President Obama said in the Rose Garden this afternoon that the Gulf Coast oil spill is “the greatest environmental disaster of its kind in our history” — and offered assurances that his administration will enact the necessary reforms to make sure nothing like it happens again.
Obama said his commission will “thoroughly examine the spill and its causes so that we never face such a catastrophe again.”
“We’ve already mounted the largest cleanup effort in the nation’s history,” Obama said, but “until the well has stopped, we’ll multiply our efforts to meet the growing threat.”
The president said more than 20,000 people are working around the clock to contain and clean up the spill, and that he’s authorized 17,000 National Guard members to be deployed across four states.
As for BP, Obama said firmly that “we will absolutely continue to hold BP and any other responsible parties accountable.”
We have an obligation to investigate what went wrong and to determine what reforms are needed so we never have to experience a crisis like this again.
If existing laws are insufficient, they must be changed, Obama said. If oversight was inadequate, it must be reformed. And if laws have been broken? “We will bring those responsible to justice.”
“This oil spill has made clear that more reforms are needed,” Obama said.
