WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama meets with BP's chairman on Wednesday and will demand that the oil company create a special reserve account to pay claims for damages caused by the Gulf of Mexico spill.
White House adviser David Axelrod tells NBC television's "Meet the Press" that the president wants an independent third party to administer that escrow account.
BP's board is meeting on Monday to discuss deferring its second-quarter dividend and putting the money into escrow until the company's liabilities from the spill are known.
Obama is meeting with BP's chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, and other company officials at the White House on Wednesday. It will be his first meeting with company officials since the spill in late April.
The president will be in the Gulf Coast on Monday and Tuesday.
