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Campbell Brown
President Obama Visits Louisiana; Interview With Florida Senator Bill Nelson
Aired June 04, 2010 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Campbell is off, and I'm Candy Crowley.
This is day 46 of the disaster in the Gulf, and here is where we stand right now.
President Obama was back in Louisiana today, his second trip in a week. He says it's way too early to be optimistic about the latest attempt to stop the gusher. But the next 24 to 48 hours will be critical. This time, BP is trying what it calls a top cap, sort of an upside-down funnel that is supposed to capture most of the oil and send to it a ship on the surface.
But pictures like these of oil-soaked birds and tar washing up on beaches as far away as Pensacola today are adding to a sense of urgency.
Tonight, I will talk to Florida Senator Bill Nelson, who says, if BP can't stop the oil soon, the U.S. military needs to get involved. I will also talk to a local councilman who met with the president today, and his anger at BP is growing.
And, of course, we have got CNN's reporters in the Gulf covering all sides of the story tonight.
But we begin with our number-one story: President Obama in the Gulf. He was all fired up about BP, warning the company against what he called nickel-and-diming local fishermen.
Families of the 11 men who died in the oil rig explosion have been invited to the White House next week to meet with the president.
And we are covering this story from all angles tonight, in Florida, where the moment everyone was dreading has arrived, oil washing up on to the beach there tonight.
Our Bob Marciano is on Pensacola Beach, and we have an inside look from the deck of a drilling rig in the Gulf, where they're trying to cap the oil flow. Kyra Phillips joins us with her exclusive tour with Admiral Thad Allen. And CNN's Gary Tuchman spent the night at a wildlife refuge in Louisiana where they're cleaning and caring for oil-soaked birds struggling to survive.
And it was these new dramatic pictures of vulnerable wildlife that tugged at everyone's heart today. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Gary Tuchman in Buras, Louisiana. This nondescript-looking warehouse behind me is where each and every bird in the state of Louisiana that has been found coated with oil is brought. It's an intensive care unit for birds.
Over the first six weeks of this disaster, only about 60 birds were brought here. But over the last two days, 66 birds. Things do not bode well. What are people doing to help save these birds' lives? There are doctors here. And that's what we have been following the last couple of days.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCHMAN: Candy, what people are most concerned about, the veterinarians, are not necessarily the birds ingesting the oil. That causes chronic problems, but it doesn't usually kill the birds.
What kills the birds is the oil being on their feathers, caked on their feathers, because birds need healthy feathers to regulate their temperatures. And when they can't have the use of their feathers, they get very cold. And that's usually what kills the birds in this type of oil.
It really is amazingly sad, because, over the last two days, more birds have been brought into this wildlife center, Kyra Phillips, than the previous six weeks before that.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And you have been out here covering this, I mean, for a long time. And this has sort of been more of an inside look. There was a lot of talk about how this was going to affect the wildlife. Now we're starting to actually see it, right?
TUCHMAN: And what the -- yes. And what the wildlife experts are telling us, that the last two days have been a turning point. They say it shows that the oil is spreading, and they expect over the next several days to have even a greater increase in percentage in the number of birds that are coming into that wildlife center.
And I know you have been in the center where everything is going on. You just have had an amazing perspective.
PHILLIPS: Well, I had the chance to be embedded with Admiral Thad Allen, who, as you know, he is having to respond to all of this, the wildlife issues, what is happening on those oil rigs. He is having to deal with all the various Cabinet members and the White House and all the local politicians with regard to this response.
Everybody wants money. Everybody wants help. Everybody wants resources. And right now, we have been talking about this as well, the top hat has been lowered on that oil rig. When I was out there, I actually got to see this process and watch these rig workers go at it minute by minute. And they were very optimistic about where it is right now. But obviously that oil is still spreading. And it's spreading to places like Pensacola, Florida now.
And that's where we find our Rob Marciano.
Rob, bring us up to date.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well early this morning, tar balls started rolling up along the shores of Gulf Islands National shoreline, these pristine beaches.
For the most part, cleanup crews were able to come out here and clean up at least the smaller tar balls, and the beaches remain open. Here, they are behind me, beautiful bleach-white beaches that this part of the Gulf of Mexico are famous for. They did not close the beach. People did empty out of the beach because there was a major thunderstorm here earlier today, but they are getting back on there now.
The question is, how long do they stay open? Look at what we found a little bit farther down the beach, two huge softball-size tar balls that were -- we just put them in this styrofoam cup and it melted. I mean, at times, it bubbles up. It's evaporation time.
But this is what is out there in the Gulf of Mexico. And if this is -- this is only a taste of what could be rolling up on the shorelines here in more copious amounts as the days roll along. The question is if and when that happens -- Candy.
CROWLEY: Thanks, Rob.
With that oil heading straight to Florida's beaches, I spoke earlier with Florida Senator Bill Nelson.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: Senator Nelson, thank you for joining me. Appreciate it.
I want to start out by just kind of orienting our viewers with something from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. I'm sure you have seen it. It is a likely pathway that they see for the spilled oil. It shows that oil moving around the entire state of Florida, up the Eastern Seaboard, and then out into the Atlantic Ocean.
As I read this map, there won't be a beach in Florida that goes untouched. Is that how you see what is ahead for Florida?
SEN. BILL NELSON (D), FLORIDA: If this gusher keeps going all the way through the whole summer, yes, it will fill up the Gulf with oil. And sooner or later, the winds will push it south and it will get in that loop current, and that takes it down to the Florida Keys and up the East Coast of not only Florida, but the U.S. CROWLEY: OK. So, you can see a pathway. What is being done? When you look out, do you see booms in place? Are there ships ready to skim some of this stuff? What is happening?
NELSON: As we speak, tar balls are coming in on Pensacola Beach, but most of the oil is -- as the winds are pushing it toward Florida, are -- most of the oil is being skimmed up and put in a big container 25 to 55 miles out in the Gulf from shore.
And then they have got 250 smaller vessels that are on standby for any other oil that gets through those big vessels to try to get it, with the goal of keeping it off the shore, out of the wetlands. We don't want happening what has happened in Louisiana here in Florida, and keeping it off the beaches and trying to save our tourism economy. And this is the season.
CROWLEY: You sound actually pretty optimistic here. Are you telling me you think you can keep this oil, which is so devastating along the Louisiana shore, from actually even coming in any place in Florida? Is there enough in place right now to stop that?
NELSON: If they get this top hat successful, and they cut off the well now, and it doesn't gush all the way through summer, then I think there is a reasonable chance of rounding up most of it and not letting it get in and spoil things, like it's done in the wetlands in Louisiana.
But if that thing gushes for the next three months, then you're talking about 10, 15 times Exxon Valdez, and you're talking about lots of oil.
CROWLEY: Senator, briefly, if you could, you have several times said that you would like more involvement from the U.S. military. I have talked to Admiral Mullen recently, who said, we are pretty much out there with whatever we have been asked to do. I don't see something natural that the military can do to help.
Do you still need the military, doing what?
NELSON: You don't now, Candy. But if they don't get the gusher stopped and it goes on for several more months, then it's going to be all hands on deck. You're going to need the most complicated command- and-control structure to command a flotilla of private boats, public boats, Navy, Coast Guard. And the best command-and-control structure in the world is the United States military.
CROWLEY: Scale of one to 10, Senator, how is the president doing?
NELSON: I think the president is doing well. And what he ought to do is take this tragedy and turn it on its head and make us get off our dependence on oil, go to alternative fuels, and especially get off our dependence on foreign oil.
CROWLEY: Does he get a 10?
NELSON: I would say the president get about a seven-and-a-half. And that's pretty good...
CROWLEY: All right.
NELSON: ... given this tragedy.
CROWLEY: Thank you so much, Senator Bill Nelson down there in Florida. We wish you luck. You know that. Thanks.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: Also tonight, we are learning of new allegations against BP about the spill response. And they're coming from a man who met just hours ago with President Obama.
Also, BP's multimillion-dollar media gamble -- what can be said in 60 seconds that will change the minds of a furious nation and a devastated Gulf Coast?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CROWLEY: As we have been telling you, President Obama sat down with local leaders on the Gulf Coast today and promised he will keep the pressure on -- on BP.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The key point I'm making here is this has been a disaster for this region, and people are understandably concerned about what the next few months and the next few years may hold.
I am absolutely confident about the resilience of this area long term, but if we can make sure that BP is doing the right thing on the front end, it's going to make an awful lot easier for us to fully recover on the back end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: One of those in the room with the president today is making serious new allegations against BP tonight.
Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, Councilman Chris Roberts accused the oil giant of rushing in extra cleanup crews merely as a photo-op during the president's last visit, something BP denied. Tonight, Councilman Roberts is back with new claims.
And we should tell you that BP declined our offer to appear this evening to respond.
Mr. Roberts, thank you for being here.
CHRIS ROBERTS, JEFFERSON PARISH, LOUISIANA, COUNCILMAN: Sure.
CROWLEY: First, let me just ask you about the visit with the president. What was most important to you that he said, and are you basically satisfied? ROBERTS: Well, the fact that he is holding BP accountable and addressing the barrier protection plan now was good news for us. We're certainly waiting in Jefferson Parish for the passes to be protected, and we're hoping to get an answer on that very soon. So, we were satisfied that we did get a favorable responsible about that.
CROWLEY: Did he seem satisfied with BP's response?
ROBERTS: No, he did not. And he expressed that to us.
He was very dissatisfied with the fact that BP was declaring a $10.5 billion dividend. And he was also questioning the need right now for them to be appropriating funds on an ad campaign, when we're in the midst of still dealing with this flow, and why they would be concerned about their image right now, instead of being concerned primarily with the -- trying to get this flow stopped and -- and being able to provide resources to the locals and to the state to be able to respond to this disaster.
CROWLEY: The last time you met with the president, you talked about these cleanup crews that came on to the beach, seemed to be there just for the president being around, and then left soon thereafter. Did you see a repeat of the same this time?
ROBERTS: Well, I was not in Grand Isle today. We did see last week -- you know, we had been waiting for weeks for workers to come in. It just so happened, on the Friday he came to visit, a lot of the workers showed up, approximately 300 to 400.
That number did grow in the days following. We really feel it has a lot to do with the fact that they were -- BP was called out on the fact that they did not have workers down there prior to that. The concern most recently that we have had is that our local sheriff has dealt with some criminal issues, because some of the workers that have been positioned on Grand Isle have criminal histories. They have caused some of the locals to be quite concerned.
As a matter of fact, hazmat suits, which we brought one here with us today, have been disposed of improperly. This was a hazmat suit that was disposed of in the dumpster of a local restaurant. So, if these workers were working, and had they been trained appropriately and correctly in dealing with hazmat, they would know better than how to dispose of these suits.
We heard today from residents that they were finding them in their backyards, they were finding them in the culverts and drainage ditches. That's just not acceptable. I mean, hazmat, there is an appropriate way to dispose of that, and that needs to be done so -- correctly and not to cause us any additional heartache in those particular communities.
CROWLEY: OK. I just want to see -- it seems to me there's two allegations in there. One is, you're worried about criminal backgrounds of some of these people that have come to clean up? Is that what I understand you to say?
ROBERTS: Correct. Our local sheriff...
CROWLEY: And why is that?
ROBERTS: ... had to bring in additional -- well, he had to bring in additional assets. There were some problems with some of the workers.
The last count that I had, there were about 180-plus workers that were asked to leave because of criminal histories that they had and outstanding issues with criminal violations, which were drawing quite a bit of concerns for the locals in those communities. We have a lot of elderly that live in Grand Isle.
Grand Isle is typically a community of about 1,500 residents. And when things are out of place or something suspicious is going on, it's very easy to determine whether or not it's acceptable behavior or not. And there was some rowdiness, some uncontrolled activity.
And I'm just happy that the state and local law enforcement stepped in to address that and force the contractor to be accountable to who they're bringing there to work.
CROWLEY: I have to ask you for a quick answer here. How has the claims process gone? Are local businesses who are hurting been able to get into that process?
ROBERTS: That's a good question.
And, no, it has not. That's been the biggest beef with the local businesses. Keep in mind that Grand Isle and Lafitte, which is also in coastal Jefferson Parish, we rely heavily on tourism.
And, therefore, during the months of May through September is when a lot of these businesses make the income that they need in order to be able to survive. And because the rug has been pulled out from under them during the time of the year when they would be making their money in order to be able to survive, especially considering we had a very cold winter, this is a tough, tough situation.
The claims processes for the businesses need to be stepped up. The president did touch on that in his meeting today. He assured us that, in each state, that BP would be assigning someone that would supervise the claims process, and that we should see that start to get moving soon.
I sure hope so. When we were in Grand Isle this past week, we met with a business owner there who has been in business for over 20 years. Her business was 80 percent off. And she was telling the mayor and I that she would likely have to close her doors this week.
CROWLEY: Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, thank you very much for joining us.
We want to add that we are looking for a response from BP, and also add that people who come for a cleanup may not necessarily be BP employees, per se, but hires through a contractor. Again, we are looking for further substantiation of some of these charges, and, of course, BP's response.
Next up: After weeks of catastrophic damage to the Gulf and BP's reputation, the company is spending millions to try and save itself. Is it just making the company's P.R. nightmare worse?
And an insider's look at America's worst oil disaster, as our own Kyra Phillips joins Admiral Thad Allen for an exclusive tour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CROWLEY: Turning from one kind of disaster management to another, BP has launched a massive P.R. blitz, desperately trying to clean up its image.
They need all the help they can get. Today, President Obama sounded less than thrilled the oil giant is spending an estimated $50 million on these new ads, and could soon pay out even more in stock dividends. This afternoon, the president had a warning for BP.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: What I don't want to hear is when they're spending kind of money on their shareholders, and spending that kind of money on TV advertising, that they're nickel-and-diming fishermen or small businesses here in the Gulf who are having a hard time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: And this is part of BP's multimillion-dollar commercial, their attempt to change your mind.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, BP AD)
TONY HAYWARD, CEO, BP GROUP: We have helped organize the largest environmental response in this country's history. More than two million feet of boom, 30 planes, and over 1,300 boats are working to protect the shoreline.
Where oil reaches the shore, thousands of people are ready to clean it up. We will honor all legitimate claims, and our cleanup efforts will not come at any cost to taxpayers.
To those affected and your families, I'm deeply sorry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: Now, BP would not confirm how much money they're spending on this ad campaign, but they did tell us just recently, within the past hour or so, that not a single cent is being diverted from the oil spill or the cleanup process.
With me now to look at BP's big-money battle to save its image, historian Doug Brinkley and DailyBeast.com contributor Eric Dezenhall, author of "Damage Control: Why Everything You Know About Crisis Management Is Wrong."
Eric, let me just start on -- I mean, far be it from me to defend BP. They're big boys who can defend themselves. But $50 million, if that's what they're spending, is nothing. This is a multibillion- dollar company. We have been saying you need to communicate, you need to take responsibility.
It seems to me they did that in that ad.
ERIC DEZENHALL, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDING PARTNER, DEZENHALL RESOURCES: Well, first of all, I think it's important to keep in mind that BP does not have a P.R. problem. They have an environmental catastrophe.
Saying that this is a P.R. problem, diagnosing it that way, is like saying somebody who has been hit by a train has a headache. Well, they probably do, but it's collateral to what is happening. The other thing that you need to understand is that, whenever a company is in this situation, they are instantly accused of not showing concern and not communicating.
And then, when they communicate and show concern, there is a 100 percent chance that the method by which they do that will have been declared botched. So, if you know that is going to happen, you tell your client to do what they feel they must do.
I have no problem with them doing this type of campaign, because, if they didn't do it -- remember, just a few days ago, people were saying they were not showing concern and communicating.
What I do have an issue with is not what they're doing now, but that the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past few years trying to position themselves, through advertising, as essentially an alternative energy company, when that -- when that kind of funding should have gone in to safety procedures, which is basically what Exxon did after Valdez.
CROWLEY: Doug, let me -- I want to play, before I get to you, just another clip from BP's commercial. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, BP AD)
HAYWARD: We know it is our responsibility to keep you informed and do everything we can so this never happens again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: So, we did say you should keep us informed, you should tell us what is going on, you should make sure this is not going to happen again.
Is there anything wrong with that?
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: There is everything wrong with Tony Hayward. This commercial is insulting -- $50 million is a lot of money, if that's what the cost of it was. They could give to it the Audubon Institute in New Orleans. They're -- they could give to it the wetlands, America's wetlands fund. It's an insult. And the president picked up on it today when he was eating the crawfish and said that they're nickel-and-diming people, and he is not going to tolerate it.
That was a direct slap at Tony Hayward, and it's reported tonight that he is gone. We're not going to be hearing from him anymore. He is not going to be -- he is staying on as CEO, but he is not going to be managing this anymore. And it's because this was the -- yet another insulting example of a tone-deafness that Tony Hayward has.
I agree with everything Eric said, and I would simply add that this isn't a commercial that is going to fly. It's just bad Madison Avenue marketing. And it -- whoever put Hayward up to it or turned the camera on him, I wouldn't hire them if I were a company. It's bad P.R. Do real things to help people in the Gulf, not phony things to try to make BP look better in people's eyes in this time of dire straits in the Gulf South.
CROWLEY: Actually, I think it was a political team that put that together.
But, Eric, let me -- let me bring you in, because there is another person sort of battling an image problem, or has been. And that's been the president, this whole idea that he hasn't seemed to have taken leadership, he hasn't seemed emotive enough, he hasn't seemed to really be kind of involved.
How -- comparing the two, who is doing a better job at this point? Probably not a fair question.
DEZENHALL: Well, you know, I mean -- I mean, nobody ever accused me of cheerleading for President Obama, but I will tell you that, if he -- the big accusation is that he is not passionate enough.
Well, if he was more passionate, people would say, you know something, he seems unstable. And, as somebody who advises clients in these situations, you have to be true to what your nature is, or you will get called on it.
Remember, people during President Obama's political campaign, were saying, he is too aloof and removed. But he held firm to who he is. And in the long run, that's the right thing. So, I really get frustrated with these diagnoses of these very minor, insignificant, collateral P.R. nitpicking that really play at the margins of what is happening.
And I do think that President Obama will probably recover from this, largely because he has moral authority on issues like this. If we were talking about a terrorist event that happened on our soil, we would be having a very different conversation. He wouldn't recover from that so easily.
CROWLEY: Doug Brinkley, you're up next first time around when we come back. Thank you both very much.
Still ahead: up close with Admiral Thad Allen. Our own Kyra Phillips rides along as he tackles the toughest job of his career, the cleanup of the Gulf Coast.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CROWLEY: Not that I think anyone can actually imagine this, but that is the estimated gallons leaked so far in this mess, 35,720,563 and counting. As President Obama returned to the gulf today, one of his top priorities was sitting down with Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. Allen is the point man on the oil spill, responsible for throwing everything the government has at the disaster. That includes coordinating efforts from the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, and of course, BP.
CNN's Kyra Phillips recently spent a day with Admiral Allen and filed this exclusive report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's 6:00 a.m. and we're here in New Orleans, Louisiana. Admiral Thad Allen's day began hours ago. But we're getting ready to connect with him now and see what it's like for the next 48 hours as he leads the response to the worst oil disaster in U.S. history.
Good morning.
ADM. THAD ALLEN, NATIONAL INCIDENT COMMANDER: How are you?
PHILLIPS: Good to see you.
ALLEN (voice-over): The 61-year-old commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard officially had his change of command last month, but he's now on the toughest assignment of his long career. First, a jolt of caffeine. The admiral's security detail knows every coffee shop on the Gulf Coast.
PHILLIPS (on camera): All right. I've got the next one.
ALLEN: Admiral Allen.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And then the first calls of a very long time.
ALLEN: If I can call the governor --
PHILLIPS: The White House, federal agencies, governors, the Army Corps of Engineers. They never stop. Today's top priority, hammering out an agreement on getting sand barriers built to protect the Louisiana coast and paying for them.
ALLEN: We talked about a couple of things. Number one was the feasibility of constructing the barrier and the berms. And second one is their effectiveness.
PHILLIPS: It's an issue that's sharply divided state and federal government. The admiral has to be broker, diplomat, decision-maker.
ALLEN: You can suffer, you can adapt. I'll try to move to management.
PHILLIPS: For this job, Thad Allen needs a thick skin. He's come in for plenty of criticism.
ALLEN: I'm careful about who rents space in my head. Try to keep it pretty even keel. It's almost impossible to insult me.
PHILLIPS: The incident command post, the nerve center of the massive operation to deal with the spill. This is where all the federal agencies involved and BP come together.
ALLEN: All of the operations in Louisiana are directed out of here.
PHILLIPS (on camera): We're only an hour into the day, and the admiral has to make a number of conference calls throughout the day that we will not be able to record. They're off the record. He's getting ready to get on the phone with senior Obama administration officials and cabinet secretaries about building barrier islands to protect the marshlands.
(voice-over): Admiral Allen is also the public face of the administration's efforts to tackle the worst environmental disaster in modern U.S. history.
ALLEN: Good morning. The briefing this morning is coming from our incident command post and home of Louisiana.
PHILLIPS: Back on on the road again, headed for Houma-Terrebonne Airport. The White House calls again. What's the progress on a sand barrier deal? The president had promised local officials he would fast track a decision.
(on camera): How many times a day does the White House call you?
ALLEN: It depends on the issue.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Then it's up and away in a Coast Guard plane for a firsthand look at the spreading slick.
ALLEN: I've asked them to fly over. You can't get a really good look at the Mississippi River and the marshlands and some of the stuff we're talking about. It gives you a very good idea, the vastness of this marshland. We're talking hundreds of hundreds of miles. That's breeding ground for, I don't know, he said 25, 30 percent of the seafood that is consumed in this country.
PHILLIPS (on camera): We headed east out of Houma and came through to see where the oil has spread across the Mississippi where the marshlands are and now we're actually headed over to where the rig exploded.
How many vessels do you have out there.
ALLEN: In our entire operation, every day around 1,300. This particular area, we get about 50 miles. I would say about a couple hundred.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The back hatch is open, sir.
ALLEN: OK.
PHILLIPS: So we just wrapped up the fly over, and now apparently the attorney general wants to talk with the admiral. It is about 2:30 now in the afternoon, and it could be about the criminal charges that possibly may be weighed against BP. Allen assures the attorney general he'll keep him informed of anything that could impact potential legal action. Not the sort of job he was trained for.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lisa.
ALLEN: How are you?
LISA JACKSON, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: How you doing, darling?
ALLEN: Good to see you.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Armed with the aerial overview, the admiral catches up with the head of the Environmental Protection Agency in Cocodrie, Louisiana. Their talk is of booms, dispersants, and the workforce now deployed across the Gulf Coast.
ALLEN: One thing about Lisa, she can talk.
JACKSON: I'm from this area. These wetlands are something that all of us have been fighting to make sure we not only maintain, but rebuild.
PHILLIPS (on camera): The admiral is going to meet with all the workers here that are deploying all this equipment out into the water, booms, et cetera.
ALLEN: The president wants to triple the resources in oil- impacted area, and they're always a problem with space, berthing. Nothing you can't handle.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): After 14 hours of command and control this day, still time to rally the troops. Dinner with contractors, members of the National Guard, and others.
ALLEN: Tell them where you're from.
If you go out and you treat anybody that's been impacted by this event in the local community here, anybody you're dealing with, if you treat them as if they're your brother, your mother, your sister, your father, somebody you care about, you're going to be all right, because if you err, you're going to be err on the side of doing too much. PHILLIPS: And then, some good news.
ALLEN: The news of the day is the president approved the Louisiana berm project that the corps of engineers approved.
PHILLIPS (on camera): So at the end of the day, you do a call with your staff. And you have to do it from wherever you are. I mean, here we are in Cocodrie and you're doing it in a Cajun restaurant.
ALLEN: We're in the opposite of a Cajun restaurant, yes.
Hi, folks. What I'd like to do is kind of go over what's happened today operationally.
PHILLIPS: What did you achieve today?
ALLEN: Well, a major step forward in dealing with the state of Louisiana on the barrier island and berm question.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): But Admiral Allen knows only sealing the spill will mark the beginning of the end of his mission here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Now, Candy, as you know, there's been a lot of scrutiny about the relationship between the government and BP. But right now, Admiral Allen says they need BP. It's a marriage of necessity. There's just no other option. And from what I observed, he is getting exactly what he's asking for.
CROWLEY: Our Kyra Phillips down on the coast.
In a moment, coastal wildlife in peril as oil continues pumping into the gulf. Expert says the situation for the birds and the animal there's is only getting worse.
But first, we have Joe Johns here with a look at some of the other stories we're following tonight. Hey, Joe.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Candy. Stocks took a nosedive on Wall Street today, sinking more than 300 points. The Dow Jones Industrials closed below 10,000 for the second time in two weeks. Investors blamed a disappointing jobs report. The economic employment rate actually fell in May, but remain high at 9.7 percent. That and the growing economic crisis in Europe figured into the day's tumble.
The State Department says it's trying to help avert another violent clash at sea off the coast of Gaza. Israel vowed to keep an Irish aid ship from breaching its blockade. It wants the vessel to dock at an Israeli port and avoid another showdown at sea. Israel faces a wave of international outrage over its deadly raid of another aid ship earlier this week.
And a privately financed test rocket soared into space this afternoon. A multimillionaire's unmanned spacecraft blasted off from Cape Canaveral for its maiden voyage. The SpaceX Falcon 9, as it's called, successfully reached orbit in a dry run for NASA's push to go commercial. NASA hopes to use the spacecraft to haul cargo and possibly carry astronauts to the International Space Station after the shuttle retires. So back to the future sort of in the space world.
CROWLEY: Yes, a lot of that going around. Thanks, Joe.
And coming up, remember Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teen who vanished in the Caribbean? Tonight, the man long suspected in her disappearance is in trouble with the law again. This time he's accused of murder and extortion.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CROWLEY: Our top justice story tonight. The main suspect in Natalee Holloway's disappearance in trouble with the law again. Joran van der Sloot was handed over to police in Peru today, facing murder charges in the death of a 21-year-old woman in Lima. Those charges come five years after Holloway, an 18-year-old from Alabama, went missing during a trip to Aruba. Her body has never been found.
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MIKE GALANOS, HLN PRIME NEWS: Two families wait for justice now that Joran van der Sloot is in the hands of police in Peru. Authority there's expect to move quickly and charge him in the murder of 21- year-old Stephany Flores.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police in Chile say he stole $5,000 dollars that Stephany Flores won in the casino the night they met.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her car was found about 50 blocks from the hotel where they were. So we don't know if he was just trying to flee or what his plans were with the car.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the Dutch press, one of his friends speculated that if Joran was her killer, the crime was possibly more about money, saying Joran had been asking friends for financial help.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: Van der Sloot was arrested twice in connection with the Holloway case, but never charged. In the case of the Peruvian woman, the victim was found dead with her neck broken in a hotel room registered under van der Sloot's name.
Joining us now, CNN legal analyst Lisa Bloom. I'm not really sure where to start. But let me ask you since Iowa I'm not familiar with the Peruvian legal system, if he were to be found guilty, what would that mean for him? Is there a death penalty? Life in prison? What kind of penalties are there?
LISA BLOOM, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Peru does have the death penalty, Candy, but it's only applied in exceptional cases. That would be terrorism or treason. So that would not apply here. He would face a maximum of 35 years behind bars in Peru if he's convicted of murder there.
CROWLEY: What are the things, as I understand from the Holloway case is they never -- there was just really no forensic around. They could not find the body of Natalee Holloway, any trace of her. This case seems different.
BLOOM: Well, that's right. In the Holloway case, the defense always maintains that the state couldn't even prove that a crime had occurred. Perhaps Natalee had gone off voluntarily somewhere. Perhaps an accident had befallen her. But without a body it was very difficult to prove that a crime was ever committed. So you're right. He was arrested twice in that case, but twice released, never charged.
This case is entirely different. This woman's deceased remains beaten to death were found in the room registered to him. There's at least one videotape, probably several videotapes of the two of them going together to the room. And then there's videotape of him leaving the room alone.
We are hearing today that she was beaten to death by a baseball bat. That's what Peruvian authorities are saying. If that's the case, I would expect the killer's DNA, fingerprints, footprints, hairs, fibers, a wealth of forensic evidence to be at that crime scene.
CROWLEY: Now, there's also these other charges out of the U.S. The U.S. attorney saying that van der Sloot tried to extort $250,000 from Natalee Holloway's mother for information in return for, you know, where her daughter was. Can these two cases be connected in any way? In other words, if van der Sloot faces trial in Peru, is he ever going to come back and ace extortion charges in the U.S.?
BLOOM: Probably not, Candy. When there is a much bigger charge pending, law enforcement will usually hold back and let the bigger charge be played out. So certainly they're going to let the murder case go forward. If he's convicted, if he's sentenced to 35 years there, I would expect that probably Alabama will not seek to do anything further. They're not going to have jurisdiction over him for one thing in the extortion case.
The other connection though that I see between these two cases is he got $15,000 wired to him. Was that the money he was using to fund his playing in the poker tournament in Lima, Peru? That's what he was doing there. Was that the money that he was using to pay for the room? In other words, if law enforcement had arrested him shortly after wiring him the money, I think this life could have been saved.
CROWLEY: And that's the question is that if $15,000 was already put in his hands, wired to him, could they have arrested him or charged him or brought him back to the U.S.?
BLOOM: I think they could have. But to be fair to law enforcement, what we're understanding is that the extortion allegation is he was saying give me $250,000 and I'll tell you where Natalee Holloway's body is. Perhaps law enforcement was hoping that he actually would lead them to Natalee's body. So they were waiting for this to play out a bit. They wanted some more give and take with him in order to find the body.
CROWLEY: CNN legal analyst Lisa Bloom, Lisa, thank you so much.
BLOOM: Thanks, Candy.
CROWLEY: "LARRY KING LIVE" starts in a few minutes. Tonight, Larry's special guest, LeBron James on his future. Everyone wants him. But will Cleveland get him after all?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": Do you lean at all toward the place you know the best? I mean, do they have an edge going in? Your home team?
LEBRON JAMES, NBA PLAYER: Absolutely. Absolutely. Because, you know, this city, these fans, I mean, has given me a lot in these seven years. You know, for me it's comfortable. So I got a lot of memories here, and so it does have an edge.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: And still ahead, that oil spill creeping toward the Florida Keys. How this spill is threatening generations of the gulf's most vulnerable victims -- its wildlife. That's next.
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CROWLEY: No matter how successful BP is in capping its oil gusher, the spill will continue to threaten gulf coast wildlife for months, and maybe years to come. Dolphins are washing up dead on the beach. Sea turtles have been found with oil clouding their eyes. Hundreds of dead birds have been carried away in plastic bags. And experts say it's just the tip of the iceberg.
Joining us now one of those experts, Doug Inkley, senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation.
Thank you so much, Mr, Inkley, for joining us. I have to ask you. We've all seen this. I mean, these pictures are pretty dreadful. And what I want to know is can birds like this, I mean, they're so covered with oil, it seems like the only thing they can do is blink their eyes. Can they survive?
DOUG INKLEY, NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION: Well, certainly, it's going to be very challenging to try to recover and release back to the wild these individual birds. There are other birds that have been less soiled and may -- they actually have a better chance of being returned to the wild. But it certainly is a heartbreaking scene. It's not something that I think any children should be exposed to. It's just heartbreaking.
CROWLEY: On the other hand, they say, there's a lesson here in, you know, what we do to kind of keep our lifestyle going, and then what the possible ramifications can be. But they are difficult to watch. Can you walk us through what happens when wildlife such as these, including these birds are still alive. Where are they taken? What do they do?
INKLEY: Well, the birds generally get into the oil because they're certainly not used to seeing it around. They don't recognize that it's any different than the water. In particular, these pelicans, they dive into the water from 30 or 40 or 50 feet, and they're fishing. As soon as they dive into that oil, they are covered with oil, and they don't really know what to do. When they are recovered by humans, what they are done is they are taken to a special facility where specialists that are specially trained in this can try to rehabilitate the birds, and hopefully eventually release them to the wild. Unfortunately, we've had a lot of mortality of fish and wildlife in this particular spill. Over 200 threatened and endangered sea turtles have died. There's now 31 deaths of dolphins. The sea turtle rate of death is six times what it is normally during this time of year. And the dolphins are dying at a rate twice what is normal because of this BP oil spill.
CROWLEY: I want, Mr. Inkley, to run through some of those numbers again just so our listeners can hear. We do know that as of today, along the gulf coast, more than 500 birds have been found dead and more than 200 sea turtles found dead. I know we can't say for sure they're dead because of the oil spill, but these are really abnormal numbers, correct?
INKLEY: Oh, these numbers are way beyond the normal. What we have to recognize is that even if there is not direct evidence of oil on them, it can be very hard to detect how oil might have affected them. If it's causing them to change their behavior and no longer feed, they may die of starvation. We certainly know that small bits of oil ingested by animals can change their behavior completely. So we need to be thinking about not only lethal impacts but sub-lethal impacts that can affect their ability to reproduce in the future.
CROWLEY: Is there any way that you can encapsulate for us the potential for damage to wildlife in this region?
INKLEY: The potential is -- it is hard to accurately describe that. There's a number of factors that we don't know. We don't know how far the oil is going to spread. We don't know when the oil spill is going to be stopped. And we don't know really what's happening under the water surface.
You mentioned that we were seeing only the tip of the iceberg. That's what we're seeing with the sea turtles. That's what we're seeing with these birds. But what about this entire marine ecosystem that runs from the surface down to 5,000 feet deep that supports shrimp fishing, the commercial fish shrimping that also supports endangered sperm whales, that supports the entire biological community that the gulf is so well-known for, and that is so important economically and recreationally.
CROWLEY: Doug Inkley, senior scientist for the National Wildlife Federation, thank you very much for joining us.
INKLEY: Thank you. CROWLEY: "LARRY KING LIVE" starts in just a few minutes. But first, shattered by the oil spill, a Vietnamese fishing community fights to be heard. Our series "The Right Stuff," next.
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CROWLEY: Every Friday we like to spotlight someone who stands out from the week's events, people with the right stuff to make our world just a little better. No shortage of folks like that in the gulf region right now.
Tonight, we focus on two young men trying to help one of the hardest hit groups, a Vietnamese fishing community outside New Orleans. These young men clearly have the right stuff.
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TUAN NGUYEN, VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY LEADER: My name is Tuan Nguyen. And I am from New Orleans. And I am the deputy director of the Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation.
MINH NGUYEN, VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY LEADER: My name is Minh Nguyen. I'm the executive director of the Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans.
And we've been traveling up and down the Gulf Coast to address the needs and issues of fishermen and to try to help them get through this very tough time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the best season that we get. And coming in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The beginning of the season is always the most -- they make the most money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the beginning of the season, they generally go to Louisiana waters to fish, but that's closed.
M. NGUYEN: This month he's saying that this month he would have made like from 30 to $40,000, just for this month.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
M. NGUYEN: That's what he made it last year. This boat is basically the revenue of the family. He has the -- he has three kids. And, you know, to -- for college, they have to pay for college, pay for food. Pay for everything. Their family depend on this boat.
We're meeting with people. People are trusting us, and basically, we're making sure that they have a voice.
T. NGUYEN: For example, we found out they needed assistance with food or utilities, we partnered up with Catholic charities and say hey, can you guys provide for the community. As we learn and we assess their needs, we try to address it as we're going through.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No work, no money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No work, no money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Say that again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No work, no money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know these are our community members. We feel and share their pain.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: That's it. Thanks for joining us. "LARRY KING LIVE" starts right now.
