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American Morning
BP's Make or Break Moment; North Korea Severs Communications with South Korea as Tensions Mount; Shuttle Atlantis Landing
Aired May 26, 2010 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. Thanks so much for joining us on the Most News in the Morning on this Wednesday, the 26th of May, a Special Edition of AMERICAN MORNING.
I'm John Roberts in New York and Kiran Chetry is down along the Gulf Coast for us this morning.
Good morning, Kiran.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, John. I'm not sure if you're able to hear me or not right now. We're just dealing with an audio issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here. Take this right here. Look here.
ROBERTS: All right. Well, tell you what, what we'll do is we'll bring it back here in New York and you let -- you get that sorted out.
Kiran's down along the Gulf Coast in Grand Isle, where people are known for their resilience, their courage in the face of adversity. Certainly, they have experienced it enough with all the hurricanes that roll in there. But today, they're praying that things are going to turn around fast because this is really a make-or-break moment for BP
The oil giant's so-called top kill operation is expected to begin some time today -- though we should point out it's not a certainty. The company is conducting preliminary tests and analyzing the data before attempting to cap that leaking oil well at the bottom of the Gulf.
You're looking now at a live video of the leak and we'll be showing it to you in the lower right-hand corner of that screen all morning long as BP prepares to inject as much as 50,000 pounds of drilling mud into that spewing well in a desperate attempt to plug it up. If that top kill operation fails, though, what's become an incredible environmental disaster could continue unchecked for months until they get a relief well drilled.
Apparently, Kiran is hooked back up again. So, let's go back to her in Grand Isle -- Kiran.
CHETRY: Yes. You know what, John? It's amazing right now as you talk about the resilience of the people here and the fact they're saying a lot of prayers, and it's really apropos because right behind me right now is an enormous rainbow, the biggest rainbow I've ever seen in my life, right across the sky here.
I'm not sure if you can make it out on the cameras, but there you see it. It's beautiful and really emblematic of just the hope that there will be light at the end of the tunnel for the people here who have really seen their livelihoods dry up because of this oil spill.
And we're joined right now by David Mattingly and Ed Lavandera, who have been here, as well, since all of this happened more than a month ago.
And today's the make-or-break day, as we talk about whether or not this top kill operation will, indeed, work. Explain a little bit about why this is such a gamble, why there's so much risk involved as to whether or not it will work.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All along, BP has said that this was their best option. They started considering this soon in the days right after this disaster happened. It's taken them this long because they've never had do this at the bottom of the ocean before.
This is procedure they've tried sometimes successfully, sometimes not, on the ground and in shallow water. But they've never tried it at this depth. So that's what's taking so long.
They had to find out could the blowout preventer, that damaged huge device down there at the bottom of the ocean, could that handle this procedure because they're going to be pumping tremendous pressure behind that liquid that they're going to be pumping in to see if that device can handle that. That liquid that they're pumping in is supposed to be very heavy. They're putting it under a lot of pressure. They're going to be sending it down to essentially drown this well and counteract the pressure of the oil coming up.
And that's the plan. They want to counteract that pressure and then put that cement on top of it just to seal it up.
CHETRY: And so, it's 8:00 now Eastern Time, 7:00 Central Time, as we try to figure out whether or not this is going forward today. When are we going to hear more?
MATTINGLY: Well, yesterday, they were saying this was the time they thought they'd be able to start this off. And now, thanks to the rainbow, we're getting the rain here.
But they were saying -- Tony Hayward is now saying that they're doing the diagnostics all through the night. Now, they are looking at the data. They're going to sit down with experts later in the course of the day, he says, to figure out what they're going to do, if they're going to try the top kill or not.
CHETRY: And that remains to be seen, of course. As soon as we find that information, we the live feed coming through, and we are getting all of the latest information. So, we will continue to monitor that aspect of this risky operation that is set to take place today. And again, we're getting updates as to when that is starting and whether or not it's going to be starting sometime soon. MATTINGLY: Right.
CHETRY: Meanwhile, another big issue here in the area is the use of dispersants, a big back and forth and a big controversy between BP and between the EPA. EPA's conducting some of its own testing.
But I think the bottom line of that, you've been covering this, is that they've never used it in this quantity before, right? I mean, pretty soon, it will be 1 million gallons. And so, they don't know what the effects of that is.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And -- yes, the "I don't know" factor of this is huge. And as you look at the picture there in the bottom of the screen, the main picture there you're seeing is the dispersants and how they're sprayed on the surface of the water. And then down at the oil leak site, there's also dispersants being sprayed, as well.
But, right now, we know that the EPA and the command center has essentially asked BP to change the way it disperses these chemicals on the surface of the water in very controlled, specific areas, not just widely and generally. And then they've had to cut back by EPA saying, by at least 50 percent on the underwater dispersants.
So, but again, when you talk to environmentalists, we spoke with a guy by the name of Doug Inkley, with the National Wildlife Federation, and they talked to a lot about just how nervous they are in the coming weeks and the coming months about what the long-term effects are going to be of these dispersants.
CHETRY: They still have no idea. Let's listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUG INKLEY, CERTIFIED WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST: What I'm concerned about here is that these dispersants are being applied a mile beneath the ocean on an experimental basis, in quantities of the hundreds of thousands of gallons.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAVANDERA: And, you know, here, the dispersants make the oil turn into droplets, kind of dissipate, keeps it really from getting to the surface and from getting onshore. That was a strategic decision that people made here. They'd prefer to see it out here than here on the beaches where we're standing.
Ultimately, whether or not that was the right call, I think we're still, you know, weeks and months away from really knowing for sure.
CHETRY: Yes, and I mean, when you talk about those concerns, the oyster -- the oyster industry here supplies 40 percent of the oysters that we have in the United States, and they say that'll be the first test, can the oysters survive not only the oil but, of course, the toxicity of the dispersant as they take in hundreds of gallons every day. LAVANDERA: You know, it's interesting -- the way these dispersants are tested, one of the tests they do for them is called a lethal concentration 50 test, which is essentially, they take these chemicals, dump it into a tank filled with shrimp and minnows and depending on how quickly they start pouring the chemicals in and how quickly these chemicals kill 50 percent of that shrimp population and minnow population in these tanks determines how toxic they are. So, out there, you know, a real-life test.
CHETRY: Yes. And that's hardly a reassuring experiment for the people that make their living off of the water.
Ed Lavandera, as well as David Mattingly, we'll stay tuned. It's a waiting game for all of us and, of course, for the people living along this area.
Right now, we head back to New York and John.
Hey, John.
ROBERTS: Kiran, we want to give folks a look at what this top kill actually is and how it's going to work. So, let's go to the magic wall here for a demonstration.
First of all, you're looking at what's going on in the surface. There is a rig up there. This is just representative. The rig doesn't look exactly like this.
It's what they call their top kill rig. And there are also four other fairly large ships around this containing between the four of them about 50,000 barrels of heavy drilling mud, sort of the consistency of soupy -- thick, soupy clay. So, that's what's going on at the surface.
Now, let's go down below the surface here and take a look. So, this rig is going to have a pipe attached to it. And let's just stop here on the bottom.
That pipe is being connected to this, which is the blowout preventer. This blowout preventer to some degree has been rebuilt over the past couple of weeks to the point where BP now believes that all of the actuators that are on this blowout preventer are functioning.
You see these, these remotely operated vehicles and these three- inch pipes that they're connected now to the blowout preventer. Those will be the pipes through which this heavy drilling mud is pumped -- 30,000 horsepower pumps on the ship on the surface, and they'll be pushing this down.
The valves open up. The mud goes inside the pipe. This is the oil coming up. There's the mud going inside the pipe. And as we now go subsurface here on the bottom, that mud, because it's heavier than water, and is under pressure, if the theory -- and things go right -- if the theory is correct and things go right, will be heavy enough to push that oil back down to the point where they can get some concrete in there on top of it and permanently seal the well.
Now, a couple of problems -- and this is where we talk about the analysis that BP has been undergoing. They've been taking pressure readings subsurface here in that well to find out what the flow rate is of the oil and natural gas coming up. If it is -- they say about 5,000 barrels a day, the weight of that mud should be able to push the oil and the gas back down to that hole to the point where they can seal it off.
However, if some of the other estimates coming from independent sources are more accurate, that it's about 50,000 to 70,000 barrels a day, if there is more than 1.6 million gallons of oil coming up, the weight of that mud may not be enough to push the oil back down.
A couple other potential problems, as well. Looking here at the blowout preventer, let you stop it there -- it's a robust piece of equipment. It's five stories tall. But it has all these valves in it. And this has been damaged somewhat, too, by the blowout.
If that mud goes under too high pressure, it could further damage the blowout preventer and actually increase the flow of oil, pushing all that mud back out.
Alternatively, too, if the mud goes in at too high a pressure, the casing around the drill hole here could potentially crack further down on the drill hole, allowing more natural gas to come in, again, pushing it all back up.
So, this is why it's such a sensitive operation. This is why BP is being so very cautious about making sure that it's got the readings right, the analysis right before it goes ahead and does this, because there is a chance -- there's a chance it could work, 60 percent to 70 percent, they say, but there's also a chance that it could just make things worse. So, they want to make sure they've got it right.
Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP, told us in the last hour that they're still undergoing that analysis and may, quote, "may start later on today."
So, that's a quick little 101 for you there on how the whole operation should work.
Well, warning signs were ignored when BP's oil rig in the Gulf erupted into flames and exploded last month triggering that massive oil spill. BP investigators confirming to Congress that the company made a crucial fundamental mistake by ignoring pressure spikes and fluid leaking from the well's riser shortly before the blast. That should have been a sign that the blowout preventer might be malfunctioning.
Earlier on AMERICAN MORNING, BP's CEO, Tony Hayward, admitted that many mistakes were made.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY HAYWARD, CEO, BP: What we're seeing here is a whole series of failures. We've identified in an initial assessment at least seven. And that investigation is far from complete, because the blowout preventer is still on the seabed. We've not only been able to interview BP people, not anyone from any other companies, and, of course, the rig is also still on the seabed.
So, I'm certain that the regulatory investigations, in particular, the marine board, will determine exactly what happened and the sequence of events.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: According to BP's own investigators, the fluid leak in the well's riser was detected five hours before that blast occurred last month, but work still continued on the well. They didn't shut it down.
President Obama is going to head to the Gulf Coast on Friday to see the spill first hand. The White House says the president will travel from Chicago, where the first family is going to be spending the Memorial Day weekend. It's the president's second trip to the region since the crisis began, 37 days ago now.
Well, the oil is on the beach. Now what? Deano Bonano, who is the homeland security director for Jefferson Parish joins Kiran coming up when we come back.
It's now 12 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
Right now, you're looking at the live pictures of the floor of the Gulf of Mexico at 14 minutes past the hour.
We're waiting for BP to begin the top kill process, the shooting of the mud into that well to try to plug up a leak and then seal it off with cement. The oil spill, of course, is being felt, though, directly here.
We're right here on the beach at Grand Isle in Louisiana. It's -- all of them are shut down here. You know, this beach is shut down. It's supposed to be packed with tourists around this time. Fishing grounds, both commercial fishermen, of course, a huge shrimping industry that's getting under way right now for their season, but also the recreational fisheries. Usually the motels up and down the stretch are packed with tourists. Now they're packed unfortunately with members of the media covering the oil spill.
If BP fails to plug the leak, things could get a lot worse and there are frustrations, of course, with BP's cleanup efforts because local officials say that they have not moved fast enough and so in some cases they've actually taken the cleanup measures into their own hands led by Deano Bonano. He is the Director of Homeland Security for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. And he joins me now. Thanks for being here. In our hands, what we have are tar balls, and, again, this is a familiar sight when you take a look at it, the oil is congealed in the sand. When you smell it, it smells like asphalt. Clearly this is the effects of the oil washing up. Now, how did you guys -- when you look at the beach right now, it doesn't look as though it's oiled.
How are you guys keeping this cleanup moving?
DEANO BONANO, DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY JEFFERSON PARISH, LOUISIANA: There are cleanup crews that come up and down the beach every day and remove it. Now, if you were here Saturday, you wouldn't say that. This beach was oiled for 7 miles, just thick, looked like brown hump of gelatin. It was oil. It was the emulsified oil that had had the dispersants go into it.
CHETRY: And so how did you guys clean that up?
BONANO: They do it by hand. They actually have contractors, with BP firms and contractors, and they rake it up and actually bag it all day long. It takes hours and hours and they do that every day. They just go up on that beach and rake it up as it comes to shore. Every afternoon with high tide, the emulsified oil rolls in with high tide. We are at low tide right now so it's offshore. That process will begin again around 2:00-3:00 this afternoon, when the tide starts coming back in.
CHETRY: What is your assessment of how BP, as well as the Federal Government, the Coast Guard, and others have moved this process along?
BONANO: Initially it was very, very slow. I'm a veteran of Hurricane Katrina. Of course I was here for Katrina. It was very similar to Katrina's response, very slow to get started, very disorganized, lack of resources and didn't seem to be a sense of urgency amongst anybody.
CHETRY: A lot of people have talked about that, this lack of urgency. Is it because the oil was not seen, there was a thought that perhaps it wasn't going to come here?
BONANO: No, they can't say that because our command post here, our initial operation was, look, we need to attack this offshore before it gets on land. So, we brought on our sheriff department's helicopter and we put boats, fire boats and police boats in the Gulf, along with the helicopter. We do reconnaissance every day. We spotted oil 20 miles offshore. And we said, look guys, here's the latitude and longitude of it. (INAUDIBLE) The next day it was at 14 miles, and then the following day at 10, then at 4. Nothing happened. Last Friday, oil started pouring on shore. By Saturday, we had thick oil, not just on the beach but pouring into the passage into our estuary, and our estuary is the nursery ground for all our fisheries. And nobody was doing anything.
CHETRY: That's what people really have to understand. We had a chance to talk with Myron yesterday, as well, of the fish and wildlife, about just how vital that area is, how badly it needed to be protected. So now what, oil reached there, oil has reached the areas were all of these young -- he was worried about the larvae fish, about all the bottom of the food chain where the oysters need areas to grow.
So, what happens now?
BONANO: Well, that's what the scientists are going to have to determine because we've spent the last three days cleaning up the bay. Instead of being a protection plan, it became a cleanup plan, and that's part of the problem. When you put the cleanup in the hands of an oil company, they're not organized or trained to be emergency responders. They're just worried about cleaning it up and there's no sense of urgency.
The federal government we told them from day one, look, put this in the hands of certified, trained emergency managers, at the local level, at the state level. We do this for a living. We can organize the response. We can send assets out to attack the oil and move those assets because they need to be moved on a daily basis to where the oil is. It didn't happen. So last Saturday it led to a lot of frustration. When we saw this oil pouring in and we saw the boats, we had to act.
CHETRY: You saw boats, sitting idle, they were not moving, they were not laying boom.
BONANO: And BP was giving us all kinds of excuses about not having fuel and not having food. They even told us when we came in to communicate with the boats. We are emergency management, we know how to make that happen. So, we said, look, guys, we're taking this over. Jefferson Parish got BP to put fuel into those boats, food, we got them communications, we found out who was with what boats, and we sent them to clean up. And that's what it's all about.
Now, I criticized them last week. But, I'm going to tell you, this week they have been much more responsive, BP has. They're working with us now. They actually have located our command post and we have unified command here, we have the army at our command post, the National Guard, the Coast Guard. Come sit with us and let us organize your efforts. They wouldn't do that until last Saturday. Now they're doing it.
CHETRY: And you say that you're a veteran of Hurricane Katrina. You guys came back from that, obviously. It's a courageous stock of people that you see here and you see that just from talking even briefly. But how much more can you take? Will this -- is this marsh land permanently destroyed?
Is this estuary in danger of ending life as you know it on the water, or can this be fixed?
BONANO: Every day we lose acres and acres of marsh and we're just now starting to get dollars to rebuild our marsh and then this comes along. We won't know for a couple weeks the effects of this oil spill, but I can tell you this, as more oil comes in, it's going to become more and more threatening to that environment. It took Mother Nature millions of years to build it and we're going to wipe it out in a couple months with oil, because the oil, once it touches the marsh, it kills it. There's no cleaning. It's just gone.
The estuaries that we talked about earlier, the estuaries are the very bottom of our food chain, that's where all the microorganisms grow. If the oil settles on that, it's going to kill all that. So, it's vitally important that we do stuff today to start protecting our shore before the oil gets here, because this is going to go on for another 60 to 90 days.
CHETRY: And when President Obama comes on Friday, what is the one point you want to get across to him?
BONANA: As a local emergency manager, (INAUDIBLE) the Federal Government take over, oversee, not just oversee operations, but run the operation. Get BP to pay for the resources, because certainly they're the responsible party, have BP just pay the bill and let us at the emergency management level run this operation.
CHETRY: Deano Bonano, Homeland Security Chief for this parish, Jefferson Parish. You guys have been working hard nonstop, I appreciate your time this morning and best of luck with everything.
Thanks for joining us.
BONANO: Thank you.
CHETRY: You can get all the updates, by the way, and complete coverage of the spill's impact on the Gulf region. Go to cnn.com/oilspill. Right now we send it back to John in New York. Hey, John.
ROBERTS: Kiran, thanks very much.
This oil spill has been a huge image problem for BP, but what about the economic impact of it on the company itself? Our Christine Romans is looking into that. She joins us coming up next, "Minding Your Business". It's coming up now in 22 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. We've got 24 minutes after the hour and live pictures from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico.
We're waiting for BP to decide whether or not they are going to engage in the so-called top-kill operation today to try to plug up that well that's been leaking now for 37 days. They're just going through an analysis of some measurements that they've taken over the last 12 to 18 hours. They are still not sure if they're actually going to do this. They want to make sure that all their ducks are in a row before they attempt it because there's a potential downside that they could actually make things worse.
So, speaking of worse, just how bad are things for the company financially? Our Christine Romans "Minding Your Business" this morning. She's here now. And you know, the stock price has gone down 25 percent, but they do have deep pockets.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDNET: They do have deep pockets. And when you look at those pictures, it's amazing, John ,because you know, it's tens of thousands of dollars.
Every time you see that, every time you see that picture of that plume coming out, it's tens of thousands of dollars a second it's costing this company for the cleanup, for the attempts to try to cap this, for the compensation for the people who work in the Gulf. And we don't even know what other kind of costs there will be, eventually. It seems like a very daunting amount of money.
The costs according to the company, as of May 10th were about $16 million a day. Other analysts have said they think it's more like $20 million a day. But put that into -- I guess put that up against what kind of profit this company makes. In the first quarter of the year, the profits were $66 million a day. Think of that. Three times, more than three times, what those costs are right now. And money in the bank, this company has a lot of money in the bank. In the first quarter, $7 billion of cash and cash equivalents and billions, billions more of money in investments in debt and other instruments at its disposal. So, this is a company with very deep pockets.
All of this oil spill fallout clearly devastating for the Gulf region, but analysts are saying that devastating for the company, not for its balance sheet. They think the balance sheet of this company is so big it makes so much money sucking this stuff out of the ground in straws and delivering it to, you know, a world that is addicted to oil, that its balance sheet can withstand this. John, it's also interesting, I think, because we don't know what the ultimate cleanup costs will be.
Fantastic -- actually really scary conversation we're having in the last hour about 30-some days for this oil to reach to the beaches even if they could shut it off today. You've got how much more untold damage coming out here. But in terms of this company, this company has a great deal of money, and this spill is really a drop in the bucket in terms of how much oil it is dealing with and how much money it has.
ROBERTS: A drop in the bucket in terms of money but far more than a drop in the bucket in terms of what it's doing to people's lives down there. God knows what it's going to do to the environment.
ROMANS: And BP's reputation, too, John.
ROBERTS: And we do know that the fishing industry in Louisiana alone is worth $2 billion to $3 billion. So if they lose the whole season as a result of it, that'll be a big liability.
ROMANS: That's right.
ROBERTS: Although the Federal Government does cap BP's liability currently at $75 million.
ROMANS: And I heard, and a woman who owns an oyster shack who said, look, this is going to hurt us forever. It's going to hurt BP, meaning, for a very short amount of time. So, the economic damage, the money damage, will be borne not by BP but by others.
ROBERTS: Christine Romans "Minding Your Business" this morning. Christine, thanks so much. BP hopes that this top-kill operation will stop the oil gusher if it goes ahead. We've got a CNN exclusive to show you this morning, multiple underwater cameras tracking everything from the surface down to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. A live report on that coming up.
And North Korea says it's severing ties with South Korea. It's the latest move in the increased tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Is this a prelude to war? Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who knows an awful lot about North Korea, he has been there several times, negotiated with them, he will be talking to us about what this could potentially mean coming right up.
Twenty-eight minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Crossing the half hour now, which means it's time for this morning's top stories. BP's CEO says we should know soon whether the oil giant's so-called "top-kill" operation will actually get underway today. They're planning to inject as much as 50,000 barrels of mud into a leaking oil pipe at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
Tony Hayward appeared in the last hour of "AMERICAN MORNING," BP's chief executive, explaining why the plan to cap the leak is slow to get started.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY HAYWARD, CEO, BP: Over the last week or so we've rebuilt the blowout preventer on the seabed. In the course of the last 12 hours, working overnight, we have begun the process of diagnosing the pressures and the potential flow paths in the blowout preventer.
Later on today, I will sit with my team, review the analysis, and determine whether or not we should proceed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: I asked Tony Hayward how preliminary tests were looking so far this morning. His response, quote, "OK."
A mosque and cultural center could soon be part of the rebuilt landscape at ground zero in New York. A city community board approved the plan last night, calling it a, quote, "seed of peace for Muslim- Americans."
Some family members of 9/11 victims, though, call it an insult and a tribute to the terrorists since the planned location is so close to the World Trade Center site.
And President Obama taking on a heckler at a fundraiser in California last night, an unidentified man in the audience interrupting the president's speech to call for a repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gay service members. The president assuring the heckler he's preaching to the choir.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I saw this guy down in L.A. --
(LAUGHTER)
-- at a Barbara Boxer event about a month and a half ago. If he wants to demonstrate, buy a ticket to a guy who doesn't support his point of view.
(LAUGHTER)
And then you can yell as much as you want there.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: An initial Congressional vote on repeal of the don't ask, don't tell policy could take place as soon as tomorrow.
Let's go back to Grand Isle where Kiran Chetry is on location. Good morning, Kiran.
CHETRY: Hey, John. We're still waiting, as you know, for BP to begin the top-kill operation. We've been showing a live feed all morning, and we'll let you know as soon as it begins.
But BP won't -- didn't want initially for people to be able to see this happening live, but this morning CNN was able to go a step further, getting an exclusive look at not only the one underwater camera you see here but multiple cameras that are tracking everything that's going on underwater. There you see that. It's something you won't see anywhere else.
And for more on it, let's bring in our senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash this morning. Dana, tell us exactly why this is so vital, how we got access to all these cameras, and what they may potentially show us about what's going on so deep under the ocean.
DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, these cameras, all of them, are not available to the public. And the reason we can show these to you is because we're in the committee room of the environment committee and the chairwoman, Barbara Boxer, just like her counterpart over in the house, Ed Markey, they requested that they get this video from BP.
They got a special pass word so this could be streamed into this committee room so that the staff could monitor what's going on 5,000 feet underneath. And it's very interesting. We're not sure exactly what these images are showing right now, but you can see Enterprise one, Enterprise two, those are the names of the submarines that are remote controlled that have the cameras on them that are roaming around to try to capture what exactly is going on down there.
And you talk to people like Senator Boxer and Senator Bill Nelson earlier today who I spoke with who said this is critical for transparency, because there's a major trust issue when it comes to BP and they need to know exactly what's going on down there so they can monitor this and make sure the public knows they're trying.
But also perhaps more importantly for down the road, Kiran, they say that this is critical, capturing these images, it creates a record so they know they can go back and see, for example, in this particular image, they can calculate, perhaps, how much oil is actually spilling out.
And that will be important for them as they investigate and will go through lawsuits with BP undoubtedly to try to get taxpayer money back down the road.
CHETRY: And you did get a chance to talk to Senator Bill Nelson last hour. He's been holding BP's feet to the fire. Has he gotten anything accomplished? Does he feel as though they've made changes based on the pressure?
BASH: Not enough. Certainly there is widespread criticism still of BP, but what's most interesting and what has been the most interesting and just covering Congress and talking to lawmakers in both parties is that the criticism is now turning more on the Obama administration.
So I asked him if they are doing enough there. Listen to the exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: You've been very critical of BP. But what about mounting pressure on the government, and specifically President Obama and his administration? Are they doing enough, because a lot of your colleagues walk the halls here and say they don't think so?
SEN. BILL NELSON, (D) FLORIDA: If this thing is not fixed today I think the president doesn't have any choice, and he better go in, completely take over, perhaps with the military in charge, not because the military can do this but military has the apparatus, the organization by which it can bring together civilian agencies of government and to get this thing done.
And I think the president will have to have Secretary Salazar clean house in the Minerals Management Service, which has had such a cozy, incestuous relationship with the oil industry and basically let the oil industry rule the roost.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BASH: You can hear the frustration in his voice. Somebody like Olympia Snowe, who's a moderate Republican, who generally has been supportive of the Democratic administration on other issues, she said in the hallway practically the same thing yesterday, Kiran. She said the president has to take control, has to access all federal resources.
The most immediate problem for the president, according to many of these lawmakers here, is that he's got to deal with the problem, but on the political level there is concern among Democrats that this looks like it is spinning out of control of the Obama administration and that this is a huge crisis and also a crisis of leadership there. Kiran?
CHETRY: It's interesting, Dana, because that is being echoed here locally, as well. We talked to Dean Bonano, and I said if you had one message for the president what would it be? He said you need to take this over. This can't be in BP's hands. The federal government needs to take this over. So a lot of calls for that here, as well.
Dana, thanks so much.
BASH: Thanks, Kiran.
CHETRY: Also, I wanted to let you know a little bit later we'll be going up in one of the sheriff's helicopters here. They conduct what they call reconnaissance to check where the oil is, where it may be heading. He says especially along -- during high tide. That's when you start to see most of the oil wash ashore.
He'll take us on an aerial tour so we can bring our viewers a firsthand look of exactly where this oil is, how close it's coming ashore, and just how big of an area they're finding oiled right now right off the shores of Grand Isle. John?
ROBERTS: Looking forward to that, Kiran.
North Korea says it's severing ties with its neighbor to the south. Governor Bill Richardson knows all about North Korea, has been there several times. He's the former U.N. ambassador, as well. He joins us to talk act just how serious this is and whether the winds of war are beginning to blow on the Korean peninsula. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: We're back with the Most News in the Morning. It's 42 minutes after the hour.
And again, a live look at the oil spewing out of the end of that broken riser pipe. A couple of people have e-mailed me this morning to say put it in context, just how big around is that pipe? It's a 21-inch pipe, so almost two feet across. That'll give you some idea of the size.
You see that much oil and gas coming out of it, that's a tremendous amount of pollution that's going into the Gulf of Mexico. We'll find out later on today whether BP will be able to attempt that top-kill operation. They're analyzing data from measurements they've been taking over the last 12 to 18 hours or so.
BP's CEO, Tony Hayward, is saying things are going OK. He didn't sound overly optimistic or enthusiastic about it today, though, but it just might be a measured response. There's a potential, of course, that they might not be able to do it depending on how much pressure is coming out of that pipe.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in South Korea right now. She is reaffirming America's commitment to Seoul and warning North Korea to back down. The North now completely cut ties with South Korea. This dispute started after one of Seoul's warships which sunk by a torpedo back in march. All signs point to a North Korean submarine being behind it, though the north has denied that.
Joining me with someone who's dealt with Pyongyang several times, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.
Governor, great to be with you this morning.
How serious is this? Is this a potential prelude to war?
GOV. BILL RICHARDSON, (D) NEW MEXICO: Well, it's very serious. It's the tensest I've seen since the early '90s when there were similar incidents.
The reason it is now so bad is the fact that the North Koreans have cut off communication with the South Koreans. Even though they're in states of hostility, there was always that satellite communication, you know, in the event of a crisis you talk to each other. The North Koreans have taken that off the table.
And Secretary Clinton is doing the right thing, reaffirming our support for South Korea. But what you want to avoid right now is a little provocation, you know, the machismo of the North Koreans doing something that is not just indelicate but could provoke bloodshed and possibility of war.
It's the worst I've seen, and there's a real need for diplomacy.
ROBERTS: Just want to advise our viewers, governor, that as we're speaking to you, we have a small box in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The space shuttle Atlantis is coming home for the last time so we're following that as well.
You've dealt with North Korea several times, as we've said, in person.
What could North Korea have possibly been thinking about in torpedoing the South Korean military ship?
RICHARDSON: They could say it's in retaliation for a year ago there was an incident where they felt one of their vessels were damaged by South Korea. But it could be, John, an internal situation. Remember, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il also has his own population. I think he's showing his strength, preparing perhaps the succession of him leaving office and turning it over to his youngest son, who apparently has been involved in photographs with some of these military exercises.
So it could be for domestic reasons, but also to send a signal to the world -- one, North Korea, we're important. You've got to deal with it. We've got nuclear weapons. They always do this. But in this case, the military side of it, they're increasing military tensions, shutting off communications. There are military maneuvers, the sinking. It's a little worrisome. So we have to watch it.
ROBERTS: It certainly is and Secretary of State Clinton has been standing beside Seoul, standing shoulder to shoulder with Lee Myung- Bak, the President of South Korea.
If the North were to attack South Korea and we have a lot of American troops over there still, what would the U.S. response be?
RICHARDSON: Well, we have to participate because we have a treaty with -- with South Korea to this effect. We've got, I think, it's 35,000 American troops. We've got a lot of interests here. What we need to do is avoid this. What the Secretary of State reaffirming support is important. We also should be talking to the Chinese.
ROBERTS: Yes.
RICHARDSON: I think we are.
ROBERTS: Yes, we are.
RICHARDSON: And getting them to pressure North Korea and getting Japan involved, Russia. Russia has some -- some strength with North Korea. But mainly China, this is where we need China's help. But we're also trying to get China's help at the Security Council on sanctions against Iran.
So, you know, you can't keep asking --
ROBERTS: Yes.
RICHARDSON: -- and expect them to deliver right away.
But this is where diplomacy should be at full speed. And the administration is doing a good job on it.
ROBERTS: All right. Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, great to talk with you this morning. Thanks for sharing your expertise with us.
RICHARDSON: Thank you.
ROBERTS: All right.
As we've said and you've been watching in the lower right hand corner of your screen the crew of the space shuttle "Atlantis" heading for a landing right now at Kennedy Space Center's runway 33, a couple of minutes early.
Let's bring in our John Zarrella who's watching all of this and a bittersweet moment her for the crew of the shuttle "Atlantis" and for all of NASA, really -- John.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes and you know why. I think for space enthusiasts around the country clearly some teary eyes this morning, "Atlantis" returning from what is likely to be the last time it will ever fly. 32 missions under its belt, 121 million miles flown since it flew first in October of 1985.
We're hearing Josh Buyerly (ph) from mission control giving the words that the shuttle "Atlantis" approaches here finishing up, a 12- day mission, a re-supply mission to the International Space Station.
You know, John, "Atlantis" is likely to be the first of the three orbiters retired here at the Kennedy Space Center. There's a lot of activity going on right now behind the scenes; Museums, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Space Center, a lot of different places, the Air and Space Museum, at the Intrepid Museum, in New York.
They all want one of these space shuttles to be permanently housed at their facilities. It'll cost them $28.8 million. They raised the money, and maybe NASA will give it to one of them.
So right now that's something that still has not been decided. Where are these three orbiters, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavor, will go once they are retired? But again, moments away now from my right to my left, "Atlantis" will be coming in.
We can -- we can start to hear it now as it is approaching from the south to the north. It came up over Lake Okeechobee, then over Central Florida, and we heard the twin sonic boom a little bit ago as the shuttle, under beautiful clear skies, making its final approach here. Probably the very last time, John, that we will see "Atlantis" making a landing at the Kennedy Space Center.
There it is. It is flared out over the runway here, runway 33 from south to north. I can see it now behind me, John. The chute flared out as well, open, "Atlantis" coming to a stop.
And again the end of an era, the beginning of an end of an era here at the Kennedy Space Center; the first of the three orbiters likely to be retired, "Atlantis" again after 32 flights, 121 million miles.
I don't know how many oil changes they had, John, but I'm told "Atlantis" is in pristine condition. And, you know, it's a bargain at $28.8 million, when they were built, these orbiters were $1 billion a piece -- John.
ROBERTS: And again, it's definitely a good bargain for a used space vehicle there.
ZARRELLA: Yes.
ROBERTS: John Zarrella for us at the Kennedy Space Center talking us through the whole thing.
ZARRELLA: Yes and you know? Yes, John.
ROBERTS: Sure.
ZARRELLA: And you know, John, we were just saying, I was telling you that we had the museums that are all vying for it, and I can tell you we spent some time with some of those folks. And there is incredible interest in getting one of these orbiters.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA (voice-over): As they rocket to space, the astronauts watch the world fall away below them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Getting RPM, three, two, one, mark.
ZARRELLA: "Discovery" does a somersault as it approaches the space station. Nearly 30 years of these "oh, wow" moments almost over. The end of this year or sometime next, the last shuttle will fly.
So what do you do with three old orbiters? Heck, "Atlantis" has got 120 million miles on her. If you're NASA, you can't get all teary-eyed and nostalgic. You've got to unload those old clunkers and move on; put a for-sale sign on "Atlantis" and "Discovery" and "Endeavour".
(on camera): So you've got to build a building right here that would enclose the space shuttle for a bit, it's got to be a temperature-controlled building, right?
BILL MOORE, KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, VISITOR COMPLEX: Has to be all up to artifact standards but more than just the building for the shuttle, we have to tell the story.
ZARRELLA: Bill Moore heads the privately-run Visitors Complex at the Kennedy Space Center. They are one of at least a dozen suitors ready, in fact, eager to fork over to NASA $28.8 million for an orbiter.
ALLARD BEUTEL, NASA SPOKESMAN: We're not selling them remember, this is what it's going to cost to get it cleaned up and make it safe to display and then to actually get it there.
ZARRELLA: You've got almost $30 million ready to hand that check to them.
MOORE: Between our cash and the loan arrangements, we could take the shuttle tomorrow and get ready to go.
ZARRELLA: There is no real rush, space agency officials say, to announce who gets which one because the orbiters are still flying. NASA has offered "Discovery" the oldest in the fleet to the Smithsonian. Museum officials there told us questions about cost, quote, "have not been resolved, although the museum is exploring options".
One orbiter option is the Big Apple. Folks at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum say more people would see it here than anywhere else. They estimate a 30 percent increase in attendance.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We figure over 300,000 people additional to the Intrepid to New York City. Couple that with the 106 million in economic benefits, we think that's a pretty good deal.
ZARRELLA: Landing one of history's first space planes would certainly qualify as a pretty good deal.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA: You know -- and the folks here at the Kennedy Space Center say they hope they get a little bit of a break on that $28.8 million because you don't have to stick it on the back of a 747 and haul it somewhere, fly it. All you have to do is drive it down the road, John, to the Visitors' Complex here.
So again, all three will end up somewhere at some museum, "Discovery" likely going to the Smithsonian -- John.
ROBERTS: Right. Well, I like the idea, the Intrepid, too, because I can just look out my window and see it every day.
John Zarrella for us this morning.
ZARRELLA: That's a spectacular sight.
ROBERTS: It certainly is.
ZARRELLA: Spectacular.
ROBERTS: John, great coverage. Thanks so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.
ZARRELLA: Thanks.
ROBERTS: So one comes down and some others go up, fleet week officially getting under way this morning in New York City with a roar. Here's a look at New York City and what's going on above the Hudson River from one of our tower cams.
The Squadron of F-18s there, Navy fighter jets soaring past the New York skyline. Later on today they're going to pass over the annual parade of ships in New York Harbor.
Well, BP hopes that its "Top Kill" operation, if it goes as planned, will stop the oil gusher. Kiran is live down along the Gulf shore this morning with an update on the plans to try to stem the flow of oil that has been continuing unchecked now for 37 days.
Seven minutes to the top of the hour, stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Welcome back to The Most News in the Morning. It's three minutes until the top of the hour. And I'm standing on the beach at Grand Isle in Louisiana; live pictures also right now of the floor of the Gulf. You see the oil still gushing out.
We're waiting for BP to begin the top-kill process, plugging up that leaking well. You may be able to hear the thunder and see the lightning. If the weather cooperates today and the lightning and thunder dissipate, we're going to be heading up in a helicopter to get a look from the sky, which is the emergency management officials say that's really where you get a good look at exactly the impact of the oil, how far its spread.
And they assess daily, three times a day they actually go up in the helicopters to see, figure out when it's coming to shore and then they get out here on these beaches right now that look pristine, but they get up here and they literally shovel big, big, big piles of oil into bags and take them off. They say it's a daily operation, a daily cleanup that takes place.
The sad part is this is the week leading up to Memorial Day weekend; a huge, huge, vital way of life, earnings, for the people here in Grand Isle. And it's empty except for members of the media who are documenting what's been going on with the oil spills.
And the impact on the wildlife, also, is something that's a big question mark, whether it's the dispersants or whether it's the oil itself, the very delicate estuary here, home to 40 percent of the oysters that get eaten and consumed throughout the United States as well as nearly 75 percent of the shrimp that gets eaten here in the United States, and on top of that a good, good chunk of the fisheries, as well.
All of that at a standstill; all the beaches closed. Fishing, shrimping all called off right now because of this oil spill.
And again they wait to find out whether or not, a, this well can be plugged today when the top-kill operation gets under way, and then how many months will they see the after effects of the oil that's already spewed out.
So again, we are waiting for word from BP to see when this top- kill operation will begin in the Gulf, and of course we'll bring it to you live. The oil company is doing some preliminary testing, we've been told, still this morning, trying to determine whether or not it's safe to inject 25 tons of mud into that leaking oil well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico in an attempt to cap it permanently.
And BP's CEO says that he'll be meeting with his staff this afternoon and they'll decide then whether to continue with the operation or at least get it started. You can get all the updates, of course, complete coverage of the oil's impact on the Gulf coast region by heading to our Web site, as well, cnn.com/oilspill.
I'll be back out here tomorrow reporting from Grand Isle and bringing you the latest on how it's affecting this community and beyond in the Gulf Coast. Let's send it back to John.
ROBERTS: Looking forward to that. Great job this morning Kiran.
Continue the conversation on today's stories. Go to our blog at cnn.com/amfix.
That's going to wrap it up for us this morning but this story will remain a priority all day long here on CNN as we await word from BP as to whether or not they are going to initiate this operation to try to kill the well with this tons of mud.
The news continues on CNN right now with "Kyra Phillips" in the "CNN NEWSROOM".
