Obama Promises Revival of Gulf Environment, Economy (Update2)
By Hans Nichols and Kate Andersen Brower
June 15 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama promised residents and businesses along the Gulf of Mexico he’ll make sure BP Plc pays for the losses from the biggest oil spill in U.S. history and that the region will be restored.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today that the government has “the legal authority” to make BP place the money needed for recovery and relief from the oil spill into an independently administered fund.
The president, making his fourth visit to the gulf coast since the April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig triggered the spill, said the government and BP are in “preliminary” talks about setting up a mechanism to pay claims of damage from the spill “justly, fairly, promptly.”
“It’s going to take time for things to return to normal,” Obama said after getting a briefing from federal and local officials and touring a staging facility in Theodore, Alabama. “But I promise you this: things are going to return to normal.”
The president will end his two-day gulf coast trip later today and be back in Washington to make a televised Oval Office speech about the oil spill at 8 p.m. Washington time.
The spill has closed as much as 37 percent of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing, cut offshore drilling in the nation by half and polluted 140 miles (225 kilometers) of shoreline from Louisiana to Florida.
‘Constructive Conversation’
Obama said administration officials have had a “constructive conversation” with representatives from BP about setting up a system to deal with damage claims. He said he hopes that, by the time he meets with BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg and other company officials in Washington tomorrow, “we can start actually seeing a structure that would be in place.”
On NBC’s “Today” show this morning, Gibbs said it’s important to set up an independent claims operation.
“Everybody agrees we need to get BP out of the claims process,” he said.
While the administration hasn’t set a specific amount, U.S. Senate Democrats, in a letter to BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward, called on the company to create a $20 billion fund to pay for cleanup and economic damages.
Gibbs, on CBS’s “The Early show,” this morning said the White House can legally compel BP on claims.
“The president possesses the legal authority and will use it to make this claims process independent, to take it away from BP, and to ensure that those who have been harmed economically have their claims processed quickly, efficiently, transparently, and that they’re made whole again for the disaster caused by BP,” Gibbs said.
Legal Authority
“The president will either legally compel them or come to an agreement with BP to get out of the claims process [and] give that to an independent entity,” Gibbs said.
Gibbs, on CNN this morning, defended Obama’s decision not to meet earlier with BP executives to discuss the spill.
“People at all levels of this government and all levels of this response have been in touch with BP” since the beginning, he said.
Commercial fishing along the gulf coast from Texas to Florida contributes $1 billion to the gross domestic product and tourism and recreation another $13 billion, according to the National Ocean Economics Program.
Seafood Safety
Obama also said the government will undertake a multi- agency effort to ensure the safety of seafood taken from the gulf.
“Seafood from the gulf today is safe to eat,” Obama said. “But we need to make sure it stays that way.”
Obama also is preparing to fill the vacancy left when Elizabeth Birnbaum, director of the Minerals Management Service, became the first administration official to step down in connection with the oil spill. Obama may announce his choice to oversee federal management of offshore oil and gas drilling in his speech tonight, an administration official said on condition of anonymity.
The spill is posing a political threat to Obama as he comes under criticism from Republicans and some Democrats over the administration’s reaction. The president is seeking to avoid comparisons to the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 under former President George W. Bush. He said today that some of the damage from that disaster was still visible in the area.
“But in some ways what we’re dealing with here is unique because it’s not simply one catastrophic event,” Obama said. “It’s an ongoing assault whose movements are constantly changing.”
Elections
Republicans will use the oil spill in the November midterm congressional election and likely the 2012 presidential race “just like the Democrats used Katrina and Bush,” said Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. “They’re going to say that he didn’t show great strength of leadership and that he was too passive and too slow to react.”
Still, Rothenberg said it’s too soon to tell whether it could affect Obama’s chances if he seeks re-election.
In tonight’s speech, Obama will detail how the administration will help the gulf coast recover and make sure such a disaster “never happens again,” Gibbs said on CNN.
“What we outline tonight will be the beginning of the process to restore the gulf,” he said.
Critics
Kevin Madden, who was spokesman for Republican Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign, said the president has “fumbled away” the opportunity to show he’s in charge in the past. He may try to regain the initiative in tonight’s speech.
“I expect the president will pivot slightly from trying to project control to instead trying to project blame and use this crisis as a vehicle to win favor for more energy regulation,” Madden said.
Even Democrats have been among Obama’s critics.
At a June 10 Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, said “nobody’s in charge” of the spill clean-up.
“How many more examples of this do we have to see until the command-and-control structure is changed,” Nelson said.
Nelson told reporters yesterday in Florida that the administration is responding.
“The White House has been listening to their critics, including this senator, and I think they are making changes,” Nelson said.
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