{"id":571803,"date":"2010-05-20T12:37:18","date_gmt":"2010-05-20T16:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/climateprogress.org\/?p=25631"},"modified":"2010-05-20T12:37:18","modified_gmt":"2010-05-20T16:37:18","slug":"what-questions-do-you-think-the-bp-disaster-commission-should-answer-investigation-must-be-free-clear-and-complete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/571803","title":{"rendered":"What questions do you think the BP disaster commission should answer? – Investigation must be free, clear, and complete"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss<\/a>, who first proposed the commission idea on May 4<\/a>, offers his answer to the question of what areas the investigation should pursue.<\/p>\n

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<\/span>A dead Portuguese Man-O-War floats on a blob of oil in the waters of Chandeleur Sound, Louisiana.\u00a0 Source:\u00a0 AP\/Eric Gay
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President Obama is likely to sign an executive order<\/a> sometime during the next several days that would create an independent commission to investigate the causes behind the tragic BP oil disaster. A thorough independent investigation is essential to understand what caused the explosion that cost 11 workers their lives, and what led to the failure of the blowout preventer that was supposed to prevent an oil gusher.<\/p>\n

The independent commissions established by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan to investigate the Three Mile Island near-nuclear meltdown<\/a> and the Challenger Space Shuttle accident<\/a>, respectively, provide valuable guidance for the design and operation of the BP investigation.<\/p>\n

Unlike many congressionally chartered commissions, the TMI and Challenger commissions were not required to have a particular bipartisan balance. The TMI panel did not establish specific criteria for its membership. President Carter appointed prominent people from various fields<\/a>. The chair was Dartmouth College President John Kemeny, who had worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb. The panel included five professors, a union president, a CEO, a governor, an environmental leader, and a resident near TMI.<\/p>\n

The executive order to create the Challenger panel required members \u201cfrom among distinguished leaders of the government, and the scientific, technical, and management communities.\u201d Its chair was former Attorney General and Secretary of State William Rogers. The panel included<\/a> two former astronauts, a former test pilot, and physicists and engineers from both academia and the aerospace industry.<\/p>\n

The BP disaster panel should follow the Challenger model. The executive order should require that the panel includes members who are senior or retired government officials, distinguished marine biologists, oceanographers, chemists, geologists, and petroleum engineers, as well as management experts. It should also include at least one member of a nongovernmental environmental organization, a union leader, and a local official or citizen of an affected community.<\/p>\n

The executive order establishing the TMI commission provided much more guidance for its investigation than the Challenger commission. The TMI charter included \u201ca technical assessment of the events and their causes,\u201d as well as an assessment of the utility\u2019s management, emergency preparedness and response by federal agencies, and \u201can evaluation of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing, inspection, operation and enforcement procedures as applied to this facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BP disaster commission should follow the TMI model. The executive order should require the study and investigation to include:<\/p>\n