'This is without doubt the worst environmental disaster in our history,' White House environmental adviser Carol Browner said Sunday. W.H.: Can't trust BP on spill size

The Obama administration is adopting an increasingly confrontational approach with BP — accusing company executives of intentionally underestimating the scale of the Gulf oil spill to spare themselves billions in fines.

The White House, under withering fire for not pressuring the oil company more forcefully in the 40 days since the oil well blowout that led to the still-gushing spill, is stressing a new take-charge stance, revealing Sunday that it pressured BP into drilling a second relief well, which could stop the flow — in August.


“BP has a financial interest…They will ultimately pay a fine on those [spill] rates,” said Obama environmental adviser Carol Browner, director of Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, speaking on CBS's “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “BP has a vested financial interest in downplaying the size of this.”

“This is without doubt the worst environmental disaster in our history,” Browner said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House environment committee, went even further, suggesting BP might have criminal liability for its actions since the April 20 sinking of its Deepwater Horizon platform.

“The fine that can be imposed upon them is based on how many barrels [leak out]; it could wind up in billions of dollars of fines,” said Markey. “Their focus was not completely on the livability of the Gulf; they had a stake in low-balling the number right from the beginning… They were either lying or they were incompetent.”

The White House has become increasingly angry with BP, which initially assured administration officials the spill would be no greater than 1,000 barrels per day; estimates now range from 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.

And Obama’s team was incensed that the company kept them in the dark for a half-day last week after suspending their unsuccessful “Top Kill” efforts to plus the leak with mud and dross.

Yet even as the administration ramped up response efforts — which includes dispatching senior officials back to the Gulf for another round of visits next week — Browner was the only top Obama adviser to take to the Sunday airwaves.

As it has several times since the April 20 oil well blowout that caused the spill, the White House took a back seat to BP on the Sunday shows, forcing company officials to defend themselves hours after announcing the failure of its highly touted “Top Kill” capping procedure.

BP Managing Director Bob Dudley, looking dejected, appeared on several networks, saying that he still believed the spill estimate was on the low side of the new estimated range — which would still be more than double the oil giant’s recent estimates of 5,000 barrels a day — and stressing the company’s determination to stop the spill as quickly as possible.

Dudley told Candy Crowley on CNN's "State of the Union" he was optimistic the new attempt to cap the well with a revamped five-story containment structure would capture a “majority” of the gusher. And he maintained that a precursor to the plan — severing the kinked underwater pipe with diamond saws — could actually increase the flow of crude into the Gulf.

"If we can contain the flow of the well between now and August [when a permanent relief well is completed], that’s also a good outcome," he said. "That’s not a bad outcome compared to where we are today."

“I think the engineering on this is more simple than the top kill,” Dudley said on NBC.

But Browner, who has quarterbacked the White House response along with Homeland Security Adviser John Brennan, questioned that claim, saying experts told her there was actually a risk that the effort could make matters worse.

“It is possible we will have oil leaking from this well until August,” she said, adding that experts have told her that removing a “kink” in the pipe could result in the release of “as much as 20 percent more oil … for a period of four to seven days.”

The back and forth took place as Louisiana officials continue to criticize the White House for what they say has been a sluggish response to protecting the state’s fragile, oil-soaked coastline, a major habitat for fish and birds — whose bodies have been washing up in the brown tide by the thousands.

Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) told Jake Tapper on ABC’s “This Week” that Coast Guard officials, who have been leading the federal response effort, seemed to be finally getting the message after weeks of what he described as foot-dragging.

Wednesday of this week, local Coast Guard officials told us we don't have the personnel or the resources we need to get the job done here in Louisiana,” Jindal said. “The next day I talked to the admiral. He told me that we would see a significant improvement and difference literally in terms of tens of thousands of feet of hard boom, more personnel. And so, we are supposed to be seeing an influx of resources.”

He added: “As I told the president, for us, it's trust but verify. You know, it's that old saying that we've heard promises, we want to see that happen on the ground.”

Obama ally Colin Powell was equally pointed, lauding the president for staying on top of the spill — but chiding him for failing to project leadership and sympathy for the people in the Gulf region.

"I think the president correctly said the other day that he's been monitoring and following and has essentially been on top of it from the beginning, but that impression was not conveyed to the American people, and the comprehensive speech he gave the other day I think he would have been better served and the nation would have been better served if he had given it a few weeks earlier,” Powell told Tapper.

"I have watched a number of these kinds of crises come and go… and in every instance what I have sort of learned from all these is that the national government the federal government, the president has to get involved as quickly as possible,” he added. “If you don’t, public opinion starts to drag you, the media pushes you.”

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), speaking on CNN, said it was "ludicrous" that the Army Corps of Engineers had, until recently, green-lighted only about 2 percent of the sand barriers requested by local officials to divert the ever-growing spill.

Yet even Vitter — an oil industry booster who's received some of the lowest ratings from environmental groups of any legislator — turned up the heat on BP, saying the company "made enormous mistakes and probably cut corners."

Dudley also said he doesn't believe BP took risky short cuts in dealing with the well, even though it has been reported that the company chose a cheaper and potentially riskier casing for the well.

"I don't believe they did," he said.

Dudley also said that the company's CEO, Tony Hayward, is doing a "fantastic job" and deserves to keep his post.

"Tony Hayward has been here since the very beginning,” Dudley said on NBC. In the “very early days, he said we're not going to stand behind statutory limits of liability. We're going to take full responsibility for it. We're going to make good for it. We've spent nearly $1 billion on this cleanup effort. I think he's done a great job of leading a company to stand up and do the right thing."

But on “Fox News Sunday,” Dudley said the company isn’t passing any blame for the spill — “yet,” suggesting that the long-running feud between BP and its contractors over who is responsible for the initial explosion and the consequent environmental disaster is likely to continue for quite some time.

"We’ve had this accident in the Gulf, which we’re taking full responsibility for. We’re not blaming anyone yet for it," Dudley said. "The investigation of this will determine the causes. … Everyone's going to step back and learn from this."

Vitter said that BP, which withheld news that "Top Kill" was failing even as Coast Guard officials were expressing opposition, needed to provide "real-time" updates on progress or lack thereof.

"I don’t think they have been transparent enough, real time enough," he said. "Why aren’t we knowing all the facts...real time? Why doesn’t BP and the federal government give an hourly report?"

Browner, for her part, promised greater federal accountability and transparency.

"We are prepared for the worst. We have been prepared from the beginning. We will continue to assume that we move into the worst-case scenario, which is, as you point out, is there is some oil leaking up to the surface and then onto the beaches and shorelines,” Browner said. “We will continue to prepare for that."

But she also stressed that BP was answering to government officials, pointing to the decision to drill two relief wells rather than one, and government scientists' insistence that BP was putting too much downward pressure into the well during its failed "top kill" effort.

"Don't make any mistake here," Browner said on NBC. "The government is in charge."