By Ayesha Rascoe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was a massive "failure" in oversight for the oil industry and the U.S. government, the co-chairman of the White House oil spill commission said on Wednesday.
Bob Graham, a former U.S. Senator from Florida, said regulators and offshore drillers were aware of the possibility of a major well blowout, such as the one that caused the BP spill, but ignored the risks.
"We should be clear. This disaster represents an enormous and shared failure of public policy," Graham said at the commission's second public meeting.
The seven-member panel, tasked with guiding the future of offshore drilling, questioned environmental groups and the oil sector at the meeting on how to develop a culture of safety capable of preventing and responding to major oil spills.
Bill Reilly, the commission's other chairman, questioned whether oil companies were doing enough to blow the whistle when they see unsafe practices elsewhere in the industry.
"If you have a laggard company, there's not much you can do about it, if you're not willing to call them on it," Reilly, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said.
Last week, Reilly said his panel was looking at proposing a regulatory structure modelled on the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. Such a system would aim at ensuring higher safety standards to supplement government regulation, possibly through project evaluations that would be turned over to insurance companies and government agencies.
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill exposed the need for accountability among drillers, Reilly said. As in the nuclear industry, one accident carries steep costs for the entire sector.
The commission was slated to hear later on Wednesday from the nuclear industry agency's current president, retired Admiral James Ellis, and agency's former chief executive, Zack Pate.
Liz Birnbaum, former head of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, was also set to speak about regulatory challenges. A little over a month into the oil spill, Birnbaum resigned as head of the agency responsible for overseeing offshore drilling, which was criticized for having too cosy a relationship with oil companies it was supposed to oversee.
That agency, the Minerals Management Service, is now undergoing reorganization as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
(Editing by Walter Bagley)
