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Louisiana official asks who's in charge in oil disaster

By the CNN Wire Staff
June 10, 2010 -- 11:55 a.m. EDT


Crews in Grand Isle, Louisiana, suck up oil this week from the rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

On "AC360°," survivors of the BP oil rig explosion talk to Anderson Cooper about their 11 "fallen brothers." Watch "AC360°" live from the Gulf at 10 p.m. ET Thursday.

(CNN) -- A local Louisiana official told a Senate subcommittee Thursday that it remains unclear who is in charge of the response to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

"I still don't know who's in charge," said Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish. "Is it BP? Is it the Coast Guard? ... I have spent more time fighting the officials of BP and the Coast Guard than fighting the oil."

What is needed, Nungesser said, is someone "with the guts and the will to make decisions."

Nungesser asserted the line of booms now deployed to keep oil off the Louisiana coast "is not working. ... It's a joke."

Also Thursday, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, blasted federal officials for failing to alert local authorities that oil from the Gulf disaster has entered Florida waters. Nelson noted that oil has entered Florida's Perdido Bay, near the Alabama border.

"The Coast Guard is doing a great job, but they are stretched to the limit," Nelson said during a Senate hearing on the spill.

"We are livid that the command and control is not there. ... Communication is not coming to the state and local government."

With frustration growing on the 52nd day of the disaster, President Obama on Thursday will host the families of the 11 workers killed in the BP oil rig explosion at the White House.

"Obviously, the president will express his heartfelt condolences for the families of the 11 that lost their lives the very first night of the explosion," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

"I think he is eager to discuss with them what their family was telling them about safety conditions and what type of changes can and must be made in the regulatory framework to ensure that deepwater drilling that goes forward is done in a way that is safe and not life-threatening."


Wyatt Kemp (Jonesville, LA), Adam Weise (Yorktown, TX), Donald Clark (Newellton, LA), Jason Anderson (Midfield,TX), Karl Klepinger, Jr. (Natchez, MS).
Dale Burkeen (Philadelphia, MS), Gordon Jones (Baton Rouge, LA), Blair Manuel (Gonzales, LA), Shane Roshto (Liberty, MS), Dewey Revette (State Line, MS), Stephen Curtis (Georgetown, LA).
Victims of the oil rig blast remembered

The meeting with the families comes as the administration sends Labor Secretary Hilda Solis to New Orleans, Louisiana, to meet with fishermen affected by the gushing oil.


Day 52: The latest developments

Obama has announced plans to visit the Gulf Coast again next week. His itinerary includes stops in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, three of the four states affected by the disaster. It will be his fourth trip to the region since the gusher began in late April.

iReport: Share views on oil spill

In the meantime, federal authorities have given BP until Friday to devise contingency plans for the continued collection of gushing oil into a containment cap in the event of an operational failure or severe weather.

In a letter written Tuesday, the government's on-scene administrator, Coast Guard Rear Adm. James Watson, instructed BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles to lay out a process for the recovery of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

"BP shall provide the plans for these parallel, continuous, and contingency collection processes, including an implementation timeline, within 72 hours of receiving this letter," Watson wrote. "Current collection efforts may not be interrupted to implement these plans."

The deadline came as Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Wednesday that slightly more than 15,000 barrels of oil -- more than 630,000 gallons -- had been recovered from the ruptured BP well in the 24-hour period ending at midnight Tuesday.

BP said it has collected about 57,500 barrels (2.4 million gallons) of oil since last week when it placed a loose-fitting containment cap atop its ruptured well.

In addition to the letter to Suttles, Allen has written to BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward asking for the development of better redundancies in the company's short- and long-term containment plans.

Allen highlighted concerns over BP's ability to process damage claims associated with the Gulf disaster effectively and asked Hayward to provide more detailed information, including claim numbers and personal identifiers such as the last four digits of Social Security numbers.

"Access to this level of detail is critical to informing the public as to how BP is meeting its obligations as a responsible corporation," Allen wrote.

For his part, Suttles denied Wednesday that BP has ordered cleanup workers not to talk to reporters.

"Recent media reports have suggested that individuals involved in the cleanup operation have been prohibited from speaking to the media, and this is simply untrue," he said in a letter e-mailed to CNN by a company spokesman.

Other correspondence from BP echoed Suttles' sentiments.

"BP has not enforced this provision in the Master Vessel Charter Agreement for the Vessels of Opportunity Program, which might have been construed to limit individual communications," BP spokesman Mark Proegler said. "Newer agreements contain no restrictions, and BP has agreed not to enforce this provision for existing agreements which contain this language."

Asked about reports from BP employees that they had been forbidden to talk to reporters, Suttles said it might take some time before all 25,000 people working for BP are made aware of the policy.

On Capitol Hill on Wednesday, oil drilling issues took center stage as lawmakers debated everything from safety to cleanup to liability.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar defended the Obama administration's six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling, which has come under fire from critics who argue the drilling is vital for reducing the dependence on foreign oil and key to the region's economic health.

"It was our view that we press the pause button ... not the stop button," Salazar told the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. "It's a pause button so that we can make sure that we move forward with OCS [outer continental shelf] drilling -- that it can be done in a way that is protective of people and protective of the environment as well."

Salazar and Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes said government scientists estimate that the spill's flow rate after last week's cut of the well's riser pipe increased by 4 percent to 5 percent. That's well below an increase of as much as 20 percent that administration officials had indicated could happen.

As the environmental crisis worsens, states are tracking the disaster's health impact, including respiratory and skin irritation problems in Louisiana and Alabama, health officials said.

iReport: Share your views on the oil disaster

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals is aware of 71 cases of oil spill-related illness as of Wednesday, said state health officer Dr. Jimmy Guidry. Of them, 50 involved workers on oil rigs or who participated in cleanup efforts, and 21 came from the general public.

Symptoms included throat irritation, cough, chest pain, headaches and shortness of breath, Guidry said. Eight workers were hospitalized, for an average of one day each, the department said.

In Alabama, 15 cases of illness have been reported, said Dr. Don Williamson, state health officer.

Oil has moved into the inland waterway along coastal Alabama for the first time, prompting the U.S. Coast Guard to close Perdido Pass, the main water access route to the Gulf for fishermen and boaters in the popular resort town of Orange Beach.

BP and the government have tried to protect the pass for weeks with thousands of feet of boom, but thick waves of oil have seeped through, coating the marshy shoreline.

Oil enters Alabama waterway

Florida has received no reports of illness connected to the oil spill, said health department spokeswoman Susan Smith.

Meanwhile, top congressional Democrats renewed their push Wednesday for legislation that would remove oil spill liability caps -- a move some Republicans warned would lead to stronger monopolies in the energy sector while increasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil sources.

Among other things, Democrats are targeting the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, which could limit BP's liability for economic damages caused by the Gulf disaster to $75 million.

"If you or I ... got into an accident that we caused, [we'd be] responsible for all the damages," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. There would be "no caps in that case, and there should be no caps in this case."