philstar.comPENSACOLA (AP) – President Barack Obama sought to show he was leading a winning battle against the raging oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, taking a message of hope to the devastated coast hours before a nationally televised address Tuesday night.
During stops in Alabama and Mississippi, Obama assured Gulf residents and businesses that the region's beaches would be restored to their "pristine condition" even as he promised he was bringing the full force of his government to get BP to pay damage claims in the country's worst environmental disaster.
Suffering under a growing impression among some Americans that he had reacted with too little too late, the president toured the damage from the BP oil well blowout that has been gushing millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf for 57 days.
The president's two-day tour aimed to stanch the political bleeding and show his deepening involvement. At the same time, Obama collected information and impressions for a televised address to the country from his White House office — the first such address of his presidency.
Obama's address to the nation sets the stage for his showdown White House meeting Wednesday with top executives at British-based BP, the company that leased the rig that exploded April 20 and led to the leak of millions of gallons of coast-devastating crude. It is part of an effort by Obama, who has been accused of appearing somewhat detached as the oil spill disaster has unfolded, to convince a frightened Gulf Coast and a skeptical nation that he is in command.
The oil gusher a mile or 1,600 meters deep in the Gulf has forced Obama and the federal government to rely on BP for an eventual fix. That is not likely to happen until a relief well penetrates the blowout in a couple of months.
With the oil continuing to wash onto beaches and into critical wildlife habitat — delicate marshlands in particular — Obama has taken a hit in the polls.
The crisis also has taken up massive amounts of his time and cut severely into his schedule, including forcing him to cancel a trip to Asia and Australia, and threatening his legislative agenda on such issues as financial overhaul, climate change and immigration reform.
As he took the microphone in Theodore, Alabama on Monday afternoon, Obama likely was previewing what he would tell the country at large from the Oval Office on Tuesday evening.
"I can't promise folks here in Theodore or across the Gulf that this oil will be cleaned up overnight," the president said. Yet he offered assurances that the "full resources of our government are being mobilized to confront this disaster."
Obama also told the country that seafood from the region remained safe to eat, and implored holidaymakers not to cancel visits to the Gulf coast where many of the famous white beaches remain untouched.
But oil from the blown out BP well is spoiling significant parts of the shoreline and already has penetrated into critical breeding grounds for wildlife, waterfowl and sea creatures — in particular shrimp and oysters. The shellfish are a mainstay of some of the Gulf state economies.
The trip gave Obama ammunition for the speech and for his meeting with BP executives where he intends finalize the details of a compensation fund. He visited vacant beaches in Mississippi where the threat of oil has scared off tourists, heard the stories of local employers losing business, watched hazmat-suited workers scrub down boom in a staging facility in Theodore, Alabama, and took a ferry ride through Mobile Bay and then to Orange Beach, Alabama, where oil has lapped on the shore.
He was beginning the day Tuesday in Pensacola, Florida, where he was to attend a briefing and then make remarks at Naval Air Station Pensacola.
Shortly before Obama toured the region, White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters with the president that the administration and BP were "working out the particulars" of Obama's demand that the oil giant set up a multibillion-dollar, independently run damage fund.
Burton said the account would be in the hands of a third-party and would amount to "billions of dollars."
"We're confident that this is a critical way in which we're going to be able to help individuals and businesses in the Gulf area become whole again," he said.
Obama's first stop on Monday was a briefing at a Coast Guard station here on Mississippi's coast, where he said that the two days in the region would help him prepare for a Wednesday showdown with BP executives in the White House. In particular, Obama said there continue to be problems with processing claims for damages and with effective coordination.
"We're gathering up facts, stories, right now so that we have an absolutely clear understanding about how we can best present to BP the need to make sure that individuals and businesses are dealt with in a fair manner and a prompt manner," the president said.
Afterward he ate a lunch of local seafood, declaring it delicious.
BP's board was in session Monday in London to discuss deferring its second-quarter dividend and putting the money into escrow until the company's liabilities from the spill are known.
The administration had said earlier — uncertain whether BP would voluntarily establish the damage fund — that Obama was prepared to force BP to take the step.
BP said in a statement that its costs for responding to the spill had risen to $1.6 billion, including new $25 million grants to Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. It also includes the first $60 million for a project to build barrier islands off the Louisiana coast. The estimate does not include future costs for scores of damage lawsuits already filed.
The company was likely to encounter even more anger Tuesday where Congress was holding three hearings on the Gulf tragedy, which has long ago outstripped the previously worst US environmental tragedy, the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.
The administration said early Monday that BP had responded to a letter sent over the weekend asking the company to speed up its ability to capture the spewing oil.
BP said it would target containing more than 2 million gallons of oil a day by the end of June, more than three times the present rate. The government's high-range estimates say as much as 2.1 million gallons a day could be billowing from BP's runaway well.
