WASHINGTON, May 3 (UPI) -- White House spokesman Robert Gibbs Sunday said all assets
are being deployed to contain the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and prepare for its onshore arrival.
"Everything that can be done has been done. ... Every asset that we have available is being used," Gibbs told reports aboard Air Force One.
Gibbs said President Obama and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal briefly toured the coastline by helicopter but were hampered by low visibility and high winds. They did not make visual contact with the oil slick.
When pressed to respond to comparisons with Hurricane Katrina, Gibbs said, "We're obviously dealing with a situation of great potential environmental and economic devastation. I think the analogies though are tougher to make in an event that -- a storm that you track for several weeks that comes ashore and kills 1,800 people. ... I think the timeline I was looking at this morning ... had the Coast Guard and the Navy there on site immediately after this explosion. We've done everything that we could."
Gibbs repeated Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's promise to "keep the boot on [BP's] throat" in terms of stopping the leak at the source as well as paying for environmental and economic damage. He said Obama wants to ensure "that for fishermen who depend on making a catch, selling that catch to be able to pay for resources to go out and do it again, that their lifeline isn't cut off."
Gibbs said "all future decisions" regarding new offshore oil exploration will be "based on a full examination of what happened."
"What the president outlined at the end of March requires at least two sets of extensive reviews in order to both identify areas suitable for leasing and then ultimately an environmental plan for what ultimately is leased. ... Not to mention the eastern part of the Gulf would still require additional congressional action to open up," Gibbs said.
Maybe he was just trying to make the public feel confident that the US government was going to hold BP responsible. It's a little strange though since BP already stated it was going to take full responsibility. It could be foreshadowing to much more boot-throating in the future.
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