'Top Kill:' Engineers Try to Control Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill; Louisiana Asks for More Help
May 26, 2010— -- Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said today that his state doesn't have what it needs to fight the spread of BP's oil.
"We need more boom, more skimmers, more jack-up barges," Jindal said at an angry news conference in Venice, Louisiana, complaining that Louisiana has received a fraction of the supplies it requested to protect itself from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
"More than 100 miles of our shoreline has been impacted by the oil spill. That is more than the entire sea coastline of Mississippi and Alabama combined," the governor said.
Democratic strategist James Carville, a Louisiana native, joined Jindal on a tour of coastal areas today, seeing firsthand the effect of the oil on the marshlands. Carville said he hoped that President Obama would take a similar tour when he visits the region on Friday.
"This is not oil, this is crude," said Carville. "This is not what you put in your car, this is some of the most vicious stuff you can imagine."
Jindal joked that he wants Obama to pack hard boom onto Air Force One and bring it with him on Friday, but the governor was serious about his promise to move forward with building barrier islands without the federal government's permission.
"We cannot let bureaucracy and red tape delay our action while oil hits our wetlands week after week," he said.
While the governor asks for more supplies, a number of countries said today that the U.S. government and BP had yet to take them up on offers of assistance, including booms and skimmers.
The State Department said in a briefing today that 17 countries had offered assistance, including Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Vietnam.
BP added another two countries to that list, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
While BP has accepted some supplies, including booms and skimmers from Norway, most other countries said they were waiting for a response from the U.S. government.
"We have the equipment," said Ferran Tarradellas, a spokesman for the European Union agency coordinating Europe's response, "but at this point in time, we have not received any requests."
