A commission investigating the response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has strongly criticised the White House in a number of areas.
The report says the government's response "seemed to lag" in the early stages of the disaster
The Obama administration blocked government scientists' efforts to inform the public of worst case scenarios, a draft report said.
Officials were said to have been too optimistic about handling the disaster, one of the worst in US history.
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The White House disputes this, saying officials "were clear with the public".
But the BBC's Steve Kingstone, in Washington, says the accusations will embarrass the White House, coming as they do from a commission appointed by President Barack Obama.
'Controlling information'
The report by the National Oil Spill Commission says the White House was directly involved in controlling information from the spill that began after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on 20 April.
The report says that during the crucial first 10 days of the oil spill the government's response "seemed to lag" - and that coastguard officials were "overly-optimistic" in believing BP could handle the incident.
Government scientists are accused of first underestimating the amount of oil pouring into the Gulf and then overestimating the quantity which had evaporated or otherwise been removed from the sea.
The report says the president's adviser on energy policy, Carol Browner, stated wrongly on American television that three-quarters of the oil had "gone", and that the White House blocked a request by officials to make public a worst case scenario for the scale of the leak.
Coppied by http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11489960
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