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Barack Obama Addresses Gulf Oil Spill

Aired May 27, 2010 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's time to accelerate the competition with countries like China who have already realized the future lies in renewable energy and it's time to seize that future ourselves. So I call on Democrats and Republicans in Congress, working with my administration to answer this challenge once and for all.

I'll close by saying this: this oil spill is an unprecedented disaster. The fact that the source of the leak is a mile under the surface where no human being can go has made it enormously difficult to stop. But we are relying on every resource and every idea, every expert and every bit of technology, to work to stop it. We will take ideas from anywhere, but we are going to stop it.

And I know that doesn't lessen the enormous sense of anger and frustration felt by people on the Gulf and so many Americans. Every day I see this leak continue, I'm angry and frustrated, as well. I realize that this entire response effort will continue to be filtered through the typical prism of politics, but that's not what I care about right now. What I care about right now is the containment of this disaster and the health and safety and livelihoods of our neighbors in the Gulf Coast.

And for as long as it takes, I intend to use the full force of the federal government to protect our fellow citizens and the place where they live. I can assure you of that.

All right. I'm going to take some questions. I'm going to start with Jennifer Lovett (ph).

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. This is on, right?

OBAMA: Yes.

QUESTION: You just said that the federal government is in charge. And officials in your administration have said this repeatedly. Yet, how do you explain that we're -- that we're more than five weeks into this crisis and that BP is not always doing as you're asking, for example, with the type of dispersant that's being used.

And I might add one more, to the many people in the Gulf who are, as you said, angry and frustrated and feel somewhat abandoned, what do you say about whether your personal involvement, your personal engagement has been as much as it should be, either privately or publicly? OBAMA: Well, I'll take the second question first, if you don't mind. The day that the rig collapsed and fell to the bottom of the ocean, I had my team in the Oval Office that first day. Those who think that we were either slow on our response or lacked urgency don't know the facts. This has been our highest priority since this crisis occurred.

Personally, I'm briefed every day. And I have probably had more meetings on this issue than just about any issue since we did our Afghan review. And we understood from day one the potential enormity of this crisis and acted accordingly.

So when it comes to the moment this crisis occurred, moving forward, this entire White House and this entire federal government has been singularly focused on how do we stop the leak and how do we prevent and mitigate the damage to our coastlines.

The challenge we have is that we have not seen a leak like this before. And so people are going to be frustrated until it stops. And I understand that. And if you're living on the coasts and you see this sludge coming at you, you're going to be continually upset and, from your perspective, the response is going to be continually inadequate until it actually stops. And that's entirely appropriate and understandable.

But from Thad Allen, our national incident coordinator, through the most junior member of the Coast Guard, or the under-under- undersecretary of NOAA, or any of the agencies under my charge, they understand this is the single most important thing that we have to get right.

Now, with respect to the relationship between our government and BP, the United States government has always been in charge of making sure that the response is appropriate. BP, under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, is considered the responsible party, which basically means they've got to pay for everything that's done to both stop the leak and mitigate the damage. They do so under our supervision, and any major decision that they make has to be done under the approval of Thad Allen, the national incident coordinator.

So this notion that somehow the federal government is sitting on the sidelines and, for the last three or four or five weeks we've just been letting BP make a whole bunch of decisions, is simply not true.

What is true is that, when it comes to stopping the leak down below, the federal government does not possess superior technology to BP. This is something, by the way, going back to my involvement. Two or three days after this happened, we had a meeting down in the situation room in which I specifically asked Bob Gates and Mike Mullen what assets do we have that could potentially help that BP or other oil companies around the world do not have? We do not have superior technology when it comes to dealing with this particular crisis.

Now, one of the legitimate questions that I think needs to be asked is, should the federal government have such capacity? And that's part of what the role of the commission is going to be, is to take a look and say: do we make sure that a consortium of oil companies pay for specific technology to deal with this kind of incident when it happens; should that response team that's effective be under the direct charge of the United States government or a private entity?

But for now, BP has the best technology, along with the other oil companies, when it comes to actually capping the well done there.

Now, when it comes to what's happening on the surface, we've been much more involved in the incident (ph) burns, in the skimming. Those have been happening more or less under our direction, and we feel comfortable about many of the steps that have been taken.

There have been areas where there have been disagreements. I'll give you two examples. Initially on this top kill, there were questions in terms of how effective it could be but also what were the risks involved, because we're operating at such a pressurized level, a mile under water, and it's such frigid temperatures that the reactions of various compounds and various approaches had to be calibrated very carefully.

That's when I sent Steven Chu down, the secretary of energy, and he brought together a team, basically a brain trust of some of the smartest folks we have at the national labs and in academia, to essentially serve as an oversight board with BP engineers and scientists in making calculations about how much mud could you pour down, how fast without risking potentially the whole thing blowing.

So in that situation, you've got the federal government directly overseeing what BP is doing. And Thad Allen is giving authorization when finally we feel comfortable that the risks of attempting a top kill, for example, are sufficiently reduced that it needs to be tried.

I already mentioned the second example, which is they wanted to drill one relief well. The experience has been that when you drill one relief well, potentially you keep on missing the mark. And so it's important to have two to maximize the speed and effectiveness of a relief well.

And right now Thad Allen is down there, because I think he and -- it's his view that some of the allocation of boom or other efforts to protect shorelines hasn't been as nimble as it needs to be. And he said to publicly. And so he will be making sure that, in fact, the resources to protect the shorelines are there immediately.

But here's the broad point. There has never been a point during this crisis in which this administration up and down the line in all these agencies hasn't, No. 1, understood this was my top priority, getting this stopped and then mitigating the damage, and, No. 2, understanding that if BP wasn't doing what our best options were, we were fully empowered and instruct them to tell them to do something different.

And so if you take a look at what's transpired over the last four to five weeks there may be areas where there have been disagreements, for example, on dispersants, and these are complicated issues. But overall, the decisions that have been made have been reflective of the best science that we've got, the best expert opinion that we have, and have been weighing various risks and various options to allocate our resources in such a way that we can get this fixed as quickly as possible. OK? Jake Tabbart (ph).

QUESTION:: Thanks, Mr. President.

You say that everything that could be done is being done. But there are those in the region and those industry experts who say that's not true.

Governor Jindal obviously had this proposal for a barrier. They say that, if that had been approved when they first asked for it, they would have ten miles up already.

There are fishermen down there who want to work, who want to help, haven't been trained, haven't been told to go do so. There are industry experts who say that they're surprised the tankers haven't been sent out there to vacuum, as was done in '93 outside Saudi Arabia.

And then, of course, there's the fact that there are 17 countries that have offered to help, and it's only been accepted from two countries, Norway and Mexico.

How can you say that everything that can be done is being done with all these experts and all these officials saying that's not true?

OBAMA: Well, let me distinguish between -- if the question is, Jake, are we doing everything perfectly out there, then the answer is absolutely not. We can always do better.

If the question is are we, each time there is an idea, evaluating it and making a decision, is this the best option that we have right now, based on how quickly we can stop this leak and how much damage can we mitigate, then the answer is yes.

So let's take the example of Governor Jindal's barrier islands idea. When I met with him when I was down there two weeks ago, I said, "I will make sure that our team immediately reviews this idea, that the Army Corps of Engineers is looking at the feasibility of it, and if they think, if they tell me that this is the best approach to dealing with this problem, then we're going to move quickly to execute it. If they have a disagreement with Governor Jindal's experts as to whether this will be effective or not, whether it was going to be cost-effective, given the other things that need to be done, then we'll sit down and try to figure that out."

And that essentially is what's happened, which is why today you saw an announcement where, from the Army Corps's perspective, there were some areas where this might work, but there are some areas where it would be counterproductive and not a good use of resources.

So the point is on each of these points that you just mentioned, if the job of our response team is to say, OK, if 17 countries have offered equipment and help, let's evaluate what they've offered; how fast can it get here; is it actually going to be redundant or will it actually add to the overall effort, because in some cases more may not actually be better.

And decisions have been made based on the best information available that says, here's what we need right now. It may be that a week from now or two weeks from now or a month from now the offers from some of those countries might be more effectively utilized.

Now, it's going to be entirely possible, in an operation this large, that mistakes are made, judgments prove to be wrong, that people say in retrospect, if we could have done that or we did that, this might have turned out differently, although in a lot of cases it may be speculation.

But the point that I was addressing from Jennifer was, does this administration maintain a constant sense of urgency about this and are we examining every recommendation, every idea out there and making our best judgment as to whether these are the right steps to take, based on the best experts that we know of? And on that answer, the answer is yes. Or on that question, the answer is yes -- Chuck Todd.

QUESTION: I just want to follow-up on the question as it has to do with the relationship between the government and BP. It seems that you've made the case on the technical issues.

But onshore, Admiral Allen admitted the other day in a White House briefing that they needed to be pushed harder. Senator Mary Landrieu this morning said it's not clear who's in charge, that the government should be in charge.

Why not ask BP to simply step aside on the onshore stuff? Make it an entirely government thing. Obviously, BP pays for it, but why not ask them to just completely step aside on that front?

And then also, can you respond to all the Katrina comparisons that people are making about this with yourself?

OBAMA: Well, the -- I'll take your second question first. I'll leave it to you guys to make those comparisons, and make -- and make judgments on it because -- because what I'm spending my time thinking about is how do we solve the problem? And when the problem is solved and people look back and do an assessment of all the various decisions that were made, I think people can make an historical judgment. And I'm confident that people are going to look back and say that this administration was on top of what was an unprecedented crisis.

In terms of shoreline protection, the way this thing has been set up under the Oil Spill Act of 1990, Oil Pollution Act, is that BP has contracts with a whole bunch of contractors on file in the event that there's an oil spill. And as soon as the Deep Horizon well went down, then their job is to activate those and start paying them. So a big chunk of the 20,000 who were already down there are being paid by BP.

The Coast Guard's job is to approve and authorize whatever BP is doing. Now, what Admiral Allen said today and the reason he's down there today is that, if BP's contractors are not moving as nimbly or as effectively as they need to be, then it is already the power of the federal government to redirect those resources. I guess the point being that the Coast Guard and our military are potentially already in charge, as long as we've got good information and we are making the right decisions.

And if there are mistakes that are being made right now, we've got the power to correct those decisions. We don't have to necessarily reconfigure the set-up down there. What we do have to make sure of is that, on each and every one of the decisions that are being made about what beaches to protect, what's going to happen with these marshes, if we build a barrier island how is this going to have an impact on the ecology of the area over the long term. In each of those decisions, we've got to get it right.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)

OBAMA: I understand. And part of the purpose of this press conference is to explain to the folks down in the Gulf that, ultimately, it is our folks down there who are responsible. If they're not satisfied with something that's happening, then they need to let us know and we will immediately question BP and ask them why isn't XYZ happening?

And those skimmers, those boats, that boom, the people who are out there collecting some of the oil that's already hit shore, they can be moved and redirected at any point.

And so understandably people are frustrated because, look, this is a big mess coming to shore, and even if we've got a perfect organizational structure, spots are going to be missed. Oil is going to go to places that maybe somebody thinks it could have been prevented from going. There's going to be damage that is heartbreaking to see. People's livelihoods are going to be affected in painful ways.

The best thing for us to do is to make sure that every decision about how we're allocating the resources that we've got is being made based on the best expert advice that's available.

So I'll take one last stab at this, Chuck. The problem, I don't think, is that BP is off running around whatever it wants and nobody is minding the store. Inevitably, in something this big, there are going to be places where things fall short.

But I want everybody to understand today that our teams are authorized to direct BP in the same way that they would be authorized to direct those same teams if they were technically being paid by the federal government. In either circumstance, we've got the authority that we need. We've just got to make sure that we're exercising it effectively.

All right, Steve Tomlin (ph).

QUESTION: Thank you, sir.

On April 21, Admiral Allen tells us the government started dispatching equipment rapidly to the Gulf. And you just said on day one you recognized the enormity of the situation. Yet, here we are 39, 40 days later. You're still having to rush more equipment, more boom. There are still areas of the coast unprotected. Why is it taking so long? Did you really act from day one for a worst-case scenario?

OBAMA: We did. Part of the problem you've got is, let's take the example of boom. The way the plans have been developed -- and I'm not an expert on this, but this is as it's been explained to me -- pre-deploying boom would have been the right thing to do. Making sure that there's boom right there in the region at various spots where you could anticipate, if there was a spill of this size, the boom would be right there ready to grab. Unfortunately, that wasn't always the case.

And so this goes back to something that Jake asked earlier. When it comes to the response since the crisis happened, I am very confident that the federal government has acted consistently with a sense of urgency.

When it comes to prior to this accident happening, I think there was a lack of anticipating what the worst-case scenarios would -- would be. And that's a problem. And as part of that problem was lodged in MMS and the way that that agency was structured. That was the agency in charge of providing permitting and making decisions in terms of where drilling could take place, but also in charge of enforcing the safety provisions.

And as I indicated before, the IG report, the inspector general's report that came out was scathing in terms of the problems there. And when Ken Salazar came in, he cleaned a lot of that up, but more needed to be done and more needs to be done, which is part of the reason why he's separated out the permitting function from the functions that involve enforcing the various safety regulations.

But I think, on a whole bunch of fronts, you had a complacency when it came to what happens in the worst-case scenario.

I'll give you another example, because this is something that some of you have written about. The question of how is it that oil companies kept on getting environmental waivers in getting their permits approved?

Well, it turns out that the way the process works, first of all, there is a thorough environmental review as to whether a certain portion of the Gulf should be leased or not. That's a thorough going environmental evaluation. Then the overall lease is broken up into segments for individual leases. And again, there's an environmental review that's done.

But when it comes to a specific company with its exploration plan in that one particular area, you know, they're going to drill right here in this spot, Congress mandated that only 30 days could be allocated before a yes or no answer was given. That was by law. So MS -- MMS' hands were tied. And as a consequence, what became the habit predating my administration was you just automatically gave the environmental waiver, because you couldn't complete an environmental study in 30 days.

So what you've got is a whole bunch of aspects to how it was exercised in deepwater drilling that were very problematic. And that's why it's so important that this commission moves forward and examines, from soup to nuts, why did this happen; how should this proceed in a safe, effective manner; what's required when it comes to worst-case scenarios to prevent something like this from happening?

I continue to believe that oil production is important; domestic oil production is important; but I also believe we can't do this stuff if we don't have confidence that we can prevent crises like this from happening again. And it's going to take some time for the experts to make those determinations. As I said, in the meantime, I think it's appropriate that we keep in place the moratorium that I've already issued.

OK. Chip Reid (ph).

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

First of all, Elizabeth Birnbaum resigned today. Did she resign? Was she fired? Was she forced out? And if so, why? And should other heads roll as we go on here?

Secondly, with regard to the Minerals Management Service, Secretary Salazar yesterday basically blamed the Bush administration for the cozy relationship there. And you seemed to suggest that when you spoke in the Rose Garden a few weeks ago when you said for too long, a decade or more -- most of those years, of course, the Bush administration -- there's been a cozy relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill.

But you knew as soon as you came in, and Secretary Salazar did, about this cozy relationship, but you continued to give permits, some of them under questionable circumstances. Is it fair to blame the Bush administration? Don't you deserve some of that?

OBAMA: Well, let me just make the point that I made earlier, which is Salazar came in and started cleaning house. But the culture had not fully changed in MMS. And absolutely, I take responsibility for that. There wasn't sufficient urgency in terms of the pace of how those changes needed to take place.

There's no evidence that some of the corrupt practices that have taken place earlier took place under the current administration's watch. But a culture in which oil companies were able to get what they wanted without sufficient oversight and regulation, that was a real problem. Some of it was constraints of the laws I just mentioned, but we should have busted through those constraints.

Now, with respect to Elizabeth Birnbaum, I found out about her resignation today. Ken Salazar has been in testimony throughout the day, so I don't know the circumstances in which this occurred.

I can tell you what I've said to Ken Salazar, which is that we have to make sure, if we are going forward with domestic oil production, that the federal agency charged with overseeing its safety and security is operating at the highest level. And I want people in there who are operating at the highest level and aren't making excuses when things break down but are intent on fixing them. And I have confidence that Ken Salazar can do that.

Yes, Joanna?

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

We're learning today that the oil has been gushing as much as five times the initial estimates. What does that tell you and the American people about the extent to which BP can be trusted on any of the information that it's providing, whether it's the events leading up to this spill, any of their information?

OBAMA: Right. Well, BP's interests are aligned with the public interest to the extent that they want to get this well capped. It's bad for their business. It's bad for their bottom line. They're going to be paying a lot of damages, and we'll be staying on them about that. So I think it's fair to say that they want this thing capped as badly as anybody does. And they want to minimize the damage as much as they can.

I think it is a legitimate concern to question whether BP's interest in being fully forthcoming about the extent of the damage is aligned with the public interest. I mean, they -- their interest may be to minimize the damage and, to the extent that they have better information than anybody else, to not be fully forthcoming.

So my attitude is, we have to verify whatever it is they say about the damage.

This is an area, by the way, where I do think our efforts fell short. And I'm not contradicting my prior point that people were working as hard as they could and doing the best that they could on this front, but I do believe that, when the initial estimates came of -- that there were -- it was 5,000 barrels spilling into the ocean per day, that was based on satellite imagery and satellite data that would give a rough calculation.

At that point, BP already had a camera down there but wasn't fully forthcoming in terms of what did those pictures look like, and when you set it up in time-lapse photography, experts could then make a more accurate determination. The administration pushed them to release it, but they should have pushed them sooner. I mean, I think that it took too long for us to stand up our flow tracking group that-- that has now made these more accurate ranges of calculation.

Now, keep in mind that that didn't change what our response was. As I said from the start, we understood that this could be really bad. We were hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. And so there aren't steps that we would have taken -- taken in terms of trying to cap the well or skimming the surface or the in situburns or preparing to make sure when this stuff hit shore that we could minimize the damage. All those steps would have been the same, even if we had information that this blow was coming out faster.

And eventually, we would have gotten better information because by law the federal government, if it's going to be charging B.P. for the damage that it causes is going to have to do the best possible assessment.

But there was a lag of several weeks that I think -- that I think shouldn't have happened. OK?

QUESTION: Mr. President, when are you going to get out of Afghanistan? Why are you continuing to kill and die there? What is the real excuse?

And don't give us this Bushism, "If we don't go there, they'll all come here."

OBAMA: Well, Helen, the reason we originally went to Afghanistan was because that was the base from which attacks were launched that killed 3,000 people -- and I'm going to get to your question, I promise.

But I just want to remind people we went there because the Taliban was harboring Al Qaida, which had launched an attack that killed 3,000 Americans.

Al Qaeda escaped capture, and they set up in the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has affiliates that not only provide them safe harbor, but increasingly are willing to conduct their own terrorist operations, initially in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, but increasingly directed against western targets and targets of our allies as well.

OBAMA: So it is absolutely critical that we dismantle that network of extremists that are willing to attack us. And they are currently...

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) to us?

OBAMA: Well, they absolutely are a threat to us. They are a significant threat to us. I wouldn't be deploying young men and women into harm's way if I didn't think that they were an absolute threat to us.

Now, General McChrystal's strategy, which I think is the right one, is that we are going to clear out Taliban strongholds. We are going to strengthen the capacity of the Afghan military and we are going to get them stood up in a way that allows us then to start drawing down our troops, but continuing to provide support for Afghan(sic) in its effort to create a stable government.

It is a difficult process. At the same time, we've also got to work with Pakistan so that they are more effective partners in dealing with the extremists that are within their borders. And it is a big, messy process, but we are making progress in part because the young men and women under General McChrystal's supervision, as well as our coalition partners, are making enormous sacrifices, but also on the civilian side, we're starting to make progress in terms of building capacity that will allow us then to draw down with an effective partner.

OK?

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

Is this on? OK.

I want to follow up on something, an exchange you had with Chip. Leaving aside the existing permits for drilling in the Gulf, before -- weeks before B.P., you had called for expanded drilling. Do you now regret that decision? And why did you do so knowing what you have described today about the sort of dysfunction in the MMS?

OBAMA: I continue to believe what I said at that time, which was that domestic oil production is an important part of our overall energy mix. It has to be part of an overall energy strategy.

I also believe that it is insufficient to meet the needs of our future, which is why I've made huge investments in clean energy, why we continue to promote solar and wind and biodiesel and a whole range of other approaches, why we're putting so much emphasis on energy efficiency.

But we're not going to be able to transition to these clean energy strategies right away. I mean, we're still years off and some technological breakthroughs away from being able to operate on purely a clean energy grid.

During that time we're going to be using oil. And to the extent that we're using oil, it makes sense for us to develop our oil and natural gas resources here in the United States and not simply rely on imports. That's important for our economy. That's important for economic growth.

So the overall framework, which is to say domestic oil production should be part of our overall energy mix, I think continues to be the right one.

Where I was wrong was in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst case scenarios.

Now, that wasn't based on just my blind acceptance of their statements. Oil drilling has been going on in the Gulf, including deepwater, for quite some time. And the record of accidents like this, we hadn't seen before.

But it just takes one for us to have a wake-up call and recognize that claims that fail-safe procedures were in place or that blowout preventers would function properly or that valves would switch on and shut things off, that whether it's because of human error, because of the technology was faulty, because when you're operating at this -- these depths you can't anticipate exactly what happens, those assumptions proved to be incorrect.

And so I'm absolutely -- I'm absolutely convinced that we have to do a thoroughgoing scrub of that -- those safety procedures and those safety records, and we have to have confidence that even if it's just a one-in-a-million shot, that we've got enough technology know-how that we can shut something like this down, not in a month, not in six weeks, but in two or three or four days. And I don't have that confidence right now.

QUESTION: Do you -- are you sorry now -- do you regret that your team had not done the reforms at the Minerals Management Service that you've subsequently called for?

And I'm also curious as how it is that you didn't know about Ms. Birnbaum's resignation, firing before...

OBAMA: Well, you're assuming it was a firing. If it was a resignation, then she would have submitted a letter to Mr. Salazar this morning at a time when I had a whole bunch of other stuff going on.

QUESTION: So you rule out that she was fired?

OBAMA: I'm -- come on, I don't know. I'm telling you the - I found out about it this morning. So, I don't yet know the circumstances, and Ken Salazar has been in testimony on the Hill.

With respect to your first question, at MMS, Ken Salazar was in the process of making these reforms, but the point that I'm making is that obviously they weren't happening fast enough.

If they had been happening fast enough, this might have been caught.

Now, it's possible that it might not have been caught. All right?

I mean, we could have gone through a whole new process for environmental review. You could have had a bunch of technical folks take a look at B.P.'s plans and they might have said this is - meets industry standards.

OBAMA: We haven't had an accident like this in 15 years. And we should go ahead.

That's what this commission has to discover is, you know, was this a systemic breakdown, is this something that could happen once in a million times, is it something that could happen once in a thousand times or once every 5,000 times? What exactly are the risks involved?

Now, let me make one broader point, though, about energy: The fact that oil companies now have to go a mile underwater and then drill another three miles below that, in order to hit oil, tells us something about the direction of the oil industry. Extraction is more expensive and it is going to be inherently more risky.

And so that's part of the reason you never heard me say drill, baby, drill. Because we can't drill our way out of the problem.

It may be part of the mix as a bridge to a transition to new technologists (sic) and new energy sources. But we should be pretty modest in understanding that the easily accessible oil has already been sucked up out of the ground. And as we are moving forward, the technology gets more complicated, the oil sources are more remote, and that means that there's probably going to end up being more risk.

And we as a society are going to have to make some very serious determinations in terms of what risks are we willing to accept. And that's part of what the commission I think is going to have to look at.

I will tell you, though, that understanding we need to grow, we're going to be consuming oil in terms -- for our industries and for how people live in this country, we're going to have to start moving on this transition.

And that's why when I went to the Republican Caucus just this week, I said to them, "Let's work together. You've got Lieberman and Kerry who previously were working with Lindsay Graham, even though Lindsay is not on the bill right now, coming up with a framework that has the potential to get bipartisan support, and says, 'Yes, we're going to still need oil production, but, you know what? We can see what's out there on the horizon and it's -- it's a problem, if we don't start changing how we operate.'"

OK. Maclyn Vidal (ph)?

Not here?

Oh, there you are.

QUESTION: Mr. President, you announced, or the White House announced on two days ago that you were going to send out (inaudible)of people to -- 1,200 members of the National Guard to the border. I wanted to -- if you could describe what their target is going to be, what you're planning to achieve with that, if you could clarify a bit more the mission that they are going to have.

And also on Arizona, after you having criticized so much the immigration law that has been approved there, would you support the boycott that some organizations are calling towards that state?

OBAMA: I've indicated that I don't approve of the Arizona law. I think it's the wrong approach. I understand the frustrations of the people of Arizona and a lot of folks along the border that that border has not been entirely secured in a way that is both true to our traditions as a nation of law and as a nation of immigrants.

You know, I'm the president of the United States. I don't endorse boycotts or not endorse boycotts. That's something that the private citizens can make a decision about. What my administration is doing is examining very closely this Arizona law and its implications for the civil rights and civil liberties of the people in Arizona, as well as the concern that you start getting a patchwork of 50 different immigration laws around the country in an area that is inherently the job of the federal government.

Now, for the federal government to do its job, everybody's got to step up. And so I tried to be as clear as I could this week, and I will repeat it to everybody who's here. We have to have a comprehensive approach to immigration reform. The time to get moving on this is now. And I am prepared to work with both parties and members of Congress to get a bill that does a good job of securing our borders, holds employers accountable, makes sure that those who have come here illegally have to pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, and get right by the law.

We had the opportunity to do that. We've done -- we've gotten the vote of a super majority in the Senate just four years ago.

There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to recreate that bipartisan spirit to get this problem solved.

Now, with respect to the National Guardsmen and -women, you know, I have authorized up to 1,200 National Guards persons in a plan that was actually shaped last year. So this is not simply in response to the Arizona law. And what we find is, is that National Guards persons can help on intelligence, dealing with both drug and human trafficking along the borders. They can relieve border guards so that the border guards then can be in charge of law enforcement in those areas. So, there are a lot of functions that they can carry out that helps leverage and increase the resources available in this area.

By the way, we didn't just send National Guard; we've also got a package of $500 million in additional resources because, for example, if we are doing a better job dealing with trafficking along the border we've also got to make sure that we've got prosecutors down there who can prosecute those cases.

But the key point I want to emphasize to you is that I don't see these issues in isolation. We're not going to solve the problem just solely as a consequence of sending National Guard troops down there. We're going to solve this problem because we have created an orderly, fair, humane immigration framework in which people are able to immigrate to this country in a legal fashion, employers are held accountable for hiring legally present workers.

And I think we can craft that system if everybody is willing to step up. And I told the Republican Caucus when I met with them this week, I don't even need you to meet me halfway, meet me a quarter of the way. I'll bring the majority of Democrats to a smart, sensible, comprehensive immigration reform bill, but I'm going to have to have some help, given the rules of the Senate, where a simple majority is not enough.

OK.

Last question. Major? QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon.

QUESTION: Two issues: Some in your government have said the federal government's boot is on the neck of B.P. Are you comfortable with that imagery, sir?

Is your boot on the neck of B.P.?

And can you understand, sir, why some in the Gulf who feel besieged by this oil spill considers that a meaningless, possibly ludicrous metaphor?

Secondarily, can you tell the American public, sir, what your White House did or did not offer Congressman Sestak to not enter the Democratic senatorial primary?

And how will you meet your levels of expressed transparency and ethics to convey that answer to satisfy what appear to be bipartisan calls for greater disclosure about that matter?

Thank you.

OBAMA: The -- there will be an official response shortly on the Sestak issue, which I hope will answer your questions.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

OBAMA: You will get it from my administration. So -- and it will be coming out, when I say shortly, I mean shortly. I don't mean weeks or months.

With respect to the first...

QUESTION: But can you assure the public it was ethical and legal, sir?

OBAMA: I can assure the public that nothing improper took place. But as I said, there will be a response shortly on that issue.

You know, with respect to the metaphor that was used, you know, I think Ken Salazar would probably be the first one to admit that he has been frustrated, angry, and occasionally emotion about this issue, like a lot of people have.

I mean, there are a lot of folks out there who see what's happening and are angry at B.P., are frustrated that it hasn't stopped. And so, you know, I'll let Ken answer for himself.

I would say that, you know, we don't need to use language like that. What we need is actions that make sure that B.P.'s being held accountable. And that's what I intend to do, and I think that's what Ken Salazar intends to do.

But, look, we've gone through a difficult year and a half. This is just one more bit of difficulty. And this is going to be hard, not just right now; it's going to be hard for months to come. The Gulf -- this spill -- the Gulf is going to be affected in -- in a bad way. And so my job right now is just to make sure that everybody in the Gulf understands this is what I wake up to in the morning and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

OBAMA: The spill.

And it's not just me, by the way. You know, when I woke up this morning and I'm shaving, and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?

(LAUGHTER)

Because I think everybody understands that, when we are fouling the earth like this, it has concrete implications not just for this generation but for future generations.

I grew up in Hawaii where the ocean is sacred. And when you see birds flying around with oil all over their feathers and turtles dying, you know, that doesn't just speak to the immediate economic consequences of this; this speaks to, you know, how are we caring for this incredible bounty that we have?

And so, you know, sometimes when I hear folks down in Louisiana expressing frustrations, I may not always think that their comments are fair. On the other hand, I probably think to myself, you know, these are folks who grew up, you know -- you know, fishing in these wetlands and, you know, seeing this as an integral part of who they are. And to see that messed up in this fashion would be infuriating.

So the thing that the American people need to understand is that not a day goes by where the federal government is not constantly thinking about how do we make sure that we minimize the damage on this, we close this thing down, we review what happened to make sure that it does not happen again.

And in that sense, you know, there are analogies to what's been happening in terms of, you know, in the financial markets and some of these other areas, where big crises happen, it forces us to do some soul-searching. And I think that's important for all of us to do.

In the meantime, my job is to get this fixed. And in case anybody wonders, in any of your reporting, in case you were wondering who's responsible, I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down.

That doesn't mean it's going to be easy. It doesn't mean it's going to happen right away or the way I'd like it to happen. It doesn't mean that we're not going to make mistakes.

But there shouldn't be any confusion here: The federal government is fully engaged. And I'm fully engaged.

All right? Thank you very much, everybody.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: For more than an hour, the president of the United States spoke and then answered questions on this oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Announcing several steps, he's hoping we'll deal with this matter in a concrete matter - in a concrete way.

He says that 33 similar deep water oil wells that were operating, he's going to suspend those operations, at least for now, pending a review of what happened in this current disaster. The president insisting this is his top priority right now. To stop this oil spill, to learn why it happened and to make sure it never happens again.

Let's discuss what we have just heard for more than an hour. We have got "The Best Political Team" on television. Anderson Cooper is standing by, as well. Let's go to Anderson first though right now. Anderson, you're on the scene in the Gulf of Mexico for us. Do you think what the president said today is go to reassure the folks there that he's on top of this issue?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Any word from the president certainly are going to be welcomed here. what's really going to be welcomed is his visit tomorrow so he can really get a hands-on sense of what is going on. I think there's a lot of -- you know, a lot of people believe there's a disconnect.

Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish yesterday said but he doesn't believe that the president's getting all the information he needs about what's going on on the ground. And they see a disconnect between BP and the Coast Guard, between what is happening and what is actually happening. You can still go out to areas of marsh land where nothing is getting cleaned up and where there are no people in hazmat outfits cleaning up oil that's soaked into the marshes.

So, the president session they're doing everything they can. A lot of people want him to see it for himself and see if there's anything that can be done organizationally to make things flow better here.

BLITZER: David Gergen, the president had a mission here to reassure the public that he knew what he was doing, and that this was not another Katrina as Katrina was for President Bush. Was it mission accomplished as far as this news conference was concerned?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think the president deserves great credit for stepping up to the issue and taking -- mainly taking responsibility for it, saying, we're in charge here, I recognize that. We're going to go forward that way.

I must tell you at the same time, if the government's been in charge, that's a surprise to an awful lot of people. It has not appeared to people that anybody's been in charge, and if anything, that BP has had much more responsibility for getting this done.

So, that -- but I think the second thing that -- a lot of people were asking me, if the government's in charge, why isn't there more of a sense of an emergency? Why isn't there more mobilization? Is he really satisfied with the status quo? He said we made mistakes along the way, but there was no sense of mobilizing the full forces that one hoped for.

And I think that goes for the quality of news conference. He -- we all know he's a superb orator, and he can be terrific in these kinds of things. I didn't think he was at his best today. There was something - the energy level didn't seem high. He seemed uncomfortable with this. He knows that he's got a mess on his hands. And he just clearly seemed uncomfortable dealing with it. And I think that, as a result - he didn't come across as a take-charge leader.

BLIZTER: What did you think, John King? As you saw the president deal with these very, very sensitive issues, knowing he's heading to the region tomorrow, did he convey the authority that he often does?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, to David's point, he is by nature more distant and a detached -- President Obama is. And it often serves him well in times of crisis. I think at something like this, people want to see a visceral president. They want to see George W. Bush with a bullhorn after 9/11. They want to see Bill Clinton saying, "I feel your pain." It's not Barack Obama's style; it's not his personality. And again, sometimes it helps him. In a case like this, I think people do want a more visceral president.

What will be hard for people to get, is number one, he did take responsibility. He owns this. He said from day one, we've been in charge and says his team is doing everything possible. The question is, is the federal government team up to this? Well, I did some homework before we came up here. Eighty-eight positions requiring Senate confirmations still unfilled in this administration in the Interior Department, which is the agency here that matters. Food safety, ocean protection, a lot of these oversight jobs in the government.

And the question being asked in this town is why do people have to die in mines in West Virginia and on this rig off the Gulf, an ecosystem to be destroyed, before you have the presidents and key committees in Congress saying we need to do a better job at fixing these oversight agencies that we know are corrupt, that we know are too cozy and that we know are too lazy? If they know they're corrupt and cozy and lazy, why didn't they fix it them the first place?

BLITZER: Because -- he's been in office now for a year and a half, Candy.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: He has. And the -- certainly we have heard from him, at least by implication and from some other administration officials, this is George Bush's fault. It was his MMS, the people that were supposed to be overseeing this.

But you know what? A year-and-a-half in, that wears thin.

I think what's going to be complicated for the president is he said what he wanted to say almost from the get-go, which is from the moment this began, the federal government has been in charge. The people don't think it's been going very well. So he does own it, and yet, I'm not sure he wants to.

BLITZER: I was sort of surprised, Gloria, when he said the woman who is in charge of this Minerals Management Services, which oversees, regulates the entire offshore oil industry, he didn't know if Elizabeth Birnbaum was fired or resigned.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, he said that the secretary of the interior was testifying on the Hill, and they hadn't been able to talk about it and that may well be the case.

I think the president's problem here is that it's a little bit of a tautology. He says "I'm in charge. BP however, the oil companies have the technology that we do not have at the federal government. Maybe we ought to look at that. But I was wrong in my belief that they actually had their act together when it comes to these kind of worse-case scenarios. I'm in charge, dependent on them, but maybe we shouldn't have."

CROWLEY: Which makes you kind of not in charge.

BLITZER: All right. Our correspondent, Suzanne Malveaux is over in the East Room.

Suzanne, you were there. We're showing our viewers the live pictures of the feed coming in, stuff is still coming out of that well. We don't know if it's mud, we don't know if it's oil, we don't know what it is. Could be cement, we should know soon enough whether it is working or not.

But go ahead. Give us a thought -- because you have been covering this president from day one.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, there are two things that stood out. I have to agree with you, I thought it was rather incredulous that you had the president saying that he did not know the circumstances around the director of MMS's resignation there. That that was a rather convenient answer, that he gave that he hadn't been briefed by his own secretary of the interior this morning.

I mean, this is an agency that he said himself was scandalously close to oil companies. So that's one thing that a lot of people are scratching their heads, thinking, well, that doesn't really pass the smell test.

The other thing that happened, which is the very first question that the president got, was his own personal responsibility, how did he see his role in that. And it took the whole press conference at the very end for him to address that when he said, "Before any of you leave this room, let me make clear that I take responsibility for this crisis and for cleaning up this crisis."

And so he wanted to at least acknowledge that there was some sort of personal responsibility, accountability that he was taking, but that was not something that he addressed early on. Eventually, he got to that point.

BLITZER: The buck stops with him, as Harry Truman used to say.

All right. All of us stand by. Ali Velshi is going to pick up our coverage right now.

We're not going away from this story.

Over the next few hours, we should know, Ali, whether this is a success or a failure. Pick up our coverage.