As oil plumes threatened Floridas Panhandle shoreline Monday, the region prepared for a presidential visit in hopes of bolstering oversight and jump-starting cleanup efforts.
President Barack Obama is scheduled to spend the night in Pensacola Monday in preparation for a local tour Tuesday and a national address later Tuesday from the Oval Office in which he is expected to ask BP to set aside billions in cash to pay for future cleanup efforts.
Facing mounting pressure following weeks of frustratingly slow results, Obama is expected to turn up the heat on the oil drilling giant to set up an escrow account to make it easier for business and individuals to collect for damages brought on by the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Obama began a three-state tour Monday in Mississippi, the first leg of a trip that also included the Mobile area and Pensacola, to bolster his presence over a disaster that threatens Floridas coastal environmental and$60 billion a year tourism industry
Sen. George Lemieux, R-Florida, is expected to join Gov. Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, the front-running Democratic candidate for governor, in meeting with the president during his Pensacola visit.
The visit may be welcome by those who say the president hasnt been engaged enough in the disaster, but it likely wont be to morning commuters. Portions of U.S. 98 including the three-mile bridge between Gulf Breeze and downtown Pensacola will be shut down to traffic beginning at 8 a.m. CDT Tuesday. Road closures will begin Monday evening.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Sink rival for governor, is meeting Tuesday afternoon at the Capitol with former attorneys general Jim Smith and Bob Butterworth, who are leading a group looking into the states legal options as it considers filing suit against the oil company to pay claims. The meeting begins at 2 p.m. EDT.
LeMieux and several other Republicans are pressing Obama to waive portions of the Jones Act, a federal law that sets maritime rules for shipping within U.S. waters, to make it easier for internationally flagged skimmer ships to begin work in the Gulf.
We need as much help as we can get in cleaning up the Gulf, LeMieux said. There is no reason why every single skimmer vessel should not be heading to the Gulf to skim the oil. Preventing the oil from washing ashore and creating even more damage is what we need to be focused on in the next few weeks.
Also Monday, Lawton Bud Chiles, son of the late governor and himself a no-party gubernatorial candidate, is calling on BP to pay a bounty to citizens who recover oil and tar balls on the beaches and in the Gulf.
Chiles said a per-gallon or per-pound cash incentive would give thousands of citizens an opportunity and an incentive to participate in the cleanup efforts.
Florida remains on a heightened emergency response alert as it waits for probable landfall of a large plume of weathered oil that now sits ominously close to Floridas Panhandle.
Scientists have estimated that between 40 million and 100 million gallons of oil have been released into the Gulf since the BP-operated drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, killing 11 workers
Earlier Monday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission closed a 23-mile stretch of coastline from Pensacola Beach water tower to the Alabama state line to fishing. The ban extends nine miles into the Gulf.
