7:14pm UK, Thursday October 07, 2010
Katie Cassidy, Sky News Online
The White House has been strongly criticised for blocking the publication of information on possible worst-case scenarios following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
A draft report by the National Oil Spill Commission appeared to suggest the Obama administration was directly involved in controlling the oil spill message.
More than 206m gallons (780m litres) of oil leaked into the Gulf before the well was finally plugged on July 15.
It has become the worst offshore oil leak in US history.
The panel, which was set up by Barack Obama, found the White House denied an early request by government scientists to inform the public of its worst-case predictions.
This move may have affected the speed with which resources were assembled to fight the spill, the draft report claimed.
Furthermore, the government was “over-optimistic” about the BP’s ability to bring the ruptured well under control.
President Obama might be feeling a little miffed at the results of the draft report from his oil spill commission. The experts suggest his administration was either not fully competent or not fully candid in the response to the spill.
Sky News US correspondent Greg Milam
“Though some of the command structure was put in place very quickly, in other respects the mobilisation of resources to combat the spill seemed to lag,” it said.
The White House has disputed the preliminary findings of the report, adding officials were “clear with the public”.
Following the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion on April 20, it took BP nearly eight weeks to stop millions of barrels of oil leaking into the ocean.
Large sections of the Gulf of Mexico were closed to fishing, hundreds of miles of shoreline were polluted and the coastal economy, including tourism and fisheries, was disrupted.
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