Gulf oil spill: Obama slams executives for finger-pointing

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President Obama on Friday angrily decried the “ridiculous spectacle” of oil-industry officials pointing fingers of blame for the catastrophic spill in the Gulf of Mexico and said the accident could bring devastation to the region and its economy.

The president also pledged to end a “cozy relationship” between the oil industry and federal regulators that he said had existed for years and into his own administration.

As Obama spoke in the White House Rose Garden, undersea robots in the Gulf tried to thread a small tube into the jagged pipe that is spewing oil into the water. The blown-out well has pumped out more than 4 million gallons of crude. BP engineers were trying to move the 6-inch tube into the leaking 21-inch pipe, known as a riser. The smaller tube was to be surrounded by a stopper to keep oil from leaking into the sea.

BP said it hoped to know later Friday if the tube succeeded in taking the oil to a tanker at the surface.

Obama said he shared the “anger and frustration” felt by many Americans, and he acknowledged differing estimates over how much oil was leaking.

“We know there’s a level of uncertainty,” Obama said. He said the administration’s response has “always been geared toward the possibility of a catastrophic event.”

-- Associated Press