CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript
Interview
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COOPER: We're continuing to follow breaking news tonight: Hurricane Alex hitting about 100 miles south of Brownsville, Texas, winds of 105 miles an hour as we mentioned. Rough seas from Alex have made it impossible to skim off oil from the water, burn it or effectively corral it with boom. The skimming boats are back in port. A big tanker that could be collecting another 25,000 barrels of oil a day cannot be hooked up. Until things calm down, they can't lay dispersants on the ocean's surface. So, there's nothing to stop the oil from coming onshore.
And with strong winds and high waves, the fear is that oil will be pushed deeper onshore or deeper into marshes. We'll have to see what the next few days bring.
Tonight, we are "Keeping Them Honest," the government and BP. With the hurricane approaching today, we wanted to know what the plan actually was for dealing with a hurricane in the Gulf. So, we asked the Unified Command, and a rear admiral we spoke to would not tell us, would not give us any details. He said the plan is constantly evolving and therefore constantly going out of date. Therefore, he wouldn't release it.
As for BP, new allegations tonight that the company has been yet again making it hard for independent scientists to do their jobs, to study what is really happening out there in the Gulf.
I say yet again because we have certainly seen this before, haven't we? BP, you remember, didn't release the video of the leak until weeks into the disaster, and only after being pressured to do so by members of Congress.
And we've heard directly on this program from a scientist on the team charged with measuring the flow rate, how much oil is actually leaking from the well. And he told us that BP held back high- resolution video from him and didn't let him -- them put sensors down underwater to help them measure the leak directly until the Coast Guard ordered them to a few weeks ago.
Tonight, new allegations that BP delayed handing over evidence that might suggest those deepwater plumes of oil came from its leaking well.
NOAA researchers have already reported that they do based on the preponderance of the evidence. But others from the University of South Florida wanted to be doubly sure. So, they asked BP for oil samples from the well to do what they call chemical fingerprinting.
According to the congresswoman you're about to meet, they didn't get the oil until more than three weeks later, and only after she and several other lawmakers interceded on the university's behalf, actually long after she interceded. She pressed BP on the 9th of June. Researchers got the oil on the 25th. It's stuff you could send overnight.
It's not like BP didn't have any oil lying around. They didn't exactly have to drill for it. Hundreds of gallons a minute were being collected on the surface. Yet, days after researchers asked for vital material, and more than two full weeks after an elected representative of the people demanded it, that's how long it took for BP to come clean.
Congresswoman Kathy Castor was the lawmaker who spearheaded the push for samples from BP. And she joins me now.
Congresswoman, why did it take three weeks and pressure from you and other Florida lawmakers to get BP to just simply hand over oil to scientists?
REP. KATHY CASTOR (D), FLORIDA: Well, the delay was unconscionable.
I mean, since the BP oil blowout in the Gulf, our researchers and scientists from Florida colleges and some universities have been tracking the oil, the impact on marine life. They confirmed deep-sea oil plume that was discounted by BP, and then requested an oil sample that was met with resistance from BP.
COOPER: And, when you finally met with BP, I mean, they -- they blamed it on, what, a miscommunication?
CASTOR: Well, they said it was a miscommunication. But we have e-mails that demonstrate that the person involved put up a great deal of resistance and in fact, insisted that he receive all of the data from the University of South Florida scientists, implying that no oil sample would be forthcoming and really just show them -- show them their hand.
So, I met with BP executives the day after I learned about this in my office and pressed them. They said it was a miscommunication, that they would provide the oil sample, and yet it took three weeks to get that oil sample.
COOPER: It does seem -- and I mean I hate to say this but it seems that from the start, from the earliest moments of this thing, BP has gone out of its way to avoid providing scientists with the data that they need to study this leak.
I mean, it's one thing for them not to come on to this program or not to be transparent with journalists, not to be transparent with the American people, but to deny the very scientists who are studying this, in many crucial ways, whether it's the videotape, trying to determine the flow rate, or these underwater plumes, to deny them evidence that they need, scientific evidence, just seems incredible.
CASTOR: Yes. We need that -- we needed that oil sample to provide the direct link from the wellhead to the oil flowing on to Florida's beaches and Gulf Coast beaches.
But they also can analyze the molecular fingerprint of the oil to determine how it will evolve over time, how it will affect marine life, how it will affect the water column, especially since we've never used this amount of dispersant on a -- on an oil blowout before.
These are critical questions that we need the answers to. And when they delay three weeks that means we're further behind in addressing the terrible impacts of this disaster.
COOPER: All right, Congresswoman Kathy Castor, I appreciate you being on tonight. Thank you very much.
CASTOR: Thank you.
COOPER: Up next, more than 2,000 oil-skimming boats in the country, so why are there only about 500 in the Gulf, where the oil actually is? We're "Keeping Them Honest" tonight.
Also, Alex, the latest developments on that, reports from the shore and the Weather Center on Hurricane Alex, its 100-mile-an-hour winds now battering land.
We will be right back.
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