WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said Saturday that the new national commission he's appointing to probe the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill should focus on insuring the nation has the necessary environmental and safety framework to "make sure it never happens again."

The seven-member commission will be headed by former Florida Democratic senator and governor Bob Graham and William Reilly, a Republican who served as President George H.W. Bush's Environmental Protection Agency Administrator during the Exxon Valdez spill.

By Tuesday, BP will perform a "top kill" on the oil well. The process requires injecting 40 barrels a minute of "kill mud" into the broken well and then sealing it with cement.

The material will be pumped at high pressure down the choke and kill lines of the blowout preventer, which failed to seal the well after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20. Choke and kill lines are used to control the amount and pressure of drilling mud in the wellbore, so that surges of oil and natural gas can be kept under control.

BP had initially planned to precede the top kill with a "junk shot," pumping debris such as golf balls and shredded tires into the blowout preventer to clog the leak, before adding the mud. But BP decided not to do the junk shot under concerns that it might cause more damage. BP spokesman Mark Proegler said the junk shot carried certain risks, specifically that the debris could shoot through the well causing more oil to leak. (Source: Times-Picayune)

Story Date: May 23, 2010