Feds: Government can’t push BP aside

May 25, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

COVINGTON, La.

The Obama administration’s point man on the oil spill rejected the notion of removing BP and taking over the crisis Monday, saying the government has neither the company’s expertise nor its deep-sea equipment.

“To push BP out of the way would raise a question, to replace them with what?” Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen, who is heading the federal response to the spill, said at a White House briefing.

The White House is facing increasing questions about why the government can’t assert more control over the handling of the catastrophe, which unfolded after a BP offshore drilling rig blew up April 20.

All of BP’s attempts to stop the leak have failed, despite the oil giant’s use of joystick-operated submarine robots that can operate at depths no human could withstand. Millions of gallons of brown crude are now coating birds and other wildlife and fouling the Louisiana marshes.

BP is pinning its hopes of stopping the gusher on yet another technique never tested 5,000 feet underwater: a “top kill,” in which heavy mud and cement would be shot into the blown-out well to plug it up. The top kill could begin as early as Wednesday, with BP CEO Tony Hayward giving it a 60 percent to 70 percent chance of success.

Allen said federal law dictated that BP had to operate the cleanup, with the government overseeing its efforts.

“They’re exhausting every technical means possible to deal with that leak,” he said. “I am satisfied with the coordination that’s going on.”

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar suggested over the weekend that the government could intervene aggressively if BP wasn’t delivering. “If we find that they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately,” he said.

But asked about that comment Monday, Allen said: “That’s more of a metaphor.”

Allen said BP and the government are working closely together, with the government holding veto power and adopting an “inquisitorial” stand toward the company’s ideas. The commandant also said the government has the authority to tell BP what to do, and such orders carry the force of law.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also took a more measured tone at a news conference Monday in Galliano, La., with Salazar and six U.S. senators who had flown over the coast to see the damage. “We continue to hold BP responsible as the responsible party, but we are on them, watching them,” she said.