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How the White House Public Relations Campaign on the Oil Spill is Harming the Actual Clean-up
Frontline Accounts of Oil Spill Differ from Official Account on Key Points
Staff Report
U.S. House of Representatives
111th Congress
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
July 1, 2010
I also want to stress that we are working closely with the Gulf states and local communities to help every American affected by this crisis. Let me be clear: BP is responsible for this leak; BP will be paying the bill. But as President of the United States, I'm going to spare no effort
to respond to this crisis for as long as it continues. And we will spare no resource to clean up whatever damage is caused. And while there will be time to fully investigate what happened on that rig and hold responsible parties accountable, our focus now is on a fully coordinated, relentless response effort to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the Gulf. – President Barack Obama, May 2, 2010.
A View from Ground Zero of the Oil Spill
On April 20, 2010, an explosion rocked the Deepwater Horizon, which was under contract with British Petroleum (BP) to drill an exploratory well at the Macondo site in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion was swiftly followed by the unrestricted flow of oil and natural gas from the well-head into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It has been 71 days since the accident, and a massive volume of oil continues to spill into the Gulf. As of June 30, 2010, the government estimates that between 40.7 million gallons (969,000 barrels) and 117.6 million gallons (2.8m barrels) of oil has been released. BP and the federal government have suffered a series of setbacks as they have attempted to plug the well, and most of the oil remains in the Gulf in various states of decomposition.
Ranking Member Darrell E. Issa and Chairman Edolphus Towns recently visited the Gulf of Mexico to survey the damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the resulting oil leak. At the Unified Area Command center in Robert, Louisiana they received formal briefings from BP, Coast Guard, and various federal government representatives assessing the situation on the ground. Committee staff remained in theregion and conducted a series of interviews with local officials intimately involved with the response effort.
In so doing, they spoke with leaders from Jefferson Parish, St. Bernard’s Parish, and Lafourche Parish. Jefferson Parish is the most populous Parish in the state and was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. It is also described as “ground zero” in the battle against the oil spill due to tidal patterns. St. Bernard Parish was flooded levee-to-levee in the wake of Katrina. Of its 27,000 homes, only five remained untouched by Katrina’s flood waters. Lafourche Parish is home to Port Fourchon, a low lying coastal city at the intersection of the Bayou Lafourche and the Gulf of Mexico. Eighteen percent of the entire nation's energy supply flows through Port Fourchon, which also serves as headquarters for much of the region’s direct efforts to fight the oil spill.
Pursuant to this review, staff has found numerous instances in which the situation on the ground conflicts with official reports. Of enormous concern, the situation in the Gulf is actually more dysfunctional and dire than what has been portrayed through official reports and press accounts based on official information. This blurring of reality is exacerbating problems with the clean-up effort.
Findings
Committee staff has discovered the following based upon witness interviews and documents provided by federal and state entities:
• Officials on the ground dispute key White House assertions about the number and timeliness of assets deployed in the Gulf. Local officials describe White House outreach efforts as more focused on stopping bad press than on addressing the disaster at hand;
• The White House’s assurances that there are adequate resources are at odds with the reality on the ground, where those on the frontline of the spill express significant frustration over the lack of assets. Local complaints are supported by the fact that the White House waited until Day 70 of the oil spill to accept critical offers of international assistance. Local workers and boats could have been assisting more with the clean-up if the Federal government had provided them with needed supplies and equipment;
• While the White House has tried to use the delay in finding a visible leak to explain its early silence on the oil spill, Transocean officials and Coast Guard documents from the scene of the oil spill reveal clear and early indications of a substantial oil leak days earlier than White House accounts;
• The failure of Administration officials to quickly waive laws preventing necessary foreign assets from reaching the Gulf and other regulations are hampering efforts to clean-up and limit damage from the oil spill. Local officials feel the federal government is making the perfect the enemy of the good in cleanup efforts;
• Local officials strongly dispute President Obama’s insistence that the federal government – and not BP – has been in control since day one. One Coast Guard Admiral told congressional investigators that decisions on the ground are made through a “consensus-based” process with BP. In practice, the Federal Government is not in charge of oil spill response efforts through a command-and-control approach;
• Local officials strongly believe the President’s call for a drilling moratorium will significantly compound the economic damage caused by the oil spill and will actually increase risk associated with future offshore drilling projects.
Background
An investigation by committee staff during a recent fact-finding exercise on the Louisiana coast finds evidence that Administration officials have misrepresented key facts including the number of assets dedicated to cleaning up the spill, the timing of when officials knew about the oil leak, the extent to which the federal government has been in control, and the effectiveness of its command structure. Furthermore, local officials in Louisiana fear and evidence suggests that, in addition to being unprepared for the upcoming hurricane season, policy decisions made by this Administration, including the drilling moratorium and an apparent refusal to waive the union-backed Jones Act, will stifle economic recovery in the region for years to come. In sum, the Committee has uncovered information that disputes the rhetoric the Administration has used to portray its efforts in response to the spill.
White House Timeline
After days of prodding by this Committee1 and others, the White House furnished an official timeline of events on May 5, 2010. This timeline, which was last updated on May 24, 20102, includes a detailed accounting of the number of assets deployed on-scene, as well as specific information about what officials knew about the oil leak and when they knew it. The White House published this timeline on its blog “in the spirit of transparency so the American people can have a clear understanding of what their government has been and is doing to respond” to the oil spill. The White House blog details a number of assets deployed in the region to combat the spill. This includes vessels, boom, and dispersant. The number of assets claimed, however, does not appear to match what is actually in the field. Parish officials maintain that the thousands of vessels cited in the blog are non-existent. One senior official refers to them as “phantom assets.” When asked to elaborate, he explained that when he asks the federal government to provide the location of its assets, it either refuses or cannot do so.4 Daily helicopter search grids performed by the Parish sheriff’s department confirm to him that very few of the assets claimed are deployed.
This is corroborated by Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who shared a similar story with investigators. BP and Coast Guard provided Mr. Nungesser with a map of the Gulf allegedly pinpointing the exact locations of 140 skimmers cleaning up oil. Sensing that the chart may have been somewhat inaccurate, Mr. Nungesser requested a flyover of the assets for verification. After three cancelled trips, officials admitted to Mr. Nungesser that only 31 of the 140 skimmers were ever deployed. The rest were sitting at the docks. According to Mr. Nungesser, the chart appeared to have been fabricated.
The picture below lends credence to the accounts given by Parish officials. It depicts a massive swath of oil floating toward the coastline. There are no ships, skimmers, or other collection equipment for miles around. Sadly, it is one of many that Chairman Towns, Ranking Member Issa, and committee staff surveyed on June 14, 2010, aboard a Coast Guard aircraft that appear to be completely devoid of clean up efforts. The lack of equipment at the scene of the spill is shocking, and appears to reflect what some describe as a strategy of cleaning up oil once it comes ashore versus containing the spill and cleaning it up in the ocean. As a result, significant resources are apparently not being deployed to prevent contamination of vulnerable marshlands. This operational philosophy could help explain why oil was permitted to reach the shores of Queen Bess Island, a sanctuary for the brown pelican and other forms of wildlife. According to Dan Jueano – President, Louisiana Association of Business and Industry – there was no boom laid to protect this ecological treasure.
The timeline also states that officials became aware of the oil leak on April 24, 2010, four days after the Deepwater Horizon exploded and two days after it sank. This, too, conflicts with actual events. A chief Transocean drilling engineer told staff on May 6, 2010, that a leak was inevitable after an explosion of that magnitude. By definition, the explosion emanating from the riser would be evidence of a leak and that the blowout preventer had failed to close. Indeed, Coast Guard logs maintain that on April 21, 2010, attempts were being made to activate the malfunctioning blowout preventer. On April 22, 2010, when the vessel sank with the riser still attached to the rig and a malfunctioning blowout preventer, officials should have known there was a leak.
Situation reports also indicate that on April 21, 2010, Coast Guard personnel warned senior officials within their own chain of command, the Department of Homeland Security, and elements of the Defense Department’s Joint Staff, of a possible 8,000 barrel-per-day leak. They also described an oil sheen, 2 miles by ½ mile, with 50 percent coverage with color ranging from dark to barely visible.” On April 22, 2010, personnel reported to the national response center “what appeared to be a large area of bubbles in the water, possible natural gas leak.” On April 23, 2010, a Coast Guard situation report begins referring to the site as an “oil spill area.” This evidence casts serious doubt upon the White House’s assertion that there was no apparent leak until April 24, 2010.
The doublespeak surrounding the existence of vessels and the availability of boom to clean up oil in the water, as well as a belief that BP and the federal government are disregarding the priorities of local communities, have incensed Parish officials. LaFourche President Charlotte Randolph told committee staff that “we would have liked to have played offense. Would like to have made an effort to collect at the site instead of the shoreline.” This belief is echoed by a Jefferson Parish official who, within days of the explosion, warned BP and the Coast Guard that oil was rapidly approaching and requested that they deploy equipment to prevent it from reaching shore. The local official told committee investigators that, “they all said ‘don’t worry about it.
A St. Bernard Parish official, who described the situation as the “slowest and most ineffective response,” made an emotional plea to “give us the equipment.” There are approximately 700 fishermen in his Parish trained and ready to deploy boom as quickly as the Coast Guard can supply it. Despite multiple requests, however, the supplies are not flowing into the area. As he describes, “it’s like giving me a [gun] with no bullets; it’s just a paperweight.” Accounts such as these not only cast doubt upon the timeline’s credibility and the White House accounting of deployed assets, but also call into question the command-and-control structure producing these results.
Command and Control
The Obama Administration has repeatedly asserted that the federal government has been in control since day one and has used military language to describe its efforts. Indeed, the President stated on May 27, 2010, that “the moment this disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort.” In his address to the nation on June 15, 2010, he referred to the response as a “battle” and his strategy as a “battle plan.” Federal and state officials have shared a different perspective with committee staff.
Parish officials maintain that the federal government has not been in control since day one. In four separate interviews, senior-ranking Parish officials described how, until the President’s visit on May 28, 2010, BP was in charge. According to one official, “until two weeks ago [after the President’s May 28, 2010, visit], BP was in charge and the Coast Guard looked to them for direction.” Furthermore, “Coast Guard asks BP,” not vice-versa. When specifically asked to agree or disagree with the assertion that the federal government had been in control since day one, another official firmly disagreed.
Mr. Nungesser told staff that “today, I can’t tell you who is in control,” and invited committee investigators to visit the command center to see for themselves. Rear Admiral Jim Watson, the senior-most official at the Unified Area Command in Robert, LA, also gave a different account of events on the ground. In a June 14, 2010, briefing to Chairman Towns, Ranking Member Issa, and staff, Watson stated that his command structure is decidedly different than what has been described by the White House. According to Watson, “It is not a war-fighting command and control structure where the Federal government is sending orders to BP. Rather the process on the ground with BP and others is “consensus-based,” where higher-raking officials inject themselves to resolve differences of opinion. In his view, “The framework probably isn’t up to the task.”
This assessment coincides with local officials, who have expressed frustration that the system is overly bureaucratic and ineffective. A St. Bernard Parish official criticized the command-and-control as lacking decisiveness. Unlike the military, he says, “There is no sergeant on the battlefield making decisions.” This lack of decision-making authority at the lower levels has caused innumerable problems, especially with the acquisition of equipment.
........continue below..........
Frontline Accounts of Oil Spill Differ from Official Account on Key Points
Staff Report
U.S. House of Representatives
111th Congress
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
July 1, 2010
I also want to stress that we are working closely with the Gulf states and local communities to help every American affected by this crisis. Let me be clear: BP is responsible for this leak; BP will be paying the bill. But as President of the United States, I'm going to spare no effort
to respond to this crisis for as long as it continues. And we will spare no resource to clean up whatever damage is caused. And while there will be time to fully investigate what happened on that rig and hold responsible parties accountable, our focus now is on a fully coordinated, relentless response effort to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the Gulf. – President Barack Obama, May 2, 2010.
A View from Ground Zero of the Oil Spill
On April 20, 2010, an explosion rocked the Deepwater Horizon, which was under contract with British Petroleum (BP) to drill an exploratory well at the Macondo site in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion was swiftly followed by the unrestricted flow of oil and natural gas from the well-head into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It has been 71 days since the accident, and a massive volume of oil continues to spill into the Gulf. As of June 30, 2010, the government estimates that between 40.7 million gallons (969,000 barrels) and 117.6 million gallons (2.8m barrels) of oil has been released. BP and the federal government have suffered a series of setbacks as they have attempted to plug the well, and most of the oil remains in the Gulf in various states of decomposition.
Ranking Member Darrell E. Issa and Chairman Edolphus Towns recently visited the Gulf of Mexico to survey the damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the resulting oil leak. At the Unified Area Command center in Robert, Louisiana they received formal briefings from BP, Coast Guard, and various federal government representatives assessing the situation on the ground. Committee staff remained in theregion and conducted a series of interviews with local officials intimately involved with the response effort.
In so doing, they spoke with leaders from Jefferson Parish, St. Bernard’s Parish, and Lafourche Parish. Jefferson Parish is the most populous Parish in the state and was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. It is also described as “ground zero” in the battle against the oil spill due to tidal patterns. St. Bernard Parish was flooded levee-to-levee in the wake of Katrina. Of its 27,000 homes, only five remained untouched by Katrina’s flood waters. Lafourche Parish is home to Port Fourchon, a low lying coastal city at the intersection of the Bayou Lafourche and the Gulf of Mexico. Eighteen percent of the entire nation's energy supply flows through Port Fourchon, which also serves as headquarters for much of the region’s direct efforts to fight the oil spill.
Pursuant to this review, staff has found numerous instances in which the situation on the ground conflicts with official reports. Of enormous concern, the situation in the Gulf is actually more dysfunctional and dire than what has been portrayed through official reports and press accounts based on official information. This blurring of reality is exacerbating problems with the clean-up effort.
Findings
Committee staff has discovered the following based upon witness interviews and documents provided by federal and state entities:
• Officials on the ground dispute key White House assertions about the number and timeliness of assets deployed in the Gulf. Local officials describe White House outreach efforts as more focused on stopping bad press than on addressing the disaster at hand;
• The White House’s assurances that there are adequate resources are at odds with the reality on the ground, where those on the frontline of the spill express significant frustration over the lack of assets. Local complaints are supported by the fact that the White House waited until Day 70 of the oil spill to accept critical offers of international assistance. Local workers and boats could have been assisting more with the clean-up if the Federal government had provided them with needed supplies and equipment;
• While the White House has tried to use the delay in finding a visible leak to explain its early silence on the oil spill, Transocean officials and Coast Guard documents from the scene of the oil spill reveal clear and early indications of a substantial oil leak days earlier than White House accounts;
• The failure of Administration officials to quickly waive laws preventing necessary foreign assets from reaching the Gulf and other regulations are hampering efforts to clean-up and limit damage from the oil spill. Local officials feel the federal government is making the perfect the enemy of the good in cleanup efforts;
• Local officials strongly dispute President Obama’s insistence that the federal government – and not BP – has been in control since day one. One Coast Guard Admiral told congressional investigators that decisions on the ground are made through a “consensus-based” process with BP. In practice, the Federal Government is not in charge of oil spill response efforts through a command-and-control approach;
• Local officials strongly believe the President’s call for a drilling moratorium will significantly compound the economic damage caused by the oil spill and will actually increase risk associated with future offshore drilling projects.
Background
An investigation by committee staff during a recent fact-finding exercise on the Louisiana coast finds evidence that Administration officials have misrepresented key facts including the number of assets dedicated to cleaning up the spill, the timing of when officials knew about the oil leak, the extent to which the federal government has been in control, and the effectiveness of its command structure. Furthermore, local officials in Louisiana fear and evidence suggests that, in addition to being unprepared for the upcoming hurricane season, policy decisions made by this Administration, including the drilling moratorium and an apparent refusal to waive the union-backed Jones Act, will stifle economic recovery in the region for years to come. In sum, the Committee has uncovered information that disputes the rhetoric the Administration has used to portray its efforts in response to the spill.
White House Timeline
After days of prodding by this Committee1 and others, the White House furnished an official timeline of events on May 5, 2010. This timeline, which was last updated on May 24, 20102, includes a detailed accounting of the number of assets deployed on-scene, as well as specific information about what officials knew about the oil leak and when they knew it. The White House published this timeline on its blog “in the spirit of transparency so the American people can have a clear understanding of what their government has been and is doing to respond” to the oil spill. The White House blog details a number of assets deployed in the region to combat the spill. This includes vessels, boom, and dispersant. The number of assets claimed, however, does not appear to match what is actually in the field. Parish officials maintain that the thousands of vessels cited in the blog are non-existent. One senior official refers to them as “phantom assets.” When asked to elaborate, he explained that when he asks the federal government to provide the location of its assets, it either refuses or cannot do so.4 Daily helicopter search grids performed by the Parish sheriff’s department confirm to him that very few of the assets claimed are deployed.
This is corroborated by Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who shared a similar story with investigators. BP and Coast Guard provided Mr. Nungesser with a map of the Gulf allegedly pinpointing the exact locations of 140 skimmers cleaning up oil. Sensing that the chart may have been somewhat inaccurate, Mr. Nungesser requested a flyover of the assets for verification. After three cancelled trips, officials admitted to Mr. Nungesser that only 31 of the 140 skimmers were ever deployed. The rest were sitting at the docks. According to Mr. Nungesser, the chart appeared to have been fabricated.
The picture below lends credence to the accounts given by Parish officials. It depicts a massive swath of oil floating toward the coastline. There are no ships, skimmers, or other collection equipment for miles around. Sadly, it is one of many that Chairman Towns, Ranking Member Issa, and committee staff surveyed on June 14, 2010, aboard a Coast Guard aircraft that appear to be completely devoid of clean up efforts. The lack of equipment at the scene of the spill is shocking, and appears to reflect what some describe as a strategy of cleaning up oil once it comes ashore versus containing the spill and cleaning it up in the ocean. As a result, significant resources are apparently not being deployed to prevent contamination of vulnerable marshlands. This operational philosophy could help explain why oil was permitted to reach the shores of Queen Bess Island, a sanctuary for the brown pelican and other forms of wildlife. According to Dan Jueano – President, Louisiana Association of Business and Industry – there was no boom laid to protect this ecological treasure.
The timeline also states that officials became aware of the oil leak on April 24, 2010, four days after the Deepwater Horizon exploded and two days after it sank. This, too, conflicts with actual events. A chief Transocean drilling engineer told staff on May 6, 2010, that a leak was inevitable after an explosion of that magnitude. By definition, the explosion emanating from the riser would be evidence of a leak and that the blowout preventer had failed to close. Indeed, Coast Guard logs maintain that on April 21, 2010, attempts were being made to activate the malfunctioning blowout preventer. On April 22, 2010, when the vessel sank with the riser still attached to the rig and a malfunctioning blowout preventer, officials should have known there was a leak.
Situation reports also indicate that on April 21, 2010, Coast Guard personnel warned senior officials within their own chain of command, the Department of Homeland Security, and elements of the Defense Department’s Joint Staff, of a possible 8,000 barrel-per-day leak. They also described an oil sheen, 2 miles by ½ mile, with 50 percent coverage with color ranging from dark to barely visible.” On April 22, 2010, personnel reported to the national response center “what appeared to be a large area of bubbles in the water, possible natural gas leak.” On April 23, 2010, a Coast Guard situation report begins referring to the site as an “oil spill area.” This evidence casts serious doubt upon the White House’s assertion that there was no apparent leak until April 24, 2010.
The doublespeak surrounding the existence of vessels and the availability of boom to clean up oil in the water, as well as a belief that BP and the federal government are disregarding the priorities of local communities, have incensed Parish officials. LaFourche President Charlotte Randolph told committee staff that “we would have liked to have played offense. Would like to have made an effort to collect at the site instead of the shoreline.” This belief is echoed by a Jefferson Parish official who, within days of the explosion, warned BP and the Coast Guard that oil was rapidly approaching and requested that they deploy equipment to prevent it from reaching shore. The local official told committee investigators that, “they all said ‘don’t worry about it.
A St. Bernard Parish official, who described the situation as the “slowest and most ineffective response,” made an emotional plea to “give us the equipment.” There are approximately 700 fishermen in his Parish trained and ready to deploy boom as quickly as the Coast Guard can supply it. Despite multiple requests, however, the supplies are not flowing into the area. As he describes, “it’s like giving me a [gun] with no bullets; it’s just a paperweight.” Accounts such as these not only cast doubt upon the timeline’s credibility and the White House accounting of deployed assets, but also call into question the command-and-control structure producing these results.
Command and Control
The Obama Administration has repeatedly asserted that the federal government has been in control since day one and has used military language to describe its efforts. Indeed, the President stated on May 27, 2010, that “the moment this disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort.” In his address to the nation on June 15, 2010, he referred to the response as a “battle” and his strategy as a “battle plan.” Federal and state officials have shared a different perspective with committee staff.
Parish officials maintain that the federal government has not been in control since day one. In four separate interviews, senior-ranking Parish officials described how, until the President’s visit on May 28, 2010, BP was in charge. According to one official, “until two weeks ago [after the President’s May 28, 2010, visit], BP was in charge and the Coast Guard looked to them for direction.” Furthermore, “Coast Guard asks BP,” not vice-versa. When specifically asked to agree or disagree with the assertion that the federal government had been in control since day one, another official firmly disagreed.
Mr. Nungesser told staff that “today, I can’t tell you who is in control,” and invited committee investigators to visit the command center to see for themselves. Rear Admiral Jim Watson, the senior-most official at the Unified Area Command in Robert, LA, also gave a different account of events on the ground. In a June 14, 2010, briefing to Chairman Towns, Ranking Member Issa, and staff, Watson stated that his command structure is decidedly different than what has been described by the White House. According to Watson, “It is not a war-fighting command and control structure where the Federal government is sending orders to BP. Rather the process on the ground with BP and others is “consensus-based,” where higher-raking officials inject themselves to resolve differences of opinion. In his view, “The framework probably isn’t up to the task.”
This assessment coincides with local officials, who have expressed frustration that the system is overly bureaucratic and ineffective. A St. Bernard Parish official criticized the command-and-control as lacking decisiveness. Unlike the military, he says, “There is no sergeant on the battlefield making decisions.” This lack of decision-making authority at the lower levels has caused innumerable problems, especially with the acquisition of equipment.
........continue below..........
