Lawmaker vows to pursue oil spill bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A key lawmaker on Wednesday vowed to introduce bi-partisan legislation aimed at strengthening offshore drilling regulations to prevent a repeat of last year's massive BP oil spill.

Senator Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, said he planned to tackle oil spill legislation during this Congress.

"We must ensure that we have systems in place in our government and in the industry so that this cannot happen again," Bingaman said at the start of a hearing examining recommendations from the White House oil spill commission.

At Tuesday's Senate hearing the co-chairs of the White House spill commission, Bill Reilly and Bob Graham, outlined the panel's recommendations for the raising safety standards of U.S. offshore drilling and made their case for congressional action.

Charged with guiding the future of offshore drilling, the spill commission called for a complete overhaul of drilling regulation in its final report released this month.

The Senate energy committee passed legislation that would have strengthened drilling oversight last year after BP's underwater Macondo well spewed millions of barrels of oil into Gulf of Mexico over the summer.

But that legislation never made it into law. With more information now available from the spill commission and other sources, Bingaman said, the committee would be able to make improvements on the previous bill.

"We must complete this work, and ensure that this oil and gas development is done safely every time, and that failure is not an option," Bingaman said.

Still, any new oil spill legislation would likely be difficult to get through Congress as Republicans have raised concerns that onerous new drilling regulations could hurt domestic oil and natural gas production.

Later on Wednesday several House Democrats, including Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, were to introduce their own spill legislation, based on measures that passed the House last year and the commission's report.

Some of the proposals outlined in the spill commission's report included the creation of independent government and industry safety agencies, as well as an increase in the amount of damages companies are required to pay for spills.

Reilly and Graham were slated to appear at another hearing Wednesday afternoon before the House of Representatives' Natural Resources committee.

(Editing by Walter Bagley)

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