Spill panel would have subpoena power

[Ed Barrow]

Source: Associated Press

A leader of the presidential commission investigating the Gulf oil spill said Thursday he has been told his panel will have subpoena power to get a full accounting of the disaster.

Former Fla. Sen. Bob Graham, a co-chairman of the commission, said he's not sure if that subpoena power will be necessary for the panel to do its work.

Graham told the CBS Evening News, that "the whole industry was largely unprepared" for such an oil spill and said a great deal of development of deep-sea drilling technology was not accompanied by a similar investment in the safety of oil rigs and the ability to respond to an accident.

Former Environmental Protection Agency chief William Reilly, the other co-chairman, said he's surprised he hasn't seen more progress in the technology available to handle a spill more than 20 years after the Exxon Valdez ran aground and spilled its cargo. Reilly was in charge at EPA at the time of the Exxon Valdez spill off the Alaska coastline in 1989.



Read more: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100604/D9G4532G1.html

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1. Fricking Reilly is a Conoco Phillips board member & doesn't know the industry can't handle spills?

That doesn't say a lot for the guy.