Obama names chairmen of Gulf oil spill commission

[May 22, 2010]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama announced Saturday that former Florida Sen. Bob Graham and former EPA Administrator William K. Reilly will lead a presidential commission investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Graham, a Democrat, is a former Florida governor and senator. Reilly ran the Environmental Protection Agency under Republican President George H.W. Bush. His tenure at the agency included the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

"I can't think of two people who will bring greater experience or better judgment to the task at hand," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

Obama intends to name five others to the panel, which will examine everything from what caused the spill to the safety of offshore drilling to operations at the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that grants drilling rights. A report is due in six months.

The oil spill, which Obama described as an environmental disaster, began April 20 when BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded off the Louisiana coast, killing 11 workers and rupturing an underwater pipe. Since then, at least 210,000 gallons of oil a day have been spewing into the Gulf, threatening beaches, marshes, fisheries and wildlife along the coast.

A month after the explosion, residents, elected officials and environmental groups are becoming frustrated with BP PLC's failure to cap the well. They have called for the government to take charge. BP was leasing the rig and is responsible for the cleanup. The government is signing off on the company's efforts to cap the pipe, but one Republican senator said more needs to be done.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said many Louisianians are frustrated that Democrats who run Congress have been holding hearings while the uncapped well continues to sully Gulf Coast waters.

"The time for committee hearings is for after the well has been capped, not before," Vitter said in the weekly Republican message.

Vitter said the focus should be on stopping the oil flow and protecting the coastline. He said coastal communities also are in desperate need of more containment booms, the barriers designed to stop oil from reaching the coast.

Vitter also promoted a bill that would raise the limit on a company's liability for an oil spill and direct work on technologies that can be used to cap similar oil leaks deep underwater.

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Online:

Obama address: http://www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress

[Associated Press; By DARLENE SUPERVILLE]

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