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Where the Oil Is; Senator Fight for Her Political Life; Van Der Sloot to Reconstruct Crime; Public & Political Anger Builds at BP; Dissecting BP's Disaster Plan; Inside the Crisis; Solar Storm Threat

Aired June 08, 2010 - 09:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, everybody. I'm Kyra Phillips.

Breaking news. The Dutchman who reportedly confessed to murder going back to the scene of the crime to show exactly how he did it.

Anything else you want to tell us, Mr. van der Sloot?

Sun, surf and tar balls. What kind of relaxing beach vacation is that? We're taking a look at your summer and where you can still go.

A Hollywood director is helping with the titanic task in the Gulf. It would be nice if he could just send the terminator down there as well.

Plus, the sun is waking up from a deep sleep and, boy, is it cranky.

But first, the breaking news we just told you about in just a couple of hours. Police in Peru will be taking Joran van der Sloot back to the hotel where he confessed to killing a 21-year-old woman.

van der Sloot, as you may remember, was the primary suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. We are told that he confessed to detectives late yesterday and right now, CNN's Rafael Romo is making his way to that hotel in Lima, Peru. He will join us live as soon as he gets there.

Now, that oil disaster. President Obama mad as hell. And he wants all of you to know it. It's day 50 of the oil disaster in the Gulf and he tells NBC's "Today" show that he has been meeting with experts to learn, quote, "who's ass to kick." The anger is building from Pennsylvania to Main Street. And -- or Pennsylvania Street, rather, to Main Street.

And in Alabama, one Chamber of Conference official is saying the frustration along the Gulf Coast is, quote, "rapidly escalating." And he sneered at the $5,000 payout that BP is giving fishermen and others who had seen their livelihoods disappear. He dismissed the amount as, quote, "a marketing ploy."

Tonight, the anger goes nationwide. The advocacy group, MoveOn, is calling for vigils across the country to demand greater efforts to stop that spill. We're also tapping into CNN's vast resources and looking at the spreading disaster and what it means to your summer travel plans.

So where the oil is now, where it's headed in days to come and what little patch of paradise will be the next one to be ruined?

CNN's Jim Acosta is in the Florida panhandle where the disaster is inching closer. And meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is going to tell us what beaches are open and where you can still go on vacation.

Jim, let's start with you in Destin.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, I have to tell you, folks on the Florida panhandle, especially the local officials here, are starting to breath just a little easier. And that's because all of that oil that washed ashore in Louisiana and Mississippi, Alabama, that has not materialized in big, big quantities as of yet. So they are feeling good about that.

And we did find some reason to hope. We went about five miles out into the Gulf, 30 miles down the coastline in search for oil on our own. And we went out there not just to get conditions on the water but from up in the air.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): As soon as tar balls started coming ashore on the beaches of Pensacola, people on the Florida panhandle feared wave after wave of oil would wash ashore.

But that didn't happen, which is why Pensacola's mayor hopes the tide is turning.

MAYOR MIKE WIGGINS, PENSACOLA, FLORIDA: The trend looks better every day. Every one of us needs to send that message out that, yes, Pensacola is open for business now.

ACOSTA: To get a look for ourselves we hired Chris Hoy, a former oil boat captain, to take us out on the Gulf.

(on camera): If we run across oil, you're going to know it.

CAPT. CHRIS HOY, FLAMINGO PARASAIL COMPANY: Right. I mean if we would just run across a sheen or whatever, I'd be able to see it and smell it.

ACOSTA: OK. All right. Let's take a look here.

(voice-over): But we didn't just check out the conditions on the water.

HOY: Hold on to the blue. Hold on to the blue.

ACOSTA (on camera): Got it.

(voice-over): Captain Hoy also takes tourists out for parasail rides.

(on camera): There is a point to all of this. To see what we can find 500 feet above the gulf. Here we go. Looks like blue skies, blue water all around me. Just incredible. Right now, I'm not seeing any bands of oil on the Gulf, which is good news.

(voice-over): But a few minutes later, I spot what could be some light oil sheens. The only way to know for sure is to get back to the surface.

(on camera): I saw what could have been bands of oil or sheens of oil but it's not really clear.

(voice-over): We pull into a spot that could be a light sheen.

(on camera): You think it's got a little bit in it?

HOY: Yes, a little bit of oil in it.

ACOSTA: Because I mean these tiny, tiny dots.

HOY: Yes. Yes. You see that?

ACOSTA: They're reflecting in the sun, right?

HOY: Correct. Actually you can see it a little better here.

ACOSTA: All right.

HOY: So that's not from the boat, for sure.

ACOSTA: Yes.

HOY: Because we're running gasoline in this boat. Well, I don't smell anything.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Captain Hoy is encouraged that we only found traces of oil. Not massive amounts of crude.

HOY: Well, it's not here yet so they can keep on coming on vacation.

ACOSTA: But these days, vacation plans are being scrapped.

(on camera): What's it been like?

JENNA LIPSCOMB, BOAT OWNER, FLAMINGO PARASAIL COMPANY: It's -- we're significantly down. Our tourism has dropped. I would estimate 40 to 50 percent.

ACOSTA (voice-over): And the parasail boat's owner Jenna Lipscomb says BP isn't making her life any easier. She filed her claim with the company three weeks ago and hasn't seen a dime.

LIPSCOMB: But meanwhile, my crew isn't being paid. They have rent obligations. My mortgage is late. ACOSTA (on camera): So you're saying this is taking too long?

LIPSCOMB: It's taking too long.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Even though we found reason to hope out on the water, Captain Hoy worries more oil is somewhere out on the horizon.

HOY: You can never be too cautious with something like this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: And one other encouraging sign, federal authorities did reopen a previously closed area of the Gulf of Mexico, about 340 square miles of water out there that was closed to fishing before. And so that is one good sign.

And Florida officials continue to maintain their beaches are open. They are safe. But the big question out here, Kyra, is how long all of that is going to last. And the other major question is obviously, how far out is that oil right now? And when is it coming ashore.

PHILLIPS: Yes --

ACOSTA: If at all.

PHILLIPS: Exactly. Those are all questions we want to know. And especially, here we are heading into the main vacation time. And everybody wants to know if they can head out or not.

Jim Acosta, thanks so much. But before you pack your bags or plunk down a deposit, you're going to want to know exactly where that oil is headed.

And we tried -- I know it's hard to track it, Jacqui. It is hard for a meteorologists. It's hard for all the agencies involved in tracking this disaster.

But at home, folks are saying, OK, how do I plan my summer vacation?

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I know.

PHILLIPS: Kids are out of school. We want to go. We don't want to lose our money.

JERAS: Right. Well, part of it depends on what's important to you. Obviously. If you are willing to go to the beach and maybe dodge a couple of tar balls and not get into the water, you're good to go. If that's a huge problem for you, then you might want to think about changing some of those plans.

Now let's go ahead and show you some of the areas that we're talking about. And keep in mind that most of what we're seeing on the beaches are those scattered tar balls. And they're only going up to the tide line. So it's not the entire beach that's covered in oil with the exception of some parts of southern Louisiana here.

Now the forecast still show it's slightly moving off to the east. We are getting tar balls in places like Dauphin Island, Alabama. We've been seeing them on Orange Beach. We've been seeing them in Pensacola beach. But our meteorologist Rob Marciano told me well, we saw them there the last two days, he's not seen anything there today. So it's kind of scattered and kind of iffy.

Our winds are changing direction. And they're going to be more east to southeasterly in the next few days. So that's actually good news for those of you maybe who have plans in Panama City beach. This is kind of an iffy area that we'll be watching the next couple of days.

The winds are light. But they could be enough to kind of hold off that spread a little bit in the next few days.

Now there are a lot of resources that we have. Some monitoring that we're doing in additional -- in addition to this. The satellites and some of these flyovers. We've got a tower cam here and this is Navarre Beach which is just west to the Destin area and the folks at Navarrebeachrentals.com are giving us access to their live Web cam and look at those beaches.

They're just beautiful. They're absolutely clear there this morning. So, you know, you certainly don't need to change your plans in this area, at least not any time soon.

There are a lot of resources on the Web of where you can go to find out whether or not your beach is good. This is Adph.org, and this is the Alabama Department of Public Health. You come down here and here's a little section. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Learn more.

You click on the "learn more," you scroll down just a little bit and here you can see Alabama beaches, do the -- oil spill updates and current beach conditions. And this will go down and tell you every single beach that's been affected. And Alabama does have some impacted beaches where they're just issuing swim advisories.

We're going to talk about some of those beaches specifically and talk more about what you can expect in Florida beaches. And that's coming up when I see you again in maybe another 10 minutes or so -- Kyra?

PHILLIPS: That's perfect. That's the kind of information we've been looking for, Jacqui. We've been getting so many e-mails and calls about vacations and where they should go and not go.

That's terrific for the information. Thanks, Jacqui.

JERAS: Sure.

PHILLIPS: And you can stay with us, of course, for all the news and perspective on the oil catastrophe in the Gulf. Later this hour, a closer look at Hollywood director James Cameron and his real world expertise in deep sea robotics. He tells us about his blockbuster brain storming session in Washington.

And next hour the latest developments from the government's point man on the crisis. Admiral Thad Allen has scheduled a news conference for the top of the hour, and we'll take it live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: So just how serious is the anti-incumbent fever right now? We're going to find out today. Twelve states holding primaries. Governorships, Senate and House seats all on the line.

In California, you've got a GOP primary for governor where one candidate has spent $70 million of her own money. Don't worry, she is rich.

South Carolina's GOP primary for governor has a dash of soap opera, accusations of infidelity there. And the tea gets a taste test in Nevada. A would-be Republican Senate candidate with Tea Party cred running there. And in Arkansas, you have a sitting Democratic senator -- Blanche Lincoln -- fighting for her political life.

And it's a runoff race that we want to look at this hour, CNN senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash is actually in Little Rock this morning.

Dana, Blanche Lincoln playing the Bill Clinton card. But is it going to be enough?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is really unclear, Kyra. Voters began to go to the polls. And I'm at a polling station here in Little Rock, Arkansas. They started about 45 minutes ago. And they will determine whether or not the narrative that we have seen so far in this election year -- and that is people being so angry that even voters are voting out members of Congress in their own party, whether that's going to continue and whether Blanche Lincoln will be the latest victim of that.

She has -- was forced into this runoff because on primary day three weeks ago, she did not reach the necessary 50 percent threshold in order to avoid this. So over the past three weeks, she has been barn storming the state trying to say, look, incumbency is not a dirty word.

She actually uses her position to help people here. But what she is up against is not just an opponent in her challenger, Bill Halter, who was really, really pounding that anti-Washington sentiment and riding that wave. But also a host of outside groups on a national level from the left who are really waging an intraparty war with regard to the Democratic Party.

You have liberal groups like Moveon.org. You have National Labor Unions who have come in here in this relatively nonunion state to say, look, we are not going to stand for the policies and the voting record of somebody like Blanche Lincoln who is a moderate Democrat who says, look, she fits this state. But on a national level, Democratic Party figures from those particular groups say, no way, we're not going to stand for that anymore.

So you see all of those dynamics playing out in this race. And it's really unclear, Kyra, who actually could pull this off. There's no reliable polling here. Both sides say that they've got the wind at their backs. But I can tell you talking to Democrats here and in Washington, especially, they say they're a little concerned that Blanche Lincoln may not be able to pull this off. We'll see.

PHILLIPS: All right. We will keep track on the politics. We're also of course tracking your summer vacation. We've received a lot of e-mails, a lot of calls about what beaches are open, what beaches are closed, where is -- where are there tar balls, where are there fumes of the oil.

Jacqui Jeras has a big task today. She's trying to track all of that so we can answer some of these questions.

JERAS: Right.

PHILLIPS: And you're focusing strictly on beaches right now, right?

JERAS: Right. Exactly. And I -- I'm going to start off by saying, as far as we know, and it's a little iffy because we were hearing some spotty reports out of Louisiana, for example, but as far as we know right now, every single beach is open.

Now that said, there are some advisories at some of the area beaches. And we're going to start out with Alabama. A lot of people like to go to the coast there this time of the year. And most of the advisories that are in effect are due to swimming.

So they're saying, you know, if you see oil in the water, don't get in the water. If you see the tar balls, if little pools of oil, you don't want to step in them. If you happen to step into them, you need to clean yourself off as soon as you can with just regular soap and water.

All right, here are a few specifics. Gulf Shores, Alabama, all the beaches are open but there's a swimming advisories in effect here. Orange Beach, Alabama, swimming advisory. Fort Morgan, swimming advisory. Closed to fishing here at Gulf State Park Pier. A lot of people like to get out there and they do a little deep sea fishing. Perdido Pass, Alabama is open.

So these are all very -- very popular beaches. You can get there, you can walk along the coast if you want to. But they're advising if you get in the water, there is the potential that you could get sick in these areas.

Now all the beaches are open in Florida as well. Those are going to be the areas that we're going to be watching. And I did talk to some of our correspondents who have been out in the field. And they're telling me at times you can smell it a little bit. And it's just on occasion. And so, you know, it's a very breezy area, so it's not going to be consistent.

And so, as you are making these decisions, it depends on what's important to you. Are you going to the beach because you want to get in the water? Are you going to the beach because you want to play in the sand? Are you going to the beach to just get away and have a good time?

Kyra, I'll tell you, I'm one of those people that has plans to go to the beach unfortunately right there in the panhandle of Florida next week.

PHILLIPS: So are you going? That's my question because you know this information firsthand. How do you feel about where you're supposed to go?

JERAS: Well, I'm going with a group of about 15 people. And we've been e-mailing each other back and forth in the last week or so. And we've all decided that we're going to go.

We want to support the economy. We'll still get some of the benefits of the beach. And, you know, as I mentioned earlier, I don't know if you heard it. You know it's really just kind of going up to the tide line. OK? So if, you know, I can go with my kids and I can play in the back part of the beach where there is still sand and have a good time, I personally am just not going to let my kids go in the water.

PHILLIPS: OK. So right now, it's based on personal decisions and you just kind of have to track and see what's there at the beach you arrive upon.

JERAS: Yes.

PHILLIPS: OK.

JERAS: Lots of other fun stuff to do, too.

PHILLIPS: That is true. And you're right about supporting the economies. Boy, these states need us big time right now.

Thanks, Jacqui.

JERAS: Sure.

PHILLIPS: Thousands of bad home loans. Some of which you may have taken out. Now one of Countrywide's biggest home mortgage lenders. Or sorry, one of the country's biggest home mortgage lenders -- we're talking about Countrywide -- is actually going to have to pay up for its greed. We'll tell you more about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: It's now day 50 of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster and people who make their living along the Gulf Coast are becoming more frustrated about BP's response to this spill.

Complaints include a lack of skimmers to pick up the oil and BP not paying enough in damages.

A dozen states, they're holding primaries. Among the races that's grabbing our attention, California's GOP gubernatorial contest where candidates are spending close to $100 million.

And the Senate Democratic runoff in Arkansas where incumbent Blanche Lincoln is fighting for her political life.

The Dow's opening bell less than 10 minutes away. Futures point to a higher opening after stocks fell to seven-month lows. Analysts say it's the global economic crisis is to blame for that.

Now in just a moment, a Hollywood heavyweight wants to help battle the massive oil spill in the Gulf. But is BP even listening? We're going to talk to movie director and deep sea explorer James Cameron.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Breaking news right now out of Lima, Peru. I want to get you right to our Rafael Romo who is arriving at the hotel where apparently Joran van der Sloot has confessed to the murder of the Peruvian woman.

And apparently, Rafael, he's going to be headed there in just a couple of hours with authorities to describe exactly how he killed her?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: That's exactly -- Kyra, that's exactly right. We're here standing outside of the Tac Hotel. This is the Tac Hotel. This is where the murder took place. And he has confessed.

In a couple of hours, authorities are going to bring Joran van der Sloot here accompanied by a defense attorney. And what they're going to do is what they call here a reconstruction, a reenactment. They're going to show people what happened.

And he has already confessed according to Peruvian officials last night. And you're looking at scenes out here. A video of what's happening. We have several media networks covering this story. And that's where you're looking at right now.

But let me take you back to what happened yesterday. The most recent development. A major development in this case, Kyra. He confessed to Peruvian authorities that he is, indeed, the killer in the case of 21-year-old Stephany Flores. And look at what the newspapers here in Lima are saying today.

The newspaper called "Krome" says "Yola Mate," I killed her. Another newspaper called Peruvian (INAUDIBLE), "Peru 21," says, "Confeso." He confessed. So it's a major story here in Peru. Many networks covering this story. And we understand also that his family, his mother is coming this way. He has been requesting for days to talk to her. So definitely a story that has many implications and many different angles that we can talk about -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: And just two quick questions, Rafael, if you don't mind. Of course, we're talking so much about this because this is the same man that has been tied to the murder of Natalee Holloway, a case that we covered months and months on end.

He was a prime suspect in that case. Her remains still have not been found. Do you know if anyone, any of the authorities have questioned him with regard to that murder, whereabouts of her body and has any type of confession surfaced from that?

ROMO: Not so far, Kyra. So far, they have only interrogated him regarding the case here in Lima, Peru. That of Stephany Flores. And we even have some of the words that he said as quoted by a local newspaper. He said, "I did not want to do it. The girl intruded into my private life."

He told authorities that he did it when he realized that the victim had been looking into his computer and she found out that he had been involved in the 2005 case of Natalee Holloway.

He became enraged, started beating her up. She -- the body had multiple bruises. And at one point, ultimately, he ended up breaking his neck and then he fled to Chile. And then you know the rest of the story. He was caught and brought back here to Lima -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: And is it true that the -- what he used to beat her was a tennis racket? Has that been confirmed?

ROMO: I'm sorry, I kind of lost what you said. But I think you were talking about the tennis racket. We have confirmed -- we took a look at the crime scene report yesterday that says that indeed there was a tennis racket in the room where the body was found.

It still has to be determined whether that was actually a murder weapon, something that he used to kill her. What we know is that her neck was broken and that she had multiple bruises throughout her body -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Now what is the fate of van der Sloot now that he has confessed, taking authorities back to the hotel to show them exactly how he killed this young woman? What does this mean for him?

ROMO: Well, the best thing that can happen for him at this point is that, because he is cooperating, because he is talking to authorities, that could be considered by a judge as a mitigating factor and his sentence can be reduced?

Kyra, here in Peru, there is no death penalty. There is not even life in prison. The maximum you can get for a murder is anywhere from 15-35 years, depending on the circumstances. Obviously, this was a very violent homicide. That is going to be taken into account. Also he fled. So that's going to carry a lot of weight as well. At the same time, if he is confessing, the judge also needs to take that into account. A judge at the end of the day is going to decide what kind of sentence he gets -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: And we'll follow it all. Our Rafael Romo there live in Lima, Peru. Let us know as soon as you get more developments.

Rafael, thanks so much. We'll be back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Another day, another beating on Wall Street. The major averages tumbled more than one percent yesterday.

Alison Kosik live at the New York Stock Exchange with a preview of today's action.

Hey, Alison.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kyra. You talk about a beating. It was really like a one-two punch. We saw that triple digit sell-off two days in a row. And once again, that sell-off yesterday came in the final hour of trading. As for today, we are expecting to see a modest rebound. We'll see if that really happens. Investors are still really nervous about the debt situation in Europe. Now, we are keeping an eye on gold. It's moving higher, hitting a record high of $1,254 an ounce. Gold is considered a safe haven investment.

The Johnson & Johnson recall product (ph) so goes on as congressional committee says the drug company missed the Monday deadline to submit documents related to last year's Motrin recall. The committee could issue a subpoena if needed. Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, McNeil, is being investigated for trying to pull the drug from store shelves by simply contracting out workers to buy up all the products in question.

All right. We're a few minutes into the trading day. Let's check on the numbers. The Dow industrial is up ever so slightly, two points. The Nasdaq higher by a fraction as well. We'll see if we can stay in the green the rest of the day. Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: Alison, thanks.

It's one of the largest finds yet for a lender accused of making money off risky loans to homeowners. Turning around and making money again once those loans fail.

CNNMoney.com's Poppy Harlow, is here to talk more about one of the most popular mortgage companies, countrywide, gave loans to thousands of people -- Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: It did. I mean, if you just look around the news and probably half the people had their mortgages through countrywide. This was a company that had $1.4 trillion in home loans, the biggest mortgage service here in this company by far. It was taken over, Kyra, by Bank of America in 2008, but what has just happened to the company is that its new owner, Bank of America, is now going to have to pay $108 million settlement with the U.S. government, specifically with the Federal Trade Commission.

It's one of the biggest, as you said, one of the biggest finds we've seen in a case like this. And here is why. A couple of factors we should pay attention here. First of all, what the FTC is saying is that Countrywide ordered some of their borrowers that were facing foreclosure to pay for services on their property like lawn mowing, like inspections at the property and that's normal. They had them do at the FTC these (ph) inflated prices, sometimes 100 percent or higher inflation on those and that's the issue. The FTC says when you look at that, Countrywide made big, big profits by inflating the costs of those services that they were charging their borrowers for while these borrowers were going through foreclosure.

On top of that, what the FTC is saying is that Countrywide didn't tell borrowers that were facing chapter 13 bankruptcy, trying to save their home, but they didn't tell them about new fees and new charges, and therefore, tried to collect those when those people were no longer protected by bankruptcy. Here's a statement I want to read you from the FTC that just came out on this.

The FTC said, "Life is hard enough for homeowners who are having trouble paying their mortgage. To have a major loan servicer like Countrywide piling on illegal and excessive fees is indefensible." Kyra, some recourse here for those borrowers, they will get some of that $108 million back for any of those borrowers that were overcharged -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Oh, there's some good news. Poppy, thanks.

HARLOW: Yes.

PHILLIPS: President Obama is mad as hell, and he wants all of you to know it.

It's day 50 offer the oil disaster in the Gulf, and he tells NBC's "Today" show that he's been meeting with experts to learn, quote, "whose ass to kick." The anger is building from Pennsylvania Avenue to Main Street. In Alabama, one Chamber of Commerce official says frustration along the Gulf Coast is quote "rapidly escalating." And he sneered at the $5,000 payout that BP has given fishermen and others who have seen their livelihoods did appear. He dismissed the amount as, quote, "a marketing ploy." Tonight, the anger goes nationwide. The advocacy group, Move On, is calling for individuals across the country to demand greater efforts to stop this spill. And this is being called the wildlife apocalypse of the Gulf Coast, and so many people are infuriated about the way BP is handling this disaster. A big question, why wasn't there an effective plan in place? It turns out BP did have a plan. It's 583 pages long and approved by Uncle Sam, but still, in all of these pages, not a lot of details on dealing with a worse case scenario. No mention of containment domes, top kills or jump shots, but the plan does consider the need to protect walruses and sea lions. Yes, I pause, too. You're right. Walruses and sea lions don't even live in the Gulf Coast.

And a web link is listed for a contractor. It takes you to a shopping web site.

Rick Steiner, a marine biologist, joining us live via Skype in Grand Isle, Louisiana.

Now, Rick, you read that entire report, and it actually just seems like a bad joke.

RICK STEINER, MARINE BIOLOGIST: Yes, that's exactly what it is. If it weren't such a serious topic, it is almost comical. First of all, happy World Ocean's Day in day 60 of the deep horizon water blowout. Yes, the contingency plan, obviously, was just meant as a palliative to go through the motions. They never seriously considered a big deep water blowout and how they would respond to it effectively.

They just banked on it never happening. The government approved that. And that's, you know, a triple tragedy here. So, we have now 50 million gallons of oil or more in the Gulf of Mexico. It's looking more like the Gulf of oil rather than the Gulf of Mexico out here now. The impacts are extraordinary.

PHILLIPS: Now, this is what I find really hard to understand. I mean, you even said this is like building a fire truck after your house is on fire. How is it that a company that's so big and has so much money could actually put together a disaster plan like this that really just seems like a horrible cut and paste job.

STEINER: Yes, it's the height. It's the definition of irresponsible corporate behavior in my mind. They knew there was a realistic risk of a high pressure deep water blowout from their deep water operations. Everyone in the industry knew that. People in government knew it. People in the nongovernmental, scientific community knew it, but they didn't plan for it. If they had, they would have had all these technologies on the beach ready to go to attempt a top kill in the first week of this thing, but they didn't.

They're engineering it all. They're making it all up now, day 60 into the process. And it is like building a fire truck after a house is on fire. It is not what we expect of government or industry. We have to do better.

PHILLIPS: It's incredibly disappointing. Now, you were out on a boat in the Gulf yesterday, I understand. Tell me what you're seeing and what you're examining. I know you've been focusing a lot on how this oil is going to effect the food chain.

STEINER: Yes. We've been down here a couple of times for several weeks, and I've been out offshore over the deep water horizon sight. There is a lot of oil coming up there still in the water column. You can see that. So, there's going to be extensive offshore water column pelagic ecosystem impacts. We know that. Where I am right now is in barrier islands onshore in these sensitive delicate marshes and wetlands in Barataria Bay and these barrier nesting islands where tens of thousands of sea birds, pelicans and terns and gulls and such are nesting.

The oil just came ashore here about three or four days ago, and it came ashore heavy. It's right in the base of these nesting islands. The adults are being heavily oiled. We are seeing chicks that are oiled. They have just hatched in the past few weeks.

PHILLIPS: And we're looking at the pictures right now, Rick. I don't know if you can see the live pictures we're going -- it looks like you got pictures here of turtles. I see some of the hatching here. I see the shrimp, the various birds. Tell me a little bit about these photos and what you witnessed firsthand. And this must have been heartbreaking for you. I mean, you're a marine biologist. These are your babies.

STEINER: That's right. But also, everybody, as a human being and essentially like human being and anybody that isn't heartbroken by this has a part of them that isn't alive. And it's just heartbreaking as people who love animals. We're seeing a lot of birds that are oiled. We're seeing pods of dolphins surfacing in Barataria pass where the Gulf of Mexico water comes into the bay here. Right where there are these tight grips that are accumulating. The oil and these dolphins are surfacing and feeding right in the oiled water. The important thing to know is there are the surface slicks that are broken up in shore here.

But there's also oil distributed throughout the water and on to the sea beds. So, everything in here is oiled. These adult birds that are going out to catch fish to bring back to feed their chicks are then feeding their chicks oiled prey. So, these chicks are being oiled by eating oiled prey right now, and then when they get ready to fly, they're going to walk out through the oil at the edge of their island and try to fly. So, these innocent, lovely little sea bird chicks are going to be oiled before they take their first flight, and I think that's outrageous.

The American public needs to be outraged by this. And not only do we need safer offshore drilling regulations and better government oversight. If they're going to continue drilling in these deep ocean high pressure reservoirs, which I think may be a bad idea, but then, we need to transition to the larger issue here and that's getting on with a sustainable clean energy policy right now in this country. That's the only thing that's going to fix these things in the future.

PHILLIPS: You've laid out everything that's going to be examined thoroughly for this point on. That's for sure. We're going to be talking about this for decades. Rick Steiner, appreciate your insight and your time, Rick. Thanks so much.

STEINER: Thanks, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: You bet. One little girl is taking action to help with the oil disaster. Her works of art could help paint a brighter picture for the Gulf Coast. And she is going to tell you how she is helping out coming up in the next hour.

And if you want to help clean up the oil, speak up. There are plenty of ways to get your ideas out there. You can actually head to CNNireport.com/fix it or have another website for you now, deepwaterhorizonresponse.com. Click on, fill out the proper parts of that website, put your proposal in there. They're weeding through them right now. We're going to have more coming up right after the break.

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PHILLIPS: It's day 50 of the crisis in the Gulf. Oil covers thousands of square miles. But the response to the crisis is largely clustered under one roof.

It's a nerve center buzzing with activity and saddled with a crisis that could haunt the region for decades. The President's point man Admiral Thad Allen, takes me inside the command center and the mission.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS (voice-over): A BP training center in Houma, Louisiana hastily converted into the headquarters of the massive effort to battle an environmental disaster.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still a lot of amenities including the ability to feed people 24 hours a day and so forth.

PHILLIPS: It's where Admiral Thad Allen spends a good part of his life nowadays.

ADM. THAD ALLEN, NATIONAL INCIDENT COMMANDER: (INAUDIBLE) -- going on in this place.

PHILLIPS: OK.

ADM. ALLEN: You are going to be astounded when you go in here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Offshore we have our --

PHILLIPS: This is where all the government agencies involved in the oil disaster response come together. Along with subcontractors, Louisiana state officials and BP. The invoice will follow.

ADM. ALLEN: We try to keep track of the hours here, but he's working here for billing BP.

PHILLIPS: And this is the nerve center of the operation. Screens track the spread of the spill. Maps crowd the walls.

(on camera): All the workers here refer to this as the fish bowl. Along this wall, you've got organizational charts, you've got weather forecasts, you've got various sit reps, situation reports, forecasted movement of the oil.

Right now, the members of the Coast Guard are looking at the booming operations that are taking place in the state and the skimming operations as well.

Wildlife, response progress; they are going over what has worked so far this morning with regard to operations in Louisiana. Safety, medical plans, everything you could possibly want to know about the operations in the State of Louisiana. It's happening right here.

(voice-over): And you could forgive the BP workers here for feeling under siege.

We arrived here about 4:30 in the morning and we're the day -- the day team.

Brian Bauer is BP's point man.

BRIAN BAUER, BP: We have had people working literally 20-hour days, 18-hour days. I personally have been here nearly a month. We know that we are doing a good job. And every day, it's a new -- it's a new response that we have to mount. And it's challenging.

PHILLIPS: And the challenge grows by the day.

BAUER: Once oil reaches the surface, we're responsible for doing everything we can to skim it, to control burn it, to make sure that that oil gets contained and controlled out in the ocean near the source. And then whatever we can't control there as it moves closer, we have near-shore skimming operations.

PHILLIPS: Bauer helps coordinate some 200 vessels over an already huge and still growing area; working side by side with the U.S. Coast Guard.

CAPTAIN MERIDETH AUSTIN, U.S. COAST GUARD: Now, I wanted to ask you if you don't mind --

PHILLIPS: Captain Meredith Austin is trying to predict where the oil will move.

(on camera): You were looking at this earlier with some other members of the Coast Guard. Tell me what you're trying to figure out today.

AUSTIN: Right, this is using the aerial images where the slick is right now. The important thing to notice, though, is that even though it looks like it's one homogenous slob of oil that's not the case. A lot of this area is -- is -- this is the source right here. So as you move away from the source, it ends up being a sheen and streamers of oil.

PHILLIPS: After his morning briefing, Admiral Allen faces an often skeptical media. ADM. ALLEN: The southern part of Louisiana to make sure --

PHILLIPS: On this day, the head of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at his side.

ADM. ALLEN: From here, we have four deployed staging areas.

PHILLIPS: When it is over, a relief perhaps to see friendlier faces. It's a tight-knit community; Allen has known NOAA scientist Ed Levine for 25 years.

ALLEN: We activate an oil spill response. They do plume projections, going back to the NOAA old war room at some point in Seattle.

PHILLIPS: The problems seem endless.

ALLEN: And there's a real issue about public confidence in the integrity of the food chain and the supply chain of seafood and working very, very closely to make sure that whatever is being caught out there and sold out there is safe.

So we're going to sit down and take care of a couple of details in the press conference and then we're going to go to get a bite to eat or a cup of coffee before you go.

PHILLIPS: Admiral Allen doesn't pretend to have all the answers in such a wide-ranging crisis and he's careful not to speculate when every word he utters is so closely scrutinized.

(on camera): Right. Knowing there were a couple of times where you said I need to check that out and I'll get back to you that --

ADM. ALLEN: Yes I think one think you learn over time is if we don't know, say you don't know and get back to them.

PHILLIPS: Yes.

ADM. ALLEN: Don't try and wing in.

PHILLIPS: But so quickly has this crisis evolved from an explosion at sea to a national disaster, that winging it is sometimes the only option.

BP's Brian Bauer hopes the dark cloud seeping through the Gulf will one day have a silver lining.

BAUER: My son asked me this. He's 13 years old and he goes, "Dad, tell me about this, this oil, this is bad isn't it?" And I said what's happened is very bad, but what we're doing here as a company and as an industry and as a country is crucial to really to our way of life.

PHILLIPS: And what happens here will in no small way influence that way of life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Now in just a few minutes at the top of the hour we're going to get the latest developments from the government's point man on the crisis. Admiral Thad Allen has scheduled a news conference for 10:00 a.m. Eastern and we'll take that live.

Do you think you're cranky when you wake up from a deep sleep? The sun doesn't want to hear it. It's just getting up from a long snooze and the earth could feel the pain. We're talking about that a little bit more and about more than just a little sunburn.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Economic damage 20 times worse than Hurricane Katrina. Got your attention now? Yes. That's the kind of damage our good friend, the sun could do with a solar storm that's brewing. Top scientists have gathered in Washington now, this morning, actually, to talk about this threat.

Josh Levs is here to tell us all about it. I don't think we need anything more, scientifically and environmentally Josh, that we need to worry about right now. We've got our hands full.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm thinking the exact same thing. This is why we can be glad that they're meeting today because what could happen is a serious threat, but it's within the next few years and there are things that can be done.

Let me talk to you about what we're talking about here. The idea is the massive burst of energy from the sun called a solar storm. And there's a couple of different ways these things can happen. One of them involves basically a magnetic field and what ultimately happens is a whole burst of light can shoot out causing some problems.

The even bigger ones that are solar storms; what they can do is even more. In addition to a burst of light they can send out these massive junk, basically sun plasma, which can affect a lot of things.

What can it affect? First of all think about what our world is doing today. We use satellites for almost everything. Our medical technology is linked to this. Our navigation systems for our airlines are connected to this. Communication systems, emergency communication systems, TV, Internet, so many things use these satellites. If they're damaged that can cause massive economic damage. As Kyra was just saying, some experts saying 20 times beyond what Katrina faces.

But it doesn't end there. If there were an electromagnetic problem, a real burst from the sun that can affect us all the way down here on earth. It can actually knock out some electric grids as some smaller storms have done in the past. So what scientists are doing today is talking about what can be changed to watch out for this.

Let's go to this video. I want you to see this. This is from April. And I want -- as we're looking at this I want to tell you the exact words that NASA put along with this. From April 19, 2010, this was an observation of one of the most massive eruptions in years. They say Earth was not in the line of fire this time. That's their word, not in the line of fire this time.

So what are the stakes here? Let's come back to my screen. I want you to see some information. First of all, this is a quote that I have for you from a NASA official here who is the head of the Heliophysics Department. He watches out for the sun.

The sun is waking up, he says, from a deep slumber, Richard Fisher. Take a look at this now here. The cost could reach $2 trillion in one year if there were one of these huge storms. This according to a national science foundation study funded by NASA, and that study is the one saying the economic impact in that sense could be 20 times greater than what happened on Hurricane Katrina.

There's a lot more to understand about how this works, and I posted it all for you at my Facebook page. Let's go to the graphic. You want to know how this works; if you want to know more about the videos and what can be done. It's all up right now, facebook.com/joshlevscnn.

Kyra, obviously not something anyone wants to think about, so we can be grateful that they're looking ahead, thinking it could happen in the next few years. Let's get our satellites in place. Let's get our electric grid in such a system that hopefully will minimize any potential damage.

PHILLIPS: All right Josh. We'll track it; just one more thing.

She's 11 years old and she's willing to help. A young artist puts brush to paper in hopes of saving oil-coated wild life in the Gulf Coast. Coming up next hour, little Olivia will tell you what inspired her and how you can pick up one of her pieces.

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