One year after the worst oil spill in the country’s history, lawmakers are still wrangling over off-shore drilling, the liability cap for spill-related damages and the Obama administration’s response to the incident, which left 11 dead and leaked 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

On Wednesday, there was plenty of criticism to go around – much of which was directed by lawmakers at Washington itself.

Several Republicans faulted the Obama administration’s response to the spill, accusing the White House of using the tragedy to wage an “assault on off-shore drilling.”

“One year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, coastal communities are still dealing with the damage from the disaster,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said in a statement. “This damage is not limited to just the tar balls that wash up on shore or the stigma many consumers still have for Gulf seafood, but also the real and harsh effects the Administration’s subsequent assault on off-shore drilling has had on economically vulnerable communities. ... The legacy of this spill should be an increased emphasis on safety, not a full-scale retreat from off-shore energy production.”

A CNN poll released Tuesday showed that public support of drilling has rebounded in the year since the spill, with 69 percent of respondents now favoring increased offshore drilling, up from 49 percent last June.

Other Republicans on Wednesday faulted the work of the $20 billion Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which has come under fire for a claims process that some say has been slow and uneven.

“Over the past year, some Floridians have been able to bounce back, but many business owners and employees throughout the region have struggled to regain their footing, particularly in the tourism and fishing industries,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a statement. “Many small businesses have had to lay off workers, while others have sadly had to close their operations entirely. To add insult to injury, far too many of these entrepreneurial, hard-working Floridians are still waiting for the financial restitution promised to them. They deserve better.”

Some Democrats, meanwhile, pointed the finger at Congress, arguing that few pieces of legislation related to the oil spill have made their way through both chambers in the wake of the spill. In an appearance on ABC’s “Topline” webcast, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a senior member of the House subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, said that Congress has “absolutely not” made any progress on oversight measures that could prevent another disaster such as the one that happened a year ago.

“It’s a year later; we are exactly where we were, other than the public understands more clearly how reckless and what the negligence was that got us there,” Woolsey said. “But are we preventing it? Do we have better programs in place for mitigation and cleanup? No, we don’t, but we could.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) issued a statement blasting the lack of action by the Senate in the year since the spill.

“Last year, under Democratic leadership, the House passed the SPILL Act, amending the Death on the High Seas Act to ensure fair compensation for the families of those killed or injured in the BP spill,” Pelosi said. “We also passed legislation to give subpoena power to the President’s oil spill commission. Unfortunately, only one measure was able to clear the Senate’s 60-vote hurdle: legislation to permit the Coast Guard to obtain needed resources from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to help with clean-up costs.”

There also remains the question of the oil-spill liability cap, which remains unchanged at $75 million one year after the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who has sponsored legislation that would completely eliminate the liability cap, issued a statement Wednesday renewing his call for doing away with the $75-million limit, as did another outspoken BP critic, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

“Instead of litigating away their culpability under the law, BP should be mitigating the damage to the people and environment of the Gulf, which continues to be under siege from their spill,” Markey said in a statement.

Efforts to eliminate the liability cap have been met with bipartisan opposition, however, from lawmakers who worry that doing so would have an adverse effect on the economy.

For more on the spill’s one-year anniversary, read The Post’s Joel Achenbach, who is out with a new book on the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/a-year-out-from-bp-oil-spill-parties-still-sparring-over-drilling-response-to-tragedy/2011/04/20/AFtsoKDE_blog.html