Washington:
The Obama administration repeatedly underestimated how much oil was flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the stricken BP well, contributing to public fear about the accident and a loss of faith in the government's ability to handle it, according to a sharply critical report from the presidential commission appointed to study the disaster.
The report, one of four made public on Wednesday, is sharply critical of senior administration officials for a series of inaccurate estimates of the amount of oil spewing from BP's Macondo well and how much of it remained in the Gulf of Mexico after the well was capped.
The initial figure, released shortly after the well blew out on April 20 was 1,000 barrels a day, which was viewed at the time as significant but manageable. Over the next four months, the government figure was continually revised upward, even as independent scientists using more sophisticated methods were estimating a discharge rate many times higher than the official numbers.
Ultimately, government and independent scientists established that the uncontrolled flow was roughly 60,000 barrels a day for much of the spill, discharging nearly five million barrels of oil into the gulf. The well was capped on July 15 and officially declared dead in late September, when a cement plug was fixed to the bottom of the 18,000-foot-deep well.
The continual upward revision of flow rate estimates "undermined public confidence in the federal government's response to the spill," the commission staff said in its report to the seven-member investigative panel appointed by President Obama.
"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."
Government officials, including senior White House aides, cabinet officers and the Coast Guard admiral in charge of the spill response have acknowledged that they miscalculated the amount of oil pouring into the gulf and, at least early on, relied on data from BP. But they said that they based their response not on those figures but on worst case estimates, including the figure of 162,000 barrels a day that BP used in its Macondo well drilling permit application.
The government deployed hundreds of vessels to try to collect and contain the oil and used nearly two million of gallons of dispersants to break it into small droplets to speed its degradation.
In August, top administration officials proudly proclaimed that 75 percent of the oil had evaporated, dissolved or been collected, implying that their efforts had been largely successful and that ecological damage had been limited. Carol Browner, the White House coordinator for energy and climate change, proclaimed on Aug. 4: "I think it's also important to note that our scientists have done an initial assessment and more than three-quarters of the oil is gone. The vast majority of the oil is gone."
But the commission staff said that the government's own data did not support such sweeping conclusions. A number of respected independent researchers have concluded that as much as half of the spilled oil remains suspended in the water or buried in seafloor and coastal sludge.
The report also says that about two weeks after the BP rig exploded, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration asked the White House for permission to make public its worst-case models for the accident. The White House Office of Management and Budget denied the request, according to government officials interviewed by the commission's staff.
The commission staff also released studies on the use of dispersants, government decision-making and the prospects for oil exploration in the waters off Alaska.