president prevailed and signed the affordable care act into law. today, after almost a century of trying, today after over a year of debate, today after all the votes have been tallied, health insurance reform becomes law in the united states of america. it was, as the vice president whispered in his ear, a truly historic achievement. this is a big deal. but the victory served notice to republicans that if this president didn t get their help, still get things done, big things, republicans vowed to fight him every step of the way. over the past week some have said it was indeli gait of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny president obama a second term. stop cap and tax.
to refresher courses on chemistry and biology. abc s john hendren points out five lessons learned. reporter: the oil spill has brought us new phrases. top cap. top kill. blowout preventer. junk shot. but over the past three months it s also given us a litany of fascinating oil trivia that you probably never knew, and now won t be able to get out of your he no, i didn t know that. reporter: here are our top five things we ve learned from llgulfco. number one, oil evaporates. who knew that much of the oil in these waters dissipates within days? still, scientists say the small percentage that remains will affect local wildlife and the marshes that make up 40% of the nation s wetlands for years. there will continue to be residues of oil and oil-based chemicals in the marine environment, possibly for 10 or 20 years or even more. reporter: number two, the watchdogs were busy watching porn. who knew government inspectors found the regulators who oversaw the deepwater horizon rigs we
i m going to move this out of the way now. we re going to look at the next part here. this is the relief well they ve been drilling down there. right now, bp says they can continue doing this despite the storm because the platforms they re working on there can hold up. they had hoped to add one more ship to the effort to drain off oil from that top cap we ve heard about. that has been delayed. that can t move in. the good news is the waves are not affecting the drilling of those relief wells. platforms involved in that are able to continue this and they will keep working. anderson? tom, how is the progress on that going? it s pretty good, according to bp. the distance between the first relief well this one right here and the main well here, the macondo well, the one that s damaged that they re trying to fix, is about 20 feet if you go side to side there. 20 feet right in here. now, how do they know that? they know that because they send an electric pulse right down through the
this is the relief well they ve been drilling down there. right now, bp says they can continue doing this despite the storm because the platforms they re working on there can hold up. they had hoped to add one more ship to the effort to drain off oil from that top cap we ve heard about. that has been delayed. that can t move in. the good news is the waves are not affecting the drilling of those relief wells. platforms involved in that are able to continue this and they will keep working. anderson? tom, how is the progress on that going? it s pretty good, according to bp. the distance between the first relief well this one right here and the main well here, the macondo well, the one that s damaged that they re trying to fix, is about 20 feet if you go side to side there. 20 feet right in here. now, how do they know that? they know that because they send an electric pulse right down through the main well here and then they put sensors down here and the electromagnetic field tells
i m going to move this out of the way now. we re going to look at the next part here. this is the relief well they ve been drilling down there. right now, bp says they can continue doing this despite the storm because the platforms they re working on there can hold up. they had hoped to add one more ship to the effort to drain off oil from that top cap we ve heard about. that has been delayed. that can t move in. the good news is the waves are not affecting the drilling of those relief wells. platforms involved in that are able to continue this and they will keep working. anderson? tom, how is the progress on that going? it s pretty good according to bp. the distance between the first relief well this one right here and the main well here, the macondo well, the one that s damaged that they re trying to fix, is about 20 feet if you go side to side there. 20 feet in here. how do they know that? what they do is they send an electric pulse down through the main well here and then t