The Political Heat

Away from the action in the Gulf, the political heat remains intense in Washington with yet another congressional hearing set to bring BP and its peers under renewed scrutiny.
The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing at 10:00 EDT (1400 GMT) on Tuesday titled: "The Risky Business of Big Oil: Have Recent Court Decisions and Liability Caps Encouraged Irresponsible Corporate Behavior?" Democrats in Congress have been looking at lifting such caps.
The Senate hearing follows one in Chalmette, Louisiana, where two women who lost their husbands in the April 20 rig explosion that unleashed the crisis urged members of Congress to hold BP accountable.
"I am asking you to please consider harsh punishments on companies who choose to ignore safety standards before other families are destroyed," said Courtney Kemp, whose husband, Wyatt, was one of the 11 workers killed in the explosion.
The gravity of the spill was spelled out by Admiral Allen, who said its environmental consequences could last for years.
"Dealing with the oil spill on the surface is going to go on for a couple of months" once the well is plugged, he said. "Long-term issues of restoring the environment and the habitats ... will be years."
The spill has now affected 120 miles of coastline.
After fouling wildlife refuges in Louisiana and barrier islands in Mississippi and Alabama, oil has hit some of the famous white beaches of Florida, where the $60 billion-a-year tourism industry accounts for nearly 1 million jobs.
Images of birds struggling through oil-soaked waters ringing Louisiana's ecologically fragile barrier islands and marshes have added to the public outcry and pressure on Obama.
One-third of the Gulf's federal waters, or 78,000 square miles (200,000 square km), remains closed to fishing, and the toll of dead and injured birds and marine animals is climbing.