Panel: Gov't blocked worst-case oil spill figures
By DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press
Wed Oct 6, 4:30 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The White House blocked efforts by federal scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could have been, according to a panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
In documents released Wednesday, the national oil spill commission's staff reveals that in late April or early May the White House budget office denied a request from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to make public the worst-case discharge from the blown-out well. The Unified Command — the government team in charge of the spill response — also was discussing the possibility of making the numbers public, the report says, citing interviews with government officials.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But Jerry Miller, head of the White House science office's ocean subcommittee, told The Associated Press in an interview at a St. Petersburg, Fla., conference on the oil's flow that he didn't think the budget office censored NOAA.
"I would very much doubt that anyone would put restrictions on NOAA's ability to articulate factual information," Miller said.
The April 20 blowout and explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers, spewed 206 million gallons of oil from the damaged oil well, and sunk the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
BP's drilling permit for the Macondo well originally estimated the worst scenario to be a leak of 6.8 million gallons per day. In late April, the Coast Guard and NOAA received an updated estimate of 2.7 million to 4.6 million gallons per day.
While those figures were used as the basis for the government's response to the spill — they appeared on an internal Coast Guard Situation report and on a dry-erase board in NOAA's Seattle war room — the public was never told.
In the meantime, government officials were telling the public that the well was releasing 210,000 gallons per day — a figure that would be later adjusted to be much closer to the worst-case estimates.
"Despite the fact that the Unified Command had this information, relied on it for operations, and publicly states that it was operating under a worst-case scenario, the government never disclosed what its...scenario was," the report says.
University of South Florida oceanographer David Hollander, who was also at the St. Petersburg meeting of 150 scientists studying the oil flow on Wednesday, said he was surprised to find that the White House budget office gagged NOAA. He said public disclosure would have helped scientists to figure out what was going on.
"It would have been much better to know, from a scientific point of view, the reality," he said in an interview with the AP.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101006/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill
美調查委員會稱白宮在漏油事件后曾封鎖信息
2010年10月08日08:57
來源：新華網
美國負責調查墨西哥灣漏油事件的總統委員會6日表示，漏油事件發生后，奧巴馬政府對英國石油公司控制泄漏油井的能力“過於樂觀”，並在最初的10天內封鎖了相關信息。
“在漏油發生的最初10天，一種過度樂觀的情緒似乎影響著政府決策者。他們幾乎一致認為這是重大漏油事件，但相信英國石油公司能夠很好地控制泄漏油井，”該委員會在6日公布的一份報告草案中說。
該委員會還批評白宮在事件早期封鎖有關漏油量最壞估計的信息，並認為，這影響到政府征集資源應對危機的速度。該委員會表示，美國國家海洋和大氣管理局曾計劃在4月底至5月初公布最壞情況下的漏油量估計值，但被白宮行政管理和預算局阻止。
白宮行政管理和預算局代理局長杰弗裡·齊恩茨、海洋和大氣管理局局長簡·盧布琴科6日發表聯合聲明表示，白宮確實曾阻止海洋和大氣管理局發布漏油量估計，原因是后者的最初分析並不完善。
負責調查的總統委員會還認為，盡管美國政府為應對危機很快成立了指揮機構，但在征集資源方面卻稍顯滯后。
美國總統奧巴馬5月22日頒布行政命令，宣布成立獨立的總統委員會調查墨西哥灣原油泄漏事件。該委員會由7名成員組成，主席由曾擔任過佛羅裡達州州長及聯邦參議員的鮑勃·格雷厄姆、美國環保署前署長威廉·賴利共同擔任，主要任務是向總統提供如何避免發生近海鑽探原油泄漏以及如何減緩泄漏事件影響的建議。(記者任海軍)
http://world.people.com.cn/BIG5/12888681.html
共和黨在參議院阻截BP石油洩漏調查
NOAA撤回'大部分BP海灣石油的溢油已去'的報告
馬特西蒙 -涉嫌BP溢油告密者- 現在死了
ROV 2：他們在隱藏什麼：炸藥滲出明顯
截斷的海灣新聞：人們內部出血，數百萬人中毒'：環保局告密者'說
英國石油又爆“封口門” 出錢封科學家的嘴
記者被阻報告在海灣日益增加的健康危機
報導漏油記者被定罪為重罪犯； Jane Burgermeister 被傳票八月聆訊
'海灣綜合症'：瑞士電視攝製隊問我為什麼美國傳媒沒談論這事
沒有留言:
發佈留言