Obama flies in for oil-spill update
Intent on showing firm command of the deepening crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, US President Barack Obama flew to coastal Louisiana today for his second in-person update on the country’s most devastating oil spill.
Criticism of Mr Obama is growing as crude continues to gush out of the leak 39 days after the oil rig above it exploded and sank.
Amid fears the tragedy crippling the Gulf region’s wildlife and economy could soon also engulf his presidency, Mr Obama has launched a campaign to step up public engagement and directly confront the public’s anger.
Meanwhile BP chief executive Tony Hayward said it would be about 48 hours before it can be known if pumping heavy mud into the blown-out well is successful in stopping the spill.
BP, the largest oil and gas producer in the United States, began injecting mud into the well on Wednesday in an experimental effort to end the spill that has surpassed the Exxon Valdez disaster since it started after the rig explosion on April 20 that killed 11 workers.
The Obama administration’s man on the scene, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, said BP’s work today will tell if a cap can hold.
He said that the mud pumped into the well had pushed the oil down, but the challenge was going to be to keep enough pressure on the oil flow to put a cement plug in place.
“The real question is, can we sustain it, and that’ll be the critical issue going through the next 12 to 18 hours,” Allen said.
Mr Obama interrupted a Memorial Day weekend stay with his family at their Chicago home for the Gulf visit, with his first stop a beach south of New Orleans where protective booms have been set up to keep oil from washing ashore.
The president was then travelling to a Coast Guard station in nearby Grand Isle, Louisiana.
“I think he needs to see the folks working on the beach with the cleanup,” Adm. Allen. “I think it’s a real, real tough challenge, especially in the remote areas where you have marshlands involved and you can’t always get there easily and the surveillance is difficult.”
There is deep frustration along the coast, increasingly felt in the country at large as well, at the inability of BP and the government to stop the massive spillage of oil into the water.
BP is using what is called a “top kill” procedure to try to stop the leak by pumping in heavy mud. If it doesn’t work Mr Obama’s political problems will only be compounded.
He has acknowledged his administration could have done a better job on several fronts. They included misjudging the industry’s ability to handle a worst-case scenario, not moving sooner to end “cozy and sometimes corrupt” relations between the oil industry and government regulators, and not getting a better estimate on the amount of oil gushing from the broken well.
He spoke in sometimes personal terms about his ownership of the crisis.
“I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down,” he said. “My job right now is just to make sure everybody in the Gulf understands: This is what I wake up to in the morning, and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about. The spill.”
He also announced a series of new restrictions on oil drilling projects. And the first political casualty of the spill came when Elizabeth Birnbaum, the head of the Minerals Management Service that oversees offshore drilling, resigned under pressure.
Some of those suffering the effects of the oil that is soiling birds and darkening beaches along the coast had mixed feelings about whether Mr Obama should even visit.
Larry Freman, 72, who was cleaning up around his holiday home on Grand Isle, which usually is packed with tourists this close to Memorial Day, said he should stay home.
“I think he’s wasting his time coming here,” the oil business veteran said.
