The US tightened pressure Wednesday on BP, setting a 72-hour deadline for the battered British energy titan to present updated plans for battling the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, charged with leading the government's response to the nation's worst environmental disaster, demanded BP produce records of compensation claims filed by individuals and businesses.

The orders in official letters betrayed a sense of growing mistrust between BP and President Barack Obama's administration more than seven weeks after a blowout on the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig sparked the disaster.

I regret that we are unable to accommodate your invitation to participate Wednesday or Thursday in the hearing of the Mississippi House of Representatives Select Committee on the Gulf Coast Disaster.

We at BP take very seriously the desire of the Select Committee to gather information on the circumstances on the Mississippi coast relative to the oil spill. We are committed to meeting regularly with stakeholders along the Gulf Coast and to providing briefings for government officials on a regular basis, and we will continue to remain engaged in this way. When we meet with the Committee, it will be important for us to have appropriate BP representatives who are implementing the strategic response plan for Mississippi and working in the Mississippi Gulf Coast area. Unfortunately, the appropriate individuals are not available this week. We would be pleased to work with the Select Committee to identify a day in the near future for another meeting of the Committee — either in Jackson or on the Coast where the Committee also can visit incident response operations.

A BP spokesperson told the AP that the “many of the company’s executives” would be in Washington, DC. According to the Biloxi Sun Herald, both Transocean and Halliburton were also no shows.

Diane Wilson, a Texas shrimper and activist, has been arrested for pouring oil on herself during a senate energy hearing.
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"I am seeing the destruction of my community and I am outraged," Wilson said in a statement released by Codepink following her arrest. "I am also seeing elected representatives like Senator Lisa Murkowski blocking BP from being legally responsible to pay for this catastrophe.... This is outrageous. How dare she side with big oil over the American people who have been so devastated by this man-made disaster?"

Wilson, who claims to be a fourth-generation shrimper, has been protesting and writing about pollution in the Gulf for years.

"We want people to call Senator Murkowski's office and tell her to stop supporting big oil and support a healthy environment and American livelihoods instead," said Codepink co-founder Medea Benjamin, who was with Wilson at the hearing. "BP CEO Tony Hayward should be in jail, not a distraught shrimper!"