Drilling ban could drag into next year, panel chairman says
by JOHN M. BRODER (excerpt)

NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON — The bipartisan commission named by President Barack Obama in May to study the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the future of U.S. offshore drilling will hold its first formal meeting in mid-July at the earliest, most likely delaying the delivery of its final report into next year, a co-chairman of the panel said. The co-chairman, William K. Reilly, who served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush, also said it was unlikely that the panel would recommend the lifting of the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling before it completed its report. Such a move would require profound changes in industry practice and government oversight that could not be done that quickly, Reilly said in his first extensive remarks on the commission's work.

The oil industry, its supporters in Congress and Gulf Coast officials have called for swiftly lifting the moratorium, saying that the ban was causing severe economic hardship and that drilling could resume safely under tighter interim rules. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and some other Obama administration officials had given the industry hope that the ban would be lifted as soon as new regulations were in place.

But Reilly said that ending the moratorium would require that the industry adopt safer drilling techniques and that the government regulatory agencies, particularly the Minerals Management Service, a part of the Interior Department, be markedly strengthened. “Those things would have to happen faster than past history would suggest is possible,” he said.