The deficit commission isn’t the only Presidentially-appointed one working in Washington these days. The Gulf oil spill commission is rapidly completing their work on the causes of the BP disaster and the way forward for domestic drilling. Yesterday, Thad Allen, the incident commander for the government on the BP spill, testified that he should be [...]

Kate Sheppard reports on an independent estimate of the BP oil disaster which again raises the amount of oil spilled into the Gulf: An independent estimate concluded this week that the BP spill dumped 4.4 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The new study, published this week in Science, is the [...]

BP is basically saying here, in the vernacular, “Nice escrow account you’ve got there, would be a shame if something happened to it.” BP is warning Congress that if lawmakers pass legislation that bars the company from getting new offshore drilling permits, it may not have the money to pay for all the damages caused [...]

In a sense, this was always the case. BP makes their money from drilling for, and selling, oil, and so their continued viability in running that business affects whether they have the cash available to pay out the $20 escrow fund for compensation to those hit by the oil disaster. But the deal between BP [...]

BP has started to cut off the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico through pumping heavy drilling mud into the well, and they believe they have reached static condition on the well, what they call “a significant milestone.” They plan to continue the relief well as a permanent solution, but they do not expect any [...]

Michael Grunwald took a run at carrying forward this idea that the BP oil disaster is actually, you know, not so bad, a perspective contrasted by his own colleague at Time, Bryan Walsh: I think it’s far too early to declare the oil spill a bust. It’s true that the coastlines don’t seem to have [...]

A tugboat slammed into a wellhead in an inland waterway in Louisiana early this morning, sending a plume of oil 20 feet into the air. Crews don’t expect to be able to cap the well before 6 p.m. ET, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft told reporters. “We cannot catch a break,” Deano Bonano, Jefferson [...]

The natural instinct to “do something!” when in danger has run up against the cold hand of reality. Bobby Jindal thought he had this great idea to spend countless amounts of money – all of which he funneled to a wealthy campaign contributor – on building sand berms to stop the oil in the Gulf [...]

AP reports that the containment cap has been replaced, after a robot bent on human destruction bumped it out of alignment. While the cap was off for a day, at least 40,000 and probably more like 100,000 barrels of oil gushed into the water unchecked. But I want to focus on this piece buried in [...]

Oil companies have asked a federal judge to take down the six-month moratorium on offshore drilling, on what grounds I have no idea. But the judge is expected to rule shortly. In a two-hour hearing Monday morning, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman weighed those arguments as well as rebuttals from environmental groups. He is expected [...]

Encouraging news that the panel tasked with investigating the disaster in the Gulf wants to actually get it right: The co-chairman, William K. Reilly, who served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under the first President Bush, also said it was unlikely that the panel would recommend the lifting of the six-month moratorium on [...]