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American Morning
BP CEO Tony Hayward Out; Lights Out Around D.C.; Spilling War Secrets: Pentagon Looking at Accused Whistleblower; BP's $17 Billion Loss; Mad as Hell in Bell; Playing the Blame Game; Coffee Before Exercise; Water Vs. Sports Drinks
Aired July 27, 2010 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. It is Tuesday, July 27th. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Kiran Chetry.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts. Thanks so much for being with us. A lot to talk about. Let's get you right to it.
A change at the top at BP. CEO Tony Hayward forced to step aside after too many stumbles. The board of the British oil giant replacing him this morning with an American.
CHETRY: BP's top bottom line, by the way, takes a hit. The oil giant posted more than $17 billion loss for the quarter this morning. BP says it plans to sell assets worth up to $30 billion over the next 18 months to clean up the Gulf. So can they afford the cost? We'll break down the numbers.
ROBERTS: The Pentagon reportedly going after an Army intel analyst's hard drive. The man already charged with leaking classified information, some that may have made WikiLeaks famous. But did he also hand over secret war documents spanning more than five years in Afghanistan?
And the amFIX blog is up and running as it is every morning. Join the conversation going on right now. Just go to CNN.com/amFIX.
CHETRY: BP's embattled chief executive, the man criticized for some of his actions and comments in the wake of the spill is now out.
ROBERTS: Tony Hayward can have his life back now. He has been removed as CEO effective October 1st when he'll be replaced by American Bob Dudley. Dudley will have his hands full. BP's second quarter earnings have just been released. The oil giant posting a bruising $17 billion loss.
CHETRY: We have team coverage, reporters all over the breaking developments this morning. Carter Evans will join us in just a few minutes to tell us why the company is well positioned to rebound from this blow to its bottom line. First, though, we have Jim Boulden live in London. He's outside of BP headquarters where they're hoping a change can turn around their image.
Good morning, Jim.
JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kiran. Tony Hayward admitting this morning that he could not remain the face of BP in order for this company to, quote, "move forward in the United States." So he realized it was time to step aside.
It's important to note though, he has not been fired. He will remain the CEO until October 1st. He will get his full year salary of $1.5 million. He will be able to keep his pension. He has been here at BP for 28 years, so he will be getting something with all his share options as well. Could be something between $15 million and $20 million. He will then be moved over to TNKBP, which is BP's operations in Russia. So he'll still stay within the BP family.
But there is this hope, of course, by putting American Bob Dudley in front of BP, the first non-British person to run this huge oil company that that will certainly help, they hope, build its reputation back in the U.S.
ROBERTS: And, Jim, how significant is it that BP is naming an American to head the company?
BOULDEN: I think it's very significant. Bob Dudley has been around for a very long time. He was at Amoco. If you recall, Amoco, of course, was taken over by BP in a merger in 1998. So he went to -- grew up in Mississippi so he knows that region very well. He has been in the Gulf on and off during this whole oil spill. Went to SMU, University of Illinois, so he is very much well known in the U.S. And they are hoping that as this first non-British CEO that he can repair BP's damage.
And he's got a lot on in his hands, as you say. They're setting aside $32.5 billion to help clean up the oil spill. And of course, there'll probably need to be more money as well. And then there's the decision of selling $30 billion worth of assets. Will BP decide to sell some of its U.S. assets? That will be one of the things, many things, on Bob Dudley's plate.
ROBERTS: All right. Jim Boulden for us in London this morning. Jim, thanks so much.
CHETRY: Meanwhile, coming up in about 25 minutes, we'll get a never-before-seen interview with outgoing CEO Tony Hayward. It was conducted in the early days of the disaster in the Gulf. Our David Mattingly is preparing a report that you don't want to miss. Coming up in less than 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, protesters from the group Greenpeace claim that they've shut down every BP station in London this morning. The oil giant is admitting that 10 to 15 of its stations had been idled by demonstrators who showed up with signs reading closed, moving beyond petroleum. Then they tripped safety switches and cut off power at the pumps before leaving. Greenpeace claims it immobilized 50 BP service stations.
ROBERTS: Also new this morning, two Russian cosmonauts betrayed by zero gravity during an overnight spacewalk while working outside of the International Space Station. NASA engineers on the ground in Houston spotted an object floating away. You can see it highlighted there. An hour later, another object is seen floating off into space. NASA officials say the small round object appeared to be a washer or something similar to it. At this point though, they don't believe that either poses a debris threat.
CHETRY: It is very surreal to see that though.
ROBERTS: It's just kind of floating away. The problem too, is in orbit those are going very quickly.
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: And if they were to run into something, it could cause irreparable damage.
CHETRY: And not to mention if they needed the part at the station.
ROBERTS: That's true.
CHETRY: Well, we showed you these pictures last week. Now we have the video. You know, there's some talk is this Photoshopped? Apparently not. This is the 40-ton right whale leaping out of the water and landing on that sailboat.
ROBERTS: Wow.
CHETRY: It's amazing that they have video of this. We were marveling they had photos. It happened so fast. But there you see it.
The boat getting hit pretty hard by that 40-ton whale. The mast actually snapped in half. The couple on-board not hurt though. They say that the boat's engine was off. The whale, which is known to have poor eyesight, they are assuming probably did not even know that the craft was in the water.
ROBERTS: Wow, that's some pretty amazing video.
Baseball's pitcher of the year -- or the year of the pitcher, rather, continues. The Tampa Bay Rays Matt Garza no-hit the Detroit Tigers last night in a 5-0 victory. It's the fifth no-hitter in the majors this season. Two of them have been perfect games. Garza was near perfect allowing just a second inning walk and faced in the minimum 27 batters. Garza's gem was the first no-hitter in the team's history. At least the New York Mets and the San Diego Padres are the only major league teams without no hitters.
CHETRY: That's an interesting way to put it, right? It's so common just to hear they're the only ones who don't have it.
ROBERTS: The only two without them. Yes. There you go.
CHETRY: Well, tens of thousands in the D.C. area are still without power this morning after a wave of deadly storms on Sunday. Officials say that it could be Thursday or Friday before crews get all the lights back on. There's no official timetable because the damage is so widespread.
Right now, we get the latest from the extreme weather center. We bring in Jacqui Jeras. You know, they also say it was a tornado that touched down in Riverdale in the Bronx. The first time they've seen that in decades.
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, that's right. We've got some pictures. One of our iReporters sent that to us. We'll show you that in the next half-hour. But D.C., yes, without power, unfortunately. We're talking 90 today, 94 tomorrow. So that's going to be very uncomfortable without the a/c.
Stormy conditions today are focused on the upper Midwest. And you can see the yellow boxes there behind me. Those are severe thunderstorm watches, and we're watching for damaging winds here. These storms did produce a tornado in northeastern Montana last night which killed two people and injured one person. We'll watch those storms progress to the south and east throughout the day today. And places like Minneapolis could see severe weather late tonight. A secondary area of severe weather in the southeast where we just had downpours yesterday. We're expecting more of that action today. And yes, the temperature staying warm but very little in the way of heat advisories. Just your typical uncomfortable summer kind of weather.
John and Kiran, back to you.
ROBERTS: Jacqui, thanks so much.
Well, the answer to a multi-million dollar question was right there in black and white. A team of experts say the glass negatives that a California man bought at a garage sale for 45 bucks were created by famed nature photographer Ansel Adams. The images were apparently taken in the early 1920s and '30s well before Adams became nationally recognized. The negatives were originally thought to have been destroyed in a darkroom fire, but they managed to survive and showed up somehow at this garage sale and are estimated to be worth -- are you ready for this? $200 million.
CHETRY: Nice find for 45 bucks at a yard sale.
ROBERTS: Can you imagine being the guy that sold them? You'd want to die.
CHETRY: I know.
ROBERTS: You'd want to die this morning.
CHETRY: Well, you know, but the thing is, just think of it this way. The positive side is you're sharing these beautiful images of a famed photographer with everybody in the world instead of having them be --
ROBERTS: Oh, yes, that's a real upside. CHETRY: Instead of having to be dusty glass negatives in your basement.
ROBERTS: I got 45 bucks in my pocket and a good feeling in my heart.
CHETRY: Well --
ROBERTS: The other guy gets to share them with the world and he's got 200 million bucks.
CHETRY: Yes, well, you know, watch what you sell in your yard sale.
ROBERTS: Who would you rather be?
CHETRY: Still to come on the Most News in the Morning, a fallout continues after WikiLeaks reveals confidential information. WikiLeaks is that Web site about the war in Afghanistan. Well, now, reports that a soldier may be the focus of an investigation and calls for a Senate probe.
It's eight minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: New tragic developments on the ground in Afghanistan this morning. NATO says it has found the body of an American sailor in eastern Afghanistan.
CHETRY: And the Taliban is claiming it's captured a second sailor. That massive search in a dangerous region continues this morning.
Our Atia Abawi is standing by for us in Kabul. Do they have any leads on the possible whereabouts of this missing sailor?
ATIA ABAWI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, it doesn't seem that they're sharing any leads if they do have those leads right now. Although in that press release where they said that they did find the body of the missing sailor in eastern Afghanistan, they mentioned that they hold responsible the captors of the other sailor for his safety and they are trying to obviously get this other sailor back from Afghan officials and from the Taliban spokesperson who we spoke to.
They say that the other sailor is in good condition and that they're holding him in a safe area and they're waiting to actually release their demands. The Taliban said that on Sunday. And right now on Tuesday, we're still waiting to hear what the Taliban actually wants in return for this missing sailor.
ROBERTS: Atia, we want you to stand by for just a moment because we want your insight on another developing story. Major fallout is coming from every direction in Washington over the leaking of classified documents from the war in Afghanistan. The Web site WikiLeaks released the secret reports that go back more than five years. And this morning, the "Wall Street Journal" is reporting that the Pentagon is going after a hard drive belonging to Army intel analyst Bradley Manning who is already charged with leaking classified information.
CHETRY: Last night, WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, talked to Larry King. He told him that releasing these documents was the right thing to do and that the leaked reports indicate war crimes may have occurred.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JULIAN ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS FOUNDER: In general, we have seen from human rights community and from the best journalism that lasting reforms that tend to push human rights come about as a result of finding material that is being kept secret by organizations because they fear exposure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: So we've heard what's being said here in the United States as a result of those leaks. Let's get some reaction on the ground in Afghanistan. Atia Abawi is in Kabul. What's being said there?
ABAWI: Well, you know what's really funny here, John and Kiran, is the fact that it's the Afghan government that is actually optimistic because of these WikiLeaks. I mean, they're shocked by the sheer number of reports that was released, that slipped through the fingers of the U.S. military here in Afghanistan, but at the same time, these reports just clarify what the Afghan government, and what President Hamid Karzai has been saying for years. Mainly two things -- civilian casualties, the big reason that the American and NATO troops are losing support among the Afghan people. And the second big thing as well is the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence.
President Karzai, the Afghan government, for years now has been saying that the terrorism within the borders of Afghanistan is coming from outside of the borders in Afghanistan, actually coming from Pakistan. And they hope that because of these reports, one report after another, tens of thousands of them, coming from Americans on the ground justifies their position and they hope now the Americans must step up and answer the ISI question once and for all.
CHETRY: All right. It will be interesting to see if we get reaction from that today. Atia Abawi, thanks so much.
Also new this morning, the Republican National Committee confirms that conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart will be headlining a fund- raiser hosted by party chairman Michael Steele. The event will be held next month in Beverly Hills. Breitbart, of course, is the man who started last week's political firestorm after posting edited video of Shirley Sherrod and some comments she made about race at an NAACP dinner that ended up costing her job at the Department of Agriculture.
ROBERTS: Well, a viral video of South Carolina Senate candidate Alvin Greene has been removed from YouTube over a copyright claim. The video, "Alvin Greene is On the Scene," featured clips of Greene with an '80s hip-hop beat. The candidate endorsed the video even though he had no idea who made it. Greene, who won the Democratic primary without actually been campaigning, is running against incumbent South Carolina Senator Jim Demint in November.
CHETRY: And musician Wyclef Jean is considering a run for president in his native Haiti. Jean tells CNN that he submitted necessary paperwork in case he decides to run but says he is still mulling it over. Haiti's presidential election which was postponed because of the earthquake will be held on November 28th.
ROBERTS: Well, New York Governor David Paterson thinks that his counterpart in New Jersey is watching a little too much television, and now they're bickering. The squabble started over the weekend when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie blasted the MTV reality show "Jersey Shore" for casting his state in a negative light. This is what he said on ABC's "This Week."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: What it does is take a bunch of New Yorkers, who -- most of people are on "Jersey Shores" are New Yorkers. It takes a bunch of New Yorkers, drops them at the Jersey Shore and tries to make America feel like this is New Jersey.
I could tell people they want to know what New Jersey really is. I welcome them to New Jersey any time. The Jersey Shore is a beautiful place, and it's a place that everybody should come on vacation this summer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: A bunch of New Yorkers to go to the Jersey Shore.
Well, Paterson not too pleased with Christie's comments about New Yorkers, saying that he's never watched "Jersey Shore" and Governor Christie must have a little too much time on his hands if he's watching the program.
CHETRY: A guilty pleasure for some.
ROBERTS: How does it get to that level?
CHETRY: Well, you -- this is what happens. And he -- he was asked the question, and he clearly had an answer. Blame New York.
Well, BP's profits sink as the cost of cleaning up the Gulf continues to climb. So will the oil giant be able to withstand the cost of the spill? We're breaking down the numbers.
It's 17 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty minutes past the hour. Time for "Minding Your Business", and we're talking today about BP. It's reporting losses over the past three months, not surprisingly.
ROBERTS: Yes, not surprisingly at all.
CNN's Carter Evans is "Minding Your Business." He's here with us this morning. Obviously, bad news for the company, but probably something, given the revenues that they've derived, that they could probably recover from not -- you know, in not too difficult fashion.
CARTER EVANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes. BP makes tens of billions of dollars every year, so this isn't going to be too hard to recover from.
But, basically, they are setting aside billions of dollars. In fact, we've got some numbers for you, and I can show you, setting aside about $35 billion -- $32 billion, rather, for this clean-up, and that's the thing. They've got this money. They've got it set aside already, and I think that this is something investors are going to be happy to hear because the company is still making money. It's still making a ton of money, and you think about oil and gas prices --
ROBERTS: Just cost (ph) per day.
EVANS: -- over this quarter? The cost per day, $187 million per day. That's what it all breaks down to. You see where they set the graphics.
ROBERTS: The graphic is a little confusing.
EVANS: Yes, it's a little confusing, though. That's the losses per day right there.
The total cost is $32 billion, and BP's got about $7 billion in the bank. That's cash, but it's got all these assets, too, and that's the thing --
CHETRY: Yes. If it's $32 billion a day, we'd be in real trouble, right?
ROBERTS: Yes.
CHETRY: But if -- but -- and they have the ability to make this up because of how much money they make, right?
EVANS: Right. Right. They make a ton of money. They make billions and billions of dollars every quarter and they made a lot this quarter, too, because gas prices were pretty high in the early part of the quarter as well, so BP is still making a ton of money.
BP is still bringing oil up from the ground all over the world, so it's got a lot of money. And, I guess, that would be good news for the Gulf Coast because you want to make sure that BP can afford this. But, again, $32 billion is a lot of money.
Now, let's look at what happened to the stock price since this all began. Since, initially, BP's stock fell to about 50 percent of its value. It's back up right now. It's back up to about 35 percent of its value right now.
Now, what happened yesterday was kind of interesting. When word leaked that Tony Hayward was going to be replaced here, the stock shot up about 5 percent and it is actually up in pre-market trading. Now, clearly, it's a reaction from investors saying they weren't happy with what Hayward was doing.
ROBERTS: Yes. And -- and this compensation fund, too, when we talk about the total cost of $32 billion, I assume that includes the compensation fund?
EVANS: Yes. That includes the $20 billion fund.
ROBERTS: And that's spread out over four years as well. So, it's not a -- not a hit, just in this year for them.
EVANS: Right. But, basically, they're taking the charge against the company this quarter, and that's why you saw the big losses. But, again, the stock is up in pre-market trading this morning even with the losses because I think it gives investors a starting point, saying, hey, you know what? At least we got a price tag on this right now. It's probably going to cost a lot more when it is all said and done.
ROBERTS: (INAUDIBLE) that you -- you take the charge up front, and then you spread out the cost over four years.
EVANS: Right. And what BP is going to do to pay for this is sell some assets so it's not having a very large debt from this charge. It's basically going to sell some asset, some non-essential assets so it can pay for this.
CHETRY: So it's still the image problem of BP right now, obviously, because of the spill. But, in terms of -- in terms of all the right moves, they've gotten rid of their embattled CEO. They brought in a new guy from Mississippi, as we've talked about, Bob Dudley, so maybe things are looking up for the company.
EVANS: Right. And -- and a lot of people are looking at the stock in general and saying, hey, BP is a very wealthy, well-run company. It's worth a lot of money, probably a lot more than the stock is trading for right now.
ROBERTS: And what's the -- what's the stock at again right now?
EVANS: I think right now the stock is at about $30 a share, maybe $35 a share at last check. So it's down about 30, 40 percent from its initial value right before this is closed and --
ROBERTS: (INAUDIBLE) percent, though?
EVANS: Yes. So it's gone back up in the last couple of weeks.
ROBERTS: All right. Carter, great to see you this morning. Thanks.
EVANS: Sure.
CHETRY: Thanks, Carter.
Well, also new this morning, iPhone owners can now run applications that haven't been okayed by apple. It's a practice known as jail breaking, and yesterday the Library of Congress ruled that it doesn't violate copyright laws. But, before you tamper with your phone, know that Apple and other phone makers are still free to void the warrantee which they say they will do if you run unauthorized applications.
ROBERTS: Ford Motor Company unveiling the new explorer. The popular SUV will be built in the automaker's plant in Chicago, creating 1,200 jobs. The Explorer used to be the nation's best- selling SUV, but when the economy sank, so did sales.
Now Ford is hoping to regain its top spot with its new incarnation which gets 25 percent better fuel economy.
CHETRY: Sweet basil. It's the mainstay herb of Italian and Thai food. It's under attack, unfortunately, by an aggressive fungus. The disease first surfaced three years ago. Since then, it's been hitting East Coast growers the hardest.
Experts say the fungus turns the herb yellow. It's not harmful to humans but of course it's not selling them. The outbreaks are very sporadic and they are not predicting widespread shortages for now.
ROBERTS: The fungus among us.
The mayor is now working for free and the city council is cutting their pay by 90 percent. More backlash in Bell, California this morning over officials using taxpayer money to line their own pockets. We'll take you there for the very latest, up next.
It's now 25 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: More heads are rolling in Bell, California. It's just outside of Los Angeles. If you don't know the story, it's a great one. Officials in the blue-collar town were paying themselves insanely large salaries. So far, the city manager, the assistant city manager and the police chief have all resigned. Together those three officials were making $1.6 million a year.
Now the city council is slashing its pay and the mayor says he's going to finish his term for free. Ted Rowlands is tracking the new developments for us this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): John and Kiran, the outrage continues here in the City of Bell just outside Los Angeles. People just cannot believe that their city leaders were paying themselves so much money while everybody else was going without. ROWLANDS (voice-over): Looking for answers and for heads, hundreds of furious taxpayers showed up at a Bell City Council Meeting last night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please, I need respect for everybody. Please.
ROWLANDS: Respect for government is hard to find in this city with a median income of less than $40,000 because over the past few years unbeknownst so seemingly everyone, while city leaders have been slashing budgets, they were paying themselves ridiculous salaries, including a jaw-dropping $787,000 a year to City Manager Robert Rizzo. That's almost double of what President Obama makes.
Rizzo, thanks presumably to taxpayers, owns this horse ranch in Washington State and this beach home in Southern California. Then there's the Police Chief, Randy Adams, making $457,000 a year.
OFC. GILBERT JARA, BELL, CALIFORNIA POLICE DEPARTMENT: We're all upset.
ROWLANDS: Showing us a squad car with 116,000 miles on it, Officer Gilbert Jara says for years while the chief and city manager have been lining their pockets, the police budget has been shrinking. Jara, who's the president of the Police Officers Association, says he and the other 18 members of the department have gone without a pay raise for three years.
JARA: They tell us there's no money, but then again they're -- they're earning 800 grand a year. Our chief is earning 450. So that -- that's a lot.
ROWLANDS: The assistant manager is also making a lot, $376,000. And some members of the city council who only work part-time have been pulling in about $100,000.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shame on you! Shame on you!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're disrespectful. You're a piece of (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
ROWLANDS: As angry as they are now, voters here agreed to make Bell a charter city in 2005 which gave officials the legal right to basically pay themselves whatever they wanted. Attorney General Jerry Brown has launched an investigation.
JERRY BROWN, CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: My office puts people in jail for taking $10,000 or $20,000, much less $50,000. Here, we're talking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions, when you add it up over a number of years.
ROWLANDS: In the past week, Rizzo, his assistant, and Chief Adams resigned last night. The mayor announced he'll finish his term without pay and won't seek re-election. And members of the city council say they'll take a pay cut.
But, unless something changes, Robert Rizzo's pension will be more than $600,000 a year. Adams will make more than $400,000.
(on camera): We tried to get ahold of Chief Adams and Robert Rizzo but we didn't have any luck. People here say neither one of them have been seen anywhere in town since their salaries were made public -- John, Kiran.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: That's such an amazing story.
CHETRY: I mean, how did it take this long to find that out?
ROBERTS: You would think it would be in a book somewhere, wouldn't you?
CHETRY: Yes. Wow.
You'd think that somebody who's running against them would say, wait a minute, you know, I'll do it for $400,000. Forget $800,000.
ROBERT: There's going to be a lot of head-scratching and a lot of looking back over people's shoulders to figure out how that ever unfolded.
CHETRY: Shocking given all of California's budget woes.
Meanwhile, time for a look at our top stories this morning.
Fallout from the release of thousands of secret records spanning more than five years of the war in Afghanistan -- they were made public by the Web site WikiLeaks. And this morning, "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting that the Pentagon is now going after the hard drive belonging to Army intel analyst, Bradley Manning. He's already charged with leaking other classified information.
ROBERTS: In Arizona, protesters plan to be out in force if the state's controversial immigration law survives a court challenge and goes into effect on Thursday. The law requires police making routine stops to check someone's immigration status if there is reasonable suspicion that they may be undocumented. Critics fear that it's going to lead to racial profiling of Hispanics.
CHETRY: And BP's embattled CEO is out. Tony Hayward, the executive who said he wanted his life back, got his wish earlier this morning. He'll be replaced in October by American Robert Dudley. The oil giant's second quarter earnings also out this morning, BP reporting a $17 billion loss.
ROBERTS: Well, by this time next week, the static kill could be in play on that gushing BP well. Right now, work crews are back in position in the Gulf of Mexico, preparing to begin the process of killing BP's ruptured well once and for all some time within the next seven days.
CHETRY: Yes. David Mattingly joins us live from New Orleans now with a never-before-seen interview with outgoing BP chief, Tony Hayward.
And, David, you conducted this interview with Hayward in the Gulf. That was during the very beginning of the response effort in early May. And you asked him about BP taking responsibility for the spill, quite an interesting answer.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kiran. This was part of a longer conversation I had with Tony Hayward about responsibility. He was making it clear to me that he felt like his company's responsibility was limited to capping the well, capturing the oil, and compensating the victims. But when it came to the start of the disaster itself, he was trying to distance BP from that responsibility.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: The accident aboard the drilling platform, you've made clear that that was the fault of that company, that drilling company. But it was your oil that was coming out here and is now poisoning the Gulf of Mexico. What kind of oversight did you have on that drilling operation?
TONY HAYWARD, BP CEO: We had the sort of oversight that an architect has on a building site. It's the way the industry works. It's the industry structure. So, we had oversight of the -- we had the design, they were doing the building.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: So, they had the design. BP had the design. Transocean was doing the building along with Halliburton and other subcontractors as well.
But when it comes for having an emergency plan for such a huge drilling operation, if something were to go wrong, did they have any kind of a plan in place?
MATTINGLY: Well, this was before any sort of investigation was done about how this happened and what happened to the blowout preventer, and Hayward at the time seemed to be just as curious as everyone else about how something like this could happen. But it was pretty clear he felt that this event had been so rare that BP, like the rest of the industry, thought it could probably never happen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAYWARD: This, as I said, has never happened in the industry before. It is as if a 747 has fallen out of the sky across the Atlantic. We need to understand through the investigation why that has occurred and then the industry will undoubtedly make interventions and steps to change it.
MATTINGLY: But there are all sorts of safety features involved in air travel -- were there enough safety features involved in drilling for oil?
HAYWARD: Well, there absolutely are. I mean, on this blowout preventer.
(CROSSTALK)
HAYWARD: And sometimes, aircraft fall out of the sky, right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: It's interesting to hear him talk about that as well. It seemed to set a tone for the hearings a month later when he was grilled in the halls of Congress. Mr. Hayward never really gave a clear answer on how safe the controversial dispersants were either. I mean, this was an operation where they were using dispersants in, you know, millions upon millions of gallons that they hadn't used before in such large quantities and underground.
MATTINGLY: That's right. And when it came to dispersants, we've got back to a familiar tone in that conversation about responsibility. In this case, Hayward were saying the responsibility for the dispersants lies with the American regulators, NOAA and the EPA.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Do you have any idea what the long term effects on the environment might be? Has there been any discussion at BP about that?
HAYWARD: I really do think that is primarily a question for the EPA and NOAA. We don't have any environmental science expertise. We have environmental scientists working on it. The primary environmental impact is from the federal agencies.
MATTINGLY: True, but you are a petroleum company and you do have the responsibility for cleaning it up. So, don't you have some expertise in knowing what the environmental consequences of that might be?
HAYWARD: Of course, we do. But as I say, this is a joint effort and the primary environmental assessment is coming from the federal environmental agencies and local environmental agencies and we are following their direction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: And again, all of this very clearly coming forward in the first couple of weeks after this disaster. BP is positioning itself for the three "Cs": capping the well, capturing the oil and compensating the victims. And essentially they -- here, almost 100 days after that disaster, they have not varied from that strategy.
ROBERTS: Yes. Three "Cs" in there and at least one "P": passing the buck. There was a lot of that going on in that interview, too, David.
MATTINGLY: Well, we saw some of that in Congress, too, when they had all the major players with this rig there, too, and President Obama tried to call them on it. At this point, 100 -- almost 100 days into this, we're still hearing that conversation continuing.
CHETRY: Yes. It sounds like they're trying to protect themselves in terms of any legal issues.
ROBERTS: A lot of this is going on.
CHETRY: Right.
David Mattingly for us this morning -- very interesting interview with the now former -- or soon to be former CEO of BP -- thanks.
ROBERTS: Thanks very much, David.
Coming up: assessing the safety of football helmets. The new football season is about to get under way on so many different levels. Could new data made public by the NFL actually put young athletes at risk? We'll talk with a neurologist who advises the league on head and neck injuries. He says yes.
It's 38 minutes after the hour.
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ROBERTS: Forty-one minutes after the hour. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
Right now, across the country, thousands of high school kids are about to strap on the pads getting ready for a new season on the gridiron. Colleges and the pros right behind them as well.
The most critical piece of football gear, of course, is the helmet. The NFL just released the results of tests on 16 different helmet models. Some experts, like our next guest, believe that those results making them public could put young athletes at risk.
Dr. Robert Cantu is senior advisor to the NFL's committee on head injuries. He's also a neurosurgeon and joins us now from Newton, Massachusetts.
Dr. Cantu, good to have you with us this morning. Thanks for joining us.
DR. ROBERT CANTU, SENIOR ADVIDER, NFL HEAD, NECK & SPINE COMMITTEE.: You're welcome, John. My pleasure.
So, they tested 16 different models. And of those three -- and we got some pictures of them: The Riddell Revolution, the Riddell Revolution Speed and the Schutt DNA Pro met the criteria for qualifying is what the studies said were the top performing helmets among the 16 that were tested.
But you're concerned, Dr. Cantu, about the release of this data. Why?
CANTU: Well, I'm concerned, John, because it implies that these helmets might be better in protecting against concussion. The document that was released by the NFL clearly states that that isn't the case. But when you have a document that talks about top performing and in the document is the word "concussion," some people might draw the connection.
The reality is: these helmets, which meet a standard that really is the top 1 percent of concussion forces could actually perform more poorly than other helmets at the lower levels of forces. Characteristically, helmets meet a very high standard or stiffer, and often don't perform as well at low forces. So, and it's the lower forces where the majority of the hits occur in this sport of football and especially in youth football.
ROBERTS: Well, explain that for us, if you could, Dr. Cantu. How is it that a helmet that performs well at high-impact may not necessarily perform well at lower impacts?
CANTU: Because, one of the ways of performing very well at the very high impacts is to have stiffer material that will not bottom out. That stiffer material does not perform as well as less stiff material at intermediate and lower forces. And in the sport of football, that's where the majority of the hits occur, and especially, of course, at the youth level. And that's really my --
ROBERTS: Go ahead.
CANTU: That's my major concern is that people might use this data to suggest these helmets might be better for concussion and especially at the youth level, and in fact, that's not what the release says.
ROBERTS: Right.
CANTU: In fact, that actually might be wrong.
ROBERTS: And, in fact, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said now, just make sure everyone knows that these do not protect against concussions. There are no helmets that protect against concussions. Folks at home who are buying these things for the kids might say, wow, I thought these protected all sorts of brain injury.
What really are these helmets designed to do? And how is a concussion different that these helmets may not be protective?
CANTU: Well, John, one of the hats I wear is vice president of NOCSAE, which is the organization that certifies football helmets. And these helmets are made to a standard to protect against skull fracture and most of the serious intracranial bleeds, subdural hematomas. They are not made to a standard to protect against concussion and in fact they would need to be four times better to be able to do that.
ROBERTS: Wow. So how does a concussion take place inside the head during a hit?
CANTU: It's a very violent shaking of the brain within the skull and most of the concussive blows are helmet-to-helmet blows, but they also can be helmet to other body part or helmet to the turf itself.
ROBERTS: But the skull doesn't necessarily need to fracture, there doesn't need to be a bleed -- some of these other things that these helmets are protective of.
CANTU: That's absolutely correct. In fact, not commonly -- uncommonly, but it actually occurs where the blow may not even be to the head and the head is just simply whiplashed back and forth violently enough to produce concussive forces.
ROBERTS: So, across the country, Dr. Cantu, hundreds of thousands of parents are getting their kids geared up for a new football season. What are they to take away from this new information and what you're saying?
CANTU: I think what we do know is that new football helmets test to a higher standard than older football helmets. Helmets degrade over time, so I would be encouraging parents, if they have any say in it, to have a new helmet on their child. But in terms of which helmet is better than another helmet, we honestly don't know today because that on-the-field head-to-head competition and study has never really been done, and I think it really cries out today, it needs to be done.
ROBERTS: And Dr. Cantu one other quick point, if we could, the NFL in the next few days is going to putting these posters into all of the locker rooms across the country and giving them out to all of the players warning about the dangers of concussion and that how repetitive head injuries can lead to degradation in mental functioning over the long term. Is this the furthest that the NFL has gone in connecting those two things, injuries on the field, with long-term cognitive functioning?
CANTU: I think it's been an evolution, John, but I think Commissioner Goodell has stepped up big-time in the last six months with rules changes, with return to play changes, and now these posters are an example of that. I think that's a big step forward.
ROBERTS: Dr. Robert Cantu, as always, it's great to get your perspective on all of this. Thanks so much for joining us this morning. Really appreciate it.
CANTU: Thank you, John.
ROBERTS: Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. It's 46 minutes past the hour. Jacqui Jeras is in for Rob this morning. She'll have this morning's travel forecast for us coming up right after the break.
Also, in ten minutes, the next time you head out for some exercise, what is the best bet for staying hydrated? Should you be drinking water, a sports drink? It depends on actually what you're doing and your level of intensity. We'll explain coming up.
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ROBERTS: What a lovely day in New York City today. Let's get a quick check of this morning's weather headlines. Jacqui Jeras is in the Extreme Weather Center in Atlanta. Good morning, Jacqui.
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, good morning, guys. You know, those storms that rumbled through the New York City area over the weekend, what we now know, it was a tornado that pushed through the Bronx. Check out these pictures from our I-reporter that we have from Beth Alice (ph) who lives in the Riverdale area. She says that was very noisy and strange, and she came outside of her door, and there was a gigantic tree, you see there, crossing the avenue. It was an EF -1 says the National Weather Service with winds estimated around 100 miles per hour.
Seven people were injured in this storm, and the tornado path was only about a half mile long and 100 yards wide. We are going to see more severe weather today, and that's going to be the big concern across the upper Midwest and the southeast as well. So, two areas we're going to be watching. Wind damage will be the primary concern with microburst type thunderstorms, and then up in Midwest, we could also see some tornadoes here. A little bit of rotation. We did have a tornado late yesterday into northeastern parts of Montana as that front moved on through.
Two people were killed and one person injured. The southeast will continue to be very active today with showers and thunderstorms really causing a lot of flooding problems in Atlanta up towards Nashville and into the Carolinas last night. We'll see more of that throughout the day today, and if we're going to try and travel, expect to see delays in Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Houston, Denver and then out west due to the low clouds and fog in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The heat getting a little bit better. I know some people still without power into the northeast. Those temperatures down a little bit into the upper 80s to around 90 degrees. Still some heat advisories into the Carolinas. Everybody else is kind of dealing with some warm and muggy conditions, and of course, it's just going to start to build a little bit as we head throughout the rest of the week -- John and Kiran.
CHETRY: Yes, Jacqui, I was coming through the area passing through Riverdale on Sunday night and, boy, I mean, exits were closed. You saw trees, limbs, scattered everywhere. It was astounding how quickly that happened, and of course, everybody says that after a tornado, you can't believe the force and how fast it happened.
JERAS: Yes, and pretty rare thing, you know, this has only happened twice now in the last 60 years.
CHETRY: Wow. All right. Jacqui, thanks.
This morning's top stories just a couple minutes away, including some breaking news overnight. Tony Hayward is officially on his way out. He's leaving with a year's salary. That's BP's CEO. $1.6 million as oil spill victims are waiting for their checks.
ROBERTS: Also, spilling war secrets, 90,000 documents, names, places, weapons and attacks spanning more than five years in Afghanistan. What is Wikileaks telling us that our leaders aren't?
CHETRY: Also, outrage in a small town where the city manager was making twice as much as the president of the United States at a time when the town is suffering because of budget cuts. It's pay-back time. Those stories and much more at the top of the hour.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. It's 56 minutes past the hour right now.
It's time for your "A.M. House Call," some stories about your health, and there is more evidence this morning that drinking coffee about an hour before you work out will give you an energy boost and perhaps doesn't have some of the downsides that people had to, you know, sort of common wisdom. I guess. "U.S. News & World Report" talked to some experts who say the caffeine kick actually delays muscle fatigue, helps keep you focused and isn't necessarily as dehydrating as once thought, about 8 ounces ideal for 130-pound woman, and the experts say that eating a healthy snack with it can prevent cramps.
ROBERTS: And if you're going for a three-mile run or a 20-mile bike ride, you can ditch the Gatorade or the PowerAde and stick to plain old water to stay hydrated. A new report in the "L.A. Times" says sports drinks are really made to replenish what your body loses after 60 to 90 minutes of really intense exercise. Fitness experts say sports drinks got a lot of sugar, and you don't need those extra calories for an average workout.
CHETRY: All right. This is interesting. This was a report out of Canada that said that women who drink two large glasses of fat-free milk after doing a weightlifting workout actually gained more muscle and lost more fat than women who drink sugar-based energy drinks as well, so--
ROBERTS: That was stand (ph) your reason giving no-fat, very little sugar and lots of protein and milk as well. So, kind of like people have a protein shake after a workout.
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: Similar process --
CHETRY: Which can be sugary --
ROBERTS: Yes.
CHETRY: But they have to stick to the fat-free milk, and you'll find that you gain muscle and lose fat. ROBERTS: You know what they say, milk, it's what's good for you, right?
CHETRY: There you go.
ROBERTS: Top stories coming your way right after the break. Stay with us.
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