White House squelched release of BP oil spill estimates

• The staff paper does not assign any motive to the administration’s moves but says the underestimating of flow rates “undermined public confidence in the federal government’s response” by creating the impression the government was either incompetent or untrustworthy. The paper said that the loss of trust “fuels public fears.”
• BP and Administration: Lies, Deceit, and Coverup in the Gulf
• Experts question BP's take on Gulf oil spill

Renee Schoof and Margaret Talev, McClatchy Newspapers

Workers clean oil residue form the rocks that form a jetty protecting a Gulfport, Mississippi, boat ramp

Government scientists wanted to tell Americans early on how bad the BP oil spill could be, but the White House denied their request to make the worst-case scenarios public, a report by staff for the national panel investigating the spill said Wednesday (Oct 7).

The allegation by unnamed government officials, contained in a staff working paper released Wednesday by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, is certain to fuel controversy over why the government lowballed flow rates throughout much of the spill, even as independent scientists offered vastly higher — and ultimately more accurate — estimates.

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Related:

Complete McClatchy oil spill coverage

Experts question BP's take on Gulf oil spill, Dina Cappiello, Associated Press/MSNBC

• BP's lead investigator acknowledged that the company's probe had limitations.
• Regret, apology not part of BP's oil spill report

BP and Administration: Lies, Deceit, and Coverup in the Gulf, Stephen Lendman, The World Can't Wait

• This goes way beyond BP and its decades of criminal negligence. It's a regulatory problem for lack of it; a government one for no oversight, public or environmental concern; and a long-term systemic one giving business free reign to plunder and pollute without limit, then when caught call it an accident, paper it over, and repeat again because complicit government officials allow it.
• The Spill, The Scandal and the President
• BP Oil Spill Is Not a Disaster. It's a Crime.
• Gulf Oil Emergency Summit: Extraordinary Crisis Demands Extraordinary Response

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