more with BP and the Coast Guard -- here we are again -- to leave assets in place to fight this oil. There's no written operational plan. The only plan they give us is a transition plan. And they keep wanting us to sign of on there's no visible oil, when they continue to pick up oil. I don't understand it. It's mind-boggling to me. COOPER: So, they're asking you to sign off saying you're not seeing oil, but you're saying you're still seeing oil? NUNGESSER: They continue to want us to go from step two to step three, which means they can pull out any assets they want in the transition plan that we signed a month or so ago to leave assets in place through hurricane season. And, every day, they're ratcheting down, pulling stuff out. And, in this thick document, they say it gives them the right to do that when there's no oil on the surface. But our crews, the local fishermen, are the only ones picking up oil. Somehow, their crews seem not to see anything. It still blows my mind that they have got all these people out there on the payroll not finding any oil, but the local fishermen that they keep trying to downsize keep finding oil. COOPER: Right. Let me -- let me ask you, this report, in addition to being very critical of the White House, they're also critical of local officials, including yourself. In a section of the report they call the boom wars, they write -- quote -- "President Nungesser deplored the lack of available boom" and that -- quote -- "directions went out to keep the parishes 'happy'" -- in quotes -- "which resulted in operational decisions that may have been politically motivated." They go on to say it was a -- quote -- "serious distraction that took time away from responders' ability to focus on the spill." They were basically saying that, you know, local -- local officials like yourself were calling for more boom. The White House said, you know, keep those parish presidents happy just parish officials happy, and that they were basically deploying boom in places that it didn't need to go to, and that it was useless and may be causing more damage in some places. Do you buy that? NUNGESSER: Well, no, they're damn liars. And I'm going to tell you this. We never got the first order of ocean boom. The boom they were putting three miles off the island kept washing up every night. We told them from day one it was useless, but they put it out there as a dog-and-pony show. The ocean boom that we asked for that our Coast Guard guys that we were told was in charge that he said order the boom for President Nungesser, never got our first foot of boom. So that's an absolute lie. That's a dog-and-pony show. And, as we always said, BP and the Coast Guard are putting their story together to best defend their actions. And, once again, we're sitting here tonight, still can't tell you, Anderson, who's in charge, still don't know.

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Oct. 11, 2010