Oil Spill Commission Begins its Second Meeting « The Washington Independent
Jul 31, 202034.3K Shares536K Views
The first panel of a day-long meeting of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling just ended. I’ll be blogging the meeting all day.
In opening remarks, former Senator Bob Graham, co-chair of the commission, called the spill an “enormous and shared failure.” And former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William Reilly, also co-chair of the commission, said the administration’s moratorium on deepwater drilling “has taken a toll” on the Gulf.
President Obama established the oil spill commission in June. The commission has been criticizedby Republican and some Democrats for being too heavily weightedtoward opposing offshore drilling. The criticism has focused on the inclusion on the commission of Natural Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke, who has supported a deepwater drilling moratorium in the past.
Some things to look forward to: testimony from Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Jane Lubchenco, former head of the Minerals Management Service Elizabeth Birnbaum and American Petroleum Institute officials. Here’s the full agenda.
The first panel included testimony from Carter Roberts, president of the World Wildlife Fund. Roberts called for “coastal and marine spatial planning” before approving drilling projects. In other words, Roberts said it’s important to “make smart decisions” based on information on how drilling will impact the environment and the things living in it.
Rhyley Carney
Reviewer
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