One of the primary advocates for eliminating the liability cap for oil companies involved in an oil spill yesterday reintroduced his unlimited liability legislation.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) yesterday floated two measures (S. 214 and S. 215) that would ensure oil companies involved in a spill are legally responsible for all related costs.

Companies involved in an oil spill are legally responsible for the full cost of containing and cleaning up a spill. But Congress has capped companies' liability for economic damages -- people put out of work by the spill, fishermen who cannot fish, empty hotel rooms on the beach at high season -- at $75 million.

The language, which was first introduced last summer in the wake of the BP PLC oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, became a contentious issue as lawmakers tried to pass oil spill-response legislation. The unlimited liability language was included in the Democrats' energy package, but concerns over how such a proposal would affect small and independent operators led many lawmakers -- including Democrats Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Begich of Alaska -- to oppose the measure. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) eventually pulled the measure from consideration, and Menendez vowed to work with Landrieu and Begich on compromise liability language.

Since then, the presidentially appointed commission investigating the spill recommended in its final report that Congress raise the current $75 million liability cap, but the panel did not suggest a new threshold.

"The commission is clear: Not only are more spills of this magnitude entirely possible, but taxpayers and coastal communities remain financially exposed," Menendez said in a statement earlier this month after the commission released its final report. "We cannot continue to coddle oil companies by protecting them when they destroy livelihoods -- that's not a privilege given to any individual or small business."

Menendez said he plans to work with other senators "who have constructive ideas to help it pass."

"The bottom line is that what we enact must ensure that if an oil company spills, taxpayers do not pay a dime for cleanup or economic damages and coastal families are made financially whole," he added.