Bloomberg:

May 18 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama is planning to create a commission to investigate the BP Plc drilling accident, following presidential probes in prior decades of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
The commission will be established by executive order, possibly this week, and will have no current government officials among its members, an administration official said on condition of anonymity before the announcement.
The panel’s work would add to investigations already under way by the Interior Department, the Coast Guard and congressional panels. It will focus on rig safety, government regulations and oversight, the structure of the Minerals Management Service and environmental protections, the official said.
“What the independent commission will try to do is go through the process, and see what really did happen here,” said John Parry, vice president at Norwalk, Connecticut-based IHS Herold, a consulting firm. “The independent panel needs to find out if there were steps taken that were a bit more risky, even if the risk wasn’t that evident.”