be fallen by a posse of men in black suits. that is how it is in the corporate world, wolf. why would bp hire anyone without any oil industry experience and the second question is why would he want this job if he didn t have any oil industry experience? well, the second part is unclear. he didn t want to be interviewed by cnn and we didn t get to ask him. the challenge, maybe the money. but the firing, and i asked dan hays about that, and he said he had a good ereputation of corporate leader and turning companies around and solid european background to lead countries through challenging times and that is attractive to bp and they were on hard times when he joined them. both he and tony hayward have turned the company around in the three years that hayward has been there leading up to the spill. hayward had a good reputation until this happened. until this happened. before now. and we will watch the
first major developments out of president obama s long-awaited meeting with bp executives over at the white house. the oil giant has agreed to set up a $20 billion fund to pay victims of the worst environmental disaster in u.s. history. the account will be run by an independent third party, the washington lawyer, ken feinburg, who oversaw payments to families of 9/11 victims. bp is setting up a separate $100 million fund to compensate laid off rig workers. they re out of work because of the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling ordered because of the spill. bp also announced it s suspending dividends to its shareholders this year to help cover skyrocketing costs from this disaster. the company s chairman left the white house with a message for americans. i would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the american people on behalf of all the employees in bp. many of whom are living on the gulf coast. and i do thank you for the patience that you have in this diffi