The Hill News

Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that his criticism of the White House over its handling of the BP oil spill had to do with the language it directed at the corporation.

"I didn't think the president or his people should say something like putting the boot heel on the throat of a business," Paul said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "I didn't like that. It wasn't that I thought that we shouldn't be tough. I do think we should be tough. And if they broke the law they should be punished, et cetera, et cetera. They should be responsible. They should pay for the cleanup."

Paul made similar comments in May when he said that President Obama's criticism of BP "sounds really un-American."

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar promised that the administration would keep its "boot on the throat" on BP to ensure the energy giant followed through on its duty to stop the spill and clean up. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs echoed those words.

"I don't think an American president should be talking about putting the boot heel on the throat of a corporation because it sends the wrong signal that the government is the enemy somehow of business," Paul said Sunday. "And we need to always recognize that one in ten businesses succeed. We need to do everything we can to encourage business because that's where the jobs are created."

However, Paul said he had made a "poor choice of words" when commenting in May on a Kentucky coal mine roof collapse that killed two miners. “We had a mining accident that was very tragic,” he told Good Morning America at the time. “But then we come in and it’s always someone’s fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.”

On Sunday, Paul said he was even chided by his wife for saying that.

"But what I was trying to point out is that as a physician, you know, if you come to me and I do your eye surgery I'll tell you there's one in a thousand chances that you can get an infection in your eye and you could lose the vision," he said. "When that happens I might have done everything perfectly but it's one of these risks. And to say accidents happen won't comfort you because that's just a bad wording so I used the wrong words, but I do honestly want to tell you if you're my patient that there are risks."