It’s almost as if the Senate doesn’t trust President Obama’s handpicked commission of anti-drilling advocates to reach a fair conclusion: The Hill:
A key Senate panel delivered a rebuke to President Barack Obama on Wednesday in approving the creation of a bipartisan oil spill commission that would effectively compete with his own.
Five Democrats joined all 10 Republicans on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in agreeing to create a new bipartisan panel whose members would mostly be appointed by Congress.
The proposal — offered by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) — would establish a commission of 10 whose members would be appointed equally by the two parties, with Obama naming the chairman and congressional leaders selecting the vice chairman and remaining eight members. The commission would have subpoena power, which the Obama-appointed panel does not.
Barrasso said the newly proposed commission — which he said is modeled after the 9/11 Commission — is needed to provide a “truly unbiased bipartisan review” of offshore drilling in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico spill. Obama’s commission “appears to me to be stacked with people philosophically opposed to offshore drilling,” Barrasso said.
The rest here.