The oil bosses were grilled on safety practices by members of the Senate Energy Committee, with committee chairman Jeff Bingaman saying it appeared the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that triggered the oil slick was due to a “cascade of errors, technical, human and regulatory.”The hearings are set to continue on Wednesday, the same day a group of activists called Seize BP plans demonstrations at the company’s offices and other sites across the United States to demand the government freeze its assets to ensure payment for the cleanup and compensation for those hurt by the spill.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama is “deeply frustrated” that the oil leak in the Gulf has not yet been stopped three weeks after the blast. There are fears it could become the worst oil spill in US history with staggering ecological and economic consequences for fisheries, beaches, wildlife and tourism in at least four states. BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said that some oil had begun washing on the Louisiana shoreline. For some Gulf residents, life went on. Alabama residents were taking a “wait and see” approach to tar balls that washed up on the shore of a popular local beach on Dauphin Island, which government officials have not yet confirmed were linked to the spill. “The water is pretty clear ... fishing is still good,” angler Clyde Willis said.
The fight to contain the slick went on in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, whose fishing and tourism industries are already feeling the pinch, while BP readied another potential subsea fix. But the US government is concerned about whether enough protective booms are being provided to adequately defend the US Gulf Coast shoreline from a massive oil spill, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Tuesday. “We have some concerns about getting adequate boom,” she told reporters during a visit to Mobile, Alabama, referring to the plastic barriers that are being strung along the coast to keep the oil off the shore.
