US PRESIDENT Barack Obama will today complete a three-day public relations offensive intended to deflect criticism of his handling of the Gulf oil spill by meeting top executives from BP at the White House.
The president and the chairman of BP, Carl-Henric Svanberg, will discuss whether the company should postpone distribution of $2.6 billion (€2.12 billion) in quarterly dividends, and conclude a plan for an independently administered escrow fund, financed by BP, to compensate victims of the spill.
Democratic legislators have asked BP to contribute $20 billion to the fund.
“The president will either legally compel them, or come to an agreement with BP to get out of the claims process give that to an independent entity,” Mr Obama’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said.
Unresolved issues include whether BP should pay the salaries of oil workers with other companies who lost jobs because of Mr Obama's six-month moratorium on deep sea drilling. The administration says BP should compensate the workers. But critics, including the Wall Street Journal, say they are jobless because of the moratorium, not because of the spill.
BP has asked that the fund be used only for “legitimate” claims, leaving huge potential for disagreement. The White House wants the fund to be replenished as needed by BP.
The meeting follows Mr Obama’s first televised address from the Oval Office last night, at the culmination of a two-day visit to the coasts of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
Mr Obama was expected to elaborate on the compensation fund, give details of the administration’s recovery plan for the Gulf Coast and propose measures to prevent such a catastrophe recurring.
The president has said the spill proves the US needs to break its addiction to fossil fuels. Anticipating a push for the stalled energy Bill, the House Republican leader John Boehner yesterday warned that “President Obama should not use this crisis as an excuse to impose a job-killing national energy tax on struggling families and small businesses”.
At Pensacola, Florida, yesterday, the president promised to be a “fierce advocate” for fishermen and others seeking compensation from BP. He expressed hope that the Gulf coast might “even get better than it was before this crisis”.
In a poll published by USA Todayand Gallup, 71 per cent of respondents said Mr Obama has not been tough enough with BP.
Half of those surveyed said beaches affected by the oil would never be the same, and even more predicted birds and wildlife would not reach pre-spill levels again.
Noting that Pensacola beach has not yet been affected, Mr Obama said: “This is still a place that’s open for business and welcoming so vacationers and people can have a wonderful holiday here.” On his Gulf tour, the president ate crab cakes, fried shrimp, shrimp salad sandwiches, crab claws and crawfish tails. Yet his attempts to boost fishing, tourism and morale seem futile when one considers that up to 37 per cent of Gulf waters have been closed to fishing and 225km (139 miles) of shoreline have been polluted with gooey crude.
BP’s status as culprit of the oil spill has worsened, since the House Energy Committee sent a 14-page letter to the company’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, outlining the points it would like Mr Hayward to discuss before the committee tomorrow. “Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense,” representatives Henry Waxman of California and Bart Stupak of Michigan wrote.
The committee criticised BP for choosing a cheap well design, failing to centre the well casing, skipping two tests on the integrity of the seal and the influx of gas, and foregoing a “lockdown sleeve” that would have held the well casing in place.