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Obama: BP oil spill 'echoes 9/11'

By Felicity Spector

Updated on 14 June 2010

Arriving in Alabama, President Obama says the Gulf oil spill "echoes 9/11", as Channel 4 News Washington correspondent Sarah Smith reports on his preparations to introduce new legislation against 'big bad oil companies' later today.

BP oil spill: Obama says the Gulf disaster 'echoes 9 11' (Credit: Getty)

In an interview with the Politico website -  Obama said: "In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come."

The President promised to push for the kind of "future-orientated ... visionary energy policy that we so vitally need and has been absent for so long."

But he rejected criticism that he had not done enough to stop the oil spill getting out of control. 

"Presidents can't fabricate solutions out of thin air", he said.

Obama arrived in Biloxi, Mississippi yesterday on the first stage of his fourth visit to the Gulf coast that will also take in Alabama and Florida.

He will then make speech broadcast live from the Oval Office tonight, when he is due to describe the next steps his administration intends to take.

Channel 4 News Washington correspondent Sarah Smith said: "Before this spill the administration had just about given up on any chance of getting their proposed climate change legislation passed.

"They think this crisis might just resurrect their chances of passing a law that would charge companies for their carbon emissions.

"Tomorrow night we expect him to say that continued dependence on fossil fuels will jeopardise American national security and it will smother our planet.

"He's going to set his administration against 'big bad oil companies' like BP who he'll say have been trying to stop his climate change legislation and now it's time to overcome their opposition."

Dividend decision
BP's board members met yesterday to discuss whether to defer paying out this quarter's dividend in July, estimated to be worth £1.7bn. The company refused to comment on the meeting's outcome.

However the markets reacted badly. Shares in the oil giant finished nine per cent down to 355.45p.

BP shares have now dropped by almost half since the oil leak crisis began.

Millions of gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig blast killed 11 workers and blew out the well on 20 April: BP said the cost had already reached £1.1bn.

containment cap was placed on the damaged well earlier this month. It has now collected 127,000 barrels of oil.

Governors from the affected states have called for more leadership and better co-ordination from central government.

They have called for the oil giant to cover the cost of the wider economic damage, from the drop in wages and tax revenues from lost livelihoods, the damage to tourism and the immediate clear-up.

Obama now plans to make BP put aside more money for an independent panel to pay out compensation claims, although legal experts say it is not clear how much power he has to force the company to comply.

Whatever the legal position, Democrats in the Senate are due to back the President's demand later today in a letter to BP's boss Tony Hayward.

They will call for a £15bn account to be set up to cover the ongoing claims against the firm.

Yesterday, presidential aide David Axelrod told NBC's Meet the Press: "We'll stay on (BP) and make sure they are fully accountable."

Republicans remain on the offensive: the former Massachussetts governor Mitt Romney told a GOP state convention in Washington that Obama was "totally out of his depth in dealing with a crisis" - and accused him of a 'grievous failure of leadership'.

But it has not dented the President's poll ratings. Polls show around half of Americans approve of his performance - the same level he has been at since last autumn.

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