Rep. Taylor Feeling Better About Federal Response

Press Release

U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss, was so worked up Friday about the oil spill that he wanted the U.S. Navy to take a lead role in cleaning it up, but he had changed his tone by the weekend's conclusion.

Taylor said he thinks British Petroleum and the federal government are working together to contain the spill. The former Coast Guard reservist is more confident because Adm. Thad W. Allen, a 30-plus year Coast Guard veteran only one month from retirement, is taking the lead federal role in the disaster.

Also, Taylor reported, the Navy has sent the top admiral from its Naval salvage operation in the Florida panhandle to work directly with BP responders. He said BP and the Navy are learning from one another about technology that can be used on deepwater spills.

"They've got the right people on the job," Taylor said. "Everyone is putting all their resources on this."

However, Taylor said, he also wants to make it "perfectly clear" that the federal government is interested in any ideas on ways to slow or stop the leaks causing oil to gush from the Deepwater Horizon well that exploded and sunk in the Gulf of Mexico.

Taylor said that, when he criticized BP's response and called for increased federal action Friday, he assumed the arrival of oil was eminent on the Coast's pristine barrier islands and in marshes that nourish aquatic life.

He flew over the Gulf on Saturday expecting to see oil washed up on the islands, but there was none. "There is no oil at all in the Mississippi Sound," Taylor said, describing the waterway along Mississippi's shoreline north of the Gulf of Mexico. "People should know that."

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