More on capping the well

Susan Saulny and John Broder have an article in The New York Times about the on-going well capping operation in the Gulf:

A giant steel container meant to capture oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico was lowered to within two hundred feet of the seafloor, officials said. The container was positioned slightly to the side of where it needed to be placed to capture the gushing crude nearly a mile below the gulf’s surface. Workers operating a crane 5,000 feet above the muddy seafloor were trying to place the chamber in such a way that it completely covered the leaking pipe with a snug fit to the seabed. If not, the operation could be a failure, Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, said at a news conference. “We should recognize that this hasn’t been done before,” Mr. Suttles said. “We should expect it will undoubtedly have some complications. But we’re committed to trying to make this work.” At some point over the weekend, once the container is in place, it is to be connected via a pipe to a drill ship on the surface. That ship, Enterprise, could begin evacuating oil from the site next week, Mr. Suttles said.
Federal officials expanded the area that is off limits to fishing because of the spill and extended the restrictions to 17 May. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the total area was 10,807 square miles.
Weather conditions looked favorable for the weekend, but one of the greatest technical challenges was the near-freezing temperature of the water near the seafloor. The operation could be stalled if the connection pipe freezes. Warm water from the surface will be pumped along the pipe in an effort to prevent any clogging, Mr. Suttles said.
An explosion on the oil rig Deepwater Horizon on 20 April caused eleven deaths, and the rig collapsed two days later. Leaks from the wreckage have poured an estimated three million gallons of oil into the gulf.
New political ramifications of the spill emerged when Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the chief sponsors of a nascent plan to address energy and climate change in the Senate, said that the proposal had no chance of passage in the near term and called for a “pause” in consideration of the issue.
Mr. Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said that the oil spill had heightened concern about expanded offshore drilling, which he had considered a central component of any energy legislation. Mr. Graham also said that Democratic insistence on taking up immigration policy before energy had chilled his enthusiasm for any global warming measure. Mr. Graham said it had become politically “impossible” to consider such a difficult subject in the current environment. Without the support of Mr. Graham and at least a handful of Republicans, the measure is most likely dead for the year. But two other sponsors, Senators John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, vowed to press forward and said they planned to unveil some version of their climate change and energy plan next week. Mr. Graham said he would not be part of it. “As I have previously indicated, a serious debate on energy legislation is significantly compromised with the cynical politics of comprehensive immigration reform hanging over the Senate,” Mr. Graham said in a statement. “In addition to immigration, we now have to deal with a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which creates new policy and political challenges not envisioned in our original discussions. In light of this, I believe it would be wise to pause the process and reassess where we stand.”
The Obama administration is also reconsidering its support for expanded offshore drilling, saying it would await the results of several investigations into the cause of the Deepwater Horizon blowout last month before moving ahead with plans for new offshore exploration.