GULF SHORES – Today Gulf Shores Mayor Robert Craft will testify before a U.S. House committee considering the Restore Act.

The mayor attended the city’s Committee of the Whole meeting at 4 p.m. Monday, but excused himself for the regular council meeting that followed saying he needed to prepare his remarks and finalize travel plans.

“Most of you have been following a little bit the progress of the Restore Act which is extremely important to the coastal communities,” Craft said.

The Restore Act is currently before the entire Senate, but still in committee in the House, Craft said. BP will be fined under the Clean Water Act and the Restore Act is an attempt to redirect that fine money from the U.S. Treasury to communities hit hardest by the oil spill.

“Obviously this is a huge benefit to the coastal communities of the five states from Florida to Texas to be able to use this money to become more resilient and recover and restore the economy,” Craft said. “And it’s anywhere from, based on the dollar amount per barrel of oil multiplied by however many millions of barrels of oil, it will add up to either being $5 billion or $20 billion depending on the degree of negligence found by BP in this issue.

“So a significant amount of money could come to the Gulf Coast.”

Craft says the hope is the Restore Act will be attached to the continuing governmental operations vote that has to take place by Dec. 16.

“I’m going to be in Washington tomorrow to testify in front of the committee, the House committee, as to the relevance of this money and the need and the impact on the community, the coastal communities of this oil spill and the need for recovery,” Craft said.