E2 Morning Roundup: The GOP’s muted response to oil spill findings, NOAA hits spill commission for ‘misleading’ paper, EPA stands firm on climate, and more

GOP keeps powder (mostly) dry on spill response findings

It would seem tailor-made to inspire a flurry of GOP attacks: Staff for the commission probing the BP oil spill issued volatile draft findings that criticized the White House response to the disaster. 

But the GOP’s response to the findings this week – conclusions that prompted an aggressive White House rebuttal – has been fairly muted thus far.

One possible reason why the Republican apparatus has kept its powder dry: A number of prominent Republicans have in recent months attacked the credibility of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, calling the White House-created panel a partisan body ready to flak an anti-drilling agenda.

One House GOP leadership aide said the jury is still out as to whether the findings ease Republican concerns about the makeup of the White House-appointed commission. “At the end of the day, these are just staff papers,” the aide said. “My take on it is we should probably be quiet about it and let you all and everyone else read them.”

Issa aide: Findings ‘reinforce’ July report on spill response

E2 asked an aide to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) – the frequent White House critic and top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee – for a response to the spill commission papers.

Spokesman Kurt Bardella responded with a lengthy statement that didn’t mention the panel’s work at all, but noted Issa’s July report that strongly criticized the federal response to the BP spill. Asked specifically about the spill commission paper, he replied: “It reinforces what our findings were back in July.”

The White House is pushing back hard on the spill panel staff findings, calling them misleading. See our stories here, here and here.

McConnell ‘not quite sure what to make of it’

Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about claims that the White House may have blocked release of information on worst-case scenarios in the early days of the spill.

“I’m not quite sure what to make of it,” McConnell replied in the interview Thursday, and then issued a broader attack on the White House.

“We do know that, the bureaucracy and those who report directly to the President have been, you know, pretty arrogant, pretty out of touch. I mean all across American society you hear reports of you know, arrogant bureaucrats’ intrusive behavior that makes it extremely difficult to expand employment and get us out of this economic frost we’ve been in,” he said.

Rep. Cao: Findings raise ‘serious questions’

There has been some Capitol Hill reaction to the findings. Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (R-La.) highlighted the conclusion that low-balled early federal estimates of the amount of oil flowing undermined confidence in the response.

The commission staff also noted that the White House in August gave an overly rosy picture of how much oil remained in the Gulf. “These findings, if true, raise serious questions about how much the Administration can be trusted to tell the hard cold truth in life-or-death emergency situations where the public health is at stake,” Cao said in a prepared statement Thursday.

NOAA attacks oil spill panel report over ‘misleading’ claim

More fallout from the findings: The top federal marine scientist isn’t pleased that they alleged the White House might have suppressed her agency’s work.

In a letter late Thursday evening, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco says one of the papers wrongly claimed the White House might have blocked NOAA from releasing worst-case figures on the amount of oil flowing in the early days of the disaster.

“NOAA’s modeling of long-term movement of oil using worst-case scenario analyses was completely independent of the efforts to estimate the flow rate,” Lubchenco writes to the co-chairmen of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. “They are different. ‘Worst-case scenario modeling’ was designed to evaluate where the oil might go over time and is not the same as ‘worst-case discharge.’ These sentences from the draft Staff Working Paper . . . imply they are the same, and thus are misleading.”

Her letter also says the commission paper wrongly suggests that the early estimates of how much oil was flowing from BP’s ruptured well – which proved far, far too low – might have hampered the federal response.

EPA stands firm on climate

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a five-year strategy through fiscal year 2015 that emphasizes climate change, the Gulf of Mexico spill cleanup and other agency priorities.

“While the EPA stands ready to help Congress craft strong, science-based climate legislation that addresses the spectrum of issues, we will assess and develop regulatory tools as warranted under law using the authority of the Clean Air Act,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson notes in a “message” leading off the 72-page strategy that the agency sent Congress and others Sept. 30 and was publicly released Thursday. "Climate change must be considered and integrated into all aspects of our work."
 
EPA is also “developing a comprehensive strategy for a cleaner and more efficient power sector” that includes “strong and achievable” emission reductions for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and other air toxics, she notes. The strategy “offers a solid foundation for the EPA’s long-term response” to the impacts of the Gulf of Mexico spill, Jackson said.  

Global climate talks falter, risk going backwards

Climate talks appear to be in rough shape heading into the big United Nations summit in Cancun, Mexico late this year.

Negotiators are trying to ensure that even the modest deals struck at last year’s Copenhagen talks don’t unravel, the New York Times reports.

“There is no chance of completing a binding global treaty to reduce emissions of climate-altering gases, few if any heads of state are planning to attend, and there are no major new initiatives on the agenda. Copenhagen was crippled by an excess of expectation. Cancún is suffering from the opposite,” their piece notes.

“Delegates in Tianjin, China, at the last formal meeting before the Cancún conference opens Nov. 29, are hung up over the same issues that caused the collapse of the Copenhagen meeting. Even some of the baby steps in the weak agreement that emerged from last year’s meeting, a slender document known as the Copenhagen Accord, have been reopened, to the dismay of officials who thought they had been settled.”

BP’s internal probe faces doubts

BP’s internal investigation of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill assigned much of the blame to Deepwater Horizon rig owner Transocean and contractor Halliburton.

The Wall Street Journal looks at the construction of the document. “BP PLC's lawyers helped prepare its internal investigation into its Gulf of Mexico drilling disaster, according to the report's lead author, raising questions about the study's impartiality,” their piece states.

“The report, led by Mark Bly, was presented by BP as an impartial investigation into what caused the April 20 explosion, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. But outside experts have been skeptical, saying its conclusions seemed convenient for BP's legal position.”

In case you missed E2 Wire yesterday

Here are some of our Thursday posts:

Florida Dem 'rejects' environmental group's backing

NOAA seeks to clarify oil flow claims with spill commission

Gibbs pushes back on reports of White House missteps in oil spill

Baucus not yet committing to support Rockefeller

Interior launches broad review of offshore-drilling environmental waivers

Report ranks U.S. 11th in oil, mining ‘transparency’

The oil spill is sad, but is it spooky?

The BP spill is the inspiration for one of this year's hot Halloween costumes.

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