[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 12760-12761]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 SECURE ALL FACILITIES TO EFFECTIVELY GUARD THE UNITED STATES AGAINST 
                  AND RESPOND TO DANGEROUS SPILLS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. C.W. BILL YOUNG

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, July 1, 2010

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, seventy-one days have passed, 
and the oil spill response and containment effort in the Gulf still 
lacks clear direction. As we've seen by the failure of the blowout 
preventer in the BP disaster, an uncontrolled discharge of oil is truly 
a worst-case scenario that oil companies and the Federal Government 
should be required to have an established plan for. I rise today to 
introduce the Secure All Facilities to Effectively Guard the United 
States Against and Respond to Dangerous Spills Act of 2010, or the 
SAFEGUARDS Act, legislation to prevent and respond to future disastrous 
oil spills by addressing some of the systematic breakdowns which led to 
the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.
  We are currently witnessing the disastrous effects an uncontrolled 
discharge of oil has on the fragile environment of the Gulf of Mexico. 
While the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has established 
specific safeguards for take into account the effects that drilling has 
on our environment, BP was permitted categorical exclusions from these 
requirements. No oil company should be exempt from addressing the 
environmental impact that their drilling activities impose. The 
SAFEGUARDS Act will ensure that NEPA requirements are not ignored again 
by, first, prohibiting categorical exclusions from NEPA, and, second, 
extending the time period regulatory agencies have to review oil 
explorations proposals. Regulatory agencies currently have only a 30-
day period to review extensive and intricate drilling proposals, 
however this bill will give regulatory agencies up to 150 days to 
ensure exploration plans are properly reviewed.
  Not only was BP granted exemptions from environmental standards, they 
were also allowed to move forward without a prepared response plan for 
the failure of the blowout preventer. The SAFEGUARDS Act addresses

[[Page 12761]]

problem by requiring all oil spill response plans to account for a true 
worst possible scenario, including the uncontrolled discharge of oil 
resulting from the failure of a blowout preventer or other containment 
devices.
  The oil disaster in the Gulf has also brought much attention to the 
leadership and organization of the response and containment efforts 
currently in place. While the Coast Guard is ultimately responsible for 
leading the government's response to an oil spill in America's coastal 
waters, they are not required to approve oil spill response plans 
submitted by oil rigs. Instead, each rig is only required to submit 
their spill response plans to the Minerals Management Service, an 
agency with many well-documented issues with administering rig safety 
standards. Oversight by the Coast Guard is necessary to ensure a fully 
coordinated response effort. If the Coast Guard has to clean up the 
spills, they should review the clean up plans ahead of time. The 
SAFEGUARDS Act will make this a requirement for all current and future 
oil rigs, as well as establish the Commandant of the Coast Guard as the 
National Incident Commander to oversee the Federal Government's 
response to large oil spills in coastal waters.
  Finally, the SAFEGUARDS Act will address some of the inadequacies in 
federal response efforts highlighted by the current spill. The 
framework of the National Contingency Plan, which is the Federal 
Government response plan for all oil spills, has not been updated since 
1994. Oil spills in our coastal waters are unique disasters that 
deserve their own response plan. The SAFEGUARDS Act will require the 
response plan to be updated at least every five years. Further, this 
bill will require the EPA to begin monitoring water quality within 
forty-eight hours after an oil spill is discovered. It is important for 
the public to have accurate information about how our water, our 
wildlife and our beaches are being affected as quickly as possible.
  The Federal Government's reaction to the Gulf disaster over the last 
few weeks has been insufficient, to say the least. BP's response has 
not been much better. The Clean Water Act requires the President and 
the Federal Government to lead the cleanup efforts, and we owe it to 
the American people and the entire Gulf coast to do better. The 
SAFEGUARDS Act presents common sense solutions to help prevent a 
disaster of this magnitude from ever happening again, and improves the 
federal response in the event it ever does. Madam Speaker, I ask my 
colleagues to support this measure to modernize and improve the 
governments prevention and response efforts to oil spills.