In an afternoon press conference today, President Obama addressed the federal government’s response to the Gulf oil spill, which has become the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.
Obama made clear that the government and not BP, which is financially responsible for the cleanup, is making the calls in the Gulf.
“The American people should know that from the moment the disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort,” he said. “BP is responsible for this horrific disaster and we will hold them fully accountable.”
“BP is operating at our direction. Every key decision and action they take must be approved by us in advance,” he said.
Critics have accused Obama of being slow to respond to the disaster. A poll released yesterday showed that 53% rate his response as “poor.”
He fought back today, saying that although the response has “absolutely not” been perfect, the government is doing everything it can.
“We are relying on every resource and every idea, every expert and every bit of technology to work to stop it,” he said. “We will take ideas from anywhere, and we are going to stop it.”
“This entire White House and this entire federal government has been singularly focused on how to we stop the leak and how to we prevent and mitigate the damage to our coastlines,” he said.
Although he said the government has been fully engaged since the spill happened — calling it his top priority — Obama said the government failed in preparing for the worst case scenario before it happened. He largely blamed the culture at the Minerals Management Service, a culture that had developed in past administrations.
“The oil industry’s cozy and sometimes corrupt relationship with government regulators meant little or no regulation at all,” he said. He took some of the blame as well, saying there wasn’t “sufficient urgency” in attempts to reform the agency.
“Absolutely I take responsibility for that,” he said. However, “there’s no evidence that some of the corrupt practices that had taken place earlier had taken place under the current administration’s watch.”
He also blamed Congress for passing a law that gave the MMS only 30 days to approve or deny a permit. This, he said, lead the agency to waive the required environmental review in nearly every instance because there wasn’t enough time to complete it.
“Congress needs to address these issues as soon as possible,” he said.
Obama said he didn’t know the details surrounding the resignation of the head of the MMS, Liz Birnbaum. He would not say whether she’d been fired or had resigned, saying Interior Secretary Ken Salazar only told him this morning and has been testifying on Capitol Hill since.
