[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 64 (Thursday, April 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S2324]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. CANTWELL (for herself, Mr. Markey, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Van 
        Hollen, Mr. Whitehouse, Mr. Wyden, Mrs. Shaheen, Mr. Booker, 
        Mr. Reed, Mr. Nelson, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Merkley, 
        Mr. Carper, Mr. Blumenthal, Ms. Hassan, Ms. Harris, and Mrs. 
        Feinstein):
  S. 2720. A bill to codify the outer Continental Shelf blowout 
preventer systems and well control rule and the Arctic drilling rule; 
to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, tomorrow marks another somber occasion. 
Eight years ago, the news ticker came across our televisions saying 
that an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, off of Louisiana, was on fire, 
the Coast Guard was on the scene, and workers were missing.
  It was a Tuesday night. It was nearly midnight on April 20, 2010. By 
morning light, we knew 11 men would not be going home again. For 87 
days, the oil gushed into one of the most productive marine 
environments in the world. The studies show the oil impacted the 
deepwater corals and fish at the bottom of the food chain, all the way 
from the bottom up to the dolphins and sea turtles at the top.
  Here is one example. This is one in the bayous. You can see the marsh 
grasses in the distance. You can see the oil as it is coming up, and it 
is literally covering everything. They did studies on fish that would 
be in a bayou like this. A little fish, about as big is this, is called 
a killifish. LSU professors did this study, and they compared them to 
the bayous where there was not this kind of oil, compared it to similar 
killifish. What they found over time was the little fish in bayous like 
this were stunted. They didn't reproduce. They mutated because of this.
  Nearly 5 million barrels of oil gushed for 3 months. A lot of it is 
still there. Some of it is at the bottom where that well was, and that 
wellhead on the sea floor below the rig was a mile deep. We worked as 
one gulf community in a bipartisan way. We passed legislation--it was 
called the RESTORE Act--to send a message that there were going to be 
fines and penalties under the Clean Water Act. So many barrels of oil, 
a figure, and then the culpability of the oil company that allowed it 
to happen. A Federal judge did an extended trial over several years and 
came up with that fine and that penalty. The RESTORE Act said that 
money that was going to be assessed against the oil company was going 
back to the Gulf of Mexico region, and it was going to aid in the 
economy and in the environment.
  There was another impact. The winds caught that oil slick and started 
sending it east from Louisiana, and it got over to the white sugary 
sands of Pensacola Beach in Destin and tar balls as far east as Panama 
City Beach. Those white sands were completely covered in tar and oil. 
Those photographs of Pensacola Beach went around the world. What was 
the result? Our guests, our visitors, our tourists, for an entire 
season, thought all of the Gulf of Mexico beaches along Florida were 
covered like Pensacola Beach was, and they didn't come for the entire 
year. Not only did you have an environmental effect like this, you had 
an economic effect like the loss of tourist revenue in the hotels, 
motels, the restaurants, the dry cleaners, the little newspapers, and 
all the ancillary businesses that depend upon a $60 billion-a-year 
tourist industry in Florida. Still, I am afraid the oil industry hopes 
we have forgotten all of this.
  This month, the media released documents from 2016 in which BP claims 
that an oilspill can be a welcomed boost to local economies. Can you 
believe that? This oilspill was in 2010. In 2016, we have just 
uncovered documents that BP claimed that an oilspill can be ``a welcome 
boost to local economies.'' How outrageous and how arrogant. I can 
assure you, the coastal communities of Florida vigorously disagree, and 
I bet you the coastal communities that had to put up with that in their 
bayous would disagree vigorously as well.
  All that progress, and yet the industry is relentless in wanting to 
take us backward. They still want to open up Florida's beaches and 
offshore to drilling, and we have to fight it every day.
  The one thing we also have going for us is, the Gulf of Mexico, off 
of Florida, is the largest testing and training area for the U.S. 
military in the world. This Senator just climbed into an Air Force jet 
to fly part of the training profile for young pilots, knowing they have 
restricted airspace. That was out of Eglin Air Force Base--the testing 
and training designee for all of the Department of Defense. We have a 
range that goes from the Panhandle of Florida all the way south in the 
Gulf of Mexico, off of Key West. In a one-angle shot, they can shoot 
sophisticated, long-range weapons 600 miles to do the testing.

  Big Oil is now trying to roll back some of the basic safety rules 
that were put in place after the disaster in order to prevent another 
tragedy. It is happening in front of our eyes. Two years ago, they said 
that an oilspill could be a welcome boost to the local economies. Yet 
they are rolling back safety rules today that were put in place in the 
aftermath of there being 11 people killed on the Deepwater Horizon oil 
rig. They are rolling that back today in this administration's 
agencies.
  That is why I am joining Senator Cantwell and other colleagues in 
introducing legislation to codify these sensible safety measures, like 
those designed to update the standards for blowout preventers and a 
requirement for a third party to certify the safety mechanisms.
  Let me explain what a blowout preventer is. It didn't work in the 
Deepwater Horizon oilspill. A mile below the surface, where the well 
comes out of the Earth, there is a thing called a blowout preventer. 
If, as happened, there is a blowout in BP's oil well, there is a 
mechanism that is supposed to safely cut the oil line--pinch it and 
stop it from flowing. It was faulty. It did not work. So there have 
been new standards for blowout preventers since 2010. In 2018, 8 years 
later, the oil industry is trying to roll back those safety 
requirements that were put in place in the aftermath of their spilling 
5 million barrels of oil into the gulf.
  Do you see the fight that we have? It is almost every week. We can't 
allow the Department of the Interior to take us backward in time and 
expose our beautiful beaches and our tourism-based local economies, as 
well as our military, to another Deepwater Horizon-type catastrophe if 
they keep pushing back these safety rules.
  That is the purpose of introducing this legislation today with 
Senator Cantwell. If we don't watch it, we are going to be right back 
in the same place we were 8 years ago. It will be 8 years ago to the 
day tomorrow that we had that awful experience.
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