I'd imagine that they aren't allowing American volunteers to help clean the mess because of the toxicity of the spill itself. Workers have already been reporting a wide variety of ailments after coming into contact with this stuff.

I honestly don't believe that getting it capped hasn't been their priority, I simply don't think anybody knows how to get it done. To claim that Obama is simply sitting on his hands doing nothing is a stretch to say the least.

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/

* The administration has authorized the deployment of 17,500 National Guard troops from Gulf Coast states to respond to this crisis; to date, 1,612 have been activated.

* Approximately 33,000 personnel are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife and cleanup vital coastlines.

* More than 6,300 vessels are currently responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts'”in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.

* Approximately 2.44 million feet of containment boom and 3.87 million feet of sorbent boom have been deployed to contain the spill'”and approximately 544,000 feet of containment boom and 1.88 million feet of sorbent boom are available.

* Approximately 22.9 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.

* Approximately 1.36 million gallons of total dispersant have been applied'”931,000 on the surface and 436,000 subsea. More than 500,000 gallons are available.

* 244 controlled burns have been conducted, efficiently removing a total of more than 5.25 million gallons of oil from the open water in an effort to protect shoreline and wildlife.

* 17 staging areas are in place to protect sensitive shorelines.

* Approximately 59 miles of Gulf Coast shoreline is currently experiencing impacts from BP'™s leaking oil'”approximately 34 miles in Louisiana, four miles in Mississippi, nine miles in Alabama, and 12 miles in Florida.

* Approximately 80,800 square miles of Gulf of Mexico federal waters remain closed to fishing in order to balance economic and public health concerns. More than 66 percent remain open. Details can be found at http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/.

* To date, the administration has leveraged assets and skills from numerous foreign countries and international organizations as part of this historic, all-hands-on-deck response, including Canada, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, the United Nations'™ International Maritime Organization and the European Union's Monitoring and Information Centre.

You should think about what you're saying here. No other president that I can think of has been able to do something like this. That money (and it's just the start) is able to compensate businesses/families for their loss RIGHT NOW. The other option would be to do nothing and allow everybody to lawyer up, keeping this shit in court for twenty years before BP settled for pennies on the dollar.

I thought Republicans were all about "Country first"? Now they are bellyaching because Obama got BP to pony up 20 BILLION dollars for Americans?

Do we really need another blow to an already fragile economy?

As usual the GOP offer up nothing but sour grapes and no solutions. What have they done to raise money for the effected areas thus far?

Really it's a shame as this SHOULD NOT be a political event. However what I see as a national disaster/ecological tragedy, the GOP view as an opportunity to score political points and take cheap shots. Shame on them.

Well besides the ecological ramifications, which you seem to be acutely unaware of, it will have a devastating effect on the local economies associated with the gulf areas, and again indirectly to the vendors etc that supply those businesses. Push one domino over and many more fall afterwards. It's hardly as simple as some birds getting oil on their feathers (which is bad in it's own right) or dead fish coming ashore.

The guy more than deserves it imo.

I see, Al Gore's (perceived) silence is open for you to define, interpret, and then attack, gotcha. He's a private citizen who happens to be going through a divorce, I don't really think he's required to do much of anything.

Me neither. That's my point too, the guy has done work with global warming for three decades and probably didn't make any money from it until the last few. So to claim that his motive is money based seems far fetched. He even donated his peace prize money to top it off.