[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 90 (Wednesday, June 16, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H4584-H4590]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONGRESS MUST ACT TO DEFEND THE GULF
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bright). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for this hour. It's going to be
an interesting couple of weeks on this issue of this oil spill, because
we are going to get two conflicting points of view. I actually heard, I
believe, that somehow this oil spill is now George W. Bush's fault. It
reminds me of the game, the Kevin Bacon game that your job is no matter
what actor or movie you lay out before the public, you have got to
bring it back in seven cycles to Kevin Bacon. And it seems that
everything that goes on in the United States, that the majority party
seems to somehow think whatever goes on in the United States they can
somehow track it back to George W. Bush.
And what I heard was that Mr. Bush had used a drilling rig at some
point in his life, and therefore it's Bush's fault that there was a
failure, or something to that extent, a failure on this BP drilling
rig. It's time to really stop. It's getting a little old for the
American public, for them to hear constantly that no matter what goes
wrong in the Obama administration it's George W. Bush's fault. I think
this is getting a little old and getting a little bit, it seems to be
sort of a fantasy that seems to be prevailing.
We have got a great disaster in the gulf, and nobody's denying we
have a great disaster in the gulf. Today I heard a man who actually
knows something about drilling in the gulf. I haven't heard anyone
stand up that has talked on the majority side tonight and said, By the
way, I have drilled these, and let me tell you what has happened in the
gulf.
But Trent Franks came before us today and showed us what has happened
in the gulf--it is very interesting--and why the cap failed that they
first started, and why the wells that are being drilled to intersect
this well, the relief wells should be successful. And, you know, if you
want to know how you do something, you ought to talk to somebody that's
actually done it. And Trent, a Member of this body, has actually done
it.
So we will find out, whenever we get this spill stopped, we will find
out what happened in the gulf to cause this thing to blow out. And it
may be human error. It may be the company's error. It may be shortcuts
they took. It may be the inspector's error. It could be just about
anybody's error. We don't know.
Now, the truth is we don't have to know yet because the presumption
is overwhelming that it's BP's responsibility, and they admit it. It's
their responsibility. But blame-gaming is not going to stop the oil
from flowing into the gulf. Putting our resources together at every
level from every source is part of what you do when you have a national
emergency. I don't care whether that national emergency has the name
Katrina or Rita or Ike or any of the other names, or Carla or any of
the other names of hurricanes that have swept across our gulf and
attacked all Gulf States at some point in time, or it has the name--
what's the name of this well? I can't even remember anymore. Anyway,
just call it the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico that blew out. Blame
game's not solving the problem.
What's the problem? When it's the hurricane, the wind's blowing and
things are getting torn down, and we need to put our resources together
to help the people and the industries that are attacked by that
hurricane. Today we have animals, we have sea life, we have wildlife,
sea life, human life that is threatened by this BP oil spill.
[[Page H4585]]
And our first job, and the job not only of British Petroleum but of
those of us who have the responsibility of protecting this country,
which would be the President of the United States, the executive
department, this Congress, and everybody involved, should have
immediately poured massive, massive support into doing something about
this oil well and stopping this spill. And we should have done it
through the people who have the intelligence and the technology to tell
us just exactly what we are dealing with.
I wouldn't recommend you call a great white hunter in Africa to tell
him how to put down this oil spill. I wouldn't recommend that you call
a surgeon in Brooklyn, New York, and ask him to put down this oil
spill. And I wouldn't recommend you talk to a community organizer and
ask him how to put down this oil spill. I would recommend that you
immediately, when this happened, approach those people who have the
expertise to deal with this oil spill and do it. And quite honestly, I
think we have to say that the President of the United States told us
the buck stops with him, so he's the person who should have started
this ball rolling when this whole thing started coming down on us.
I have got a little chart up here, the gulf spill timeline. And we
are going to look at that for just a minute to see how well we did in
deciding that we were, as a government, going to join the oil and gas
industry in coming up with a solution to British Petroleum's disaster
that they had created in our blessed Gulf of Mexico. In fact, I think I
have the State with the largest amount of Gulf of Mexico coastline of
any State in this Union. And it would be close, Florida would be a
close second. And they may have more. I don't know. But certainly the
State of Texas has a lot. So let's look at this thing for just a
second.
April 20, 2010, and today is June 16. So looking back to April 20,
the explosion occurred. Eleven people were killed. Right there we knew
we had a problem. The first oil leak was officially recognized and
revealed by the administration in Washington on April 24. So 4 days
later, the administration acknowledged and revealed to us that there
was an oil leak.
On April 28, the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Salazar, traveled
down to the BP command center in Houston. April 29, the Homeland
Security Secretary Napolitano announced a spill of national
significance, and President Obama made his first public remarks about
the disaster. That's 9 days after it occurred. April 30, the President
deployed his senior administration officials to the gulf region and
makes a request for remarks about what's going on, and the Louisiana
National Guard was activated to assist. That's a start. That's a first
start.
The President visits the gulf on May 2. It looks like 13 days after
the event. Cabinet officers briefed the Members of Congress on May 4
about the seriousness of this event.
{time} 1900
May 11, Louisiana requests emergency permission from the Federal
Government to dredge barriers to construct berms. Now, when I was about
18 years old, I worked in south Louisiana, and the whole ecology and
economy of Louisiana is directly affected by what they call the
marshlands. There are literally thousands of people who make their
living because the marshlands in Louisiana thrive to be breeding
grounds and producing grounds for numerous amounts of seafood products.
And in fact, I would venture to say that there's not anybody who eats
seafood in the United States, and have done so for any length of time
at all in their life, has eaten seafood that was produced as a result
of the overall environment of the Louisiana coastal region, which is 99
percent marsh.
Now, marsh is different from the beach. The beach is bad. If you've
got a beautiful beach like they had at Pensacola, that gorgeous white
sand, or anywhere in Alabama or Mississippi or anywhere in Florida, tar
balls on the beach and this nasty sludge coming into the beach is going
to be icky and yucky and nasty. And if you get it all over your feet,
you have to clean it off with alcohol, and it can burn you and tear you
up.
But if that stuff comes into the marsh, it can kill and will kill
plant life, animal life, and ocean life.
So when the Governor of Louisiana, who was so unfairly criticized
here tonight by the opposition, when the Governor said, look, guys, at
least authorize some dredging to put some sand barriers between us,
between our marsh and that terrible spill that's headed our direction,
and yet it wasn't until the 27th of May that the Federal Government
granted Louisiana a partial permission to dredge sand up to build sort
of an island-like barrier so maybe that oil will hit the sand and not
come in where all the plants and the wildlife and the sea life lives
and thrives and functions.
But that was only 27 days too late, and the 28th of May, the
President went down on a second visit to the Gulf States, and this is
what he told us: The buck stops with me.
I agree with him. The buck stops with the President of the United
States, and now we are hearing people scream about a national disaster,
which it is, and the President of the United States' job was to lead,
and lead means go out and if you have to, roll up your sleeves and suck
oil out of the water. You certainly need to get people out there that
are taking it seriously enough to follow the instructions of the man on
the ground, Governor Jindal, who said it's not a solution, but it sure
would help if there's a barrier between us and that oil. And he
shouldn't have had to wait for the Federal Government to hem and haw
and say, well, we don't know what that sand island you're going to
build is going to do to the overall environment of south Louisiana.
What does it matter? The oil is going to come in there and wreck it. So
let's just dig up the sand. No, we had to wait.
On the 29th of May, British Petroleum did its top-kill plan to try to
stop the oil, and it failed. The 2nd of June, the Obama administration
finally approved Louisiana's plan to dredge and tells BP to pay $360
million for five new berms. The Justice Department announced a criminal
investigation into the explosion and the spill. Let's see, that's all
of May and 11 days in April when nothing of significance took place.
June 14, the Senate Democrats write BP calling on the company to set
up a $20 billion independent administrative escrow fund to compensate
victims of the spill.
June 15, that was yesterday, President Obama makes the Oval Office
speech on the oil spill and uses the crisis to push climate change
legislation.
And if you heard what our colleagues were talking about in the
previous 1 hour before this Congress, they were talking about that we
need to have these alternative fuels to replace oil and replace
petroleum products, in fact, all carbon products, coal, oil, natural
gas. They talked to you about subsidies and other things, but they show
you on their chart, and you see this one right here, it is algae, and
next year we're going to replace all the energy produced by oil with
algae if you will put the resources in algae. No, because it won't.
If you say, look at these wind farms, this is going to replace all
the energy we needed to charge our electric cars so we don't even have
to run on any kind of petroleum product. And that's all we need is to
subsidize that and pour money into it, and it will replace it in the
next 2 years. So why am I using the term the next 2 years? Because the
President of the United States has put a moratorium on drilling in the
gulf, and 17 percent of our consumption on oil and oil products, which
includes plastic and other byproducts of oil and natural gas, 17
percent of that a year comes from deepwater drilling in the Gulf of
Mexico. So, in 2 years, that's 34 percent of our fuel consumption
nationwide that's going to have to be accounted for by somebody in some
alternative form if we're going to give up on oil and gas.
Are any of the alternatives that are even close to replacing 34
percent of our energy consumption in this country? No. Will there be?
Maybe. But the reality is, we get up in the morning, and we start our
cars, and we drive to work. And generally we're burning gasoline or
diesel, all of which are products of the petroleum industry. And if
you're not going to use gas or diesel, then you better hook a sail up
to your car and hope the wind is blowing towards work or you're not
going to work.
[[Page H4586]]
So the reality is, to just cave in on an industry because of a
terrible disaster is like saying, oh, my God, a 747 went down with 600
passengers, shut down the air industry for the next 6 months. But
here's the reality: The reality is this 6-month shutdown of the Gulf is
actually going to be a 5-year shutdown of the Gulf because once they
pull those rigs out of the Gulf, we're not going to get them back it's
estimated for 3 to 5 years. So the 6-month moratorium in effect shuts
down 17 percent of our energy production in this country for 5 years,
potentially for 5 years.
It is time to be realistic and say, what's the big problem right now?
And it's the oil spill. Why is it a problem? Because oil is floating
around on our pristine Gulf of Mexico. It is moving from State to
State. It is eventually going to come ashore in someplace, and why
aren't we doing everything we can to bring people over here from
anywhere that will help and say we'll help?
I'm going to add one more thing. On June 16, President Obama met with
BP executives in the White House--that's today--and he got his $20
billion to go into escrow. But the reality is where have we been, where
has our leadership been of this country, the President of the United
States and the administration, when this oil was spilling out of that
well? Why didn't we answer the phone when the Dutch said 3 days after
the spill started, we've got a fleet of skimmers that will come over to
help you skim oil? Why didn't we respond? In fact, why didn't we say,
world, we help you every chance you ask us to help you, give us a hand;
anybody who's got resources that can soak up oil, please bring them to
the United States and help us out?
That kind of leadership had to come from the President of the United
States, and the waiving of the antique act called the Jones Act had to
be done by the President of the United States.
So as we talk about this disaster, let's start by saying what's our
real problem? And our real problem is this leaking oil, and we've got
to clean it up. Before anything else, we've got to clean it up, but
instead, we act to attack the drilling industry and shut down 17
percent of our energy resources a year at a minimum because it's very,
very good and popular to attack the oil industry. But in reality,
tomorrow morning, when you crank up your engine, say to yourself, what
kind of fuel is driving me to work today and where does it come from?
I am very pleased to see that I'm joined by two of my colleagues, and
I'm going to call on Mr. Mica from Florida to talk about this very,
very disastrous situation and a bill that he has that offers some
solutions.
Mr. MICA. Thank you so much. We affectionately refer to the gentleman
from Texas as Judge Carter, but a distinguished Member of Congress, a
part of the leadership of the Republican team, and thank you also for
coming tonight before the Congress and the American people, House of
Representatives, to review probably what is one of the worst ecological
disasters, natural disasters our country has ever experienced, and
actually to come here and to review some of the timeline of what has
taken place. You've touched on a number of important issues.
First of all, as someone who comes from the State of Florida--we're
part of the Gulf Coast--I have to extend our deepest, heartfelt
sympathies to those that lost lives, both on the rig, and now we heard
today from some of our colleagues, in an extensive review that we
participated in on our side of the aisle, from some of those from the
adjoining States, how their economy is suffering and how the proposed
moratorium that's being arbitrarily imposed may make this disaster even
worse. It's hard to imagine it being worse, but again, we empathize
with those who have lost lives, who have been injured, and now have
seen their livelihood dramatically impaired by this natural disaster.
What we've got to do, though, is we've got to step back. We've got to
look at what took place, and then we've got to look at some remedial
action. Judge Carter, gentleman from Texas, raised some excellent
points. This is now 60 days, almost two full months, into this disaster
that took place on April 20. We have not had the proper response.
That's evident.
The gentleman talked about the need to bring skimmers and other craft
in. He spoke about waiving the Jones Act, which President Bush did I
think in 4 days afterwards. We haven't really called for a waiving of
the Jones Act, but we would support it. It probably should have been
done. There have been offers of foreign vessels.
I was absolutely dumbfounded; on Saturday, I received an urgent e-
mail from those who are involved with American-flagged vessels, one of
the leading maritime ship owners, domestically flagged, U.S. flag, who
contacted me on Saturday. The message just floored me. Mr. Mica, our
industry, American flag industry, doesn't mind waiving the Jones Act.
The Jones Act does protect American jobs and American labor. Again it's
great to have those flagged vessels. Waiving it is done on rare
occasions and in emergencies, as President Bush did.
{time} 1915
I was informed that we have flagged Jones Act-compliant vessels,
American flag vessels waiting--this particular company, one of the
largest maritime companies in the United States, American flag, has
been waiting for a call. They've been waiting for a call from the
Department of Homeland Security, from the Coast Guard, any Federal
agency, or BP, to come in and provide--they have vessels that can help
and could be helping in the cleanup even before we exempted vessels,
foreign vessels to come in on this, and we've had an offer of that for
some time. So I was shocked.
I sent to Secretary Napolitano yesterday a letter and I outlined the
information I got. I lead the Transportation Committee in the House on
the Republican side, but I said, Madam Secretary, this is unbelievable
that no one has even availed themselves of the American flag vessels
who are ready, who have equipment. We should not be endangered in
Florida or in other States in having that oil up on our shores. We have
the capability that has not even been utilized to date. So this was my
letter, my plea to the Secretary, and I'm shocked and disappointed.
The other thing, too, is there seems to be a conflict. Last night, we
heard the President say that we have been in charge, he's in charge as
the Commander in Chief. Under the Oil Spill Recovery Act that we passed
in 1990 after Exxon Valdez, it's pretty clear the chain of command, but
Thad Allen, who is in charge of this, former Coast Guard commandant now
in charge of the spill cleanup, he said, but we do not have the
capability, the United States Government does not have the capability--
he said that over and over again, that the private sector has this
capability. Here again we have U.S. flag vessels that can do the
cleanup haven't gotten a call, still waiting. The Jones Act they could
have waived and allowed those who volunteered assistance with skimmers
and other equipment, that has not come in.
So while there are folks in this administration who say they're in
charge, there is some disconnect here in getting the equipment, getting
the resources out there. In fact, the private sector has been in
charge, and this is the first time the President has met with these
folks. I was dumbfounded, too, today--and I think Judge Carter was in
that meeting and other Members on our side of the aisle--when we heard
the gulf coast delegation say they have requested but not yet met with
the President of the United States. It's hard to believe the President
would not meet with the elected Representatives of the gulf coast
States to sit down.
And then time and again we heard in the review that took place today
of requests, simple requests for berms to stop the oil coming into the
marshes, simple requests to act now, sooner rather than later. And
we've seen the results of now that oil is making its way towards the
Florida shores and doing even more damage. So if in fact the President
is in charge, we need to free these vessels, employ every means
possible to keep this disaster from going further.
One other thing I disagree with the President on. I know it's
important to act, and he did act in imposing a moratorium, but I think
what they've got to do--and I believe he revised that moratorium to not
affect the 3,500 shallow water drilling sites, but it is closing
[[Page H4587]]
down the deepwater drilling sites. Some of those are exploration sites.
In fact, they probably should be closed until we have assurances that
future deepwater drilling can be done. My point here is that by closing
all of them down with a blanket moratorium, we are putting more people
out of work, taking a horrible situation and making it worse. We will
have even more people unemployed.
So I think the logical, reasonable approach would be to send
inspectors in, hire, retain whatever we need, or if they have
government officials to go in and see that the deepwater drilling that
is taking place where they actually have the well in production--which
I think is about half of the approximately 30 deepwater wells that are
out there. We don't want to make the situation worse economically for
those that have lost their job, seeing their business close down or,
again, see thousands of people put out of work by the wrong approach.
So a reasonable approach. First, we get every piece of equipment,
whether it's U.S. or foreign flag, there. This can be cleaned up. This
is a doable job with U.S. vessels that have been waiting to hear that
call from the administration. And then secondly, let's also be
reasonable in the moratorium. I have been a strong advocate of keeping
the U.S. independent and free as much as we could, drill where it's
safe. My State of Florida I helped on a 100-mile setoff years and years
ago. I thought that was reasonable. But you know, it may or may not
make a difference because this was only 45 miles off the coast of
Louisiana, as we see.
The other thing we need to do is have a good backup system. We
shouldn't be rubber-stamping approvals of any company, whether it's BP
or anyone else. BP, in February of 2009, gave this--and this is a copy
of it--this is the plan for their exploring that site and their doing
an exploration well, a development well. This plan was submitted in
March of 2009, over a year ago, and this is the one-page approval. I
got a copy of this before our Transportation Committee hearing just
before it took place. This is the one-page, carte blanche approval. I
don't think some of the people in the Minerals Management Service even
read this 59-page request. And we've heard hearings lately as to the
failures of BP to outline a good, solid proposal.
This proposal is the basic plan for drilling that BP submitted. It
also refers to a much bigger document, and that's the actual 500-plus-
page document that details all of the spill cleanup procedures that BP
would employ. That was also rubber-stamped with this approval, this
one-page approval. So this was done by the Obama administration with
people sleeping at the switch or not paying attention.
What's shocking, and I heard former-Governor Palin telling the
country this--and people should listen to Governor Palin on this--Sarah
Palin, when she was the Governor, she was tough on the oil companies.
No one passed anything by her. She cracked down on them, made sure they
towed the line. And what was interesting is Governor Palin told what
they did is, she said this never would have happened, this kind of
approval, in her State because there would have been more scrutiny.
The plan that BP offered, in addition to this 59 pages of the 500
cleanup plan, it looks like BP merely mirrored the Alaska plan; in
fact, it told how they were going to deal with cleaning up walruses,
seals and polar bears, none of which I've seen in the Gulf of Mexico.
So, again, the Minerals Management Service was asleep at the switch.
What's finally startling is two things: one, I had our Transportation
Infrastructure Committee get a copy of the President's budget. This is
the Obama budget--not doctored or anything. I have the exact pages and
cover copy of the budget. And in February of this year, before this oil
spill, the President submitted a budget to our T&I Committee,
Transportation and Infrastructure, that oversees the Coast Guard to
slash the Coast Guard, our first responders, by 1,100 positions. In
addition, he wanted to decommission and take out of service ships,
helicopters, aircraft, all which are necessary for our first
responders.
I remember when Frank LoBiondo, who is my ranking member on the Coast
Guard Committee within our Transportation Committee, when we heard
about this, we sent out this press release--this was in February, after
the President had recommended cutting our first responders. We said--
well, we said it's outrageous, but we said this is a recipe for
disaster. This is dated February 25, after we got this. Then startling
in this also, if you look a little bit further in the budget--not under
our purview, but our staff found this--that the Minerals Management
Service that the President talked about last night and how we need to
clean that up and everything, in his budget that he proposed to
Congress, he proposed slashing the Environmental Review Agency within
that, or activities within that, agency by $2 million; pretty dramatic
cut for someone who has to review, again, what the private sector
submits, their plan, slashing that plan. I thought this was just
unbelievable.
And finally--this is in February. In March, the President came out--
and this is the story in The New York Times--and said that we have to
increase drilling in the gulf. This is it. I didn't make it up. It's
The New York Times: ``Obama to open offshore areas to oil drilling''--
and it says right here, the gulf. So first he's slashing first
responders, then he's next proposing slashing the agency that does the
environmental reviews. The review, again, the oil companies present
that to the Minerals Management Service, they review it--I showed you
the rubber stamp, April 6, that they approved it.
And then finally, again, the main thing now is cleaning this mess up.
And we've got to employ everyone we can, every piece of equipment, be
it domestic or foreign, keep that from coming in.
This is a doable job. When Governors ask to take steps, the solution
doesn't need to be caught up for weeks in approvals from agencies. It
shouldn't be why we can't do something. It should be, how can we get
this accomplished? We've got people around the coast whose livelihood
now depends on this. We can't let this disaster that's already done
great damage to our economy--we have incredible loss of life that we've
seen, and, again, we empathize with those who have lost loved ones in
this tragedy, but we can't make a horrible tragedy even worse. So
reasonableness on this approach.
I thank Judge Carter, my colleague, the gentleman from Texas. I see
we also have another outstanding member of our Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, Mr. Olson, also a gentleman from Texas. I
thank you for coming out tonight, sharing with the Congress, the House
of Representatives and our colleagues, some of the facts and
information that need to get out to the public so that we can get this
mess behind us. Thank you so much, and I yield back.
{time} 1930
Mr. CARTER. Before you yield back, would you tell us a little bit
about your Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund Improvement Act that you have
proposed.
Mr. MICA. Well, I will tell you right now that we are open to
suggestions. We are looking at trying to be reasonable in whatever we
do. To just impose unlimited caps on liability could be a very serious
and damaging measure.
First of all, let me say I believe that BP must be held accountable,
fully accountable. Certainly, that company has the resources. They must
be responsible for the cleanup. Even though there is a limit under the
current 1990 statute of $75 million, they must be held accountable, far
beyond that, for economic damages.
What we don't want to see is that we make the terms for liability so
high that only a few multinational corporations will ever be in the oil
business. Small producers in Texas and throughout the gulf--there are
thousands of people in business--do a good job day in and day out.
3,500 of 3,600, I believe, active rigs in the gulf are in shallow
water, but they shouldn't be penalized by the failure of government or
by the failure of a big corporation. Let's hold their feet to the fire.
So we are going to work with the Democrats. We are going to work with
the administration. We are going to try to craft something that is fair
and reasonable, that holds people accountable and that holds their feet
to the fire.
The current fund that we have shouldn't be just a slush fund or front
financing of the cleanup for BP or for any big company. That was
actually set up for orphan spills or for a company that may not have
the assets but
[[Page H4588]]
that was responsible for a spill. We want that fund to continue to
work, and we may need to put more funds in it to make certain that we
have coverage for the future. Again, what we don't want to do is put in
place insurance and liability limits that are so high that very few
people can meet those requirements.
So we are crafting that legislation. We want to do it in a bipartisan
manner. The law does need to be altered. We should learn, and we should
benefit by this horrible experience, and we should make it better and
make certain that it doesn't happen again.
Again, thank you for your leadership and for asking me to participate
tonight.
Mr. CARTER. I thank the gentleman for what he has had to say.
I want to tell you that my wife is Dutch, so I took a little offense
at the fact that we had an offer of help of a fleet of skimmers from
the Dutch. It is my understanding we gave no response. Maybe that's
different. I don't know. All I know is that I'm like Will Rogers. All I
know is what I read in the newspapers. Now I'm even more upset since
I've found out we have American-flagged ships waiting in the harbor
ready to help, and nobody has asked for their help. The leadership that
runs this country, the executive branch of the government, ought to be
ashamed of themselves.
Mr. MICA. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CARTER. I yield back.
Mr. MICA. In conclusion, I do want to say that I work very closely
with Mr. Oberstar, the Democrat chair of the T&I Committee. When we
found out that the $1.6 billion fund has a $150 million cap for
emergency use, we came together last week. I offered legislation
specifically to deal with that. Again, we have to act in a responsible
manner for the country. We passed that. The House concurred with us. We
have provided some temporary relief.
Again, I'm not going to let the $1.6 billion or the $150 million be a
piggy bank for BP or for any responsible parties, but we want to make
certain that all of the resources are there on an emergency basis to
the administration, to the Coast Guard, to whomever, so no one can say
that Congress didn't act in a timely fashion. We were alerted that some
of the funds were running low in that emergency portion of the $1.6
billion, which is put out in advance.
So I talked a little bit before about the legislation we are looking
at on liability caps, and that is what we have done in a bipartisan
fashion today. We did that, and we are prepared to do even more on the
caps, whatever it takes and whatever resources and assets of the
government and of the private sector we can bring to bear to bring this
horrible disaster under control.
Thank you again for your leadership, both of our Texas Members--Mr.
Carter and Mr. Olson.
Mr. CARTER. In reclaiming my time, let me say right off that I am
very, very proud to be part of a Congress that instantly reacts to a
crisis situation. Mr. Oberstar should be commended for that reaction.
That is what we are asking for the entire government to do. Let's react
positively. Let's work as a team. Let's quit blaming previous
administrations. Let's do the job to clean this mess up.
I thank you very much.
My good friend from Texas lives in the heart of All Country USA.
Houston, Texas, is, to my way of thinking, the center of the universe
for the oil industry, and my good friend Pete Olson is one of the
members of our Houston delegation who is very knowledgeable in this
area. He has some legislation, and there may be other things that he
wishes to talk about, so I yield to my friend Pete Olson, the Member
from Sugar Land and all points south, to talk to us about how he feels
about what is going on today.
Mr. OLSON. Well, thank you for hosting this Special Order tonight on
such a critically important issue for the American people.
I would like to thank my colleague from Florida for coming by and for
giving his perspectives on how this disaster is affecting Florida.
I'm going to have a theme tonight, Judge. I was in the Navy for 10
years--a naval officer. We're trained to lead. I mean, in my aircraft,
I was a crew of 12--five officers, seven enlisted folks. I was the
patrol plane commander, so those 11 individuals depended upon me to
take them out, to do the mission, and to come back home safely. To sum
it up in two words, the philosophy is ``leaders lead.'' Well, guess
what? We are not seeing leadership out of Washington.
We've had a very difficult situation. We've had the largest oil spill
in American history, and there are thousands of jobs affected by it
already: the food processing industry; the fishing industry across the
coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama; the tourist industry.
We're hitting the summer season. This is when people go on vacations.
We're past Memorial Day. From what I hear, the hotels are about half
full. It has had a significant impact on the people of the gulf coast.
Yet what does the administration do? Do they lead? No. Again, in a
knee-jerk reaction to this terrible tragedy, they imposed a 6-month
moratorium on deepwater drilling--all of it stopped. Again, it's a
disaster for our economy and for our Nation. Let me go over some of the
specifics with you as I know my good friend knows.
There are 150,000 jobs that are going to be lost because of this
moratorium. That's 1\1/2\ times my hometown of Sugar Land, which the
judge mentioned. That's like wiping out Sugar Land and going down to
Rosenberg or Richmond and taking them off the map. This is 150,000
jobs.
There are 33 rigs currently out there. I've talked to a constituent
in my district who has an ownership interest in two of those rigs.
I asked him last week, How long can you hang out?
He said, Three weeks max.
How much is it costing you?
Well, the rigs are a little different. One's down around $500,000 a
day. The other one is at $1 million a day. $1 million.
If this baby goes on, if this moratorium goes on for 6 months, that
is going to be $180 million that that company is going to just have to
absorb. Yet you know what they're going to do. Guess what? They're
going. They're going overseas. He has been talked to. My constituent
has been talked to, and he has had interest from Australia, from
Brazil, from western Africa, and from eastern Africa already. He is
considering their options very seriously because he can't afford to be
paying $500,000 or $1 million per day as long as this moratorium goes
on. This is going to have a devastating effect on our domestic
production of energy.
One of the great problems we have in America--and it is something we
should have fixed years ago--is our dependence on foreign oil. We all
remember 1979 when the Shah fell, when Iran was taken over by the
Ayatollah Khomeini and when the Arab world cut off our fuel supply. I
was a 16-year-old in Houston, Texas, and I had just gotten my driver's
license. So my job was to take the car up when it got down to about a
quarter of a tank of gas. I'd take it up and get in that gas line
depending on what the last number of my license plate was--odd or even
on an odd or even day--and I loved it. I was standing there with my
radio and with my window rolled down. Now that I'm an adult, I realize
what a disaster that was. It's not gone. I mean it's still out there
today.
As the judge knows, we've got serious challenges in the Middle East.
I mean Mr. Ahmadinejad in Iran is scary. I mean he is trying to get a
nuclear weapon. He was here in our country a couple of weeks ago at the
United Nations. He sat down with George Stephanopoulos and literally--
this is the leader of Iran--told him that Osama bin Laden is here in
Washington, D.C. Let me say that again. Judge, I think Osama bin Laden
is here in Washington, D.C. This guy is trying to get some nuclear
weapons. He certainly has some oil, and he has friends out there--the
Saudis and others--who would cut him off if something happens.
What has happened, as you know, too, Judge, just as well, is that
this administration has hurt our relationship with our great ally
Israel. In 18 months, our relationship with Israel has gone from being
one of our strongest allies to someone the world looks at and asks, Is
the United States really with them? That has created another dangerous
situation where countries out there are going to start taking chances
and taking shots at our best friend. Again, what happens at the end of
the day if we stand up for Israel?
[[Page H4589]]
Maybe we get another oil embargo. We can't afford that. Yet this
administration's actions by imposing this 6-month moratorium on
deepwater drilling in the gulf are going to help that cause.
I don't know where to start sometimes. As my colleagues have
mentioned, we introduced a bill yesterday, a very simple bill. It's one
page--half a page. It basically says, Let's end the moratorium, Mr.
President. We had a meeting today with Mr. Salazar. The Secretary of
the Interior came over today.
I asked him, Do you believe that you were given all of the accurate
analysis on the economic impact of this moratorium on deepwater
drilling? Did you know all of the facts? Did you know that 150,000
Americans are going to lose their jobs and that those rigs in the gulf
are most likely going to go overseas and start developing oil in
foreign nations? They're not coming back any time soon.
It's a minimum--a minimum from what I've heard from the people in my
district--of 5 years before those rigs will even consider coming back
because they will have paid all that money to go over there. They're
going to sit there. They're going to make money. They're going to
decrease our national reserves here in America, and they're going to
increase our dependence on foreign oil.
Again, Judge, leaders lead. What has the administration done?
Well, you know, as you talked about earlier, Governor Jindal asked
for some sand, for about 24 miles of sand to place in between some of
the marshlands that were going to be impacted by the oil spill. It took
our government 3 weeks to approve that.
Why? Why? he asked.
Well, we had to do some studies. You know, the Environmental
Protection Agency had to look and make sure that, if we put that sand
in front of the berms, we weren't going to do some things to hurt the
birds and the wildlife behind that.
You're going to hurt the wildlife behind that, and you're going to
damage those birds when that oil gets in there. Put the sand up.
Prevent that from happening. Let's deal with that problem. Amazing.
The Jones Act. You talked about that. We've got great allies out
there who want to help us, who have come to us and who have said,
Please, we can help you. What did we do? No thanks. We've got this law
that requires American unions, our unions, to man the ships. We don't
need your help.
Katrina, 2005. President Bush was asked, you know, to waive the Jones
Act. He stepped up and did it. Why? Because it was right for America.
He was focused on the problem, which was help Louisiana and New Orleans
recover from that hurricane.
The problem here is real simple, Judge. We've got oil spewing out of
a hole in the Gulf of Mexico. We need to focus on that. That's the
problem, and the administration is not focused on that. Again, leaders
lead.
What do we see out of the White House today? Coerced British
Petroleum to a $20 billion slush fund, a privately funded slush fund
for government to use and spend as they see fit. Now, BP has made some
mistakes, and the investigation is not complete, but there is a lot of
evidence and indication that they have made some mistakes, have cut
some corners and have done things that haven't been consistent with
standard operating procedure.
{time} 1945
And they should agree to reimburse the Americans who have been
affected by that.
But for the government to force upon them a $20 million concession
that the government's going to handle and dole out as they see fit is
just not what's in our country's interest. We see what this
administration has done if we give them large amounts of money. The
first big vote I had as a Member of Congress, almost $900 billion in
economic stimulus package. Guess what? Has it stimulated the economy
like the administration, like the President, said it would? Has it kept
our job rate below 8 percent; our unemployment rate? No. We're hovering
about 10 percent. What do we spend it on? You know the answer to that,
Judge. Two-thirds of the money has been spent on public sector jobs and
one-third on private sector jobs. I'd submit--and this isn't taking
much of a chance--that's not how you grow an economy. And yet the
administration has now coerced British Petroleum to give them $20
billion as they see fit.
Finally, and I've got the President's speech here, about the last
third of it didn't have anything to do with the Gulf of Mexico. It had
something to do with a much bigger agenda. He was talking about why
this substantiated and justified the administration's pursuit of a
hydrocarbon emission law--a cap-and-tax, as we call it up here in the
House. I mean, again, why are we talking about this when we've got oil
spilling out of the Gulf right now. And the answer is: because the
administration has an agenda that doesn't have anything to do with the
oil coming out. It has everything to do with changing America, making
us uncompetitive in a global market, increasing our costs of energy for
every American consumer, and getting a big tax increase with all these
payments, allotments that the corporations, companies, small businesses
across America have to pay. And it's quite frustrating.
I mean, when I go back home, Judge, and I am sure you get this,
What's going on in D.C.? And, Who's leading? An the answer is, Nobody
is leading right now. Again, leaders lead. And that's why I introduced
that law that you mentioned earlier to just repeal the moratorium. Get
the American people back working on those wells.
The President, as you recall, met this past week with the families,
the families of the 11 rig workers that were killed in the explosion.
Many of them, from the press reports, told him, Please, Mr. President,
don't do this moratorium. Don't do this to my husband, who most of
these people were born and raised in small towns in Louisiana, like
Homer, and they planned on living their lives there, raising their
children there, raising grandchildren there. And they see what's at
stake here. They don't want a moratorium, even though their family
members have made the ultimate sacrifice.
It's my hope that the administration listens to the American people,
looks at the numbers of 150,000 jobs that are going to be lost. Just
the fact that we're going to lose all of our--most of our domestic
offshore production of oil, and we're going to take that overseas to
foreign nations. And one other thing is the second largest income tax
source for the Federal Government is offshore drilling. About $6
billion a year, bye-bye. It's just incredibly frustrating as a freshman
Member of Congress that we're going through this, Judge. We need to
fight to make sure that this moratorium is repealed, because it's in
America's best interest.
Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time for a moment, I asked Trent Frank, who
is an experienced offshore driller, as we all know. I said, Trent, what
kind of salaries do these guys make? He said, The ordinary laborer--
which in my day, at least, we used to call those guys roughnecks or
roustabouts--$60 an hour. And the high-tech guys, the guys that can
drive a drill bit down 5,000 feet under the water and another
multithousands of feet and hit a 12-inch hole where this oil is coming
out of, with that kind of skill, they're paid a lot more.
Now the question I would have for the administration, if you take the
drilling away and all those people are looking for a job to replace
that income, where is the guy who developed his skills through
experience at the low-paying job on a well? So maybe he's got a high
school education, and he learned his job on the job. Where is he going
to find $60 an hour to support his family on? It doesn't exist.
Mr. OLSON. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CARTER. I yield.
Mr. OLSON. Judge, I think the President gave us the answer to your
question there. In his speech yesterday, this is what he said.
``Already, I have issued a 6-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. I
know this creates difficulty for the people who work on these rigs, but
for the sake of safety and for the sake of the entire region, we need
to know the facts before we allow deepwater drilling to continue.''
Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, in wrapping this up, there's a lot of
things that the Republicans--we get accused of an awful lot of things
around here. We're going to ignore
[[Page H4590]]
those accusations. Mr. Blunt has a bill. The Oil Spill Response and
Assistance Act, by Mr. Roy Blunt from Missouri, H.R. 5336, requires the
Secretary of Energy to develop and deploy technology for the use in the
event of breach or explosion at or at a significant discharge of oil
from a deepwater port, offshore facility, or tank vessel, including
caps, fireproof booms, remote-operated submersibles, 24-hour response
time, double liability limits for oil companies.
Mr. Blunt is addressing the issue. Mr. Schock has an Offshore Safety
and Response. We have legislation. Let's do our job. And let's
continue. Let's end that moratorium and continue to drill. And be safe.
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