, which installed a cement casing for drill operations , he said . It also was the case with the government agency charged with regulating offshore drilling , Reilly said . The report , `` Deep Water : The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling , '' proposed `` comprehensive '' government and industry actions `` to overhaul the U.S. approach to drilling safety and greatly reduce the chances of a similar , large-scale disaster in the future . '' Over the past 20 years `` we became lulled into a sense of inevitable success , '' which masked the heightened risk in deepwater drilling , said the commission 's co-chair , former Sen. Bob Graham . Advances in science , both in drilling offshore safely and in containing a spill , are vastly inadequate and must be improved , Graham said . The commission faulted the government for passivity , saying regulators were outmatched , underfunded and had conflicting responsibilities that kept them from effective oversight . They called for a new regulatory office headed by a scientist with a fixed term that would be created under the Interior Department . The position would be designed
Washington -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- If the government does not take drastic steps , another deepwater oil spill like the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico could devastate the coastal areas of the United States , an oversight commission warned Tuesday in a long-awaited report to the president . More research , funding and oversight are needed to help prevent another disaster , concluded the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling . `` As drilling pushes into ever deeper and riskier waters where more of America 's oil lies , only systemic reforms of both government and industry will prevent a similar , future disaster , '' said William K. Reilly , the commission co-chairman . Halliburton criticized the report 's conclusions , saying the commission selectively omitted information it submitted . The disaster `` was almost the inevitable result of years of industry and government complacency and lack of attention to safety , '' Reilly said . The disaster led to the worst maritime oil spill in U.S. history . That was `` indisputably the case '' with BP ; Transocean , which owned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig ; and Halliburton