Offshore oil drilling may be a critical part of the United States’ domestic energy industry, but the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling doesn’t think it’s safe enough yet.

The commission’s final report cited progress by the Obama administration and the industry itself, but graded Congress poorly because it has yet to “enact any legislation responding to the explosion and spill.”

All three need to do more, the report concluded, to ensure that deepwater drilling is safe for both workers and the environment.

Congress, in particular, needs to codify the necessary regulations needed to prevent another BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, considered to be the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, and one that killed 11 workers.

Fortunately, oversight of offshore drilling was improved after the spill two years ago. The Minerals Management Service, which had too cozy a relationship with the industry it was charged with overseeing, was overhauled to improve oversight.

But better regulation and oversight of deepwater drilling are sorely needed. While regulation may be costly, environmental disasters are even more costly.

How many more disasters on the scale of BP Deepwater Horizon can the Gulf of Mexico take? We’d rather not find out.

— Loveland Reporter-Herald,

Colorado, April 23


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