After meeting on Monday with his Cabinet to discuss the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, President Obama, flanked by Thad Allen, Incident Commander and Carol Browner, Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, provided an update to Americans on the situation in the Gulf of Mexico.
Obama said that the containment efforts appear to be working, but that it would take a couple more months to complete the effort. More oil will continue to be released, Obama said, regardless of how successful the “top hat” device is.
Allen had said in a separate briefing today that, while 6,000 barrels of oil were initially contained daily, this has risen to 11,000 barrels and will likely get to 20,000 over the next several weeks. Some estimates put the number of barrels of oil escaping from the broken well as high as 29,000, although there is no agreement on this figure.
Obama had stern words for BP, saying the company needed to compensate those who have been economically hurt from the spill. The president repeated what he said last Friday, that BP should not be “nickel and diming” those hurt by the oil spill so that they end up going out of business.
The president said that all agencies were coordinating to deal with the environmental and economic damage the spill has caused and will continue to cause. He also said that his administration was monitoring any ill health effects from the spill; while toxins have not been detected on land, that may not be the case for workers trying to contain the spill out at sea, he said.
The gulf would continue to suffer from the effect of the spill, Obama said, but would recover.
“The economic impact of this disaster is going to be substantial and it is going to be ongoing,” President Obama said. “I do not want to see BP nickel and diming these businesses that are having a tough time.”   While the Small Business Association is on hand to provide bridge loans, “what we also need is BP being quick and responsive to the needs of these local communities,” the President said.
Obama said that there were individuals assigned specifically to “ride herd” on BP to make sure that they are meeting their obligations and that his administration is going to insist that money flows quickly on a timely basis.
But Obama warned, “no matter how successful we are over the next few weeks on some of the containment efforts, the damages are still going to be there.”
“The one thing I’m absolutely confident about is that as we have before, we will get through this crisis,” Obama said. “And one of the things that I want to make sure we understand is that not only are we going to control the damages to the Gulf Coast, but we want to actually use this as an opportunity to reexamine and work with states and local communities to restore the coast in ways that actually enhance the livelihoods and the quality of life for people in that area.”
In concluding his remarks Obama said:
“It’s going to take some time. It’s not going to be easy. But this is a resilient ecosystem. These are resilient people down on the Gulf Coast. I had a chance to talk to them, and they’ve gone through all kinds of stuff over the last 50, 100 years. And they bounce back, and they’re going to bounce back this time. And they’re going to need help from the entire country. They’re going to need constant vigilant attention from this administration. That’s what they’re going to get.”
The President expressed his confidence that the gulf coast will fully recover, coming back even stronger than it was before this current crisis.
