After deciding on awards for 9/11 victims and corporate CEOs, Feinberg takes on Gulf spill

NEW YORK (AP) — Kenneth Feinberg was asked to put a dollar figure on the lives of Sept. 11 victims and to trim paychecks at companies that got taxpayer bailouts.

Now the federal government has given him a new job overseeing a fund to pay the victims of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that the oil company BP would set aside $20 billion to pay oil-spill victims and that Feinberg would administer the fund.

At the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, Feinberg had to weigh applications from families and determine their awards based on an estimate of what each victim would have earned in a lifetime.

Family members complained at first that Feinberg was cold and aloof but in the end many said he was fair.