WATCH
JUAN GONZALEZ: New
government estimates have found the BP oil spill may be spewing
twice as much oill into the Gulf of Mexico as previously
thought. On Thursday, the Flow Rate Technical Group released its
new estimate of 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day based on
information gathered last week, before BP installed a new
capture device. Some scientists have warned that the flow rate
sharply increased after BP cut the pipe, known as the riser, to
install the new device last week. The current estimates from the
government panel suggest that an amount equivalent to the Exxon
Valdez disaster could be flowing into the Gulf of Mexico every
eight to ten days. The new numbers were released shortly after a
scientist on the Flow Rate Technical Group publicly warned that
the oil may be spewing out at a rate of more than 100,000
barrels a day, a figure BP once called its worst-case scenario.
As public anger over BP continues to grow, President Obama
was questioned on NBC’s The
Today Show earlier this week about why he had not yet
directly spoken to BP CEO Tony Hayward. This was his response
when asked what he would do if Hayward was a part of his
administration.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: He wouldn’t be working for me, after any of those statements. First of all, we’re going to have to find out why this thing went in the first place. And the fact of the matter is, is that there’s going to be a thorough review, and I don’t want to prejudge it. But the initial reports indicate that there may be situations in which not only human error was involved, but you also saw some corner cutting in terms of safety, and that BP is a multibillion-dollar corporation. It’s talking about paying $10.5 billion in dividends just for this quarter. We are going to have to make sure that not only do they shut down the cap, we are not only going to have to make sure that any deep well drilling process that’s out there is, in fact, failsafe and oil companies know what they’re doing, but we also have to make sure that every single person who’s been affected by this is properly compensated and made whole.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, President
Obama might now have some harsh words for BP, but an extensive
new investigation into his administration’s handling of the
disaster reveals it was government mismanagement, delays, and
absence of oversight that allowed the crisis to spiral out of
control. The article is called "The Spill, the Scandal, and the
President." It’s published in the latest
Rolling Stone.
Author Tim Dickinson is a political correspondent for
Rolling Stone magazine.
He writes, quote, "Though George W. Bush paved the way for the
catastrophe, it was Obama who gave BP the green light to drill"
and explores how Interior Secretary Ken Salazar kept in place
the oil industry-friendly environmental guidelines that Bush had
implemented and ultimately let BP, an oil company with the worst
safety record, to get away with murder. Tim Dickinson joins us
now from San Francisco.