Passing an oil drilling safety bill is a top goal of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman, and his panel is hard at work on retooling the measure, a top aide to the senator said today.

"Senator Bingaman has it at the top of his priority list every time we talk about what needs to happen," said Linda Lance, senior counsel on the Democratic side of the committee.

The committee is focused on how to get a measure passed in the new Congress, Lance said during a briefing for reporters on the state of oil spill legislation, sponsored by the Pew Environment Group.

"That it's Bingaman's priority ought to be enough," Lance said of the strategy for passing a measure. "There's potential here. This is a difficult political climate."

The committee last summer unanimously passed a bill that responded to BP PLC's Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico last April. But there was never a floor vote on the legislation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) last July pulled a Democratic response to the spill -- and a Republican alternative -- from floor consideration after failing to find enough support.

Lance said that Bingaman (D-N.M.) is working with new members of the committee and conferring with other committees that have jurisdiction over the issues related to oil drilling and spill response.

Bingaman's bill, she said, "was supported across a wide range of political ideologies the last time because it is focused on safety."

"Senator Bingaman's way of working, historically, has been go and talk to people across the aisle and see what they think and see if we can't incorporate things that we didn't think of, and that's how we'll do it again, so I'm hopeful," Lance added. "I think there's a shot here."

The Pew Environment Group since the spill has been pushing for a measure that would enact new oversight, including: a more thorough review of environmental impacts of offshore oil and gas drilling; a separation of government offices that collect revenues from offshore drilling from those that enforce safety regulations; an end to the current $75 million liability cap for economic damages connected to a spill; and a national ocean policy that would coordinate with regional plans in helping guide places for offshore drilling. It wants to "identify which areas are appropriate for energy development and which are too ecologically sensitive."

The oil industry last summer voiced concerns about an oil spill bill, particularly the idea of eliminating a cap on liability, fearing that doing so could push the smaller players out of business.

Marilyn Heiman, director of the offshore energy reform project for Pew, has said that environmental groups, realizing that having no liability cap is politically untenable, instead are asking for a higher cap that would adjust upward with inflation.

Heiman said today that Pew and others will push lawmakers to pass a bill.

"We're going to keep the pressure on from the outside ... and make sure that people realize this is not going away," Heiman said. "It's an important issue, even among many other important issues."

In addition to liability, another issue that could stall a bill is how to fund beefed-up enforcement and prevention planning.

"We are fully aware that this is a budget-cutting year, and it's going to be tough," Heiman said. "But it's not a place to cut corners."

"If we're going to major accidents like the Deepwater Horizon, we need more than one inspector for every 54 rigs in the Gulf of Mexico," Heiman added.