INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED 

AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2011 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE A 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND 

RELATED AGENCIES 

JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia, Chairman 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts 

ED PASTOR, Arizona 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho 

KEN CALVERT, California 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking 

Minority Member of the Full Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees. 

DELIA SCOTT, CHRISTOPHER TOPIK, JULIE FALKNER, 

JASON GRAY, and BRENDAN LILLY

Staff Assistants 

PART 8 

BP-TRANSOCEAN DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL 

DISASTER: ONGOING RESPONSE AND 

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations 

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

61–790 WASHINGTON : 2010 


hsrobinson on DSK69SOYB1PROD with HEARING
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin, Chairman 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

JOSE ́ E. SERRANO, New York 

ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut 

JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia 

JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts 

ED PASTOR, Arizona 

DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina 

CHET EDWARDS, Texas 

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California 

SAM FARR, California 

JESSE L. JACKSON, JR., Illinois 

CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan 

ALLEN BOYD, Florida 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey 

SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR., Georgia 

MARION BERRY, Arkansas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

ADAM SCHIFF, California 

MICHAEL HONDA, California 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

TIM RYAN, Ohio 

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas 

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

JERRY LEWIS, California 

C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida 

HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky 

FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia 

JACK KINGSTON, Georgia 

RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New 

Jersey 

TODD TIAHRT, Kansas 

ZACH WAMP, Tennessee 

TOM LATHAM, Iowa 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri 

KAY GRANGER, Texas 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho 

JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas 

MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois 

ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida 

DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana 

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas 

RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana 

KEN CALVERT, California 

JO BONNER, Alabama 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

BEVERLY PHETO, Clerk and Staff Director 

(II)


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INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED 

AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2011 

THURSDAY, MAY 27, 2010. 

BP-TRANSOCEAN DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL DISASTER: 

ONGOING RESPONSE AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS 

WITNESSES 

HON. KEN SALAZAR, SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

DAVID HAYES, DEPUTY SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Secretary Salazar, thank you for joining us this 

morning on an issue that is on everyone’s minds, and we need to 

know what is on your mind. 

I guess I should ask you, are you having fun yet? I know this 

has been a very difficult time for you. And there have been so 

many hearings, that you get to the point where you almost wonder, 

is it just that—not so much a matter of everything being asked but 

has everyone asked it. We are going to try in this hearing to focus 

on those issues that may not have been fully explored that are particularly pertinent to the Interior Appropriations process and our 

funding responsibilities. 

It is nice to see Mr. Hayes here, as well, David. 

I want to say at the outset that there should be no question but 

that you are not responsible for what happened in the gulf oil spill, 

nor do I think any of the decision-makers within this new administration are responsible. That is just a reasonable assessment. 

But you will be responsible for how we go forward. You will be 

responsible for ensuring that there will not be a repeat of this catastrophe. You are going to have to assure the Congress of that 

and, of course, the American people. I know you have the confidence of the President, that you will take the measures necessary 

to see to it that we can assume with confidence that this will never 

be repeated and that we will learn from all the factors that may 

have given rise to this catastrophe. 

I want to say, first and foremost, that our sympathies go out to 

the 11 families who lost their loved ones. We ought not get so carried away that we lose sight of the deepest tragedy, which occurred 

at the time of the explosion, and, of course, to all of the communities in the Gulf. They are bearing the burden of this tragedy now 

but perhaps to an even greater extent in the years to come, economically, socially, in every way. 


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But this explosion was not an accident. An accident is a situation 

that occurs due to chance and where no one is to blame. I don’t believe that that is what happened here. This explosion has shown 

us that there was a catastrophic failure of the systems—systems 

that we, perhaps naively, relied upon to protect workers, the surrounding communities, and our natural resources. In fact, worker 

safety and environmental concerns have taken a backseat to drilling deadlines. 

Now, there are a number of questions we are going to ask you, 

but let me continue laying out the context that I think is most appropriate. 

We understand deepwater drilling is an inherently risky business. But it is clear that, in recent years, we have spent more time, 

energy, and money figuring out how to get the oil than we did analyzing the impacts and preparing for disasters like the one we now 

face. And that is irresponsible. There should have been a balance, 

and there was an imbalance. And so we want assurances that that 

balance will now be established. 

This week, one senior scientist at the Minerals Management 

Service was quoted, and he felt it was necessary to be anonymous, 

but he said,‘‘You have people in the MMS with a very pro-development ideology guiding and making decisions about environmental 

analysis, concluding that there are no significant impacts when all 

the scientists think there are. These scientists were ignored.’’ 

Mr. Secretary, I do have confidence in your ability and in the collective ability of the people who work with you and in the administration to turn this around. But you are facing a cultural battle. 

The coziness and the reliance on industry for data, reports, and 

science took years to establish and, frankly, were borne out of what 

appears to be the relentless quest for oil off our shores. 

It is underscored by the fact that we are wholly reliant upon the 

industry to clean up the mess. We can observe, we can report, but 

we don’t seem to be able to make the pertinent decisions, nor do 

we have the technology or the expertise, even if we do have the 

will, to address the spill, as some governments would have been 

able to, because we are wholly reliant upon BP in this situation. 

As the Acting Inspector General for Interior mentioned in her report this week, ‘‘Of greatest concern to me is the environment in 

which these inspectors operate, particularly the ease with which 

they move between industry and government.’’ 

On page 2 of The Washington Post today, there was a quote in 

this article that said, ‘‘More troubling than the infractions’’—and 

this was a repetition of what the Inspector General has found out 

a year and a half ago. It was clear that the regulators were literally in bed with the oil industry, but most recently in Lake 

Charles, Louisiana, we have any number of gifts and things that 

were clearly inappropriate. In one case, an inspector, a regulator 

was negotiating a job with the very company while he was inspecting its facilities. 

But then it goes on to say, ‘‘More troubling than the infractions, 

though’’—and that is what is most troubling to this committee— 

‘‘was the explanation given by the Minerals Management Service 

district manager: ‘Obviously, we are all oil industry,’ he said. ‘AlVerDate Mar 15 2010 00:06 Nov 04, 2010 Jkt 061790 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A790P2.XXX A790P2

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most all of our inspectors have worked for oil companies out on 

these same platforms.’ ’’ 

And that is the problem. We understand their mindset, but we 

have at least a dual responsibility to extract our natural resources, 

granted, but to protect our environment. And, again, that must be 

the focus. 

So deepwater drilling is inherently risky. As we have gone into 

deeper depths, greater risks have been taken. It is troubling, I have 

to say, that the firms that are doing this find every way to avoid 

paying U.S. Government taxes. That is another issue, and I won’t 

digress into that, but it is just one more situation of rubbing salt 

into wounds. 

Now, with regard to the quantity of dispersants being applied in 

the gulf, it is unprecedented. And this committee is also concerned 

about that, because we are responsible for the Environmental Protection Agency. We know that over 800,000 gallons of dispersants 

have now been applied, but we do not know what the long-term impact of these dispersants will be. 

And there are conflicting reports that at least one of the approved dispersants may contain a chemical that degrades into an 

endocrine disrupter, which would have very serious adverse impacts, even beyond what the oil was doing, to the fish and crustaceans and plant life. 

There are simply just too many unknowns. EPA made that clear, 

but it doesn’t seem to have changed much in terms of the method 

of operating of BP. It is an unsustainable approach. We need to 

hear what you have done and will be doing to change this culture 

at the Minerals Management Service, particularly, and how your 

reforms will bring the science and the oversight that are absolutely 

necessary and have been wanting. 

We mentioned the need to extend the pause in issuing new drilling leases and permits. We do believe that we have to take the 

proper amount of time to investigate this explosion, develop process 

improvements, even change this culture at MMS, before the public 

can have confidence that we can proceed safely. And, really, the 

livelihoods of our coastal communities and the health of all of our 

natural resources along our shores is at stake. 

So we will be asking you specific questions as to what you and 

the President intend to do to give you the time necessary to ensure 

that it cannot happen again. I just saw a report on another rig 

called the Atlantis that they say could even be more catastrophic 

in deep drilling, and environmental waivers have been given for 

that as well. 

So that, I hope, will be the thrust of the hearing. And I know 

that this is a bipartisan concern. And so perhaps I will ask Mr. 

Simpson to share his thoughts and then the chairman of the full 

committee, Mr. Obey. 

Mr. Simpson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, Deputy Secretary Hayes, let me begin by thanking 

you both for your determined efforts in response to the Deepwater 

Horizon explosion and oil spill. We are grateful to you, not only for 


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your efforts to address this spill and determine its causes, but also 

for the hard work of the Department on many levels to keep members of my staff and Congress appraised of the situation on a daily 

basis. It is much appreciated. 

In fact, I am surprised you have time to go to the Gulf because 

there have been so many hearings in Congress. In fact, I understand there are five hearings today throughout Congress. I have a 

list of all the hearings that have been held by the different subcommittees. It seems like you are spending all your time up here 

rather than down in the Gulf. But that is kind of the way it goes. 

As the chairman said, everybody hasn’t said everything yet, so we 

will have a hearing too. 

At the outset, let me be very clear that I am not here today to 

blame BP, the Secretary, MMS, or anyone else. The Washington 

blame game makes great headlines, but that isn’t my purpose. It 

is probably safe to say that we will discover down the road that a 

number of parties are ultimately responsible for what has occurred. 

Frankly, I would like to learn more about the efforts to stop the 

oil spill, how best to mitigate any damage that has occurred, and 

how to prevent further damage. 

I also want to know what went wrong, how we can fix it, and 

determine what we can do to minimize the chances that an accident like this will happen again. That is the responsible thing to 

do, and it is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, a lot of the answers to those questions aren’t known yet. We have to investigate 

this further, about exactly what went wrong. 

We all recognize that this is a major disaster, but we ought not 

to treat it, as some are attempting to do, as the death knell for offshore drilling. That would be a big mistake, and I think most people recognize that. If you have read any newspapers or watched TV 

over the last few weeks, you are aware that some of my colleagues 

are attempting to use this oil spill as an opportunity to prevent 

scheduled lease sales in the Gulf to occur this summer. Others see 

it as a reason to cease all exploration of production in the Gulf of 

Mexico. Others are hopeful that this spill will lead Congress or the 

administration to reinstate the moratoria on drilling in the entire 

Outer Continental Shelf. And still others are urging the President 

to delay exploration planned for this summer in the Arctic Ocean. 

While well-intentioned, I believe this thinking to be shortsighted 

and misguided. 

I support efforts to invest in a balanced, all-of-the-above energy 

portfolio that includes renewable energies, nuclear energy, as well 

as domestic sources of oil and gas. But the fact is that we are now 

and will continue to be for the foreseeable future a carbon-based 

society. Unless you drive an electric car, live in a solar-powered 

house, or have a windmill in your backyard, chances are that every 

day you will rely on oil and gas to drive your car, mow your lawn, 

turn on your lights, and generate the energy to heat and cool your 

home. This is not going to change significantly any time soon. 

Today, oil production in the Gulf of Mexico accounts for nearly 

one-third of all domestic U.S. crude oil production. Over the last 60 

years, offshore oil and natural gas development has resulted in 

more than 42,000 wells being drilled safely, including more than 

2,000 wells at depths of 1,000 feet or more. We ought not to view 


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this latest setback as a reason to retreat but as a chance to learn 

how we can more safely explore and produce the energy our country will need in the coming century. 

As tragic as this spill has been, it hasn’t changed our country’s 

growing demand for oil and natural gas. Exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico and the OCS and especially in deepwater, where resources are more prevalent, will play an even more 

critical role in the future. 

Today, five countries—Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Nigeria, and 

Saudi Arabia—account for nearly two-thirds of the crude oil imported into the United States. Venezuela, a country ruled by a dictator, Hugo Chavez, and a regime which most people consider to 

be less than friendly to our interests, exports more than 900,000 

barrels of oil a day to our country. In spite of this, the majority of 

Americans still believe our country needs to do more to develop domestic sources of energy, both on shore and offshore, and lessen 

our dependence on foreign sources of oil and natural gas. 

Energy production is an inherently risky business. History reminds us that, while we can make every possible effort to mitigate 

risk, we can never fully eliminate it. The tragic death of 29 coal 

miners in West Virginia in April is not going to shut down our 

country’s coal-mining industry. It is, however, resulting in a period 

of study and introspection to determine how to improve safety and 

avert future tragedies. This is a proper and reasonable response. 

By contrast, the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 set our 

country back in the development of nuclear energy for a generation 

or more. The oil spill in the Gulf has the potential of having that 

same impact if we collectively wave the white flag, signaling retreat on offshore exploration and production. 

Therefore, there are many lessons to be learned from this experience: How do we adequately develop and test the technologies 

needed to shut down a well a mile beneath the ocean’s surface in 

an emergency situation? What authority do Federal agencies have 

to make decisions about treating an oil spill in the midst of a crisis? What reforms are needed to ensure proper management controls are in place and safety inspections are completed properly? 

These and other questions need to be asked. 

I will close with this thought. Our decision-making on oil and gas 

exploration and production going forward should be guided by what 

we know and not by what we want to believe. Facts, not emotions, 

should be our guide. 

And, Mr. Secretary, I thank you again for being here today for 

this hearing, and I look forward to your testimony. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. 

And I look forward to hearing from the chair of the full committee, David Obey. 

OPENING REMARKS OF CHAIRMAN OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Secretary, good to see you. 

I am not quite sure what to say. This is really a sobering experience, or it ought to be a sobering experience, for each and every 

one of us. I have noticed through the years that very often on 

issues like this, the volume of comments from people are in inverse 


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proportion to the information that they can bring to the subject. So 

I think, on an issue like this, we have a better chance of learning 

something if our ears are open rather than our mouths. 

But having said that, I would just have one observation. The 

gentleman has just mentioned what happened at Three Mile Island 

and how it set back nuclear power for a generation. I remember 

when we had the Santa Barbara oil spill. I remember the Exxon 

Valdez. And now we have this. I think what all of that demonstrates is that, no matter what level of effort you have, sooner 

or later either human beings or machines are going to fail in some 

capacity. And that means that you have to approach each and 

every issue with balance and not approach them as though we are 

all presidents of optimist clubs. 

I also think that it demonstrates that we are a prisoner of our 

past inertia. If you take a look at what we have done in terms of 

developing other sources of energy through the years, since Jimmy 

Carter left office we have had a more than two-and-a-half-decade 

decline in the resources that have been put into either energy conservation or developing other energy sources. And because of that, 

we are left with the potential to have these kinds of problems 

whether we are talking about oil or talking about nuclear, as my 

friend has just reminded us. 

I recognize that this incident will be scrubbed ad nauseam until 

people find out exactly what happened and what, if any, breakdowns in the system occurred. But, in the last analysis, I would 

hope it would enlarge our understanding of the challenge ahead in 

terms of developing a very different energy policy. 

The oil spill is very visible. You can see it on TV every day, as 

that stuff comes out of the ocean floor. And so, people will, understandably, get excited and disturbed about it. You also see the evidence of that in terms of the harm that it will do to economic interests of various groups, such as the fishing industry. 

But we have a development just as serious every day which is 

not nearly as visible but is still as inexorable as the pumping of 

that oil out of the ocean bottom has been, and that is climate 

change. I mean, there is no question in my mind—there may be in 

some others’, but there is no question in my mind—that we have 

an acute problem in dealing with that issue, as well. 

So I would hope that, when we are through with this, that this 

experience can contribute to building a new determination on the 

part of everybody, regardless of philosophical bent, to take an entirely new look at the way we deal with energy in this country and 

globally, because it is the planet that sustains us all. And while the 

Gulf damage seems widespread and, indeed, it is horrifying in its 

massiveness, what is happening on global climate change is even 

broader and worse over time. 

So I would hope that all of us could take a non-ideological look 

at what the facts are and work on not just short-term fixes to correct the problem we are going to be talking about here today, but 

also to deal with the long-term implications of what otherwise will 

face us. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Lewis, did you want to add anything? 


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OPENING REMARKS OF MR. LEWIS

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you. Very briefly, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Salazar, thank you for being here very much. 

Endless hearings will not solve the problem, but I am hearing 

from staff that CNN is telling us this morning that it appears as 

though the Top Kill may very well be working. If that is the case, 

then the one question I have in mind involves the moratorium that 

has been suggested, a moratorium of six months for deepwater 

drilling. 

I would really like to know what your definition of that is, will 

that stop the regulatory process whereby leases can go forward, et 

cetera. As the chairman suggested, we are dependent upon this resource, whether we like it or not. And so if you would clarify that 

for the record, I would appreciate it. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. Salazar, if you would like to share with us whatever you 

want to extend as an opening statement. Mr. Secretary, again, we 

are very appreciative of your being here. And I should say that I 

am personally appreciative of your leadership. I do think you are 

the right person at the right time. But it is a very difficult time 

to be Secretary of the Department of Interior. 

So if you would like to proceed with a statement, and then we 

will have questions of you. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SECRETARY KEN SALAZAR

Secretary SALAZAR. Thank you. 

Thank you very much, Chairman Moran, Chairman Obey and 

Chairman Dicks, Ranking Member Simpson, Lewis, and all the 

members of the Committee. 

In what is now the 37th day of what has been a very difficult 

time period, I remain very resolute and confident we will solve the 

problem in the Gulf. The issues you address in this committee this 

morning are issues we can grapple with and we will deal with in 

an effective manner. 

I have not taken a day off, not a half a day off, in 37 days. I have 

spent 4 days in the command center in Houston, as I have watched 

the best minds of science from around the world figure out how you 

can shut this well down. I have spent time on the Gulf Coast, seeing the impacts and dealing with people in the Gulf Coast region 

about what is happening with respect to the landfall of oil. 

As I have dealt with all those issues, I have also dealt with 

issues within the Department of Interior that are critical to the future of the United States and critical to having the confidence of 

the American people in the functioning of its government. 

As I have dealt with these issues, I can tell this committee—and 

I know many of you well—that I, today, am very resolute and very 

confident that tomorrow is a better day. We will see our way 

through it in a way that will address the myriad of issues which 

you all raised, from the issue of a new energy frontier and climate 

change, Chairman Obey, which is critical to our world, to the 

issues of moving forward with a thoughtful policy concerning the 

development of our oil and gas resources in the Outer Continental 

Shelf, to issues relating to accountability and responsibility that we 


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will see coming forth from the Presidential Reilly-Graham Commission and the multiple investigations that we have under way. 

My main point to you this morning is, yes, it is troublesome and 

it is a time where there is a great deal of concern. I can tell you, 

no one is more concerned about this than the President of the 

United States and me and the men and women who are responding 

to the issue in the Gulf and you, the Members of Congress, who 

are responsible for the policy framework. 

Let me say two or three things that I think you might be interested in. 

RESPONSE TO OIL SPILL

First, in terms of the overall response, from April 20th to this 

day, it has been constant and it has been relentless. The day after 

the explosion on April 20th, which occurred at about 10 o’clock that 

night, I directed Deputy Secretary, David Hayes, to go to the Gulf 

Coast without a change of underwear for the next day because I 

knew of the importance of this issue. I wanted to make sure that 

we were standing up the command centers in the right places to 

be able to deal with whatever might come, no matter how bad it 

would be. He has been involved from day one with the Coast 

Guard, which has responsibility for the response under our national framework, making sure that no effort is spared to deal with 

this problem. 

I have also spent the same amount of time and the same kind 

of energy in Washington, Houston, and on the Gulf Coast, dealing 

with this issue, as have the men and women of the Department of 

the Interior. You will hear shortly from Assistant Secretary Thomas Strickland, who has spent countless days on the Gulf dealing 

with the protection of the precious resources which are under the 

jurisdiction of this Committee and my command at the Department 

of Interior. That includes the 40 national wildlife refuges and park 

units within the Gulf of Mexico region and making sure the best 

of our wildlife scientists are down there to address the issues with 

respect to our response. It has been a collective effort on the part 

of all involved within the Department of Interior. 

Secondly, this collective response and responsibility has been 

shared across the government. President Obama, from day one, has 

received daily briefings, regular updates on what is going on, and 

has pushed the government to do everything it can do. At his suggestion, Secretary Chu and I went to Houston to make sure the different solutions that were being worked on by BP were, in fact, the 

best solutions the best minds of science could come up with around 

the world. I assembled a group of industry leaders to make sure 

that they were also helping address the issue in Houston so we 

could essentially stop the pollution. Because until we stop the pollution, you have a problem that is undefinable. 

The latest report from Secretary Chu and those in the command 

center at BP this morning is that the effort on Top Kill continues. 

Whether it will work or not, Congressman Lewis, is still an unknown. It is a dynamic process. 

The first efforts that went forward yesterday were not successful. 

There are other efforts that are under way to try to deal with the 

Top Kill and to try to shut in this well. If those efforts fail today 


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or tonight, we have made sure there are plan B’s and plan C’s and 

plan D’s. What I can assure this Committee, on behalf of the constituency you represent and the American people, is that we have 

the best minds of the world focused on this problem. 

I appreciate the leadership of Secretary Chu; the leadership of 

Dr. Marcia McNutt, the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, who 

I have deployed to Houston for the last 3 weeks; the National Labs 

of the Department of Energy; all of whom have been involved, 

along with the United States Navy and a myriad of other Federal 

organizations. 

What we have seen on the coast, with respect to this spill, is the 

single largest response in the history of the world with respect to 

any kind of oil spill response. 

OCS DEVELOPMENT

Let me, secondly, address a question relative to OCS some of you 

raised as to how we will move forward with respect to development 

in the Outer Continental Shelf. 

We must be mindful and remind ourselves that about 30 percent 

of the oil and gas resources produced domestically in the United 

States come from the Gulf of Mexico. We must also be mindful that 

over 35,000 wells have been drilled in the Gulf of Mexico over the 

last half century without having this kind of a horrific incident. 

While there have been blowouts, they have not been of this particular magnitude. 

We, as an Administration, believe we need to move forward with 

comprehensive energy and climate change legislation in the manner that Chairman Obey described. We view comprehensive energy 

legislation includes oil as part of the energy portfolio. The President will be making announcements shortly about how we plan on 

moving forward. 

I can assure you his direction to us is, as we move forward, we 

need to make sure it is being conducted in a safe manner and we 

take whatever steps are necessary to ensure this kind of horrific 

incident does not ever happen again. That is part of what we have 

already started to do, by sending proposals to this committee and 

to Congress for its consideration, including the $29 million request 

for the additional inspections that we need at the Department of 

the Interior. 

I want to take your questions, but let me just add one more 

thing. There is, I think, a collective responsibility here and it is important that we move forward in this process in a thoughtful way. 

Yes, we can point to Three Mile Island and the lessons from Three 

Mile Island. We can point to the Challenger and what happened 

with respect to the space shuttle program. In the heat of the moment, we want to make sure we are making thoughtful decisions 

about moving forward with the energy future of this Nation. We 

will know very specifically what it is that caused this particular explosion and blowout prevention mechanisms not to work on the 

Deepwater Horizon, and we will learn those lessons. Those lessons 

will include the United States Congress and the national policy, 

which I helped create as a U.S. Senator, as many of you helped create as Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, to look at 

what kinds of changes we need to make. 


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It will include a change, which the President has already requested, the elimination of the 30-day mandate on the approval of 

an exploratory plan to allow for more rigorous environmental analysis. 

It will also include, I am hopeful, the effort which many of you 

in the House of Representatives have worked on, and which I have 

supported, and that is the creation of organic legislation for what 

has been known as the Minerals Management Service. An agency 

for the United States of America that has the responsibility of our 

offshore energy resources, which are so vast and so important, and, 

that collects on average about $13 billion a year, is one that should 

exist by virtue of congressional action and congressional statute. 

There have been efforts to try to get that done over the last year. 

We need to push the ‘‘fast’’ button and try to make sure that it gets 

done. 

MINERALS MANAGEMENT SERVICE REORGANIZATION

In the meantime, I have moved forward within my own authority 

as Secretary of Interior to reorganize the Department and to 

change the Minerals Management Service. The Minerals Management Service, consisting of 1,700 employees, will be changed in the 

following ways: 

First, about 700 people who currently are involved in revenue 

collection will be moved into an Office of Natural Resources Revenues, because there are other revenues that are collected within 

the Department of Interior. That agency will be separated from the 

Land and Minerals section of the Department of the Interior so 

there will be the avoidance of any perception of conflict of interest 

there. 

Secondly, the remaining part of what is MMS will be split into 

two agencies. One will be a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. 

That agency will have the responsibility with respect to the development of renewable energy resources offshore, which I know many 

of you have been very interested in, especially in the Atlantic. It 

will also be responsible for the development of the conventional energy resources that we see, for example, in the Gulf of Mexico. 

The other agency will be a Bureau of Safety and Environmental 

Enforcement. That bureau will have the responsibility to act as the 

police, to make sure the appropriate standards are put into place 

and the policing of those standards actually occurs. 

As we move forward in the implementation of the Secretarial 

order, we must work closely with the members of this Committee, 

Chairman Moran, and the other members of the United States 

Congress that have an interest in this issue. The team I have assembled that has been working on this issue will, in fact, be working with all of you as we come forward to conclusion. 

So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to take questions. 

[The written statement follows:] 


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MINERALS MANAGEMENT SERVICE REORGANIZATION

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

I was going to begin with another question, but since you raised 

the reorganization, let me start with that. 

I think I made it pretty clear in the opening statement that, at 

least in my view—I know it is not unique; it seems to be the view 

of most people who have looked at this situation—see a cultural 

problem, a very deep-seated cultural problem within the Minerals 

Management Service. 

I don’t for a moment personally blame Ms. Birnbaum because 

she is not part of that culture; she only just joined the Minerals 

Management Service. We had asked that she be here. It is your 

call who you want to be here. And I trust that no one, particularly 

people who are not directly responsible, are going to be scapegoated 

in this situation. Our interest is in getting to the heart of the problem. 

In this reorganization, the most important thing is that the environmental experts not be shunted aside. What has happened for 

the last several years is that they were treated almost as though 

they were the crazy paranoids in the attic that you could ignore or 

even dismiss in a cynical way. They had virtually no input. We 

want to put them back at the table. They don’t necessarily have to 

be in the driver’s seat, but given what has happened, it seems to 

me for a while they need to be in the driver’s seat before any permits can be issued. 

Now, the procedural activity of collecting royalties, fine. But the 

issue is the people doing the permitting being able to act independently of the environmental scientists. And that is what needs to be 

corrected. 

You don’t even need to respond to that. I trust that you understand that we are going to have to get into this reorganization because this Committee does have to approve and then fund it. We 

can discuss that further. You can build it into a response in another question, if you would like. 

OCS DEVELOPMENT

The news reports have been prolific and consistent as to what 

the administration is going to do today after this hearing. We hear 

six things: One, that you will delay the 5-year oil leasing plan. As 

most people know, you can’t drill unless it is part of a 5-year oil 

leasing plan. Two, you are going to suspend the Arctic Ocean drilling permits that have already been issued to Shell Oil for drilling 

this summer. Three, there will be at least a six–month pause in 

any further oil leasing. Four, you will stop the Virginia Sale of 

lease 220 completely. Five, you will implement much more rigorous 

oil development regulations for oversight. And, six, you will suspend upcoming lease sales in the western Gulf of Mexico. 

I can understand if you don’t want to trespass on the President’s 

statement, but do you have anything to add to that or to comment 

about that? Because that is what we are reading, and I am sure 

you are reading the same thing. It is not as though it is classified 

information. Do you wish to comment, Mr. Secretary? 


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Secretary SALAZAR. Let me comment on the items you raised. We 

had discussions late into the night, and they continue right now. 

Later in the day, the President will be making an announcement 

with respect to many of the issues which you raised. 

I think the driving principle, Chairman Moran, is that we need 

to make sure, if there is going to be deepwater drilling in the Outer 

Continental Shelf, that it is going to be done safely. There are a 

number of different considerations and issues that have to be dealt 

with as we move forward with that decision. We will share that information with you as soon as the decisions are finalized later this 

morning. 

REFORMS OF MMS

Let me comment on your opening question concerning the reform 

issues and Ms. Birnbaum. Liz Birnbaum has been a strong leader, 

and we have done tremendous work to essentially deal with what 

you and other members of this Committee raised as a culture of 

corruption and reprehensible conduct that existed at the Minerals 

Management Service. We have worked on it from day one. 

You, Chairman Moran, reading the latest Inspector General’s report, will note all that conduct, even though most people here in 

Washington and most newspapers haven’t focused on the dates, 

was all focused back in the prior Administration. Yes, it was a time 

when the oil and gas resources of this country essentially were allowed to be taken without the kind of review and the kind of protection of the natural resources that we needed to have. 

As Secretary of the Interior, I am proud of the reform efforts we 

have taken across the board. There are many reform efforts specific 

to MMS, and I won’t go through a long, complete list of them, but 

let me just mention a few of them. 

Within the first two weeks of my swearing-in as Secretary of the 

Interior, I went to the Minerals Management Service in Lakewood, 

Colorado. We instituted a code of ethics, required a number of ethics training measures to be taken by employees, and announced we 

would have a zero-tolerance policy with respect to ethical failures. 

For those who have committed wrongs, they have been dealt with 

in the personnel system. For those who have committed criminal 

conduct, they have been referred over for criminal prosecution. 

This latest report from the Inspector General deals with a timeframe that is pre- the Obama Administration, and the same kind 

of action has been taken. Indeed, what we have done is ask the Inspector General, at my request, to look at whether or not these activities and this culture of corruption have continued after we instituted these actions at the beginning of this Administration. I very 

much look forward to that report, and we will see whether the efforts we have undertaken have, in fact, helped. 

ROYALTY-IN-KIND PROGRAM

But I didn’t stop just with ethics. The Royalty-in-Kind program, 

which some of you on this Committee have been critical of for 

years—I terminated the Royalty-in-Kind program because it 

seemed to me, it was an area full of the possibility of the kinds of 

problems we see in that kind of culture. That was an important deVerDate Mar 15 2010 00:06 Nov 04, 2010 Jkt 061790 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A790P2.XXX A790P2

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cision, but it was the correct decision as we move forward with our 

agenda on reform. 

SCIENCE

Finally, with respect to science, many of you, I hope, still remember when I came in as Secretary of the Interior there was a plan 

to do very aggressive development of oil and gas resources all over 

the entire OCS. I put a stop button on that for 180 days. 

When we announced our OCS plan, I said that in the Arctic, in 

the Beaufort and the Chukchi Seas in the north, we did not know 

enough of the science, nor did we know enough about the oil response capabilities, and that those leased sales would, in fact, be 

cancelled, and I cancelled them. In addition to that, that there 

were places that were too special to drill, including Bristol Bay in 

Alaska, and we took those things off the map. 

REFORMS

I look back at the last 15 or 16 months, and we have done a lot 

of reform in the Department, but in this area, there has been significant reform. Now, you can ask the question, is that enough reform? The answer is ‘‘no.’’ That is why we will continue to do what 

we have to do to make sure the house is cleaned up. 

Mr. MORAN. I appreciate that. 

PERMIT APPROVAL PERIOD

We understand that one of the problems that you have had is 

that you have only 30 days to approve a permit. You approve over 

200 plans a year. That is not enough time in which to implement 

the intent of the National Environmental Policy Act. It also explains why there are categorical exclusions that are simply not applied. I should say, it is quicker to grant the categorical exclusion 

and move on than to do the kind of review that is necessary. 

Now, I won’t go into that with you, but subsequently we are 

going to need to know what it is going to take to change that. I 

understand that the President wants to extend that to 90 days. 

That is an expensive process. We need to know if you have the resources. 

Let me ask one other question, and then I want to move on to 

the other Members. 

MARSH BURNS

We have a lot of questions about what the cost is going to be. 

We are being told BP is going to pick this up. I suspect there are 

going to be a great many costs that will wind up being borne by 

the Federal Government. 

We hear this morning that the intent of the admiral in charge 

is to burn the oiled salt marshes. Admiral Allen said that, ‘‘Where 

there are conditions that are right, crews are going to set fire to 

oil-coated plants.’’ 

Marsh burns occur in fall and winter, not now. This is the wet 

season. I don’t know how that is going to work. I can’t imagine how 

you can avoid burning roots and permanently destroying marshes. 


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Is that a decision that has been coordinated within the Interior 

Department to consider the impact upon your responsibility for the 

natural resources in that area? Do you have an assessment of what 

the short- and long-term impacts are? 

That is a relatively radical approach, although I think this situation probably requires a radical approach. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Chairman Moran, this is a highly coordinated effort among all of the Federal agencies through the National 

Response Team and the implementation of the Oil Pollution Act 

and the programs that were set up to make sure there was coordination in this kind of an event. 

I am not aware of the particular issue that you raise, but let me 

check on that particular issue. 

Mr. MORAN. He announced it this morning. It was news to us, 

too, of course. And it would be important to know if there has been 

some coordination. Because while it may require a radical approach, that is one that has very substantial implications for the 

fish, the wildlife, the birds, and particularly the marshes. I don’t 

know how it works and would like to know. 

Secretary SALAZAR. If I may, Chairman Moran—— 

Mr. MORAN. Go ahead. Please. 

Secretary SALAZAR [continuing]. We will get information back to 

you on that. 

And, if I may, I just want to respond very quickly for 30 seconds 

on two of the issues that you raised. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. 

Secretary SALAZAR. First, on the environmental reviews, David 

Hayes and the director of the Council of Environmental Quality, 

Nancy Sutley, are leading an effort to look at all of the environmental reviews to make sure they are being done right or identify 

what kind of changes need to be made. 

I would remind the Committee that, even with respect to whatever criticism may be in the past, including this particular lease, 

there are multiple environmental impact statements in review—in 

fact, in this particular one, seven that occurred before the time the 

well was actually drilled. We will go through an effort to make sure 

that, if it can be done better, it will be done better and also to identify any particular legislative changes. 

COSTS OF CLEAN UP

Finally, the question you raised with respect to BP being accountable and liable here, we have in writing from them, at the request of Secretary Napolitano and myself in meetings we have had 

with the principals of BP, including the Chairman of the Board and 

President, that they will not hide behind the $75 million liability 

cap and they will be responsible for all response costs, as well as 

natural resource damages, as well as other damages that may result from the spill. 

Mr. MORAN. We trust that will be the case. 

Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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LIABILITY CAP

And just to clarify that, because I have heard a lot of people say, 

you know, ‘‘They are only liable for $75 million, according to the 

statute, and we ought to increase that to $10 billion,’’ and other 

things like that. As I understand it—and correct me if I am 

wrong—it is $75 million in economic losses. They are still liable for 

all of the environmental cleanup costs and all of those things; is 

that right? 

Secretary SALAZAR. I am going to have David talk just a little bit 

about the law itself, because he testified on it in one of the Committees in the last few days and testified on the changes the Administration is proposing. 

With respect to this particular incident, what they have assured 

us is they will not hide behind any liability limitation and they will 

pay for everything. A company that made, from some reports, $16 

billion, other reports, $14 billion last year, it seems to me that we 

will hold them to their word, which we have in writing, and that 

is they will pay for everything. 

David. 

Mr. HAYES. You are correct, Congressman Simpson. They have 

complete responsibility for all response costs in responding to this 

spill. No question about that. 

The question is the economic damages, natural resource damages. That is the cap question. Under the current law, of course, 

that cap does not apply in the situation of gross negligence, or any 

violation of standards. So there are a number of situations where 

that cap would not apply. 

They have assured the Secretary and Secretary Napolitano in 

writing they do not intend to use that cap to limit their liability 

here. 

OCS DEVELOPMENT

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. 

You mentioned, in response to the chairman’s question, deepwater drilling in the OCS has to be done safely. I think we all 

agree. Are they going to stop the permits and the drilling in the 

Arctic, which, as I understand it, is not deepwater drilling? There 

is a significant difference between deepwater drilling and shallow 

water drilling. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Simpson, that announcement 

will be made shortly. 

The reality is there are issues of significant concern in the Arctic, 

which is why we canceled the leases in the prior plan. Those issues 

relate to the oil response capabilities and to the science that is, in 

fact, available as we move forward. 

What you are seeing today in the Gulf, as you turn on any television set or read any newspaper, is the greatest armada ever assembled to fight an oil spill. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. 

Secretary SALAZAR. We have significant concerns that what was 

previously thought to be so safe by members of this Committee, as 

well as the United States Congress, as well as the Executive 

Branch, may not be as safe as what we had been informed of. 


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Until we have the safety review and the report from the Commission, you will see some changes that I hope this Committee will 

support as we try to get to this Committee what I believe you want 

us to do. We need to be learning all the lessons from this horrific 

incident and making sure it doesn’t happen again. That will include a much longer conversation with members of the Committee. 

PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION

Mr. SIMPSON. I am not one who is out bashing the administration, saying that this is Obama’s Hurricane Katrina and so on. I 

don’t think that advances our cause any, and our cause ought to 

be—— 

Secretary SALAZAR. We are going to have you join in all our press 

conferences, Congressman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, it is—you know, we ought to be focused on 

cleaning this mess up and, as you said, making sure that it doesn’t 

happen again, to the extent that we can. 

Is this Commission going to look at, I suspect, the whole process 

by which we allow for deepwater and OCS drilling? Will it also look 

at the Federal response that occurred, what the Department did 

right, what they did wrong? 

I am sure there are lessons—hopefully, there are lessons we can 

learn from this as to how we would address it better in the future. 

Is the Commission going to look at those types of things, or will 

that be an internal review? Internal reviews of how you did something are always suspect. We need to have some outside sources 

look at this so that we learn from it, not as a criticism, but so that 

we learn from it how we would do it better in the future. Because 

I am certain that there are things that, if you had to go back 37 

days ago, you would probably do a little differently. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Simpson, you are absolutely 

correct, and we are thinking along the same track there. There are 

multiple investigations under way, but they will all feed into the 

Commission. Within the Department of the Interior and the Coast 

Guard, there is a joint investigation of the incident that will feed 

into the Presidential Commission. There is another investigation, 

which I have asked the Inspector General to conduct, of what happened and whether there were improprieties relative to the regulatory effort. The Commission will have its own independence to 

make these decisions. 

We also will be contracting with the National Academy of Engineers, to have them come in and take a third-party, independent 

review of new safety measures that can be taken with respect to 

this. 

LIZ BIRNBAUM

Chairman Moran, if I may make a statement, because I want to 

come in front of the Committee where I see so many people who 

have been so strong in support of the Department of the Interior— 

and be as forthright as I can. Liz Birnbaum has resigned as the 

Director of the Minerals Management Service. She did it on her 

own terms and her own volition. 

Liz Birnbaum is a strong and very effective person who, among 

other things, helped us break through the very difficult issues on 


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standing up offshore wind in the Atlantic, where we still have a lot 

more work to do. She helped us move forward to address what was 

a very broken system that we found when I came into the Department of Interior. She is a good public servant. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

One last question, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

If I could, Mike, to the young ladies who are holding the banner, 

you are doing it silently and I don’t have a problem with it. But 

if you wouldn’t mind standing with your back to the wall so that 

it doesn’t interfere with the view of the other people. Just as long 

as we are considerate of others is all I ask. There is a corner here 

where we could still see it, and it wouldn’t block the view of other 

people. Or you can stand by the wall, if you would like. 

Thank you. 

As long as people are quiet and respectful, they can express their 

views, but we don’t want it to be inconsiderate of others. 

Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. SIMPSON. One last question that concerns the jurisdiction, 

actually, of this committee. 

SUPPLEMENTAL REQUEST

You requested $29 million in additional appropriation. Could you 

go through what that is for? 

Any idea yet on what we can expect, looking forward on what we 

are going to have to appropriate in the future, what it is going to 

cost us in terms of both addressing this spill and, as you said, reforming the Department and the Minerals Management Service? 

Secretary SALAZAR. I will have the Deputy Secretary, Congressman Simpson, respond to this specific question. 

Mr. HAYES. Congressman, of the $29 million, approximately $20 

million is focused on the Minerals Management Service, including, 

in particular, engineering studies, investigations, enforcement, and 

more inspections. As you know, in our 2011 budget, we also had 

a modest increase request for more inspectors. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Isn’t it true that we only have 65 inspectors in 

MMS for the entire country? 

Mr. HAYES. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That is both onshore and offshore? 

Mr. HAYES. That is offshore. They are virtually all in the Gulf. 

There are, I think, five in California. There are, I think, 55 in the 

Gulf, and they are the ones that cover all of the offshore. We are 

interested in beefing that up for obvious reasons, and that is the 

bulk of the $29 million request. 

However, there is a substantial request of about $7 million to 

support these independent science efforts the Secretary just alluded 

to, including the National Academy of Engineering independent 

root cause analysis, the special safety oversight board the Secretary 

established, the 30-day report we are delivering to the President 

today, and then a couple of additional million dollars in additional 

activities. 

Mr. MORAN. David, would you bring the microphone closer? We 

are being told that nobody can hear you. 


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Mr. HAYES. Thank you. So just to recap, $20 million for enforcement and inspection, MMS-related activities, $7 million for independent science and also to support the internal scientific investigations, engineering investigations, and some additional activities 

that do not qualify for reimbursement under the Oil Pollution Act, 

the spill fund. We estimate that to date we have spent about $8 

million already responding to the crisis. We have agreements, Pollution Removal Funding Authorizations, that we are working 

through to preauthorize funding for a lot of the response activities 

in the Gulf. We have agreements with the National Park Service, 

the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Minerals Management Service. So far we have spent about $4 million of the $7 million we 

think will be directly reimbursable under these agreements, under 

the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 through the Coast Guard. There are 

some additional expenses, such as increased inspections, for example, and others, that are not directly reimbursable. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And that will be an ongoing expense? 

Mr. HAYES. That will be an ongoing expense, yes. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you Mr. Simpson. Mr. Obey. 

INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Secretary, just one question. Do we have anything 

that we can learn by looking at global experiences with problems 

like this? For example, drilling off Indonesia or in the North Sea 

by the Norwegians? What has their experience been with respect 

to oil spills? What is the difference in, for example, the Norwegian 

regulatory regimen versus our own? My understanding is that in 

Norway, they have done roughly what the administration is proposing by way of separating the leasing function from the oversight 

and regulatory function. Is there anything at all that we can gather 

from their experiences? Or aren’t they comparable? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Chairman Obey, there is a lot we can learn 

from their experiences, and indeed the report that should be on its 

way to the President momentarily actually has looked at all the 

regulatory regimes in those other countries. I will say it is known 

that we do have one of the more stronger regulatory regimes with 

respect to Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas development. I 

think, as this incident in the Gulf of Mexico demonstrates, there 

is a lot more that can be done. We will obviously learn a lot more, 

but I have spent a good amount of my own personal time trying 

to understand these blowout prevention mechanisms and how they 

could be upgraded with additional redundancies. The fact of the 

matter is that they can be, and the fact of the matter is that there 

are ways in which they can be actuated with redundancies that can 

be put into place. That will all be part of what we will move forward because the President has been very clear. We essentially will 

not allow any more deepwater drilling until we can ensure that we 

are doing it in the safest way possible, and we believe that we can 

do it safer. 

Mr. OBEY. My understanding in Norway is that they get as much 

as a third of their revenue from offshore oil drilling, and I am wondering what their experience has been. Have they had any significant spills during their drilling history? 


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Secretary SALAZAR. Let me say, this is not complete, but there 

have been huge spills, much larger than what we are seeing in the 

Gulf of Mexico today over time. I am looking at the 1979 spill in 

the Gulf of Mexico by Pemex in what they called the Ixtoc I oil 

well. That went from June 3, 1979, to March 23, 1980, before it 

was capped. During that duration in the Gulf of Mexico, it dumped 

3.5 million barrels of oil into the ocean. There are a whole host of 

other ones in the Persian Gulf, in France, in Africa and others. The 

fact is that there is that kind of information out there. 

Mr. OBEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Obey. Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Secretary 

Salazar, I was pleased, I think, to hear you suggest that you have 

had this responsibility for about 16 months, and thereby implied 

that maybe President Bush isn’t responsible for this particular 

spill. Am I correct in that? 

REFORMS AND BUREAUCRACY

Secretary SALAZAR. You are correct in that we have made very 

significant reforms. There are more reforms to be made, and we did 

inherit what essentially—and I think you and this Committee probably know this more than anybody else—what had been a Department that had been significantly eroded through a number of different means, including budget, for many years. It is a conversation 

which Congressman Simpson and I have had many times, and it 

is not a Democratic or Republican issue. I think one of the lessons 

to be learned from all this is that when you have a government, 

you need to support that government to be able to work in all of 

its essential functions, including the protection of the public safety 

and the environment. 

Mr. LEWIS. Indeed Presidents do come and go. The underlying 

bureaucracy is there for a long, long time. They have got serious 

responsibilities that we assume they will continue to move forward 

with. 

MORATORIA

I am interested, for the committee and for me, to have you clarify 

exactly what is your meaning of moratoria. Are we talking about 

moratoria of deepwater drilling? Are we including in that, however, 

what can be a very long process whereby people go through applying for the opportunity to drill in the future? Would you clarify for 

the committee exactly what your definition is of moratorium? 

Secretary SALAZAR. The President’s announcement will happen 

in the next several hours, and I should defer to my President to 

make sure I don’t say something different than what he is going 

to say. I will say this, the direction he has given me and the direction which I accept and the direction which I think is correct is 

that we need to push the pause button with respect to deepwater, 

because we need to make sure the lessons from this horrific tragedy are learned. 

We also recognize—and I think this has been clear from the beginning of this Administration—that we see oil and gas development as part of the energy portfolio for the future, along with solar, 

wind, geothermal, and biomass. The reality is the place where you 


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have the abundance of oil and gas reserves is still in the Outer 

Continental Shelf. I think it is important that we move forward 

thoughtfully. 

When we are talking about hitting the pause button, we are talking about taking the time out to essentially learn what exactly happened here to do everything we can to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. 

RIG INSPECTIONS

Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. I know you 

are doing everything you can to deal with this problem. 

The Wall Street Journal reported, using MMS data, a decline in 

rig inspections from 1,292 in 2005 to 760 in 2009. With the growth 

in the industry, this decline in inspections is troublesome. We have 

talked about the 55 inspectors, and we are adding some. You asked 

for 11. We are putting them in the supplemental. The money is in 

the supplemental, by the way, that you requested. How many safety inspectors does the MMS employ? And what resources does the 

Department need to ensure the number of inspection increases? 

Now, the reason I am asking that is, on the MMS Web site, the 

agency claims that each rig must be inspected once per month. 

News reports, however, indicate that schedule is not always kept. 

Prior to the incident in the Gulf, how often were drilling rigs inspected? And what was the scope of these inspections? Have inspections included an evaluation of the functioning of the blowout prevention equipment below the water’s surface? And is it satisfactory 

just to have one prevention technique, or should there be more redundancy? And I am sure when you get the National Academy’s 

study, that is one of the things you are going to ask them to look 

at. 

But this is troublesome, that these inspections have declined and 

that we may not be inspecting these on a regular basis. What can 

you tell us about this? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Dicks, first, as you know, even 

on the budget we presented with respect to 2011, we have requested additional inspectors. 

Mr. DICKS. Right. And we put those in the supplemental. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Well, even before the supplemental in the 

President’s budget, we knew that there were additional inspectors 

that we needed, and we requested them. 

With respect to the rest of your question, I will have the Deputy 

Secretary comment on that. 

Mr. HAYES. Congressman, you are correct. The number of inspections has gone down. We will give you the specifics on that. Ironically, actually, the number of active drilling platforms has gone 

down, too. They tend to be more concentrated efforts. So that is not 

as significant a data point as it might appear. 

Mr. DICKS. Okay. 

Mr. HAYES. You raise some very important points. Let me just 

run through the others. In terms of the frequency of inspection, 

there is an effort during drilling activities to have an inspection 


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once a month, and that has not been hit completely, which is one 

of the reasons we are interested in more inspections. Although for 

drilling activities, it is very close to once a month. Probably more 

important is that we need to do a stem-to-stern evaluation of the 

effectiveness of these inspections. In fact the Secretary last fall, before any of this arose, asked the National Academy of Science’s 

Transportation Board to do an evaluation of the effectiveness of our 

inspections, and that independent evaluation is ongoing. We are 

very much looking forward to the results. 

Your final question, Congressman, went to the issue of whether 

blowout preventers are tested at sea, at depth when they are put 

down below on the seabed. They are not. 

Mr. DICKS. Can they be? 

Mr. HAYES. There are tests down below about the hydraulics. 

What has not been tested down below are secondary systems or 

emergency systems. The safety report the Secretary is delivering to 

the President today goes into this in some detail and identifies a 

number of areas like this very specifically, Congressman, where we 

think there needs to be some fresh thinking about additional inspections, and additional testing specifically going to the issues 

that arose in the Deepwater Horizon and the failure of the BOP. 

NEPA REVIEW

Mr. DICKS. Another point that was made by a lieutenant commander in the Coast Guard was that offshore regulations, environmental regulations, were out of date. He said, a 20-year-old categorical exclusion under NEPA was used to approve drilling by the 

BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf. We have heard over 

the last month that technological advances and research in deepwater drilling are similar to those of our sophisticated space exploration program. Yet we still use 20-year-old environmental reviews 

to approve new drilling activities. What can you tell us about that, 

David? 

Mr. HAYES. Congressman, that is correct. That is the National 

Environmental Policy Act categorical exclusion policy that Chairman Sutley indicated earlier this year—actually in February of this 

year—that CEQ is reviewing whether it makes sense to continue 

with that policy. We have an additional challenge here, as you 

know, that we process exploration permits within 30 days, and that 

is not enough time to do a good analysis, which has led to those 

categorical exclusions. I will finally say that the Secretary and 

Nancy Sutley agreed and announced about ten days ago that they 

are doing a joint review of this very issue. 

INSPECTIONS

Mr. DICKS. Because this does earn a lot of revenue, $13 billion 

or $14 billion a year, I think we ought to be very much on the side 

of making sure that we have the people who are properly trained 

and who can make these inspections and do them professionally 

and on a timely basis, and the science. The budget was cut by $2 

million on science this year. I think we will put that money back 

in. But I think we should have overkill here in terms of the inspections and the quality of the people doing it. 

Thank you. 


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Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Dicks. Mr. Calvert. 

COASTAL BARRIERS

Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As was mentioned by 

others, I think there will be time to investigate what went wrong 

and what needs to be done in the future. But I think a lot of folks, 

quite frankly, are interested in what we are doing now. 

Governor Jindal of Louisiana has asked for immediate authority 

to build coastal barriers to protect coastal marsh land and estuaries. Obviously he is very concerned, and has been on the news 

lately. Is there any reason why you could not give the Governor immediate authority to move ahead on building these coastal barriers? I know that there is always a downside to everything, but 

it seems from listening to a number of experts that the risks posed 

by the oil are far worse than other problems associated with the 

barriers. I want to listen to where we are on that and whether or 

not permits are going to be issued to give the Governor the authority to move ahead on this. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Calvert, I can tell you that this 

issue is one in which the National Incident Commander, Admiral 

Allen, has been engaged and is engaged in even today with the 

Governor of Louisiana. Hopefully there will be a resolution that is 

workable. It is an ongoing thing, and Admiral Allen is totally on 

top of it. 

Mr. CALVERT. Well, it seems that, again, based on news stories 

I have been reading that we are running out of time and oil is now 

going into the marshlands. I believe the Governor asked two weeks 

ago for permission to move ahead on building coastal barriers. As 

I understand it, as of today no permits have been issued or no permission has been given to the Governor to move forward. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Calvert, what we need to make 

sure happens, as we respond to this, is that we are doing things 

that are not going to make things worse. That is part of what Admiral Allen is assessing, and he is, along with all the Federal team, 

making sure we are doing everything possible, including looking at 

every idea that is placed on the table, including these ideas that 

have been placed on the table by Governor Jindal. 

Mr. CALVERT. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Calvert. The chair of the 

Science, Justice, and Commerce Subcommittee, Mr. Mollohan. 

REGULATIONS

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, welcome to the hearing. 

Mr. Dicks asked you some questions about inspectors and the 

number of inspections. I would like to ask you a series of questions 

with regard to the standard to which the companies were supposed 

to operate or are operating and what regulatory scheme under 

which they are operating that these inspectors are inspecting 

under. What is the regulatory regime? What are the statutory authorities? And are they mandatory? Are they voluntary? What kind 

of safety and environmental regulations or rules are the drilling operations operating under? 


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Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman, there is a comprehensive set of 

regulations to regulate the industry, including many mandatory 

provisions relating to cementing, relating to blowout preventers 

and redundancies in those mechanisms. There is a comprehensive 

regulatory regime in place. It is included in my report to the President, as we look at what we do here in the United States versus 

what is happening in other countries, we have a regulatory regime 

that is comprehensive in nature. It doesn’t mean it is not a regulatory regime that needs to be significantly strengthened, for example, on the issues of blowout preventers and redundancies. In fact, 

there will be additional requirements we will be imposing. 

PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

Mr. MOLLOHAN. The Wall Street Journal reports that over the 

past several years the MMS has adopted broad performance standards that industry is required to meet and does not enforce a specific set of safety rules for the OCS operations. Is that correct? And 

to what extent is that correct? 

Secretary SALAZAR. The standards are, in fact, both mandatory 

as well as performance-based. The Deputy Secretary, who has been 

working on this issue, will comment. 

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. HAYES. Congressman, the regulatory structure is both prescriptive and performance-based. Interestingly, back to the chairman’s question, Norway, for example, has a performance-based approach more than a prescriptive-based approach. The MMS regulations are a mix, which we think is appropriate. What we are looking at is potentially additional prescriptions, however, because limiting the prescriptions may not be appropriate. I will say that this 

regulatory structure has been laid out over the last several years 

under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which itself provides 

ample authority for the Department to have a robust regulatory 

system. 

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Well, according to MMS and the Wall Street 

Journal, the safety and environmental management plan is a voluntary program that is meant to complement other MMS regulations. The plan is a process for OCS oil and gas, and I quote, ‘‘that 

recognizes worker safety and pollution control are largely dependent on proper human behavior.’’ 

We have this issue and this question in the coal industry. 

Mr. HAYES. Yes. 

REGULATIONS

Mr. MOLLOHAN. And what we are really finding is that discretion, to the extent it exists in dangerous situations, leads to disasters. I was just wondering if you would comment on the quote, that 

the plan recognizes worker safety and pollution control are largely 

dependent on proper human behavior. I would suggest the regulatory scheme should dictate proper human behavior. 

Mr. HAYES. Well, this is an important point. As I mentioned before, the regulatory system is quite prescriptive. There was a proposal in the mid-nineties to also have a safety management system-type requirement. That is what that is referring to, and that 

was adopted on a voluntary basis to actually just have companies 


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explain what management systems they were going to have, to 

make sure the legally required mandates were, in fact, being followed. Over the last ten years, that has been implemented on a 

voluntary basis. Actually the MMS recently suggested it be codified 

that there would be a specific requirement that companies adopt 

management systems not on a voluntary basis. That rule is now 

being finalized, and that is referenced in the safety report being 

presented to the Secretary today. 

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Well, does this lead to inspectors not having a 

statutory or regulatorily promulgated standard to reference when 

they go out and inspect? 

Mr. HAYES. No. If you look at our Code of Federal Regulations, 

it looks like an EPA code of regulations or a mining code of regulations. The inspectors have a very long checklist of very specific requirements and they have an enforcement program that identifies 

more than 2,000 violations per year. They typically will have fines 

of about $1 million per year. These are all based on mandatory requirements, but that journal article I was talking about is the notion of having a safety management system that sort of overlies 

this. We think it is a good idea to, in fact, have that as well. But 

that doesn’t go to the question of inspection requirements. They are 

all laid out in the regulations. 

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Would you identify for the committee areas of inadequacy with regard to statutory and regulatory authority or 

rules that you have promulgated, things that need to be done additionally? 

Mr. HAYES. The report we are filing today and we will make public today will identify a number of areas where we think there 

should be some additional strengthening, Congressman. 

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Do you intend to move forward with rule promulgation to address that? 

Mr. HAYES. Yes. That is our recommendation to the President. 

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Mollohan. For the sake of the committee’s understanding of the time schedule, we have just been told 

that in about 15 minutes, we will have a series of four votes. We 

will try to keep the hearing going, but will see if we can’t wrap up 

before noontime. Just one other thing. They just announced this is 

clearly the largest oil spill in our Nation’s history, from 20 to 40 

million gallons. So it is two to four times larger than the Exxon 

Valdez, which was previously the most damaging. 

And this will be the only round of questions for the Secretary. 

We will have a subsequent panel in the afternoon to deal with the 

Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Mr. Cole. 

ENFORCEMENT AND REGULATIONS

Mr. COLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, thank you 

for being here. We sort of touched on it, but I want to break this 

into three parts and ask you to assess, in your view, where shortcomings may have occurred. You could have a situation where, 

number one, the regulations were all followed, the equipment was 

the appropriate equipment but it just wasn’t enough. Secretary 

Hayes touched on this a little bit. What are the shortcomings in 


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the regulatory framework and the requirements that currently 

exist that we ought to now in retrospect fix? 

Two, you could have a situation where all those things were fine 

but there wasn’t an enforcement mechanism or there wasn’t 

enough personnel or they didn’t do their job correctly. So there is 

nothing wrong with the structure of the regulations, there is nothing wrong with the requirements, but there is a failure in the enforcement mechanism itself. 

And three, you can have a case where there is a uniquely bad 

incident or a bad actor who has not done what they were supposed 

to do, has deliberately evaded the requirements. I know it is early 

to tell, but I would like your overview on whatever you think—how 

these factors relate together and explain what happened. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Cole, I think that is why it is 

so important that this Commission have the opportunity to look at 

all of those questions, including what happened in this particular 

incident. You have probably by now seen many of the stories about 

what people think happened, what was going on in the rig, and 

rubber that apparently came up and a whole host of things that 

were missed. The question of operator error, how much of that was 

responsible for this, the working theories relative to whether it was 

a defective placement of the cementing or the casing because a 

blowout essentially on a well is never supposed to happen. It did 

happen. Then you have the whole set of questions relating to the 

blowout prevention mechanism, and the actuation of that blowout 

prevention mechanism both from the rig as well as from the 

ground. What happened on the rig itself with the fire and the blowout? There is a whole series of questions that have to be asked and 

answered. 

As part of that, Congressman Cole, I think it is very important 

and very obvious that we do what the President has asked us to 

do and, I think, what this Congress is asking us to do, which is to 

look at how we can improve the regulatory regime with respect to 

OCS. The report that we present to the President very shortly will 

lay out a number of places where we think safety can be improved. 

I don’t know if that answers your question, but the fact is we are 

in a dynamic process, right in the middle of crossing the river. 

When all is said and done, the lessons learned will include all of 

the series of issues you have raised. 

Mr. COLE. Fair enough. It is early to ask that question, I understand. 

INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

Two other questions. This was touched on earlier. Obviously 

drilling goes on by a variety of countries in a variety of environments all over the world offshore. This is for informational purposes. Is there any sort of international set of standards for offshore drilling or does each country more or less decide individually? Two, if that is the case, is there any thought about the administration having more international coordination? It is terrible 

because it has happened obviously in our Gulf, but it would be just 

as bad someplace else in the world, and we all live in the same environment. So what is happening internationally on this? 


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Secretary SALAZAR. I will comment and have David comment as 

well on that. Especially when you are talking about the Arctic waters, I have wanted to make sure the other countries that are involved, including Norway, Canada and Russia, that we understand 

and learn from each other. I made a trip to Canada to meet with 

the countries that share the Arctic area to get additional information from them. We should learn from each other. 

Mr. HAYES. Congressman, briefly, there is a lot of sharing of information at the international level. Both among the regulators 

and MMS working with regulatory authorities in Norway, Brazil 

and other countries that do this activity. There is not a blue book 

of accepted international standards. There is an active industry 

standard development process that is also shared globally. This is 

one of the things we want to look at because our desire is to have 

absolutely world-class efforts and to make sure the rest of the 

world also benefits from this. 

It is a focus of the Secretary’s report to the President, and it is 

going to be a focus, I am sure, of the Presidential commission. 

COMMUNICATION COORDINATION

Mr. COLE. Okay. Last question if I may, Mr. Chairman. Let me 

make it clear when I ask this question I have really high respect 

for Admiral Allen. I really do. I dealt with him during Katrina. I 

think he is really one of the greatest public servants I have ever 

encountered. I have enormously high respect for you, too, Mr. Secretary. I think you have done a great job for the President and I 

think you have done a good job in a difficult situation. It has 

caused me concern that a week ago or a couple of weeks ago the 

two of you seemed to be on different pages with BP and their involvement and how we ought to be handling that. 

It concerned me this morning when I heard a report on NPR 

about Admiral Allen floating the idea of burning oil in the marshes. 

It worries me that you didn’t know, and that there wasn’t coordination. I don’t say that to be critical of you or him. But is there a 

mechanism here where you guys are communicating well? I think 

you have been a little bit out of sync with one another. Let me be 

fair, in the middle of an ongoing crisis, it is pretty easy to lose coordination. But I think it is something to think about because there 

are a lot of mixed messages going out from a PR standpoint. It creates a little bit of confusion. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Cole, I think Admiral Allen 

and I have probably been in more communication than—in fact, I 

know I have communicated with him a lot more than I have with 

my wife over the last 37 days. We are very coordinated. We have 

a nightly call where we catch up on exactly what has happened 

during the day on the big issues we are handling, and on what the 

Governors and others are requesting. This is a highly coordinated 

effort. 

That is the first point I would make. The second point, in terms 

of the roles—you, Congressman Cole, know how words sometimes 

are taken. The reality of it is pretty clear and I think Admiral 

Allen agrees as well. We, as the United States of America, have the 

responsibility of holding BP accountable. One of the roles I have 

played is, I am holding them accountable in Houston to make sure 


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the best science is brought to bear. That is why this is probably Dr. 

McNutt’s first time in Washington for 3 weeks, because she has 

been at the command center. I ordered them to have Secretary Chu 

and his people there as well. You know the role that we play is as 

the directors, and I think we have played that well. People may describe that role in different ways, but there is not a substantive difference in the understanding of the role. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chandler. 

RESPONSE TO SPILL

Mr. CHANDLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, thank 

you for all this hard work that you have undertaken. I know that 

there are a lot of us who have a great deal of confidence in the fact 

that you are there and on the job. If you are anything like me, it 

frustrates you a little bit that often the first folks that criticize the 

response of the government seem to be the anti-regulatory or the 

shrink-the-government crowd. I find that ironic. I don’t know if you 

do, but that happens quite often, and it seems to be happening 

here in this situation. 

BP

I would like to touch on BP a little bit, if I may. We in this country refer to our fossil fuels, whether they be oil, gas, coal, whatever, 

as our natural resources. The key word here being ‘‘our.’’ These resources, in my view, belong to the American people. When the Minerals Management Service approves a drilling operation, they are, 

again, in my view, bestowing on a private company the right to 

make profit off of what belongs to the American people. That is 

what that transaction entails. And the profits, indeed, are immense. 

It is astonishing to me. BP’s net profit in 2009 was $16.6 billion. 

That equates to about $45.4 million every day in profit. And we 

know what profit is. That is what is after all of the expenses, all 

of the expenses taken to extract what are our natural resources. 

This is the profit that they have made. My understanding is, in the 

first quarter of 2010, the profits jumped 135 percent, and they are 

now making profits at a rate of $60-plus million a day. With making these profits by extracting our country’s resources, these companies of course have a responsibility. And if these companies can’t 

take that responsibility seriously, we really need to do something 

about it. 

Obviously we have had tragedies. This is the most recent one. 

But we have had others where lives are lost in this activity, and 

entire regions of the country are decimated and in some cases entire economies. People who obviously had no fault in this, their 

livelihoods are being ruined as a result of this. We are seeing the 

destruction of travel, tourism, the hospitality industry, fishing. All 

of these things. When we give these companies the right to make 

profits off of our resources, they make the profits, and it seems like 

so often at the end of the day, the taxpayers end up being on the 

hook for a lot of the costs. It seems like that is the case more and 

more often. 


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DIVERTED DOI RESOURCES

Now I would be interested to know to what extent is your agency 

having to divert resources to this crisis, that would be used in 

other circumstances that this subcommittee is going to ultimately 

have to give you more money to replace? I suspect that something 

like that is going to happen in the future, through no fault of your 

own of course, but because you are responding to this crisis. I 

would be curious if you could try to address that. And I certainly 

don’t expect you to have any particular numbers on it at this point. 

But also, what are you going to be doing in the future to make sure 

that BP does foot the entire bill for all of these things and all of 

the costs to the taxpayers? 

ROYALTY WAIVERS

You know we have also given these companies quite large tax 

breaks in the past, and we have given them royalty waivers. I 

would like to explore with you the royalty waiver program. Do you 

believe that the royalty rates that we are receiving from not just 

this company but in general, are decent compensation? Are they 

sufficient for the risk that the American taxpayer has to undertake 

in these circumstances and for all of the potential damage that 

could be caused? And can you tell me, how has the royalty waiver 

program impacted the type of exploration that is performed, the 

risks taken, and how it may have contributed to this particular 

failure? 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Secretary. 

RESPONSE

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Chandler, let me first say that 

with respect to the Department of Interior’s efforts along the Gulf 

Coast, it is a massive mobilization on our part, and it includes 

many agencies. You will hear in much more detail from Assistant 

Secretary Tom Strickland about what the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and other agencies are doing down 

in the region. He is in charge and on point dealing with the protection of the Gulf, and can articulate those efforts. There is, indeed, 

significant expense associated with that. They are a part of the oil 

spill response expense, and so we expect that BP will be paying for 

those expenses, and we have set up accounting mechanisms not 

only for us at Interior but across the Federal Government so we 

can get those funds from BP. 

ROYALTIES

Secondly, with respect to royalties and the collection of those royalties from companies that use American property to essentially 

create profit for themselves, it is an issue we have been working 

very hard on. This has been part of our reform effort. As you know, 

Congressman Chandler, on the onshore we have had a royalty rate 

of 12.5 percent in place since 1920. It seems to me that it is high 

time, when you look at the royalty rates in the State of Texas and 

other places, we reform that. With respect to the offshore, we have 

underway a number of different efforts to try to get a fair return 


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to the American taxpayer, including royalty simplification and how 

royalties are calculated. 

The driving principle I have articulated in front of this Committee in the past and many times in front of other committees in 

Congress is that my responsibility as Secretary of Interior is to 

make sure the American taxpayer is getting a fair return for the 

use of these very valuable resources, and that effort, no matter the 

gravity of the moment, is important, and will, in fact, continue. 

MMS REORGANIZATION

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. Mr. Hinchey. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank 

you, Mr. Secretary and Mr. Vice Secretary. I very much appreciate 

everything that you are doing. We are deeply grateful to you and 

we know all of the energy and all of the time you have been putting into this. It is absolutely essential that you have done so and 

you are making a big difference in this operation. 

I just want to say candidly that this tragic disaster in the Gulf 

of Mexico is just another example of the deeply adverse set of circumstances that this administration has inherited and the complex 

conditions that they have to deal with both domestically and internationally. This is just one of those very, very tragic issues. I very 

much appreciate what you are doing, the focus of attention on it, 

the changes that are being made. All of those things are absolutely 

essential, and they seem to be done very, very well. One of the 

things that you talked about is MMS and how changes are being 

made in MMS. MMS, we know, was incompetent and to a substantial degree, even corrupt in the way that it oversaw the operations 

there. Are you comfortable now with the way in which MMS is 

being changed and being operated? Do we have to become involved 

in that? How do you feel about this and the changes that are being 

made? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Hinchey, I appreciate your 

comment. The fact is, yes, we need your involvement as we move 

forward with the reorganization of MMS. Essentially what I have 

done is to blow up that agency but it carries on a very important 

function for the United States of America. That is why we put it 

together in the Office of Natural Resources Revenues, away from 

the mines and minerals and why we set up the bureaus of Safety 

and Environmental Enforcement as well as Ocean Energy Management, our key initiatives. I have a star team, a SWAT team that 

has been assigned to pull that together. I gave them a 30-day time 

period in order to be able to have an opportunity to consult with 

you and with your staff as we pull together the new organizations. 

We need your help in getting it done. 

MANAGEMENT CONTROLS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Mr. HINCHEY. I thank you very much. I appreciate what you are 

doing in that particular regard. I just wanted to say that it was 

over two weeks ago when BP-Transocean executives testified before 

a Senate committee, and it was clear that if you look at how the 

management of this rig was structured, there was no surprise in 

the way in which this came about. One of the things that became 

apparent was that BP owned the lease to drill. Transocean owned 


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the rig used to drill the well. Halliburton was in charge of cementing the well casing. And the situation went on and on. I mean, this 

was such a deeply complex set of circumstances which was almost 

impossible to control. One of the reasons it was almost impossible 

to control was the interaction, the adverse interaction apparently, 

between these organizations. There was a great deal of indecision 

in the moments leading up to this explosion, and the explosion 

then took place. 

Who was in charge of the drilling operation? Which of these parties had the final decision on the rig operations? I know that this 

is something that you have begun to look into. Maybe it is not clear 

yet what the set of circumstances are. To whatever extent you can 

say so specifically would be important, but we would appreciate it 

as time goes on, too, because I know that you are going to continue 

to look into this and investigate it even more. 

Doesn’t the Interior Department need to ensure that effective 

management controls and structures are in place so that we are 

not faced with indecision and so that accountability cannot be 

outsourced? One of those aspects of accountability was the apparent refusal—and I assume it was—that refused this remote control 

cutoff switch whose functions would have been to seal off the well 

in case the rig above it was destroyed. So this was something that 

was obviously just neglected. 

These are the things that I know that you are paying attention 

to, and it probably has some relationship to the situation that you 

are dealing with offshore in Alaska now. 

Can you just give us some indication about what is going on 

there in this particular case? 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Hinchey. Mr. Secretary, we do want 

to give Ms. McCollum an opportunity to ask questions as well. So 

please proceed, Mr. Secretary, and then we will go to Ms. McCollum. 

Secretary SALAZAR. First, Congressman Hinchey, BP is the responsible party under the law and under the legal arrangement between the United States of America and BP as the lessee of this 

property and this resource. Within that construct, there are a number of contractual arrangements they enter into, including in this 

particular case with Transocean and other subcontracts for cementing and a whole host of other things with some of the companies 

you mentioned. I think you will be very interested to know these 

investigations will give us a lot of answers about what happened 

on the rig that day and that evening. I look forward to the results 

of an investigation that is, in fact, based on the facts of everything 

being investigated right now. I would expect, Mr. Chairman, you 

may want to have a hearing whenever those investigations are 

complete. 

With respect to the switch and what was going on with some of 

the deficiencies, that is also part of what the investigation is looking at. We are not waiting for the results of the investigation to 

come out as we move forward with the report we are sending over 

to the President that will talk about significant additional safety 

measures that can be put into place. 


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Finally, with respect to your last question on Alaska, you will 

hear more as the President makes his announcement in an hour 

or two. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Hinchey. Ms. McCollum. 

DRILLING IN THE ARCTIC

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Secretary Salazar, as has been pointed out by yourself and many 

people, the catastrophe in the Gulf has been a tragedy for the 

workers who lost their lives, for the fishermen and others whose 

livelihoods are now ruined, for the unknown environmental impacts on public health and wildlife for which we simply have no 

idea what the future looks like. 

BP was drilling in waters, as has been pointed out time and time 

again, owned by the American people. This oil spill now threatens 

many of our natural treasures, from the delicate coral reefs in Florida to the Louisiana wetlands that harbor life for thousands of 

wildlife species. 

Now, Secretary Salazar, in light of the disasters in the Gulf of 

Mexico and the corrupt state of MMS, I have grave concerns about 

allowing drilling in the Arctic. Trusting the work of MMS and the 

assurances of Shell Oil under the current regulations we are operating under is just unacceptable. So I am asking you, and I know 

it has been pointed out that the President is going to be making 

an announcement shortly, I am asking you to continue to use your 

powers to stop all the drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas 

until we really have answers on what went wrong with BP and, 

until we really have ideas of what we are doing going forward. 

Until this happens, off shore drilling needs to stop and stop now. 

So I welcome an announcement by the President because I have 

seen firsthand how fragile this area is in the Arctic, and I believe 

that we need to be working together to do everything we can do 

to make sure that you have all the tools that you need to put regulations in place that we know will work before any further drilling 

in this area commences. 

Now you have two major cleanups going on right now: The one 

in the Gulf, the oil spill that you have been answering questions 

on, and then you have also been answering questions on the regulatory cleanup mess and the deep corruption and the mismanagement that has plagued this agency that you inherited. Now you 

have been talking about some of your plans to clean up the agency, 

and I just want to reiterate how important this is. According to a 

story in The Washington Post Tuesday, May 25, 2010, MMS actions are shaped by a 2005 regulation it adopted that ‘‘assumes’’— 

oil and gas companies can best evaluate the environmental effects 

of their operations. 

So once again, I am asking for the drilling to stop until we put 

effective, new, stringent, accountable regulations in place. The 

Washington Post goes on to say, the rule governing which information MMS should receive and review before signing off on the drilling plan states, quote, the leasor or the operator is in the best position to determine the environmental effects and its proposed activity based on whether or not the operation is routine or nonroutine. 


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I think we have the science in our toolbox to make that decision, 

so I look forward to you doing that. So my questions are simple, 

and I think I have heard you clearly say that you will be coming 

to Congress to request legislation authorizing this new regulatory 

framework. I think I have heard you clearly say that. 

What request can this subcommittee expect for the 2011 appropriations? What are you going to need to be able to carry out this 

fundamental restructuring of the three separate agencies and finally eliminate once and for all the corruption, the negligence, and 

the conflicts of interest that have cost our country and our taxpayers so dearly? What can we do to help you? 

Mr. MORAN. Thanks, Ms. McCollum. And this is Ms. McCollum’s 

first foray into the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, and we 

welcome you, Ms. McCollum. Thank you. It is clear she is not going 

to be, as they say, a shrinking violet. And we welcome that. 

Mr. Secretary, after your response, we will conclude the hearing. 

Please, Mr. Secretary. 

MMS REORGANIZATION

Secretary SALAZAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Congresswoman McCollum. First, we have asked for the $29 million request, which Deputy 

Secretary David Hayes outlined, to be used for a variety of things, 

including additional inspectors and the investigations that are underway. As we move forward in this time frame where we are 

standing up the new reconstructed organization for the Office of 

Natural Resources Revenue, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, 

we will work closely with you to identify the resources needed to 

make sure the Department will have the robustness to accomplish 

the purposes you outlined. 

DRILLING IN THE ARCTIC

Finally, with respect to the comment you made about the Arctic, 

let me just say this: We know the sensitivities of the Arctic. We 

made very significant changes with respect to the proposed leasing 

programs and oil and gas development in the Arctic. The five exploratory wells that were to be drilled this summer, those predated 

what we were doing here. What will happen—I expect you will see 

the President’s statement—is that there is a sense here, we need 

to learn the lessons from the Gulf and pushing a pause button is 

an important thing to do. I think in particular in the Arctic, because of the fact the oil spill response you have underway in the 

Gulf Coast today is the largest ever in the history of the world. I 

think when other oil spills have occurred, including Ixtoc I in Mexico or thousands of others, many of which have been as large or 

larger, much larger than this one, they have gone unnoticed to the 

rest of the world. 

I think one of the things you raise and which Deputy Secretary 

David Hayes addressed a few minutes ago is we really also need 

to look at this in the context of the oceans of the world because 

what happens with respect to the Arctic in Alaska is just a very 

tiny piece of the Arctic Circle where there are sovereign interests 

that—independent of the United States, obviously, because of their 


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sovereignty—want to move forward with very aggressive programs 

in the Arctic, and it includes Russia, Canada, Norway, and other 

countries. In fact, that is why Secretary Clinton and I attended a 

meeting in Canada about a month and a half ago—about the need 

to really take a look at this issue even beyond the borders of the 

United States and the Arctic because we can take care, for example, of the Beaufort issues in the United States. Canada is right 

there, too. We can do it with respect to the Chukchi, but Russia 

is right there, too. One of the lessons I hope comes out of this is 

that we can also deal more with these issues on a global nature. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. MORAN. Very well done, Mr. Secretary, as we would have expected. Thank you as well, Mr. Hayes. You did a terrific job as 

well. 

This will conclude this part of the panel, and so you are free to 

go and to go back to advising the President on his statement this 

afternoon, Mr. Secretary. But the second panel, which will be the 

Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, 

and Dr. Marcia McNutt, the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, 

will begin as soon as we finish votes. My guess is that is probably 

going to be between 12:45 and 1:00. We will be back in this room 

as soon as votes are concluded with the second panel, EPA, Fish 

and Wildlife, and U.S. Geological Survey. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you again. 

[Recess.] 

THURSDAY, MAY 27, 2010. 

BP–TRANSOCEAN DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL DISASTER: 

ONGOING RESPONSE AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS 

WITNESSES 

BOB PERCIASEPE, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 

TOM STRICKLAND, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, FISH, AND WILDLIFE, AND 

PARKS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

DR. MARCIA McNUTT, DIRECTOR, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

REMARKS OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. I think we are going to start the second panel right 

now because I know your time is very valuable, and we want you 

to be back on the job as fast as you can, but we do need to get your 

perspective on what is currently going on. 

We have Bob Perciasepe, the Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; Tom Strickland, the Assistant Secretary of Interior and head of Fish, and Wildlife, and Parks; and 

Dr. Marcia McNutt is the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey. 

Why don’t we go from left to right? We will have each of you 

make a statement and then we will get into questions, rather than 

making any initial statements on our part, unless—did you have a 

statement you wanted to make, Mike? 

Mr. SIMPSON. I have been trying to get you to go from left to 

right for so long. 


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Mr. MORAN. So maybe we will start with Mr. Strickland and go 

from right to left, just for Mr. Simpson’s edification. No, I think we 

will—Bob, if you want to tell us the role that EPA is playing. And 

after we hear the opening statements, we will get into the questions. 

Go ahead, sir. 

OPENING REMARKS OF BOB PERCIASEPE

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Thank you, Chairman Moran and Ranking 

Member Simpson and also Chairman Dicks. And thank you all for 

inviting me today. 

I think I would be remiss if I didn’t start by just remembering 

how this whole event started and the fact that we lost 11 lives at 

the beginning and that we should express our condolences to the 

families who lost their loved ones. 

We all know that efforts by BP to stop this spill are still continuing. And while the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that we are facing right now has no easy answers, the EPA is 

committed to doing its job, protecting communities, the natural environment, human health from the spill itself, as well as concerns 

resulting from the response to the spill. 

Since the crisis began, the EPA has nearly 200 staff working on 

emergency response, from scientists, engineers, contractors, and 

others in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. We are 

performing rigorous testing and monitoring of air and water quality and are sharing that data with the public every day. 

For nearly a month, EPA has been monitoring the air and water 

for pollutants which could pose a risk to human health and to the 

local communities. This monitoring is essential to ensure that communities are protected as we respond to the spill. All of this information is being made public on EPA.gov/BPspill as quickly as possible and as quickly as we can compile it. 

DISPERSANTS

One of our top priorities is the safe application of chemical 

dispersants. Oil spill dispersants are chemicals applied to spilled 

oil to break down the oil into small drops below the surface. Ideally, the dispersed oil mixes into the water column and is rapidly diluted and then degraded by bacteria. 

We know that dispersants are generally less toxic than oil, they 

decrease the risk to the shoreline and to organisms at the surface, 

and they biodegrade over weeks and not years, as oil may. But in 

the use of dispersants, we are faced with environmental tradeoffs. 

The long-term effects on aquatic life are still not completely known, 

and we must make sure that the dispersants used are as nontoxic 

as possible. 

To date, BP has used about 850,000 gallons of dispersant, a volume that has never been used before. Since this crisis began, the 

EPA has not only demanded but has ordered, using the full force 

of the law, that the dispersants be limited in use, volume, and toxicity. 

As this event has progressed, the approaches have continued to 

be modified. At the beginning, we were not using subsurface appliVerDate Mar 15 2010 00:06 Nov 04, 2010 Jkt 061790 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A790P2.XXX A790P2

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cation, but, as the event continued, we were looking for more efficient ways to apply the dispersant so we could use less of it. And 

we went through some rigorous testing with BP to determine 

whether the subsurface application would work. We wanted to 

make sure that monitoring was in place above the surface to monitor what was happening. And once that was in place, we allowed 

the subsurface application to begin. 

As that has started, that has shown that we can be more efficient. Although today, as we are doing these other activities at the 

site, there is a variability in the amount of subsurface that is being 

used. But, as of the last few days, there has been very little surface 

application and mostly subsurface, and we have dramatically reduced the amount of dispersants that are being used. 

We are in a position with no perfect solution. As we emerge from 

this response, I want to commit to revisit the regulations surrounding how EPA prepares for response and particularly regarding the dispersant registration under the National Contingency 

Plan. I also want to commit to sharing the results with this committee as we review that and working with you to tighten those underlying regulations. We have requested $2 million for initial funding for a comprehensive, long-term study on the impacts of dispersants. This 

study would look at toxicity impacts over a broad range of aquatic 

and land species and shore species. We look forward to working 

with the committee to fully craft and fund that study. 

Since this crisis occurred over a month ago, I have personally 

traveled to the region. I have met with local community members, 

the fishing community, and government officials. It is clear that we 

are going to have a great deal of rebuilding to do, in terms of restoring this community. I urge that we do everything within our 

power to ensure a strong recovery for the future of the Gulf Coast. 

[The written statement follows:] 


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Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Perciasepe. 

Just so that my good friend to the left of me doesn’t get upset 

with the direction in which we are going, I think we will go to Mr. 

Strickland right now and then we will go back to Dr. McNutt. 

Mr. SIMPSON. The neutral approach. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. That is it. 

So, Tom Strickland, who is the Assistant Secretary of the Department and head of Fish and Wildlife and Parks. 

OPENING REMARKS OF TOM STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 

Ranking Member Simpson and Chairman Dicks, for the opportunity to spend a few minutes with you and answer any questions 

you might have. 

Let me start off as Bob did and say that the first level of tragedy 

was the loss of the 11 lives in the Gulf. I appreciate, Mr. Chairman, your acknowledgment. Our heart goes out to those families. 

I have my wife’s family in Louisiana, and we actually have a connection through her family to some folks who know some folks involved. It is a very, very tragic thing at the very most personal and 

immediate level, and we don’t want to lose sight of that. 

I have been down, as Bob has been down, many times. I have 

been down five times since the spill. Actually, I went to college in 

Louisiana. I have great history and connection to the area; I know 

it well. I spent a summer of my college life on a rig offshore of Louisiana, and so I know a bit about the circumstances and the situation that the workers were in. Our heart does go out to them. 

We are doing everything we can through all the resources that 

the Department of the Interior has and, as Secretary Salazar said, 

all the resources of the United States Government, to bring those 

to bear to deal with the issues of shutting the well down, dealing 

with the spill, and then the area that I will speak about for a moment here, dealing with the impacts of this on the wildlife and on 

the land. 

Let me give you a status report, because now the oil has begun 

to hit the land for about the last 2 weeks. As of this morning, the 

best measurement we had was about 101 miles of coastline has 

been impacted. A number of the miles have been barrier islands. 

One of the first areas to be hit was a wildlife refuge, Breton National Wildlife Refuge, the second wildlife refuge ever created, this 

one by Teddy Roosevelt. There is a very iconic photo of Teddy Roosevelt sitting on Breton Island—in fact, the only photo we have of 

him on a wildlife refuge. 

I have flown over that island and the Chandeleur Chain, which 

makes up that refuge, many times over the last several weeks, and 

the impacts have been very dramatic. It is a very important wildlife refuge. Right now, we have 3,500 nesting pairs of brown pelican at South Breton Island. So far, we have been able to boom that 

area and keep them from being affected. 

As of this point, the wildlife impacts, as we can measure them, 

have been fairly modest. That is not because the long-term impacts 

are expected to be modest; it is just that retrieval of the birds and 

the fish right now—there is a lag time. 


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I visited the wildlife recovery efforts that we have on the coast. 

We have over 700 Department of the Interior employees fully engaged in our efforts down on the coast. We have 32 wildlife refuges 

in the Gulf of Mexico. We have eight Park units. We have 40 Federal assets, if you will, within the Department of the Interior that 

play key roles with our environment, recreationally and otherwise. 

I want to assure you that we are doing everything we can to protect those specific assets, to monitor the impacts of this spill, to be 

prepared to go after the responsible party under the law, under 

NRDA, for all damages to natural resources, and we have very 

good cleanup plans for all those lands. Beyond just taking care of 

the Federal estate, we are also working with the locals, the States 

and private parties, to help do the baseline assessment that will be 

so important as we go forward to make sure we do everything we 

can to restore this ecosystem. 

We expect there to be significant long-term impacts to wildlife 

and to the environment that will play out over a long period of time 

if history is a lesson, and I think it would be. We are still seeing 

effects of the Exxon Valdez spill. As Dr. McNutt will be able to 

speak to in a moment and, Mr. Chairman, you commented in your 

remarks, there have been some estimates now of the scope and size 

of this that make it clear we are dealing with a very large spill in 

a very ecologically sensitive area. 

While we are going to hold BP accountable for all the costs to the 

full extent of the law—and, in their case, they have acknowledged 

they will be responsible for every dime of impact. We interpret that 

to mean, and we will hold them to the fact, that this includes natural resources. To the extent we have any costs associated with 

this recovery, we will do our best to recover those directly from 

them. It is possible that some of our increased regulatory costs and 

response costs may not be able to be passed on, like you were pursuing earlier today, Congressman Simpson, regarding increased inspections. 

I wanted to leave the message that we are fully engaged at the 

Department of the Interior with the natural resources part of this. 

As the oil is coming onshore, we are doing everything we can to accelerate the cleanups, to make sure the cleanups are done in an environmentally responsible way that is responsible to the wildlife, to 

recover harmed wildlife and try and protect the wildlife. 

There is great public interest in what is going on down there 

with the wildlife. We have thousands and thousands of volunteers 

from around the country who want to help, and we are trying to 

do everything we can to engage those people. 

It is a robust level of engagement. We have the head of the Fish 

and Wildlife Service full-time down in Houma, Louisiana. We have 

the head of the Park Service full-time down in Mobile. We have the 

head of the Bureau of Land Management full-time in Robert, Louisiana. I am down there about every 4 or 5 days, going to all the 

incident command centers. We also just positioned the Superintendent of Everglades National Park to head our efforts in south 

Florida. We are fully integrated at the incident command. 

On issues like the barrier islands, the issues of the marsh, 

whether it burns or not and when, we are fully engaged with our 

scientists and our perspective to contribute to that. I do think there 


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will be an announcement on the barrier island proposal later today. 

I may be in a position to shed some light on that here today. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The written statement follows:] 


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Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Strickland. I wish the media would 

give more recognition to the top personnel that are down there on 

the scene. 

Speaking of the media, you have been doing a good job, Dr. 

McNutt, in dealing with the media. 

And now we will hear from Dr. McNutt. 

OPENING REMARKS OF DR. MARCIA MCNUTT

Dr. MCNUTT. Thank you, Chairman Moran and distinguished 

members of the Committee. 

The USGS is a broad-capacity research agency that is internationally renowned for bringing its science to bear to reduce the 

impacts of natural and environmental hazards. Since I took charge 

of this agency just about six months ago, I have had to deal with 

the earthquake in Haiti, the earthquake in Chile, the Asian carp 

invasion into the Great Lakes and the rivers around it, 

Eyjafjallajkull, and now this oil spill. It has been quite a ride, the 

last six months. 

Mr. MORAN. A regular Calamity Jane. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Yes. 

Mr. MORAN. I assume that there wasn’t any correlation between 

your coming on the scene and everything disrupting. 

Dr. MCNUTT. At NOAA, they are calling me the master of disasters. 

Within days of this oil spill, USGS stood up our best mapping capabilities to help all of the agencies responding to this disaster understand exactly where the oil is and understand what it is doing. 

Because if you don’t know where the oil is, how can you respond 

to it? 

You all have examples in front of you of the kinds of products 

we were turning out since very early on in the disaster. Using eyes 

in space and eyes in the air helps us to understand where the oil 

is. Working with our partner agencies, such as NOAA, we put together models that would predict where the oil might be going in 

future days; and to help understand the difference between thick 

oil, dull oil, and sheen, because emergency responders needed to 

know the difference between these kinds of oils because they all 

had different impacts on life at sea and life on the coastline. 

[The information follows:] 


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We found that, in the beginning days of the oil spill, resources 

were being spread too thin. It was important for people to know 

these different kinds of oil so that resources could be put where 

they were really needed and not where people thought they would 

be needed. 

In addition, at the USGS, we immediately marshalled what experience we had from prior spills. We even pulled 80-year-old scientists out of retirement who had worked on the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill and downloaded from them what experience they had 

with that oil spill. We had significant capacity within the agency 

from the Exxon Valdez oil spill and learned what we could from 

them on the behavior of oil that was still in the environment decades later, the toxicity of that oil, lessons learned, what we wish 

we had known when that oil first hit the environment that we 

didn’t know, and how we could have responded better. 

Based on that, for example, we learned of the importance of 

going out and sampling immediately, before the oil even hits the 

shoreline, so that we can characterize what every piece of wetland, 

what every beach, what the animal population was like before they 

are impacted, so then, when the oil hits, we can make a damage 

assessment that is grounded in reality of knowing what everything 

was like beforehand. 

All these lessons learned, we shared with our colleagues in 

Parks, in Fish and Wildlife, and with the Coast Guard, so everyone 

would understand exactly what needed to be done before oil hit. We 

shared protocols for water sampling, sediment sampling, biota sampling, so everything could be scientifically defensible and help people understand the difference between what were the standards 

that would be needed for a research paper versus what standards 

might need to be for standing up in a court of law. Those are very 

different standards. 

We also helped with scientific evaluation of State proposals, such 

as Bobby Jindal’s barrier island proposal, helping to understand 

where sand might be mined that could actually be beneficial in his 

proposal, versus where sand might be mined that could actually do 

harm to the environment. 

In conclusion, the USGS will continue to work closely with Interior and other Federal and State agencies, as well as the private 

sector, in response to the BP oil spill. 

I personally have been down in Houston for the past three 

weeks, helping to coordinate a very broad Federal response down 

there. I have been in charge of the Flow Rate Technical Group, 

which just reported out this morning with new numbers for release. That has been a herculean effort, which we hope will very 

much help this broad Federal response. 

Without your recognition for the importance of the USGS’s longterm monitoring and data collection, the USGS would not have the 

scientific tools, data, and information that have allowed our rapid 

response to the crisis. 

I thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today, and 

I would be pleased to answer any questions that you have. 

[The written statement follows:] 


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Mr. MORAN. Good for you. Thank you very much, Doctor. We 

have lots of questions. I will start with the EPA. 

SUPPLEMENTAL REQUEST

You have asked for $2 million. It comes up today when we mark 

up the emergency supplemental in the full committee. You wanted 

to research the impacts of the oil spill and the use of dispersants. 

We need to know how much EPA has spent to date. We really 

ought to get it onto the record. 

What are the costs of the three subsurface dispersant tests prior 

to approval and the application, the costs of the ongoing air monitoring, costs of ongoing water quality and sediment monitoring, including the analysis of particle size measurements? And is this all 

reimbursable by BP? 

Mr. Perciasepe. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Mr. Chairman, EPA has spent to date about $7 

million. We fully expect that that is all reimbursable from BP. 

Mr. MORAN. So do you give receipts, or do you just tell them, 

‘‘This is what it costs’’? Is it a phone call? I mean, how do you do 

it? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. There is a process through the unified command 

and the Oil Pollution Act. There is a trust fund that is set up, and 

that trust fund is where the reimbursement takes place. 

We are required to have a financial stewardship plan in place, 

which we have done. We have had it reviewed by our inspector 

general, and we have included all the comments that the inspector 

general has given us. So we will have the detailed records on this. 

This deals with two of our regional offices, the one out of Atlanta 

because we are mobilized in parts of the Gulf that have yet to be 

directly impacted but, as you know, people are preparing in case 

something happens there; and our office out of Dallas, which is covering Louisiana; as well as some expenses at the national level, including the contracting and the other employees that are doing the 

monitoring. 

So all of that together. The burn rate, as we sometimes say in 

the budget world, would probably be about the same as that going 

forward. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. 

DISPERSANTS AND ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS

Now, let’s get into this dispersant a bit. We have applied about 

850,000 gallons of dispersant as of today. Just on Monday, you and 

the Coast Guard decided to scale back the quantity of Corexit that 

you were applying. But in Britain they found, over a decade ago, 

that Corexit was negatively impacting crustaceans, snails, mollusks, and so on along the shoreline. 

You wonder, if they found that it was harmful a decade ago, why 

are we still using it in the gulf today? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Well, the way they look at dispersants in the 

United Kingdom is they are looking at rocky shores, and there are 

a different set of organisms in the rocky shores. 

And they also have different standards on how close to the shore 

that you would apply it. In the United States, you don’t apply 

dispersants within three miles of the shore. In fact, most of these 


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dispersants that have been applied either at the wellhead now or 

even in the aerial or off-ship application has occurred greater than 

30 or 40 miles out to sea. 

Mr. MORAN. Of course, you have tides, currents that you have to 

deal with. 

Are you confident it is not an endocrine disruptor, as we have 

been told it most likely is? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. We know that there are some dispersants that 

may have decomposition byproducts that have been identified as 

potential endocrine disruptors. And one of the things we are in the 

process of evaluating as this event continues is to keep looking at 

that next level. First, let’s apply the dispersants because of the 

long-term benefit of reducing the size of the oil particles so they 

can decompose more quickly and avoid some of the shoreline impacts that, thankfully, we have not yet had but, I agree with Tom, 

we are likely to have much more of. Now we have had ways to reduce it by using the sub-sea application. 

If this continues, for whatever reason, for a longer period of time, 

we are going to keep looking at additional measures we would take. 

So right now we have asked BP to look at it from their perspective, 

but we have our own scientists at EPA, collaborating with the rest 

of the Federal agencies, looking at all the different components of 

these different dispersants. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes, that is good, except that a lot of people are asking, understandably, why are we doing it after the fact? After we 

poured 850,000 gallons in there, now let’s check out to see whether 

or not it is toxic. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. We don’t believe the current dispersants that 

they are using have these problems. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, I hope so. I mean, we are relying on BP to tell 

us that. 

Mr. DICKS. Would you yield just a quick—— 

Mr. MORAN. Yes, sure, I would. 

Mr. DICKS. Did they get permission to use this before they did 

it? There was some confusion. I have heard in the media that 

maybe they had just gone out and started using this and then notified you. Could you clear that up? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. There is a National Contingency Plan that is in 

place in advance of any particular spill. In the National Contingency Plan, there are tools that are pre-identified in the plan, and 

one of those tools are dispersants, and there are a number of 

dispersants that are on that list. And all the authorizations to start 

using it, as the spill unfolds, are between the responsible party and 

the Federal on-scene coordinator. So those things occurred almost 

back at the very beginning of the spill. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, did they get permission to use this particular 

dispersant? Was it on the list? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. It is on the list, yes, sir. Yes. 

Mr. DICKS. Okay. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 


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CLEAN UP COORDINATION

I am going to ask one more question, Mr. Strickland, before I 

turn to Mr. Simpson. The cleanup—we were told that in many 

areas there is just no cleanup going on at all, that it is uncoordinated. I think we would like to know who is coordinating it. Who 

is in charge? Are you in charge? 

What is your assessment of the damage? We saw pictures on television this morning of thousands of fish, dozens of birds dead, 

washing up. And it is going to get much worse day by day. 

Are you concerned about the idea of burning the marshes in 

order to burn up the oil, Mr. Strickland? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Chairman, let me take those up in the 

order that you raised them. 

I was down earlier this week on the beaches at Port Fourchon, 

and I went along about a five- or seven-mile stretch of beach with 

the local parish representatives, with Coast Guard representatives. 

I actually watched the cleanup in front of me. I saw the areas that 

had been addressed, other areas that were yet to be cleaned up, 

and actually talked with the locals. 

I think you have heard Admiral Allen is in charge through the 

National Incident Command. All of us are coordinated and working 

through the leadership of the Coast Guard. I think the President 

is re-affirming that, as we speak, in his remarks in the Rose Garden. So Admiral Allen is in charge. 

We are embedded in the incident command structure in each of 

the centers. There is one in Miami, there is one in St. Petersburg, 

there is one in Mobile, and there is one in Houma. The overall incident command system is in Robert. I will assure this committee 

that the Department of the Interior has senior people, in most 

cases presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed people, in each of 

those locations that are there pretty much 18 hours a day. The interest and points of view of this Department are fully represented. 

EPA has broad representation, as do other agencies. These are decisions that are made by the incident commander, by Admiral 

Allen, with the input from us. 

What I saw on the beach and what we have heard subsequently 

is that there has been a process of standing up our onshore response. There were efforts announced today about having a Coast 

Guard representative literally in every parish where there is onshore activity—that is, on the ground, designated to work, to cut 

through some of the red tape and the delays that have been complained about. 

I think you are going to see an enhanced and more ready response on the ground. I think you are going to see, some of these 

areas are hard to get to. I was on a boat this week, going out into 

the bays. For some of these areas, it takes a couple of hours to get 

out to them. We are going to put barges out there, we are going 

to set up tent camps, which you are going to see, because we need 

a presence over a sustained period of time, because it is going to 

take a while for this to work through. 


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MARSH BURN

Now, as far as the marsh issue, let me just speak to that quickly. 

I know that idea has been broached. It is my understanding no 

final decision has been made. It may be a tool in the toolbox that 

could be used at the right time, but there are questions about when 

to do it, and how to do it. We will be providing our perspective in 

terms of the potential impacts to wildlife. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Strickland. 

Yes, Mr. Simpson? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

DISPERSANT TOXICITY

Mr. Perciasepe, I guess I am kind of surprised that the EPA 

doesn’t already have the studies done on the toxicity of this dispersant. And you are asking now for $2 million in the supplemental to look at the long-term effects of this dispersant. 

You know, basically, I am not sure I understand why we are 

doing this and the benefit of it, other than it makes it look good. 

You don’t see the oil on the surface as much when you disperse it. 

Is it environmentally more sound to have it hidden? I mean, you 

are not getting rid of it, just breaking it up into little droplets. Is 

that right? And it is below the surface. It is still environmentally 

a problem, isn’t it? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes, I want to be really clear. Using dispersants 

is the, perhaps, better of very bad choices when you have this kind 

of an event. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If you disperse it, does it make it harder to clean 

it up? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. When you disperse it, it makes it easier for the 

natural processes to degrade it and digest it, so to speak, into the 

ecosystem. It increases the biological activity. And that is one of 

the primary intents here, is to increase the biological activity, keeping more of the oil, if it is possible to do that—and that is one of 

intents here, as well—offshore. 

In this environment that we are in, in the Gulf of Mexico, they 

are all sensitive ecosystems, but the coastal wetlands are the most 

sensitive ones and are like nurseries for the whole ecosystem. To 

the extent that we can allow that biological degradation to happen 

offshore, there will undoubtedly be some impacts out there, but it 

will reduce—that is the intent; that is the hard choice we are trying to make it here—it will reduce the impact on the onshore sensitive nursery areas for many of the species in the Gulf. 

So it is that tradeoff that we are making. And I think we should 

recognize that it is not a zero-sum tradeoff where, if you do this, 

nothing bad happens. It is, something bad can happen, but it will 

be less bad than if you don’t do it. 

And, in terms of the long-term study, I think we have mentioned 

several times that this is the largest amount of dispersants that we 

have ever used in the United States. I think there may have been 

more used in the Mexican leak, but I don’t recall the details of 

that. But, certainly, the opportunity to understand for the future 

and to maybe even adjust our regulations and the tests that are 

done on our regulations to put products on lists for different kinds 


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of spills can probably be well-informed by being able to go in and 

get some university scientists involved with looking at that longterm view. 

So I think we have to be in the moment and make these decisions to reduce the overall impact, recognizing it is going to happen. We have a lot of oil in the Gulf of Mexico right now. But that 

we can’t turn our eye away from the ability to learn from this just 

how we do things in the future. So it is a little bit of both of those. 

SUPPLEMENTAL REQUEST

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. Well, I appreciate and support the efforts 

that you are doing in terms of doing this long-term study on the 

impacts of this. 

As a budgetary question and as an appropriator, I would say 

that—you are asking for $2 million in the supplemental appropriation to do that. You have a $9 billion unfunded obligation in the 

current EPA budget. It seems to me that, with that sort of unfunded obligation, if this was a priority, you wouldn’t wait for the 

supplemental, you would do it. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Well, at this time of the fiscal year, particularly 

for a budget like EPA’s, which I think we have spent time in our 

regular budget and appropriation hearings talking to you about, a 

large amount of our budget are funds that are grants that go to 

States, tribes, or Superfund projects. And there is definitely a lag 

in some of those funds getting out at this point in the fiscal year. 

A significant amount of that $9 billion that still is yet to be obligated this year is oriented toward those things that usually gets 

obligated by the end of the year. Probably over 60 percent of it is. 

The rest is the normal, or very close to the normal, burn rate of 

our regular budget. 

So, whether it is $9 billion unobligated or not, you are really 

talking about reprogramming some funds in the agency. And we 

are suggesting—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Could be done today. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Because something would not get done. It is not 

like that money is available from something you have already, in 

your capacity in the committee here, approved for us to do. 

So, I would think that is the choice. We are suggesting this additional money will enable us to have that kind of independent view. 

I know that BP has put forward a large sum of funds to do research, but we feel it is appropriate, along with the USGS and others, to be able to have the ability to have government-funded studies here that are not being funded by the responsible party. 

The other part is, if we try to use the trust fund money right 

now, we are really interested in the trust fund money all going to 

the response to the spill. So those are some additional reasons why 

we have asked for the $2 million authorization here. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And I appreciate that. In a budget as big as the 

EPA’s and the huge increases that occurred over the last year and 

a half, I would suspect that, with the priority that this is, you could 

find the $2 million somewhere. It could be reprogrammed today 

and be done. This is $2 million. That is not a whole lot in the whole 

scheme of things. 


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But I appreciate what you are trying to do, and I agree with 

what you are trying do. I am not trying to throw cold water on it. 

I am trying to say, you know, we are appropriators and also have 

to worry about the budget. 

IMPACT OF NATURAL RESOURCE LOSSES

Tom, let me ask you—it has been mentioned both by the Secretary and by you that BP is going to be held accountable to pay 

for the environmental damage. If you lose a wildlife refuge like 

Breton Islands National Wildlife Refuge, what is that worth? How 

do you put a value on that? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, Congressman Simpson, you can’t put a 

price on something that plays an essential role in the ecosystem. 

There are millions of migratory birds that come down to the Gulf 

Coast. It plays an enormous role in the ecosystem of the Western 

Hemisphere. 

There are ways to monetize, if you will, damages per bird and 

that sort of thing. We will take advantage of those to get the maximum return and compensation. There are things we will do to try 

and rebuild the populations. 

At the end of the day, your question raises the very valid point 

that these are treasures, these are natural resource treasures, environmental treasures, that are irreplaceable. As we have seen 

with the Exxon Valdez, there are still implications up in Prince 

William Sound 20 years later of environmental impacts and a herring fishery that is basically gone. 

We are hoping that we can manage through this. The fact that 

this was 50 miles offshore does allow for what Bob was talking 

about. There has been a lot of weatherization of this oil as it moves 

those 50 miles. It took several weeks for the oil to first hit the 

coast. There are very aggressive efforts to hit it with dispersant, to 

skim it, to burn it. Some of the data that Marcia and her team reflected indicated that a great deal of evaporation and other diminishment of that oil occurred in that journey. Then it becomes less 

volatile through the natural weathering process and less toxic to 

living things so that, by the time it gets to the shore, it is different 

than if this had occurred right at or near the shore. 

But be that as it may, I am not here to downplay the impacts. 

They are significant. They are visual. I was in the wildlife recovery 

area and saw the oiled pelicans. It is heartbreaking, and these 

landscapes are irreplaceable. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. 

PROTECTIVE BOOMS

I can’t help but say I have noticed Governor Jindal is repeatedly 

on television down there, saying that they still don’t have enough 

of the protective booms. 

I assume that is the responsibility of the incident commander 

and the Coast Guard. Or how does that work? And why is it that 

he seems to be dissatisfied with the way this is going? 


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Mr. STRICKLAND. Chairman Dicks, if you would like, I can take 

a crack at that—— 

Mr. DICKS. Yeah. 

Mr. STRICKLAND [continuing]. Because I have been down there in 

some of the meetings where this is playing out. Every Governor 

along the Gulf Coast, understandably, wants their State to be 

boomed to the maximum extent possible. 

Mr. DICKS. Do we have these booms somewhere? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. We don’t have enough boom to respond to every 

request that is out there. We have moved in boom at as fast a rate 

as we can. Boom is being manufactured at as fast a rate as it can 

be. 

The incident command, to your point—you are exactly right. 

There is a centralized process for that. There is a prioritization 

that starts from the bottom up. We started by booming the most 

sensitive areas, environmentally, to try and keep it out of the 

marsh and the wetlands and off of some of the key areas. Some of 

the coastal areas were seen as barriers and some of the islands 

were seen as barriers that could actually stop the oil and you could 

clean it up. 

It is a bit of a triage system. It is a huge coastline. There is not 

nearly enough boom in the world to boom the whole coastline. We 

started with the most sensitive areas. Understandably, I think any 

of us in Governor Jindal’s position would be seeking as much as we 

could possibly get. He is doing that, and we are trying to give him 

as much as we can. We are starting with the most sensitive areas 

first. 

DISPERSANTS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Perciasepe, at the House Transportation and Infrastructure hearing—the chairman got into this, but I want to get 

to this point—there was a statement made that EPA basically conceded that there is no known information available on alternatives 

to Corexit and that basically what EPA did was just accept the 

statements of the companies involved about these dispersants rather than doing its own independent research. Is that correct? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. No. The Corexit and a number of other 

dispersants are on a list that is in the National Contingency Plan. 

Mr. DICKS. Were they tested by EPA? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes. Well, they are tested by the company when 

they submit the application to be put on the list, but the—— 

Mr. DICKS. So we just accept the company’s word? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. It has to be from a lab that is certified. 

Mr. DICKS. Okay. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. They can’t just submit numbers. It has to come 

with all the credentials that follow the—— 

Mr. DICKS. Of a recognized laboratory. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE [continuing]. Formal scientific process, the test 

methods that were performed. They are looked at for both their effectiveness to do the dispersing and also for their toxicity. The toxicity test is done on a relative basis between oil, so between a distillate. 

So, yes, there is a defined, normal process for certified labs that 

have to be used. 


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SPREAD OF THE OIL SPILL

Mr. DICKS. Now, there has been some concern that the spill is 

going towards the Gulf states now. What about Florida or coming 

up the east coast of the United States? What is the possibility of 

that? 

Mr. MORAN. I am glad you have asked Dr. McNutt this question. 

Incidentally, she just came from the incident disaster center. She 

hasn’t had a chance to testify before the Congress yet because she 

has been down there,and she flew up just for this hearing. She has 

the most current information. 

Doctor, thank you. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Thank you for that question. 

There is, of course, concern about oil getting into the loop current, at which point it could go around Florida, it could get into the 

Gulf Stream—— 

Mr. DICKS. The Keys, I take it, the whole thing? 

Dr. MCNUTT. Absolutely. Of course, there is concern that this 

could eventually become not just a national incident but an international incident by impacting other nations that are in the Caribbean and perhaps even as far north as Bermuda. 

One thing we have been doing, of course, is monitoring the oil 

as it has moved. From a study by the AVIRIS instrument, we did 

notice some heavy oil that was entrained at one point in the loop 

current. But then a counter-eddy from the loop current actually 

grabbed that piece of oil and rotated it right back out of the loop 

current almost as quickly as it got in. That shows it is possible for 

heavy oil to get in the loop current, and it probably is only a matter 

of time until more oil does get into the loop current. 

I stood up a team of scientists who are looking at various scenarios, just as the one that you mentioned, to see what are the 

prospects, at what time scale do they play out, what are their consequences, and how do we look at the impacts of them and then 

make recommendations to people like Tom Strickland, Jon Jarvis, 

and other senior managers so they can work with the affected parties at messaging how we will respond to those scenarios. 

MARSH BURN

Mr. DICKS. One final question to Tom. 

On this question about burning the refuges, I would hope you 

would take appropriate time to do whatever studies you have to do 

here or to get the best advice, because I think that is something 

that should be carefully considered. 

Thank you. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Chairman, yes, we will do that. 

Mr. MORAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Dicks. 

Ms. McCollum. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you. 

I want to ask two questions here. One is on baseline. 

BASELINE ASSESSMENTS

The baseline assessments that you started, I would like to know 

from Fish and Wildlife, do you see that as being part of the new 

protocols, the new regulations, so if something like this happens we 


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have a reservoir of information available to us? And, if so, how 

would that happen? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, thank you for that question, Congresswoman McCollum. 

The fact is that we have been trying to do those assessments 

with respect to those refuges that are most immediately at risk. We 

have done them for all those that are immediately at risk. We are 

finishing them up for all of our assets along the coast. We have 

been able to complete them all, I think, for the Park Service. 

The Gulf Islands National Seashore, in particular, has maybe 90 

miles of coastline along Mississippi and Alabama and part of Florida. I know they have finished their assessment. 

In terms of having the resources to do those as just a regular 

matter of our business, we would love to be able to have that kind 

of information on a regular basis. Now, this committee has been 

very good about supporting additional science capability. With our 

Climate Change Science Centers that will be working with Dr. 

McNutt and our Landscape Conservation Cooperatives on the 

ground, the whole point of that effort is to do better sharing of information, not just Federal, but State, Federal, NGO information, 

so we have really good information to deal with climate change, to 

deal with these kinds of impacts down the road. 

It is something we want to do more of. Out of all of this, we 

would hope that we would do more than just deal with the effects 

of the spill, but also help restore this ecosystem, which has been 

very much manhandled by humans for sometime, and nature, because these hurricanes have had a huge impact. 

ARCTIC BASELINE ASSESSMENTS

Ms. MCCOLLUM. So, taking that up north into the Arctic and 

from the conversation that this committee had with Secretary 

Salazar where there are other nations involved—Russia, Norway, 

ourselves, and Canada—do you know, internationally, if you are 

looking at how to come together and do baseline measures for up 

there? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. I think Dr. McNutt should—— 

Dr. MCNUTT. Yes. Actually, even before this oil spill happened, 

the Secretary of the Interior had tasked the USGS to take a look 

at the impact of potential oil development on the Arctic and whether it was appropriate; and, if so, what sort of baseline science 

would need to be done before any development could take place. 

REGULATIONS

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Okay. My time is going to be limited, so I thank 

you, but I have a little bit of a follow-up. 

One of the things that I had mentioned to Secretary Salazar was 

that right now, the oil companies, determine the environmental impact. Are you going to be part of the discussion, the weigh-in, as 

the new regulations are being put forward? Do you anticipate you 

will have a place at the table? 

Dr. MCNUTT. Absolutely. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Okay. Thank you. 


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ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS

To the EPA, I am a little confused here. Help me. Did I hear you 

right, you don’t believe that there are endocrine disruptors that we 

should be concerned about or even in the product that is being applied? You don’t believe, or you don’t know, or you don’t think, or 

you do know? What is it? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Based on the information that we have, the byproducts of decomposition of the currently used dispersant do not 

have the same endocrine disruptor byproducts that some of the 

other ones might have. And we have a team of scientists right now 

looking at that in more detail. 

Since this event has occurred—you know, the normal sequence of 

events with dispersants is you have a spill and you apply 

dispersants. 

With this, we have this long-term situation here where the volumes keep going up. So we are reducing the volume. And the next 

step we are taking, if we need to continue to use them, is if there 

is any differentiation between these in terms of the byproducts because these dispersants decompose after a couple of weeks to 

maybe a month. That is what we are looking at, what happens 

when that occurs. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. But endocrine disruptors are emerging as being 

concerns. So there isn’t as much science on that as we would like 

to have. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Right. That is correct. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. In fact, when we did a bill last year on the 

House floor, an amendment that I offered pretty much passed 

unanimously to have institutes of higher education become more 

actively involved in emerging contaminants of concern in our waters. 

So my question still goes back, then: What do you see the EPA 

needing to do with endocrine disruptors? 

Because I am concerned not only when it hits the shore, but as 

these dispersants are falling down into the water offshore—which 

I understand where you think that that has somewhat of a positive 

effect—there is still sea life that is swimming through this stuff, 

and gill structures, and absorbing things through skin and flesh of 

these fish and other marine creatures. They also have the possibility of being affected by these endocrine disruptors. 

Are you going to be putting together something to ask this Congress to do more for you to really get out ahead of these emerging 

issues of concern with the endocrine disruptors? I don’t mean this 

as a criticism of you personally. You are speaking to me factually. 

but you don’t believe, you don’t know exactly the consequences of 

these chemicals? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Right. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. You don’t think, because that is the information 

in front of you. 

What do you need so that you can answer that question more directly in the future? What is our role to make sure you can answer 

that question? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. There are a couple of things. First of all, we are 

going to need to change the way we allow dispersants and other 


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products that are used in emergency situations like this to be on 

the list to be used under the National Contingency Plan. How they 

got on that list was based on whether they work or not and then 

some very relatively rudimentary toxicity tests, which is something 

but it was not robust. It did not include looking at all these byproducts it will decompose to. 

Now we have a situation where this thing is going on for over 

a month now. It could go even longer. This kind of situation was 

not really taken into account when those tests were created in the 

past for these products. So, going forward, we are going to need to 

have a different way and we are going to have to revise our regulations on how we decide what should be available in order to react 

when we have an emergency like this. 

Right now what we are trying to do, as this thing continues to 

go on, is learn as much as we can with our existing science team 

as to what we can determine from these chemicals now. So we may 

still—and we have already told BP that we would do this—we may 

still ask them to absolutely switch if this is going to go on for a 

long period of time. Our science review that is ongoing right now— 

we are not going to rely on BP; we are also doing our own. If that 

shows that we have any more concern along these lines that we 

can tell from the information we have now—which we do have the 

list of the chemicals that are in these products under the agreements that we have—we will take further action. 

So that is where we are right now. Part of the idea, also, of the 

$2 million we are asking this committee for—and I recognize the 

budget issues related to it—is to begin that process of how would 

we look at how this all unfolded and what we could we learn from 

it for how we do this in the future so that we are better prepared 

for a long-term event as opposed to a short-term, low-volume usage. 

So, yes, we absolutely have to make those changes in the future. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Ms. McCollum. 

Mr. Olver. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

DISPERSANTS

If I could start anywhere let me start with the EPA, a little bit 

more on the dispersants. 

There is some question about what real alternatives are there? 

We have used large gallonages of the Corexit, and that seems to 

be manufacturable fairly quickly. But what is the real availability 

when you speak about being able to switch to others? I have seen 

some indication that there are very limited other dispersants that 

are there, and the storage of those, the availability, essentially, on 

the shelf, and the capacity to manufacture more, each one must be 

limited. 

Do you have a whole list of these things that would do the same 

sort of thing, that you could begin to make decisions from or not? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yes, there is a list of dispersants. They all have 

different characteristics. They are all, more or less, effective. There 

are definitely issues of availability with all of them, and the ability 

of the manufacturer to produce them in the volumes that might be 

needed. 


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One step we have taken this week: By being able to rely perhaps 

more on the subsurface application, where you use a lot less than 

the surface application, which, you might imagine, is being applied 

by plane, has to be spread over a large area to get the oil you need, 

you are necessarily, in all likelihood, using more than you need to 

use. So if we move to a point where we can be as effective using 

less, it opens up doors for other potential products. 

But, right now, we are in the middle of looking at all of the 

science that we have and looking at the constituents of these, and 

we have not gotten to the point where we would take another step 

on that. 

Mr. OLVER. What happens to the oil if you disperse it subsurface? Where is it dispersed to? What are the oil plumes that are 

being talked about, columns of oil and so forth on the shore? You 

see pictures or at least—I am not sure what I am—imaging. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. NOAA and others are out there looking at those 

plumes and where they are. Most of those plumes are thin and 

small particles. 

And let me just say, when we test inside the plumes for dissolved 

oxygen, we see dips in dissolved oxygen, not to any dangerous, low 

level, but we see enough dip that we know aerobic digestion has 

taken place. Because the bacteria that is attacking the oil in those 

plumes is dipping the dissolved oxygen. 

So what we are hoping, with the bad choices that we are presented with here—and this was one of them that we have decided 

to move on—is that that biological activity will be increased by the 

increased surface area of all the many small particles and that that 

oil will degrade a lot more quickly than it would if we hadn’t done 

it. That is the objective. That is what we hope to do. And that degradation of the oil will continue wherever it goes in that ecosystem. 

PROTECTIVE BOOMS

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Let me ask, how many miles of booms are 

there now? 

The Gulf Coast National Seashore, is that boomed? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Congressman Olver, as of May 27th, the deployed boom in feet is 1.875 million feet of deployed boom. 

As far as the National Seashore is concerned, the key strategic 

areas of it are boomed. It is actually the backside of those islands 

that are the most fragile because that is where the marshes are. 

You can actually remove the oil from the front side, and you can’t 

effectively deploy boom, a lot of time, where there is surf because 

it won’t stay deployed. 

There is almost 2 million feet of boom that has been deployed 

throughout the Gulf area. 

Mr. OLVER. Would it be 400 miles? Is that roughly what that 

would be? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, divide that by 5,000. So, if somebody 

could help us with that. 

Mr. OLVER. I guess that is around 4,000 miles. Is that deployed—— 

Mr. MORAN. Four hundred miles. 

Mr. OLVER. Four hundred? 


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Mr. MORAN. Well, what is one digit among friends? But I think 

it is 400 rather than 4,000. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Congressman, to your point, it depends on the 

area. In some areas, I can tell you, having just flown over it again 

earlier this week, there are stretches that are openings in the 

marshes of wetlands. Those are fragile areas, and those are highpriority boom areas. They are the backside of some of the barrier 

islands, where there are nesting areas and marshes and cane that 

are growing. 

There are large stretches of the coast that aren’t boomed. In fact, 

boom doesn’t work everywhere. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay, we are having trouble getting the booms. They 

are being manufactured. I heard that earlier. 

SPREAD OF OIL

It is fascinating. I try to gather lots of information from maps, 

and I am trying to see if I can follow these maps. The actual COMSAT, LANDSAT maps are interesting, but I can’t really tell where 

the oil is. By the time you get to the 24th of May, it looks to me 

as if this oil is over a huge portion of the Gulf of Mexico, although 

that must be just my misinterpretation of where that goes. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. MORAN. Dr. McNutt. 

Dr. MCNUTT. You know, we don’t actually use LANDSAT for 

mapping. 

Mr. OLVER. This was in the packet that came from USGS that 

was on my table as information coming from USGS. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Yes. The LANDSAT can be used for some visual 

work. Usually we use that for the land side, but we don’t actually 

use that for mapping on the ocean. There are far better tools. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, I am looking at that. But, in fact—for the 

unpracticed eye—probably someone who has used these things 

would immediately know what they were looking at. But for the 

unpracticed eye, which most of us are, to see what the spread of 

the oil slick has been over the surface over the period of time since 

we have had a month to do that, a graphical picture of that, these 

are really tough to see. 

It looks as if there is some oil now reaching land at the west end 

of Louisiana, which is a couple of hundred miles west. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Well, this is why we produce interpreted products 

like this that we think are more useful. For the untrained eye, we 

believe that with the interpreted products, the analysts can take 

input from a variety of sources, whether they are synthetic aperture radar, or whether they are AVIRIS flight with infrared imagery. They take a variety of sources and give a product that helps 

give the outline of the oil, thickness of oil, and helps people who 

are not practiced in interpreting satellite and airborne imagery a 

better idea of what they are looking at. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, since there is no code on this map that you 

were holding up, maybe you could tell me what the navy blue, the 

royal blue, and the sky blue, essentially, are. There is a robin’s egg. 

And then there is a whole bunch of these barrier islands that look 

as if, from some of these maps, as if they have oil right against 

them. But that certainly doesn’t show from this map that you were 

referencing. 

Dr. MCNUTT. The red areas on that map show where, as of that 

date, the oil was already ashore. The red areas are the area where 

oil has already impacted. 

Mr. OLVER. What is the date of that map? That doesn’t show either. 

Dr. MCNUTT. This was May 20th, Thursday, May 20th, a.m. 

Mr. OLVER. Ah, 20th, a.m. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Yes. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. STRICKLAND. Congressman, if I could intervene, we just put 

up there—you have that in front of you, as well, a smaller version 

of that. This is a daily oil impact assessment report that we help 

generate out of Interior. 

Mr. OLVER. The oil is all of those darker blues. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, it is coded. So red is heavy, yellow is moderate, green is light. 

This one right here. If I could just shift over here. This map has 

been crosschecked with actual overflights and people on the 

ground. 

Mr. OLVER. Yeah, I can see that map. But the other one looks 

as if oil is spreading out a good deal farther. The one that was really raising my alarm was the LANDSAT map from the 24th of May, 

which shows, as best I can see, what is a kind of a—— 

Dr. MCNUTT. You may be looking at clouds. 

Mr. OLVER. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that. The 

LANDSAT of the 24th of May? 

Dr. MCNUTT. Let me see. 

Mr. OLVER. That is one of these things that was right behind 

this—it was two from the end of this bunch of things, which the 

last two are schematics that show all of the coast of the U.S. and 

then the Atlantic coast. It is the last one before that. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Are you looking at this one? 

Dr. OLVER. Yes. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Oh, okay. No, the colors are bathymetry. 

Mr. OLVER. The colors are the symmetry? What does—— 

Dr. MCNUTT. That is bathymetry. That is not oil. The dark blue 

is the deep ocean. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, everything there looks very like the top of that 

second color of blue. Look, now, if you put these other ones there, 

I am seeing the shape of the top of that thing is exactly the same 

as this medium blue, not the navy, not the royal, but the—well, I 

don’t know what I would call it. 

Mr. MORAN. It is teal. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Aquamarine. 

Mr. OLVER. Whatever. That one is the shape of the top of that 

thing, and yet exactly the same colors are spreading out much farther into the gulf. 

Dr. MCNUTT. This is the Yucatan Peninsula here. 

Mr. OLVER. No, the Yucatan is the land below. 

Dr. MCNUTT. This is the offshore extension of it. This is bathymetry. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. He is talking about the next one over, I think. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Okay, this is the oil spill. 

Mr. OLVER. But this medium blue in there, which is the large 

mass of blue other than along the coast, is exactly the shape of the 

top of that very dark—that very dark on the other map. 

Mr. MORAN. It is not the same location, though. Florida is much 

further removed than—— 

Dr. MCNUTT. This is just right up in here. Here is the bird’s foot. 

Mr. OLVER. Oh, well. There is no point in our going through this 

this way. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Very different scale. 


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Mr. OLVER. I understand scales. I am sorry. It is very difficult 

to—I will let it pass. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, it is a valid observation. The spread of the oil 

is outstanding. 

Dr. MCNUTT. It is maybe following the contours of the bathymetry, is that what you are saying, is that the spill seems to be following the contours of this right here. 

Mr. OLVER. Exactly. Now you got it. That big thing—we are on 

a very different scale, a much larger scale on this map, but it is 

the top of that over against the—— 

Dr. MCNUTT. But, you see, this is coming in here, which is not 

corresponding to any bathymetry here. So it is not exactly. 

Mr. OLVER. There must be somebody that has a sense of where 

the oil is as it has been spreading. I would love to see what its 

spread has been over a period of these 30 days. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Yes. We could do a time lapse. 

Mr. OLVER. Every 48 hours or something like that. 

Dr. MCNUTT. We could do a time lapse, definitely. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. And if we can get that to Congressman Olver. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Let me leave you the summary that NOAA produces every day. That shows Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday 

just this week. That is the spill, and you can see how it—I think 

that might get right at your point. 

Mr. MORAN. John, do you want to move on? We will have one 

more round before we let these witnesses go. 

Mr. OLVER. I will pass. 

CREATING BARRIER ISLANDS

Mr. MORAN. Dr. McNutt, the commandant of the Coast Guard, 

Admiral Allen, just announced that he is creating a new barrier island. Now, I would like to ask you, what is the impact of creating 

these barrier islands? 

Because people have suggested we should create any number of 

them. But it seems to me that that has to have some profound and 

long-lasting effect on the ecology, the topology, and the environmental condition of the Gulf, if we start dredging and creating new 

barrier islands. 

Have you looked into this? And what is your assessment? 

Dr. MCNUTT. I understand the USGS has just produced a report 

that has gone through peer review. I have not yet seen the report. 

I know the proposal in its original version for dredging these barrier islands was deemed as one that would do more damage than 

good because of where the source of the sediment was to be brought 

in. I believe the report has said there are some places where the 

sand could be found and brought in that could actually be nourishing rather than produce erosion. 

So, under some limited circumstances, the project could go forward without causing damage. 

Mr. MORAN. But it is not going to go forward without your approval, without input from you? 

Dr. MCNUTT. Well, USGS is not in a position where we actually 

can approve, but we can make recommendations on what we think 

scientifically would be a prudent approach to the project. 

Mr. MORAN. Okay. 


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Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Chairman, if I could add, during the break, 

I was able to get updated information on the barrier island issue. 

What I understood from a very quick communication was that it 

was announced that the U.S. Army Corps is going to be approving 

a subset of the original request, kind of a preliminary approval, 

subject to—and I think it is half of what was originally proposed, 

but to do it in a phased way, and there would be one test project 

that could go forward. 

Even that project had to acquire the appropriate environmental 

permits, one of which would have to be regarding endangered species, and would have to come to Fish and Wildlife Service, and one 

from MMS, in terms of the material that they would have to take, 

which would require a permit for the sand. 

It is my understanding that what was announced today would be 

subject to review, to respond to your questions that you raised. We 

will provide that input and review. 

DEEPWATER WELLS SUSPENSION

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. 

Now, one last question before I go to Mr. Simpson, and we will 

do this final round, and that will conclude it. 

I was just told—a lot is happening while we are sitting here. The 

President just announced 33 other deepwater wells will now be 

suspended. 

Once we get paid for this bill, at least the short-term bill, from 

BP, BP leaves the scene. I am sure they are going to have a signed 

document that all their legal experts will put together making sure 

it absolves them of any further liability. But it is going to be years 

to clean up this mess. 

FUTURE COSTS

We are told that BP announced a new $500 million research 

fund. I don’t know whether the Federal Government gets any of 

that. But I would like to hear from the three of you, if you have 

made any assessment of future costs as a result of this that are 

going to have to be built into future budgets, whether it be the 

USGS, Fish and Wildlife, or the cleanup of all of the marshes and, 

of course, EPA. 

Do you have any estimate of the future costs? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I will start. 

I think it is fair to say that it is hard to put any kind of precision 

on this because, while the spill is under way, we still do not know 

the full extent of the damage, which was one of the reasons why 

the baseline is there, so we can look at the after-effect and what 

that cost would be. 

I am fairly certain that there will be ongoing expenses that EPA 

will have for monitoring and assessing, remediation and restoration 

plans as we go forward, at a minimum. But predicting the full extent of that, Mr. Chairman, will be difficult until we move through 

the full event here. 

Mr. MORAN. Dr. McNutt? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I expect it will be ongoing for many years. 

Dr. MCNUTT. USGS is a science agency. I will tell you, there 

have been many times over the last few weeks when we have been 


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asking ourselves, ‘‘why are we faced with fundamental science 

questions that would help us respond to this emergency that we 

don’t already have the answers to?’’ We very much wish we did. I 

will tell you, we don’t want to be caught in this position again. 

In fact, one of the reasons why BP has announced this large, 

half-billion-dollar fund is that I have had these conversations with 

BP as well. BP understands the need to put more money into research on the effects of oil in the ocean, the best way to prevent 

it from happening again, and knowing what to do when it happens. 

Believe me, USGS is going to have to put more effort into this. 

I don’t have an exact figure. In our Coastal and Marine Geology 

Program, we need to put more effort. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Dr. McNutt. 

Mr. Strickland, do you have anything to add? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. As of May 14th, we had spent around $7.0 mil- lion. Of that, about $3.8 million we deemed to be nonrecoverable, 

and the rest came out of the oil spill trust fund. 

We don’t have a long-term estimate, but there are mechanisms 

under the law where a certain amount of money can also be put 

in trust for evaluation after 10 years and some period of time. We 

are doing everything we can to address the immediate impacts and 

make sure we clean things up properly. 

One of the things we learned from Exxon Valdez is some of the 

cleanup strategies ended up sterilizing the environment. They 

came in with steam cleaners and steamed rocks and did a lot more 

harm than good. It really gets to, the message that Bob has been 

making, so we are very focused on that. We will keep the committee apprised of what we think this is going to cost short-term, 

mid-term, and long-term. 

Mr. MORAN. Good. Good for you. 

Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all again for being here today. 

OIL AND GAS SCIENCE AT USGS

Dr. McNutt, let me ask you, following up on the last question, 

I get the sense that USGS doesn’t have a base program dedicated 

to oil and gas science and remediation, particularly since you are 

calling in 80-year-old guys out of retirement to look at what they 

had done in the past. 

Is that the case? And, if not, could you describe the program and 

whether this disaster has exposed any gaps in the program? 

Dr. MCNUTT. We do have an energy program, and we have an 

environmental program, of which there is always activity going on 

at a low level but nothing that is sufficient to take on an emergency of this effort. I think you are right to say that, after Exxon 

Valdez, there was a whittling away at this program that has been 

truly tragic, and we need to energize it. 

I organized, with the help of John Holdren’s office at the Office 

of Science and Technology Policy, the week before last, a meeting 

of academic scientists in which we looked at what some of the questions would be of a program like this. It was amazing, at the fundamental level, some of the questions we didn’t have answers to: 

about how quickly is oil taken up by microbes in the ocean, and is 


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there any way to stimulate them to work faster? What effect does 

sunlight have on oil in the ocean? What is the long-term fate, what 

are the chronic problems of oil in the ocean? Basic questions like 

that that we need to know the answers to. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So can we expect that USGS will come up with 

some changes to the program to address some of these things? 

Dr. MCNUTT. Absolutely. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And we will be able to see that in—— 

Dr. MCNUTT. We are writing the science strategy right now. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Will the gentleman yield for a moment? 

Mr. SIMPSON. You bet. 

OIL SPILL RESEARCH

Mr. MORAN. It has been brought to my attention, there is a program in the Minerals Management Service entitled ‘‘Oil Spill Research.’’ And for the last 10 or 15 years, we have been putting more 

than $6 million into that account. Have we ever learned anything 

from all that? 

Dr. MCNUTT. Mr. Moran, I took a look at that program, and I 

would say the issue about that program is that it is administered 

on contracts, not really research grants. So the quality of the program, when you do a contract, what you get out is as good as the 

questions you ask. 

Mr. MORAN. So we have been wasting about $6.3 million a year, 

one would seem to have to conclude from that. We have very little 

to show for it, it would appear. 

Dr. MCNUTT. I think the program could be more visionary and 

more strategic. 

Mr. MORAN. All right. Well, I guess that is a diplomatic way of 

saying, what the heck are we doing that for? 

Excuse me. Please, Mr. Simpson. Thank you for the interruption. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. 

DEBARMENT OF BP

Bob, I read in some articles that the EPA is looking at discretionary debarment from BP. Obviously, the EPA and BP have some 

differences of opinion. I don’t know whether to believe them or not, 

but they say that EPA is frustrated with the management of BP. 

And they are looking at, and have been looking at, BP for discretionary debarment because of past violations and so forth. 

Given that BP is the number-one provider of jet fuel for our military, the number-two provider of fuel to the U.S. Government, in 

terms of 1.5 billion gallons a year, what impact would that have 

on the contracts both with our military and with the Federal Government? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Well, I have to say that, Mr. Simpson, that is 

something that has been going on for quite a while, and I am not 

completely familiar with exactly where it stands. I would have to 

go and get some detail for that, to let you know. 

But obviously, you just laid out some of the issues that are involved with that. On the other hand, we have fiduciary responsibilities that I am sure that all of you would want us to—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Sure. 


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Mr. PERCIASEPE [continuing]. Undertake when we are working 

with contracts and other grants that we are responsible for. However, I don’t know the status of that. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And I am not criticizing. It might be a totally appropriate action. But there are considerations that need to be made 

obviously, when some action like this is contemplated. 

Would this be EPA doing this, or would it be the Department of 

Justice? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Boy, I think I am going to defer from answering. I believe it is the actual agency that does the contracting, that 

makes some of those decisions. But I don’t know for sure whether 

the Department of Justice gets involved. I am a little bit out of my 

lane, as they say, there, in terms of having to be up to date on that 

particular aspect of it. But—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. It would be interesting to know that. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE [continuing]. Why don’t I get some information 

back to the committee on the status of that? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. Because if EPA were to do a debarment of 

BP, I guess the question is, would it affect the military? Would 

they still be able to have a contract with the military in terms of 

jet fuel? I don’t know, and that is why I ask. If you could get back 

to us, I would appreciate it. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Yeah, I would have to provide you with that information from a more knowledgeable base. I do know it is going 

on, and I know it has been going on for quite a while, but I don’t 

know the exact status of it. 

FWS ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINANTS PROGRAM

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. Thank you. 

Tom, there is a program within Fish and Wildlife Service that remains largely ignored and level-funded. Yet every time there is a 

major environmental disaster, the folks in this program are usually 

first on the scene. I am talking about the Environmental Contaminants Program. 

What is their role in this effort, and why are they not included 

in the supplemental request? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. First of all, there is the ability, in the way the 

request comes in, for the Secretary to allocate that as it is ultimately deemed most effective, with the bulk of it going for 

strengthening the inspections program, of course. I think there is 

an understanding that some of this would go to the Fish and Wildlife Service. 

That part of our operation has been engaged and on the ground. 

The truth of the matter is, the Fish and Wildlife Service probably 

does more with less than any of the land resource agencies, when 

you look at the number of employees per acre they manage, the incredible responsibility that they have. I certainly would not argue 

against any suggestion that we need to bolster this program. 

Our Fish and Wildlife folks have come in from all over the country, from that program and others. We have refuge managers that 

have come down. I mentioned the head of the Fish and Wildlife 

Service, Rowan Gould, is on site. He hasn’t come home in a month, 

and has been there in Houma. All of our resources, including from 

that program, are fully engaged. 


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It puts a stress on the rest of our capacity to manage the rest 

of what we have. I would say that more broadly in the Department. 

We are entering the fire season. We know and you know, Mr. 

Simpson, the situation in the Rocky Mountains with the pine beetle 

kill. To the extent that our capacities are stretched further with respect to emergency response this summer—we know they will be 

stretched to some extent with the fire season; we just don’t know 

how much. Everyone has been holding their breath that we have 

avoided a catastrophic fire season, with all that fuel out there. 

That will have additional impacts on our Park Service, on our Fish 

and Wildlife, and on our BLM employees. 

We are trying to staff for the long haul because we know this is 

going to be a long engagement down on the gulf coast, but we have 

other business to do as well. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Appreciate it. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. Olver. 

Mr. OLVER. I will pass. Thanks. 

Mr. MORAN. It is the last series of questions. We would like to 

hear from you if you have any further questions on your mind. 

DISPERSANT TOXICITY AND APPLICATION

Mr. OLVER. Well, to go back to the EPA, what do we know about 

the toxicity for workers who are using these dispersants? Do we 

know much about the toxicity and the variation of relative toxicity 

of the different dispersants? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. From that perspective, Mr. Olver, they are pretty similar. They are surfactants, and they are propylene glycols. 

For those who don’t know what those words are, surfactants are 

like heavy-duty soaps. I think I got that right. Just checking my 

science partner over here. 

The propylene glycol, I think, is the same material that is used 

in some de-icing of airplane wings. And if you have ever been in 

an airplane in cold weather and they are de-icing your wings, the 

guys that are out there have respirators on. So it is a lung irritant. 

It could be a skin irritant. And workers are advised and trained to 

wear proper equipment. 

Usually, under the current circumstances, the handling takes 

place in loading it into the airplane for spraying, and pilots are obviously inside the airplane. But, currently, with it being applied at 

the subsurface, it is being applied by robots. So we are in better 

shape in that regard. 

But the dispersants are not likely to be making it the 40-mile 

trip from where it is supplied to the coastal area where they are 

doing work around trying to restore the marshes or protect the 

marshes or do the near-shore skimming and cleanup. There, they 

are going to be more concerned about the actual continual, not as 

volatile, decayed and weathered oil. 

Mr. MORAN. If the gentleman would yield, I noticed in the paper 

in this regard that BP and I think Horizon, as well, required all 

their workers to sign that they would not sue them for any illness 

contracted as a result of having to work with this material. Are you 

familiar with that? Is that something that is normally done? 


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Mr. PERCIASEPE. I am not familiar with whatever contracts BP 

has with anybody. But I do know that there are OSHA and product 

rules for handling by workers. The people you see that are volunteers on the shore are not dealing with dispersants. Those are dealt 

with by people who are trained to handle them. But I tell you, the 

kind of impacts it could have if you improperly expose yourself are 

more of the respiratory and skin irritation level. 

Mr. OLVER. That sounds like that is very creative on the part of 

BP and Horizon, as well. I am surprised that the military didn’t 

use that tactic with Agent Orange some years ago. 

And could I just ask, how effective would Joy be? 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. I can’t really tell. I do know that, when you are 

cleaning wildlife, sometimes they use Joy or Dawn. 

Mr. OLVER. Fairly mild. 

Mr. PERCIASEPE. Those are much milder. Although, the generic 

nature of the chemicals are similar, those are much, much milder. 

Dr. MCNUTT. If I could add another perspective to this sub-sea 

dispersant issue, I know that BP had made a decision they were 

not going to go forward with the top kill procedure if EPA had not 

allowed the use of dispersant sub-sea. They knew they were going 

to have to pull the RIT tool once they started pumping mud, because mud would otherwise come up into the container on the ship. 

They had so many ships in a small area on top of the ocean, several mud boats, all the boats that were deploying the ROVs. With 

all of the oil that would otherwise come up and all the vapors that 

were going to come off that oil, there was going to be such a hazard 

to the people working there and such a risk that they were going 

to have to cease operations with these high pressures from these 

ships in the middle of the top kill, that they decided if EPA had 

not given permission they would not even go forward with the top 

kill. 

Mr. MORAN. That is interesting. That was nowhere to be found 

in the newspaper reports. 

Mr. Olver. 

Mr. OLVER. I am done. 

Mr. MORAN. Done? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. MORAN. Yes? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Before you close down the hearing, I do want to 

say, every time there is an emergency or a disaster, the armchair 

quarterbacks are numerous out there. 

And I do want to thank you for all the hard work and hours that 

you all have put in and thank the employees that are down there 

working on this, trying to solve this incredible problem that we 

have down there. I know it is tough work, but I appreciate it, and 

all of us do. 


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Mr. MORAN. Good for you. Appropriate remarks. I think we 

would like to reiterate those. 

We appreciate your informed testimony. We will continue to 

work with you on this. Thank you all very much. 

[CLERK’S NOTE.—The Department of the Interior did not provide 

answers to the questions for the record in time for printing.] 

[Mr. Chandler inserted the following statement for the record:] 


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I N D E X 

Page 

BP Transocean Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster 

Arctic Baseline Assessments ................................................................................... 79 

Baseline Assessments .............................................................................................. 78 

BP .............................................................................................................................. 36 

Cleanup Coordination .............................................................................................. 73 

Coastal Barriers ....................................................................................................... 31, 88 

Communication Coordination ................................................................................. 35 

Costs of Cleanup ...................................................................................................... 23 

Debarment of BP.................................................................................................... 91, 108 

Deepwater Well Suspension .................................................................................... 89 

Dispersant Quantity Test............................................................................ 105, 107, 108 

Dispersant Toxicity.................................................................................... 71, 74, 93, 108 

Dispersants .................................................................................. 43, 71, 77, 81, 102, 108 

Diversion of DOI Resources .................................................................................... 37 

Drilling in the Arctic................................................................................................ 40, 41 

Endocrine Disruptors......................................................................................... 76, 80, 99 

Enforcement and Regulations ................................................................................. 33 

Future Costs ............................................................................................................. 89 

FWS Environmental Contaminants Program ....................................................... 92 

Impact of Natural Resource Losses ........................................................................ 76 

Impact to Gulf Economy .......................................................................................... 94 

Industry Provided Data—Alternatives .................................................................. 104 

Inspections................................................................................................................ 29, 30 

International Regulations........................................................................................ 27, 34 

Liability Cap ............................................................................................................ 24 

Liz Birnbaum ........................................................................................................... 25 

Management Controls and Accountability ............................................................ 38 

Marsh Burns ...................................................................................................... 22, 74, 78 

Minerals Management Service Reorganization......................................... 10, 20, 38, 41 

Moratoria .................................................................................................................. 28 

NEPA Review ........................................................................................................... 30 

OCS Development ................................................................................................ 9, 20, 24 

Oil and Gas Science at USGS ................................................................................. 90 

Oil Spill Research .................................................................................................... 91 

Opening Remarks of Bob Perciasepe ..................................................................... 43 

Opening Remarks of Chairman Obey .................................................................... 5 

Opening Remarks of Dr. Marcia McNutt .............................................................. 63 

Opening Remarks of Mr. Lewis .............................................................................. 7 

Opening Remarks of Tom Strickland ..................................................................... 55 

Opening Statement of Chairman Moran ............................................................... 1 

Opening Statement of Mr. Simpson ....................................................................... 3 

Opening Statement of Secretary Ken Salazar ....................................................... 7 


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Panel I Questions: Secretary Salazar .................................................................... 1 

Panel II Questions: EPA/FWS/USGS ..................................................................... 42 

Performance Standards ........................................................................................... 32 

Permit Approval Process ......................................................................................... 22 

Presidential Commission ......................................................................................... 25 

Protective Booms...................................................................................................... 26, 82 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 98 

Questions for the Record from Chairman Moran .................................................. 98 

Questions for the Record from Mr. Simpson ......................................................... 106 

Reforms and Bureaucracy ....................................................................................... 28 

Reforms of MMS....................................................................................................... 21, 22 

Regulations......................................................................................................... 31, 32, 79 

Remarks of Mr. Moran (EPA/USGS/FWS hearing) .............................................. 42 

Response to Oil Spill............................................................................................ 8, 36, 37 

Royalties ................................................................................................................... 37

Royalty Waivers ....................................................................................................... 37 

Royalty-in-Kind Program ........................................................................................ 21 

Science ...................................................................................................................... 22 

Spread of Oil Spill.................................................................................................... 78, 83 

Subsea Dispersants ................................................................................................. 103 

Supplemental Request............................................................................... 26, 71, 75, 106 

Supplemental Request—How Will You Spend? .................................................... 106 

Water Samples ......................................................................................................... 102 

U.S. Travel Association Insert ................................................................................ 95 

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