BC World News (8/1, lead story, 2:50, Kofman) also reported that “there is concern about what happened to” the oil, “in particular, the use of more than 1 million gallons of chemical dispersants to break it up.” Doug Suttles, BP COO, was shown saying, “We did what we felt was the appropriate amount.” The Wall Street Journal (8/2, Ball) also reports the story under the headline “Congress Questions Oil-Dispersant Usage.”

Markey says Coast Guard allowed use of dispersants. The AP (8/1, Hebert) says Rep. Edward Markey’s Energy and Environment subcommittee obtained data that show BP, with approval from the US Coast Guard, continued to “extensively use” dispersants, even after the EPA directed it to stop using the “toxic” chemicals on the water surface except in “rare cases.” The documents “show the Coast Guard approved 74 waivers over a 48-day period after the restrictions were imposed, resulting in hundreds of thousands of gallons of the chemicals. … The EPA directive ‘has become more of a meaningless paperwork exercise than an attempt … to eliminate surface application of chemical dispersants,’ Markey wrote in a letter sent Friday to retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man on the spill.”

The Washington Post (8/1, Fahrenthold, Mufson) adds, “In an interview Saturday, Allen defended the decisions to grant the waivers, saying that overall use of dispersants declined sharply after that May 26 order to limit their use. The total use of dispersants underwater and on the surface declined about 72% from its peak, according to the EPA. Allen said that on some days the amount of oil on the surface justified a ‘tactical’ decision, by on-scene Coast Guard commanders, to spray some dispersants.”

The New York Times (8/1, Wald) says, “In some cases, BP asked for permission after it had already applied the chemicals, the letter said. And in one case, the Coast Guard approved the use of a larger volume of dispersants than the company had applied for. As an example of the conflicting numbers, Mr. Markey said that in a request filed on June 16, BP told the Coast Guard that in the previous several days it had used a maximum of 3,365 gallons of dispersant in a single day. But in e-mails to members of Congress giving updates on the spill response, the company said it had used 14,305 gallons of dispersant on June 12 and 36,000 gallons on June 13.”

Wrangling over liability may impede oil companies’ cooperation in Gulf cleanup. The AP (7/31) reported, “BP, Halliburton and Transocean are engaging in a billion-dollar blame game over the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico” while also “depending on each other to finally plug up the environmental disaster. Workers say the companies’ adversarial relationship before Congress, in public statements and maybe one day in the courts isn’t a distraction at the site of the April 20 rig explosion, where Transocean equipment rented by BP is drilling relief wells that Halliburton will pump cement through to permanently choke the oil well.” But “at least one expert said government probes and potential for lawsuits can’t help but chill communication between the companies.”

Professor argues for full economic damages, no punitive damages against BP. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (8/2), Emory University economics professor Paul H. Rubin writes that BP should be fully liable for economic damages caused by the Gulf oil spill, as plaintiffs had no pre-accident relationship with BP and thus could not bargain in advance over standards of care or damages. Rubin also argues that BP should not be held liable for punitive damages, as those should be reserved for cased where the injuring party might be able to conceal its culpability.

House panel seeks all spill-related research from BP scientists. The Los Angeles Times (8/1, Roosevelt) reports, “As BP recruits scientists to assess damage from its massive oil spill and provide expert testimony in lawsuits, a congressional committee is demanding to see all its spill-related research contracts, warning BP America Chairman Lamar McKay against ‘any effort to muzzle scientists.’ An investigation by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and recent media accounts ‘have raised questions about the potential suppression of scientific data and analysis concerning restoration of the Gulf of Mexico,’ said a letter to McKay by committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D- Beverly Hills) and Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of an energy subcommittee.”

US may widen range of spill estimate. Bloomberg News (7/30, Klimasinska) reported, “The Obama administration, which plans within a few days to announce a new determination for how much oil BP Plc’s leaking Gulf of Mexico well was spewing, may widen the range of its estimate because of difficulties assessing the flow, said a scientist involved in the research. ‘There’s just a lot of uncertainty because there was no monitoring system put in place,’ said Ira Leifer, a University of California, Santa Barbara researcher and a member of panel of scientists consulting the US Energy Department on the spill. At stake are numbers that could be used to help determine London-based BP’s penalty for the largest US oil spill on record.”

Oil-damaged wetlands may have long wait for recovery. The Los Angeles Times (8/1, Semuels, Lin) reports, “Although thick, sprawling oil slicks have vanished from much of the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, pockets of goo still menace delicate wetlands and there is no effective way to clean them up, experts said. The best hope for the soiled bayous, some biologists said, may be to wait for Mother Nature to do its own cleaning. In the meantime, some patches of marsh will probably die.”