• Posted by Jessica Lee Reece.

The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling released its final Report to the President last week.

The Report found, among other things, that the “immediate causes of the Macondo well blowout can be traced to a series of identifiable mistakes made by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean that reveal such systematic failures in risk management that they place in doubt the safety culture of the entire industry.” Based on its investigation, the Commission recommended “fundamental reform” in regulatory oversight and crisis response.

The report also makes strong assertions against Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, stating that Gov. Jindal did little to protect the coastline and often hampered the more effective actions of federal responders to the 2010 oil spill.

The Commission is an independent, nonpartisan entity created last May by President Barack Obama, following the April well blow out and oil spill. The Commission was charged with determining the causes of the spill, and to recommend reforms to improve the country’s ability to respond to spills and to make offshore energy production safer.

The Commission’s report is “dedicated to the 11 men who lost their lives on the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20, 2010 and to their families, in hope that this report will help minimize the chance of another such disaster ever happening again.”