on scene coordinator to bp under u.s. law and regulations, so that the final effect of this is an order from me to bp. reporter: how much pressure do you feel about making that call and how it could affect the operations? well, the input from all of the scientific community and the best minds of the world to work on this, and wherever we are at, i am confident it is not a thad allen decision, but a decision for the best of the country. reporter: and a question that people are asking, now that the containment cap is on, why did it take so long to make this move? because we lad to mahad to m containment cap, and there are a variety of them, and none of these existed before this spill occurred, and as fast as they could engineer and build a device to test it, and the first one was a elementary riser insertion tool, and that is an inelegant way to recover some of the oil, but a lot of the stuff and the reason we have had success in the last 4 hours is
complaints and act on them. those officers have been there supporting him for several weeks. who is in charge? is it the coast guard? is it you? or is it bp? the federal on scene coordinator by law is the coordinating official. when you make a decision and tell bp to do it, they have no choice. they haved to it. is that right? if we issue an administrative order and they fail to comply there are civil and criminal penalties associated. most of the things we are doing are provided to them. if we have to issue a written order, we can do that and there are civil and criminal penalties for failure to comply. you ordered a letter to come to washington next week to meet with you and to meet with the president of the usa. a lot of people when they read it said what took so long? why is it taking so long for the president and to you to meet with the chairman of the board of bp? wolf, as you know, as i have
good afternoon. i was asked to give you an update on the activities today but i think the secretary has covered that very well. let me help put into perspective some of the interactions that occur. the coast guard is the federal on scene coordinator. we have the leadership role for spills that occur in the coastal zones for this spill in particular. we have been very aggressive and proactive in our response but we have not been alone. we work with federal partners. there are 16 federal age is who form the national response team. we also work very closely with state and local authorities and with non-governmental organizations as we move forward with the response. there are roles that volunteers can take and the ngos are critical helping us properly channel that drive and energy. and finally, the responsible party, british petroleum. bp has taken a number of steps as has been mentioned. the controlled burns, the