WASHINGTON — Vowing to “make BP pay,” President Barack Obama accused the oil giant of “recklessness” in his first address to the nation from the Oval Office on Tuesday night, eight weeks after the catastrophic oil spill began destroying waterways, wildlife and a prized Gulf Coast way of life.
“We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes,” declared Obama, offering no immediate remedies for a frustrated nation. Rather, he announced he had asked Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, a former governor of Mississippi, to develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan — to be funded by BP PLC — in concert with local states, communities, fishermen, conservationists and residents “as soon as possible.”
He did not detail what this effort — he called it a “battle plan” — should include or how much it might cost, a price sure to be in the billions of dollars. Whatever the bottom line, he declared to his prime-time television audience, “We will make BP pay.”
That’s not certain, however. In declaring that BP won’t control the compensation fund for the gulf recovery, Obama failed to mention that the government won’t control it either. The president meets BP executives in a White House showdown today.
Fifty-seven days into the crisis, oil continues to gush from the broken wellhead, millions of gallons a day, and Obama has been powerless to stem the leak. The sad episode has raised doubts about his leadership and his administration’s response to what Obama has called the nation’s worst environmental disaster.
He spoke from the Oval Office while seated at the storied Resolute desk, a bank of family photos and an American flag filling the backdrop. A president sometimes criticized as lacking emotion, Obama talked in a calm tone, no sign of the anger he showed earlier in the week concerning the spill.
With national frustration rising, Obama sought to defend his increasingly criticized efforts and to stoke new confidence that he can see the job through until the oil is gone and Gulf Coast lives are back to normal.
He pledged not to rest until BP is held accountable for all the damage its exploded well has caused and until the Gulf Coast region is restored. He did not repeat his earlier pledges to see the gulf returned to “better shape than it was before.” Likening that process to a long epidemic instead of a single crushing disaster like an earthquake or hurricane, he warned that the nation could be tied up with the oil and its aftermath for months “and even years.”
But as long as the oil keeps flowing, no one seems happy with what anyone is doing to deal with it, from Obama on down. Said one spray-painted sign along the president’s Florida motorcade route earlier in the day, as Obama capped a two-day inspection tour of the region: “Obama, you are useless.” For restaurant owner Regina Shipp, her business suffering for lack of tourists in Orange Beach, Ala., the speech offered little solace.
“He said he’s going to make BP pay. Can he? Can he?” said Shipp, standing amid a sea of empty tables at Shipp’s Harbour Grill, which she owns with her husband, chef Matt Shipp.
This morning’s showdown with BP executives was to be followed by a presidential statement — his fourth planned remarks on the spill in three days. Later in the week, BP leaders are to appear at more congressional hearings.
BP has had only modest success in siphoning some oil from gushing into the water. But Obama said that within weeks, “these efforts should capture up to 90 percent of the oil leaking out of the well.” Later in the summer, he said, the company should finish drilling a relief well to stop the leak completely.
President’s cleanup measures
• Vows to revamp the Minerals Management Service, the agency in charge of overseeing oil drilling; names Michael Brom- wich, a seasoned investigator and former inspector general of the Justice Department, to take the lead in that effort.
• Instructs BP officials to “set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners” harmed by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
• Names Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, a former governor of Mississippi, to develop a long-range plan to “restore the unique beauty and bounty of this region.”
• Calls for a sweeping energy bill to reduce nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
Source: The New York Times
