The Worst Federal Disaster Response in Our Nation’s History

Rory Cooper / August 12, 2010

President Obama wishes everyone would stop talking about the oil spill. His federal government’s response has been incompetent at best, malevolent at worst. Yet, lacking any evidence of a credible response, Obama still sent Carol Browner to the Gulf on a victory lap last week after oil stopped appearing on beaches and the water’s surface. But while the Obama administration is doing victory laps, more news of their botched efforts are coming to light.

Case in point: reports out today show that the government tried to silence scientists from the University of South Florida who had discovered a 6-mile-wide plume of oil in the deepest recesses of the Gulf.

USF Marine Sciences Dean William Hogarth told the St. Petersburg Times: “I got lambasted by the Coast Guard and NOAA when we said there was undersea oil.” He further said that government officials told him to retract any public statements and compared it to being “beat up” by the government. (more…)