President Obama made a promise to Gulf Coast residents today: “You’re not alone. You will not be abandoned. You will not be left behind.”
Visiting Louisiana, Obama said the Gulf Coast oil spill is “our highest priority” and has already triggered “the largest cleanup effort in U.S. history.”
“We wanna stop the leak,” the president said. “We wanna contain and clean up the oil. And we wanna help the people of this region return to their lives and our livelihood as soon as possible.”
“This isn’t just a mess that we’ve gotta mop up,” Obama said, calling the spill a “nightmare.”
This is something that has to be dealt with immediately, not sometime later.
Obama said it was still too early to tell whether the “top kill” effort to plug the disastrous oil leak would be successful — but he sounded a note of caution either way.
“Even if the leak was stopped today, it wouldn’t change the fact that these waters still contain oil from what is now the largest spill in U.S. history.”
The president said he’s authorized the tripling of manpower in places where oil has hit the shoreline, or where it’s within 24 hours of impact.
“There’s not gonna be silver bullets or a lot of perfect answers,” the president said, adding that “we expect that frustration and anger to continue until we actually solve this problem.”
Everybody here at every level is working night and day to end this crisis. We’re considering every single idea out there.
The president also made clear with whom he thinks the blame and responsibility lies. “BP is the responsible party for this disaster,” he said. However, Obama continued, “I ultimately take responsibility for solving this crisis. I’m the president and the buck stops with me.”
The president offered his “solemn pledge” that he’ll do whatever it takes to solve this problem, and said that whatever Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen needs, “he will get.”
