Obama: I Take Responsibility for BP Oil Disaster

AP/Alex Brandon

During his press conference to discuss the BP oil spill today, President Obama made it unequivocally clear that the buck stops with him, telling reporters, "In case you are wondering who’s responsible, I take responsibility." He also said that the oil spill is the main thing on his mind day and night, and he's not the only one who's obsessed: "When I woke up this morning and I’m shaving, Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she says, 'Did you plug the hole yet Daddy?' " Obama added, "I grew up in Hawaii, where the ocean is sacred."

Obama announced that he was extending a moratorium on drilling permits for six months, was suspending planned exploration drilling off the coasts of Alaska and Virginia and suspending work on 33 wells currently being drilled in the Gulf of Mexico. He also sought to dispel the notion that his administration let BP manage the crisis without enough government intervention. "Every day I see this leak continue I am angry and frustrated as well," Obama said. "This notion somehow that the federal government is sitting on the sidelines and for the last three or four or five weeks we’ve just been letting BP make the decisions is not true. Those who think we are either slow on our response or lacked urgency don’t know the facts."

As an example of how the government is on top of BP's neck, Obama explained that BP had wanted to drill a single “relief” well to eventually stop the leak in several months if all else failed. But the administration insisted on two relief wells being drilled. Tomorrow Obama will fly to Louisiana, his second trip to the region since the explosion. But critics like Newt Gingrich are saying too little, too late: "Every time you turn around there's a sign of no organization, no structure. The coast guard admitted two days ago they have too few people in the area. This is 35 days after this started. It is a real dereliction of duty by the commander in chief." For more on today's press conference and all things spill-related, SFGate has been doing some great live-blogging.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on May 27, 2010 2:25 PM

Comments [rss]

glennQNYC

…anything to distract attention away from the Obama-Sestak scandal.

twentyfive25

So just how much money did Obama get from BP?

"During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records."

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

1. The Bush administration. The oil-drilling lease was sold to BP by the George W. Bush administration in 2007 under its 2007-2012 Five-Year Offshore Oil Drilling Plan.

2. The Obama administration. The actual exploratory drilling was approved by the Obama administration on April 6, 2009.

Within days of the 2009 approval, the Center for Biological Diversity and its allies won a court order vacating the Bush Five-Year Offshore Drilling Plan. Rather than use the court order as a timeout on new offshore oil drilling to develop a new plan, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar filed a special motion with the court to exempt approved oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. He specifically identified BP’s operation as one that should be released from the vacature.

In July 2009, the court agreed to Salazar’s request, releasing all approved offshore oil drilling — including the BP operation — from the vacat

John Del Signore

Nice work, thanks. Got any links?

hungryghoast

another reason to call bullshit on Obama's "BP is not calling the shots" claim: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/bp-now-owns-airspace-above-spill-too.php

longacre

Newsweek and Treehugger seem confused about who regulates airspace. The FAA set up a restricted area over the spill site shortly after it happened and in effect until further notice. BP doesn't have any authority to tell people where to fly.

schizofriendly

Everybody is responsible for this.

Jim

Why is this man smiling?

http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/hisham/Nanotechnology/PublishingImages/King_Abdullah1.jpg

Because we just cut him a check for an extra $6b, PER YEAR.

Snoopy

What does Neptune have to say about this, and does he have any solutions? Obviously Obama doesn't, except shift blame to the US. Now he's Hawaiian, not half African anything that plays to the media. I guess Kenyans don't have a sea god.

How about shifting billions upon billions of dollars to American scientists and engineers to solve an on going energy problem rather than fighting a bunch of towel heads in the middle east trying to hold us ransom for defending Israel? After we get independent then we can nuke the MF's and a whole history of a violent people will be eliminated.

bezerkamnn

why wasn't this crisis treated as an emergency sine day one? BP and our govtmnt is at fault for waiting for others to respond....it's been way over a month....WTF????

this is sad...think about it, how are we gonna handle a nuclear reactor disaster now???

John Clavis

If the media really had a "liberal bias", we would never have heard from that evil sociopath Newt Gingrich after he fled office under a cloud of adultery. Instead, despite not having any authority or elected power, he's a fixture on cable TV, delivering Frank Luntz talking points to credulous, foppish media attendants. Piece of shit.

longacre

Or maybe the liberal media wants to push an adulterous jerk as the voice of the right.

lexicondevil

yeah the liberal media is responsible for Newt Gingrich being on Fox News... moron

Amanda Harletsch

STOP THE INSANITY!!

The BP FKRS!

what scares me the most in all this evil reckless mess is how they are pouring thousands of hundreds of gallons of thinners/solvents into the sea!

Like making the oil invisible to the human eye is actually diminishing toxicity, while doing the exact opposite...so fkn retarded and so totally unethical!

The EPA has already condemn the use of such levels of solvents and BP keeps pouring more shit into the sea...

I see hell coming!

John_Matrix

haha, malia obama is obviously one of those kids who took earth day very seriously.

Amanda Harletsch

yeah, because this incident is such a minor thing...

airtech1

We need the John Wayne dude -- Russell Honore --to take over and clean things up.

juliec

Oil lobbyists have had a criminal amount of influence over congress for decades, probably more than the President himself. Yes, this leak is incredibly harmful to our country, but the fact that oil companies are running our government is much more serious and damaging.

In fact, this ties into Obama's larger plan of using green jobs as a solution to our economic/job crisis. If the people are persuaded to reduce their dependence on oil because of the spill, oil lobbyists will be less rich/powerful, we'll need more products, more green jobs.

Obama, I love you!

verbal

There is NO green technology that can effectively replace our dependence on oil and petroleum products. Add them all up and they will offset about 1/100 of 1 percent of our consumption. Give it 100 years or an incredibly dramatic scientific discovery. It's all about physics not politics.

As far as this leak is concerned it's not Obama's fault, but the lack of response sure is.

Major fail on his part - only 2 1/2 years and we can start recovering from this nightmare.

BDS=(Boycott.Divest.Sanction)

bs. heres a list of per capita usage of oil by country.

with cheap gas, suburbs, suvs, and little Regulartion the US uses 68.672 bbl/day per 1,000 people

in europe they have higher taxes on cars, gas and regulate higher mpg for their cars

shockingly they use less gas than America

germany 29.805

denmark 34.857

uk 29 and on and on .

down in Brazil...a BIG country btw they have some sort of corn syrup alternative and they only use 12.484 bbl/day per 1,000 people!!

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con_percap-energy-oil-consumption-per-capita

verbal

Those 3 countries cumulatively have less population, cover fewer square miles, and by your math use more oil than the US. In europe, and coming soon to free-market democracy near you, they tax the hell out fo everything to fund their massive social programs.

enjoy...