[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11479-11480]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE GULF COAST DISASTER

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, in my at least weekly report to 
the Senate about what is happening down on the Gulf Coast, I am sad to 
report to you that as of this moment, one of the remote operating 
vehicles has bumped into that top hat process that was funneling the 
oil off of the big structure, the blowout preventer from the pipe, the 
riser pipe, with the result that all of that oil now is not being 
siphoned off. The estimates now are upwards and probably pretty close 
to 60,000 barrels a day of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
  Remember, when it started off, oh, it was only 1,000 barrels a day. 
Then it was only 5,000 barrels a day. Then it was maybe 12,000 barrels 
a day but max 20,000 barrels a day. Senator Boxer and I were able to 
get the streaming video out so the scientists could look and they could 
make their estimates, their calculations. Anyway, it has gone on and 
on. It is now up to 60,000 barrels of oil a day.
  The oil industry had said they had started siphoning off--first it 
was 10,000, then it was 15,000. They were trying to get it up to 
25,000. Now, since this accident, that is being shut down--let's hope 
just very temporarily, but we are now back to the point that most of 
the oil is gushing back into the gulf. We know the result.
  If this continues for another 2 months, to the end of the summer, it 
is going to fill up the gulf with oil and it is going to do just what 
it is doing now. When the wind comes this way, it brings the oil from 
the South to the North; it brings it in onshore. The oil is now all the 
way from the wellhead off Louisiana, all the way across the gulf coast 
of northwest Florida. The blessing we had is that the wind has kept 
most of it off the coast. But, inevitably, when the wind rises up in 
the South, it brings the tar balls up. It has brought some of that 
terrible-looking orange mousse. That is one of the most repulsive-
looking things. When I saw that in Pensacola Bay, to think of that in a 
pristine bay such as that and that the tides and wind were carrying it 
right to downtown Pensacola--that is what we are having to deal with.
  Tomorrow, the Energy Committee is having a hearing on legislation 
Senator Menendez and I have sponsored. This is to rectify the situation 
that brought us to this situation in the first place; that is, the 
safety checks were not made, the attention to detail on the application 
was not paid, and the checks were not made to see that the backup 
devices on the blowout preventer were, in fact, going to be there. In 
other words, the oil regulator--the part of the U.S. Government that is 
supposed to do all of these safety checks--was not functioning.
  Why was it not functioning? Because for better than a decade, there 
has been a cozy relationship between the oil industry and the 
regulator, called the Minerals Management Service in the Department of 
the Interior, and that regulator was so compromised by gifts, by trips, 
by jobs. Indeed, I am sad to report that the 2008 inspector general's 
report talked about there were parties, there was booze, there were 
drugs, there were illicit sexual relationships going on between the 
industry and the government regulators. How can you have government 
regulation under these conditions?
  Of course, there was the revolving door. The revolving door happens 
in other regulated industries as well, but this one was particularly 
revolving and revolving. What that is, somebody would come out of the 
oil industry, they would go through the revolving door, they would go 
right into the government regulator shop, they would stay there for a 
while and they would supposedly be an independent regulator, but, no, 
the door would revolve again and they would then go right back out of 
the government job, back into the oil industry--the very industry they 
were supposed to be regulating before. Is that a conflict of interest? 
You bet it is. Can you have an independent regulator? Of course you 
can't under those circumstances.
  So Senator Menendez and I have filed a bill. As a matter of fact, we 
had this back in 2008 when that inspector general's report came out. We 
could not get anybody to pay any attention to it back then. What is the 
result of lax regulation? It is exactly what has been visited upon us--
this trauma so many people in that region of the Gulf of Mexico are 
suffering.
  As the administration goes about the process of cleaning up the 
Minerals Management Service, reorganizing it, getting new personnel, 
then it is up to us to change the law to make sure there are 
penalties--indeed, even criminal penalties--for gifts and trips by the 
very industry you are supposedly regulating, which in this case claimed 
11 lives and countless jobs and livelihoods and a whole way of life in 
a culture along the gulf coast.
  The bill that will be heard tomorrow, which we are grateful for, sets 
new penalties. It sets a limit--a mere 2 years--so that when someone 
comes out of the government regulator's office, they can't be employed 
in that oil industry they have just regulated until a period of time of 
2 years has lapsed. It also provides penalties for the gifts, the 
trips, the favors we have seen chronicled, not in my words but in the 
words of the 2008 inspector general's report; the report 2 months ago, 
the inspector general's report; and the report a month ago, the 
inspector general's report. In this last report, he particularly talked 
about the revolving door. It is something we have to change. Sadly, it 
has taken the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history, but 
because of this tragic condition, this Congress ought to be poised now 
to crack down on the government's buddy-buddy relationships with the 
oil industry.
  Tomorrow, the Senate Energy Committee is set to begin debating 
legislation aimed at cutting the oil drillers' close ties to the 
industry and aimed at stopping that revolving door. It is going to 
prohibit the employees of the Minerals Management Service or its 
successor--since the Secretary of Interior, Ken Salazar, is now busting 
it up--they are going to have to wait around for 2 years before they 
get a job back in the industry. The goal is obvious: to limit the 
degree of influence big oil has on those who are hired to keep the 
drillers in line. It is the least we can do for those folks down home 
who are suffering so much right now. They expect us to update laws to 
meet the times. This is such a time.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Carolina is 
recognized.

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