WASHINGTON - The federal government on Wednesday launched a drive to punish BP, Transocean and Halliburton for alleged violations of offshore drilling rules tied to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The government laid the foundation for the fines in September, when a Coast Guard and Interior Department investigation concluded that failures by all three companies led to the blowout of the Macondo well, killing 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and unleashing the nation's worst oil spill.