It wasn’t hard to predict the sort of recommendations to expect from the seven-member National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling when President Obama appointed Natural Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke, Union of Concerned Scientists board member Fran Ulmer and five other Democratic donors to the panel. All seven oppose offshore oil and gas activity and are environmental movement stalwarts. For example, just before Obama appointed her, Beinecke said, “We can blame BP for the disaster, and we should. We can blame lack of adequate government oversight for the disaster, and we should.” True to form, the commission made its findings public Tuesday. They can be summarized in one sentence: It’s all the energy industry’s fault and the only acceptable solution is more government regulation and jobs for Big Green environmentalists.
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