Obama Blasts 'Finger-Pointing' Oil Firms
Barack Obama has blasted oil giant BP and demanded it step up efforts to stop the Gulf of Mexico leak which is threatening an environmental catastrophe.
The US President held a meeting of his cabinet to discuss the continuing crisis and said he shared the "anger and frustration" of people living in the affected area.
"The potential devastation to the Gulf Coast, its economy and its people require us to continue our relentless efforts to stop the leak and contain the damage," he said.
The president also hit out at BP and the two other oil companies linked to the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig.
He denounced what he called the "ridiculous spectacle" of them "falling over each other" to blame someone else at Congressional hearings this week.
"I will not tolerate more finger pointing or irresponsibility," he said.
"The American people could not have been impressed with that display and I certainly wasn't. The people of the Gulf Coast need our help."
Mr Obama also outlined plans to break up the watchdog which oversees the oil business and vowed to end the "cosy relationship" between the regulator and oil firms.
He said the rule from now on will be "trust but verify".
He tried to allay the fears of environmentalists over new offshore drilling with a review of safety in the Gulf.
Experts have said the spill may actually be at least 10 times worse than the US Coast Guard's official estimate of 210,000 gallons gushing from the ruptured well each day.
The Deepwater Horizon, leased by BP and owned by Transocean, exploded on April 20 and sank with the loss of 11 workers.
Efforts by BP to contain and stop the leak have so far failed.
Latest attempts include inserting a tube into the fractured pipe to carry away the oil or placing a containment box over the top.
Mr Obama's national incident commander on the Gulf Coast said the slick was shifting in its pattern and breaking up into smaller patches in the sea.
"We've had reports of tar balls which can be manually picked up but at this point the majority of the oil is far offshore," Admiral Thad Allen said.
"I believe this spill is changing in its character. I don't believe any longer we have a large model spill.
"There's good and bad news with that. It's widely dispersed and it's hard to manage, but on the other hand, it's coming ashore in smaller quantities of what is a larger spill."
:: BP's beleaguered boss Tony Hayward said he hopes the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico can be stopped within a week to 10 days, but admitted that if containment efforts failed then the worst case scenario is "it's more than that, and it's impossible to say how much more than that."
