Obama No Longer Trusting BP's Word on Its Offshore Oil Drilling, White House Says

President Obama will no longer trust the word of BP in determining whether its deep-water oil drilling is safe in other parts of the Gulf of Mexico, the White House said Tuesday.

"I don't think the president wants to take BP's word for it that everything is OK," Gibbs said in an interview with Fox News. "I don't think we can risk going forward on taking a company's word for it anymore."

The U.S. government extended a moratorium on deep-water drilling in May by six months following an April 20 explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers and unleashed millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf. BP currently has four other offshore oil drilling permits that were paused by Obama.  

"We don't know what caused this accident," Gibbs said, adding, "I don't think the people of the Gulf, even those dependent upon those jobs, or the people of this country believe that we ought to be letting BP go forward with the drilling process when we're still cleaning up the mess of the last time they tried to drill at a deep-water depth in the Gulf."

Obama is expected to address the nation Tuesday night on the Gulf oil crisis and will lay out a strategy for "containing the oil that's leaking and cleaning up the environment," Gibbs said.

He also will outline steps to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and explain "how we make the people of the Gulf whole again through the economic claims process," he added.

Gibbs said on Tuesday that the administration is ready to take over the handling of oil spill damage claims from BP if the British company doesn't set up an "independent entity" to do it.

Gibbs told CBS's "The Early Show" that the oil giant's claims processing work has been unsatisfactory. He noted that Obama "has the legal authority" to make the claims process independent. And Gibbs also said "the best way to prevail upon BP is to take the claims process away from BP."

Gibbs pledged "that will happen. ... The president will either legally compel them or come to an agreement with BP to get out of the claims process, give that to an independent entity."