White House was over-optimistic after BP oil spill: Panel

The Obama administration was over-optimistic about BP's ability to handle the oil spill after the company's Gulf well exploded in April and blocked government spill estimates that might have prompted quicker action, an investigative panel said on Wednesday.

The revelations from the National Oil Spill Commission, whose members were appointed by president Barack Obama, could be embarrassing as Obama's Democratic Party struggles to retain control of the US Congress in the elections on November 2.

The commission said that after the rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers, the government was too optimistic about the British oil company's ability to bring the ruptured well under control.

"For the first ten days of the spill, it appears that a sense of over-optimism affected responders. Responders almost uniformly noted that, while they understood that they were facing a major spill, they believed that BP would get the well under control," the commission wrote.

It said: "Though some of the command structure was put in place very quickly, in other respects the mobilization of resources to combat the spill seemed to lag."

Large sections of the Gulf of Mexico were closed to fishing, hundreds of miles of shoreline were polluted and the coastal economy, including tourism and fisheries, were disrupted before the well was capped on July 15 after the worst offshore oil leak in US history.