[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6386-6387]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      THE GULF OF MEXICO OIL SPILL

  (Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, there has been an 
unfortunate and devastating accident in the Gulf of Mexico that caused 
the death of 11 workers. Now we must deal with the attendant oil spill 
estimated at 42,000 gallons a day. To provide a bit of perspective, the 
gallon capacity of an Olympic-size swimming pool is 648,000. At the 
current spill rate, it will take 15\1/2\ days to spill the equivalent 
of an Olympic-sized pool.
  Historic production of oil from the Gulf is 1.7 million barrels per 
day. The U.S. consumes about 19.5 million barrels a day. There will be 
those who will say this spill is reason enough to cut off future 
offshore oil production. That would be disingenuous.
  Until this accident, the industry has had an impeccable record in the 
Gulf. According to Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice 
University, in the

[[Page 6387]]

last 15 years, there was not a single spill of more than 1,000 barrels 
among the 4,000 active platforms offshore. She said offshore drilling 
was considerably safer for the environment than the tankers used for 
importing oil.
  We need to clean up the spill, not use it as a political football.

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