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Posted in BP British Petroleum,Deepwater Horizon,Environment,Government,Gulf Coast,World Maritime News on October 8, 2010
WASHINGTON, DC — According to a commission appointed by the president to investigate the Gulf oil spill disaster, the Obama administration blocked efforts by government scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could become and raised questions about its competence and candor during the crisis.
Capt. Hung Nguyen speaks during the Deepwater Horizon joint investigation hearings. Photo credit: Brett Duke / The Times-Picayune
In documents released Wednesday, the national oil spill commission’s staff describes “not an incidental public relations problem” by the White House in the wake of the April 20 accident. Among other things, the report says, the administration made erroneous early estimates of the spill’s size, and President Barack Obama’s senior energy adviser went on national TV and mischaracterized a government analysis by saying it showed most of the oil was “gone.” The analysis actually said it could still be there.
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“By initially underestimating the amount of oil flow and then, at the end of the summer, appearing to underestimate the amount of oil remaining in the Gulf, the federal government created the impression that it was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the American people about the scope of the problem,” the report says.
The administration disputed the commission findings, saying senior government officials “were clear with the public what the worst-case flow rate could be.”
In a statement Wednesday, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco and White House budget director Jeffrey Zients pointed out that in early May, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told the public that the worst-case scenario could be more than 100,000 barrels a day, or 4.2 million gallons.
The Hill blog reports that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is strongly rebutting criticism of the administration’s oil spill response from staff on the presidential panel investigating the disaster.
“I do not think that the staff report reflects in many ways a lot of the context,” Gibbs said Thursday.
“There was never an effort to not put out the most accurate and timely information as soon as we had it,” Gibbs said.
The paper also criticizes the White House’s rollout in August of a report on the fate of spilled oil, claiming the administration painted an overly rosy picture of the amount of oil removed or dispersed.
Gibbs took pains to note that the findings were not endorsed by the bipartisan panel that President Obama created, but rather staff work meant to inform the commission.
“If you look at the report, these papers, they are preliminary, subject to change, do not necessarily reflect the views either of the commission as a whole or of any of its members,” Gibbs said in a briefing Thursday morning, and reiterated the point in an afternoon briefing.
He also addressed the specific findings in the staff paper. Perhaps the most politically explosive is the claim that in late April or early May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wanted to make public long-term, worst-case discharge models from BP’s blown-out well, but the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) denied the request.
Sources:
Huffington Post
The Hill