Say this had happened under George W. Bush. Since he had beginnings in the oil business, as did his father, if he had gotten this settlement, opponents (yes, I may or may not have been saying this) would have been saying it had to do with his oil company connections, or he let the oil companies off too easy because of his connections, etc.
Really, nobody, including this President, the heads of oil companies, engineers, the leaders of other companies know what to do in this case. Knocking the President really does not make a lot of sense in all this.