E2-Wire

The chief executives of several major oil companies told a House panel Tuesday that BP’s blown-out Gulf of Mexico well had design features that they would not have used.

“It is not a well that we would have drilled with that mechanical set-up,” said Marvin Odum, president of Royal Dutch Shell’s U.S. operations.

Chevron CEO John Watson said that “practices we would not have put in place were employed here” and cited features including the well’s casing.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday said he is “mobilizing the greatest military in the world” to combat the Gulf oil spill.

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson and other oil company executives acknowledged Tuesday that their Gulf of Mexico oil spill response plans should not have made references to walruses — a creature that does not inhabit the region.

Senior Democrats have pointed to inclusion of the walruses in claiming the industry has devoted far too little attention to potential accidents, noting that major oil producers have nearly identical, boilerplate plans.

“It is unfortunate that walruses were included. It is an embarrassment that they were included,” Tillerson said at a hearing before a House Energy and Commerce Committee panel on industry safety and energy policy.

Sen. Byron Dorgan dismissed any hopes his colleagues might have of including regulations to clamp down on emissions.

The top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday warned against pulling back on offshore oil-and-gas drilling in the wake of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“When you take a patient to the emergency room, the solution is not normally to kill the patient,” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas). “America needs the energy beneath the outer continental shelf.”

Barton spoke at a hearing of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, which is hosting top executives from ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and the U.S. arms of BP and Royal Dutch Shell.

President Barack Obama is exploiting the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to push climate change legislation, a top House Republican asserted Tuesday.

GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) accused the president of piggybacking off the environmental crisis to push climate change regulations as part of a new energy bill this summer.

"To exploit this crisis to resurrect his climate change legislation is just wrong," Pence said at a stakeout at the Capitol this morning.

Obama is expected to call for new energy legislation this evening in his first Oval Office address, following a two-day trip to the Gulf to survey the economic and environmental damages resulting from the ongoing oil spill.

The president has begun to whip up support for such legislation in an e-mail to supporters yesterday, and is expected to expand in greater detail his expectations of what that legislation might look like, and whether it would include measures to rein in climate change.

"Americans don't want this administration to exploit this disaster in the Gulf to advance its agenda on energy legislation," Pence said. "The American people want the president to work the problem, not work his liberal agenda."

Republicans worry an energy bill might include measures establishing a cap-and-trade program or some sort of carbon tax, which they've long opposed and have said would seriously hamper the U.S. economy.

The House passed a cap-and-trade bill a year ago, but that bill had stalled in the Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has notified his chairmen to be ready to proceed with an energy bill of some sort, which could include some elements to address climate change.

Cross-posted from the Briefing Room.

The Obama administration is likely to name a "czar" to oversee long-term recovery efforts in the Gulf of Mexico, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.

President Barack Obama is likely to name an individual in charge of helping Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, making good on his pledge to restore the Gulf to its pre-spill condition.

"We will have somebody who, yes, will be tasked with doing that," Gibbs said during an appearance on "Good Morning America" when asked if the president was likely to name a single person — or "czar" — in his administration to supervise the long-term efforts.

The Obama administration's plan to contain oil leaking from a ruptured undersea well could be sucking up as much as 90 percent of the spewing oil by the end of June.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the strategy BP is pursuing — at the behest of the federal government — will have a high efficiency rate in containing the oil spill by the time the end of this month rolls around.

"I think the containment strategy that the Coast Guard and the federal government pushed BP to accelerate will capture most of the oil that is leaking from the Gulf right now," Gibbs said during an appearance on "Good Morning America" on ABC this morning.

Senior House lawmakers opened their hearing with oil executives by blasting them as unprepared to cope with major spills.

BP will probably need to relinquish control to an independent authority over the claims process paying individuals and businesses along the Gulf Coast for damages caused by the oil spill. 

"The best way to prevail on BP is to take the claims process away from BP," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on CBS's "The Early Show" on Tuesday morning. 

"The president possesses the legal authority and will use it to make this claims process independent, to take it away from BP, and to ensure that those who have been harmed economically have their claims processed quickly, efficiently, transparently, and that they're made whole again for the disaster caused by BP," Gibbs said.