Coast Guard Report Pans Administration's Slow Communications During BP Oil Spill

(Newsroom America) -- A new report by the U.S. Coast Guard criticizes what the agency characterized as a slow release of important information by the Obama administration during the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last summer.

As the administration worked to slow the flow of oil, it also "severely restricted" the release of "timely, accurate information, the report - which was posted to the Coast Guard's Web site without much fanfare two weeks ago - said.

"Several layers of review and approval by the White House and (Department of Homeland Security) prevented timely and effective crisis communications and hindered the Coast Guard's ability to ... (keep) stakeholders informed about the status of the response," said the report.

It added that "accurate and timely messaging from the response organization improves transparency with the public." It goes onto say that information centers established by the Coast Guard with pre-approved disaster plans were "effectively muted" during the crisis.

The report said Coast Guard leading recovery efforts "were not authorized to conduct media interviews, hold press conferences or send press releases without prior approval from DHS," and photographs couldn't be released unless Washington approved first.

Sources who spoke with Fox News said the administration viewed "this as a political problem, not an operational problem," with one source saying the administration had an eye on the 2010 midterm elections just a few months off.

"If any level of the response organization is restricted from interacting with the media and the public in any way, it has the potential to damage the credibility of the Federal Government and erode public trust," the report said.

The report is notable in that it sharply criticizes at least a portion of the administration's response to what has become the worst oil spill in U.S. history. An earlier presidential commission said in October the administration also failed to either act on or fully inform the public about its own worst-case estimates of oil that gushed into the Gulf for weeks.

The New York Times reported that the panel concluded the government regularly underestimated the amount of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, as well as how much remained after the well was finally capped in July.

For much of the crisis, the administration said about 5,000 barrels a day escaped through the uncapped well. But BP officials and some government scientists estimated the flow could be as high as 110,000 barrels a day, the Times reported.

Eventually, both government and independent scientists settled on about 60,000 barrels a day for most of the spill, for a total estimate of about 5 million barrels.

© 2010 Newsroom America.

Contact Jon E. Dougherty

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