http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hf9BbJCiv-1u1YvGba9oRBM6ydtgD9HCUGBG0
Looking for the oil? NOAA says it's mostly gone
By SETH BORENSTEIN (AP) – 50 minutes ago
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MacDonald pointed out that NOAA spent weeks sticking with its claim the BP well was spewing only 210,000 gallons a day. Now, after several revisions, the federal government said it really was 2.2 million gallons a day. So he has a hard time believing NOAA this time, he said.
When Lubchenco was asked about that at the Washington news conference, Gibbs stepped in to defend the agency's credibility. Gibbs and Lubchenco said NOAA provided the best information at the time and updated estimates when it had better data and tools.
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That question got raised because of the coordination of the media rollout of the report. Browner was on all four morning TV shows saying "the vast majority of oil is gone," and the report was leaked to The New York Times. The version of the report sent to Congress was created by a former campaign spokesman for President Barack Obama who is now the Commerce Department's public affairs chief.
The scientific report, which has four pages of text followed by one page of credits, is small compared to other similar reports. Initially, NOAA said there was a fuller, 200-page report, but then retracted that. There is a second report that is 10 pages. The initial report cites no scientific references — those, Lehr said, are in his head.
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