CNN "State of the Union with Candy Crowley" - Transcript

Interview

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Joining us now from Dauphin Island, Alabama, is Governor Bob Riley. Governor, thank you so much for being here. I want to talk to you about some breaking news that CNN has, and that is that the president, as you know, will meet with BP executives next week after he visits you, and he will tell them that he wants an escrow account, BP-funded escrow account that would be administered by a third party, probably a panel to be appointed, to make sure that some of these claims are paid. And he says it will be transparent. Does that sound like a good idea to you?

RILEY: Well, as long as they're paid, Candy, I really don't care how they do it, whether they set up an escrow account or not. And BP and every conversation I've ever had with them, has guaranteed that they would pay it. I think the costs are mounting. What their total cost is today, I don't think anyone knows.

But we have to do something. If you look at what's going on with the economy and the state of Alabama and Mississippi, Louisiana, and now Florida, we're going to have to have some level of compensation, because our tourist season here is essentially from Memorial Day to Labor Day. And with the beaches the way they are this morning, it's going to be very, very difficult to sustain the economic balance that we've had in the past.

CROWLEY: But Governor, let me just hone in on this a little bit, because who gets compensated? You've got oil workers who can't work because there's no deepwater drilling, you've got shop owners who don't have customers, hotels with empty rooms. You've got fishermen with no place to fish. Give us an idea of who gets money from BP. Everybody?

RILEY: Every one of them.

CROWLEY: Really?

RILEY: Absolutely. I don't think -- I don't think there is a dividing line. I don't think you can say that one group is going to get it and another one doesn't. If a restaurant in Gulf Shores, Alabama, is off 50 percent because the tourists didn't come, I think he is owed 50 percent of his revenues from last year. The same thing with anyone in these areas, because the whole economy is based on the tourist market. And when it goes away, someone's got to compensate them, because most of these people are not going to be here next year if we don't.

CROWLEY: And your superintendent of schools has suggested, because, obviously, schools are affected by tax receipts, that BP ought to make up for lost tax receipts to the state government so that they continue to operate. Is that something BP should pay for?

RILEY: Absolutely. And that's what I'm saying, Candy. I don't know how far this is going to go. I don't know how many people are going to be affected, but the state of Alabama is being negatively affected, in our tax revenues, in our ad valorem base, across the board. And it's going to have to be taken care of, either by BP or someone else, because each one of these coastal states are going to take a hit, and they're going to take a hit for the next five, 10 years, especially if some of the fishermen can't get back into the water, especially if our estuaries end up being soiled. It could take 10 years before we get this taken care of.

CROWLEY: Governor, the president's coming down there a third time in 18 days. What do you want to hear from him? And what have you got to tell him about how it's going?

RILEY: Well, I guess the biggest concern I have today, Candy, is this, quote, unified command. What we have is a committee. It's a committee that essentially consists of all of the different federal agencies sitting down here, and as a committee, each one has a veto over whatever policies we have.

You can't continue to do that. We're going to have to have one person who makes the call on what we do and where.

Let me give you an example. The Coast Guard built a plan for Alabama. Someone in the unified command decided that wasn't a good plan and has taken 45 days now to come back and revise a plan that we can stop this oil from going into some of the most sensitive estuaries we have in the state of Alabama.

We have a claims process today that the Coast Guard is supposed to manage and implement. But on the other hand, BP is going to be the one that makes a determination about whether or not a claim is paid. We've been told that we want the oil to go onto the beach -- we don't want it to go onto the beach -- but now that it's there, they say, well, we'll put snare booms out. Well, you put snare booms out, and then Fish and Wildlife comes in and says, well, you can't put those booms out. Well, if you can't put the booms out because of the turtle, what do you do?

CROWLEY: Governor, it sounds like you are as frustrated with the Obama administration and the lack of coordination and commonality of purpose as you might be with BP?

RILEY: Well, absolutely. Because you can't have a committee making the decisions that are going to impact this entire coastal area. You can't have someone come in and say, well, if it gets onto the beach, we'll clean it up and we'll clean it up rapidly, and then OSHA come in and say, well, the people can't work but 20 minutes out of an hour or two hours a day, and get it cleaned up. Someone is going to have to be in charge of each one of these operations. They're going to have to make a determination about what we're going to do, and they're going to have to set priorities.

CROWLEY: We're also told that the president, after he comes back from his visit to the Gulf, is going to give a nationwide address about the situation. What can he say to the nation that's going to be helpful to you? And it sounds like what you're battling here is an ongoing oil spill and a bureaucracy that's not talking to each other.

RILEY: Well, it's not that they're not talking to each other. Again, if we're going to make a priority that we're going to keep oil out of an estuary, we're going to have to have the resources to do it. We're going to clean up Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, we're going to have to have a system that allows that to happen. You can't have people out in a hazmat suit working 20 minutes out of the hour and try to clean it up. There has to be someone that comes in and makes that determination about the decisions that are impacting the people along the Gulf Coast and will for a long time.

CROWLEY: Alabama Governor Bob Riley, good luck. Sounds like it's just starting to come into Alabama. We wish you well. Thank you.

RILEY: Thank you.

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