BOMBSHELL: White House Blocked Worst-Case-Scenario Estimate Of Oil Spill Disaster Gus Lubin | Oct. 6, 2010, 11:47 AM | 150 | comment 3 *
obamaBack in April, the White House blocked the worst case scenario estimate of the oil spill, according to the federal oil spill commission.
The White House kept NOAA from announcing a spill rate higher than the 5,000 bbl (originally 1,000 bbl) figure that came from BP.
Keeping a much higher figure out of the press may have slowed national response to the disaster, the commission said.
More details from Times Picayune:
In four separate draft working papers, the commission staff suggests that "over optimism" about the size of the spill during the first 10 days after the Macondo well exploded April 20 slowed the response.
"While it is not clear thatthis misplaced optimism affected any individual response effort, it may haveaffected the scale and speed with which national resources were brought to bear,"one of the staff reports said. "Most responders thought that their initialapproach was too slow and unfocused."
