Washed It!

In a number of key races around the country, aggressive and meticulously targeted spending by independent conservative groups appears to have helped produce dramatic results for Republicans.

Unlike Democrats, who relied heavily on financial assistance from unions and Democratic Party committees, Republican candidates got their boost from advertising, mailers and get-out-the-vote drives financed by more than a dozen newly formed conservative groups.

Those groups employed a two-pronged strategy: First, they poured much-needed cash into districts where Republican candidates lagged behind in fundraising. Second, they sent millions into what were once considered safe Democratic districts in an attempt to thin out Democrats’ resources.

The strategy appears to have been a success. In an election cycle where Democratic candidates and party committees had out-raised Republicans by about $168 million, outside conservative groups, armed with $187 million, were able to strategically and successfully leverage that money to produce results for the GOP.

In the 74 House and Senate seats that had switched party hands by early Wednesday morning, 57 were won by Republicans who held the advantage in spending by outside groups, according to an analysis by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

Republican Mark Kirk enjoyed the greatest advantage in non-party outside spending in his winning bid to represent Illinois in the Senate. Thanks to large and consistent ad buys by groups such as American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS — big spenders that were formed this year by Karl Rove and other GOP strategists — Kirk held an $8-million advantage in outside money over his Democratic opponent, Alexi Giannoulias.

In the House, Republican Mick Mulvaney topped the list of outsider support with his successful bid to replace 14-term incumbent and chair of the powerful House Budget Committee, John M. Spratt Jr.

In the final two weeks of the campaign, non-party groups opposing Spratt spent nearly $500,000 in his South Carolina district, compared with just $6,000 spent by groups in support, according to data compiled by the Sunlight Foundation

In southern Virginia, 14-term incumbent Rick Boucher was defeated after conservative groups waged a costly ad campaign that went unmatched by groups on the left.

On the Iron Range of Minnesota, 17-term incumbent James L. Oberstar, chair of the House Transportation Committee, was swept from office after a late October storm of conservative group advertising on Duluth television.

“We were able to go places where Democrats were comfortable and require them to start spending money,” said Carl Forti, political director at the Crossroads groups, citing Oberstar’s district and others. “For us, it was an effort to expand the field.”

Liberal groups did not spend a single dollar advertising in Oberstar’s district, according to the Public Citizen analysis. But the onslaught forced Oberstar to run the first negative ad of his career.

kim.geiger@latimes.com

Times staff writer Tom Hamburger contributed to this report.
Outside groups made the difference for some Republicans

In one declarative night, California on Tuesday confirmed its status as a political world unto itself, zigging determinedly Democratic while most of the rest of the country zagged Republican. Voters not only restored the governor’s office to Democratic hands, they may have given Democrats a sweep of statewide offices, though uncounted ballots could still shift one race.

Driving much of the success — and distancing the state from the national GOP tide, according to exit polls — was a surge in Latino voters. They made up 22% of the California voter pool, a record tally that mortally wounded many Republicans.

Latinos were more likely than other voters to say it was the governor’s race that impelled them to vote, and they sided more than 2 to 1 with Democrat Jerry Brown over Meg Whitman, the Republican whose campaign had been embroiled in a controversy over illegal immigration. Once at the polls, they voted for other Democrats as well.

California Republicans had multiple reasons for head-shaking on Wednesday. For decades, the state party has squabbled over whether success would come more easily to candidates running as conservatives or those who presented a more moderate face to the state’s sizeable bloc of independent, centrist voters. This year they tried both. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina ran a firmly conservative race and Whitman took a more moderate road.

Holding their coastal strength, Democrats ran away with their big counties. Brown carried Los Angeles County, home to 25% of the state’s voters, by 31 points, giving him almost 60% of his lead. Republican candidates, including Whitman, did better than Democrats in their traditional interior California strongholds. But the strong Republican counties tend to be heavier on acreage than voters.

On Tuesday each hit a double-digit dead end, as Fiorina lost to Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Whitman came in a distant second to Brown.

Democratic successes in the midst of 2010’s national Republican renaissance marked a sharp turnabout from how the state behaved during the last major Republican year, in 1994. That year, as Republicans took back Congress, they won in California as well, picking up five of seven statewide offices, including the governorship, and adding legislative seats. This time, Democrats picked up a legislative seat despite Republican gains nationally, and were waiting for uncounted ballots to see whether they lost a congressional seat or two.

The difference between then and now rests on the changes in the California electorate. Those changes also explain the gulf that now exists between California and the nation. California in 1994 was more white and proportionately less Democratic than it is today, thus more similar to the country today. Nationally, non-whites made up only 22% of the Tuesday electorate; in California they made up 38%. Latinos nationally represented 8% of the national electorate, just shy of a third of their power in California. The California and national exit polls were conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of news organizations, including television news networks and the Associated Press.

Tellingly, Latinos in California had a far more negative view of the GOP than other voters — almost 3 in 4 had an unfavorable impression, to 22% favorable. Among all California voters the view of Republicans was negative, but at a closer 61% negative and 32% positive. Latinos had a strongly positive view of Democrats, 58% to 37%, whereas all voters were closely split, 49% to 45%.

“The brand name is still a tremendous liability,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a former Republican consultant who runs a nonpartisan election-tracking publication. “People of color are just turned off by the Republican Party.”

Despite their efforts to appeal to Latinos, Whitman and Fiorina came under fire throughout the campaign for their views on illegal immigration. Fiorina supported Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant law. Whitman, while opposing that measure, was pressed in her primary into talking about how she would be “tough as nails” toward illegal immigrants. The closing month of the campaign featured a controversy over Whitman’s firing of her illegal immigrant housekeeper; shortly before the election she said she favored the woman’s deportation.

Not surprisingly, Latino voters drawn to the polls because of the governor’s race went lopsidedly for Brown, 73% to 18%.

State Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring said the election results confirmed that party leaders and candidates needed to build stronger relationships with non-whites, and not just before an election.

“The reality is that Democrats have strong relationships with urban and immigration communities that Republicans have not had, and that must change,” he said. “It is not only a matter of politics; it is a matter of mathematics.”

But Nehring stressed that he was not advocating a change in Republican policy. “Republicans have stressed for decades that we support legal immigration and oppose illegal immigration,” he said. “Despite saying that, that message has not resonated. It is not only a matter of how we talk about this issue, but how other people hear us.”

Views of the parties appeared strongly entrenched in California, however. Tellingly, the biggest vote-getter among Republicans was attorney general nominee Steve Cooley, who came into the race from a nonpartisan post as Los Angeles County’s district attorney and took pains Tuesday night to de-emphasize his party membership. Even with that, he was narrowly trailing Democrat Kamala Harris in a race so close it may not be decided for many days.

As election day dawned, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in California by 2.3 million voters, a gap that has been growing. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to pull significantly from Democratic-leaning groups, including independent voters and women, but Tuesday’s candidates were not able to replicate that success.

Brown, for example, drew 600,000 more votes than the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Phil Angelides. But Whitman drew 1.8 million fewer votes than Schwarzenegger had in 2006.

A persistent problem for Republicans in California, but an accelerant for them nationally, were views about Obama. Nationally he had a negative job-approval rating; in California, that flipped to a positive rating by 10 points. The results suggest that while Obama may not throw as large a shadow as he did with his record victory in California in 2008, he remains a formidable candidate in the state for 2012.

Asked whether Tuesday’s results suggested that Republicans would simply cede the state in 2012, Nehring demurred. “I think it is premature to make that determination,” he said.

But other Republicans suggested that their best chance for relevance in two years would be a continuation of the unsettled national environment that did not quite reach the California state line.

“You never say never,” said Hoffenblum. “Who would have predicted two years ago that Barack Obama and the Democrats would have crashed as quickly as they did? The temperature of the times is not normal.”

cathleen.decker@latimes.com
California went its own way

The political center, where swing voters reside and compromise happens, is suddenly a much smaller part of the Washington landscape.

There were the usual kind words and olive branches extended on Wednesday. But nothing could hide the fact that the two parties have deep and abiding differences on nearly every issue facing Congress. The composition of the House and Senate may have changed, but not Washington: The place may be more polarized than ever.

That could make it exceedingly difficult to accomplish anything of great magnitude between now and the next presidential election in November 2012.

The clearest indication of the growing partisan gap was Tuesday’s rout of the Blue Dog caucus, a group of moderate and conservative Democrats who urged the party to adopt a more business-friendly and fiscally conservative agenda. Fewer than half of its 54 members will be returning next year after incumbents were ousted in Pennsylvania, Ohio and a few Democratic pockets of the Deep South. Their absence will likely push the 190 or so remaining House Democrats even further left.

On the Republican side, the victory of dozens of insurgents backed by the “tea party” movement means the emboldened GOP majority will be even more conservative and confrontational than the one that harried President Obama over the last two years.

These lawmakers, and the legion of activists who plan to monitor their performance, have called for drastic changes, including eliminating the Department of Education, privatizing parts of Social Security and repealing the healthcare law just now starting to take effect.

After the presidency, the most difficult job in Washington may soon fall to Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader who will likely be the next House speaker. He must balance an agenda that satisfies his fervent tea party caucus without scaring off the voters — politically independent, largely nonideological — who delivered the GOP its big win Tuesday.

It was something Newt Gingrich, the House speaker after the last big GOP landslide in 1994, failed to manage when he led a similar class of zealously partisan freshmen. President Clinton, who had to argue after the so-called Republican Revolution that he was still relevant, romped to reelection just two years later.

Extensive polling, including thousands of voter interviews conducted Tuesday, shows that neither party is well regarded. The election was the third in a row in which 20 or more House seats changed hands, a level of upheaval unseen in more than half a century; these days, voters seem willing to discard unwanted politicians like so much used tissue.

But that hasn’t stopped both sides from claiming to speak for a majority of Americans. A mandate is in the eye of the beholder, and Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, an online conservative network, seemed to speak for many when she suggested compromise was a good thing — so long as others were doing the compromising.

“We hope that rather than having the gridlock, that the House and Senate will work together to find a way to be responsible with our money again and the other side will move to the center,” Martin said. “Because our side is the center.”

Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who may soon be dueling each day on Capitol Hill, said much the same thing. Both nodded toward the notion of compromise, with qualification.

“We hope President Obama will now respect the will of the people, change course and commit to making the changes they are demanding,” Boehner said. “To the extent he is willing to do this, we are ready to work with him.”

Reid, fresh off reelection in Nevada, said “the time for politics is now over.” He then suggested Republicans “must take their responsibility to present bipartisan solutions more seriously. Simply saying ‘no’ will do nothing to create more jobs, support our middle class and strengthen our economy.”

None of which bodes well for a new era of comity and bipartisan cooperation.

“If you’re a betting person, I would bet on less rather than more being accomplished in Washington,” said Geoff Garin, a longtime Democratic strategist.

If politicians look to the people for guidance, as they presumably should, they are likely to come away confused.

Voters say they hate gridlock, but many also seemed to hate the prolific legislative output of the Obama administration and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. Asked what lawmakers should make their top priority in the next Congress, nearly 4 in 10 said reducing the federal deficit. A like number said spending money to create jobs, a move that would increase the deficit. (Two in 10 said cutting taxes, which would also increase the debt.)

On a more fundamental level, voters sent similarly contradictory signals. Nearly 8 in 10 said in a Pew Research poll that lawmakers’ unwillingness to work together was a major problem. But in a subsequent survey, nearly half said they admired a politician who sticks to principle rather than compromising.

Clearly, voters are conflicted. More than ever, they have a government in Washington to match their mood.

mark.barabak@latimes.com

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com
Midterm election’s big loser is the political center

With Republicans expected to win control of the House in Tuesday’s election, President Obama scheduled a press conference for Wednesday in what was expected to amount to a mid-course correction to deal with the power shift on Capitol Hill.

Obama is expected to try to reach out to Republicans, who have campaigned against his economic stimulus plan, healthcare overhaul and other policies. But if the GOP gains seats in the House and Senate, as expected, heavy partisan conflict is anticipated, especially as the parties gear up for the 2012 reelection campaign.

“This election’s going to be a referendum on Obama’s policies,” Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Assn., said on MSNBC on Tuesday. “What is the president’s response going to be?”

Citing the GOP’s pledge to cut spending aggressively, Barbour added: “Hopefully, the president is going to be willing to come forward and say, ‘I recognize we have to do that; let’s work together.’ ”

But Democrats question Republicans’ sincerity, noting Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky recently said that his top priority was to make “Obama … a one-term president.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, offered his own advice to the White House. “We’ve got to use the president more. He’s a great communicator,” he told MSNBC. “If tonight turns out to be better than expected for Democrats, it’s because the president got energized in the last month.”

If Republicans win control of the House, Obama will still be setting the agenda, Barbour said. “The Republicans are not going to be running the government, but they will have much more of a say than we’ve had for these two years,” he said on MSNBC.

But signaling the conflict that awaits the administration and the new Congress, Barbour said Republicans were going to try to repeal the healthcare reform bill. “If they can’t repeal it, they’re going to try to change it so that you wouldn’t recognize it,” he said on NBC’s “Today.” “They’re going to be faithful to what the voters vote for tonight.”

Fellow Republican Tommy Thompson, a former Wisconsin governor, however, told CNBC: “When it’s all said and done, you’re not going to be able to repeal healthcare because President Obama is not going to sign it, and they don’t have enough votes to override a veto. So why push a cart uphill when you know it’s not going to be able to get to the top?”

richard.simon@latimes.com
Obama’s response: President plans post-election press conference

After years of dishing tales of celebrity folly and misfortune, The National Enquirer’s publisher has fallen on hard times of its own.

American Media Inc. plans to seek federal bankruptcy protection in the next two weeks or so. The privately held company, based in Boca Raton, Fla., announced its intention Monday without sharing any details about its finances.

Calls to American Media weren’t immediately returned.

American Media, whose other publications include Star, Shape, Men’s Fitness and Fit Pregnancy, is trying to get most of its creditors to back its reorganization plan before it files for Chapter 11 protection. About 80% of its bondholders have expressed their support, the company said.

By cobbling together a prepackaged bankruptcy case, American Media hopes to gain court approval of its plan within 60 days of its filing. That would be much quicker than most corporate bankruptcy cases are resolved.

Like other publishers of newspapers and magazines, American Media has been struggling to recover from the recession while also trying to adapt to technology that has driven more readers and advertisers away from print to less expensive — or even free — alternatives on the Internet.

The challenge has proved too daunting for some. More than a dozen U.S. publishers of newspapers and magazines have filed for bankruptcy since December 2008. Many of the publishers seeking refuge in Bankruptcy Court were saddled with heavy debt loads that they took on during better times.

American Media appears to fall in this category. One of its subsidiaries, American Media Operations, had $1.1 billion in debt as of December 2008, according to a filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company reached an agreement with its major bondholders in July to reduce its debt by $200 million. It didn’t publicly disclose how much debt it had at that time.

If its reorganization plan is approved, American Media indicated that much of its debt would be wiped out in exchange for giving its bondholders ownership of that company. The bondholder group includes hedge fund Avenue Capital and distressed-debt specialist Angelo, Gordon & Co., which has gained stakes in major newspapers — such as the Orange County Register — through bankruptcy proceedings.

Stiffening competition for celebrity gossip and news has hurt American Media’s publications. Besides other print magazines such as Time Warner Inc.’s People and US Weekly, National Enquirer increasingly finds itself chasing websites, such as Time Warner’s TMZ.com, that dig up the latest news about celebrities.

American Media’s website says its magazines have a combined circulation of about 6.8 million. In March 2008, its publications were selling a combined 7.5 million, according to an SEC filing.
National Enquirer’s owner to file for bankruptcy

At least 22 people were injured Sunday by an apparent suicide bombing in the heart of Turkey’s premier city, Istanbul, Turkish media reported.

The 10:30 a.m. explosion struck Taksim Square, a vast transportation and commercial hub that is the city’s busiest node. The apparent targets were police officers at a law enforcement substation at the square’s northern end. At least 10 of those injured were police, and two of the wounded face life-threatening injuries.

Istanbul police chief Huseyin Capkin said more bombs were found in the square, according to Turkey’s semi-official Anatolia news agency. Authorities barred all pedestrian and vehicular traffic to the square, popular with tourists, in case of more explosions.

In a statement broadcast on television, Capkın described the attacker as a male suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his torso who died in the blast. Turkish television showed the apparent body of the attacker covered with newspapers.

“We think the attacker attempted to enter a police bus and detonate the bomb inside, but the explosives went off earlier,” Capkin was quoted as saying.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the trademarks of Al Qaeda and associated Islamic militants. Turkey last week announced the detention of a dozen suspected Al Qaeda members in Istanbul and the eastern city of Van.

Al Qaeda-inspired militants killed dozens in 2003 attacks on the British consulate, two synagogues and a bank.

Turkey has long fought an on-and-off war against ethnic Kurdish miltants in its southeastern provinces but has been negotiating with representatives of the insurgents, the Kurdistan Workers Party. A unilateral ceasefire by the group, known by the abbreviation PKK, expired this weekend.

daragahi@latimes.com
Suicide bomber injures 22 in Turkey plaza

As candidates count down the hours to election day, many campaigns are bracing for the possibility that it may take weeks before the final results are known. And that’s before the lawyers have their say.

In several states that host what may prove to be decisive contests for the House and Senate, elections officials say a definitive vote count may not be known until well after Nov. 2.

In Washington, for instance, all but 2% of ballots are expected to be cast by mail. With polls showing Sen. Patty Murray locked in a tight race with Republican Dino Rossi, it may be those votes arriving after election day that tip the balance.

“We do have a sense for the dramatic here in Washington,” said Secretary of State Sam Reed.

His office is also preparing for the possibility of a recount, which would automatically occur if the two leading candidates are separated by a margin within 0.5%. Recount laws vary by state, and in several, losing candidates have to pick up the tab if they seek one.

In Alaska, simply tallying the votes presents an additional challenge because of the write-in candidacy of Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Write-in ballots won’t be counted until mid-November, if officials decide it is necessary to do so.

For Rossi, a recount may provide a sense of d

Democrat Kendrick Meek reasserted on Friday that he was in Florida’s three-way Senate race to stay, despite reports that he had been urged to withdraw in favor of Gov. Charlie Crist.

Meek took to the airwaves in the morning to deny reports that former President Clinton had urged Meek to withdraw so that Crist would stand a better chance of defeating Marco Rubio, the Republican nominee who is a “tea party” movement favorite.

“I told him I didn’t have any thoughts about getting out of the race,” Meek said of Clinton on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “He didn’t encourage me to get out of the race.”

Meek made similar statements exonerating Clinton on the other morning shows and Clinton himself weighed in later in the day, reaffirming his support.

“We did talk last week following a rally in Orlando about the race and its challenges,” Clinton stated. “I didn’t ask Kendrick to leave the race, nor did Kendrick say that he would. I told him that how he proceeds was his decision to make and that I would support him regardless.”

It may take three points to define a plane, but in politics, three-way races are notoriously unstable — as the battle in Florida illustrates.

Crist, once a rising star in the GOP, was forced to run as an independent when it became clear he could not win his party’s primary against Rubio, who is far more conservative, especially on social issues such as abortion rights and stem-cell research.

Meek, a Democratic congressman, won his primary against businessman Jeff Greene, setting up a three-way race among an African American Democrat, a moderate Republican running as an independent and a staunch conservative Republican supported by the tea party wing.

There have been numerous reports that top Democrats would have been happy to see Meek withdraw, clearing the way for Crist, who famously hugged President Obama, to gather the anti-Rubio vote in one column. Polls show Rubio with a solid lead over Crist, with Meek running a distant third.

Part of the rationale is also based on the arithmetic of the Senate, where the GOP is hoping to at least increase its influence and perhaps win a majority. The Florida seat is held by a Republican, and Crist has been careful to avoid saying with which party he would caucus during the organization of the post-election Senate. Two independents already caucus with the Democrats and are key members of the Democratic majority.

The Florida race would not be the first in which top Democrats, seeking to save the Senate, got involved in local races.

During the primaries, there were reports that White House aides had discussions about a job for Joe Sestak if he dropped his bid to unseat Sen. Arlen Specter, a fellow Democrat. Sestak went on to win the primary and is locked in a close race with Republican Pat Toomey.

Michael.muskal@latimes.com

Twitter.com/LATimesmuskal
Democratic candidate denies Bill Clinton urged him to quit Florida Senate contest

The U.S. economy continued to plod along at a sluggish pace in the third quarter, not enough to generate momentum or bring down the nation’s high jobless rate.

The nation’s gross domestic product, or the value of all goods and services produced inside U.S. borders, grew at an annualized rate of 2% in the July-to-September quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday.

That was a tad higher than the 1.7% GDP growth in the second quarter, but overall still paints a picture of a lackluster economy that expanded at a 3.25% annual rate in the second half of last year coming out of the recession, only to see a slowing since spring.

One positive sign was a pickup in consumer spending in the latest quarter. Inflation-adjusted personal consumption increased 2.6%, up from 2.2% in the second quarter, thanks largely to gains in expenditures for housing and other services.

Business investments also contributed positively to the third-quarter GDP, although the rate of increase in spending for equipment and software fell sharply to 12%, from nearly 25% the prior quarter. Government spending also added to the growth, but depressed home-building and the nation’s trade deficit continued to be a drag on the overall economy.

In addition, the latest quarter was boosted by a stronger buildup in inventories, which could curb production and overall economic growth in the coming months, especially if the holiday shopping season turns out poorly.

The overall 2% change in GDP was right in line with analysts’ forecasts, and won’t change expectations that the Federal Reserve on Wednesday will launch a new round of government bond purchases to drive down long-term interest rates and stimulate economic activity.

Before Friday’s report, economists were generally projecting somewhat stronger growth for the fourth quarter and heading into next year. Expectations of the Fed’s likely stimulus program already has pushed down the value of the dollar, which should bolster U.S. exports. Stock prices also have improved in the last quarter, giving consumers a little more confidence.

Uncertainties about the expiring Bush administration’s tax cuts loom as a potential negative, but analysts say even that could provide a lift in the next two months as people move some of their planned spending for 2011 to this year because of the risks of higher taxes.

don.lee@latimes.com
GDP rises slightly to 2% in sign that economy remains sluggish

Weeks before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oil company BP and subcontractor Halliburton were aware of test results showing that the cement mixture designed to seal the well was unstable — but they used it anyway, President Obama’s special commission investigating the environmental disaster reported Thursday.

The findings shed new light on troubles with the cement job on BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, which exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and causing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. The cement is supposed to secure the well pipes and keeps oil and gas from flowing up the well.

Legal experts said the information could bolster plaintiffs’ cases in the multitude of spill-related lawsuits by helping to show that BP acted with gross negligence leading up to the spill. This could, among other issues, greatly increase the multibillion-dollar penalties BP might have to pay for violation of the Clean Water Act.

“There’s no question that it’s important evidence,” said Charlie Tebbutt, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, which has filed a lawsuit seeking $19 billion under the Clean Water Act. “It serves to confirm the previous reports of significant problems with the exploration and production of the well.”

The information was included in a letter to Obama’s commission by Fred. H. Bartlit Jr., its chief counsel.

David Uhlmann, a law professor at the University of Michigan who formerly headed the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section, said the findings make it appear more likely that Justice officials will file criminal charges not only against BP and Transocean Ltd., the rig’s owner, but also against Halliburton, the Texas oilfield services giant once headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney.

“There have been questions all along about the integrity of the cement job, and today those questions loom larger and are closer to being answered,” Uhlmann said. “And those answers are not good ones for Halliburton.”

In the letter, Bartlit said that his team recently asked Halliburton to turn over samples of the cement materials like those used at the well. The materials were tested by Chevron employees at a Houston lab. The employees were “unable to generate stable foam cement” from the materials, meaning the cement would not be strong enough to keep the well sealed.

Bartlit then asked Halliburton to turn over all of the tests it had run on the mixture.

Those documents showed that Halliburton had conducted four “stability tests” of the mixture. The first two were run in February 2010 using a slightly different recipe than the one eventually used at the well. Both of these tests indicated that the mix was unstable.

Halliburton sent results from only one of those tests to BP in an e-mail March 8.

“There is no indication that Halliburton highlighted to BP the significance of the foam stability data, or that BP personnel raised any questions about it,” Bartlit wrote.

Two more tests were conducted by Halliburton in April. The first test, conducted about seven days before the blowout, again showed the mix to be unstable, although Bartlit said it may have been improperly conducted. These results were reported internally at Halliburton, Bartlit said, “though it appears that Halliburton never provided the data to BP.”

Bartlit said Halliburton apparently began a fourth test, and after modifying the testing procedure, found the cement to be stable.

“We are not yet certain when Halliburton reported this data internally or whether the test was even complete prior to the time the cement job was poured at the Macondo well,” he wrote. “Halliburton reported this data to BP after the blowout.”

Bartlit said that because BP did not have the test results, “the cement job may have been pumped without any lab results indicating that the foam cement slurry would be stable.”

BP officials did not return a call for comment Thursday. A Halliburton spokeswoman said company officials were reviewing the report.

Late Thursday, Halliburton issued a statement. Its February tests were of a different slurry mixture, the company said, and its first April test was “irrelevant because the laboratory did not use the correct amount of cement blend. Furthermore … BP was made aware of the issues with that test.”

Halliburton said its second April test used the agreed-upon mixture and showed it was stable. But BP changed the mixture that was actually used in the well, Halliburton said, and “a foam stability test was not conducted” on the new formulation.

The cement job was not the only problem that plagued the well on the evening of April 20, and Bartlit did not say that it was the only cause of the blowout.

The blowout preventer — a massive device that was supposed to shut off the well off in case of a dangerous geyser of oil and gas — also failed. Other human errors have been alleged as well. On the day of the blowout, BP canceled a test called a “cement bond log” designed to discover cement defects, saving more than $100,000.

Jesse Gagliano, a Halliburton technical advisor, also told federal investigators that BP risked causing a “severe gas flow problem” when they decided to use fewer devices called “centralizers” rather than the 21 he recommended.

Critics of BP and its partners on the Macondo project jumped on the findings to demand greater oversight of the companies involved in the accident and of the oil industry. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee, said the counsel’s findings underscored the need for BP’s new chief executive, Bob Dudley, to appear before Congress, which he has recently declined to do.

“The fact that BP and Halliburton knew this cement job could fail only solidifies their liability and responsibility for this disaster,” Markey said in a statement. “We now know what BP and Halliburton knew, and when they knew it. And now we know they did absolutely nothing about it.

The report’s release sent Halliburton shares plunging 16%, to less than $30 in New York trading, but it recovered somewhat to close at $31.68, down $2.74, or 8%. BP’s American shares, however, closed at $40.60, up 1.25%.

Richard.fausset@latimes.com

Nbanerjee@tribune.com

Fausset reported from Atlanta and Banerjee reported from Washington. Rong-Gong Lin II contributed to this report from Los Angeles.
Tests warned of cement problems before well’s blowout