Just wonderful - Government/BP/Coast Guard caught lying

From CNS News:

Congressional Report Claims Administration Misled About Efforts on Oil Spill
Billy Nungesser, president of New Orleans� Plaquemines Parish, sensed that a chart showing 140 oil skimmers at work -- a chart given to him by BP and the Coast Guard -- was �somewhat inaccurate.� So, Nungesser asked to fly over the spill to verify the number.

The flyover was cancelled three times before those officials admitted that just 31 of the 140 skimmers were actually deployed.

The incident is detailed in a report released Thursday by Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Republicans say the report provides evidence that the Obama administration misrepresented the assets devoted to the cleanup, misrepresented the timing of when government officials knew there was an oil spill and misrepresented the level of control the government had over the matter. It also claims the Obama administration seemed more interested in public relations than cleaning the mess and plugging the hole.

The report is from July 1st and is a sixteen page PDF document. Lots of references if you want to look it up for yourself. There is a page of findings:

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.

Smells to me like a big steaming pile of "No Leadership" with an undertone of Protectionism and Union Crony-ism.