Disaster in the Gulf

• “In the 77 days since oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon began to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has skimmed or burned about 60 percent of the amount it promised regulators it could remove in a single day.” The disparity “underscores what some officials and environmental groups call a misleading numbers game that has led to widespread confusion about the extent of the spill.”

• “The Defense Department has kept up its immense purchases of aviation fuel and other petroleum products from BP even as the oil company comes under scrutiny for potential violations of federal and state laws.” The company has “contracts worth at least $980 million” and “was the Pentagon’s largest single supplier of fuel” in fiscal 2009, providing nearly 12 percent of total Defense fuel purchases.

• The federal agency charged with protecting endangered species “signed off on the Minerals Management Service’s conclusion that deepwater drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico posed no significant risk to wildlife, despite evidence that a spill of even moderate size could be disastrous, according to federal documents.”