utility companies know where pipelines are buried, but residents might not. barbara pinto, abc news, chicago. in other news now, the obama administration is pushing for more safety in the offshore drilling industry. the white house wants congress to spend an extra $80 million to meet that goal. that money would go to the federal agency that inspects offshore rigs. congress just recently approved $29 million in emergency spending to hire some new offshore drilling inspectors. tea party candidates are being closely watched in today s primary elections. voters in seven states and the district of columbia are heading to the polls this morning. it is the last round of primaries before november s crucial midterm elections. democrats are defending their records while republicans are pushing for major wins. the republican senate primary in delaware is getting a lot of national attention. christine o donnell is the tea party-backed candidate getting help from sarah palin. polls show she has
as you know, fred, a lot more gets discussed here. health care issues, national security issues and international other international issues, oil, iran, israel, north korea. so generally speaking, the leaders are getting ready to leave. we re waiting for the final comments, we ll hear from president obama probably in the next hour or so. but generally speaking, the leaders are leaving here with some sense that they ve accomplished something. and on the other hand, you re seeing all the stuff that jean is saying is showing you. in that there are still protests on the street and there s still a lot of people angry saying, why do we even do these things the way we do. why do we spend the money on it? that s the story from toronto, fred? ali velshi in toronto, thanks so much. cnn will carry those comments from mr. barack obama coming in the 6:00 eastern hour. as they wrap up the g-20 summit. you ll see it here. meantime, some oil workers have been evacuated now from offshore oil rigs i
safe. there s always a danger and when it occurs it s always going to be troublesome because you re in a marine ocean environment. i have a bill to ban leases off the west coast of america. we need to shift away from oil. we need to move to the renewable energy policies. as long as we continue to drill, we re going to find ourselves with these kinds of problems. not every year, not every drill rig but it s going to happen and keep this in mind, last year, within the last 12 months, there have been two massive blow-outs on offshore oil rigs. one of off australia and the other in the gulf of mexico. this is very common. so enough already. move away from our dependence on oil and let s get on with that renewable knowled ren renewable energy. let let s get down to the three monkeys. the old expression about see no
sinking of the titanic. ship. shepard: james, the white house is changing the rules for future offshore drilling. what changes are we talking about here? yeah, the office within the interior department that oversees offshore drilling is the minerals management service today interior secretary ken salazar announced that that agency will be split into two agencies. with the aim of creating healthy distance between agency and industry. one of the units will inspect offshore oil rigs, enforce safety rules and conduct investigations of the oil companies. the other will oversee drilling leases and collect royalties. those royalties are said to exceed $10 billion a year. shep? shepard: james, here is another idea. how about leaving the oil alone and doing nothing? one expert says he thinks that s the best plan. he is kevin jeager. a professor at the university of southern mississippi in hat tisburg who reports some of the clean up efforts could be worse. controlled fires to burn off the
effort to install the booms. also, those that wanted to use shrimp boats to help skim oil off the surface, but also giving out contact information for filing claims. the popular sentiment appears to be some damage is going to be inevitable and bp has promised it will reimburse people for all legitimate claims of damages resulting from this spill. you ve got a lot of employees that work on these offshore oil rigs. how does that affect what is going on? reporter: public opinion is certainly knew answer here. people are angry and certainly concerned. at the same time they realize that the oil industry, in particular the offshore drilling industry, provides thousands of jobs for the gulf coast region. earlier in the day we went out to a fishing pier, cedar point fishing pier and spoke with the owner. he says as a result of this spill he expects he is going to