WASHINGTON, May 10 (UPI) -- President Obama has ordered a Cabinet-level team to head to Houston this week to meet with BP officials about the oil leak disaster, his spokesman said Monday.
Press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement Obama directed Energy Secretary Steven Chu to lead a team of top administration officials and government scientists in "an extensive dialogue with BP officials to continue to aggressively pursue potential solutions" to BP's ongoing Deepwater Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico that has threatened ecological mayhem on the Louisiana coast since an April 20 explosion sank the rig, killing 11 workers.
"President Obama remains committed to bringing any and all available resources to the Gulf of Mexico," Gibbs said after Obama met with a number of his Cabinet members and senior staff in the White House Situation Room.
"Throughout the week, the president will continue to dispatch additional Cabinet officials to the region. In addition, to deal more generally with the harms created by oil spills, the president has requested that we send legislation to Congress to toughen and update the law surrounding caps on damages."
Asked by reporters before the president's meeting whether Obama was running out of patience with efforts to plug the leak, including a failed attempt at placing a containment dome over the wellhead a mile below the surface, Gibbs replied: "Look, I'd -- obviously, the president would like any of the actions that have been taken to have thus far work. We understood -- and I think BP was somewhat out front on the notion that the chances of the containment dome working were, I think they said a one-in-three chance."
