An administration official said on Monday that U. S. President Barack Obama planned to appoint a White House commission to look into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune has reported that in addition, eight Democratic members of the U. S. Senate asked U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder to initiative a criminal investigation into the spill, which began with an explosion April 20 on the Deepwater Horizon, an oil rig owned and operated by British oil producer BP.

An administration official told the newspaper that the White House commission would be similar to one created by former President Ronald Reagan to investigate the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

In a letter to Holder, eight Democratic members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee urged the attorney general to "review this matter with respect to civil and criminal laws related to false statements to the federal government," as well as "any federal law or regulation that may have been violated."

The Times-Picayune further reported that Sen. Joe Lieberman, Ind-Conn., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said during a hearing of the committee Monday he didn't see "how our government can allow any new deep-water wells to be permitted and drilled" until steps are taken to prevent the kind of blowout prevention failure that resulted in the gulf spill.

An emergency tube inserted to collect oil leaking from the damaged wellhead was still letting 80 percent of the oil escape but was collecting about 1,000 barrels of oil per day, BP said.

BP further said on its Web site that the collected oil was being stored on the drillship Discoverer Enterprise and associated gas was being burned off. (With Inputs from Agencies)