President Obama has named Fred H. Bartlit Jr. as chief counsel for The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, a
“„The seven-member commission is co-chaired by Democrat Bob Graham, a former U.S. senator and Florida governor, and Republican William Reilly, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
“„The members include Frances Beinecke, president of the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council; Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science; and Terry D. Garcia, vice president for mission programs at the National Geographic Society.
“„Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he is confident the panel will uncover the cause of the April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig leased by BP, which led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
“„“They were selected because they were the kinds of elder statesmen that would do a great job in reporting out the cause of what happened here and making recommendations,” Salazar said at yesterday’s House Energy Committee hearing. He said “they are putting in the subject matter expertise that will ultimately be needed” to do their jobs.
“„If the laws on our books are inadequate to prevent such an oil spill, or if we didn’t enforce those laws – I want to know it. I want to know what worked and what didn’t work in our response to the disaster, and where oversight of the oil and gas industry broke down. We know, for example, that a cozy relationship between oil and gas companies and agencies that regulate them has long been a source of concern.
“„One of the reasons I ran for President was to put America on the path to energy independence, and I have not wavered from that commitment. To achieve that goal, we must pursue clean energy and energy efficiency, and we’ve taken significant steps to do so. And we must also pursue domestic sources of oil and gas.
“„Because it represents 30 percent of our oil production, the Gulf of Mexico can play an important part in securing our energy future. But we can only pursue offshore oil drilling if we have assurances that a disaster like the BP oil spill will not happen again. This Commission will, I hope, help provide those assurances so we can continue to seek a secure energy future for the United States of America.