Lisa, do you want to talk about that briefly¹?

ADMINISTRATOR² JACKSON:  Yes, sir.  We have health and safety officers and stations at each muster³（集合，检阅） point.  So if someone does come back in and feels in any way that they’ve been exposed, or even if they just don’t feel well, the first thing to do is to report it so that we have a record of it, we can track it down, and we can ensure that they’re not in any way penalized⁴（处罚） for reporting and making sure that they put their health and the health of their family first.

THE PRESIDENT:  Again, I want to just emphasize, everybody down here -- every local official, every state official -- is working as hard as they can.  Our federal teams are working as hard as they can.  There are still going to be glitches⁵（小毛病，小故障） in the response.  There are still going to be arguments and disagreements between local and state, state and federal, between everybody and BP, between states and states, in terms of how we’re allocating⁶（分配，配置） some of these resources.  But I think that Thad Allen has committed to me and the people of the Gulf⁷ that we’re going to cut through any bureaucratic⁸（官僚政治的） red tape（官样文章，繁文缛节） , any problems that we’ve got, and we will fix problems that have been identified.

And that was the commitment I made last week.  Some of the problems have been fixed⁹; some new ones have resurfaced.  We’ll fix those, too.  And we’ll keep on coming back until we have dealt with an unprecedented¹⁰ crisis.

But I’m very thankful to everybody for the constructive¹¹ meeting and the constructive approach that I think everybody is taking in terms of solving this problem.

All right.  Thank you, everybody.

Q    Mr. President, what did you say to the parish（教区） presidents about the difficulty -- the economic difficulties from the drilling moratorium¹²（暂停，中止） ?

THE PRESIDENT:  We had a conversation about that, as well, and what I told them is very simple.  When I made the decision to issue the moratorium, we knew that that would have an economic impact.  But what I also knew is that there was no way that we can go about business as usual when we discovered that companies like BP, who had provided assurances that they had fail-safe backup, redundant¹³ systems（冗余系统） , in fact, not only didn't have fail-safe systems, but had no idea what to do when those fail-safe systems broke down.

Now, I announced this week that Bob Graham and Bill Reilly, two respected individuals who have experience both on the environmental side as well as in the energy sector¹⁴, are going to be examining over the next six months what went wrong, but more important -- forward looking, how do we, in fact, increase domestic oil production without seeing the kinds of disasters that we are all witnessing on television day in, day out.

I think Governor Jindal, I know other parish presidents, expressed concern about the immediate¹⁵ economic impact.  And what I said to them is the same thing I said to Graham and Reilly, which is, if they can front-load some of the analysis of what went wrong and how you would solve what has happened and what can happen, and you can do that more quickly than six months, then let me know.  Don't hold the results of your review for six months, and then tell me.  Tell me when you find out.

But what I told the folks in this room was I’m not going to cut corners on it, and I’m not going to press them to move faster than it would take to do an accurate, independent job based on sound science, because I do not want to see this thing repeated again.  And the American people don't, and I promise you the people of the Gulf don't want to see it either.

And as difficult as it may be, it’s important for us to do this right, because if we don't do it right, then what you could end up seeing is an even worse impact on the oil industry down here, which is so important to so many jobs.

And I think everybody here emphasized -- and I want to be clear -- I didn't hear anybody here say that they want unsafe operations on these rigs and they certainly don't want to see a repeat of this disaster.  They did ask, can we do it faster.  And what I said to them was the same thing that I said to Graham and Reilly, which is, you do it as fast as it takes to do it right.

All right?  Thank you, everybody.

Q    Do you want BP to pay that dividend¹⁶（股息，奖金） ?  Are you calling on them not to?

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, guys.

I want to make sure that they are paying the folks in Louisiana for the havoc¹⁷（浩劫，蹂躏） that they wreaked¹⁸（发泄，报仇） , and the folks in Alabama and the folks in Florida.  I don't want them nickel-and- diming people down here.  I want them to abide¹⁹ by their obligations to their shareholders²⁰; I want them to abide by the obligations to people down here, as well.

All right.  Thank you, folks.

END