Obama Heads to Gulf as Oil Spill Stakes Soar
Updated at 10:32 a.m. Eastern.
A day after saying ""I take responsibility" for handling the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, President Barack Obama was heading to coastal Louisiana for an update on efforts to stop the flow of crude into the Gulf of Mexico and to clean up the mess.
Mr. Obama, interrupting a Memorial Day weekend trip to his Chicago home, planned to visit a beach set up with protective booms alongside Adm. Thad Allen, who is overseeing the spill response. Mr. Obama was then to travel to the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Grand Isle, La., to attend a briefing by Allen, and meet with several officials, including the governors of Louisiana, Florida and Alabama. He was spending about three hours in the region.
"I think he needs to see the folks working on the beach with the cleanup," Allen said Friday morning on CBS' "Early Show." "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."
The president's visit, his second to the devastated region since the tragedy began, comes at a time of escalating anger and frustration along the coast, and in the country at large, with the inability of BP and the government to stop the flow of oil that is damaging marine life, wildlife and the local economy.
Some say Mr. Obama's seemingly "hands off" approach to the disaster will cost him.
"The president has not been as visible as he should have been on this, and he's going to pay a political price for it, unfortunately," Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., told POLITICO Thursday, adding that "if he personally steps up his activity, I think that would be very helpful."
Meanwhile, Allen said oil giant BP PLC had succeeded, at least temporarily, in stopping the flow of oil and gas from the well by pumping in heavy mud. "We're very encouraged by the fact they can push the mud down," Allen said. "The real question is can we sustain it."
That should become clear sometime Friday night, he said. If so, the next step would be plugging the well with cement. BP officials said Friday it would take a couple of days to know if the fix worked.
BP PLC boss Tony Hayward told "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriquez Friday that the company's "top kill" attempt to plug the gusher had been "partially successful" thus far, and that the first full day of work had demonstrated that the technology "is working."
"Nothing has gone wrong so far," said Hayward, BP's CEO, adding that engineers had been able to gather vital data on the pressure inside the blowout preventer and well itself.
He said it would be at least another 48 hours until BP had a better whether the heavy drilling mud was doing its job and staunching the flow of oil. If that first phase is deemed successful, Hayward said engineers would then try to pump cement into the well head to seal it permanently. He said the company's overall prospects for success remained at "60 or 70 percent" - a figure given before the top kill operation began.
The oil rig leased by BP exploded April 20 and later sank, killing 11 people and releasing millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf to become the worst spill in U.S. history.
BP tried for a second day Thursday to stop the leak a mile deep in the Gulf. After an 18-hour delay to assess progress and replenish materials, the company resumed pumping heavy drilling mud into the blown-out underwater well. Officials said it could be late Friday or even during the weekend before the company will know whether the "top kill" procedure has succeeded in cutting off the oil that has been gushing into the Gulf for five weeks.
At the White House on Thursday, Mr. Obama acknowledged that his administration could have done a better job dealing with the spill and that it had misjudged the industry's ability to handle a worst-case scenario.
"I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down," Mr. Obama said at a news conference, where he announced a series of new restrictions on oil drilling projects.
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Oil Spill Hits Home for Obama
Separately, Elizabeth Birnbaum, the head of the Minerals Management Service that oversees offshore drilling, became the highest-ranking political casualty of the spill when she resigned Thursday under pressure.
Public support for Mr. Obama's handling of the ecological disaster is dropping and his move to take responsibility, answer questions and visit the region represent a more aggressive White House effort to quell the frustration.
Some of those feeling the effects of the oil that is soiling birds and darkening beaches along the coast had mixed feelings about whether Mr. Obama should even come to see what is happening along the coast.
"He'll have a better idea of what he needs to do or get other people to do," said Donald Lefort, 41, a convenience store clerk in Venice, La., which has become a staging area for efforts to fight the oil.
Larry Freman, 72, who was cleaning up around his vacation home on Grand Isle's main drag, which usually is packed with vacationers this close to Memorial Day, said Mr. Obama should stay home.
"I think he's wasting his time coming here," the oil business veteran said.
Buggie Vegas, owner of Bridge Side Cabins and Marina on Grand Isle, criticized the federal response but said it would be helpful for Mr. Obama to see the effects of the disaster.
"I think he's going to get the message when he comes down and sees how bad it is," Vegas said.
Mr. Obama on Thursday announced new restrictions on oil drilling, including continuing a moratorium on drilling permits for six months, suspending planned exploratory drilling off the coasts of Alaska and Virginia and ordering a halt to 33 exploratory deep-water rigs in the Gulf.
Mr. Obama also singled out a half dozen areas where he and his administration could have done better, including 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.
New government estimates Thursday put the size of the spill at nearly 18 million to 39 million gallons over the past five weeks, surpassing the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska. Then, nearly 11 million gallons spilled.