Obama team altered report on oil drilling ban, IG says The White House altered a report to make it look like scientists and other experts supported the administration's six-month ban on new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill, says a report by the Department of Interior's inspector general. "The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts," says the IG report, first obtained by Politico. Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, said, "there was no intent to mislead the public" and that the report was the product of a misunderstanding that was corrected: The decision to impose a temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling was made by the Secretary, following consultation with colleagues including the White House. As the report makes clear, the misunderstanding with the reviewers was resolved with the June 3rd letter and a subsequent conference call with those experts. Gulf Coast lawmakers and business owners opposed the ban, since lifted, saying it would further hurt a local economy battered by the oil spill. U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La., told Politico that the IG report shows that the moratorium "was driven by politics and not by science." That "is bitter news for families who, because of it, lost their jobs, savings, and way of life," Cassidy said. "Candidate Obama promised that he would guided by science, not ideology. If that were true, at least 12,000 jobs and 1.8 billion dollars of economic activity would have been saved on the Gulf Coast." http://content.usatoday.com/communi...-altered-report-on-oil-drilling-ban-ig-says/1
lets try to remember that BP caused this situation. the president just responded to it. regardless of whether the response was justified, sufficient or properly reviewed, in a situation like this, it is better to err on the side of caution than risk another disaster. the real crime is the quick dismissal of it - the gulf is still in a complete state of disaster with oil floating around in the mid depth water. the crime is that no attention is being paid to that.