The independent commission will be established by executive order in the coming days, an administration official said, and will supplement existing government inquiries into what has emerged as one of the worst US environmental debacles in decades.

The move came as the disaster appeared to claim its first casualty in Washington, with the announced retirement of Chris Oynes who was overseeing offshore energy for the Minerals Management Service, which has come in for scathing recent criticism for being lax on safety standards enforcement for offshore drilling.

And with experts saying the oil could be drawn into a powerful sea current in the coming days, fears have soared that parts of the toxic slick could now shift inexorably towards Florida, where it could wreak havoc on the fragile coral reefs and nature preserves of the famed Florida Keys.

The political fallout that the administration was moving to contain mounted ahead of an expected Tuesday grilling for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar before US senators.

Last week Obama himself slammed the MMS as being too "cozy" with the companies it regulates, and ordered "top to bottom" reform of the agency after allegations it allowed BP and other firms to drill in the Gulf without first obtaining required permits.

BP, who had leased the rig that exploded and sank last month, prompting the disastrous spill, announced that a fifth of the flow was being sucked up by its insertion tube system and was no longer feeding a giant slick off Louisiana.

The British energy giant also said it was gearing up for an operation called a "top kill" to inject tonnes of heavy drilling "mud" into the well to stanch the flow before permanently sealing it with cement.

"Our next effort to try to stop the flow will occur later this week or early in the weekend coming up and it's the top kill procedure," said BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles.

"If that's successful we would be bringing this incident to a close."

BP's first claim of success in almost a month of efforts risked being overshadowed by fears that huge underwater plumes of crude could be starving the waters of oxygen.

A research vessel has located plumes reported to be up to 10 miles (16 kilometers) long, three miles (4.8 km) wide and 300 feet (92 meters) thick that suggest a far greater impact on the marine environment than previously thought.

"BP is burying its head in the sand on these underwater threats," said Democratic congressman Ed Markey.

"These huge plumes of oil are like hidden mushroom clouds that indicate a larger spill than originally thought and portend more dangerous long-term fallout for the Gulf of Mexico's wildlife and economy."

An expert from the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies told AFP that deepwater spills posed greater risks due to these plumes.

"Normally, in a shallow spill, everything pretty much shoots up to the surface and the impacts are primarily to surface organisms like turtles, dolphins, whales and birds," explained Paul Montagna.

"What happens is we're dealing with a different kind of situation than the past because under this really cold, high-pressure environment the oil is getting dispersed through the water column," he said.

Response crews have so far used some 560,000 gallons of controversial chemical dispersants, spraying them onto surface oil and also directly into the leak in a bid to break up the oil.

With an estimated 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, of oil spewing into the Gulf every day over nearly a month, BP was keen to celebrate its first taste of success at the weekend.

A tube with a four-inch (10-centimeter) diameter was inserted by robotic submarines into the main leak and connected via a mile-long pipe to a drill ship on the surface.

"As we speak we are getting a little over 1,000 barrels of oil a day up through that tube and over the course of today we'll be trying to increase that rate," said BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles.

Suttles said he had flown over the slick Monday morning and seen "a big difference," witnessing "probably the smallest amount of oil I've seen on the surface since the effort began."

This limited progress is unlikely to take the heat off BP. Congressional hearings have revealed multiple warning signs that were overlooked before the April 20 blast on the Deepwater Horizon rig.

Problem indicators included a key pressure test that failed during final operations to seal the well being drilled about 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast.

Two days later the rig sank and the blowout preventer -- a giant valve designed to shut off the flow of oil -- failed.

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