Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in a news conference about the Gulf oil spill, with Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, second from left, and Gov. Bobby Jindal, third from right. (April Buffington/NYT Institute)

This story has been updated.

After flying over the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, two Cabinet officials joined Gov. Bobby Jindal in angry criticism of BP for failing to stop the ongoing spill and said the government was considering taking emergency measures to prevent oil from reaching Louisiana’s fragile wetlands.

Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, and Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, expressed their frustration with BP. They were accompanied by a bipartisan Senate delegation that included Louisiana’s two U.S. senators.

In a speech at the Greater Lafourche Port Commission, Napolitano said the response to the oil spill was the largest ever in the nation, pouring an estimated 200,000 gallons a day into the Gulf.

“We came to fly over the site of the spill and see for ourselves what BP has done and not done,” Napolitano said. “We came to listen to the people of this area because they are directly impacted by the fact that this spill is still ongoing and is still not solved.”

In a news conference that followed, Napolitano and Jindal said the group wanted to explore all options to save Louisiana’s coastline, including burning oil at sea, trapping it with booms or building sand barriers along the shoreline.

“We have to take action into our own hands if we’re going to win this fight,” Jindal said. “Our goal is not to just clean up this oil once it hits our marshes. Our top goal must be to keep this oil out of our wetlands and marshes.”

The governor said the state had begun building sand barriers to block the oil, but continues to press the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for emergency permission to build them, which would help release federal funds. Without the barriers, he said, oil could start to kill the marshlands within five to seven days.

In their overflight of the Gulf, Jindal said, the group saw the thick, brown and black oil, which, they said, has already started to reach the nesting grounds of brown pelicans. The state bird, the pelican was removed from the endangered species list only a few months ago.

Salazar said the U.S. would press BP to pay reimbursements and damages to the many businesses affected by the spill.
“BP is the responsible party,” he said. “It is a horrible mess. They will be held accountable. We will keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done.”

Officials for BP did not respond to a request for comment on the officials’ remarks.

Until now, Louisiana has been protecting its shoreline with miles of long, white gauze-filled tubing, which soaks up the oil. This afternoon, for example, on Elmer’s Island near Grand Isle, work crews were collecting soiled tubes and putting them in plastic bags for disposal.

Jindal used the news conference on Monday to continue pressing federal officials for a more effective approach to blocking the oil. He stressed that Louisiana does not have the resources to protect the coast and that the problem is national in scope.

“These are America’s wetlands,” Jindal said. “This is not just about keeping oil off a rocky land, or a beach, but this is about a way of life for our people and our state.”

An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that the spill was the largest in the nation.

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