Thursday, July 1, 2010

Obama's Deepwater Horizon commission has its objectivity questioned by... Senate Democrats

My what a tangled coalition we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

US Senator Mary Landrieu, D-LA, managed to force the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee to form a bipartisan congressional committee to investigate the causes of the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion, fire and ongoing oil spill in the Gulf.

On the same day the White House commission investigating the Gulf oil spill announced its first meetings -- July 12-13 in New Orleans -- a Senate committee cast what amounted to a no-confidence vote on the commission's objectivity.

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.

The Times-Picayune is being kind in suggesting that the commission's objectivity is in question. As soon as the panel members were named, this blog noted the panel's conflicts of interest. Those people shouldn't even be within spitting distance of a panel charged to investigate engineering and safety failures.  They're long on left-wing policy, short on any real smarts.

Ostensibly, the regime's panel has the task of identifying the root causes of the accident that took down the Deepwater Horizon, and coming up with a regulatory framework designed to prevent such accidents from occurring.  While that panel was to review evidence, conduct investigations and hold hearings, the Department of Interior was to enforce the now-neutered six month deepwater drilling moratorium.  That moratorium was struck down last month by a Federal Judge and remains unenforceable.

But the panel wasn't completed until June 18, and won't hold its first meetings until July.  There was no way the panel could have legitimately and objectively completed its work within the six month timeframe of the moratorium.  So, the question is that, given the regime's selection of panel members and the extremely tight six-month schedule, what was the regime's motive? Hmmmm.

The fact that a Senate committee dominated by Democrats like Maria Cantwell, Byron Dorgan and Bernie Sanders voted to create its own bi-partisan commission is a telling.  When even a staunchly partisan committee like Energy & Natural Resources is doing an end-around the White House, it doesn't speak very well about party harmony.

Congressional Democrats are strategically distancing themselves from the President, as polls continue to show growing public dissatisfaction with his performance in handling the oil spill response.  His overall job performance has been tanking since April and he's quickly turning into poison on the campaign trail.

Gimme some feedback in the comments.

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