In the Gulf, scientists don't think most of the oil is gone. Far from it.

Someone isn't telling the truth about the BP oil spill.

Scientists think the oil is far from gone. We heard that from two different sources yesterday.

From a hearing on Capitol Hill, a NOAA scientist weighs in:

Roughly three-quarters of the oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s ruptured well is still in the environment, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official told a House panel Thursday. 
 


The estimate contrasts previous pronouncements by administration officials that only about a quarter of the oil remains to be addressed. 
 


Bill Lehr, a senior scientist at NOAA, said at a House Energy and Commerce subpanel hearing Thursday that federal officials have only confirmed that 10 percent of the 4.1 million barrels of oil that leaked into the Gulf have been either skimmed or burned. 
 


And, there's this from Woods Hole scientists, via the Washington Post:

Academic scientists are challenging the Obama administration's assertion that most of BP's oil in the Gulf of Mexico is either gone or rapidly disappearing -- with one group Thursday announcing the discovery of a 22-mile "plume" of oil that shows little sign of vanishing.

That plume was measured in late June and was described Thursday by scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. The biggest news was not the plume itself: For weeks, government and university scientists have said that oil from BP's damaged well is still underwater.

The news was what is happening -- or not happening -- to it.

The scientists said that when they studied it, they saw little evidence that the oil was being rapidly consumed by the gulf's petroleum-eating microbes. The plume was in a deep, cold region where microbes tend to work slowly.

If the scientists are right, we've got a problem. Actually, we've got a couple problems. First, the problem of the oil. And, then, why we're not getting the truth from the government.