BP Execs at White House after Public Lashing
Updated 11:52 a.m. ET
Top BP oil company officials, including chief executive Tony Hayward, have arrived at the White House for a meeting Wednesday with President Barack Obama.
Obama told the nation Tuesday night that he intends to make BP pay for the damage it has caused to the Gulf of Mexico and coastal areas.
Obama wants the company to create a multibillion dollar fund to compensate Gulf Coast residents who are suffering economically after an oil rig BP was leasing exploded and sank in April. Millions of gallons of oil have spewed into the Gulf since then, creating the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf
The meeting began without Mr. Obama present, but he later joined accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden and many of his top cabinet members - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis among them.
Fresh from admonishing BP before the world Tuesday, Mr. Obama now gets his moment with the oil company's leaders. It will be on his turf and, he vowed to an angry nation, on his terms.
"We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused," Mr. Obama declared in his first Oval Office address, a venue often reserved for matters of war. That is now how Mr. Obama describes the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico - a "siege" on the shores of America.
Mr. Obama's showdown at the White House on Wednesday with BP executives will be his first direct encounter with them since one of their oil wells blew out off the Louisiana coast nearly 60 days ago, killing 11 workers and releasing a so-far unstoppable geyser of oil.
BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, who has until now remained elusive and nearly anonymous, was invited and encouraged to bring other officials; BP chief executive Tony Hayward, the beleaguered face of the BP response, will also be in attendance, a White House official confirmed to CBS Radio News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.
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Also attending the meeting are BP managing director Bob Dudley, BP America CEO Lamar McKay, CEO, BP general counsel Rupert Bondy, and Jamie Gorelick, a Washington attorney representing BP.
Representatives of the Obama administration include Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, Carol Browner of the Office of Energy and Climate, and Larry Summers, head of the National Economic Council.
Attendees of White House-BP Meeting
For the president, the tough diplomacy with a few officials behind closed doors is a bookend to his attempt to reach millions at once. Using a delivery in which even the harshest words were uttered in subdued tones, Mr. Obama did not offer much in the way of new ideas or details in his speech to the nation Tuesday night. Instead, he mainly recapped the government's efforts, insisted once again that BP will be held to account and tried to tap the resilience of a nation in promising that "something better awaits."
Now, at the White House, Mr. Obama said he will tell the chairman of the British-based oil company that it must set aside "whatever resources are required" to compensate the Gulf Coast people whose lives have been upended because of what he called BP's "recklessness."
What's more, Mr. Obama said this new damages fund, used to pay claims to workers and business owners, won't be run by BP. He said an independent third party will be in charge to ensure people are paid in a fair and timely way.
Senior adviser David Axelrod told CBS's "The Early Show," that "it's not a matter of trust. It's a matter of holding them accountable."
The cost of such a fund would be enormous. The White House insists is has the legal authority to make it happen.
Still, administration officials also acknowledge a negotiation is at play here, and key issues remain unsolved.
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Among them: Who will oversee the escrow fund, who will make that decision, how large will the fund be and whether BP will pay the salaries of oil workers idled by a six-month moratorium on new deep-water oil drilling.
BP declined to offer details about what proposals it would bring to the meeting or any reaction to Mr. Obama's biting words.
The company said in a statement that it shares Mr. Obama's goal of "shutting off the well as quickly as possible, cleaning up the oil and mitigating the impact on the people and environment of the Gulf Coast. We look forward to meeting with President Obama tomorrow for a constructive discussion about how to best achieve these mutual goals."
The president expects to be able to announce a deal quickly to an impatient nation. He planned a Rose Garden statement after the meeting. He was to attend a portion of the BP session while his aides handle the rest.
President Obama also urged the country to wean itself off fossil fuels and called on Congress to pass sweeping energy legislation, reports CBS News chief White House correspondent Chip Reid.
Mr. Obama also has announced that former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus will develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan - to be funded by BP - in concert with local communities.
Mr. Obama's forceful tone about BP's behavior shows how far matters have deteriorated. The White House once had described BP as an essential partner in plugging the crude oil spewing from the broken well beneath nearly a mile of water. Now Mr. Obama says BP has threatened to destroy a whole way of life.
"I refuse to let that happen," Mr. Obama said in his televised address.
Yet even as Mr. Obama pledged not to rest until the Gulf Coast region is restored, he didn't detail exactly how he would keep that promise.
And Gulf Coast residents, while mostly encouraged by the president's words, still expressed skepticism about the reality on the ground.
"Words are only words. Action means everything," said the 48-year-old who owns Gulf Shores Sea Products in Lakeshore, Miss., after watching the address. "Right now, I believe we need a little bit more government oversight to make sure things are handled properly."
And Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter said during an appearance on "The Early Show" that while he appreciated Mr. Obama's tone during his Oval Office address, he sensed no "absolute sense of urgency among many of the federal agencies that is clearly required."
Meanwhile, the frantic effort to stop the leak and contain the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history plods on. So does the venting and search for answers on Capitol Hill, with three more congressional hearings set for Wednesday.
On Tuesday, executives from five major oil companies including BP were excoriated by lawmakers for grossly inadequate emergency response plans, which were often "cookie cutter" documents that showed a fundamental misunderstanding of Gulf drilling - for example, analysis of a spill's effects on walruses, which inhabit the Arctic circle.
The president is straddling a line. He must show he is a leader not a shouter, yet also one who can relate and respond to the intense emotion of this catastrophe. And public confidence is slipping with every day the oily mess keeps pluming away.
An Associated Press-GfK poll released Tuesday showed 52 percent now disapprove of Mr. Obama's handling of the oil spill, up significantly from last month. Most people - 56 percent - think the government's actions in response to the disaster really haven't had any impact on the situation.
Mr. Obama's Oval Office address was the most prominent sign yet that the oil spill response has become his agenda; everything else must compete for his time. He managed to use the forum to extensively plug his effort for a massive clean-energy bill.
Already forgotten was that Mr. Obama wasn't supposed to be in the White House on Tuesday night but rather in Indonesia as part of his outreach to the Muslim world. He scrapped that trip to deal with this crisis, using his time to tour the Gulf cleanup once again, address the nation and call in BP officials for direct talks.
The damages are huge. A government panel of scientists now says the well is spewing even more oil than previously thought. The total spilled so far could be as much as 116 million gallons.