Gulf Spill: Response and Results

Ed O'Keefe points today to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showing 45 percent of Americans think the government hasn't done enough in response to the BP oil spill, while 43 percent say it has. Those numbers are actually pretty good, given the fact that oil is still pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. But if things don't get better soon, don't expect them to hold up.

Every day, the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command, which is responsible for coordinating response efforts, sends out an update on its various activities. Yesterday's included the following:

• Personnel were quickly deployed and approximately 13,000 are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife.
• More than 510 vessels are responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts--in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.
• Approximately 1.5 million feet of boom (regular and sorbent) have been deployed to contain the spill--and approximately 1.5 million feet are available.
• Approximately 4 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
• Approximately 436,000 gallons of dispersant have been deployed. More than 120,000 gallons are available.

That's an impressive set of numbers -- or at least they seem impressive. But that's the problem. The Obama administration, and the federal government as a whole, isn't going to be judged on how much it does, but on how effective the response is. At the end of the day, if oil starts washing ashore and the federal officials and BP engineers on scene haven't figured out how to stop it, very few people are going to give the government an "A" for effort.