I think the difference here is negligence - BP was (allegedly - p>0.7) negligent in its maintenance, which caused this oil spill. Anybody suffering because of this negligence - such as the fishers you mention - are entitled to compensation if the negligence can be proved.

Other oil workers are a different boat however, and I think the breakdown in logic is this:

"The oil spill caused a ban on drilling."

No - the government caused a ban on drilling. Maybe the disaster served as a wake-up call that the old regulatory regime was inadequate, though it's more likely that the government is simply knee-jerking to look useful. But whichever is true, this doesn't fall back on BP.

For example: if a highway gets shut down after a bad accident, it doesn't matter if A)the road was unsafe and needs a redesign anyway, or B)the driver who caused the accident was unsafe and the government is overreacting - either way nobody in the trucking industry gets compensation. And nobody would expect them to.

The difference here is that "The oil spill caused a ban on drilling" is a seductive concept for three main reasons: most people trust government (they don't view it as the mindless amoral bureaucracy it actually is), most people are feeling financially desperate right now (doesn't matter whether they get the payola or not, as long as somebody does it's comforting), and thirdly there's the whole 'oil companies are evil, ummmkay?' bias colouring their perceptions.

Basically it boils down to plain old tribalism - the oil drillers are good ole' working boys, while the oil company is a bunch of evil outsider despots.

~sigh~ How's that fertility-eugenics tech coming along?