This is the sixth article in a continuing series by the NRDC Action Fund on the environmental stances of candidates in key races around the country.

My letter to the White House this week:

Dear Ms. Browner,

During the week of August 4, 2010, you served as the administration’s principle spokesperson appearing on multiple national television programs, including NBC’s Meet the Press and ABC’s Good Morning America, to report findings from the interagency BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Budget. You stated repeatedly that “the vast majority of the oil appears to be gone.”

This week, multiple independent scientists have released calculations and investigations that show quite the opposite:

* from the University of Georgia that upwards of seventy nine percent of the spilled oil still remains in the Gulf

* from the University of South Florida oil found on the bottom of the ocean in a vast area of subsea canyons some 40 miles from the Florida panhandle

* and from the Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institution, published today in Science, new mapping of the disputed massive underwater plumes of oil.

Christiane Amanpour Sold Out Journalists & All Americans her 1st Sunday Morn Hosting — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

BP Begins Static Kill Attempt – Live Video

One hundred days after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded creating the worst environmental disaster in the world’s history, those who live down along the Gulf coast in the areas that have been most impacted are standing strong and reminding the world that, while the well gushing oil may have been capped and while BP CEO Tony Hayward may be going to Siberia, the disaster is not over.

and the Russians are gonna be wiping Iran’s face and picking off pockets of iran’s oil

From TomDispatch today: a powerful, connect-the-dots piece on how Big Oil has, for decades, created Gulf-of-Mexico situations elsewhere on this planet — Ellen Cantarow, “Big Oil Makes War on the Earth, The Gulf Coast Joins an Oil-Soaked Planet”

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the answer is no. On Thursday I documented a blatantly false Bloomberg news story designed to mislead readers about the level of support for President Obama’s temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling. Bloomberg’s poll (PDF), which the story was based on, asked the following (bottom of page five): “Do you think the spill proves off-shore drilling is just too dangerous and should be banned in U.S. waters, or was this a freak accident and offshore drilling can be made safer and should not be banned?” Based on this question, the Bloomberg headline blared: Americans in 73% Majority Oppose Deepwater Drilling Ban. The story begins, “Most Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s ban on deepwater oil drilling in response to BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico spill…” Bloomberg made the same false claim two days later in a Businessweek story.

Obviously, there is a huge difference between an indefinite ban on all offshore drilling and President Obama’s temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling. Regardless, Bloomberg polled about the former and reported on the latter. And frankly, I use the word ‘reported’ extremely loosely here. What Bloomberg actually did is fabricate public opinion information on a highly contested public policy issue that is currently being considered in some form by all three branches of government. This is important because political actors, both within Congress and the Obama Administration, may look to public opinion polls like this one to determine the proper course of action.

I’m not alone in finding Bloomberg’s reporting on this poll to be highly objectionable. Several thoughtful observers have taken note, criticizing Bloomberg’s coverage on the similar grounds. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones writes, “This is stunningly bad journalism… The Bloomberg results make for an exciting headline, but that’s about it. Correlation with reality is pretty close to zero.” At Media Matters, Eric Boehlert explains, “There’s an apples-and-oranges problem here that Bloomberg News ought to acknowledge and correct.” The Washington Post’s Jon Cohen adds, “The latter question is useful to understanding public attitudes, but it’s not necessarily focused on the ban that’s in place. That question potentially confounds views on the short-term ban, drilling more broadly and the cause of the spill.” And Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism writes, “I could tell from the mere headline that the poll question was inept and/or unduly suggestive.”

Pres. Obama Speaks to the Press About BP Oil Disaster

Photographer Jane Fulton Alt’s latest project: Crude Awakening