Gov't. Grossly Underestimated Oil Spill

You think President Obama still likes his idea for an investigation? The presidential commission created to examine the BP oil rig disaster released a report blasting the administration’s response to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Official data repeatedly underestimating the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf sowed fear and bred distrust in the government's ability to handle the disaster, the report says. Official estimates went from an initial 1,000 barrels a day seeping out of the well to as much as 60,000 barrels a day, discharging a total of five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico before the well was finally capped on July 15. The report went on to criticize top administration officials who proclaimed that three quarters of the oil had been either recovered or naturally dispersed when “the government’s own data did not support such conclusions."