I mentioned back on Wednesday that the White House was considering the enactment of some of the recommendations of the Oil Spill Commission by executive order. Looks like they’re moving forward on that immediately. The Obama administration has announced the creation of an agency to focus exclusively on safety in offshore drilling and production, part [...]

Robert Menendez plans to reintroduce his bill, the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act, that would lift the $75 million liability cap on oil company damages in the event of oil spills. “The commission is clear: Not only are more spills of this magnitude entirely possible, but taxpayers and coastal communities remain financially exposed,” said Menendez [...]

The Presidential Oil Spill Commission has released their final report on the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The essential conclusion, if you don’t have the time to read the whole 396-page report, was this: The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials [...]

Most of the reports criticizing the poor quality of the initial estimates of the BP oil disaster have focused on the oil company’s faults. But a new report goes after the Obama Administration and their underestimation of the extent of the spill. And it comes from the president’s own handpicked commission. The Obama administration repeatedly [...]

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 [...]

The AP reports that a new Obama Administration directive halting deepwater drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico for six months will be released today, after a federal judge invalidated the last moratorium and a circuit court panel refused to stay that ruling. The new moratorium will seek to answer the questions raised by Judge [...]

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 [...]