Government stepped up involvement after oil spill situation worsened

For days, as an oil spill spread in the Gulf of Mexico, BP, the operator of the oil rig that was drilling the well that is now leaking, assured the government the plume was manageable, not catastrophic. Federal authorities were content to let the company handle the mess while keeping an eye on the overall operation.

But then government scientists realized the leak was five times larger than they had been led to believe, and days of lulling statistics and reassuring words gave way Thursday to an all-hands-on-deck emergency response. Now questions are sure to be raised about a self-policing system that trusted a commercial operator to take care of its own accident even as it grew into a menace imperiling Gulf Coast nature and livelihoods from Florida to Texas.

For days after the explosion and fire on Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, Rear Adm. Mary Landry, chief of the Coast Guard in the region, assured reporters that most of the oil was burning off and there was no sign of a major spill.

After the platform sank, she said no oil appeared to be leaking from a well head at the ocean floor, nor was any leaking noted at the surface.

At the White House, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said that sometimes accidents happen, and the loss of the Deepwater Horizon was no reason to back off on President Barack Obama's recent decision to support expanded offshore drilling.

Throughout last week and into this one, the government was deferring to BP on what was being done at the site and on assessments of progress. The Coast Guard was not doing its own independent, firsthand assessment of the seabed rupture.

But, on Wednesday night, Landry reported the findings of federal experts that up to 5,000 barrels a day were leaking from the well. BP had estimated only 1,000. As well, the company told the Coast Guard a new leak had been found.

By Thursday afternoon, Obama had ordered the Defense Department to help and the White House had assembled a team of top advisers to showcase the administration's determination to head off the damage posed by the oil slick. And Gibbs acknowledged details of the president's drilling proposal might be revisited, depending on the investigation into the rig explosion and spill.

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