“Not an Incidental Public Relations Problem”

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The Obama administration misled the public about the size of BP’s spill and misrepresented a report about how much oil remained in the Gulf following clean-up efforts, according to one of four staff reports released today by the National Oil Spill Commission, the panel convened by the President to investigate the disaster. According to the report, the White House also deliberately kept a worst-case scenario estimate under wraps, despite a federal agency’s request to make the information public.

Initially, BP claimed that 1,000 barrels oil per day were leaking from the well, an estimate the administration adopted. But, according to the report (“The Amount and Fate of the Oil”), “Neither the Coast Guard nor BP divulged the data or methodology behind this estimate. Based on the information we have to date, it appears the figure came from BP without supporting documentation.”

When the administration revised its estimate to 5,000 barrels per day a week after the spill, it again provided the public with dubious information. The report indicates that the number was basically made up. The figure came from a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who had no experience making this kind of estimate, used “imprecise” methodology, and did not rely on established or peer-reviewed methods. From the report:

This is not a criticism of the scientist, who made clear his assumptions and that the 5,000 bbls/day figure was a “very rough estimate.” His stated intent in disseminating the estimate was to warn government officials that the flow rate was multiple times greater than 1,000 bbls/day.

Despite the acknowledged inaccuracies of the NOAA scientist’s estimate, and despite the existence of other and potentially better methodologies for visually assessing flow rate (discussed below), 5,000 bbls/day was to remain the government’s official flow-rate estimate for a full month, until May 27, 2010.

The 5,000 barrels estimate would prove to be only one-twelfth of the actual rate of flow from the well. Meanwhile, government responders were aware that BP had listed a 162,000-barrels-per-day “worst-case scenario” estimate in its original drilling permit. According to officials interviewed by commission staff, NOAA wanted to make that information public in late April or early May, but the White House Office of Management and Budget quashed the agency’s request.

The administration’s claims about the flow rate from the well and its oil budget report, touted as describing the “fate of the oil” in the Gulf, “were the source of significant controversy, which undermined public confidence in the federal government’s response to the spill,” the report also notes, concluding that it was “not an incidental public relations problem.”

The absence of trust fuels public fears, and those fears in turn can cause major harm, whether because the public loses confidence in the federal government’s assurances that beaches or seafood are safe, or because the government’s lack of credibility makes it harder to build relationships with state and local officials, as well as community leaders, that are necessary for effective response actions.

The spill commission’s report states that the administration’s oil budget report, released on August 4, was intended to be an “operational tool” for responders, but administration officials promoted it as an official estimate and “obscured some important shortcomings” in the report. For instance, it claimed the oil was “biodegrading quickly” but did not provide sources or data to support that conclusion, or even define what “quickly” meant in this context. The purpose of the budget, the commission’s report states, “was to tell responders how much oil was present for clean-up operations, not to tell the public how much oil was still in Gulf waters.” The report faults White House energy and climate adviser Carol Browner for presenting the budget “as a scientific assessment of how much of the oil was ‘gone’,” when it did not support her claims.

The report also notes that false statements by administration officials that the oil budget was “peer-reviewed” “likely contributed to public perception of the budget’s findings as more exact and complete than the budget, as an operational tool, was designed to be.”

Based on interviews with personnel who worked on the spill response, the commission’s report is preliminary and has yet to be fully endorsed by the commission’s members. The commission also released staff reports today on the use of dispersants in response to the spill, decision-making in the Unified Command, the history of offshore drilling, and the implications of drilling in the Arctic.

I’ll have more on the commission’s report on dispersants shortly.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate