White House Defends Its Response on BP Oil Spill

Amid criticism stemming from a draft report from the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the White House is defending itself against claims that it initially suppressed estimates of the oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. On Thursday, Press Secretary on Robert Gibbs said, "There was never an effort to not put out the most accurate and timely information as soon as we had it," insisting that any assertion otherwise "is wrong."

Specifically, the report claims that a confidential National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report drafted on April 28, 2010 estimated that the flow of oil might be significantly higher than the public estimate of 1,000-5,000 barrels a day, and the federal government was, in fact, scaling its response to a "an unquantified worst-case scenario."

Further, the report noted, "The Commission staff has also been advised that, in late April or early May 2010, NOAA wanted to make public some of its long-term, worst-case discharge models for the Deepwater Horizon spill, and requested approval to do so from the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Staff was told that the Office of Management and Budget denied NOAA's request."

In response, Gibbs asserted that the NOAA models were not oil flow estimates but rather shoreline impact analyses -- and ones that were incomplete. "[The NOAA] paper specifically says that anything done as part of recovery" -- including measures taken by the response teams such as skimming, burning, and use of dispersants -- "were not taken into account into the model," said Gibbs. "It didn't make sense to release a document that assumed no action was taken."

Regarding the involvement of OMB in the release of the NOAA papers, Gibbs countered that the agency "does very regular reviews of reports before they go out," and that the department "did not think [NOAA's] modeling took into account what was going on."

The report is highly critical of the government's initial response, noting that "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."

Gibbs defended the White House, saying, "We were as candid as we could be" and that "Our response was always predicated off of an understanding of the worst case scenario." But he acknowledged that the government's initial estimates were not accurate: "Do I wish we had had better information and analysis of the flow rate earlier?" he asked. "Of course. But it did not affect our response."