    [House Hearing, 110 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

           NOVEMBER 2007 SAN FRANCISCO OIL SPILL: CAUSES AND RESPONSE

    =======================================================================

                                    (110-89)

                                 FIELD HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                    COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION

                                     OF THE

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                       TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                     NOVEMBER 19, 2007 (San Francisco, CA)

                                   __________

                           Printed for the use of the
                 Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

                                    -------

                         U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

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                  COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

                     JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman

    NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia,   JOHN L. MICA, Florida
    Vice Chair                           DON YOUNG, Alaska
    PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon             THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
    JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois          HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
    ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of   JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
    Columbia                             WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
    JERROLD NADLER, New York             VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
    CORRINE BROWN, Florida               STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
    BOB FILNER, California               RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana
    EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas         FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
    GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi             JERRY MORAN, Kansas
    ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland         GARY G. MILLER, California
    ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California        ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
    LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa             HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
    TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania             Carolina
    BRIAN BAIRD, Washington              TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
    RICK LARSEN, Washington              TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
    MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts    SAM GRAVES, Missouri
    JULIA CARSON, Indiana                BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
    TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York          JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
    MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine            SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
    BRIAN HIGGINS, New York              Virginia
    RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri              JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
    JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado            MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
    GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California      CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
    DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois            TED POE, Texas
    DORIS O. MATSUI, California          DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
    NICK LAMPSON, Texas                  CONNIE MACK, Florida
    ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio               JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
    MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              York
    BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa                LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
    JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania          CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr.,
    TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota           Louisiana
    HEATH SHULER, North Carolina         JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
    MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York           CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
    HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona           THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia
    CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania  MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
    JOHN J. HALL, New York               VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
    STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin
    STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
    JERRY McNERNEY, California
    LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California

                                      (ii)

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION

                     ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman

    GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi             STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
    RICK LARSEN, Washington              DON YOUNG, Alaska
    CORRINE BROWN, Florida               HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
    BRIAN HIGGINS, New York              WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
    BRIAN BAIRD, Washington              FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
    TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York, Vice    TED POE, Texas
    Chair                                JOHN L. MICA, Florida
    LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California        (Ex Officio)
    JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
      (Ex Officio)

                                     (iii)

                                    CONTENTS

                                                                       Page

    Summary of Subject Matter........................................    vi

                                   TESTIMONY

    Bone, Rear Admiral Craig E., Commander, Eleventh Coast Guard
      District.......................................................     9
    Chrisman, Mike, Secretary, California Resources Agency...........     9
    Conner, William G., Ph.D., Chief, Hazmat Emergency Response
      Division, NOAA Office of Response and Restoration..............     9
    Grader, Zeke, Executive Director, Pacific Coast Federation of
      Fisherman's Associations.......................................    38
    Hand, Captain Thomas, Bar Pilot, San Francisco Bar Pilots
      Association....................................................    38
    Hersman, Deborah, Member, National Transportation Safety Board...     9
    Lewis, David, Executive Director, Save the Bay...................    38
    Newsom, Hon. Gavin, Mayor, City of San Francisco, California.....     5

              PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

    Farr, Hon. Sam, of California....................................    53
    Stark, Hon. Pete, of California..................................    55
    Woolsey, Hon. Lynn C., of California.............................    57

                   PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES

    Bone, Rear Admiral Craig E.......................................    59
    Chrisman, Mike...................................................    64
    Conner, William..................................................    72
    Grader, Zeke.....................................................    91
    Hand, Captain Thomas.............................................    99
    Hersman, Deborah.................................................   101
    Lewis, David.....................................................   103
    Newsom, Hon. Gavin...............................................   111

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

      HEARING ON SAN FRANCISCO NOVEMBER 2007 OIL SPILL CAUSES AND RESPONSE

                                  ----------

                           Monday, November 19, 2007

                       House of Representatives
         Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
        Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation
                                                     San Francisco, CA.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
    Golden Gate Club, 135 Fisher Loop, The Presidio, San Francisco,
    California, Hon. Elijah E. Cummings [Chairman of the
    Subcommittee] presiding.
        Present: Representatives Cummings and Richardson.
        Also Present: Representatives Pelosi, Lantos, Lee, Lofgren,
    McNerney, Miller of California, Tauscher, and Woolsey.
        Mr. Cummings. The Subcommittee is now in order.
        Speaker Pelosi.
        Speaker Pelosi. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        On behalf of the people of California, the Bay area, I
    thank you so much for being so responsive to the request of
    Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, Member of your Committee, to have
    this hearing so soon, and especially in light of the holiday
    coming up.
        We are honored by our presence in our City. We are pleased
    to be joined by other Members of the Committee, Congresswoman
    Ellen Tauscher, Congressman Jerry McNerney, Congresswoman Laura
    Richardson, who will be joining us shortly, as well as many
    senior Members of our California delegation, from my right,
    Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Chairman
    George Miller, I mentioned Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher,
    mentioned Congressman Jerry McNerney, Chairman Tom Lantos and
    Chairwoman also, Zoe Lofgren.
        Mr. Chairman, as you have heard over and over, over the
    years from us, all of us has a personal relationship with this
    bay. Every person who lives in the Bay area feels a sense of
    ownership for it. It is a source of environmental safety. It's
    a source of commerce, whether it's fishing, or commerce passing
    through on ships through our bay, it is a source of recreation.
    It's always, always renewing our community, whether it's taking
    my grandchildren down there to play in the water, or all of us
    joining together to make sure that we have the dredging funds
    and that that dredging is done in an environmentally sound way.
        All of us have a stake, and have dedicated our work in
    Congress, in each of our offices, with a major emphasis on
    saving the bay. It is, as I said, a precious resource. Its
    biodiversity and fundamental role in commerce and recreation
    make it essential to the vitality of the entire region.
    Protection of the bay, its safety, and its health, has always
    been a priority, as I mentioned, for our Members.
        I remember when Chairman Miller went up, at the time of the
    Exxon Valdez, and he came back down and told us what was
    happening there, and informed us of how we needed to protect
    our bay. This oil spill and the quality of the response to the
    environmental disaster is of grave concern, given the harmful
    consequences that may have been avoided.
        Following that Exxon Valdez spill, some of us introduced
    legislation in the 101st Congress to amend the Federal Water
    Pollution Control Act, to require the President to develop a
    Fish and Wildlife response plan that would better coordinate
    the efforts of various Government entities to protect fish and
    wildlife against oil spills. That legislation became part of
    the more major Oil Pollution Act.
        And so, today's hearing will help us understand what could
    have been avoided and what more we can do, how to respond more
    effectively, and to, again, impress upon the Congress of the
    United States that this is not only important to us in our
    region, the San Francisco Bay is a national resource, a
    national treasure.
        I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, once again for your
    leadership on the Committee of jurisdiction, for the generosity
    of your time and changing your family plans so that you could
    be with us today. I think it speaks eloquently to your
    appreciate for what this bay means to us.
        We are very proud in our community, Mr. Chairman, of our
    Mayor, who was recently reelected and will be our first witness
    today.
        I'll yield back to you to recognize him.
        As Speaker of the House, I am a witness and observer of
    this hearing, because I don't serve on any Committees. But, I
    wanted you to be sure to know how important your visit is to
    us, how important this bay is to our community and to our
    country, and thank you once again for joining us today.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and
    before I begin, and first of all, I also thank you for your
    sense of urgency. Urgency is so very important, particularly,
    in these critical types of situations.
        Before I begin, I ask unanimous consent that the following
    Members of Congress may sit with the Subcommittee on Coast
    Guard and Maritime Transportation and participate in this
    hearing, Congresswoman Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of
    Representatives, Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, a Member of the
    Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Congressman
    Jerry McNerney, Member of the Committee on Transportation and
    Infrastructure, Congressman George Miller, Congressman Tom
    Lantos, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren,
    and Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and without objection it is so
    ordered.
        Of course, I also want to recognize the presence of
    Congresswoman Laura Richardson, who will be with us shortly,
    and is a Member, by the way, of this Subcommittee.
        I particularly thank Speaker Pelosi and Congresswoman
    Tauscher and the entire Bay Area delegation and their staffs
    for their assistance in organizing this hearing. I wanted to
    commend the Speaker and the Bay Area delegation for their
    leadership on this issue. They moved to hold this hearing and
    to begin oversight on this issue immediately, after the spill
    occurred.
        The leadership is exemplified by the Speaker's presence
    with us today, and it is my honor to have her with us. The
    Subcommittee convenes today in San Francisco, California, to
    consider the circumstances that led the COSCO BUSAN, a 992-foot
    ocean-going container ship flagged in Hong Kong to hit the San
    Francisco open Bay Bridge on November 7th, an event known as an
    allision.
        The allision created a gash of more than 200 feet long and
    12 feet wide in the side of the vessel, which in turn allowed
    approximately 58,000 gallons of intermediate fuel oil to rush
    into the San Francisco Bay. The consequences of this spill have
    been simply devastating, evident with every oil-covered bird
    and seal and in the desolation of every closed beach.
        It is the responsibility of the Congress to oversee the
    programs and operations of the Executive Branch. I've closely
    followed the reports of the events and the discoveries
    occurring in the wake of this catastrophe and, frankly, I'm
    deeply disturbed by and what I have been hearing. Too many
    questions remain unanswered.
        This year, the Subcommittee has been receiving testimony
    from the maritime industry and labor detailing the loss of
    expertise in the Coast Guard's Marine Safety Program. Today, we
    are here to shine a spotlight onto the problems in all aspects
    of the Marine Safety Program, including prevention, response,
    and investigation, that this accident again brings to our
    attention.
        If we cannot yet see clearly into every corner, or onto
    every oil-covered beach or isolated inlet, we will at least be
    able to point investigators in the directions where they should
    look for the answers we expect.
        Let me lay out just some of the questions to which we need
    answers. Should the Coast Guard have prevented this ship from
    departing the port in heavy fog? Frankly, I'm interested in
    understanding how this ship could hit this bridge, as its
    position should be obvious even to those not trained in
    navigation. The Bay Bridge is not a small marker or buoy
    floating in the water. It is an enormous landmark.
        Did the pilot understand the charts he was using to
    navigate the bay, and were there communication difficulties
    among the bridge crew members?
        There are also questions about why the Vessel Traffic
    Service, manned by the Coast Guard personnel, asked the ship's
    crew what its intentions were, rather than warning it of the
    impending allision.
        It appears, and I emphasize, that the final word on this
    matter will likely not be written until the National
    Transportation Safety Board completes its investigation, but it
    appears that this question was asked because the vessel was not
    completing a turn that is part of the normal course taken by
    ships heading to sea.
        However, it is also unclear whether the Vessel Traffic
    Service was even able to warn the ship of the impending
    allision, because the tracking systems in place in the service
    center are not advanced enough to provide the kind of detail
    that would be necessary for such a warning.
        Our National Vessel Traffic Service Systems were created by
    Congress as a result of a collision that occurred right here,
    under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1971, between the Arizona
    Standard and the Oregon Standard. Now, 36 years later we are
    back in the San Francisco Bay trying to understand why that
    Vessel Traffic Service did not, or could not, alert the COSCO
    BUSAN that its course would lead to disaster.
        Regarding the response to the oil spill, the initial
    estimates of the amount of oil discharged from the COSCO BUSAN
    were ridiculously low, particularly, given that the entire
    spill occurred in what, apparently, was a very short span of
    time. And, some eye witnesses reported seeing a large sheen
    almost immediately after the allision, despite the fact that
    they, apparently, had many assets in the water around the COSCO
    BUSAN, very quickly after the spill Coast Guard personnel
    initially reported that only 140 gallons had been released. It
    was not until some eight hours later that the Coast Guard
    investigators reported to the Unified Command that nearly
    58,000 gallons had, in fact, been spilled.
        Why were the initial reports of the total volume spilled so
    inaccurate? We are not talking about being off by a few gallons
    here. There's a significant difference between 140 and 58,000.
    Did the Area Contingency Plan, agreed to by the Federal, state
    and local agencies, have adequate provisions to enable them to
    contain a significant spill in this area before it spread
    throughout the bay region?
        And finally, what problems have occurred in the
    investigation of the cause of this marine casualty?
        We now understand that the drug and alcohol testing of the
    crew members and pilot did not conform to the Coast Guard
    regulatory requirements. We also understand that the Coast
    Guard investigators were unaware of, and did not obtain, a copy
    of the voyage data recorder that contained valuable information
    regarding conversations on the bridge, radar displays,
    electronic chart displays, and the heading and speed of the
    vessel.
        It is imperative that the Coast Guard and all parties to
    the this incident provide whatever information and records they
    have to the National Transportation Safety Board so that there
    can be a complete investigation, both of the events leading up
    to this accident, as well as of the responders' efforts.
        I also emphasize that our Subcommittee will continue to
    follow this investigation as it progresses, until we get clear
    and definitive answers to every question, no matter how
    uncomfortable the questions might be.
        Finally, before I close, I want to put the significance of
    today's hearing into a broader context. Since the beginning of
    the 110th Congress, when I assumed Chairmanship of this
    Subcommittee, our Subcommittee has been comprehensively
    examining the operational capabilities of the Coast Guard. The
    United States Coast Guard is an organization that is undergoing
    profound changes, as many of the agencies of the Federal
    Government have undergone after the terrible events of 9/11.
        Prior to 9/11, the Coast Guard was a service that combined
    such responsibilities as conducting research, rescue operations
    and law enforcement operations, regulating the maritime
    industry, protecting our Nation's marine resources and
    performing some military functions pertaining to security.
        After 9/11, while retaining all of these additional
    responsibilities, the Coast Guard has assumed significant new
    responsibilities for homeland security. The Coast Guard must
    ensure the security at ports and port facilities, it must
    assist in the roll out of the TWIT card that is intended to
    control access to secure port facilities, and it must conduct a
    variety of operations to ensure security around U.S. vessels
    and waterside facilities in Iraq.
        Our Subcommittee has been assessing how the Coast Guard,
    integrating these new responsibilities with the additional
    responsibilities, and in no way do we question how critical the
    new homeland security initiatives are, the security of our
    Nation is, obviously, the highest concern to me, to the
    Subcommittee, and to this Congress.
        I note that under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, the
    first bill the current Congress considered this term was HR1, a
    bill that will increase the scanning of cargo containers
    carried to our Nation on ships from the current level of
    approximately 5 percent to 100 percent. However, the scene of
    oil scattered on the beaches throughout this region
    illustrates, in the starkest possible terms, how critical the
    traditional missions performed by the Coast Guard remain to our
    Nation, particularly, given our growing dependence on imported
    oil.
        I often say that the Coast Guard is our thin blue line at
    sea, and we absolutely must ensure it is not being stretched
    too thin as it continues to seek balance among its missions. It
    must be prepared to stand between our Nation's 360 ports,
    25,000 miles of domestic waterways, and 95,000 miles of
    coastline, and a spreading oil slick at the same time as it
    stands between us and the terrorists who threaten our Nation.
        It is my understanding that Members of the Committee will
    be submitting their opening statements for the record. Is there
    anyone that--everybody consents? Very well.
        Mr. Cummings. We will now hear from Mayor Newsom, and thank
    you very much, sir, for being with us.

      TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE GAVIN NEWSOM, MAYOR, CITY OF SAN
                         FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

        Mayor Newsom. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
    being here and convening this Subcommittee, and I thank the
    Speaker for her leadership and her willingness to organize this
    so quickly after the oil spill and, of course, the
    congressional delegation from the Bay Area is about as good as
    it gets. So, we feel in very good hands.
        I will submit my written testimony as well, though I want
    to just very briefly, and I recognize the shortness of time,
    hit on five key points. One is the issue of notification, issue
    of incident command and response, volunteer management
    questions, issues that you brought up, Mr. Chairman, around
    navigational safety procedures, vessel control, and then the
    broader issues of clean-up and some closing comments.
        It is, indeed, true, as you say, Mr. Chairman, the
    notification was lax, and, in fact, arguably, there was no
    notification, even of the 140 gallons of oil being spilled. It
    turns out the incident that occurred, roughly occurred at 8:30
    in the morning, wasn't til at 9:24 that a part-time fire boat
    operator, name of Phil McCormick, called our Fire Boat
    Operations and talked to a Lt. Dudier, about this incident. The
    Coast Guard did not call us, Fish and Game did not call us, it
    was a part-time fire boat operator that called to say something
    is going on.
        We immediately began the process of coordinating potential
    dispatch of that fire boat, only to find out after we initiated
    calls to the Coast Guard that, indeed, there was an incident
    and they did not need our fire boat.
        We then began to receive phone calls from our port, and
    representatives of the City Government, that were complaining
    about employees with headaches and nausea, and this is at 9:30,
    9:45, 10:00, which was curious at best, in fact, precipitated a
    phone call with the port directors behind me saying, directly
    with me, thinking she, frankly, was over-reacting, to be
    candid, 140 gallons is significant, but I thought it was a bit
    of an over-reaction. Nonetheless, it precipitated in our desire
    to organize a conference call at 1:00 after the evacuation of
    our port and Pier One property was complete.
        Again, we initiated that conference call. We were fortunate
    to have on that conference call the Coast Guard, that did
    participate, but, again, only with the information confirming
    this 140 gallon spill.
        Hours went beyond the 1:00 conference call, and we were
    unaware that at 4:49 the state was notified that the spill was,
    indeed, much larger. Mr. Chairman, your comment about eight
    hours versus 12 hours, indeed, the State was notified of a
    58,000 gallon spill, 53,500 to 58,000 gallon spill, at 4:49,
    the City was not. At 4:49, no one from the State contacted us,
    6:00, 7:00 nothing had changed, still 140 gallons, 7:00, 8:00,
    8:30, 9:00, all of a sudden on the radio, I'm in my car and I'm
    hearing about the fact it's 58,000 gallons. This is before the
    conference call was initiated at 9:00 from the State OES with
    all the various agencies. So, I'm finding out pursuant to a
    press release that the spill was not 140 gallons, but 58,000
    gallons. Again, the State OES, apparently, had that information
    as well, and for whatever reason they did not notify us.
        Now, here's why I think they didn't. You have very
    different procedures under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, that
    are absolutely foreign to the procedures that are well
    organized out here to deal with all hazards response, as it
    relates to earthquakes, et cetera. In fact, we just worked for
    two years with your support Homeland Security money to fund the
    first major regional emergency operation plan in the history of
    our State. We have very strong protocols, the State OES being
    the lead agency.
        In this case, pursuant to that Area Contingency Plan, Mr.
    Cummings, you reference, that protocol is different. The
    protocol in this place puts the State Fish and Game,
    respectfully, the Coast Guard, and ``the responsible party,''
    in control of that organized effort, not the State OES and not
    the local agencies that exercise on just this type of protocol
    day in and day out.
        A consequence of that, we enjoyed a disorganized effort. We
    were in a liaison position, and let me say candidly, were not
    particularly embraced as liaison to this incident, nor were the
    other agencies around the Bay, local agencies, and we
    experienced an enormous amount of frustration in that first 24
    hours, say, actually, first 48 hours. These protocols must be
    addressed. They are 20 years old. You've got protocols in place
    for every kind of all hazard, but with oil all of a sudden all
    bets are off. Imagine if this was WMD, combined with oil,
    you've got chaos. We are just blessed, and oil is, you know,
    shouldn't be change the protocol just because oil is being used
    as a weapon here, and I think that absolutely must be addressed
    immediately. It's not a year, two, three years from now, that
    Area Contingency Plan needs to change immediately. You can work
    on the Oil Pollution Act later, but we've got to fix this Area
    Contingency Plan.
        A third area is volunteer management. This is a City that
    prides itself on volunteer initiative. They were completely
    left out in the cold. We, again, have protocols in place for
    earthquakes. We have protocols in place for all these other
    emergencies with regard to volunteering. In this case, we do
    not, and I know that Rear Admiral Bone will talk a little bit
    more about that, they have acknowledged both the notification
    questions and the issue of volunteer management. We now,
    though, proudly have 1,450 certified volunteers that have gone
    through protocol and process, which has been established. We
    are working with the Coast Guard, but these things, again, as
    part of the Area Contingency Plan, need to be adopted and
    improved.
        The issue of navigational safety procedures and vessel
    controls, you know, it's remarkable, Congressman Miller, I was
    listening to you on the radio this morning talking about these
    larger vessels. These vessels are larger because they are doing
    these wing fuel tanks, and they are not double hulled, and
    we've got to get these things, I don't care if it's bunker fuel
    or oil, no mammal on the Bay, no one who runs on the beach,
    could care less if it's oil or bunker fuel. These double hulls
    need to be addressed, and these ships that are faster and,
    obviously, are more prevalent in our Bay, are, potentially,
    more problematic because of these new strategies with these
    wing tanks.
        We recognize as well that the traffic control systems, the
    more accurate damage assessment protocols need to be advanced
    as well. We appreciate the investigation on weather, and
    language, and all the rest, these clearly are important.
        Clean-up, again, in the interest of time, very briefly, we
    just hope you are around a year, two, three, five years from
    now. It's what lies beneath the surface that I'm most concerned
    about. Yes, we are concerned about high tide coming in, but
    it's the plant life underneath. This is a migratory--one of the
    critical migratory areas, the Pacific Flyway, this is arguably
    the most extraordinary and complex urban estuary anywhere in
    the United States, again, 7 plus million people in this region,
    it's an extraordinary natural resource, and we need to make
    sure that our shell fish, our mammals, all our underwater
    plants, marshes, wetlands, estuaries and the like, are
    absolutely cleaned up.
        And finally, I do think it's appropriate to talk about the
    issue of issue energy and dependence. It is only going to get
    worse before it gets better. We'll be back ten years with
    another potential problem if we don't aggressively address
    this, this Congress is doing it, you haven't gotten the credit
    you deserve, keep doing it. We are ready to work with you. We
    are proud of our environmental stewardship, including a big
    tidal program right at the mouth of the Bay., We want to do
    more.
        The more we do, the more others can do, and the less likely
    we have to see an incident similar to this in the future.
        Again, that's in very broad strokes, very short strokes,
    what we've experienced, again, not dissimilar to what's been
    reported, frustration, finger pointing, sure, but we also
    believe moving from who is to blame to what to do, and I want
    to just underscore one point as it relates to moving away from
    who is to blame to what to do, when Rear Admiral Bone came in
    to San Francisco we were able to move away from who is to
    blame, and we began to focus on what to do. And, if there's
    anyone who deserves an enormous amount of credit, sure, tough
    questions, and he's get them, he's gotten them from us, it's
    Rear Admiral Bone, who has done an outstanding job, but again,
    we need to do a better job of advancing protocols, we need to
    make sure the State of California is front and center on this,
    we haven't heard enough focus on that, and better coordination
    with that area plan, and I think a review of that Oil Pollution
    Act 1990, because I believe that it is outdated and no longer
    relevant to the new realities post 9/11 and post Katrina.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Cummings. Mayor, thank you, thank you very much, and I
    understand there will be no questions. But, you have assured us
    that you were going to stick around, just in case the panel
    members may have some questions for you off the floor.
        Mayor Newsom. Absolutely.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
        Mayor Newsom. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
        Mr. Cummings. We'll now hear from our first panel. We
    welcome Rear Admiral Craig Bone, the Commander of the Coast
    Guard's Eleventh District, Ms. Deborah Hersman, Member,
    National Transportation Safety Board, Mr. William G. Conner,
    Dr. William G. Conner, Chief of HAZMAT Emergency Response
    Division with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
    Administration, and Mr. Mike Chrisman, Secretary of the
    California Resources Agency.
        Thank you all for being with us. We would ask that you
    adhere to a strict five-minute rule. We ask that you summarize
    your testimony. We do have your written statements, and they
    will be made a part of the record.
        Rear Admiral Bone, thank you.

     TESTIMONY OF REAR ADMIRAL CRAIG E. BONE, COMMANDER, ELEVENTH
        COAST GUARD DISTRICT; DEBORAH HERSMAN, MEMBER, NATIONAL
     TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD; WILLIAM G. CONNER, Ph.D., CHIEF,
    HAZMAT EMERGENCY RESPONSE DIVISION, NOAA OFFICE OF RESPONSE AND
      RESTORATION; MIKE CHRISMAN, SECRETARY, CALIFORNIA RESOURCES
                                 AGENCY

        Admiral Bone. Good morning, Madam Speaker, Chairman
    Cummings, and distinguished Members of Congress.
        On November 7, 2007, the Hong Kong flag motor vessel COSCO
    BUSAN was outbound departing the Port of Oakland in very heavy
    fog, under the guidance and direction of a California State
    Licensed Pilot, Captain John Joseph Cota, and the control of
    the COSCO BUSAN's master, with 23 crew members.
        State Pilotage and participation in the Coast Guard San
    Francisco Vessel Traffic System, is mandatory for this transit.
    The Coast Guard has no record of communication from Captain
    Cota or the ship's master prior to departure reporting any
    unsafe, inoperable propulsion, steering, communications or
    navigation systems.
        Early in the transit, the State Pilot, Captain Cota,
    communicated to Coast Guard VTS San Francisco his intent to
    pass through the delta echo span of the Bay Bridge, which is
    one of the easiest spans to pass through because it's over
    2,000 feet wide.
        The VTS operators are neither pilots nor masters. Thus,
    they do not control, give commands, give courses to steer, or
    give speeds to travel. They are trained to question a pilot
    when it appears the communicated intentions are not what, in
    fact, they had stated before, and to do so early enough so that
    a pilot or a master, if they need to, can take appropriate
    action. They are also trained not to distract the pilot with
    interruptions during any critical maneuver.
        Approximately, two and a half minutes prior to the COSCO
    BUSAN's allision with the Bay Bridge, the VTS operator provided
    Captain Cota his observed course of the ship, and questioned if
    the pilot still intended to pass through the delta echo span of
    the bridge.
        The VTS operator did not give the pilot or the master
    rudder commands, courses to steer, nor did he tell them to turn
    the ship into the bridge.
        The allision of the motor vessel COSCO BUSAN, with the
    support structure of the bridge, actually hit the fendering
    system and knocked away about a 50-foot section of that
    fendering system, sending debris into the water, causing a
    gash, which we now know to be well over 200 feet long, the
    damaged area may be as high as 270 feet long. And, as you said,
    Mr. Chairman, 12 foot by 3 foot section. That means 12 foot
    wide, 3 feet deep into the vessel's hull.
        Also, it resulted in between 53,000 and 58,000 gallons of
    fuel, which is intermediate fuel oil No. 380, which is commonly
    known as bunker sea fuel.
        The forward ship's allision with the Bay Bridge marks the
    first recording of an ocean-going ship striking this bridge
    that we have on record.
        We'll continue to work closely with the NTSB to determine
    what went so tragically wrong, as this ship is equipped with
    the most advanced systems, a ship with a licensed master, a
    State Licensed Pilot, charged by the State of California to
    safely navigate this vessel, and with a licensed foreign crew.
    Their failure to navigate and make safe transit through any of
    the four spans, any of the four spans of the Bay Bridge,
    resulted in extreme damage to this pristine environment and
    wildlife.
        It resulted in unnecessary risk and health to the Bay Area
    citizens, leaving no options but to mount a unified response
    made up of Federal, state and local emergency responders, as
    well as oil pollution professionals. It compelled an
    unprecedented on the water response in now very hazardous
    conditions, due to floating debris, the potential of containers
    coming off of this vessel with hazardous material in them, that
    aren't going to float, by the way, up high, but maybe below,
    oil in the water, coupled with heavy fog, visibility only as
    far as 300 feet, and we had no air support until late that
    afternoon.
        The selfless action, I'd offer, and dedication, and
    preparedness and training of those individuals resulted in one
    of the most successful clean-ups that I've ever seen in my 30
    years, actual clean-up operations, and you'll have a chance to
    see why, and there's more than 1,400 responders that are
    actually responding right now.
        Madam Speaker, Mr. Chairman, no one enjoys going under the
    microscope, but I know there's many lessons to learn, many
    lessons that we've learned from this, many to be learned, and
    there's improvements that need to be made. I also have to tell
    you that we have to congratulate the volunteers, it's
    unprecedented to see the number of volunteers, especially--this
    is the first time in my career I ever had people that wanted to
    pick up hazardous material off the water, I mean, off the
    beach. HAZMAT cancerous material, these people in this
    community have an unbelievable spirit of volunteerism, and,
    actually, inspired our crews. They were out on scene.
        And, the men and women of the Coast Guard, we live in this
    community, the same as you, and we love this environment, and
    it kills us also when something like this happens. And so, I
    just tell you, we'll do whatever we can to keep from having it
    again, investigating why it happened, joining NTSB to prevent
    it, and we'll respond the same way as we did this time with
    regard to the actual on-site response.
        Madam Speaker, Chairman Cummings, and distinguished Members
    of Congress, I greatly respect the responsibilities of this
    full and Subcommittee and I'm prepared to answer any questions
    you may have.
        Mr. Cummings. Ms. Hersman.
        Ms. Hersman. Good morning, Chairman Cummings, Speaker
    Pelosi, and Members of Congress. Thank you for allowing me the
    opportunity to testify on behalf of the National Transportation
    Safety Board, regarding the containership accident here in San
    Francisco Bay.
        The Safety Board, as you know, is an independent agency
    charged with investigating all civil aviation accidents, as
    well as accidents in other modes of transportation, including
    marine.
        Our responsibility is to determine probable cause and issue
    safety recommendations to prevent such an accident from
    reoccurring.
        The Safety Board seldom rules out any potential causes of
    an accident during the initial stages of an investigation.
    Although we have gathered a tremendous amount of information in
    the last week, there is still considerable work remaining for
    our investigators, including conducting additional witness
    interviews, analysis of the voyage data recorder, and
    verification of the documentation we have received from the
    Coast Guard and other parties.
        After the allision, we monitored the events in San
    Francisco. On the morning of November 10th, it became clear
    that the incident was a catastrophe, and we launched a six-
    person team from our Washington office. I accompanied the team
    as the Board's spokesperson. Our team was in San Francisco that
    day, and we began our formal investigation on that Sunday.
        Since then, the Board has sent three additional
    investigators to augment our team. Our investigative groups
    address specific areas, such as engineering, deck operations,
    human performance and emergency response. Other teams, such as
    the Voyage Data Recorder Team, will be formed as needed.
        Our investigation is focusing on the safety aspects of this
    accident and the initial response. The issues we have
    identified so far and are investigating include, probable cause
    of the ship's allision with the bridge, damages sustained by
    the ship and the bridge, notification of the accident, and
    action taken immediately after the accident to limit and
    contain the spill.
        This accident poses some challenges for our investigators.
    VDRs, or voyage data recorders, are relatively new. In fact,
    the COSCO BUSAN was not required to have a voyage data
    recorder. The technology is new, however, and there are a
    number of proprietary systems. Although we have been able to
    audition the voyage data recorder audio recordings, and see
    periodic radar screen shots, we have not been able to analyze
    the vessel's performance, such as engine speed, rudder
    movements, heading and speed, because we lack the necessary
    software.
        We just obtained that playback software from the German
    manufacturer last Friday. We'll be convening our group to
    download all of that information next week.
        Since the crew is entirely Chinese, all recorded
    conversations among the crew members are in Chinese. We will
    have a Chinese interpreter with our VDR group to make sure that
    all of the information is accurately transcribed.
        The communications between the pilot and the ship's
    personnel was in English. We are reluctant to characterize what
    was said until we know the substance of all of the bridge
    communications.
        Fortunately, accidents like this are rare. The Safety Board
    has not investigated the pollution aspects of a major marine
    accident since 1990. There are some new issues for us, and we
    will address those issues with the same objectivity and
    independence as we do all of our investigations.
        We are fortunate in that we have other experts from other
    modes of transportation within the NTSB to assist us with the
    investigation; experts from HAZMAT and from Recorders.
        The Board is presently in the initial phases of this
    investigation and there is still much work to be done. The
    investigation and final report could take as long as a year to
    complete. As new and significant developments occur, we will be
    sure to keep the Committee, Members of Congress and the
    community of San Francisco informed.
        The Safety Board investigators are still on scene. We will
    be having our wrap up meeting this evening with respect to our
    on scene investigation and will be taking all of the
    information that we have obtained here back to headquarters to
    perform our analysis.
        I do expect that our investigators will need to return to
    San Francisco to conduct some follow up work. Many agencies and
    groups have assisted the NTSB with this accident and responded
    to the accident that occurred. We would like to express our
    gratitude to the community and all of the groups who have
    assisted us.
        This concludes my testimony, and I stand ready to answer
    any questions.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Ms. Hersman.
        Dr. Conner.
        Mr. Conner. Good morning, Madam Speaker, Chairman Cummings,
    distinguished Members. I'm glad to be here from my hometown of
    Mount Airy, Maryland to talk to you today about what NOAA has
    been doing in response to the COSCO BUSAN
        I have got a little frog in my throat. Thank you.
        My name is William Conner, I'm the Chief of the Emergency
    Response Division, Office of Response and Restoration, National
    Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Joining me today are
    Lisa Simmons from the National Marine Sanctuary Program and
    Jordon Stout, my scientific support coordinator for the San
    Francisco area. And, both of these individuals have been
    involved in the response to the spill here.
        NOAA is a science agency. We bring science to response, to
    improve the response decisions that are made in an emergency
    situation like this, and we focus on hazardous materials and
    oil.
        I want to talk about three things that NOAA does during a
    response like this, our three jobs. The most important ones
    are, to provide scientific support to the Coast Guard, to
    provide information that helps us protect national marine
    sanctuary resources that have been set aside because they are
    very special, and also to restore natural resources that are
    harmed by hazardous spills.
        The Scientific Support Coordinator for NOAA is a key player
    in this whole package, and they are supported from Seattle by
    what we call the NOAA Home Team, a special group of scientists
    that do pollution modeling, injury assessment, and that sort of
    thing. Our Scientific Support Coordinator was contacted on
    November 7 by the Coast Guard, and immediately swung into
    action to order a trajectory analysis, and a weather prediction
    to aid the response.
        So, shortly after noon on that first day, our first
    trajectory prediction was provided to the Incident Command Post
    that had been set up. This was based on our Physical
    Oceanographic Real Time System for observing ocean tides and
    water levels, and provided a picture of where the oil might go
    over the first few tidal cycles.
        In your handouts, I have this handout on page four you'll
    see what a trajectory analysis looks like. Keep in mind that
    all this blue and black here does not mean that the whole bay
    was covered with oil, but if you key in to the bottom there's a
    key that kind of gives you a hint as to what the water would
    look like from the air, where you'd have streaks and streamers
    of oil pictured down below.
        In addition, we have a trajectory prediction that focuses
    on the very first hours of the spill, also provided in your
    handout, and we focused in, ground truth this with overflights,
    and it reveals that two hours into the spill the oil was
    already covering about four square miles of the Bay. We'll talk
    about that more later if you have interest.
        We also produced overflights and pictures. On the far side
    there are the pictures from the initial overflight that was
    conducted at noon of day two, of the spill.
        During the first week, NOAA delivered 14 overflight maps,
    12 trajectory forecasts, 14 tidal forecasts, 17 weather
    updates, and five special assessments or establishment of
    protocols for the clean-up. We were very active.
        Secondly, I'd like to talk about the Sanctuaries Program.
    Their role in the spill, as I said, is to provide information
    to protect critical resources. We have three sanctuaries in
    this area, Monterey Bay, Gulf of the Farallones, Cordell Bank,
    all three provide critical habitat to very special and
    endangered coastal species. They have a connection with the
    volunteer group called Beach Watch that was mobilized on the
    second day of the spill, and they've been very effective
    providing three to four people every day to the Incident
    Command since that time, as well as a couple of dozen
    volunteers every day.
        Thirdly, I wanted to talk about restoration of natural
    resources. Under the Oil Pollution Act, the responsible parties
    responsible for restoring natural resources harmed by the
    spill. In order to do this, you have to do a restoration
    planning exercise, present a restoration plan to the public,
    and then the responsible party is responsible for paying to
    implement that plan.
        I'm glad to tell you that the restoration planning has been
    initiated already. Several agencies from the Federal and State
    Government are involved, including the State of California, the
    National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA,
    and we've been working very successfully with the Responsible
    Party to get this expedited.
        So, to wrap up, again, the theme here for NOAA is science,
    smarter decisions for response. We bring a package that starts
    with basic observations about the ocean, currents, tides,
    weather, place-based expertise in natural resources, combined
    with hazardous material expertise, to model, predict and
    observe while the incident is occurring.
        Thank you very much for this chance to be with you.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Chrisman?
        Mr. Chrisman. Thank you. Madam Speaker, Mr. Chairman,
    Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to be
    here today, and to testify as a representative of the State
    Governor's Office.
        As you all know, we have taken this incident very
    seriously, and I look forward to sharing some of our thoughts
    about this, about this tragedy.
        Back in 1990, the Office of Spill Prevention and Response,
    we call OSPR here in California, was created by State statute,
    within the Department of Fish and Game, which is part of the
    California Resources Agency, and as Agency Secretary I sit also
    as a member of the Governor's Cabinet.
        Joining me this morning behind me is John McCamman, the
    Acting Director of the Department of Fish and Game, and Greg
    Herner, Senior Advisor to the Director in the Department.
        OSPR operates both as a prevention and response
    organization, and is one of the few State agencies that, in the
    Nation, has both major pollution response authority and public
    trust authority for wildlife and habitat. In this role, OSPR
    has a number of responsibilities, and they are developing with
    others a detailed Area Contingency Plan to prepare for and
    respond to oil spills, conducting natural resource damage
    assessment of these pollution events, implementing the
    requirement that vessels provide certification of financial
    responsibility or insurance prior to entering State waters,
    responding, investigating and enforcing pollution violations
    and operating a spill dispatch function 24 hours a day, and
    finally, focusing on spill prevention, guiding responses, and
    operating the field across the State.
        Together, all of these add up to our Nation's most
    effective spill preparation and response agency.
        Part of these efforts, of course, are the plans, the
    contingency plans that you've heard referred to in previous
    testimony and comments. OSPR prepares and rates three types of
    contingency plans here in California for all spill incidents,
    and consider this requirement an essential function of its
    overall mission.
        Quickly, I won't go into them individually, but there are
    three of them. One is a Vessel Contingency Plan, developed by
    the shippers and reviewed by OSPR. Other is the Area
    Contingency Plan. You've heard that referred to in previous
    testimony prepared by OSPR, together with the Coast Guard. I
    have with me here on the table our Area Contingency Plan for
    this area. They, generally, contain important site information
    and response strategies for events like this. And, of course,
    the other contingency plan is the Oil Spill Response
    Organization Contingency Plans, that are developed and are part
    of every incident such as this.
        Collectively, each of these plans work together to ensure
    that appropriate measures can be carried out during a spill and
    reduce the impact to the environment and public health.
        You've heard a description of the incident itself. I won't
    go into that, the numbers of folks. Just know that OSPR was on
    the scene at the Coast Guard Station at Yerba Buena Island when
    the notification was made and immediately began to investigate
    the evidence of the spill.
        What has the Governor been doing? What have we in
    California been doing since the spill? Since the oil spill, the
    Governor has inspected the spill area on two separate
    occasions, has taken three very significant actions as a result
    of his authority.
        First, he declared a state of emergency in the City and
    County of San Francisco and six other counties directly
    affected by the spill. Secondly, he issued an Executive Order
    which closed recreational and commercial fisheries in the area
    impacted by the oil spill. And thirdly, he called for a
    comprehensive State investigation in the oil spill incident.
        The Governor's Executive Orders direct the Department of
    Fish and Game, in consultation with OSPR, to identify the area
    impacted by the spill in this area.
        Essentially, and when he closed the fisheries, this
    decision was not taken lightly, but was taken in an abundance
    of caution, recognizing the potential, and only potential, for
    public health at this time.
        It is likely that this action will have consequences to the
    fisheries and the fish businesses here in San Francisco and the
    Bay, and we have, and will continue to work with those
    businesses to be sure these impacts are minimized to the extent
    possible.
        As to the comprehensive State investigation, the Government
    has asked the Department of Fish and Game, OSPR, and the
    Governor's Office Emergency Service, to conduct a very
    aggressive coordinated investigation into the causes and
    responses of this oil spill.
        Although we must wait for the investigations to be
    completed, we do not believe it's too late to start looking
    forward in what else that we can do to take every step to
    assure that public safety, health and the environment are,
    indeed, safeguarded, and we also support the investigations,
    we've been participating in the investigations being conducted
    by our Federal partners.
        It's already been alluded to in some of the previous
    testimony here today, but before I close let me also join some
    of my colleagues here in expressing our thanks to the residents
    here in the Bay area and elsewhere, who have contacted us to
    volunteer. The response has been absolutely extraordinary.
        The Governor requested that the California volunteers help
    coordinate the volunteer response, and certainly we have not
    been able to utilize everyone who wants to volunteer. It's
    critical that we, indeed, operate in a manner that we can
    protect the public health and safety of volunteers, and that
    means not placing them in a hazardous situation, especially,
    without appropriate training.
        This is only a summary, we've got a big job ahead of us,
    and we look forward to working with all of you, Members of
    Congress, and our Federal partners, to get to the bottom of
    this, and deal with it in a proactive sort of way.
        Mr. Chairman, Madam Speaker, thank you very much for this
    opportunity.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
        I want to thank all of you for being here this morning,
    and, Admiral, I want to start off with you. We're going to each
    have five minutes, and we are going to adhere to those five
    minutes very strictly, by the way.
        Admiral Bone, at 9:25 a.m., a small boat from the station
    in San Francisco followed an oil slick reported to be three
    feet wide to Anchor 7, where the vessel was located. A slick
    three feet wide from the point of the allision of the COSCO
    BUSAN with the Bay Bridge to Anchor 7 would indicate, even to
    the untrained eye, that a substantial amount of oil had likely
    been released from the ship, yet it was not until 4:49 p.m.,
    that the Office of Oil Spill Prevention reported 58,000 gallons
    had been released.
        How do you explain for us, because I think this is so
    crucial, this long delay in understanding that there was a
    significant amount of oil in the water.
        Admiral Bone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        First off, we don't respond to a reported amount. That's a
    reported amount of oil in the water, that is not what you
    respond to. And, I'd offer that actually if you look at the
    handouts that we actually provided, you'll see the response
    equipment against what the standards actually are, you'll see
    that the response that actually went on scene far exceeded,
    ten-fold exceeded. So, we respond to what the potential is.
        This ship, potentially, carried 1.8 million gallons of fuel
    oil. The response was not based on 145 or the ten barrels that
    we received later on.
        Mr. Cummings. How much did it carry?
        Admiral Bone. It carries 1.8 million gallons on the ship,
    sir.
        Mr. Cummings. Okay.
        Admiral Bone. So, what we had was what's reported to us, in
    this case by someone on the vessel. We had another report of
    ten barrels reported.
        We sent a team on, while one team goes on immediately to
    ascertain the bridge first, then they go down to the vessel
    with an investigator on board, within an hour we are on scene
    and on board the ship, and we are trying to find out how much
    has been spilled in the water.
        Meanwhile, the response is already underway, NRC, MSRC, are
    already mobilizing to move their equipment and mobilize it to
    put it on the water. Our boats, our small boats are operating
    on the water assessing the debris in the water, for those
    vessels that will be coming down, whether or not there's
    containers in the water, you lose containers overboard in heavy
    seas. We had no idea. We were in fog that's 300 feet that you
    could only see as you are out in this environment with an oil
    run. Our folks knew, and, actually, knew there was going to be
    more, they didn't know how much more, but everyone on scene,
    everybody, and I'm talking about all the emergency responders
    throughout this, got focused on the response, and they knew the
    more they saw, the more they had to deal with this.
        And, I actually believe that what took place was, you are
    in a very hazardous environment, you start to get focused on
    people safety and getting this oil. The idea that somebody
    would intentionally, who dedicates their lives to, basically,
    protecting the public, and responding and going in harm's way,
    would try to keep information from somebody that they know is
    of value to them, sir, it just wasn't there. It was a mistake
    in the communications, but the response was absolutely
    fabulous. I'm talking about the on-site response. There was
    miscommunication, we acknowledge that. There's
    miscommunication, I think, that could be shared across the
    board by all of us involved in this response.
        Mr. Cummings. Well, let me tell you what concerns me,
    Admiral, and I heard what the Mayor said about you, and he was
    very complimentary. But, what concerns me is that, I don't want
    this to happen again, and from all I've read, and all I've seen
    so far, it seems as if it could.
        Would you agree?
        Admiral Bone. Well, if somebody doesn't communicate, I
    guess what I'm passing on to you, sir, is, this, I believe, is
    unique in the sense that because of visibility, and people got
    tunnel vision, for whatever reason, I'm talking about all
    responders, there's people with lots of experience that went on
    this, Federal, State, local folks that actually saw what they
    saw.
        The idea of communication of that amount, people got
    focused, they thought when they got that team aboard they could
    find out very quickly, and normally you would, but the ship's
    side shell got smashed in, and so those sounding tubes that you
    normally would get a very quick reading from were not
    available. So then, they had figured on board, people are
    waiting, expecting to hear back from the ship, from the
    investigator on board what the amount would be.
        Mr. Cummings. Well, let me ask you this. You admitted that
    the Coast Guard was slow to realize the amount of oil spill
    released into the San Francisco Bay, but a November 14th press
    release stated that 12,745 gallons of oil has been collected.
    Is that right? And, that an additional estimated 4,060 gallons
    of oil had evaporated. How is it that you can measure so
    precisely the amounts of oil collected and evaporated, but it
    took more than 12 hours for you to estimate that 58,000 gallons
    of oil had been released? It's just, you know, it just doesn't
    make sense to me.
        Admiral Bone. Mr. Chairman, again----
        Mr. Cummings. And then, you understand why I'm asking these
    questions.
        Admiral Bone. Sure.
        Mr. Cummings. It goes to credibility, too, and people are
    relying on our thin blue line, and, fortunately, we deal
    together, work together on a daily basis, but I want to make
    sure that we are doing, all of our agencies are doing what they
    are supposed to do, particularly, the Coast Guard.
        Admiral Bone. Mr. Chairman, let me just tell you, when we
    saw two tanks corrupted, we knew it was at least 500,000
    gallons, I'm just saying anybody with experience knows that's
    at least 500,000 gallons. But, you don't want to go out and
    tell people that it's 500,000, that's what you could see.
        Now below, you had to stick the other tanks, make sure you
    don't have water in those other tanks.
        Mr. Cummings. Wait a minute, you didn't tell me, you said
    you don't want to tell people?
        Admiral Bone. No, I'm saying----
        Mr. Cummings. You heard what the Mayor said, he wants to
    know. He wants to know what's going on.
        Admiral Bone. What I'm trying to do, people were trying to
    get an assessment of how much. They knew they were responding
    to it. They were trying to find out how much was there, so that
    they could accurately inform.
        I'm not going to make an excuse for not telling the Mayor
    and the citizens that they didn't get an amount to say this
    have could put people in harm's way if they went down to the
    beaches. I'm not going to make that excuse to you, or any
    Member here.
        I do believe that should have been passed, but I'm only
    trying to explain to you what transpired in the minds of the
    people that collectively responded, the people that are serving
    this public every day, and will respond and go in harm's way
    tomorrow if called upon.
        Mr. Cummings. My last question to Ms. Hersman, before we
    move to Congressman Miller.
        Ms. Hersman, are you getting, the NTSB getting maximum
    cooperation from the Coast Guard, because your report is going
    to be very, very significant, to trying to prevent these kinds
    of things from happening again, and for helping us to figure
    out how this Congress can work to make sure that we use our
    power to do what we have to do.
        Ms. Hersman. Mr. Chairman, our investigators did have some
    initial trouble when we first arrived on scene, I think, with
    the hand off of the investigation. But, through conversations
    with Rear Admiral Bone, Admiral Allen and others, I think that
    that helped free up the flow of information.
        We now are, I think, getting very good cooperation from the
    Coast Guard, and we hope that continues through the course of
    our investigation.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
        Congressman George Miller.
        Mr. Miller of California. Thank you very much, Mr.
    Chairman, and thank you so much for coming out and joining us
    and having this hearing.
        Admiral Bone, the Vessel Traffic System, is it state of the
    art?
        Admiral Bone. Yes, it is.
        Mr. Miller of California. So that, the question of whether
    or not the right equipment was in place or not in place is not
    open to question?
        Admiral Bone. No, and let me explain why.
        Mr. Miller of California. I don't want a long explanation,
    if it's state of the art I'll take your word for it.
        Admiral Bone. It is.
        Mr. Miller of California. Okay. But, you point out that
    they are not masters, they are not captains, and so they are
    simply there as an advisory role.
        Admiral Bone. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Miller of California. Should that be changed?
        Admiral Bone. That's one of the things that I think that
    this--that Congress and we should all take a look at, for,
    particularly, high-risk, high-threat environments.
        Mr. Miller of California. Air traffic controllers are not
    pilots, but they tell pilots what to do in emergency
    situations, as I understand it.
        Admiral Bone. Yes, sir, and they also have flight plans
    that are listed out.
        Mr. Miller of California. The question of the spill, Dr.
    Conner testified that within two hours it was probably covering
    about four square miles. That's the problem you have when you
    have the tides of San Francisco Bay and oil on those waters.
        Which party is given the authority to contact the Oil
    Response Team?
        Admiral Bone. The owners of the vessel have the
    responsibility, and the master normally executes that on behalf
    of the owners, to contact the Responsible Party, it's right in
    their Vessel Response Plan.
        Mr. Miller of California. What happened in this case? Did
    the master or the pilot?
        Admiral Bone. I think both, actually, made contact
    separately, but the reality for this is, some of the responders
    actually responded before the qualified individual even called
    them.
        Mr. Miller of California. So, how did they do that?
        Admiral Bone. They heard about the incident.
        Mr. Miller of California. How did they hear about the
    incident?
        Admiral Bone. On the radio is my guess, but the reality is
    some of these people were actually mobilized before they got
    contacted.
        Mr. Miller of California. Which people?
        Admiral Bone. The National--NRC, National Response
    Corporation, was actually mobilized before----
        Mr. Miller of California. In your testimony you state that
    the pilot at 9:18 called and told them and said that the leak
    had been secured, that there were ten barrels and the leak had
    been secured.
        Admiral Bone. The second pilot had actually passed that
    information.
        Mr. Miller of California. The second pilot.
        Admiral Bone. Not the first pilot. The second pilot came
    aboard, he received additional information that there was ten
    barrels and that it had been secured.
        Mr. Miller of California. There is, I don't want to say
    there's testimony, but there's information in the record to
    suggest that when the relief pilot came aboard that oil was
    still leaking from the ship in a rather considerable amount.
        Admiral Bone. I think you'd have to ask the pilots, but
    I've heard testimony----
        Mr. Miller of California. Have you received any evidence--
    --
        Admiral Bone. --I can only----
        Mr. Miller of California. --that that's so?
        Admiral Bone. --we have heard that, although I haven't
    spoken directly with him, I have heard that. I can--I know that
    by 9:25, when our boat got on scene, all you had was a trickle,
    basically, or a dribble, you know, coming down the side about
    an inch wide.
        Mr. Miller of California. By the time the Coast Guard boat
    got on the scene.
        Admiral Bone. Right, and----
        Mr. Miller of California. But, the pilot boat was there
    prior to that.
        Admiral Bone. --and they said, and I think the pilots will
    be coming up, Pilots Association, and the people that actually
    saw the amount, but I don't think we are talking about a very
    large flow at that time.
        Mr. Miller of California. The Oil Response Corporation,
    that's located in the Inner Harbor of Richmond, is that
    correct?
        Admiral Bone. Actually, they are located at various
    locations around the whole Bay, so that they can respond within
    the time constraints throughout the whole Bay.
        Mr. Miller of California. So, they responded, they
    responded with what equipment and what time frame?
        Admiral Bone. Again, what I'd offer is, in here we've got a
    presentation that actually shows within the first six hours,
    but I know that there was two skimmers on scene within an hour
    of their initial notification. There was four skimmers on scene
    within two hours, and there was eight skimmers on scene within
    six hours, and this represents the six hours.
        What I note is, this is what the plan calls for, 2,500. The
    reasonable--that's for maximum----
        Mr. Miller of California. I got that.
        Admiral Bone. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Miller of California. Is the plan adequate?
        Admiral Bone. I think that we need to take a look at the
    plan----
        Mr. Miller of California. Two hours, according to NOAA, and
    the trajectory model, and I remember when we put this
    trajectory model, we were so proud of it when it was brought to
    the Bay years ago, is this plan now adequate, two skimmers in
    four square miles?
        Admiral Bone. Sir, I will tell you that there's a national
    standard that's put in place, if we are going to revisit the
    national standard, and say we want more cleaned up than that
    within a certain amount of time, but within an hour, I'm just
    trying to be reasonable, our rescue, for search and rescue, we
    have to get underway within 30 minutes.
        Mr. Miller of California. I understand, but in this
    particular situation, the Bay was, essentially, calm, was it
    not, I mean, it was foggy so there couldn't have been a lot of
    wind.
        Admiral Bone. Well, the currents is what the issue is.
        Mr. Miller of California. No, I understand that, I
    understand that, but so we weren't cleaning this up in
    treacherous water, so to speak.
        Admiral Bone. Well, other than----
        Mr. Miller of California. The question is, again, when you
    look at the trajectory model, it redefines San Francisco Bay,
    because it immediately, you know, it went out to the Golden
    Gate and went up and down the coast. the question is whether or
    not the response that is in place is adequate or not.
        Admiral Bone. Again, I think we need to look at, we need to
    look at what the plan calls for, we need to look at what the
    expectations are, and decide on a Federal standard. I'm not
    going to make a judgment on that, sir.
        I can tell you that 27 percent, almost 27 percent of this
    oil was picked up, and on average we get between 5 and 20, and
    that, not in conditions in fog, not in an open estuary like
    this where it flows through, you don't normally get 20 percent.
        So, if you are going to go to this high end, I'm just going
    to say on every spill that's something for, I think----
        Mr. Miller of California. So, 20 percent is the high end.
        Admiral Bone. --if you ask the science folks, they'll tell
    you what it is.
        Mr. Miller of California. No, I understand, I mean----
        Admiral Bone. I've been on spills, Congressman, where
    38,000 gallons have been released from a vessel, and zero has
    been recovered.
        Mr. Miller of California. Yes, well, we----
        Admiral Bone. I'm just trying to give you----
        Mr. Miller of California. I understand.
        Admiral Bone. --some perspective.
        Mr. Miller of California. I understand. The perspective is
    in the Bay and this accident at this moment.
        Admiral Bone. I know, no one----
        Mr. Miller of California. That's the perspective.
        Admiral Bone. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Miller of California. In the long run, we'll all be
    dead, but in the short term it's about the pollution of the
    Bay.
        Let me just, if I might, and I don't know who at the table
    is responsible for this, but there's been discussions of
    personnel in the clean-up of this oil spill, with the
    corporation and response teams, the suggestion that there's
    been retaliation if they speak out on this, and I just hope
    that somebody will convey to the Response Corporation that they
    are interfering with the Federal investigation, and that's a
    violation of Federal law, because that testimony, whatever it
    is, I don't want to prejudge it, needs to be preserved and
    needs to be preserved in the right form. So, I hope that
    whether it's you, or whether it's the Justice Department, or
    the Safety Board, the people understand that, that this is a
    full-blown Federal investigation.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Miller.
        Let me just emphasize what Congressman Miller just said,
    and we've said this in this Subcommittee before, Admiral, that
    we will not stand for any type of retaliation of anybody, for
    coming and cooperating with this Congress or Federal agencies.
    I want to be real, real clear on that.
        You've heard me say that many times.
        Admiral Bone. And, Mr. Chairman, I can tell you that the
    Coast Guard, to my knowledge, has not told anyone to not say
    anything.
        Mr. Cummings. Or anybody else.
        Admiral Bone. I mean, just because you directed it to me.
        Mr. Cummings. All right, I just want to make that very
    clear.
        We'll now move on to Ms. Tauscher, and again, I want to
    publicly thank you for all your help in making all of this
    happen. Thank you.
        Ms. Tauscher.
        Ms. Tauscher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and it all
    goes to the Speaker's leadership to make sure that we could all
    be here today.
        Admiral Bone, I want to follow up on a question that
    Chairman Miller asked about the VTS system. I understand that
    other VTS centers in the country, specifically, Houston and New
    Orleans, have an upgraded system, a new software and new
    monitors that we don't have here in the Bay area. Is that
    because of resources, or because we are in a chain of getting
    new equipment that we haven't got yet? What exactly is that?
    And, would it be characterized that we don't have a state-of-
    the-art system right now?
        Admiral Bone. Thank you, Congresswoman.
        First, what was being done was, there was an older VTS, the
    VTS system that was in place, they created this new system that
    Lockheed Martin had put in place, that was an improved system,
    technical system.
        Northrup-Grumman produced the first VPS system. When they
    saw that----
        Ms. Tauscher. Is that the 1995 software?
        Admiral Bone. --these are the earlier ones. When Northrup-
    Grumman found out that Lockheed Martin was going to get all the
    money for the new systems, they said, they contacted our C2
    center and said, hey, we can provide that same capacity at a
    cheaper price. So, we are going to give you the same
    technology, you are just going to get a different view, but the
    same technology is being provided. You won't have to retrain
    your people on this new system, because they are already
    trained on this system.
        And so, you have equivalent technology on both systems, and
    equivalent capacity and abilities on both systems. One just
    happens to be provided by one company, and another by another.
    That's the case.
        Ms. Tauscher. All right. I'd like to go to this issue of
    the bunker fuel, because, apparently, this is pretty nasty
    stuff, and what's clear to me is that we need a lot more
    information about ships coming into our Bay that are going to
    be burning this kind of fuel, and, especially, if they don't
    have double hulls.
        As many people know, the International Convention for the
    Prevention of Pollution from Ships requires double hulls on
    bunker tanks fuel, starting in August of 2010. Clearly, that
    doesn't help us right now.
        My questions are, should we amend that requirement to say
    that older ships should be retrofitted? And, we are all aware
    of the financial requirements to do that, and how prohibitive
    that may be, but it seems to me that we need to know a lot more
    about the kind of fuel that these ships coming into our Bay are
    burning, that it's one thing to be coming in with a lighter
    load, but when you are going out, and you are fully--well, your
    tanks are full, it seems to me that the requirements of us
    knowing that, number one, you are burning bunker fuel, number
    two, you don't have a double hulled fuel tank, number three,
    we've got to know where you are, because you are insidious if
    you have a spill, as opposed to just being bad and damaging.
        Can you kind of illuminate us as to what you think the most
    safe way for us to get that information, and should we have it
    before these ships are in the harbor?
        Admiral Bone. First, I just want to make sure you are aware
    that it isn't that they are all actually required to have
    double hulls under the new standard, there's actually an
    alternative flow outflow that could be done by a ship owner.
    So, that's not lock solid that everybody would have to go to
    double hulls.
        Ms. Tauscher. Okay.
        Admiral Bone. I'm not a person that could say this is
    exactly what we should have with regard to double hulls. I
    actually think our emphasis and effort has to be placed on
    preventing the incident, not allowing things to hit things.
    Steel hitting concrete will lose every time, and that's what
    took place here. And so, we can't let -- we can't afford--rocks
    will win over steel every time, too, and you can't control the
    sea state once a ship goes aground, it will work on it until it
    breaks it up.
        So, we have to find a way to prevent these accidents from
    happening. We have to establish whatever control mechanisms and
    management, and we have to make sure we have the very best
    people operating them.
        If we are going to bring in, we are bringing in ships now
    that can carry fuel as large as tankers back in the '70s, when
    most of these plans were first thought up. So, times have
    changed, we do need to look at this. We have to make
    adjustments in our safety system, and I look forward to working
    with Congress to do that.
        Ms. Tauscher. Well, Admiral, let me clarify this. Are you
    saying that because a ship is burning bunker fuel it shouldn't
    be treated differently? Isn't bunker fuel the worst case
    scenario?
        Admiral Bone. No, actually, there's other fuels that may
    have, or other cargos, and I'm not sure about bunker fuel, but
    there's other types of cargos of fuels that may actually be
    worse.
        I mean, some people suggest gasoline or diesel, reality
    there is if you have a spill you have a huge flammable
    environment as well, and you have a very big safety standard if
    they hit something.
        Ms. Tauscher. Would you have acted differently if you had
    known that the COSCO BUSAN was burning bunker fuel?
        Admiral Bone. No.
        Ms. Tauscher. Is that information valuable to you when you
    are attempting to deal with this kind of accident?x
        Admiral Bone. Yes, it is, because if the specific gravity
    is greater than one it's likely to sink, or be suspended at
    least. Fortunately, when we tested this it was .93 to .95, both
    from warmer temperatures to colder temperatures, so we had a
    higher -- we had higher assurance that it was going to be on
    the surface more than sinking when we were doing the initial
    response, and that's what really drove us to get out there
    early before it gets into the water column.
        Ms. Tauscher. For all of the ships that are in our Bay, and
    going over to Oakland, do you have information all the time as
    to what kind of fuel that they are carrying?
        Admiral Bone. I wouldn't say the specific fuel, but I would
    expect it's bunker, some type of bunker fuel that they
    operating on. It's usually the degree of sulfur that most
    people are talking about, and that has more to do with air
    emissions than the real fuel-specific gravity.
        Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
        Let me just ask you this quick question. Was there a senior
    investigating officer assigned to this?
        Admiral Bone. Yes, there was.
        Mr. Cummings. And, who was that?
        Admiral Bone. It's the senior investigating officer on --
    over all this is Captain Ross Wheatley, who has been assisting
    with the NTSB and been sitting in their investigation.
        Mr. Cummings. I'm just curious about that, I'll come back
    to that.
        Mr. Lantos, Congressman Lantos.
        Mr. Lantos. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Ms. Hersman, representing the National Transportation
    Safety Board, you very properly say that it will take you a
    year to draw some conclusions. But, to the naked eye it seems
    that what we are witnessing is a cascading cavalcade of
    preventable mistakes.
        There is zero surprise in this whole tragedy. There is a
    ship, there is a bridge, there is some fog. And, I find it
    incomprehensible that in the post 9/11 climate we should be
    sitting here as if this would be a new phenomenon. There is not
    one iota of surprise or new development in all that I have
    listened to and all that I have read about. Every single one of
    the items would have been projected, forecast and prevented.
        The thing which is so disturbing to those of us who live
    here, and who feel a responsibility for this area, that all the
    agencies are really side stepping their responsibility. There
    are events which are surprise events. Some of these events are
    acts of nature, like the nightmare which is unfolding in
    Bangladesh as we are sitting here today. Some of these are
    terrorist acts. This was a routine movement of a ship in a
    well-controlled area. And, here we are facing an unspeakable
    tragedy and disaster.
        I would like to ask you, Ms. Hersman, and then the Admiral
    if he's willing, what is your explanation to the fact that a
    totally preventable, several mistakes, has given us this
    cavalcade of calamities.
        Ms. Hersman. Unfortunately, the Safety Board is in the
    business of investigating accidents. There are always a chain
    of events that could have been prevented, and that's why the
    Congress created us, so that we can make recommendations so
    they don't happen again.
        We are looking at the man, the machine and the environment,
    as we do in every situation, to make recommendations so that
    either equipment can be improved, training, or checklists, or
    response can be improved, or if there are any anomalies with
    the equipment or the vessel, that those would be addressed.
        You are right, it could be, it could be prevented.
        Mr. Lantos. It should have been prevented. Let me just take
    one small corner of this, linguistic competence. Are you
    satisfied, is the National Transportation Safety Board
    satisfied, that all the relevant crew members are qualified to
    function in English when they enter San Francisco Bay?
        Ms. Hersman. That will be part of our investigation. We
    have--
        Mr. Lantos. But, it's not a new phenomenon.
        Ms. Hersman. --not been able, we have not yet been able to
    interview the crew members.
        Mr. Lantos. But, do you think that the existing regulations
    and requirements are adequate with respect to linguistic
    competence?
        Ms. Hersman. There are requirements that exist, that there
    be a language, a common language, aboard the vessel for safety
    purposes. We will be looking to see if that existed in this
    situation.
        Mr. Lantos. Do you think that the existing linguistic
    requirement is adequate, because there are plenty of reports
    concerning this episode that there was confusion in
    communications. In your own testimony, you said all of the
    conversation was in Chinese, and this will have to be
    translated.
        Ms. Hersman. The Safety Board has looked at this issue in
    the past, and I know Members have raised the issue in aviation.
    Marine is no different, there are going to be interactions from
    crews from all around the world, whether they are airplane
    crews or marine crews. It's not unusual to have people come in
    to a port or an airport that don't speak that language.
        But, what is important is that people who are communicating
    about safety essential functions can communicate with each
    other and be understood. In the past, the Board has made
    recommendations with respect to communications and language
    issues, common phraseology in the aviation arena. If there are
    issues here, we will look at those as well.
        Admiral Bone. I really would never have expected this event
    to occur, because of the spans, and how wide they are, and the
    fact that this is one of the few ports that I've been to in the
    Bay area where you have deep water across the entire Bay.
        I can't begin to tell you how or why this should have ever
    occurred. There's absolutely no basis in my mind's eye for this
    to have ever occurred. Something on board that ship had to go
    terribly wrong. I'm talking amongst people that have been
    deemed competent to carry out their mission, both by the State
    and by an international body.
        I cannot stress that enough, I don't----
        Mr. Lantos. So, you agree with me that it was totally
    preventable.
        Admiral Bone. --it was totally preventable, totally.
        Mr. Lantos. Yet, it happened.
        Admiral Bone. Yes.
        Mr. Lantos. Is there any of the explanation in the
    regulations concerning fog? I mean, we have fog here all the
    time.
        Admiral Bone. Yes, there are regulations, in fact, in the
    Inland Rules regarding steering and speed, with regard to fog,
    and there's caution that's, basically, placed within it, to
    both masters and pilots, as they navigate vessels.
        Yes, visibility is included.
        Mr. Lantos. And, the regulations are adequate as far as you
    are concerned?
        Admiral Bone. If they had been followed, and they had
    carried out their responsibilities promptly, we wouldn't be
    where we are today, sitting right here.
        Mr. Lantos. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Cummings. Admiral Bone, let me thank you very much.
    Admiral Bone, I must follow up on something that--an answer
    that you just gave Mr. Lantos.
        You said something, and I don't want to take the words out
    of your mouth, but something awfully wrong went on on that
    boat. Is that what you said?
        Admiral Bone. Yes, well, I said something tragic must have
    taken place on board the ship, on board for people that have
    experience, that are there, for this event to have occurred.
    That's my opinion.
        Mr. Cummings. Well, you know, when I heard you say that, I
    couldn't help but think about the question of how do you
    explain the failure of the Coast Guard personnel to ensure that
    the drug and alcohol tests were completed in the time period
    required by your regulations, and why wasn't the ship's
    captain, who was directly involved in this incident, tested
    within the required period, instead of days after the incident?
        You caused me to think about that, because I'm thinking
    about what can go wrong.
        Admiral Bone. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Cummings. And, you just threw that one right at me.
        Admiral Bone. Well, Mr. Chairman, I just want to, I'm not
    trying to throw anything back, but I want to make sure it's
    understood that the master, and the crew, and the pilot, were
    all tested for alcohol within the time constraints.
        The master and the pilot were also tested within the time
    constraints for drugs, and all proved negative, for both
    alcohol, 0.0, also for drugs.
        The remaining crew that's in the navigation portion of the
    crew are the people, not the master, not the pilot, both of
    those were tested within the time constraints, the additional
    people in the crew, which by the way is not the responsibility
    of the Coast Guard to ensure its tested, it's the
    responsibility of the employer, which in this case is the
    owner, to ensure they are tested by law.
        The Coast Guard is not the one who goes out and administers
    this test, Mr. Chairman. We discovered that they didn't test
    the five additional crew. We caught it, we caught them, we made
    them get them tested. We received those results, and those,
    too, are negative.
        Mr. Cummings. Okay, who is the owner?
        Admiral Bone. Regal Stone.
        Mr. Cummings. All right. I'm just going to briefly go to
    Mr. Miller for one question. Very well.
        Mr. Miller of California. No, I'm just, in one of the
    documents it suggested at one point that this ship was moving
    parallel to the bridge. That would be something terribly wrong,
    if it's going to----
        Admiral Bone. Actually, Congressman, because of the way you
    come out from that particular area----
        Mr. Miller of California. Right.
        Admiral Bone. --you will run parallel, and sometimes you
    will dip south in order to set yourself up----
        Mr. Miller of California. Right, when you are coming out of
    the Inner Harbor.
        Admiral Bone. --for that bridge, so you maybe come out, and
    then normally you may set yourself south, and then make your
    approach, or you could come parallel and turn in.
        Again, this span is twice the length of that----
        Mr. Miller of California. No, I understand, so you are
    saying it was parallel at the time it came out of the Inner
    Harbor of Oakland, and was moving toward the opening.
        Admiral Bone. Well, I'm not going to put anymore words,
    NTSB has the investigation. What I wanted to make clear,
    though, Congressman, is this vessel was not in imminent danger
    when that VTS operator called in. This vessel was not running
    into the bridge abutment. That's what everybody thinks from the
    information that's been passed out, it's false, and it's almost
    an indictment on the individual, who actually tried, you know,
    who made a notification.
        And, let me explain why they called them and asked them
    that, if I could. The reason they are calling and asking their
    intentions is because they are going--they are telling them
    where they are going to pass. Well, there's a lot of other
    vessels in the system, and one of the main reasons for that
    Vessel Traffic System is to let them know, hey, this vessel is
    going to be coming through this span, so if you are coming
    don't go through that same span, choose the other span, or
    choose one of these others, so that they can anticipate,
    because these ships are large masses that will move, and
    stopping them, it isn't like on a car where you can just stop
    them, it takes sometimes almost a mile to stop a ship,
    depending on, in this case it was 1.3 miles from where it hit,
    and it something to the anchorage area, Anchorage 7.
        Mr. Cummings. Ms. Lofgren.
        Ms. Lofgren. The concern I have about this is very strong.
    You know, I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area,
    and to explain how we feel about the Bay, those of us who have
    lived here all our lives, I really can't.
        I remember as a young staffer for my predecessor,
    Congressman Don Edwards, working for almost ten years to help
    establish what is now called the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge,
    and then again in local government, serving on the Bay
    Conservation and Development Commission with our colleague,
    Anna Eshoo, who was not able to be here today, drilling the
    plans that we would have if there were ever an incident such as
    this over and over again, and now serving on the House Homeland
    Security Committee, the Border and Port Security Subcommittee.
        And, I'll just say, my constituents are not impressed with
    what happened here, number one, they don't understand how an
    accident like this could be allowed to happen. I mean, as Mr.
    Lantos has said, fog is routine, it's not an out of the
    ordinary. So, it's prevention, but it's also response. And, we
    are not impressed by the response.
        I mean, I've heard that from my constituents from beginning
    to end, and so I don't want to just complain, I want to see how
    can we do this better. How can we make sure if something like
    this happens again, we do a better job?
        And, I was struck, Dr. Conner, by your testimony on what
    you were told about how many gallons had been released on
    November 7th, 420 gallons, and you did your mapping, and from
    all I can tell you performed appropriately under the plans as
    we had hoped, except that the amount that you were given was
    not correct.
        Would your response have been different had the actual
    magnitude been told to NOAA at 10:00 a.m.?
        Mr. Conner. Thank you for asking that question, it's a
    really interesting one, and, basically, the answer is no, it
    wouldn't have changed.
        The way the model works is that, basically, you throw a
    bunch of oil parcels into the Bay, and then move them around
    according to the currents and such, and the number of parcels
    doesn't change with the volume of the water, I'm sorry, the
    volume of the oil in the model, it's just that the amount of
    oil associated with each parcel changes.
        So, the answer is no, in regard to the modeling. There
    wouldn't have been any significant difference.
        Secondly, with regard to our response, we, basically, are
    very experienced. We get about 100 to 120 calls a year on
    spills like this. And, it is very normal for the early reports
    of the estimated volume to jump around until they finally
    settle out one or two days later.
        So, basically, when we get a notification of a release into
    a critical and dynamic habitat like San Francisco Bay, we are
    full-bore responding, until we know for sure that it was a
    small release.
        Our SSC was at a Regional Response Team meeting at the time
    of the spill in Las Vegas, and he was notified by cell phone,
    and immediately did his notifications and came back to San
    Francisco and reported to the Incident Command by dinnertime
    that evening.
        And, we also stood up our Home Team in Seattle, and started
    our modeling, our weather forecasting, and our toxicity
    assessments, and so we were full-bore responding.
        Ms. Lofgren. Let me ask you this. One of the other comments
    I've heard from people in the Bay area, and maybe it's because
    the Committee I serve on is, you know, what if this had been
    some other kind of incident, not an oil spill, bad as that is,
    but a homeland security type of event. People didn't feel that
    the response was that on point.
        Are you satisfied with the interagency response to this
    event, Dr. Conner?
        Mr. Conner. I think the safe answer to that is, we'll wait
    and see what the Coast Guard's investigation shows. We are
    going to participate in that investigation by providing a
    Scientific Support Coordinator from another region, who was not
    involved in this response. And, Admiral Allen has promised to
    have some kind of an initial reading within 90 days.
        But, I have not seen anything, or seen anything reported,
    that would cause me to have concerns about the interagency
    coordination of the response.
        Ms. Lofgren. Let me just ask a final question, as my time
    is almost through.
        A year ago, there was a large exercise, a major field
    exercise, according to your testimony, of the NOAA Safe Seas
    2006, and part of that was to train volunteers to respond.
        One of the complaints I have received, and I'm sure my
    colleagues have, is that people who were trained, who wanted to
    come, and this is the Bay area, people volunteer, people care
    about their environment, they came to help, I understand if
    people weren't trained that's one thing, but people that were
    trained were not utilized.
        And, in your judgment, did that exercise yield the kind of
    effort that you wanted? I mean, the people we trained couldn't
    be used.
        Mr. Conner. Yes, I think the exercise was effective in
    raising the capability of volunteers to contribute to a
    response. It's really difficult, the first day of the response,
    setting up the Unified Command, developing the first Incident
    Action Plan for the subsequent day. I'm going to go out on a
    limb here and assume that getting volunteers involved is
    something that the Command tried to do in day two and day
    three. So, the volunteers may have been frustrated that they
    couldn't be----
        Ms. Lofgren. Well, they were, I'll tell you that.
        Mr. Conner. --involved.
        Yes, ma'am, they couldn't become involved more quickly,
    but----
        Ms. Lofgren. I'd just like to ask you to think about this,
    if we've trained people, I know the City had trained people as
    well, shouldn't we, in advance, do some identification system,
    have that as part of our play. So, if there are people who are
    trained and they want to be there hour two, we are able to
    utilize them if we know and can certify that we've already
    trained them, instead of this situation, which was just
    infuriating to people.
        Mr. Conner. Well, one of the things that I mentioned in my
    testimony was that the Beach Watch volunteers that are
    associated with the Marine Sanctuaries Program, and were part
    of the Safe Seas exercise, were actually used starting the
    morning of the second day. And, I think the Admiral wants to
    say something about some of the other volunteers, if you would
    allow that.
        Admiral Bone. Actually, all I was going to do is, that's
    what I was going to echo, that that training in Safe Seas 2006
    was dominantly to help identify spotters and people that could
    identify wildlife, so that people could get there more quickly,
    and actually assist better with the clean-up, and move the
    skimmers who are response people, and that was, in fact,
    exercised.
        We didn't, I don't think anybody anticipated, again, that
    people were going to want, that civilians were going to come in
    droves to actually handle hazardous material and clean it off
    the beaches. It just hasn't happened.
        But again, we thank the community for doing it. It required
    us to adjust on the fly and get some training and put that
    together.
        You are right, it should be in the plan, we are committed
    to putting it in the plan, and it's something that the Mayor
    and I have already talked about.
        Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired, but I'll
    just say, you could have asked any one of us and we would have
    told you that our constituents would want to help.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Cummings. Before we get to--thank you very much, Ms.
    Lofgren--before we get to Mr. McNerney, let me ask you this.
    You said something that was so critical just a moment ago. You
    said something had to happen on the ship, is that what you
    said?
        Admiral Bone. I believe, yes, sir.
        Mr. Cummings. And so, while you are cooperating with NTSB,
    and you've got Ms. Hersman sitting right next to you, what
    would you tell them they need to look at first? You must have
    some idea, you must have, if you've zeroed it down to that
    ship. I mean, what do you think happened? What do you think
    went wrong?
        Admiral Bone. Congressman, I think, I can't tell you all
    the things that went wrong.
        Mr. Cummings. But, I want you to tell----
        Admiral Bone. Listen, I think, to be honest and fair to
    individuals, you know, the individuals on board the ship, to
    target one thing or another to be a causal factor, the causal
    or primary or secondary, like Ms. Hersman said, there's usually
    a chain of events, and there's a series of things that cause it
    to happen. And, having been a marine investigator, what may
    appear, just like it appeared to most people when they heard
    that the operator, you know, asked him if he still intended to
    go through, everybody jumped and thought, that vessel was
    targeting that pier and he should have warned him away, if I
    provide some other little bit of information everybody will
    jump on it and say, ah-ha, that's the causal factor.
        I think that, as NTSB develops the full set of situation
    circumstances on this we'll know it. We would have done, we
    would do the same thing, as part of our investigation we had
    completed preliminary investigation, when we passed, we weren't
    complete in our investigation, and our investigation is ongoing
    parallel with NTSB's, while we are supporting them.
        And, we'll come to the conclusions that we come to at the
    end of the day.
        I'm not going to suppose, in fairness to the individuals,
    I'm not going to do that, sir.
        Mr. Cummings. I just asked you to follow up on something
    that you said, okay?
        Admiral Bone. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Cummings. I understand.
        Ms. Hersman, just one quick comment. The NTSB
    investigations are so thorough, and so, I mean, because they
    are supposed to be, and you do a great job, but it takes a
    while, doesn't it?
        Ms. Hersman. Yes, sir, unfortunately, it takes a lot longer
    than everybody would like it to.
        Mr. Cummings. And, the average investigation takes about
    how long, I mean, if you just add a guess, year, two years?
        Ms. Hersman. I would say a year, yes, sir.
        Mr. Cummings. My concern is, I think going to some of the
    things that the Mayor said, we want to make sure that these
    things don't happen again, I mean, like next month. And so, I
    just, I'm hoping that we can, as a Congress, can try to find
    ways, and we know you--we want you to do your investigation, we
    want it to be thorough, but we've got to make sure that we do
    some things in the meantime, I'm just saying this to our panel,
    that we need to deal with.
        And, Admiral Bone, I want you to stay on for the next
    panel, stay around for the next panel. Will you do that?
        Admiral Bone. Yes.
        Mr. Cummings. All right.
        Mr. McNerney.
        Mr. McNerney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I certainly want to commend you for your leadership on this
    issue, and the Speaker for helping to organize this this
    morning.
        Mr.Cummings, or Secretary Cummings, we met a few weeks ago
    proactively to discuss delta water usage in the valley. And,
    this morning we are meeting reactively to discuss action that
    happened a few weeks later in related waterways.
        Your agency is responsible for providing resources to deal
    with these sorts of issues. Do you believe that the State
    Resources Agency has sufficient resources for training and
    response in this sort of situation?
        Mr. Chrisman. Thank you for asking that question, a good
    question, and one of the early questions that, of course, we
    asked at the State level, do we really?
        And, quite frankly, at this stage of the game we think we
    do, but, quite frankly, what we are going to do through the
    investigation, through the joint investigation that we are
    going to do on this incident, we are going to ask those very,
    very tough questions. We are going to be very hard on
    ourselves, as a part of this overall investigation, we will
    have an answer for that.
        But, insofar as available resources to respond pursuant to
    State statute, in concert with our Coast Guard partners and
    others, yes, we did.
        Mr. McNerney. Well, in that case, let's go ahead and make
    sure that that's a public process.
        Mr. Chrisman. Absolutely, sir.
        Mr. McNerney. And, not behind some kind of closed doors.
        What specific recommendations do you have this morning
    regarding improvements in the system that we have right now,
    that failed us on November 7th?
        Mr. Chrisman. One, we just heard a conversation about that.
        Mr. McNerney. Especially in light of the Mayor's
    recommendations about the hulls and coordination.
        Mr. Chrisman. Absolutely. From where we sit, and we just
    heard a conversation about the volunteers, the unbelievable
    number of volunteers that we had here in the Bay area. It,
    essentially, was, obviously, gratifying, but we weren't
    prepared, quite frankly, for the large numbers that came. We
    need to take a close look at that. We need to assess that. We
    need to make sure that, you know, that we can utilize all them.
        All of the trained volunteers that we had, that had trained
    prior to this event, actually did respond, and were used.
        Mr. McNerney. So, you see that as your biggest weakness,
    managing volunteers?
        Mr. Chrisman. As I sit from where I sit in this stage of
    the game, we need to take a close look at that, we need to do
    a--we do a very good job of that here in California, in terms
    of involving stakeholders in our natural resources, management
    programs, and all that. It's a part of the way we operate. We
    just need to do a better job.
        Mr. McNerney. Well, speaking from the Fish and Wildlife
    perspective, how serious is the damage out there, and how long
    is it going to take for us to recover?
        Mr. Chrisman. We are just assessing that right now. As I
    indicated in my comments, the Governor, in an abundance of
    caution, closed the dungeness crab season, and, in fact, closed
    all fisheries in the affected areas laid out in the Executive
    Order.
        We are in the process now of testing herring, surf perch,
    dungeness crab, rock crab and mussels. They are being tested
    now, and what the Governor has asked us to do is to make sure
    to have those tests, those testings done, the results of that
    testing done, and then to work between our Office of Emergency
    Health Hazard Assessment, and our Department of Public Health,
    and the Department of Fish and Game, have those assessments
    done by December 1st, so we can, again, hopefully, there is no
    public health hazard, there has not been one, not been one at
    all identified up to this point in time, and we hope that that
    continues to be the case, and we can get these seasons open
    quickly.
        Mr. McNerney. Other than volunteers that are getting
    themselves out there without preparation.
        Mr. Chrisman. That's right.
        Mr. McNerney. A member of your office was on board when the
    146 gallon estimate was given.
        Mr. Chrisman. Yes.
        Mr. McNerney. Does he or she agree with that, and if not,
    why didn't they make that information available?
        Mr. Chrisman. You know, Congressman, I don't know the
    answer to that. That, again, we are going to have to get to the
    bottom of that, in terms of our assessment.
        The person was on board, again, as you indicated and you
    heard in the testimony, quite a period of time between the time
    that that initial 140 gallons, I think it was 140 barrels, 140
    whatever it was, was released, and then the final assessment of
    the total amount given the assessment that had to get done.
        So, I'm not sure that that person on board could at that
    point in time have been able to assess the total gallons that
    actually were leaked. But, those are those things----
        Mr. McNerney. I mean, if you look overboard and you----
        Mr. Chrisman. --that we are really going to take a look at.
        Mr. McNerney. --see a trail miles long, it's, obviously,
    more than 140 gallons.
        Mr. Chrisman. Well, again, as I said in my testimony, we
    had our people at the Incident Command, at the Coast Guard
    Center, and within 30 minutes our people were actually
    responding to the event, and were beginning to assess what was
    going on, and were beginning to deploy----
        Mr. McNerney. Well, this gets back to the resource
    question.
        Mr. Chrisman. Exactly.
        Mr. McNerney. The people need training that are going to be
    taking those positions.
        Mr. Chrisman. That's right.
        Mr. McNerney. With that, I'll yield back.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. McNerney.
        Ms. Lee?
        All right, Mr. Miller.
        Mr. Miller of California. Admiral Bone, you suggested that
    20 percent, this is really good, and I don't mean you passed
    judgment or value on that, but as oil spills go.
        Admiral Bone. As oil spills go, 20 percent is considered
    good. Between 5 and 20 is what you see in oil spills, and I can
    tell you that----
        Mr. Miller of California. I think if most Members of
    Congress knew that we would probably recalibrate what we think
    the margin of prevention should be, because if you told your
    constituents 80 percent of the oil is going to just be out
    there in the environment.
        Admiral Bone. Congressman, just again, just as you heard
    Bill mention, within an hour it spanned four square miles, and
    then it moves with the tide, and it's like being in a washing
    machine here, it goes in, and it comes out.
        Even if you had everything right there, I'm just--oil
    moves.
        Mr. Miller of California. But, that goes to the question,
    we have a plan of disbursal of assets to clean up the oil that
    may not comport with the threat that exists today.
        Admiral Bone. Exactly.
        Mr. Miller of California. Because those decisions were made
    in 1990 and in those early years, and even earlier, after the
    Oregon and the Arizona ran into one another, and we haven't
    repositioned, apparently, we've run some exercises, but I don't
    know if that's changed or not, and I'll leave that open for the
    record.
        But, if you look at the NOAA charts here, in hour one you
    had a fair shot at doing something with the concentration, and
    hour two you had a fair shot of doing something with the
    concentration, and probably even in hour six, given that there
    was calm seas, that there were calm seas. But, when the tide
    changed, the game was all over, in terms of picking up any
    volume of oil.
        Admiral Bone. I'd say, sir, within the first ten hours is
    really all you are going to have to get the volume of oil,
    because once it went to darkness you can't see oil in the
    water.
        Mr. Miller of California. No, I understand.
        Admiral Bone. So, you really only had ten hours to get what
    you are going to get.
        Mr. Miller of California. But again, I think this raises
    the question, if the threshold now is that in San Francisco Bay
    we have an oil spill that we can expect under today's
    conditions, and technology, and what we are doing with it, that
    about 80 percent will probably remain in the environment.
        Admiral Bone. Yes.
        Mr. Miller of California. You get some--I mean, even
    evaporated.
        Admiral Bone. Yes, sir. I think, again, I think you are
    right----
        Mr. Miller of California. That's just not going to work.
    That's just not going to work.
        Admiral Bone. --well, I know, but what I tell you is, and
    although I didn't even put it on here, the capacity, the
    maximum capacity required by law for a tanker is somewhere
    around 23,500 barrels per day capacity. I'm just talking about
    skimming capacity.
        So, if we said this was your largest tank ship that came in
    to here, they exceeded that almost three-fold in the actual
    response.
        What I was trying to tell Members was that, what they went
    out with was everything they had, very quickly, they brought
    more on, they were sending stuff up from Los Angeles area
    immediately on this spill, even though it was only reported
    what was reported.
        And, I was trying to explain to folks, they were responding
    to the worst case or a large case event, not to the most
    probable, all the things that are in the planning functions.
        I actually think that the performance by the contractor in
    this case far exceeded what our standard was, and that's why
    when people said we aren't driving them hard enough, you had a
    Government Federal on-scene coordinator, along with a State on-
    scene coordinator, and if they weren't doing their job, we
    would take it over and we would direct the operation.
        Mr. Miller of California. But, again, looking at the NOAA
    data, Dr. Conner, you are welcome to join in here, but when I
    was at the Exxon Valdez, you know, we were skimming for months.
    We were just engaged in public relations, that game was over,
    you know, within a day or so, given the body of water there.
        And, the same thing is going on here, we can keep talking
    about how many skimmers we were applying after hour six, seven
    and eight, that's interesting, but they are not picking up
    much.
        Admiral Bone. Right.
        Mr. Miller of California. But, they look good out there.
        Admiral Bone. Well, they are getting, they are doing what
    they can to keep the rest of the water, I mean----
        Mr. Miller of California. Yes, I understand.
        Admiral Bone. Yes, sir, there was another 8,000, if you
    look at it, I mean, there was, in fact, the first day there was
    8,000, the fact that you had another 8,000 that didn't get into
    the wildlife areas, didn't, you know, injure more birds and
    mammals, I think was still worthwhile pursuing.
        Mr. Miller of California. I'd just like to raise one other
    point, and I'm sorry to use your time.
        Admiral Bone. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Miller of California. Mr. Lantos made a very specific
    point, we've known for many, many years where the Bay Bridge
    is. We have another hazard sitting there in the Bay rocks, and
    everybody knows where they are.
        Admiral Bone. Yes.
        Mr. Miller of California. But, they could rip the bottom
    out of any one of these ships at any given time, given the
    deviation that took place here in margins of safety, you are
    talking about 2,000 feet. I just want to raise that, because we
    don't have time to go into it.
        My colleagues have questions.
        Admiral Bone. I wouldn't argue that.
        Mr. Miller of California. Thank you.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Miller.
        Let me just ask you this one last thing, and then we'll
    yield to the Speaker.
        And, this is something that has concerned me and you know
    this. You know, in the recent reorganization of the Coast
    Guard, the Service established sectors, is that right?
        Admiral Bone. Yes.
        Mr. Cummings. Which merged entities previously known as
    groups that were primarily responsible for Search and Rescue
    and Marine Safety Offices, which were primarily responsible for
    vessel inspection and compliance, environmental protection, and
    response to environmental situations. Marine Safety Offices
    included a Port Operations Department that specialized in
    pollution response.
        This specialty no longer exists as a specialty within the
    newly created sectors.
        I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I think post 9/
    11 what we did was, we stretched the responsibilities of the
    Coast Guard, and I'm wondering do you believe that we now--and
    while we stretched the responsibilities we didn't necessarily
    bring along the expertise, didn't necessarily bring along the
    finances that were necessary to take on all those
    responsibilities.
        Do you think the Coast Guard has what it needs to do this
    kind of work?
        Admiral Bone. Let me first answer your question, I mean,
    respond to your statement about we no longer have the
    expertise. The reality is, we do have the expertise, we
    demonstrated it. We brought together people that did search and
    rescue, along with people who do oil spill response,
    collectively.
        Just like this case, you have a safety incident, at the
    same time you have a pollution incident. The pollution
    responder had seven years experience that came on scene. The
    marine inspector who went on scene to assess the damage had 17
    years marine safety experience. The petty officers that were
    assisting had three years experience, another one seven years
    experience in marine safety. We have the expertise, sir.
        And, in fact, you know, post 9/11 the assets that Congress
    gave us, the MSST boats, that's how we got, we had two MSST
    boats, one of them actually brought the marine inspectors and
    the investigation team over. The other one went and immediately
    started looking at, where's the oil, to help find out. We
    didn't have those before.
        I used--I'm a marine safety guy, I'm a prevention guy, and
    I do response. The reality is, years ago when it was a group
    and an MSO, if I called up and I said, I need a boat to go do
    an oil spill response, they'd say, wait a minute, this is a SAR
    boat. We don't do that.
        In today's environment, it's all under one head. You still
    have pollution response, and you have search and rescue,
    collectively. What you've done is, you've given synergy, this
    Congress has provided us more resources to actually make sure
    that we can go and respond to all threats, all hazards.
        The issue of marine safety that you are actually talking
    about is a capacity issue. What we did was, during this time
    frame, of this build up of security, we received more assets
    for the security portion of that job.
        At the same time, the industry grew almost 100 percent, the
    marine industry, and what we didn't do was keep pace with the
    resource base so that we could provide the services that the
    marine industry had come to expect, meaning within the time
    frames and within the level that they expect.
        The expertise, I'll just give another example.
        Mr. Cummings. Okay, I got that, we are running out of time.
        Admiral Bone. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Cummings. I guess I--you've been excellent in
    explaining to me all of the wonderful, the expertise we have.
    Then, what do we need to do? Just tell us that.
        Admiral Bone. You need, just exactly what the Commandant
    has provided you sir, we need the additional resources in
    marine safety, not that we don't have technical capacity, we
    need the additional resources within that so we can grow it to
    provide the services commensurate with the growth in the marine
    industry, especially, following Katrina, where the towing
    industry and the growth that the Gulf has seen is huge.
        The Port of Los Angeles Long Beach has almost doubled, but
    we haven't provided the number of marine inspectors, the number
    of marine investigators, to actually carry out that function
    with the service delivery that actually industry needs for
    efficient and safe operation.
        Mr. Cummings. So, in the meantime, we have a problem then.
        Admiral Bone. Well, what we have is an industry that's
    unhappy because they are not--they are getting delays. We
    aren't going to let the ship in until it's safe, but now we are
    telling them, wait offshore until we can get someone there.
        Mr. Cummings. Right. You are going to be on for the next
    panel.
        Admiral Bone. Sure.
        Mr. Cummings. Madam Speaker.
        Speaker Pelosi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had not intended
    to speak again, just to take in the established facts that you
    are allowing us to do today, but I can't resist having heard
    the presentation of this panel. First I want to thank them for
    their presentation, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving
    us this opportunity to establish the fact, to recognize the
    needs, to see how this happened and how it can never happen
    again.
        At the opening of our hearing, the Mayor put forth some
    questions on the table that I had hoped would be asked by this
    panel. It's about time, time makes a difference in the
    response, as the Chairman, Chairman of his Education and Labor
    Committee, our distinguished Chairman, showed you, the time
    made all the difference in the world in the response.
        I still haven't heard anything from this panel that
    responds to the challenges put forth, or the questions put
    forth, by the Mayor of San Francisco and, therefore, the people
    of San Francisco.
        I'm very pleased that the official family, Aran Peskin was
    here earlier, so many members of the official family are here,
    speaking eloquently to the concerns that we have, because it
    happened right here. But, it spread to all of the districts
    that you see here, and again, this is a national resource.
        Admiral Bone, you know the respect that I have for the
    Coast Guard, we've been together on a number of occasions here
    in the Bay area, and I take great pride in commissioning the
    Pike and display that memorabilia in my office with great
    pride. And so, I am more willing to give the Coast Guard the
    benefit of every doubt in this.
        When the Commandant, Admiral Allen, called my office on
    Friday, a couple days after the spill, and told me that he was
    doing an investigation of how this happened, I said, Admiral,
    with all due respect, your credibility is greatly diminished in
    this, you cannot do a credible investigation of yourself, when
    so many of the questions that are arising from this are why
    didn't the people of this Bay area know, when that spill
    presented a health hazard to people who work there, recreate
    there, and the rest.
        So, I told him at the time that we would be calling for an
    independent investigation, and the NTSB, we've heard from Ms.
    Hersman, what I'm discouraged about, though, is that it will
    take a year, as Mr. Lantos indicated. that's just too long.
    It's just too long, especially, since this could happen again
    and nobody knows why anybody didn't call somebody and say this
    happened. It's ridiculous.
        So, I want you to know that in addition to what we are
    hearing here, I will be asking the Homeland Security Committee,
    which has jurisdiction in this matter as well, in the
    Appropriations Bill, Mr. Chairman, you and I have discussed
    this, to call for an Inspector General's investigation of how
    this happened as well.
        One way or another, sooner or later, and, hopefully,
    sooner, we will get to the bottom of this.
        Again, these Members up here have made this Bay a priority
    and their life's work, and their political careers as well.
        One of our former associates, Speaker Leo McCarthy, was
    instrumental when he was Speaker, he made this plan possible
    for the Bay, that we would protect it, and it just seemed to
    have--accidents do happen, we want to know why it was
    preventable, but the fact that all that time could go by, all
    that opportunity lost, is something that I don't understand,
    having listened for days and weeks now, and I think our--the
    people we represent deserve better answers than we are
    receiving.
        Again, I say that, as you know, with a special fondness for
    the Coast Guard, so it makes me sad. I was glad that Admiral
    Allen came out last week, a week ago, many of us who are
    gathered here walked the shore with him, to take a measure of
    what had happened in that week. We can do that every Monday,
    but the fact is, we need the answers, and we need them very,
    very soon.
        And so, before this panel was adjourned, I wanted you to
    know that with all due respect for all that you did present,
    this time gap is something that has had an impact, and we have
    to know why.
        Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you again for the attention
    you have paid to this, as soon as you knew what the gravity of
    the situation was, and I wish you had known that sooner. But,
    we didn't have that available to us.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and I
    think you can summarize what the Speaker just said by saying we
    can do better, we can do much better. The people of this great
    State and our country deserve it.
        We'll move on to our next panel, but thank you all very
    much for being with us. Admiral Bone, you can sit right where
    you are.
        Mr. Cummings. We'll now call up the next panel, panel
    three, Mr. David Lewis, the Executive Director of Save the Bay,
    Mr. Zeke Grader, Executive Director of Pacific Coast Federation
    of Fisherman's Associations, Captain Thomas Hand, Bar Pilot,
    San Francisco Bar Pilots Association.
        As I said a little bit earlier, we would hope that you
    would try to stay within your five-minute time period, and let
    me just make a suggestion that you are very fortunate to have
    Admiral Bone sitting right next to you. So, if there are some
    issues that you want to raise, this is the perfect time to do
    it, okay?
        Mr. David Lewis

      TESTIMONY OF DAVID LEWIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SAVE THE BAY;
     ZEKE GRADER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PACIFIC COAST FEDERATION OF
     FISHERMAN'S ASSOCIATIONS; CAPTAIN THOMAS HAND, BAR PILOT, SAN
                    FRANCISCO BAR PILOTS ASSOCIATION

        Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Madam Speaker, and
    Members of Congress.
        I am David Lewis. I'm the Executive Director of Save the
    Bay, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to add my brief
    testimony here. I hope my full statement can be made a part of
    the record.
        Mr. Cummings. So ordered.
        Mr. Lewis. Save the Bay, and our 10,000 members, as many of
    you know, have been working for almost 50 years to protect and
    restore San Francisco Bay, and we are just one of many
    organizations of volunteers and professionals who have worked
    in the last ten days or so to respond to this crisis.
        I have to acknowledge to you that our initial response was
    frustration, because of the outpouring of support from people
    who wanted to help, and not much opportunity to direct them
    usefully to do that. That quickly became anger, as we saw the
    extent of the spill, and I have to say as a Bay area native,
    and in my current capacity, that really my overwhelming emotion
    is embarrassment at the level of preparation and its clear
    inadequacies, for what Congressman Lantos underscored as a
    clearly foreseeable accident.
        I want to say that you are asking all of the right
    questions about this incident, and its cause, and its impact.
    The answers are really crucial for improving collision and oil
    spill prevention, and improving integrated planning for
    coordinated response between the State, Federal Government,
    local cities and counties, and volunteers, that over the long
    term can reduce the damage that future oil spills cause,
    because they are going to happen here in the Bay, and other
    parts of our marine environment, as long as we rely on oil.
        We do appreciate the heroic efforts the key agencies have
    made, including the Coast Guard, not just professional
    personnel, but also volunteers in the last ten days, but it's
    hard to conclude that the reaction and response was adequate.
    It was clearly too little, too late.
        Just commenting on some of the previous testimony, the
    issue of notification, and of publicity about the extent of the
    spill. The importance is really beyond, I think, the Coast
    Guard's official requirements in the plan, because it delayed
    the deployment of local resources, including volunteer
    resources. I think the plans need to account for that better in
    the future, but even in this incident, if we tell people we
    think this might be a worst case scenario, among the things
    that could be done would be the greater deployment of
    containment booms, not just around the actual ship and where
    the oil was spilling, but in these remote areas around the Bay
    where the tides, wind and currents are transporting this oil.
    There's no reason that we can't have plans that include every
    marina and local creek advocacy group to have these kinds of
    containment booms to prevent oil from getting into the more
    sensitive environments that are spread all around this Bay. So,
    I think that is definitely something worthy of your attention.
        Short term, as these clean-up efforts continue, I think
    it's very important that NOAA and the other State and Federal
    agencies have sufficient manpower and equipment, not just to
    work on the clean-up, but to do the damage assessment. They
    are, basically, collecting evidence that can be used against
    the responsible parties to make sure that we get all the
    restitution for the Bay and all the restoration resources that
    we should as a result of this.
        I think next and also important is the midterm planning.
    You know, we have the Environmental Protection Agency and other
    agencies that have experience with oil spills. When you leave,
    and the glare of the lights goes off, there's important work to
    be done in months two through six, and I've already encouraged
    the Resources Secretary, State Resources Secretary, to try to
    convene those agencies to look a little beyond the horizon and
    get that planning started.
        I'd rather focus my remaining time on how this is really a
    wake-up call, not just on the Bay's vulnerability to oil
    spills, but to the Bay's overall fragility and the urgent and
    overdue work that is needed to protect and restore this Bay.
    And, I have some specific suggestions in my testimony.
        It's really time to accelerate the restoration of tens of
    thousands of acres of shoreline habitat that's already in State
    and Federal ownership waiting to be restored to tidal marsh and
    related habitats. The Bay needs it, the scientists have told us
    the Bay needs it. The property, most of the property is already
    bought, but we need the resources to do that restoration work.
        Secondly, you have the largest urban wildlife refuge in the
    Nation, which Ms. Lofgren and her then boss, Don Edwards,
    helped to create years ago, and it's under funded. It's doubled
    or more in size in the last few years, and it doesn't have more
    resources just to protect and manage what is there, and it's a
    great resource for everybody in the Nation.
        We need to tighten restrictions on trash and other
    pollution that are getting into our Bay every day. Fifty-eight
    thousand gallons is a lot of bunker oil, but millions of
    gallons of untreated stormwater discharge are going into our
    Bay every day, and they are poisoning fish and wildlife and
    other marine habitat.
        And finally, we need to step up enforcement of Federal and
    State clean water laws and pollution laws, which, frankly, in
    the last decade have not gone enforced as tightly as they
    should have, against polluters, including sewage treatment
    plants, industrial facilities and other violators.
        I know that your jurisdiction is the Coast Guard, but with
    the Bay delegation Members of Congress here, I feel it's
    crucial to underscore those ongoing needs for the Bay.
        The Bay needs these actions to restore it to health, even
    more urgently after the devastating oil spill that we are
    suffering now, and the Bay area's quality of life and economy
    depend on a healthy and vibrant Bay, and we depend on your
    leadership to make that reality.
        So, if this Bay is a priority for all of you, as I know it
    is, those are some of the things we need to do in the coming
    year, and years, and we look forward to working with you to
    help to do that.
        Thanks for your support and concern, and for coming here
    today so quickly.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Lewis.
        Mr. Zeke Grader.
        Mr. Grader. Yes, thank you, Speaker Pelosi and Chairman
    Cummings and Members. I really appreciate the fact that you
    have responded promptly to this oil spill by coming out here,
    and also appreciate the fact that you are cutting into your
    Thanksgiving holidays to be here with us to understand what
    happened.
        My organization represents working men and women in our
    West Coast commercial fishing fleet, and as you know fishermen,
    or commercial fishermen in particular, are probably those most
    impacted economically when one of these events happens. They
    are affected immediately as we've seen with the closure on the
    crab fishery, and I should say this is largely a de facto
    closure that the fishermen have put in, not the State.
        I also want to point out too, because they are not fishing
    right now, I also want to point out too that there's long-term
    damage assessment with these type of spills. Fishermen, for
    example, in Prince William Sound, as a result of the Exxon
    Valdez, is still feeling the impacts there, particularly, to
    their herring fishery, and that was 18 years ago. So, this has
    both immediate impacts, as far as contaminating fish life, and
    making it unsuitable for consumption, but also has long-term
    impacts as far as the health and viability of these fish
    populations.
        I want to thank, particularly, this group that's sitting
    here, because our West Coast Delegation, as the Mayor said,
    from the standpoint of the fishing industry, we really
    appreciate you. This group here, along with Congressman Mike
    Thompson, did a real job in trying to keep our fishermen alive,
    because as you know we've suffered now for at least three years
    of bad salmon seasons, much of them caused by this current
    Administration in their administration of water, both in the
    climate basin, as well as the Bay Delta, and I really want to
    thank you for getting that assistance to these fishermen, and I
    know how difficult it was.
        Turning now to the next disaster we have faced on our
    hands, is this what's happened now with this oil spill in the
    Bay. Let me just discuss two aspects of it with you.
        First of all, the fisherman's involvement in oil spill
    containment and clean-up can second some recommendations.
    Following Exxon Valdez, the passage of OPA-90, and here in the
    State of California the passage of Lempert-Keene-Seastrand, the
    private companies, as well as some of the agencies, contacted
    the fishermen about being involved in oil spill clean-up, and
    after all this made a lot of sense, they had the type of boats
    that they represented almost like volunteer fire departments,
    of resources out there that could be called in to place when an
    oil spill happened.
        We did see extensive training of much of the fleet during
    the 1990s. However, towards the end of the 1990s we began
    seeing a fall off of that. The oil response companies, the
    private companies, told the fishermen, well, there's simply no
    more money. Nobody said to them at any point that their
    performance was unsatisfactory, but up until that time there
    had been training, including deployment of containment booms,
    there had been certification, they had participated in drills.
        We then brought that, and had brought that repeatedly, up
    when we were talking with the Coast Guard, with Cal Fish and
    Games, OSPR, which heads up California's oil spill response,
    and also with NOAA. In fact, we brought that specifically to
    NOAA's attention, and I know that at least three of their
    sanctuary people, when they had their big drill out here in
    2006, said why aren't you using the fishermen, particularly,
    since they were shut down at that time because of what happened
    with the climate. We got no satisfactory answer, absolutely
    nothing.
        So, in turn, when this hit, many of the people were in
    port, in fact, we had a large fleet sitting in port waiting to
    put their crab gear on, ready to go, no one was contacted, not
    by the Coast Guard, not by OSPR, not by the private contractor.
    On Thursday, the head of the Crab Boat Owners Association,
    which represents the local fishermen, contacted the Coast
    Guard. He was told, well, we don't need your help. If you want
    to help at all, you can volunteer to clean birds.
        Finally on Saturday, the Port of San Francisco took it upon
    themselves, with their existing funds, and contracted with 20
    fishermen. They were then put out in the water and worked until
    at least Tuesday, and they were effective out there. They put
    HAZWOPER people on board, and they were effective. Had they
    been called in within hours of the spill, we might have
    contained much more of this, but, basically, they were simply
    ignored.
        Also occurring at that time too is that we had asked for
    the closure on our fishery, the spill happened Wednesday, the
    following Wednesday we finally did get a response, and that was
    pretty anemic or lame, I would say, because only a very small
    part of the area was closed. Fortunately, most fishermen were
    refusing to go until we could get testing to make sure the crab
    are going to be safe, and we hope to have those tests in fairly
    soon.
        But, let me talk specifically about six recommendations we
    would have for you to take and consider. First of all, we need
    to have a provision, not just leaving it up to the private
    contractors, but mandate that we utilize local fishermen, this
    could also be charter fishing boat operators, the tugboat
    operators, and others, in our oil spill contingency plans. You
    can't leave that up to the volunteers, we have to tell them to
    do it.
        Second, I think within the Unified Command you have to make
    sure that the local agencies are part of it, not outside the
    door with a liaison running back and forth. I think we could
    have done lots better had groups such as the Port of San
    Francisco, the National Park Service, the Sanctuary, involved
    in that room, not shunted outside.
        Third, I think we have to do a better job of finding out
    how to utilize local knowledge, not just here, but everywhere.
    That was one of the important lessons that's come out of the
    oil spills in Alaska, particularly, the one that occurred in
    2006.
        Fourth, I think we need to have better oversight of these
    private clean-up companies. If we are, basically, going to
    establish what I would call private fire departments, then we
    better damn sure make sure that we have some public oversight,
    and we haven't seen that for the past six or seven years, at
    least not effective oversight.
        Fifth, we need to have funding, and Mr. Lewis has already
    mentioned that, to make sure that the long-term damage
    assessments get done, that once this subsides and all the
    cameras have gone away, that we not forget about it, because as
    we know in the case of Exxon Valdez, that impact is still
    there.
        And finally, I think, and, perhaps, this has been answered
    by Speaker Pelosi's suggestion, but we had thought that,
    perhaps, an independent commission, similar to what we had
    after Exxon Valdez, is needed, not because this is an oil spill
    of that magnitude, but simply we better be prepared when we do
    have an oil spill of that magnitude or some other worse event,
    and we certainly weren't prepared for this one.
        Finally, if I can, Mr. Chairman, I do want to commend two
    groups that we really thought really came through, when most
    every other agency botched it. One is the Port of San
    Francisco. They were absolutely magnificent in all this.
    Second, I want to point out, specifically, the Beach Watch
    Volunteers of the Gulf of Farallones. They weren't trained out
    of Seattle or Washington, this is a program they've had ongoing
    here for 25 years, and it existed primarily because of members
    of this panel right now who made sure that they had the funding
    to keep that going, and they really did a yeoman's job. And, I
    also want to commend members of my own fleet, who I thought did
    a great job in the little bit of oil spill clean-up that they
    got to do.
        Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Grader.
        Captain Thomas Hand.
        Captain Hand. I guess it's good afternoon, Madam Speaker,
    Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Committee.
        I am Captain Thomas Hand, a San Francisco Bar Pilot. Thank
    you for inviting a San Francisco Bar Pilot to speak today, at
    least I hope I can say that at the end of this session.
        I hold a U.S. Coast Guard Unlimited Master's License. I
    have been a professional mariner for 45 years, including 18
    years as a Panama Canal pilot, and 17 years as a San Francisco
    Bar Pilot.
        The San Francisco Bar Pilots have navigated vessels in San
    Francisco Bay and tributaries for over 155 years. We service an
    area that includes the entire San Francisco Bay, and the Ports
    of Stockton, Sacramento and Monterey Bay.
        The waters of the San Francisco, Monterey, San Pablos and
    Suisun Bays, from the Gulf of Farallones to the Sacramento
    Delta, include nine bridges, 11 ports, 200 miles of shipping
    lanes, and countless hidden dangers.
        It is the job of the San Francisco Bar Pilots to know every
    fathom and every nautical mile. By California law, every vessel
    in excess of 300 gross tons, moving within waters under the
    jurisdiction of the Board of Pilot Commissioners, is required
    to use the services of a San Francisco Bar Pilot.
        Last year, the San Francisco Bar Pilots handled
    approximately 10,000, I repeat that, 10,000 vessel transits.
    Since 1986, a comprehensive training program, lasting
    approximately two years, geared specifically to the exceptional
    demands of barrier waterways has been a condition to becoming a
    San Francisco Bar Pilot.
        After apprenticeship and licensing, every pilot continues
    professional training to stay current in all vital areas.
        An applicant for the training program must be, at minimum,
    hold a valid U.S. Coast Guard Master's License, with a radar
    endorsement. He or she must have at least two years command or
    piloting experience, and a Federal pilotage endorsement.
         As a State licensed San Francisco Bar Pilot, I am subject
    to the oversight, including disciplinary oversight, of the
    Board of Pilot Commissioners for the Bays of San Francisco, San
    Pablo, and Suisun.
        The Board selects among applicants for available pilot
    positions, establishes and administers the training
    requirements, both initial and continuing, for the pilots,
    issues licenses, oversees the operation of the Bar Pilots,
    investigates incidents on the vessels piloted by Bar Pilots,
    and takes remedial and punitive action against pilots when
    appropriate.
        This is a thorough, comprehensive and active regulatory
    system.
        The pilots take their professional responsibilities to
    vessel owners they serve and the communities in which they work
    very seriously. We are proud of our long history of safe
    navigation.
        Up to last week, the last major accident on the Bay was
    when two tankers collided near the Golden Gate Bridge in 1971.
    Neither vessel in that incident had a San Francisco Bar Pilot.
        I am here to answer your questions about pilots, piloting
    and the pilotage system in San Francisco Bay and its
    tributaries.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you, thank you all very, very much.
        I think what I want to do is go straight to Ms. Lee, and
    I'll defer my questions until after my other colleagues have
    asked theirs.
        Ms. Lee.
        Ms. Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank
    you and our Speaker for your leadership and for these field
    hearings today. This is a very important moment for the entire
    Bay area, the State, and our country.
        As you know, the vessel actually departed from the Port of
    Oakland, which is located in my congressional district, and I
    wanted to mention that the Port of Oakland has gone on record
    to declare a local emergency in the port area of Oakland and is
    proceeding expeditiously with response activities.
        Also, on Saturday I had the opportunity to be with many of
    the volunteers in Berkeley, and I must say, and I want to join
    with all of my colleagues in commending the volunteers, because
    in spite of their outrage at what had happened they were moving
    forward with the clean-up under very treacherous circumstances.
    And so, I just want to also commend and thank the volunteers
    for this.
        Mr. Lewis, let me first of all thank Save the Bay and all
    of our environmental organizations. Save the Bay, of course, is
    again located in my congressional district in Oakland, and want
    to just say that the volunteers, as you see this, and as you
    mentioned, were in many ways, and again, Congresswoman Lofgren
    said that it doesn't surprise any of us that we had many, many
    people willing to volunteer, because of the treasure that we
    all have attempted to preserve over the years with regard to
    the Bay. But, I know, because I heard this over and over again,
    that there were many offers of assistance, but many of these
    offers were refused.
        And, I want to get, from your perspective, Mr. Lewis, what
    exactly occurred from Save the Bay's point of view that
    prevented volunteers from moving forward? Was it only training?
    Was it lack of communication? Was it delay time? Or, what were
    the reasons?
        Mr. Lewis. I think in the middle of a crisis is a bad time
    to try to put together a plan, and sometimes that's necessary.
    So, I've seen the stacks of binders, loose-leaf binders, and
    plans from the State, and Federal agencies, it's pretty clear
    that they did not anticipate using, not just volunteers who
    hadn't been trained for technical skills, but the enormous
    number of personnel here in the Bay area from cities and
    counties who have appropriate training to do this work.
        And, I received calls from San Francisco City officials
    over the weekend after the spill as frustrated, that they had
    trained personnel, firefighters, others with HAZMAT training,
    who could have been deployed, and I'm sure that's true for
    other cities and counties around the region.
        So again, instead of focusing on finger pointing, I think
    one big take away is that, and this is not true everywhere, you
    know, there are less populated areas of the Coast and open
    ocean where a spill like this couldn't benefit from that, but
    we have 7 million people here, nine counties, over 100 cities,
    and that's a lot of trained personnel.
        So moving forward, obviously, you have to have Incident
    Command and key agencies at the center of a response, but the
    next concentric circle should include the cities and counties
    that have these resources, and then a third circle of
    volunteers, maybe some of them have training and are already at
    the ready or on call, others who can be trained on short notice
    to do important work.
        Ms. Lee. Thank you very much.
        And, my second question is, in terms of just our entire
    ecosystem, and the wildlife, do you think we need to take our
    ecosystem in better consideration as we develop future plans,
    or do you believe they are, primarily, the mechanisms now are
    in place for the actions and for the protection of the
    ecosystem?
        Mr. Lewis. I think there needs to be better emphasis on
    preventing these kinds of accidents, but an awareness that
    accidents are going to happen, and that the next one will not
    be the one that we've prepared for the last time.
        What that means is that, this ecosystem, which is so
    important to the State and the Nation, and, really, of
    international significance, is so stressed because we've
    treated it poorly for a very long time. And so, an incident
    like this, which is a small spill, a devastating spill, but a
    small spill, has more of an impact on the ecosystem because
    it's so stressed, because it's so fragile.
        The fisheries, the wetlands, the birds, some of these are
    endangered species, some of them are just threatened species,
    all of them are at risk. So, yes, we need more of a commitment
    to strengthen the ecosystem at the same time that we try to
    prevent accidents like this from occurring in the future.
        Ms. Lee. Okay, thank you very much.
        And, Mr. Chairman, I hope, as we move forward, some of the
    recommendations which Mr. Lewis mentioned earlier will be a
    priority on the list of recommendations that the Committee
    comes forward with, because I think it's very important that
    the funding be there, and all of the other issues that Save the
    Bay and other environmental organizations have presented, be
    part of the record.
        Mr. Cummings. Yes. I can tell you, we are very fortunate to
    have the Speaker right here, and she has a lot of passion with
    regard to this issue. So, enough said.
        Ms. Woolsey.
        Ms. Woolsey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
    you, Madam Speaker, for today's hearing, and thank you, Zeke
    Grader, for being here.
        It might be apparent to everybody, we each got to pick our
    own person to talk to, and ask questions of, and, Zeke, I'm not
    going to call you Mr. Grader because nobody knows Mr. Grader,
    we all know Zeke Grader, I picked you, because I wanted to,
    before I asked you questions, I wanted to acknowledge once
    again how important the role of the fishing industry, your
    fishing fleet, and the fisheries are in proving your
    stewardship about our waterways, and how important your voice
    is, and has been, and continues to be, and following a very
    poor, well, salmon seasons, and now a threatened crab season,
    how it is so clear that the safety of the consumers, the value
    of our fisheries and our fish, are so much more valuable than
    threatening it with any kind of fishing that wouldn't be
    appropriate.
        I just appreciate you, and I want all of us to appreciate
    you, because you make such a difference.
        Now, speaking of experienced volunteers, your fishing fleet
    couldn't be more experienced, trained, ready, and you told us
    the hard time you had getting out there. So, would you tell us
    now, on top of that, lay out for us the resources that
    fishermen can bring quickly to a spill, when you are invited
    in.
        Mr. Grader. Thank you, Ms. Woolsey.
        As I mentioned, here in the Bay we had, because of the
    beginning of the crab season, we had had probably a couple
    hundred, maybe a hundred anyway, I should say 200 to 300 in
    this immediate area, within the Gulf of the Farallones, fishing
    vessels that were getting ready to go crab fishing. These boats
    could have all been utilized.
        Many of these boats are small, they can get into areas
    where some of the larger container vessels and clean-up vessels
    cannot, so they are important. They can get out and span out on
    the Bay, or in the case of the ocean, both I know the Half Moon
    Bay Association had attempted to participate in some of the
    ocean clean-up here, the Bodega Bay fishermen, both cases we
    have both large and small vessels that are capable of getting
    out and really, at least augmenting this oil spill so we could
    clean it up quicker and clean up more of it, I think, and it's
    just a shame not to be able to utilize these vessels the same
    way it was a shame we didn't better utilize the volunteers we
    have here around the Bay area in helping do the beach clean-ups
    and help with the wildlife.
        So, I mean, it's there, and we could not, did not know why,
    you know, they canceled these contracts in the '90s, after
    people had been trained, nor why the agencies, and I say at
    least two of the agencies, three of the agencies, actually,
    two, both NOAA, and the Coast Guard, and Cal Fish and Game, did
    not act to try and make sure that those vessels were at the
    ready, nor did the private responder.
        Ms. Woolsey. So, would you have the absorbant booms with, I
    mean, how would you get your fleet, get a hold of those booms,
    to do the work?
        Mr. Grader. What had happened in the past is, we had the
    equipment, booms, other clean-up materials, placed in strategic
    locations around the Bay or along the coast, where they could
    go to get them. It's sort of like, you know, again, a volunteer
    fire department. First you put out the call to bring all the
    firemen there, then they go to the fire house, they get their
    gear, they get their trucks, whatever, and go out. It's the
    same sort of concept here. It's not really new, we've been
    doing it for about 200 years in this country, and we could have
    been doing the same thing here, utilizing, better utilizing
    them, and they simply chose not to.
        I don't know if it was complacency or the fact that these
    agencies had other things that they felt were more pressing,
    but, you know, like I said, we have taken a relatively minor
    spill and turned it into a major mishap.
        Ms. Woolsey. And, are there appropriate containment booms
    for different areas of the Bay, based on tide and winds, that
    we should have in place?
        Mr. Grader. I think this would be part of an overall
    oversight of this. I think we need to have oversight of what
    our capabilities are. I think that's long overdue, and that's
    the reason I think an independent look at all of this, whether
    it be the IG's recommendation or an independent commission like
    we had after Exxon Valdez, you know, either one, just so we get
    the job done, because we really do need to have the oversight
    and determine what it is we need and have it in place.
        Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, and, Mr. Chairman, this is the
    voice of a non-bureaucrat, who is an experienced and trained
    volunteer.
        Mr. Cummings. Believe me, I can feel his passion up here, I
    really--and I really mean that, and I want to thank you, I feel
    all of your passions.
        Ms. Richardson.
        Ms. Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        First of all, I'd like to applaud Speaker Pelosi for her
    leadership on this issue. Although this is in her own backyard,
    we would be really doing a disservice to all Americans to not
    realize that this 110th Congress has had priorities set before
    it, and one of them absolutely has to do with the environment
    and our responses, and our responsibility, as Members of
    Congress.
        So, Speaker Pelosi, Members of the Northern California
    Delegation, and Chairman Cummings, thank you for bringing us
    forward so quickly.
        Before I go into my very brief questions, I just wanted to
    say as a recap of some of the comments, particularly, Admiral
    Bone, that I'm concerned with, that I heard you discuss. You
    said of our Coast Guard, there are people who serve the public,
    you didn't believe information was withheld intentionally, that
    reasonable actions were taken, national standards exist, and we
    didn't anticipate volunteers.
        Let me say, first of all, just because we serve the public
    doesn't mean we are immune to not responding appropriately.
    When we talk about responsible actions, this was an incident
    that required extraordinary actions. So, reasonable is not
    acceptable, when we have tragedies we need people to go to the
    next level.
        And, when you speak about national standards, we have to,
    as regions, adjust, just because we have national standards
    doesn't mean that they are appropriate.
        In my area, 45 percent of the Nation's cargo goes through
    my area. So, if my area is only basing itself on national
    standards of other areas that may be only take up 5 percent,
    it's not going to be adequate.
        So, let me go to my questions, which are for Captain Hand
    that we have with us.
        Is it standard for a pilot to continue if radar is deemed
    inoperable?
        Captain Hand. I would think it would depend on where the
    vessel is at the time that you have to make that decision.
        Ms. Richardson. Well, according to the National
    Transportation Safety Board, the pilot said he had concerns
    about the radar on the ship. According to one report, it conked
    out twice, once before departure from the port, and once after
    the vessel was underway.
        So, my question is, in that instance would it be standard
    for a pilot to continue?
        Captain Hand. In all due respect, not having been in that
    situation, I can deal with the hypothetical, obviously, if I
    was in a position myself, and I boarded a ship, and the
    equipment that I was counting on to get from A to B is not
    functioning properly, then I would not go.
        In fact, I think if one of your radars does go out, it's
    supposed to be reported to the Coast Guard.
        But, as I say, I wasn't in this, I don't know all the
    details. It could have been that the radar just wasn't tuned
    properly, I mean, I don't know the details.
        Ms. Richardson. My second question is, are pilots required
    to be familiar with electronic chart systems?
        Captain Hand. We are trained in electronic chart systems.
    We are constantly, we are constantly being trained, and now
    more and more pilots are beginning to use their own laptops,
    but they are not recognized by the IMO, I mean, so the ships
    that have the electronic charts, yes.
        You have to understand that pilots go on many different
    types of ships, face many different types of equipment, and so
    there's an educational process, and the more experience you
    have, the more you learn.
        Ms. Richardson. Well, in this case, I believe the pilot had
    experience of 26 years in this particular area, and stated that
    he was not familiar with the electronic charts.
        My third question is, is it possible for radar and
    electronic equipment to work intermittently, meaning, be on, be
    off, going back and forth?
        Captain Hand. It is possible.
        Ms. Richardson. Okay. My final question is, the records
    indicate that the pilot had been involved in four ship handling
    incidences in the past 14 years, and had been reprimanded the
    last year for errors in judgment for running a ship aground.
        Should an individual with these types of instances, the
    history and their background, have been piloting this type of
    vessel? And, if so, what steps does your organization take to
    ensure that your pilots are able to better perform their duty?
        Captain Hand. As to whether he should be piloting, that's
    in the hands of the State Board. We, as a group, do not control
    that. I mean, it's the State Board of Pilot Commissioners, and,
    obviously, whatever rulings they made it was in their decision
    to allow him to continue piloting.
        So, I don't know how else to answer that, and I don't know,
    quite honestly, all the details of those incidents.
        Ms. Richardson. Well, according to an L.A. Times article
    that was stated, the Board of Commissioners, Board of Pilot
    Commissioners, Captain Patrick Maloney, had stated that this
    particular pilot was slightly below the average of the 61
    Master Mariners in this particular area.
        So, are there any other suggestions you could give us as
    your association of how we could ensure these pilots can
    respond?
        Captain Hand. Again, with all due respect, I think that
    question should be posed of Captain Maloney, and to me, I don't
    believe everything that I read in the newspapers.
        Ms. Richardson. You sound like a politician.
        As I close here, I just want to say that this has done
    tremendous damage, not only to the residents, to the
    environment, to the businesses, and industries, but what I want
    to stress is that although we are here in the Bay area, and
    this happened in the Bay area, this is, unfortunately, a
    perfect example of the fact that this Nation still fails to be
    properly prepared to respond to a disaster, and that's alarming
    to all of us.
        Thank you very much.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
        Mr. Lewis, let me just ask you, you had in your prepared
    remarks you said the Coast Guard's preparation and performance
    before, and during, and after this accident, you said that
    there were shortcomings. Do you recall that?
        Mr. Lewis. Yes.
        Mr. Cummings. And, what did you deem those shortcomings to
    be?
        Mr. Lewis. Well, I think that the investigations will
    reveal that in full, but at minimum there are shortcomings in
    planning. I am in no position to fault the execution of
    particular individuals in the Coast Guard, I have a deep
    respect for the Uniformed Services, and, actually, worked in
    the United States Senate on Armed Services issues for many
    years. So, I think that's why you do investigations, and that's
    why you take an independent look at what happened, so we can
    see if there were actually failures of execution.
        But, I think at minimum what we've seen is that there needs
    to be more and better planning, and at the Coast Guard level,
    again, at minimum, that would include a broader approach to
    Incident Command that includes other capabilities, resources,
    and agencies, at an appropriate level.
        Mr. Cummings. Admiral Bone, I just keep going back to this
    time period, you know, the 140 gallons, and then the 58,000
    gallons, and I've got to tell you, it's troubling. I mean, I've
    listened to all the testimony, and the only thing I guess I can
    conclude is that we--and then when I heard the testimony with
    regard to the average amount of oil recovered it seems to me
    that we may have low expectations here.
        And, I think that we deserve better than that. I think that
    we, as Americans, deserve better, and you've heard me in
    talking to the Admiral about the Coast Guard, I just think that
    we need to raise our standards a little bit higher. I think it
    was Mr. Miller, Congressman Miller, that was going into that
    line of questioning.
        You know, and then I listen to Mr. Grader and talking about
    the fishing industry, and how, and I could feel your passion, I
    could feel it, I don't even know you, but, I mean, seriously, I
    could feel that you felt the pain, and not just for your
    fishermen, but for the environment.
        And, as I was listening to both of you, I couldn't help but
    think about something that in Florida, in Disney, I guess it's
    Disney World, in Florida, when I took my daughter there last
    summer, it had, over the Animal Kingdom it has this statement,
    it says, ``We did not inherit our environment from our
    foreparents, we borrowed it from our children.''
        And so, you know, I just--I'm wondering whether we are
    having these low standards, and as a result of that low
    standards, and being caught up in an atmosphere of mediocrity,
    that's what I feel, those are my words, Admiral, whether we
    then let our children down.
        You know, it just seems to me that we can do better. This
    is the United States of America, this is--I mean, this is a
    country that sends people to the moon, and it seems as if we
    would be able to figure out something between 140 and 58,000. I
    mean, if you told me 588,000 I wouldn't feel so bad, but
    58,000, with a 200 foot gash in a boat, in a ship, I mean, it
    just--but I'm hoping that as we go along, and, Ms. Hersman, I'm
    glad you are still here, I'm hoping that as the NTSB goes
    through its investigation that you will bring to it the
    feeling, the urgency of all these Members up here, because
    their passion is strong too. I mean, they want this thing
    resolved.
        And, as Ms. Richardson said, this is not just about San
    Francisco. I mean, this kind of thing can happen in the
    Chesapeake Bay, where I live, and so--and it can happen all
    over this country. So, that would, I just hope that we can do
    better.
        Did you want to say something, Admiral?
        Admiral Bone. Yes, sir, I know we can do better, and I
    think we are already doing better. I think the Mayor brought up
    one of the most important points, and that was the
    inclusiveness of the City, not just in the planning, but in the
    exercises.
        I think the reality in today's environment, in a post 9/11,
    is that we have to--these plans were written around just oil
    spill response, and in today's environment we have to really
    look at all threats, all hazards.
        We have, as he said, a state-of-the-art command and control
    and information network that was put together around emergent
    issues with security. We have to bring our planning processes
    together. We have to bring our command and control and Unified
    Command processes together, in order to do this better.
        One of the things that actually Congress has directed us is
    to put integrated command centers in place, so we've yet been
    able to accomplish that, but it would have linked this
    communication gap, we would have been together. We will be
    together without those centers, but it surely would have
    provided the State, the Federal, and the local collective eyes
    on scene when the information came in, and disperse out, for
    all threats, all hazards, for security.
        And, I'd offer that the Members here, and I've heard what
    they've said, I don't disagree at all that we could have used,
    and informed better, the people to boom their local areas. We
    can do that today. We can do that tomorrow, and we'll work
    towards that. We could have used emergency responders in the
    City of San Francisco, and I've committed to the Mayor to go
    forward and do that.
        I'm not going to wait until NTSB comes out to say this is
    what you need to do. We are going to do that. And, as far as
    the fishing boats, it was actually on day three when I came in
    and I turned to the Unified Command and I said, are we using
    the fishing vessels? We need to find a way to use these other
    vessels in order to increase our capacity and capability.
        And, they moved forward and the City actually stepped up
    and said, we will coordinate that, and we'll lead that. And,
    the liaison effort, exactly, in the post 9/11 environment we
    have to have better coordination, better use of volunteers and
    people, and not just what I'll call non-governmental entities,
    we've done all this planning with government entities, with
    industry. Industry brings a tremendous amount of capacity. We
    learned that after 9/11. Who do you think restored, and the
    whole business continuity issue, we have a lot--we can do
    better, and we are going to do better, and we will do better,
    and the Commandant, as you know, as you Members know, has
    committed to an ISPR process, which is an incidence
    preparedness review for this spill, which will look at those
    readiness issues, will look at the planning process issues, and
    will look at our response.
        And, I can tell you that he's not--he put 90 days on this,
    he didn't put a year, he said 90 days I want a report, it's
    going to be made up of Federal, it's going to be made of State,
    local and industry representatives. We are not going to wait,
    we are going to move forward, sir, and I want to make sure all
    the Members here know, I'll be moving forward in deliberation
    and process to make sure that's done.
        Mr. Cummings. We are going to close down the hearing in a
    minute, but I want to, again, thank all of our witnesses for
    being here, and I want to thank--I'll tell you, one of the
    things that has moved me more than anything else is the fact
    that so many volunteers came forward. That says a lot. People
    that were willing to take their time, perhaps, risk their
    health, because they wanted to make something, an environment
    better for others. That says a lot. Nobody was paying them.
        And, it seems to me that if they can do that, we ought to
    be able to do our part, to make sure that we maintain a safe,
    and clean, and healthy environment.
        And, Madam Speaker, I want to thank you for your
    leadership. The urgency and the fact that you care so much
    about these issues, and long with all of our Members, I thank
    all of you. I've done a lot of hearings across the country, but
    never have I seen this kind of response from the local Members
    to come out and to give it everything they have, and I want to
    thank all of you. I truly do.
        And, to the people in this area, you have given us, in the
    Congress, the catalyst to do everything that we can to make
    sure that we leave a tremendously wonderful and better
    environment than the one we found when we were born, and we are
    going to work hard, and this is not the end.
        A number of the reporters have asked me a little bit
    earlier, where do we go from here. What we were hoping to do is
    shine some lights here, and I think we've shined some. I can't
    say that I've been satisfied with all the answers. I agree with
    the Speaker, there are some things that I'm still unsatisfied
    with, but we're going to get to the bottom of it.
        And, Madam Speaker, I want to thank you, too, for moving
    towards the IG investigation, because I think we need to shine
    as many lights as we possibly can, and we need to look under
    every single rock, and I think somebody said that they hoped
    that we would be around four or five years from now, so that
    when we look under those rocks we can see what was happening.
    Well, we plan to be there until this thing is completely
    resolved.
        And so, with that, Madam Speaker, I'll yield to you.
        Speaker Pelosi. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
         Once again, I want to commend you for your leadership
    immediately upon learning of this spill, and then the plans
    that you made to be here for this important hearing.
        I join you in saluting the volunteers, that's a reflection
    of the appreciation we have for San Francisco Bay, in terms of
    its vitality, of its commercial importance, of its recreational
    significance and its environmental just value that we place on
    it.
        I know I speak for all of my colleagues when I thank you
    for holding this hearing. You speak to their presence here, and
    I salute them as well. They are here because they are always
    here about the Bay, they, the word goes out and we are there.
        As I said, many of us were with the Commandant last week
    when we walked the beach, but we were all there when we
    dedicated the Don Edwards Refuge. Every piece of it is
    important. You remember that the, every piece of this is very,
    very important to us.
        And so, I am pleased especially, I know again my colleagues
    want us to give a special last welcome to Laura Richardson, a
    Member of Congress just for a few months, on this important
    Committee, and taking the time from coming from Southern
    California, a Member of this Subcommittee, to help Mr. Cummings
    when we go back to proceed with this.
        I look forward to the ongoing work of the Subcommittee.
    Congresswoman Lofgren sits on the Homeland Security Committee,
    and it is that Homeland Security Department which her Committee
    oversees that we are asking the IG of that department to launch
    an investigation.
        Something is missing in this picture. Time equaled clean-
    up, 20 percent may be satisfactory to you, Admiral, mediocre to
    the Chairman, but could it have been better, even in the
    interest of--even with the difference in those hours.
        So, recognizing the importance of it, I'm so impressed with
    the turnout that we have for this hearing as well, and the very
    serious interest that everyone has taken in it.
        I want to add to the comments of our colleagues in
    commending Zeke Grader, and Captain Hand, the Bar Pilots, Mr.
    Grader from the fishermen here, and Mr. Lewis from the Bay
    keepers, it is--your work, Save the Bay, excuse me, Save the
    Bay, your work is so important, and little did we know a month
    ago that we'd all be sitting here in a hearing of this kind
    without really the adequate answers for us to give those
    stakeholders and this magnificent resource that God has given
    us, the San Francisco Bay, and all that it flows out to.
        But, answers we will get, the sooner the better, and we
    simply could not treasure and value it without the work and
    leadership that all of you provide.
        So, thank you for that leadership.
        And again, Mr. Chairman, I want to give you a big San
    Francisco applause, for our Chairman.
        Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and with
    that we will adjourn this hearing.
        Thank you.
        [The Subcommittee was adjourned at 12:50 p.m.]

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