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President Barack Obama is reassuring
people in Gulf Coast states that he's up to the enormous job of
helping them recover from the disastrous oil spill, laying the
groundwork for a prime-time speech Tuesday night. His chief
spokesman said Obama is poised to seize the handling of damage
claims from BP, if necessary.


      Spokesman Robert Gibbs appeared on morning news shows Tuesday as
Obama prepared for a second day of briefings - this time in Florida
- and as the president prepared to give an address at Pensacola
Naval Air Station and fly back to Washington for the 8 p.m. address
from the Oval Office.


      The aim of wresting claims-handling from BP, Gibbs said, would
be to make individuals and businesses "whole." The claims issue
is among several difficult problems that Obama will address
directly in the speech, his first from the Oval Office.


      Voicing increasing confidence in his ability to confront the
nation's worst environmental crisis, Obama was ready to outline a
comprehensive response and recovery program and was set to assure
not only the people from the afflicted region, but all the country
as well, that the administration will see to it that America
surmounts this crisis.


      On the matter of the disputed damage payments, Gibbs said, "We
have to get an independent claims process. I think everyone agrees
that we have to get BP out of the claims processes and, as I said,
make sure that fishermen, hotel owners have a fast, efficient and
transparent claims process so that they're getting their
livelihoods replaced."


      "This disaster has taken their ability to make a living away
from them," he said. "We need to do this quickly, and we have to
make sure that whatever money goes into that - that in no way caps
what BP is responsible for. Whatever money they owe to anybody in
the Gulf, they're going to have to pay regardless of the amount."


      He noted in one interview that Obama "has the legal authority"
to make the claims process independent. And Gibbs said "the best
way to prevail upon BP is to take the claims process away from
BP."


      "The president will either legally compel them," he said, "or
come to an agreement with BP to get out of the claims process, give
that to an independent entity."


      Obama's address to the nation sets the stage for his showdown
White House meeting Wednesday with top BP executives. BP leased the
rig that exploded April 20 and led to the leak of millions of
gallons of coast-devastating crude. It's part of an effort by
Obama, who's been accused of appearing somewhat detached as the oil
spill disaster has unfolded, to convince a frightened Gulf Coast
and a skeptical nation that he is in command.


      Obama was to deliver the speech upon his return from a two-day
swing through Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, his fourth trip to
the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion that
set off the disaster, but his first outside the hardest-hit state
of Louisiana.


      The trip gave him ammunition for the speech and for his meeting
with BP executives where he intends to finalize the details of a
victims compensation fund. He visited vacant beaches in Mississippi
where the threat of oil had scared off tourists, heard the stories
of local employers losing business, watched hazmat-suited workers
scrub down boom in a staging facility in Theodore, Ala., and took a
ferry ride through Mobile Bay and then to Orange Beach, Ala., where
oil has lapped on the shore.


      He was beginning the day Tuesday in Pensacola, Fla., where he
was to attend a briefing and then make remarks at Naval Air Station
Pensacola.


      "We're gathering up facts, stories right now so that we have an
absolutely clear understanding about how we can best present to BP
the need to make sure that individuals and businesses are dealt
with in a fair manner and a prompt manner," the president said
Monday.


      "I am confident that we're going to be able to leave the Gulf
Coast in better shape than it was before," he said.


      That pledge was reminiscent of George W. Bush's promise to
rebuild the region "even better and stronger" than before
Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Bush could not make good on that
promise, and Obama did not spell out how he would fulfill his.
Tuesday's speech will give him the chance.


      Presidents reserve the Oval Office for rare televised addresses.
When they take their place behind the desk, it's a time for
solemnity and straight talk - often a moment of history. There is a
sense of gravity. One man by himself before one television camera
speaking to the nation.


      Oval Office addresses typically aren't lengthy discourses like a
State of the Union, but if a president has to go for broke, this is
where he does it. Bush addressed the nation from the Oval on the
evening of Sept. 11, 2001. Ronald Reagan spoke there after the
space shuttle Challenger explosion. John F. Kennedy grimly
explained the Cuban missile crisis. Richard Nixon announced his
resignation.


      Obama hasn't used it yet. Not even during the worst economic
crisis since the Great Depression. Not to explain painfully high
unemployment rates. Or bank and auto company bailouts. Not to speak
of terrorism threats. Even when his health insurance plan was in
peril, he did not speak from the Oval Office to rally support or
explain to Americans why he considered it vital.


      Gibbs appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America," CBS's "The
Early Show," NBC's "Today" show and CNN.

Gallery

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Disasters

Environmental News

President Barack Obama is reassuring
people in Gulf Coast states that he's up to the enormous job of
helping them recover from the disastrous oil spill, laying the
groundwork for a prime-time speech Tuesday night. His chief
spokesman said Obama is poised to seize the handling of damage
claims from BP, if necessary.


White House: Obama ready to seize claims process

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