Robert Gibbs Defends Deepwater Drilling Moratorium In YouTube Q&A (VIDEO)

Following President Obama's first Oval Office address Tuesday night on the massive BP oil spill, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs answered questions from the public -- submitted via YouTube prior to the primetime televised event -- about the environmental catastrophe.

In the 25-minute online chat Gibbs sent a strong message defending the deepwater drilling moratorium issued by the Obama administration in the wake of the spill and also signaled that BP executives visiting the White House Wednesday should expect a stern reprimand from the President.

"The president told us that because we don't know what caused this accident, we can't afford to continue drilling those 33 [deepwater] wells without knowing what happened," Gibbs said. "The president didn't feel comfortable with that."

On BP's efforts to clean-up and stop the oil that continues to ooze into the Gulf of Mexico, Gibbs called the oil giant's response plan "very insufficient," before adding, "that's probably the understatement of the night."

Gibbs fielded questions sitting alongside White House director of Digital Media Macon Phillips. Those questions fell into one of four categories: BP Accountability, Cleanup Plan, Gulf Region recovery, and Environmental impact. 7,230 questions were submitted prior to the online Q&A by 14,780 people before 192,120 voted to determine which were the best.

Politico notes one question that Gibbs appeared to leave unanswered -- whether the Obama administration is considering canceling the country's existing leases with BP:

"We can't take BP's word for it that they have safety procedures in place to ensure that what happened 57 or 58 days ago doesn't repeat itself," Gibbs said, never discussing the BP debarment review, which was actually underway due to several environmental and safety violations by the company before the gulf spill began in April.

WATCH: Gibbs Holds Q&A About BP Oil Spill Following Obama Oval Office Address

Comments

[Indie2008]

08:10 AM on 06/17/2010

In the wake of this unspeakable disaster, the fact that the White House actually has to defend the moratorium on drilling, is really frightening!

[TankGirlz]

02:25 AM on 06/17/2010

“http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0503-22.htm

"We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us." Carter bluntly pointed out that: "The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation." He called the new energy policy he was proposing, "[T]he 'moral equivalent of war' -- except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy."

"The world has not prepared for the future," said Jimmy Carter. "We waste more energy than we import. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan and Sweden." Carter directly challenged the fossil fuel and automobile industries. "One choice," he said, "is to continue doing what we have been doing before. We can drift along for a few more years. "Our consumption of oil would keep going up every year. Our cars would continue to be too large and inefficient. Three-quarters of them would continue to carry only one person -- the driver -- while our public transportation system continues to decline.

Jimmy Carter

Read more at the link above.”

[unite4change]

11:55 PM on 06/16/2010

People are angry about BP's oil spill;
Don't know when the oil spill can be stopped;
Workers loss their lives and many injured;
Tourism has come to a halt;
Business are losing money everyday;
Beaches and grassland covered in oil;
Oil killing birds and animals;
The spill is ruining their way of life;
They want smaller government without rules and regulation;
BP and government can't do anything right;
They don't trust BP or the government;
Yet they want BP and other oil companies to continue deep water drilling;
and want the government to come to the rescue when thing go terribly wrong.

Go figure......................only in America can ignorance be so bliss.

[Marrymeplease]

10:40 PM on 06/16/2010

Keep The Moratorium!!!!!!!

[Rambutt]

09:14 PM on 06/16/2010

Time to remove that gruesome rubber mask Robert and show your real reptilian face.
Seriously, why is this guy always smirking like he's having the time of his life?

[agrippa52]

10:16 PM on 06/16/2010

Rambutt

did that screed help you feel better?

[sviolette]

11:45 PM on 06/16/2010

Just to piss you off!!! Look how well it worked.

[ckfan]

08:48 PM on 06/16/2010

I'm always amused when HuffPo takes aim at Gibbs. He's a press secretary. He doesn't create policy. Blame Obama if you don't like the policy. Gibbs is flack. Who knows what he really believes - who cares.

[sulalives]

06:28 PM on 06/16/2010

We this nation cannot afford to listen to those to weak to stand against what harms us the most...those askiing for the drilling to continue are heartless and clueless and the PRESIDENT needs to use discernment...I bet the PRESIDENT uses discernment

[Mattcat25]

05:24 PM on 06/16/2010

The Oil Industry deliberately sabotaged this rig in efforts to sqeeze out as much money for the oil they already produce.

[Cowoak]

05:57 PM on 06/16/2010

You have got to be joking.

[rainbowblue]

12:58 AM on 06/17/2010

probably not, expect this to be the next "-er" thing...First was the 9/11 truthers, then the birthers, now we have the "oilers" (I know needs work...).

[imusintheevening]

04:57 PM on 06/16/2010

If there is a moratorium, why is Atlantis still operating?

[Chess Or Checkers]

08:34 PM on 06/16/2010

Because it's new wells, not wells already up.

[imusintheevening]

09:06 PM on 06/16/2010

Well, that makes a lot of sense since Deepwater Horizon was a "new well"

[colandra]

04:48 PM on 06/16/2010

I don't know what he's fine at - but certainly not as the Press Secretary.

[cincinnati]

04:44 PM on 06/16/2010

We forget sometimes that many of our favortie actors not only have an interesting or appealing look but their voice is special, strong, often deep.

Think of Cary Grant, Richard Burton, Russell Crowe for example...
Woody Allen, not so much....
Gibbs reminds me of Allen, not Crowe....better for whining than forceful defense....

I like Gibbs, probably a fine father and guy, but not up to this job, under these tough times...

[Marcospinelli]

04:37 PM on 06/16/2010

Even if there was an abundant supply of oil and it could be harvested safely, the effects of using it, very simply, releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, creating global warming. We have to get off oil, and it's do-able. Do-able quickly, and it solves ALL of our other problems -- Everything from national security to job creation, restoration of the middle class.

We have alternatives, solutions -- Wind, solar, hydrogen, conservation, 'smart communities' - ending suburban sprawl, etc.), but we're not seriously doing any of it because greed has overwhelmed rationality. Establishment capitalists reject the solutions because their obscene profit-making comes from an unregulated growth & development pyramid scheme.

Their way to wealth is always about MORE -- More people to buy more products which require using up more raw finite resources, manufactured and delivered with dirty energy that creates unhealthy toxic conditions for human beings and other living things.

We have come to the end of a world and an economy that requires constant growth and consumption of the planet's resources to keep increasing wealth. We don't need increased population competing for scarce resources. We don't need some people to work 80 hour weeks and others living off stock dividends.

You can't eat oil.

We rely on the oceans of the world for so much, but primarily food and oxygen. We're destroying our own life support system so that 2% of the world's population can hold most of the world's wealth.

[mmonarch]

04:45 PM on 06/16/2010

Tell me how wind will be used to manufacture plastics and others items in a mile long list of products made from petrochemicals. Everyone keeps forgetting - oil is not just a fuel for cars.

No you can't eat oil, but it is used in so many other things that it will not be eliminated. There is no alternative to oil in some products.

[oafishcad]

05:16 PM on 06/16/2010

We can easily end drilling in the ocean. There's plenty of oil under the land.

[sviolette]

11:55 PM on 06/16/2010

Plastic and all of those other things that you speak of are all new products. Society survived well before we started using oil to make those products. The oil industry is a new industry.

[Cowoak]

04:56 PM on 06/16/2010

Quick find me something that has as much or more btu's than a gallon of oil and is readily available for the same price and can be applied to our industrial complex and I will show you a gabillionare. Without oil we cannot sustain this population, people would die of hunger.

When people talk about oil they only think of what oil they use. That's tunnel vision my friend. You do understand that Transportation is the heartbeat of this country, and I am not talking about the family car, I am talking about Freight trains, Semi trucks, Barges, Ships, and all heavy machinery. All of which cannot be "switched" over to alternate fuels due to cost. Why, Btu's thats why. Btu's per dollar oil is still the leader. I wish we had something else but we don't.

[oafishcad]

05:15 PM on 06/16/2010

So what did Brazil do?

[sviolette]

11:57 PM on 06/16/2010

There were no freight trains or ships before we started drilling for oil?

[Marcospinelli]

04:32 PM on 06/16/2010

Blow-Out Preventers (BOPs) have a 50% failure rate! What a perfect reason to use two or three in line!
=============================

That's not a solution. Because even if a BOP is in working condition when installed, it has to be constantly serviced and maintained, like weekly, at costs that the oil companies balk at.

You see, even if you were to put requirements in, regulations, about what the oil companies are required to do to decrease any chance of an accident, there are so many that it becomes cost prohibitive and the cost of a gallon of gas would be like a downpayment on a house. You couldn't employ enough government regulators and inspectors to oversee, to make sure that the oil companies were doing what they are obligated to do.

And even if you could, it's still not any guarantee of accident-free drilling.

And relief wells are not guaranteed to stop a well from gushing -- Last year's blowout at Montara required the drilling of FIVE relief wells before the gush was stopped.

[Merle Savage]

04:21 PM on 06/16/2010

My letter to Gulf residents.
http://www.urbanconservancy.org/letters/gulf-coast-cleanup-caution-urged
http://www.lvrj.com/news/exxon-valdez-oil-risks-spur-warning-for-gulf-cleanup-crews-93258964.html
My name is Merle Savage, a female general foreman during the Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS) beach cleanup in 1989. I am one of the 11,000+ cleanup workers from the Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS), who is suffering from health issues from that toxic cleanup, without compensation from Exxon.
Dr. Riki Ott visited me in 2007 to explain about the toxic spraying on the beaches. She also informed me that Exxon's medical records and the reports that surfaced in litigation by sick workers in 1994, had been sealed from the public, making it impossible to hold Exxon responsible for their actions.
Beach crews breathed in crude oil that splashed off the rocks and into the air -- the toxic exposure turned into chronic breathing conditions and central nervous system problems, neurological impairment, chronic respiratory disease, leukemia, lymphoma, brain tumors, liver damage, and blood disease.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5632208859935499100
My web site is devoted to searching for EVOS cleanup workers who were exposed to the toxic spraying, and are suffering from the same illnesses that I have. Our summer employment turned into a death sentence for many -- and a life of unending medical conditions for the rest of Exxon’s Collateral Damaged. http://www.silenceinthesound.com/stories.shtml

[66gardeners]

04:08 PM on 06/16/2010

When they can tell us how to stop a leak when one occurs, we'll think about it. Until then.....