Saturday, May 22, 2010

Obama: More Gulf Drilling Only If Assurances

Obama: More Gulf Drilling Only If Assurances
President Barack Obama said Saturday that oil drilling can go ahead only if there was no guarantee that a massive disaster that the Gulf oil spill will not be repeated.

As Obama formally notify the Commission of Investigation, he adopted a stern message, while the pressure on companies that are still spill uncapped - BP Halliburton and Transocean Oy (RIG. N) - It is also responsible for repairs to Washington way.

With frustration growing political risks and threatens to spread, but Obama has announced that former Sen. Bob Graham and former Environmental Protection Agency and the director William Reilly chaired the bipartisan panel of six months to report .

"The Commission must take into account both the root causes of the disaster and to offer alternatives that security and precautions that we take the environment to ensure a similar disaster repeated," said Obama a weekly radio and the Internet address.

Obama has sharpened his tone ever oil spill last week - which threatens to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska's worst environmental disaster in the U.S. - has spread very little sign soon end.

Analysts say that the ecological and economic damage mounts, it can grow into a political liability Obama before key elections in November, when the Democrats are already threatening its huge losses because of the anxiety of voters unemployment nearly double digits.

The Commission was established to help provide leadership in crisis Obama has strongly criticized, not just for the security practices of companies, but also loose government control.

The leak has raised serious issues of Obama's earlier proposal to expand offshore drilling as part of a strategy to win Republican support for the laws of climate change.

Insurance claims

Obama said, because the leakage inspection, he ordered all activities in the deepwater Gulf and expired permits, drilling of new wells until the 30-day review is completed.

"We have to ... engage in domestic sources of oil and gas, "said Obama. "Because it represents 30 percent of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico can be an important element in ensuring the future of energy. But we can not continue to oil drilling, if we have the assurance that the disaster that the BP spill does not happen again. "

He expressed the hope that the new Commission "to help those assurances, so that we can continue to seek secure energy future." panel of seven members is modeled on that which probed the case, as the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

Obama has more harsh words to say the companies involved in a leak. "Firstly, that led to this disaster has been the division of responsibilities in BP, and possibly others, including Transocean and Halliburton," he said.

"And we will continue to hold companies accountable, except that future facts and transparent leak, but closed, repair damage, and the backs of Americans who have suffered economic losses," he said.

But it has also an obligation of the State. "While we continue to be responsible for BP, we also have to be responsible for Washington, he said." The question is, what can we learn from this disaster to ensure there Never again. "

"If the laws on our books are not sufficient to prevent the leakage of oil if we do not control these laws, I want to know," he said. "I want to know ... that control of oil and gas down. We know, for example, that the intimate relationship between oil and gas companies and agencies that govern them have long been a subject of concern. "

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