(EURWEB)*The Reverend Jesse Jackson joined members of a prominent environmental group in calling for a nationwide boycott of BP, claiming the company is not moving fast enough to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Jackson and protesters from the Sierra Club were part of a picket line at a BP station in Chicago, holding a sign that said, “Don’t pay the bill for the spill.”
“The birds are already affected. The economy is affected. And the ecology is affected,” Jackson said. “And now people who have been watching this drama cannot just watch it and be spectators. It is now time to act. We do not have to subsidize BP’s behavior.”
Meanwhile, the White House is facing more pressure to play a bigger role in the cleanup. Billy Nungesser, the president of Plaquemines Parish on the Louisiana Gulf Coast, wants President Obama to do much more than deflect responsibility for the Deepwater Horizon disaster onto others.
“There’s been a failure of leadership on all levels. Who in the hell is in charge?” said Nungesser, who is prodding the administration to back a controversial plan to build sand barriers to block the oil.
“I’m a big Republican, but the president spent two hours with me and really impressed me. … He really seems to care, but I don’t think he’s getting good advice,” he told Politico. “I don’t think they’re telling him the truth about what’s going on around here. He needs to get more personally involved.”
