President Barack Obama yesterday criticised the “ridiculous spectacle” of oil industry officials pointing fingers of blame at each other for the catastrophic spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
He warned the accident could bring devastation to the region and pledged to end a “cosy relationship” between the oil industry and federal regulators that he said had existed for years.
As Mr Obama spoke in the White House Rose Garden, under-sea robots in the Gulf tried to thread a small tube into the jagged pipe that is spewing oil into the water. The blown-out well has pumped out more than four million gallons of crude.
BP engineers were trying to move the six-inch tube into the leaking 21-inch pipe, known as a riser. The smaller tube was to be surrounded by a stopper to keep oil from leaking into the sea.
BP said it hoped to know later if the tube succeeded in taking the oil to a tanker at the surface.
Mr Obama said he shared the “anger and frustration” felt by many Americans.
“We know there’s a level of uncertainty” but he said the administration’s response has “always been geared toward the possibility of a catastrophic event”.
The Gulf spill is not only a potential environmental and economic catastrophe. It also is a major political challenge for Mr Obama to demonstrate that his administration is doing everything it can to deal with the disaster.
A poll this week found that the spill has not damaged Mr Obama.
Mr Obama attacked BP and other companies responsible for the spill for pointing fingers at each other instead of accepting responsibility for the environmental and economic catastrophe in the Gulf.
But he said responsibility rests with the federal government too, saying oil drilling permits had been granted without appropriate environmental reviews.
The criticism came as BP boss Tony Hayward admitted yesterday that he could lose his job over the oil leak.
He said he felt no immediate pressure to stand down, but admitted his future depended on how his firm sorted the crisis.
Mr Hayward also revealed he had trouble sleeping and had received hate mail.