BP says it has permanently capped the ruptured oil well. But Adm. Thad Allen tells American Morning's John Roberts that there's still a lot of work to do to ensure cleanup operations continue.
Roberts: "As of Friday, there [were] still 2,600 vessels out there, 2,500 people working on cleanup operations. How long will that process go on?
Allen: As long as it takes to get the marshes and the beaches clean. We have detailed plans we've negotiated with the states and the parishes in Louisiana. In some areas, we're going to stay with this for quite a while. They still have oil in them; we still need to work on it. And some of these places we're going to have to agree on when we agree nothing further can be done. But right now, we're still at it."
Roberts: BP has left open the possibility of drilling into the reservoir again. Certainly there's an awful lot of oil beneath the sea floor there. But the question many people might have is after what happened with that well, is it a good idea to tap back into that reservoir?
Allen: I think whether they tap back into that reservoir or not will be something between BP and the Department of Interior. That's a policy decision. Frankly, it's above my pay grade. But through the joint investigative team and the reviews going on, not only deep sea drilling, but the response itself, there'll be a high level of assurance taken by the government before any decision is made.
Roberts: What's your personal sense of it after being involved so long? Should they go back down there?
Allen: I think we've got a lot of problems with energy in this country related to fossil fuels and [there's a] need to move to other types of fuels. This will have to be a balanced discussion taking in the need to have an energy policy moving forward as we transition to more environmentally friendly fuels.
U.S. officials formally declared an end to the worst oil spill in U.S. history Sunday, a milestone that followed nearly five months of dashed hopes and blistering criticism of nearly everyone involved.
Well owner BP began final cementing operations to permanently plug the blowout on Friday. Pressure tests conducted early Sunday confirmed the cement was holding, and the Interior Department agency that regulates offshore drilling pronounced the well dead at 5:54 a.m. (6:54 a.m. ET), former Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said in a statement issued Sunday morning.
A laughing gull wallows in sludge in June on East Grand Terre Island, Louisiana.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the first time is breaking down the species of oiled birds collected - alive and dead - in the Gulf of Mexico since the April 20 BP well blowout.
As of Tuesday, 4,676 birds had been collected; 3,634 of those were dead. Of the dead birds, 1,226 were visibly oiled.
Of the dead birds, the largest numbers are laughing gulls (1,591), followed by brown pelicans (376) and northern gannets (182). FULL POST
Outgoing BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward denied Wednesday that cost-saving was the reason his company put only one blowout preventer on the well that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, leading to one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history.
"There was no decision of that sort that was taken to save money," he said.
He said the blowout preventer that failed "should have functioned" and the industry needs to understand why it did not.
If it had worked as it was designed to, the consequences of the April explosion on the Deepwater Horizon "could have been very different," said top BP executive Bernard Looney.
Hayward insisted that the company encourages staff to speak up, saying BP focused on "creating the right environment so that people feel they can raise their hand and speak up with respect to safety."
The BP executives were testifying before a British parliamentary committee investigating the implications of the Gulf oil disaster on deepwater drilling.
Tea Party victories – The Tea Party movement basked in the glow of victory Wednesday after its favorites won two primary elections the night before over more mainstream Republicans, demonstrating again the clout of the political right.
Now the question is whether the right-wing candidates can also defeat Democratic rivals in November's congressional elections, when the stakes are higher and the full electorate is deciding. The result highlighted the last major day of primary voting before the upcoming election in just under seven weeks. We take a look at the result and impact of the big races in Delaware, New Hampshire, Washington, D.C. and New York, as well as why the wins meant a big night for Sarah Palin.
And our columnists and analysts weigh on why Christine O'Donnell's win is good for Dems, why midterms matter, and what these races mean for the general election in November.
The Justice Department expects to sue BP for damages from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to a filing made Monday night with the U.S. District Court in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Justice Department attorneys told the court it might seek claims under the Oil Pollution Act, which was enacted in 1990 after the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, and the Clean Water Act, which gives the government the right to seek potentially huge penalties.
– From CNN's Alan Chenoff
BP has begun drilling its first relief well, the company announced in a statement Monday.
Drilling began at 2:40 p.m. ET after a sleeve was successfully installed over the well over the weekend.
[Updated at 3:08 p.m.] BP released the findings of its internal investigation Wednesday into the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. Some highlights from the report and reaction to it:
NEW
– Cement contractor Halliburton said in a statement that it has noticed "a number of substantial omissions and inaccuracies" in the BP report.
– "Halliburton remains confident that all the work it performed with respect to the Macondo well was completed in accordance with BP's specifications for its well construction plan and instructions, and that it is fully indemnified under its contract for any of the allegations contained in the report." the company said.
– "Deepwater operations are inherently complex and a number of contractors are involved which routinely make recommendations to a single point of contact, the well owner." Halliburton said. "The well owner is responsible for designing the well program and any testing related to the well. Contractors do not specify well design or make decisions regarding testing procedures as that responsibility lies with the well owner."
REACTION
– "I wouldn't want to comment on the timing or what the intent was of the BP report," said retired Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the response to the disaster. "I would just say the more we know about this event in general, the better off we are." He said the report will add to a larger body of evidence that won't be complete until the joint investigation by the Interior Department and other investigations are finished, "but it's not the end-all be-all that's going to have to be done to address the issues associated with this event, why it happened and what needs to happen in the future."
Islamic center imam speaks – The imam at the center of the controversy over an Islamic center near New York's ground zero is speaking out as a broad coalition of Christian, Jewish and Islamic leaders this week denounced what they described as a rising tide of anti-Muslim bigotry across the United States.
CNN's Soledad O'Brien has an exclusive interview with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf on "Larry King Live" at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday. Submit questions for the imam via iReport here.
Scientists have found a decline in oxygen levels in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP oil spill but have found no "dead zones" as a result, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration reported Tuesday.
Levels of dissolved oxygen in deep water have dropped about 20 percent below their long-term average, according to data collected from up to 60 miles from the well at the center of the massive oil spill. But much of that dip appears to be the result of microbes using oxygen to dissolve oil underwater, and the decline is not enough to be fatal to marine life, said Steve Murawski, the head of a NOAA-led group examining the spill's impact.
"Even the lowest observations in all of these was substantially above the threshold," Murawski said.
Crews removed the cap from BP's ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well late Thursday afternoon, a company spokeswoman said, an important step toward permanently sealing the well.
The operation was the first step in removing the blowout preventer, said BP spokeswoman Jessie Baker. That device failed spectacularly in April, triggering a deadly explosion and oil spill.
Officials planned to replace the blowout preventer with a new one, a major step toward a final fix.
The cap removal was "an important step in the process to remove and preserve the damaged BOP [blowout preventer]," said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man on the oil disaster. He said work on removing the damaged blowout preventer was expected to commence Thursday night.
Hurricane Earl – With North Carolina's Outer Banks in its sights, large and powerful Hurricane Earl prepared Thursday to take a swipe at the Eastern Seaboard. Hurricane warnings and watches stretched from North Carolina to Delaware as well as covering parts of Massachusetts.
President Obama signed a disaster declaration for North Carolina on Wednesday evening. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley also signed an emergency declaration earlier Wednesday. Hurricane models have the Category 4 storm passing close to the Outer Banks on Thursday night, the National Hurricane Center said. Check out the projected path, pictures, and video
T.I., wife arrested – Police arrested rapper T.I. and his wife in California after they were allegedly found in possession of a controlled substance. The couple was arrested late Wednesday during a traffic stop in Los Angeles, according to a police report.
Philippe Cousteau on a beach in the Gulf of Mexico, surrounded by oil.
It has been an interesting week to say the least regarding the Gulf oil disaster. I watched the headlines respond to the decidedly rosy perspective of the feds and BP that only last week claimed that the worst was behind us and that most of the oil has been cleaned up or naturally dissipated.
As many of us warned, those predictions were premature at best, and this week, new science is emerging that suggests this is only the end of the beginning. The whole debacle reminds me of the Aesop's Fable of the tortoise and the hare. You know, the one where the arrogant hare who can easily outrun the tortoise ends up losing the race because, confident he will outrun the tortoise, he takes a nap, oversleeps and loses.
Attributed to a Greek slave who lived in the mid-sixth century BC in ancient Greece, this fable is one of hundreds that have stood the test of time. They have been translated throughout the millennia into countless languages and still hold true today.
The federal government has reopened 4,281 square miles of federal waters off the western coast of Louisiana to commercial and recreational fishing, according to Dr. Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Gulf Coast Claims Facility "is fully functioning and will begin to process claims for emergency payment," according to a Monday press
release.
The independent agency, headed by attorney Kenneth Feinberg - who
handled the 9/11 victims' compensation fund - was established in June as part of an agreement between the Obama administration and BP to facilitate processing of the personal and business claims from those affected by the Gulf oil disaster stemming from the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20.
BP said last week that it was no longer accepting claims as the
transition to the new entity was taking place. The oil giant, which said it has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in claims so far, will continue to handle claims put in by government entities.
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said they detected a plume of hydrocarbons in June that was at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
According to the institution, the 1.2-mile-wide, 650-foot-high plume of trapped hydrocarbons provides at least a partial answer to recent questions asking where all the oil has gone as surface slicks shrink and disappear.
"These results indicate that efforts to book-keep where the oil went must now include this plume" in the Gulf, said Christopher Reddy, a Woods Hole marine geochemist and oil spill expert. He is one of the authors of the study, which appears in the Aug. 19 issue of the journal Science.
[Updated at 5:49 p.m.] Roger Clemens has released the following via Twitter:
"I never took HGH or Steroids. And I did not lie to Congress. I look forward to challenging the Governments accusations, and hope people will keep an open mind until trial. I appreciate all the support I have been getting. I am happy to finally have my day in court."
[Posted at 2:23 p.m.] Major league pitcher Roger Clemens was indicted for obstruction of Congress and other charges Thursday related to statements he made to a congressional committee in 2008.
The charges stem from a 2008 appearance by Clemens and his former trainer, Brian McNamee, before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In their sworn testimony, the two contradicted each other, with Clemens denying that he used performance-enhancing drugs.
McNamee's testimony, as well as a report by former Sen. George Mitchell, stated that Clemens had in fact used banned substances at points in his career.
Clemens has not pitched since 2007. He had a stellar career playing for the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, Houston Astros and New York Yankees. He was the first pitcher to win seven Cy Young awards. Clemens posted a record of 354-184 over 24 seasons.
SI.com: How Clemens will defend himself against perjury charge
SI.com video: Clemens indicted
SI. com photo gallery: Clemens through the years
SI.com photo gallery: Clemens on Capitol Hill
SI.com photo gallery: Sports figures who were prosecuted by the feds
If all goes as planned, the "bottom kill" operation to permanently plug the ruptured underwater well in the Gulf of Mexico should be complete by the week after Labor Day, Thad Allen, the government's point man for the oil disaster, told CNN Thursday.
In the last 48 hours, a sequence of actions has been agreed upon, Allen told CNN's "American Morning." Those include flushing out the current blowout preventer, looking for material that may cause a problem, then put a new blowout preventer on and conduct the "bottom kill" operation.
"This will ensure that we can withstand any pressures that may be generated," Allen said. "If all that lines up, we should be looking at the week after Labor Day."
Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the oil disaster, has authorized BP to replace the existing blowout preventer with a new one. The changes will come prior to the completion of a relief well and the eventual "bottom kill" operation intended to permanently plug the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico.
Earlier, Allen told CNN the "bottom kill" operation should be complete by the week after Labor Day.
The forecast comes as scientists, professors and members of seafood organizations prepare to testify at a hearing on the safety of Gulf seafood before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
The spill began after an April 20 explosion on the offshore drilling platform Deepwater Horizon that killed 11 men. Two days later, the platform sank and oil started gushing into the Gulf. The broken well was temporarily capped July 15, but a bottom kill, to be carried out by way of a relief well, is considered the final solution.
Dr. Laura to call it quits – Embattled radio talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger says she will not renew her contract that is up at the end of the year, telling CNN's "Larry King Live" she wants to "regain my First Amendment rights."
Schlessinger, 63, has been under fire for using the N-word repeatedly during an on-air conversation last week with a caller.
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