Poll: Majority of Americans fault Obama’s handling of Gulf oil spill
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With polls showing that a majority of Americans say that they believe President Obama is doing a poor or very poor job handling the oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, the president on Thursday will meet reporters to discuss energy issues as part of a three-day campaign to defuse the touchy political issue.
A USA Today/Gallup poll published Thursday shows that 53% of those surveyed give Obama poor marks in handling the crisis while 43% give him a positive grade.
Though critical of Obama, voters were even harsher about the federal government and BP, the owner of the well. According to the poll, 60% said the federal response was poor and 73% blamed BP.
The findings are based on telephone interviews conducted May 24, and May 25, before the current “top kill” effort to staunch the flow of oil into the gulf. A random sample of 1,049 adults were surveyed, and the results have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The current crisis has been especially nettlesome to Obama, whose approval rating has generally been below 50% this year, the sophomore period of his first term.
The administration has insisted that the law gives the federal government only oversight responsibility for plugging the well and the cleanup and that BP would be held fully responsible.
Local officials, however, have complained that the federal response has been too slow in helping with cleanup issues. There have been calls to “federalize” the incident and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar threatened to push BP aside so that the federal government could take a more direct role.
Such a takeover is not realistic, said Incident Cmdr. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who noted at a White House briefing that the federal government lacked the resources and expertise to replace the company.
With the federal response increasingly under fire, the Obama administration has tried to attack the political problems by first showing it is concerned. Top Cabinet officials such as Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, have repeatedly visited the scene since a deep-water rig sank at the end of April, precipitating the crisis that has poured millions of gallons of oil into the gulf.
Obama has already visited once and is scheduled to return to the gulf on Friday.
The administration has also pushed to reshape the safety rules and has forced out top officials within the Interior Department, which has oversight of off-shore drilling issues. In addition, the administration has tried to use the disaster to push its agenda for more alternative energy and for a climate bill pending in the Senate.
Obama in California on Wednesday gave a taste of how the administration is handling the crisis, by pushing for his energy agenda. He again called the gulf leak heartbreaking and a disaster while talking tough about holding BP responsible.
According to the Gallup poll, 37% of those surveyed said the situation will be “the worst environmental disaster in 100 years,” while about the same number (35%) call it a disaster, but not the worst.
-- Michael Muskal
Twitter.com/LATimesmuskal
