The following is a fact-check from the June 20, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:
GOV. HALEY BARBOUR (R-MS) | The $20 billion BP put in escrow will be paid in $5 billion increments over a period of four years – TRUE
GOV. BARBOUR: Right. Well, I thought that they were talking about taking $20 billion from BP all at once, and my fear was if you took $20 billion from them all at once, put it in an escrow account, then they wouldn’t have the working capital to generate the revenue to pay us. I think the president was smart, and I congratulate him and BP that they reached an agreement. Instead of $20 billion taken out of that working capital all at once, it’s actually going to be $5 billion this year, $5 billion the next year, $5 billion the following year and $5 billion the fourth year.
According to both a Washington Post and CBS news article, under the deal, BP will put $5 billion annually into escrow for the next four years to pay damage claims from the Gulf of Mexico. Therefore, we rate Gov. Barbour’s statement TRUE.
The following fact-check took a combined 1 hour.