be gushing from the broken wellhead - far more than US official estimate of between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day.
   "I think the American people should know that there is a worse case scenario of 100,000 barrels a day, which is four million gallons of oil a day going into the Gulf of Mexico," Representative Ed Markey told CNN television late Monday.
   Markey also saw the memo as proof that BP has shown little regard for the fate of Gulf residents affected by the spill.
   "If you kick them in the heart, you're going to break your toe," the lawmaker said. "That's why we have to stay on them every single day until the well is plugged and everyone, including the people in the Gulf and the ocean are made whole."
   Meanwhile, the White House sent BP a bill for 51 million dollars, the third sent to the British energy giant and its partners for government expenses incurred in efforts to halt the oil spill under a US law requiring oil firms to pay for cleanups.
   Two earlier bills to BP and other responsible parties this month amounting to 70.89 million dollars have been paid in full.
   BP also said it has spent two billion dollars so far on cleaning up the spill and compensating residents and businesses facing ruin nine weeks into the nation's worst ever environmental disaster.
   In a deal hammered out with the White House last week, BP agreed to set up a 20-billion-dollar compensation fund over the next four years to pay for the costs stemming from the spill.
   It also set aside 100 million dollars to compensate oil workers laid off by the moratorium imposed after a deadly April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, the BP-leased rig off the Louisiana coast.
   Kenneth Feinberg, who has been named to run the fund, said Obama told him: "Get these claims paid. Get them paid quickly."