E2-Wire

Sen. Graham doesn’t fault Obama for not stopping oil leak off Gulf Coast

by Silla Brush - 06/12/10 3:18 PM ET

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he gives “fairly low marks” to
President Barack Obama’s handling of the BP oil spill, but said “nobody
could do any better” to stop the leak.

“We’re trying everything under the sun to stop the leak and
it’s not his fault that we can’t find a way to cap it,” Graham said in
an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt.”

{mosads}”I would give him fairly low marks in terms of
responding to the consequences of the spill,” he said, “but stopping
the leak, nobody could do it better.”

The gulf
oil spill began nearly two months ago after an explosion on the
Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The Obama administration has come under
heavy criticism for failing to respond quickly to the problem as BP
engineers and the federal government searched for weeks for a way to
contain the spill or plug the well.

A containment cap is currently placed on the oil
well, but millions of barrels of oil have already leaked into the gulf
and are beginning to wash ashore in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and
Florida.

The administration Friday also upped its estimate of the magnitude of the spill.

Earlier,
the administration estimated that between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels
were leaking each day. On Friday, the administration doubled those
numbers to between 25,000 and 30,000 barrels.

The administration said repeatedly that it was engaged on the oil spill since the beginning.

Obama
is slated to head to the gulf region on Monday for his fourth trip
since the spill began. Also, Obama is set to meet mid-week with top BP
officials.

Tags Barack Obama Lindsey Graham