The federal official running the BP oil spill response is proposing a third party to represent polluters to correct the perception that the company is in charge of cleaning up its own mess.

Incident Commander Thad Allen told the national oil spill commission that BP in no way tried to short-change costs, even though the public and politicians thought the company did. He proposed that someone from the oil industry could represent the polluter in future spills, instead of the company at fault, and eliminate the possible conflict of interest.

Twice Billy Nungesser — president of Plaquemines Parish, one of the Louisiana parishes affected by the spill — told the oil spill commission that he still doesn’t know who is in charge.