CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript
Interview
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Congressman Scalise joins me now.
Congressman, are you surprised? I mean, if -- if in fact, BP early on had an estimate, an internal estimate of 40,000 to 60,000 would that surprise you? I mean, isn't that shocking, if -- if, in fact, they had that estimate? Because, basically, that's the estimate the governor -- the government has now gotten to and it's taken, you know, 57 or so days to get that estimate.
REP. STEVE SCALISE (R), LOUISIANA: Well -- and Anderson, you're exactly right.
You know, they have literally just underestimated and downplayed the severity of this damage from day one. And, in many ways, it's helped -- it's hurt our ability to mitigate the disaster, to protect our marshes from the oil, because we -- we've seen from early off that there is a tremendous amount of oil coming out of this well and ultimately it works its way into our marshes.
Our goal from the beginning has been to protect our marshes, to stop the oil from coming in, so we don't have this devastation to our marshes, our ecosystems and our seafood beds.
But, clearly, BP and the federal government, I think, both have downplayed and underestimated the devastation of this from day one.
COOPER: And the reason, as you point out, is why it matters is because it has affected the cleanup effort. All along, they -- the government, NOAA and BP, most notably -- were saying, well, look, we're planning for a worst-case scenario.
But we all know, if they had planned for a worst-case scenario, we wouldn't be waiting now, for larger containment vessels to be getting online, to be getting out to the site by mid-July, so that they can actually contain the oil -- or you know, a percentage of all the oil that's flowing out.
SCALISE: Right. And if they would have said from day one that 60,000 barrels of oil was the worst-case scenario that was coming out of this well -- you know, we came up with a plan early off. Our Governor, Bobby Jindal, Billy Nungesser, other leaders on the ground came up with a plan early off to put these sand barriers in front of our marsh because we said we're not going to sit back and wait until the oil hits the marsh before we do something.
We want to stop the oil from coming into the marsh, because we know it's a much harder problem to battle at that point.
COOPER: Yes. SCALISE: And yet we were denied and it took over three weeks before the federal government even approved it. And still, to this day, more than 75 percent of that plan has yet to be approved, including Barataria Bay.
And Anderson, I know you've been out there on Grand Isle. All of that area just about a week ago, when I was out there, they didn't have oil in Barataria Bay. Today, there is oil in Barataria Bay. And we wanted to protect those marshes and ecosystems from the oil. And we were denied that ability from both BP and the federal government.
COOPER: Yes. And you've got local officials right now literally buying HVACs at Home Depot-type stores and trying to suck it up and deal with the oil themselves.
Congressman, I want to ask you about -- about your frustrations today, about what you thought of Tony Hayward's testimony today. I just want to play for our viewers just some of your questioning today of Hayward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCALISE: I want to ask you, who is in charge on the ground?
TONY HAYWARD, CEO, BP GROUP: The National Incident Commander is the person in charge of this operation.
SCALISE: So is the federal government telling you what to do? Are you telling the Incident Commander what to do? When our local officials say we need something approved, do they need to get the Incident Commander and your approval? Because they're getting run around in circles right now.
HAYWARD: Well, we're trying to -- we're not being perfect, so I acknowledge that. And we're trying very hard to do better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: They're not being perfect.
What did you think of Tony Hayward today?
SCALISE: Well, you could tell that -- that he came really just -- just, I think, prepared to obfuscate. He didn't answer most of the questions.
And I mean, frankly, I wanted to see a sense of urgency from Tony Hayward. I still, to this day -- for over a month now, I have not seen the sense of urgency from BP or the federal government in the fact that you need a change -- chain of command where decisions can get made quickly.
And, Anderson, what I mean with that is, in -- within a day, within 24 hours from when our local officials say, this is what we need to solve this problem, they -- they right now are taking over five days. COOPER: And you are not seeing that? That -- that chain of command -- is that right, five days, that's your estimate? Because, I mean, early on --
SCALISE: It's taking five days, what most leaders are telling me.
COOPER: Weeks ago, when the President came here on the second trip, that was supposed to be cleared up. The local officials were getting Coast Guard representatives, who allegedly could make decision-making -- had decision-making authority. You're saying that's not happening?
SCALISE: No.
And, in fact, just a few days ago, one of the leaders on the ground said that he is spending more of his time fighting with the federal government and BP than he is fighting the oil. There's no excuse for that.
I mean, we're -- we're now two months into this disaster, and you still have this problem on the ground where our local leaders -- and, I mean -- look, Anderson, one of the big frustrations is our local leaders seem to be the only ones who were coming up with ideas to protect our marsh from the oil.
All they're being told from both BP and the federal government is no. And they just find too many ways to say no, instead of having real alternatives. They don't have any alternatives. All they do is tell our folks, well, there's reasons why we don't want to do this or that, instead of saying, we want to work with you to stop this problem from getting into the marshes and the ecosystems here in the Coast of Louisiana.
COOPER: Congressman, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you very much.
SCALISE: Thank you, Anderson.
COOPER: We're going to have a lot more ahead tonight on Tony Hayward's testimony, in case you missed it, some really interesting moments. We'll show you.
You can also join the live chat right now under way at AC360.com, talk to viewers in the region and around the world right now.
On the hot seat -- well, hot seat doesn't really begin to describe where Hayward found himself today. He was accused of stone- walling, being ill-prepared and appearing distant -- the highlights and maybe lowlights ahead.
Plus, a maddening example of bureaucracy getting in the way in Louisiana, according to the governor, these vacuums were working just fine to clean up the oil -- not cleaning up huge amounts of oil, but, you know, making a dent. So, why did the Coast Guard shut them down? That story ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Dramatic pictures out on the Gulf today. I mean it happens all the time, but we don't really often see it, mega-burns where booms are used to gather large amounts of surface oil and then intentionally ignited.
The Coast Guard says each of these burns between 2,000 and 2,500 hundreds barrels of oil. There's another image which is actually taken below the water. It's a wide-angle shot from the spill cam. It was only viewable for a short time this afternoon.
But it really shows kind of the -- the magnitude of the oil flow. It's the widest shot we frankly seen. And it's our first look at it.
Questions about oil spill containment and cleanup were fired at BP CEO Tony Hayward today on Capitol Hill. As we talked about earlier with the Congressman, there was a relentless grilling, laced with a lot of anger and frustration.
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