Gulf Disaster

Obama Points Finger at Congress

Says some members share the blame for spill.

The list of possible culprits in BP's Gulf oil spill continues to grow. In an exclusive interview with Politico, President Obama said that some members of Congress (who he chose not to identify) were also to blame—for railing against government involvement in the oil business. “I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago… I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill,” Obama said, “there are folks up there… who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.” He went on to criticize Tea Party activists for being hypocritical, noting that some of the lawmakers who are criticizing the administration for not doing enough in the Gulf were, just a few months ago, telling the government to back off.