WASHINGTON — Struggling to convey command of the worsening Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Obama administration is taking steps to distance itself from BP and is dispatching Attorney General Eric Holder to the Gulf Coast to meet with federal and state prosecutors.
The Holder trip could signal that the environmental calamity might become the subject of a criminal investigation.
Holder has said Justice Department lawyers are examining whether there was any “malfeasance” related to the leaking oil well, and investigators, who have been on the coast for a month, have sent letters to BP instructing the company to preserve internal records related to the spill.
But federal officials indicated that Holder’s trip, which will include a news conference in New Orleans this afternoon, will focus on enforcement of environmental laws and holding BP accountable.
The opening of a criminal investigation or civil action against BP, if either were to happen, would create the unusual situation of the federal government weighing charges against a company that it is simultaneously depending on for the most critical elements of the response to the record oil spill.
“We’re cooperating fully with all inquiries, and we’re doing everything we need to do and more in terms of preserving records,” BP spokesman Andrew Gowers said Monday.
The relationship between the federal government and the oil company has been an awkward collaboration all along — “We have them by the neck,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said of BP in congressional testimony last week — but it reached a turning point Monday when the administration said it no longer wants to share a podium with BP at the daily briefing in Louisiana. Instead, the national incident commander, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, will give a solo briefing wherever he happens to be.
The public relations shake-up comes in a tense period, with the Gulf Coast rattled after last week’s attempted “top kill” of the well didn’t work.
A government forecast shows the oil slick potentially striking the popular tourist beaches of Mississippi and Alabama this week. The official arrival of hurricane season today has incited a new rash of dire scenarios.
With bad news washing up everywhere, the administration has been desperate to convince the public that the government, and not the oil company, is fully in charge of the crisis and mounting a robust response.
“BP now stands for ‘Bad Partner,’ ” Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House energy and environment subcommittee, said Monday. “I think that BP has not demonstrated a level of competence or trustworthiness that merits having the U.S. government standing next to it at press conferences.”
