There have been calls from Democrats in both the House and the Senate to form an independent commission to investigate the oil disaster. The government has already got an investigation underway.
The government’s main effort to get at the root causes of the April 20 oil rig explosion and spill is led by a six-member Board of Inquiry that has been holding hearings this week in Kenner, La. ...
... While federal agencies often investigate accidents in areas they regulate, experts in fields like airline and nuclear safety say that in a major disaster, such an inquiry cannot objectively size up government missteps.
The Coast Guard and the minerals service “have a vested interest in how this comes out, in terms of what it does to their reputation and perhaps their own future,” said Steven B. Wallace, an aviation safety consultant.
“This is such a colossal event, with such economic and social impact, that perhaps it would be appropriate to look at a commission of unimpeachable credentials, more unimpeachable for their integrity than their technical expertise,” he said.
Representative James L. Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, expressed a similar view of the Board of Inquiry’s role. “There has to be something else,” he said. “On the face of it, this does not appear to be appropriate.”
Of course not! The government inquiry already underway in Louisiana is "required by law." And it may well help. But an independent inquiry would give more confidence to those of us who, one way or another, will pay for the huge spill.
As the New York Times reports notes: "...Experts with long experience in investigating accidents are echoing their calls, saying that however honest or well-intentioned each internal investigator may be, no agency can effectively judge its own role in contributing to an accident."
A senior Congressional investigator who asked not to be named because his committee does not have jurisdiction over oil spills said the BP case cried out for an independent investigator for yet another reason. “Somebody ought to be freezing the evidence right now,” he said.
