Daily News Inc | Obama to outline oil plans in first Oval Office speech

President Obama said Tuesday that the Gulf oil spill "is an unprecedented environmental disaster" that will be met with an "unprecedented response."

"This is an assault on our shores and we're going to fight back with everything we've got," he said during a visit with military personnel at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida.

The administration "will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes" to deal with the spill, he said.

Obama repeated a pledge to force BP to provide economic compensation for the economic damage caused by the spill.

In his first Oval Office speech Tuesday night, Obama will lay out a game plan for dealing with the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, a White House spokesman said.

"First and foremost, how do we contain the leaking oil and restore the Gulf and clean up the beaches," said Robert Gibbs. "Secondly, what do we do to make the people of the Gulf whole again through an economic claim process that processes claims quickly, efficiently and transparently?"

Gibbs said, "What we outline tonight will be the beginning of the process to restore the Gulf, not just the way it was the day the rig exploded, but years ago."

He said Obama also will use the symbolically powerful Oval Office setting to discuss with the nation ways to reduce America's dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil.

In his speech, Obama also is expected to name an oil recovery czar who will oversee the cleanup process, Gibbs told ABC News

Obama on Monday told residents in Theodore, Alabama, that "it's going to take time for things to return to normal."

"This region that's known a lot of hardship will bounce back just like it's bounced back before. We're going to do everything we can, 24/7, to make sure communities get back on their feet.

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

Obama's speech comes on the eve of a highly anticipated meeting Wednesday between Obama and top BP officials in which they are expected to discuss a new structure for processing damage claims from the disaster.

David Axelrod, Obama's senior adviser, has said a new claims plan would call for an independent third party to handle the process, and a White House spokesman said the administration is confident it has the legal authority to force BP to set up an escrow account for the purpose of paying damages.

Obama said Monday that preliminary talks on the restructuring already had begun, but he was cautious about how much progress could be made before Wednesday's meeting and declined to elaborate on any possible agreement.

Obama continued his Gulf Coast visit Tuesday with a stop in Florida's Panhandle, where some beaches have started to see signs of oil as crude continues to gush from a ruptured deepwater well.

On his fourth trip to the region since oil began spewing from the well in April, Obama is expected to express support for oil-affected communities and U.S. troops while at Pensacola's Naval Air Station Tuesday morning, an administration official said.

Meanwhile Tuesday, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, began to grill executives from five major oil companies on Capitol Hill. The witness list for Tuesday's hearing of his House Energy and Environment subcommittee includes chief executives of BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell Oil.

At the hearing's start, Markey blasted the companies for producing oil disaster response plans that he said are "virtually identical."

They all tout "ineffective identical equipment" and often use "the exact same words" in their plans, the lawmaker said. The companies have spent "zero time and money" in developing adequate response blueprints, he asserted.

Markey, a longtime opponent of offshore drilling and vocal critic of BP's response to the oil disaster, said the purpose of the hearing is to "establish whether or not BP is the rule or the exception" in terms of its ability to respond to a massive oil spill.

Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, slammed Democrats, arguing that the hearing was merely an "excuse for passing even more regulations" and increasing energy taxes "under the guise of clean energy."

The Democrats are pushing an agenda that will further "cripple the economy," Burgess said.

As efforts continued to clean up the oil, BP turned to a new source for help on Monday: actor Kevin Costner.

The company ordered 32 machines designed by Costner, who said they separate oil from water and recycle the crude at the same time.

"This is the key, it's the linchpin to people going back to work. It's certainly a way to fight oil spills in the 21st century," Costner said in an exclusive interview on CNN's "AC360°."

Obama spent much of Monday touring Mississippi and Alabama, assuring Gulf Coast residents that the "full resources of the federal government are being mobilized to confront" the disaster that has emptied beaches, docked fishing boats and ruined precious marshlands.

Political pressure on BP has been mounting as frustration levels of coastal residents rise.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, along with most other Senate Democrats, sent a letter to embattled BP chief Tony Hayward on Monday, urging the company to set aside $20 billion for the purposes of covering both economic damages and Gulf cleanup costs.

A letter released Monday to Hayward from Henry Waxman, D-California, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, stated that a congressional investigation indicates the company took a low-cost, speedy approach to drilling the now-broken deepwater well responsible for the growing spill in the Gulf.

"[Our] investigation is raising serious questions about the decisions made by BP in the days and hours before the explosion" that created the spill, Waxman noted. "On April 15, five days before the explosion, BP's drilling engineer called [the facility in the Gulf] a 'nightmare well.' "

Oil has been leaking into the Gulf since the April 20 explosion that sank the offshore drill rig Deepwater Horizon, killing 11 workers.

The spill now dwarfs the 11 million gallons that were dumped into Alaska's Prince William Sound when the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989, and oil in varying amounts and consistencies has hit the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.