Reps. Price, Barton cause uproar over BP comments

By Bob Keefe

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON -- Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas caused an uproar in Washington after suggesting BP was being treated unfairly by the Obama administration -- but it was Rep. Tom Price of Roswell who may have started the hullabaloo that engulfed Capitol Hill on Thursday.

As BP CEO Tony Hayward testified before a House energy panel, Barton apologized to Hayward, characterizing a $20 billion escrow fund that the Obama administration pressured BP to create Wednesday as a "shakedown."

"I’m ashamed at what happened in the White House yesterday," said Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "I think it is a tragedy in the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown -- in this case a $20 billion shakedown."

Barton's comments -- he later retracted his apology and also apologized for using the word "shakedown" -- came a day after Price, through his role as chairman of the conservative House Republican Study Committee, used similar terms to criticize the administration's handling of the BP escrow fund.

"BP’s reported willingness to go along with the White House’s new fund suggests that the Obama administration is hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics," Price said in a statement late Wednesday.

A spokesman for Price pointed out that unlike Barton, Price never apologized to BP, but declined to comment further or make Price available for comment.

Democrats and White House officials quickly seized on the two Republicans' statements.

"Tom Price ... has decided to stand against American taxpayers who want to hold BP accountable," said Ryan Rudominer, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which supports Democrats running for Congress. "Once again, he's putting his loyalty to Big Oil and BP ahead of doing everything possible to hold BP accountable," he said.

At the White House, Vice President Joe Biden called Barton's apology "outrageous" while spokesman Robert Gibbs also took a jab at Republican critics.

“If you listen to Congressman Barton, [Congresswoman Michele] Bachmann, Congressman Price, you’d think somehow BP was owed a handkerchief and a crying shoulder,” Gibbs said.

However, recent polls show that the majority of the American public expect the White House to do more to halt the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Republican leaders on Thursday quickly distanced themselves from Barton and Price. Besides that, at least one GOP member, Rep. Jeff Miller of Pensacola, Fla., called for Barton to step down as ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

But other Republicans defended their colleagues' criticism of the Obama administration, if not their comments.

"I have been outraged by our administration’s response to the oil spill as well," Marietta Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey said in a statement. Gingrey also is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

"In my opinion, President Obama and his team have failed to take responsibility or show any leadership in crafting our nation’s response to the worst ecological disaster in modern history," he said.