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US Ready to Take Over Oil Response if BP Fails

   VOA News 23 May 2010
   Interior  Secretary  Ken  Salazar,  right,  and EPA Administrator Lisa
   Jackson,  testify  on  Capitol  Hill,  18  May 2010, before the Senate
   Environment and Public Works Committee

Photo: AP

   Interior  Secretary  Ken  Salazar,  right,  and EPA Administrator Lisa
   Jackson, testify about the Gulf oil spill Capitol Hill, 18 May 2010

   U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the U.S. government will push
   BP  aside  if it concludes the oil company's response to a massive oil
   leak in the Gulf of Mexico is failing.
   Salazar  said Sunday that he does not have confidence in BP's attempts
   to  contain  the  oil and called the situation an "existential crisis"
   for the company.
   White  House spokesman Robert Gibbs told CBS television program, "Face
   the  Nation,"  Sunday  that the Obama administration has "had problems
   with BP's lack of transparency" about the leak.
   Gibbs  said that the administration has sent a letter to BP asking the
   company for its most recent data on the environmental damage caused by
   the spill.
   He  said  every  part of the government has been activated to stop the
   massive  oil leak, adding that the government "has not stood still" as
   some critics have claimed.
   This  undated  TV  image,  received from BP and provided by the Senate
   Environment and Public Works Committee, shows details of the oil spill
   in the Gulf of Mexico

AP

   This  undated  TV  image,  received from BP and provided by the Senate
   Environment and Public Works Committee, shows details of the oil spill
   in the Gulf of Mexico

   BP  Managing  Director Bob Dudley told CNN Sunday that BP has remained
   open about its efforts, but has been unable to measure how much oil is
   leaking.  He called the leak "catastrophic for every BP employee" and
   said there was no one more concerned with stopping the leak. Â
   U.S.  Coast  Guard  Admiral Thad Allen told CNN that the government is
   not  treating the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico as anything less than
   catastrophic,  but  the  government  is forced to rely on BP to try to
   plug the leak.
   BP's  Chief  Operating  Officer  Doug  Suttles  has  said if a planned
   attempt to plug the well with heavy mud fails, BP might not be able to
   stop the leak until a relief well is ready in early August.
   On  Saturday, U.S. President Barack Obama criticized the "cozy [close]
   relationship"  between  energy  companies  and the government agencies
   that  monitor  them.   Mr.  Obama  says regulators need to do more to
   prevent future spills.
   The  head  of  the  Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, was
   headed to the Gulf Coast Sunday to monitor her agency's response.
   Oil has reached the ecologically delicate marshlands along Louisiana's
   coast. Officials in the southern state say they might make sand levees
   to  prevent  oil  from hitting land, but experts are not sure the plan
   will work.

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