Spill panel to hold public meeting July 12-13 in New Orleans

I wonder just how public this meeting will be and just how many of the people who have REALLY been effected will be permitted in? Hopefully we have at least a few here that can attend and fill us in on what is going on.

Reuters

WASHINGTON | Sun Jul 4, 2010 9:03am EDT

(Reuters) - A presidential panel to probe the cause of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and recommend new rules to prevent future disasters will hold its first public meeting in New Orleans on July 12 and 13, its co-chairs said on Saturday.

The two-day meeting will "hear directly from the people of the Gulf Coast whose lives and livelihoods have been so profoundly affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon spill," said Bob Graham, a former Senator, and William Reilly, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, in a statement.

The seven-member commission, which has six months to do its work, will also seek expert advice on "regulatory, technical, legal, scientific and risk-management issues to ensure that any offshore drilling is done safety," they said.

The Obama administration had issued a moratorium on offshore drilling to give the commission time for its investigation, but a federal court lifted the ban. The government is appealing.

The Interior Department is expected to issue a revised moratorium in the coming week.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton, editing by Alan Elsner)

[edit on 5-7-2010 by Wayne60]

Just giving this thread a bump in case anyone who may want to go to this meeting and has not heard about it yet.

How many ATSer's that are close enough to New Orleans plan to be at this meeting for the next couple of days?