Editorial -
What Oil Spill?
"Mr. Reilly must have felt as if he had stepped through the looking glass. An old-school moderate Republican (and thus an endangered species), he has argued for environmental values at the wildlife fund, as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President George H. W. Bush and as a director of ConocoPhillips. Now he wants to make drilling safer — apostasy to these industry apologists.
The co-chairmen received a more courtly reception in the Senate. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat and an old friend of the oil companies, praised the commission for its balance and agreed that stronger regulation was in industry's best interests. Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat, promised an oil spill bill to match the sound reforms proposed this week in the House.
A similar bill passed the House last year. But this is a new House — one in which, sadly, antiregulatory fervor trumps even the most sensible responses to one of the nation's worst environmental disasters."
