The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has voted to have its own commission investigate the BP disaster. The Committee finds that necessary, according to Mary Landrieu, because Obama hasn’t appointed a representative from the oil industry to his own commission.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted Wednesday to create a congressional bipartisan commission to investigate the spill, with Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and others saying a separate panel is needed because the White House commission has four environmental advocates — three members and the executive staff director — but no oil industry representation.
“Maybe the commission that the Congress sets up, in a more balanced fashion, with both very strong environmental views and very strong industry views, could actually come up with something that really might work for the dilemma and the challenge that this nation faces, which briefly is this: We use 20 million barrels of oil a day,” Landrieu said. “That was true the day before the Deepwater Horizon blew up. It is true today. And we need to get that oil from somewhere.”
Aside from the problem of the oil industry investigating the oil industry, there’s another problem with Landrieu’s complaint.
Bill Reilly, the Republican Co-Chair and one of the people Landrieu’s calling an “environmental advocate”? He serves on ConocoPhillips’ board. ConocoPhillips is a much smaller player in deepwater drilling than, say, BP. But it’s still the sixth largest driller.
But I guess that kind of obvious conflict isn’t enough to reassure Landrieu.