Most Americans (51 percent) disapprove of how President Obama is handling the Gulf oil spill, according to a just-released CNN poll, but that's nothing compared to how they feel British Petroleum has done (76 percent disapproval).

You have to wonder, though, whether the president would fare as well if the poll was taken now, after a weekend of media attacks on the administration for not taking a stronger leadership role in the Gulf spill. The critical drumbeat, led by Democratic strategist James Carville, challenged Obama for letting BP dictate clean-up efforts. Interior Sec. Ken Salazar promised to keep the government's "boot on the neck" of BP, but apparently BP wasn't cowed, because it defied EPA's demand that it use a less-toxic form of chemical dispersant. Today, EPA ordered BP to cut back on using the dispersants. Will BP ignore that order as well?

<Update: The EPA is launching an investigation into BP's refusal to follow last week's directive to use less-toxic dispersants.>

<Update: Today, as BP's CEO walked an oil-soaked Gulf coast beach—and promised to "clean up every drop of oil," the Coast Guard's admiral in charge said he believed the government should let BP stay in charge. The government isn't qualified to clean this spill up, he emphasized.>

And then there's the matter of the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that Salazar is drastically reorganizing because of its too-cozy relationship with the oil industry. The New Yorker skewers the administration on two critical points:

Salazar, in New Orleans before Gulf spill, announces expedited oil leasing

<Update: The EPA is finally hearing, and acting on, concerns about toxic dispersants used by BP in breaking up its Gulf oil spill. EPA today ordered BP to choose a less-harmful form of dispersant. More than 600,000 gallons have been sprayed by BP to date.>

<Update: BP said today it is collecting 5,000 barrels of oil each day from its Gulf spill—equaling the total amount BP has claimed is leaking—and yet, oil continues to gush from the well. Starting tonight, BP said it will start providing a live video feed from the leaking well at this web site.>

Great question to Interior Sec. Ken Salazar this morning on ABC TV: why can't we get exact numbers for how much oil is spilling from the Gulf of Mexico oil well?

Answer: We're trying, and will start looking beyond what British Petroleum tells us.

Conclusion: No one knows, so whose numbers are we to trust—the 5,000 barrels per day guesstimated by BP, and which the government has endorsed? Or, maybe those of independent scientists who think the spill is 10 or 12 times bigger? Today, for the first time, Salazar promised to do some independent surveying.

Heavy oil now in coastal marshes. Courtesy National Geographic

Exposed by the Gulf oil spill disaster as a conflict-ridden friend of oil companies it was supposed to regulate, the federal Minerals Management Service died today—dismantled by Interior Sec. Ken Salazar, who's obviously feeling the heat of eight congressional hearings and an angry president.

The MMS, corrupted by the sum of its dual roles to collect royalties from oil companies it oversees, was split into three separate agencies: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, and Office of Natural Resources Revenue.

Unfortunately, the split comes too late for the Gulf of Mexico, which is reeling from millions of gallons of oil loosed into it by a British Petroleum offshore drilling scheme that MMS approved on assurances from BP that the chances of a big spill were insignificant and that, at any rate, BP could handle anything that happened.

It still isn't too late for the Arctic Ocean, however, whose sensitive offshore waters are to be drilled this summer by Shell Oil under an inadequate plan also approved by the MMS. At this point, only President Obama and/or Sec. Salazar can keep this from happening.

Chukchi Sea, Arctic - Courtesy Greenpeace

It's hard to imagine—as we watch oil billowing into the Gulf of Mexico and washing into coastal wetlands—that Shell Oil is using this out-of-control scenario to bolster its case to drill this summer in offshore Arctic waters.

Shell officials promised federal officials yesterday that it has learned the lesson of the Gulf and will have on hand all the safety goodies British Petroleum didn't—items like that containment dome (that failed), dispersants (toxic), robots and divers.

These assurances from Shell might carry some weight if we hadn't already been fed the same smooth line last year by BP in documents it filed with the Minerals Management Service—the federal regulatory agency that is being radically reorganized and is the focus of a presidential commission and eight congressional hearings because of its snuggly relationship with the oil industry. The Mobile Register did some snooping in those documents and came up with this:

Permits to sell hot dogs are harder to get than permits to drill offshore in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, an Earthjustice attorney said this morning as he filed a lawsuit challenging the federal Minerals Management Service for letting companies like British Petroleum drill without adequate safety measures.

BP, which has struggled for a month to stop a catastrophic oil spill after its Gulf deepwater drill rig exploded, was given a wave-of-the-hand waiver of legal requirements by the MMS—and then started drilling. Only after the well blew out, and BP was confronted with a worst-case scenario that it hadn't been forced to plan for, did MMS's regulatory failure become obvious.

For attorney David Guest, what's frightening—and is at the heart of the Earthjustice suit—is that there are at least 60 other permits for deepwater drilling in the Gulf that received the same lenient waiver of requirements from MMS. That's five dozen time bombs that shouldn't be allowed to tick, he said.

A tar ball. Photo: USGS

Federal hearings into the Gulf oil spill are positively gushing in Washington D.C., and now President Obama is jumping directly into the fray with a presidential commission to investigate government and industry failures.

<Update: Did the Minerals Management Service simply take British Petroleum's word that drilling was safe in deep offshore waters? At today's Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, the question was bluntly put to Interior Sec. Ken Salazar.> 

At yesterday's congressional hearing, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano conceded that the federal government hasn't the expertise or background to deal with deep-water drilling scenarious, adding to a growing body of evidence that government agencies have been overly dependent on oil industry guidance and expertise.

So, here's the Gulf of Mexico oil situation after a weekend of struggles to stem the flood of oil, assessing where all the spilled oil has gone and what it's doing, and preparing for the immediate future.

<Update: A whistleblower filed suit today against British Petroleum, hoping to halt BP's drilling operation at another Gulf of Mexico offshore site. The reason: alleged failure to review engineering designs that could lead to an oil spill that could "dwarf" the one BP is dealing with now.>

<Update: The first political casualty of the Gulf oil spill is the top official overseeing offshore oil and gas drilling for the Minerals Management Service—the federal agency soon to be drastically reorganized because of its cozy relationship with the oil industry it is supposed to regulate.>

As British Petroleum shows some success in diverting oil from its ruptured well on the seabed, scientists have discovered vast plumes of undersea oil—one the size of Manhattan. The ecological implications are hard to grasp because it mostly is lurking out of sight. AP provides this:

After facing a president's wrath today over a drilling operation gone catastrophically awry, British Petroleum now has only two weeks before Mother Nature's annual hurricane season arrives in the Gulf of Mexico.

And mama is particularly high strung this year, say meteorologists, who predict worse-than-usual storm activity from June through November, when the season ends. The powerful storms could savage BP's efforts to stop the spill and clean up the many millions of gallons of spilled oil. As for the oil itself—spread from ocean floor to surface across a Delaware-sized area—churning hurricane winds could do things no one can predict, although some are trying <Update: Here's a New York Times look at the hurricane connection>. According to a report in Reuters:

<Update: Today, President Obama endorsed a plan to radically reorganize the federal Minerals Management Services agency because of its conflict-of-interest relationship with the oil industry. The MMS collects billions of dollars in royalties from oil companies it is supposed to regulate. "It is pretty clear that the system failed, and failed badly," the president said in reference to how MMS and oil companies handled the approval process for the Gulf of Mexico oil well that blew out three weeks ago, gushing millions of gallons of oil into the sea.>

<Update: Also today, as reported by The New York Times:

Reacting to reports that federal regulators allowed extensive offshore drilling without first demanding the required environmental permits, the White House and the Interior Department said Friday that there would be a review of all actions taken by the Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for offshore rigs, under the National Environmental Policy Act.

After passing blame for the Gulf oil spill during congressional hearings earlier this week, the head of British Petroleum is now accepting some—admitting that his company wasn't prepared to handle a spill that continues to pour 210,000 gallons of oil each day. <See the undersea video of leaking oil.>

The Wall Street Journal reports that BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward "in an interview with a small group of journalists Wednesday night, admitted the U.K.-based oil giant had not had the technology available to stop the leak, and said in hindsight it was 'probably true' that BP should have done more to prepare for an emergency of this kind."

Hayward's admission is in stark contrast to assurances BP made in convincing the federal Minerals Management Service to permit it to drill in mile-deep Gulf waters. Similar assurances by Shell Oil convinced MMS to permit Shell's exploratory offshore drilling this summer in the Arctic Ocean—something Earthjustice is working vigorously to prevent.