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LEGISLATION TO RESPOND TO THE BP OIL 

SPILL AND TO PREVENT FUTURE OIL WELL 

BLOWOUTS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JUNE 30, 2010 

Serial No. 111–140 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 


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(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

Chairman Emeritus 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BART GORDON, Tennessee 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

BART STUPAK, Michigan 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

Vice Chairman 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANE HARMAN, California 

TOM ALLEN, Maine 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

BARON P. HILL, Indiana 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Ranking Member 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

ROY BLUNT, Missouri 

STEVE BUYER, Indiana 

GEORGE RADANOVICH, California 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

MARY BONO MACK, California 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 


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SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts, Chairman 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana 

BARON P. HILL, Indiana 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

ELIOT ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

JANE HARMAN, California 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

STEVE BUYER, Indiana 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Massachussetts, opening statement ................................................... 1 

Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 3 

Hon. Henry A. Waxman, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California, opening statement ............................................................................. 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 6 

Hon. Joe Barton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 8 

Hon. Jay Inslee, a Representative in Congress from the State of Washington, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 9 

Hon. Joseph R. Pitts, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth 

of Pennsylvania, opening statement ................................................................... 9 

Hon. G.K. Butterfield, a Representative in Congress from the State of North 

Carolina, opening statement ............................................................................... 10 

Hon. Steve Scalise, a Representative in Congress from the State of Louisiana, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 10 

Hon. John D. Dingell, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, prepared statement ...................................................................................... 11 

Hon. Parker Griffith, a Representative in Congress from the State of Alabama, opening statement .................................................................................... 13 

Hon. Roy Blunt, a Representative in Congress from the State of Missouri, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 14 

Hon. Lois Capps, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 14 

Hon. Cliff Stearns, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 15 

Hon. Gene Green, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 16 

Hon. Michael C. Burgess, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas, opening statement .................................................................................... 17 

Hon. Jim Matheson, a Representative in Congress from the State of Utah, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 18 

Hon. Ed Whitfield, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth 

of Kentucky, opening statement ......................................................................... 19 

Hon. Jane Harman, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, opening statement .................................................................................... 19 

Hon. Charlie Melancon, a Representative in Congress from the State of Louisiana, opening statement ................................................................................... 20 

Hon. Peter Welch, a Representative in Congress from the State of Vermont, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 21 

Hon. Eliot L. Engel, a Representative in Congress from the State of New 

York, opening statement ...................................................................................... 22 

Hon. John Sullivan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Oklahoma, prepared statement ................................................................................... 83 

WITNESSES

David Hayes, Deputy Secretary, Department of the Interior; Accompanied 

by Steve Black, Counselor to the Secretary ....................................................... 22 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 25 

John Martinez, Consulting Production Engineer, Production Associates ........... 60 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 63 


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VI 

Elgie Holstein, Senior Director For Strategic Planning, Environmental Defense Fund ............................................................................................................ 67 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 69 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Summary of Blowout Prevention Act of 2010 ....................................................... 86 


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LEGISLATION TO RESPOND TO THE BP OIL 

SPILL AND TO PREVENT FUTURE OIL WELL 

BLOWOUTS 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 2010 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT, 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:34 a.m., in Room 

2322, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward J. Markey 

[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Markey, Inslee, Butterfield, Melancon, 

McNerney, Welch, Dingell, Engel, Green, Capps, Harman, Gonzalez, Matheson, Barrow, Waxman (Ex Officio), Upton, Hall, 

Stearns, Whitfield, Shimkus, Blunt, Pitts, Bono Mack, Sullivan, 

Burgess, Scalise, Griffith, and Barton (Ex Officio). 

Also Present: Representative Stupak. 

Staff Present: Bruce Wolpe, Senior Advisor; Brian Cohen, Senior 

Investigator and Policy Advisor; Greg Dotson, Chief Counsel, Energy and Environment; Jeff Baran, Counsel; Michal Freedhoff; Alex 

Barron, Professional Staff Member; Melissa Cheatham, Professional Staff Member; Robb Cobbs, Policy Analyst; Caitlin 

Haberman, Special Assistant; Peter Ketcham-Colwill, Special Assistant; Karen Lightfoot, Communications Director, Senior Policy 

Advisor; Lindsay Vidal, Special Assistant; Mary Neumayr, Minority 

Counsel; Aaron Cutler, Minority Counsel; Andrea Spring, Minority 

Professional Staff Member; Peter Spencer, Minority Professional 

Staff Member; and Garrett Golding, Minority Legislative Analyst. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH 

OF MASSACHUSETTS 

Mr. MARKEY. Welcome. Welcome to the legislative hearing on the 

Legislation to Respond to the BP Oil Spill and to Prevent Future 

Oil Well Blowouts. 5,000 feet below the Gulf of Mexico in dark frigid waters lies an ineffectual inert steel structure five stories high. 

A few hundred miles from the spill’s source, a hurricane is barreling through the Gulf disrupting the response to the disaster. 

These two events are emblematic of BP and the oil industry’s lack 

of attention to safety and inadequate response capabilities for a 

catastrophic spill. 

The Gulf of Mexico response plan for BP includes walruses which 

haven’t called the region home for 3 million years, yet if you look 

for the word ‘‘hurricane’’ in their response plan, you won’t find it 

in BP’s contingency plans. 


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Over the course of the past 2 months, the Energy and Commerce 

Committee has conducted a vigorous investigation of the causes of 

the BP Deepwater horizon disaster. We have held numerous hearings in this subcommittee and in the Oversight and Investigations 

Subcommittee. We have worked hard to uncover the truth about 

the causes of the disaster, in part to ensure that the responsible 

parties are held fully accountable. But it is equally important, if 

not more so, that we use the knowledge we have gained about the 

BP Deepwater horizon disaster to ensure that such a thing will 

never happen again. That is what today’s hearing is all about. The 

committee’s investigation has raised serious concerns about the 

adequacy of industry practices and regulatory standards with regard to oil and gas drilling. As the ongoing catastrophe in the Gulf 

of Mexico makes clear, the stakes could hardly be higher, nor is 

this an isolated incident. 

In 1979 the IXTOC blowout in the Gulf of Mexico and the 2009 

blowout in Australia both involve shallow water wells and caused 

massive environmental damage. This subcommittee, because of its 

jurisdiction over energy, exploration and production, has a responsibility to address this critical issue. That is why full committee 

chairman, Henry Waxman, Chairman Bart Stupak, and I yesterday 

introduced the Blowout Prevention Act or BP Act of 2010. Historically regulation of offshore drilling has required the use of best 

available safest technologies taking costs into account. But regulators have had little or no congressional guidance on what this 

standard requires. And current regulations plainly are not adequate. 

The bill, now before the subcommittee, responds to this gap by 

establishing minimum standards for well drilling technologies and 

practices for offshore and other high risk wells. The legislation is 

based on the basic concept of defense in depth, it requires multiple 

lines of defense against a blowout and ensures that these defenses 

aren’t redundant so the failure of one does not lead to cascading 

failures of the entire system as occurred with BP’s Macondo well. 

First, the legislation sets minimum standards for blowout preventers, the last line of defense against the blowout like the one 

that occurred on April 20th. These standards require that blowout 

preventer mechanisms to seal wells in the event of an emergency 

are effective and redundant. The legislation also requires new 

standards governing well design and cementing to ensure multiple 

redundant barriers within the well against uncontrolled oil or gas 

flow that could lead to a blowout. 

The BP Act also includes a number of provisions to improve regulatory oversight of high risk wells. It requires periodic updating 

of regulatory standards and establishes an independent technical 

advisory committee to help ensure that safety standards are adequate. The legislation also requires independent third-party certification of blowout preventers and well designs and establishes whistleblower protections for rig workers. 

And finally, it requires periodic and unannounced inspections 

and establishes strict civil and criminal penalties. This bill is not 

written in stone. It is the beginning of a process. We look forward 

to the input of our witnesses today and to working with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to improve this legislation and 


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move it forward through the legislative process. I now turn to recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentleman 

from Michigan, Mr. Upton, for his opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. UPTON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. The BP spill is an 

environmental and economic disaster on a scale that we have never 

seen before. We need to ensure to the best of our ability that such 

a disaster cannot and does not happen again. Our domestic energy 

resources power our economy and keeps America working. The oil 

industry is under the microscope now for sure, and they should be. 

We need to learn from this accident, make any needed changes and 

then move forward. 

Clearly in light of what happened on Deepwater Horizon rig, new 

safety and oversight regulations are needed, but the question still 

remains what actions are necessary to approve safety without 

blocking our much needed domestic reserves. I look forward to 

working on a bipartisan piece of legislation that ensures the safety 

and effectiveness of offshore drilling. The joint investigation into 

the cause of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, explosion and spill 

are currently being conducted by the Coast Guard and MMS. In addition, President Obama announced the Presidential Commission 

that will investigate those relevant facts and circumstances concerning the root causes of the Deepwater Horizon’s explosion fire 

and oil spill and develop options to guard against and mitigate the 

impact of any oil spills associated with offshore drilling in the future. 

I agree that we need to investigate, get to the bottom of what 

really happened and develop standards, new standards, based on 

the lessons learned. However, the Coast Guard investigation is not 

complete. The President’s Commission has yet to meet. I am all for 

improving the safety of offshore drilling, but we should wait for the 

investigations to be concluded before we prematurely pass legislation that may not improve safety and could possibly make matters 

worse. We should call a hearing when they have completed the investigation to hear what they have discovered. Legislation—legislating Deepwater drilling safety must be a bipartisan basis and we 

must develop sound science and actual evidence and conclusions 

from that ongoing investigation. 

In addition to any—to my practical concerns about legislating before the Presidential Commission has even met, there are a few 

troubling provisions in the draft legislation that we are looking at 

today that I fear will serve as a de facto drilling ban for both offshore and onshore wells, oil and natural gas. Legislation that prevents this from safely developing our domestic oil and gas resources would be catastrophic to our economy, destroying potentially tens of thousands of jobs almost overnight and would severely weaken our national security as we import more and more 

oil and gas from abroad. Specifically, the legislation defines a high 

risk well so broadly that it covers nearly every offshore and onshore oil and natural gas well. 

Clearly we should be using a scientific definition that relies on 

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ally, the legislation requires a standard certification that equals a 

100 percent standard. Nothing in our lives is up to 100 percent certainty standards. Risks are everywhere. Crossing the street to get 

into a car, flying on a plane, installing a windmill off the shore of 

Nantucket, even riding in an elevator. If we are going to require 

an unattainable list of certification before we allow otherwise safe 

drilling to occur, let’s at least be honest with the American people 

and call the legislation what it really is, a ban on American made 

energy. I do have some other comments with the content of the 

draft but I will end here so we can hear from our witnesses. We 

have a lot at stake. I yield back. 

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. The chair recognizes the 

chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Waxman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. WAXMAN. Chairman Markey, I want to thank you for today’s 

hearing on the Blowout Prevent Act of 2010. We are now more 

than 2 months into this largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. 11 workers are dead, the Macondo well continues to pour 

thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico each day, BP’s 

clean-up effort continues to be inadequate and an entire way of life 

along the Gulf of Mexico is being threatened. It is time for Congress to act, investigations are ongoing and will continue to tell us 

more about the causes of this accident, but we know enough already to begin crafting legislative solutions. 

And I want to disagree with my colleague from Michigan. If we 

don’t know enough to start fashioning legislative solutions, then I 

don’t think we know enough to start drilling, which I hear many 

of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle insist that we do. 

Why should we allow more drilling if we can’t assure that the drilling is going to be done safely, and there is a plan in place that can 

clean up any oil spill should that happen. 

Thanks to this subcommittee and Chairman Stupak’s Subcommittee on Oversight, this disaster, as we have seen in our investigation, could have been prevented. BP made a series of risky 

decisions before the explosion that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon. These decisions save time and money for BP, but increase the 

risks of a catastrophic blowout. When BP CEO Tony Hayward appeared before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, 

we asked him to explain these decisions. He tried to dodge responsibility telling us repeatedly he was not involved in the decisions, 

and he tried to shift blame to others. BP chose a risky well design 

on the Macondo well that provided minimal barriers to prevent 

dangerous gases from flowing to the wellhead. They ignored their 

contractor’s advice about how to properly cement the well. 

They failed to conduct a critical cement test. And they failed to 

properly circulate well fluids. The legislation we are considering 

would set strict new requirements to ensure that these basic well 

controlled guidelines cannot be ignored at any high risk well. BP 

says it relied on the well’s blowout preventer as the last line of defense. But we know that blowout preventers are not foolproof, not 


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even close. They can’t shear pipe to seal the well if there is not a 

tool joint—if there is a tool joint or other obstruction preventing 

blind shear rams from closing. They don’t have appropriate redundancy built in. 

Too often, a single problem can cause systematic blowout preventer failure. And blowout preventers and their emergency control 

systems are not adequately tested once they are put in place. This 

proposed law would fix these problems. It requires redundant systems to shut down runaway wells, it requires third-party testing to 

make sure blowout preventers will work when needed, and it establishes a new aggressive oversight and testing regime with unannounced site visits by Federal regulators. 

BP took advantage of a lack of resources and a failure in the regulatory culture at the minerals management service. The Agency 

handed over too much authority relying on the industry to police 

itself. This self-policing approach could work only if everybody behaves responsibly. All it takes is one bad actor, one well that falls 

behind schedule and one too many corners cut before the disaster 

results. The legislation before the committee sets out to change this 

culture of complacency. It requires the appropriate regulator to set 

tough standards and create a committee of independent experts to 

check their work and make sure they do their jobs. 

The independent committee must review available technologies, 

assess industry practices and regulations and provide the best most 

up-to-date technical and regulatory advice so that we have the best 

possible set of rules for drilling high risk wells. It is too late to stop 

the explosion and blowout on the Deepwater Horizon, but we can 

continue our work to determine what happened and hold the appropriate parties accountable and make sure that this type of catastrophe blowout—catastrophic blowout never happens again. 

This legislation is an important first step to ensuring drilling 

safety at high risk wells, and I look forward to hearing our witnesses’ views on the matter and to working on a bipartisan basis 

on this legislation. We need to make sure that we act decisively 

and rapidly in response to the disaster in the Gulf. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Waxman follows:] 


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Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. The chair recognizes the 

ranking member of the full committee, the gentleman from the 

State of Texas, Mr. Barton. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I give my opening statement, I do want to congratulate my friends on the Democratic side for their victory last night in the congressional baseball 

game. In spite of the best efforts of Mr. Scalise and Mr. Shimkus 

and several others on this committee on our side, the D side one, 

it was 4 to 4 going into the top of the seventh, and then we had 

our own spill of errors and malfunctions and our blowout preventer 

didn’t work very well. 

The final score was 13 to 5. So my hats are off to my friends on 

the Democratic side. And my heart goes out to all of the folks on 

my side who worked so hard for the game. 

Mr. GREEN. Will the chairman yield? 

Mr. BARTON. I would be happy to. 

Mr. GREEN. Could we get a new battery for that blowout preventer? 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE BARTON, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. BARTON. We will work on it. 

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, I have a formal opening statement I am 

going to submit for the record. I just want to summarize to say that 

we have had a strong offshore drilling safety record in the Gulf of 

Mexico. This is the first major spill. Unfortunately, since it is a 

very catastrophic spill, both in terms of loss of life, in terms of 

amount of environmental damage and also economic damage, so no 

one is happy about that. I think the bipartisan investigation that 

this committee is conducting is uncovering the facts. I would agree 

with what I think Chairman Waxman said just now, that this was 

probably a preventible accident. I would also agree that it doesn’t 

appear that BP followed best practices in terms of industry. And 

I would also agree that those best practices need to be updated and 

improved so that if at all possible, we don’t let this happen again. 

I would point out that while it is important for Congress to act, 

and I think myself and all Republicans are prepared to work in a 

bipartisan basis on this bill, it is better to do it right than to do 

it fast. This draft bill is a work in progress. There are some things 

in it that I think are very positive. The third-party testing idea I 

think is a good idea. 

I do believe, though, that the citizen suit provision in the bill is 

problematic. I am not sure that we want to do a citizen suit for this 

type of an activity. And I think, as Mr. Upton pointed out in his 

opening statement, we need to work on the definition of what a 

high risk well is. As currently drafted, the high risk could be construed to be every well that is potentially drilled in the United 

States both onshore and offshore. 

And having said that, we want to improve safety procedures, we 

want to make it possible to continue drilling both in an environmentally safe and an economically positive way in the Gulf of Mexico and the other OCS areas. So we stand ready to work in a bipartisan basis to see if the draft before us can be improved so that it 

can be supported. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 


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I do want to point out that Mr. Waxman has scheduled a markup 

downstairs, so some of us are going to have to be running back and 

forth to the other subcommittee markup, but we look forward to 

hearing from our witnesses and hearing the testimony. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington State—I 

am sorry, the chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington 

State, Mr. Inslee. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAY INSLEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. I just want to reiterate Mr. Waxman’s 

comments that while we may not know the exact mechanism of 

this failure, we do know that there were multiple, multiple stop 

signs that BP ran through that could have resulted in this failure, 

so we are prepared to legislate in this regard and should do in a 

prompt and reasonable manner. I just want to say there are three 

things I hope we will consider in this draft. Number one, I hope 

that we will consider bringing to this industry the same level of 

safety and engineering expertise that we enjoy in the aviation industry. The FAA provides us a template about how to insist on 

using engineering to achieve statistical probabilities of success. 

And I believe in this draft we should add a provision that will 

make sure that we have an engineering system analysis of every 

system involved in deep shore drilling that will reach statistical 

probability of success. We don’t have that now, and I hope that we 

will consider adding that to this draft. 

Second, I hope we will consider beefing up the provisions on 

what the requirements are for using the best available technology. 

We simply need to use the best available technology in this industry given the enormous risks entailed in deepwater drilling. We 

should make a requirement. We will be offering amendments in 

that regard. The third is we have got to make sure we use remote 

triggering devices for these blowout preventers. Other nations do 

this. It is a requirement that we should have, and look forward to 

working on this legislation. 

Mr. GREEN. [Presiding.] The chair recognizes Mr. Shimkus—oh, 

Mr. Pitts for two minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH R. PITTS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH 

OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this 

hearing on legislation written in response to the BP oil spill. The 

oil spill was a tragic event in the history of our country. Not only 

have lives been lost, but massive amounts of oil have been leaked 

into the ocean causing horrible effects, some of which we know now 

and some of which will take years to discover. First and foremost, 

the leakage of the oil must be stopped, the environmental damage 

must be repaired. And, in addition, it is imperative that we thoroughly understand what happened aboard Deepwater Horizon before, during and after the explosion. We must know what caused 

this horrific event so that it will never happen again. It is of utVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:16 Mar 07, 2013 Jkt 077917 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A917.XXX A917

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most importance that due diligence is done by those investigating 

the root causes of the Deepwater Horizon blowout explosion. 

While we acknowledge the need to focus on drilling safety and 

ensuring the response of blowout preventers, I am concerned that 

we are considering the bill before us today before the joint investigation has been completed. While we are in the process of finding 

out what exactly happened, I think it would be wise for this body 

to use caution from trying to come up with a solution that may or 

may not fix safety concerns. 

As we move forward, I hope that the approach of this committee 

is prudent and measured. We want to, we need to promote drilling 

safety, yet at the same time we want to do this with knowing all 

the facts with the thorough knowledge of what is broken and the 

expertise on how to fix it. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today, and I yield back. 

Mr. GREEN. The Chair recognizes Mr. Butterfield for two minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. G.K. BUTTERFIELD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH 

CAROLINA 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me 

start by thanking Chairman Markey for his relentless pursuit of 

the truth during this great tragedy. I say it is not premature for 

us to begin the process of legislating and addressing this terrible 

tragedy. From the beginning Chairman Markey has asked tough 

questions, he has demanded transparency and exercised his fall authority to investigate the blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig. 

His work has produced tremendous insight into BP’s failure to exercise due care. The American people deserve oil and gas companies that self-regulate out of respect for the safety of their employees and the environmental sustainability of their surroundings. 

Unfortunately, as the facts continue to come into clear view it appears that the financial bottom line, not the safety or the concern 

over environmental risk, was the primary concern. This is an enormous tragedy, all of us agree on that, but it necessitates a thorough review, and yes an overhaul of our regulatory strategy. The 

draft under discussion today begins the conversation, it is not an 

end point, it begins that conversation. We begin knowing that Federal officials lack the needed power to require the best technologies 

and practices, and knowing that the technology of high risk drilling 

has far outpaced the rule making to provide the public with security and certainty. We begin by playing catchup today. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Scalise for two minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. STEVE SCALISE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Over 2 months after the 

onset of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, oil continues to pour into 

the Gulf and invade our coastal wetlands. If this catastrophe has 

taught us anything, it is that we must focus on offshore drilling 

safety. We must bring together engineers and scientists to develop 


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safety improvement strategies so that a disaster like the Horizon 

never happens again. I think it is worth noting that the President 

and his administration discarded the advice and safety recommendations of their own panel of experts and engineers in the 

initial 30-day safety report in order to pursue a 6-month drilling 

ban that those same experts say will actually jeopardize the longterm safety of offshore energy exploration. 

Instead of focusing on safety, some in Congress are more interested in pursuing their own political agendas than addressing the 

issues we are battling in the Gulf. This takes our focus away from 

where it should be, on improving the safety of our domestic energy 

production. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 states that the president 

shall ensure effective and immediate removal of a discharge. On 

numerous occasions the President has said that from day one, he 

has been on the ground and in charge. But if that is the case where 

was the President when State and local officials waited nearly a 

month for approval of a plan to construct sand berms and protect 

our valuable marsh. 

And after approving only a small portion of the plan, why did the 

administration’s bureaucrats recently halt construction of these 

critical berms for nearly a week while oil continued to pour in our 

wetlands? If Congress really was interested in helping us, pass legislation that actually helps us. If there is anything we should all 

agree on it is that our first priority and our focus needs to be on 

capping the well and protecting the Gulf Coast from the oil. And 

to be clear, this bill does absolutely nothing to stop the oil or solve 

the problems we are battling. 

Of course, we all want to improve the safety of offshore energy 

production, but this bill, as it stands now, seems like a Trojan 

horse to shut down domestic energy production both offshore and 

on. And make no mistake, shutting down domestic energy production will shift millions of American jobs overseas and will leave our 

country more vulnerable to oil spills from even more imported oil. 

We need to continue the investigations into the explosion and sinking of the Horizon and make sure that this type of tragedy doesn’t 

happen again. 

But some people in this town seem determined to exploit our disaster and the tragic consequences of this event to pursue their own 

political agenda. And that is not only unfortunate, Mr. Chairman, 

it is also disgraceful and a slap in the face to the people of the Gulf 

Coast who are battling the effects of this disaster every single day. 

The oil is moving faster than the Federal response. We need answers and we need leadership by the President. Unfortunately, we 

have neither, and Louisiana’s people and ecosystem are paying the 

price. Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. GREEN. The chair recognizes Chairman Dingell. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. DINGELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I thank you. I was very impressed. 

I have an admirable statement which I will insert in the record in 

the hope that everyone will find it useful reading. I was very impressed with the comments of my colleague. He is telling us the 


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story of a tale of two presidents. He is only telling us the tale of 

one president, but he has got the two mixed. We are harvesting 

here a situation which is created by a long series of deregulatory 

actions taken by the prior administration. 

I had not intended to make a partisan comment today, because 

I don’t think this is a partisan matter, but it appears other members seek to do so, and I think there needs to be some correction. 

The reason for this mess in the Gulf is the fact that for a long period of time, we were drill baby drill, and we had that as part of 

our national policy. We also had deregulatory actions. And we have 

found out the blessing of these deregulatory actions brought about 

an economic collapse in securities and in the national economy, and 

now we are finding that it works also on natural resources. 

And we are harvesting a policy of making it easy to do the drilling and other things without seeing to it that they are properly 

scrutinized or taken care of. This administration had little, if anything, to do with it. And they are proceeding as fast as they can, 

because political pressures will tolerate no less. But the harsh fact 

of the matter is that we ought not be making a partisan fight out 

of this matter and rather seek to figure out how it is we are going 

to address the problem. I take offense at the comments just made, 

and I think it is time that we understand that we have to address 

this as a problem and not to run around and make a lot of pointless partisan criticisms of the current administration. The BP cut 

corners, the record will show. The climate was set where that could 

be done by the prior administration. And we are seeing a situation 

where not only could that occur, but that important statutes like 

NEPA, of which I just happen to be the author, were in good part 

disregarded. 

NEPA says whenever an action which has major impact upon the 

environment is taken, that there must be an environmental impact 

statement filed. The practice of the prior administration was to 

waive NEPA whenever it could. NEPA does happen to be onerous, 

but the reason it is onerous is it requires that you take care to 

avoid things that are going to be hurtful and bad with regard to 

the environment. So you have got to go out and identify them and 

you have to go out and find out how you can best address them or 

minimize the hostile and adverse impact. 

So they went ahead and hurried the process where it became no 

longer a practice to apply that to all components of a government 

action like leasing. They had a big environmental impact statement, but they never went into the specifics of the particular drilling. And now we are finding that this has a major impact on the 

human environment, just that one hole that they are drilling. 

Now, having said these things, again I repeat, that what we 

should be doing is addressing the problem before us, not making 

a lot of partisan statements. BP is supposed to do the clean-up, and 

the government is screwing around to see to it that it be done. The 

minerals service at the Interior Department did a poor job. Quite 

frankly, it has become almost as corrupt as Sodom & Gomorrah, 

and it had to be cleaned out. The President did appoint a new 

head, and regrettably, the new head had to be disposed of because 

she did not do the job needed doing. 


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Now our attention is gotten and we intend to do something about 

these matters. But again, it is time to address what went wrong 

and understand that major problems exist, like the fact that BP 

doesn’t have the capability to do what it is they should do, and 

they cut corners and saved money instead of looking to the public 

wellbeing. I think we should now concentrate on cleaning up the 

mess and to see to it that it doesn’t occur again, and not to engage 

in a massive partisan finger pointing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Chairman. The chair recognizes Mr. 

Griffith for two minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PARKER GRIFFITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I would like to thank the chairman for calling this 

important hearing today. My nephew leaves from a little small city 

in Louisiana and flies 90 miles by helicopter onto a big rig every 

month to work, and I grew up fishing the Gulf and traveling the 

oil canals of south Louisiana. I might say that one of the provisions 

of the bill to have unannounced site visits is going to be very difficult, as most helicopters are noisy and will have to land on the 

rigs with the crew in an announced flight plan. So this bill certainly needs a lot of revision and a lot of thoughtfulness that it 

does not have as yet. I do not understand why we are here to discuss legislation to respond to a spill that is still in the progress of 

being investigated. The April 20th explosion left us all wanting answers, especially the families of the 11 who died in the accident. 

But just because we want answers and want to prevent this from 

happening does not mean that we should rush to pass sweeping 

policies. 

I might point out that BP is mentioned over and over again, and 

yet we have aimed a regulatory shotgun at the entire industry, 

even those with great safety records. This is a punishment for 

those who have been doing their work well. It is the duty of Congress to find out exactly what happened so that we can most effectively craft policy to prevent future incidents like this and protect 

the people that we are sent to Washington to represent. 

Our number one priority must be stopping the flow of oil, bringing the well under control and being able to finish the investigation 

is the most important step toward being able to ensure safety when 

producing our valuable resources. This is a time for engineering 

and action, not for knee jerk policy capitalizing on this crisis. I appreciate you coming today to testify, I look forward to your testimony and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. GREEN. The chair recognizes Mr. McNerney for 2 minutes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this important hearing. I spent some of my career in the energy industry, 

and when a device is supposed to be a fail safe device it is supposed to fail safety. What happened in the Deepwater Horizon was 

a tragedy, but an avoidable tragedy. While I agree the investigation may be ongoing, it is clear that the blowout preventer did not 

prevent a blowout. We need to put the provisions in place as soon 

as possible to make absolutely sure that insulation standards, testing procedures and device requirements are met and followed 


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which will truly prevent this kind of failure in the future. I yield 

back. 

Mr. MARKEY [presiding]. The chair recognizes the gentleman 

from Missouri, Mr. Blunt. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROY BLUNT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI 

Mr. BLUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing on the Blowout Prevention Act of 2010. It has been 

10 weeks since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and soon after 

sank into the Gulf of Mexico. While the main priority is clearly to 

stop the leak and focus on the clean-up we can, I believe, simultaneously look for effective ways to prevent this type of catastrophe 

from happening, and frankly, to determine how this problem could 

have been prevented as it appears to have been preventible. We 

need to learn the right lessons from the disaster to ensure that we 

respond appropriately. 

Weeks ago, Mr. Chairman, I introduced legislation that would 

better prepare us in the future, doesn’t turn over production of the 

Gulf to only the big oil companies and still holds private companies 

responsible for the clean-up cost and responsible for the economic 

damages. The bill before us today is not without concern. Many of 

those have been mentioned already. I am hopeful that we will be 

able to address what seems to be an overly broad definition of a 

high risk well and the citizen suit provision. 

Within the context of our national energy policy, we have the opportunity to examine and implement plans that strengthen our 

ability to produce domestic oil and gas in an environmentally safe 

manner, continuing in our pursuit of energy independence from foreign oil. We should be looking at what steps energy explorers and 

producers should be taking to ensure that American energy can be 

safely found and efficiently used in the future. I am hopeful that 

this subcommittee can find ways to protect the environment and 

safely produce American energy, considering both the environmental and economic challenges we face along the Gulf today. 

To that end, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you, 

the ranking member and the chairman and members of the full 

committee as we try to move forward and find these solutions. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. We thank the gentleman. The chair recognizes the 

gentlelady from California, Mrs. Capps. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LOIS CAPPS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this morning’s 

hearing. As the chairman said previously, the errors that led to the 

BP oil spill were identifiable and preventible. BP centered the well 

pipe for cementing with six braces rather than the 21 braces recommended by its own cement contractor. BP used a method of constructing the well that has been criticized for being substandard. 

And when BP activated its blowout preventer, it failed to properly 

deploy. These and other facts point to a systemic breakdown by BP 

and the safety and management of its offshore drilling activities. 


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But it is not just BP, Mr. Chairman. Time and time again, the 

entire industry has assured us that oil and gas drilling are safe. 

They said the technology had become so advanced that a blowout 

was highly unlikely, if not impossible, and they would be prepared 

in case it happened. Cozy relationships between the industry and 

its Federal regulators were undoubtedly a part of the problem as 

well. 

So it is clear, the system regulating offshore drilling is broken, 

and if we don’t do something about it, it could lead to additional 

failure. And that is why I support the bill before us this morning. 

It makes technological fixes to prevent another catastrophic oil 

spill. It raises safety requirements for BOPs and other safety 

equipment and practices during offshore drilling. 

In order to ensure the accountability of these regulations the bill 

establishes an independent technical advisory committee, a very 

valuable resource, which will be useful. 

Finally, the bill includes language that I authored to increase the 

civil and criminal penalties to those who violate the law. This is 

a good bill that will set us on a new and constructive path. But I 

think it is worth pointing out that at the end of the day, no matter 

what changes we make offshore drilling will remain a risky business. Accidents do happen, and the environmental and economic 

consequences of these accidents is very massive. And the more—the 

deeper we drill and the more complex ways the more massive consequences result. 

The country deserves a better policy, a comprehensive policy, to 

prevent oil spill disasters from happening again. So thank you, Mr. 

Chairman, for holding this hearing and for advancing a bill to reduce the risks from offshore drilling. I yield back. 

Mr. MARKEY. We thank the gentlelady. The chair recognizes the 

gentlelady from California, Mrs. Bono Mack. 

Mrs. BONO MACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will waive. 

Mr. MARKEY. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, 

Mr. Stearns. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CLIFF STEARNS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 

Mr. STEARNS. Good morning. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, and 

thank you Mr. Upton for having this hearing, the Blowout Prevention Act. I think, like many members, I applaud many of the provisions that are contained in this legislation, such as requiring a 

more thorough response plan, increasing the civil and criminal penalties for those individuals who knowingly violate the law, implementing more stringent safety standards and requiring the applicant to certify that they can drill a relief well in a timely manner. 

But I am also concerned that some provisions of this legislation 

are too broad or even unattainable and may have been designed to 

simply prevent oil and gas development in the United States. For 

example, because it would be nearly impossible for a drill operator 

to determine whether a potential blowout would lead to substantial 

harm, the high risk well designation would not only encompass all 

offshore oil and gas rigs, but could potentially encompass all onshore oil and gas rigs as well. 


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Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, we should wait to see what the Commission, the results of their investigation, before we pass legislation. 

And as we have seen before in the cap and trade bill and the chemical security bill, this legislation contains a citizen suit provision 

that would allow anyone to commence a civil action if they believe 

a company is in violation of this Act. And because attorney fees are 

enumerated as a potential remedy, it would incentivize trial attorneys to pursue litigation against anyone regulated against this regulation. 

I welcome the witnesses, I look forward to their testimony and 

I hope in the future that we will have regular order on this bill so 

we can work together to address some of the concerns that I have 

expressed and ensure that limited Federal resources are used effectively to address the increased safety concerns with those wells 

that are truly at high risk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. We thank the gentleman. The chair recognizes the 

gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GENE GREEN, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing 

on the Blowout Prevention Act of 2010. I appreciate both our panels for being here today and discuss our committee’s proposed legislative response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and I look forward to your testimony. The legislation we have here to discuss is 

important, and I appreciate the chairman’s effort to ensure our natural resources are safely produced and that the workers tied to this 

production are safe at all times and we eliminate potential environmental risk. 

However, I have some concerns about how this will be accomplished in the bill and how reasonable some of the requirements 

and procedures established in this bill would be. It is important 

that we keep in mind that when our own Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations revealed numerous existing key safety precautions were neglected by BP prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster and didn’t even meet the standards of the American petroleum institute, the API. 

So again, I support the safety regulations being put in place 

where they are warranted, and certainly enforcement ones on the 

books. There are numerous provisions that may be impossible to 

implement unless your goal is to eliminate drilling in our country, 

and that is my concern. One example in the bill, on page 31, page 

31 right at the top, it is, and I will quote, an appropriate Federal 

official. The term appropriate Federal official means the Secretary 

of Energy, Secretary of Interior, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is designated a significant responsible 

provided in this Act by the President of the United States. You 

need to have one agency. You don’t have to have a revolving agency 

depending on who is the president. 

And I suggest we change that to the Department of Interior in 

consultation with the EPA and the Department of Energy, because 

the Department of Interior is reforming what they need to do. Although, I guess since we have three agencies, we can even say the 

President can name a future draft choice. There are concerns I 


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have. We need a balanced approach of this issue that ensures the 

safety of our workers and our environment while ensuring that our 

domestic producers, including the hundreds of small businesses 

tied to productions remain viable. 

And again, Mr. Chairman, I hope to work with you before we go 

to markup, and even before the full committee so we can actually 

get a bill that allows for production safely and responsibly of our 

natural resources. And if we don’t produce them in the Gulf of 

Mexico, we are going to easily have to import them from other 

parts of the world. And I yield back my time. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL C. BURGESS, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I never 

thought I would see the day when you don’t want a good crisis to 

go to waste to become a governing philosophy, but it certainly 

seems to have now. I do question why the need for the haste with 

the hearing and the markup tomorrow when we haven’t got all the 

facts in front of us. I am particularly disturbed that yesterday, our 

Committee of Oversight and Investigations was to have Secretary 

Salazar testify, but for whatever reason that testimony was pulled 

and the hearing postponed. You have to ask yourself why is Secretary Salazar being kept out of the Committee of Oversight and 

Investigations. It sort of seems like a crude attempt at a witness 

protection program. 

Mr. Hayes, I look forward to hearing from you today. We didn’t 

get your testimony until late last night. I was grateful to receive 

it. Some of the words literally leapt off the page of the third paragraph: Overall, given the level of detail contained in this draft the 

administration will require additional time and analysis to fully address and assess the policy and the legal implications of its provisions before we can provide the subcommittee with a detailed position on this bill. I think that is well stated, and I only wish the 

committee had the foresight to comply with your request. You 

know, we heard from two women down in Shalmet, Louisiana, on 

a field hearing about this very issue. They were very concerned 

that what this committee might do would further cripple the economy of their communities. They said over and over again in ways 

that were extremely clear that they don’t need to be crippled with 

new regulations, but someone, someone needs to enforce the existing regulation. 

So why isn’t the Department of Interior and whatever we are 

calling MMS today, why are they not enforcing the regulations as 

they should be or they should have been? Where were they? So far 

the answers received can only suggest one answer, they were 

asleep at the switch. 

Today we are going to look at this legislation, we are going to 

open the door for additional suits. As Mr. Green says, really our 

own purpose is to regulate an industry that this Congress has been 

anxious to regulate for a long time. I only hope the damage that 

we do in the next several days is minimum. I will yield back the 

balance of my time. 


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Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman very much. And just for the 

record, we invited Secretary Norton and Secretary Kempthorne of 

the Department of Interior, plus Secretary Salazar to testify. Secretary Norton and Secretary Kempthorne could not be here this 

week. And so it is our intention to have all three them testify before the committee, but we did not, in fact, have that hearing because those two Secretaries could not be here. 

Mr. BURGESS. Would the gentleman yield for just one moment? 

Secretary Salazar has been testifying in front of other committees 

without a buffer from the previous administration with no difficulty. I see no reason why he can’t testify in front of our Committee on Oversight and Investigations. 

Mr. MARKEY. It was our judgment that historical perspective is 

necessary in order to understand the totality of this issue. And 

again, our intention is to have that hearing, and we will do so, 

hopefully as soon as we come back from the 4th of July break. The 

Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Matheson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JIM MATHESON, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF UTAH 

Mr. MATHESON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The goals of this 

draft legislation, the Blowout Prevention Act, are commendable. 

And I agree that all evidence points to the need for additional actions to prevent future oil well blowouts that led to the catastrophe 

we are seeing in the Gulf. However, I do have some concerns that 

the Blowout Prevention Act is moving very quickly through the legislative process without ample time to thoroughly understand the 

effects the requirements might have on future drilling operations 

both onshore and offshore. There are a number of questions that 

have been raised about this bill, which I hope can be addressed, or 

we can begin to address them during this hearing. Among the concerns or questions I have would be what constitutes a high risk 

well and how many oil and gas exploration or production wells 

would be categorized as high risk? How will the requirements in 

this bill affect the permitting and leasing process for onshore activities on Federal lands? How would the new Federal requirements affect current state regulation of well construction? What 

Federal agencies would be responsible for writing these rules? 

As you know, drilling a well in deep water is different from drilling one in shallow water, which is different from drilling in the 

Marcellus shell formation in Pennsylvania, which is different from 

a well in the Uinta basin in Utah? How will this legislation provide 

flexibility for well construction design and safety requirements 

based on these distinctions and avoid an inflexible one-size-fits-all 

requirement? 

Again, those are a few questions I would like to, if we could, have 

answered. But I do want to express my appreciation that we have 

the chance to review this legislation, I do think we need to take 

appropriate steps, and I look forward to continuing working with 

the committee to make sure we get this right. I yield back. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time is expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Whitfield. 


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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ED WHITFIELD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And certainly we look forward to the testimony today. I think one of the 

themes that continues to occur in the Federal Government is that 

frequently we overreact, and particularly when we are dealing with 

complex issues as this is. And I agree with Mr. Matheson’s comment about what is a high risk well. We need to know that. And 

when you start delegating to giving the Federal officials the authority to delegate their responsibility to the state to approve the 

commencement of drilling, that appears to me an effort made to 

simply start making extremely difficult to drill for our oil within 

our territorial waters. 

And someone else raised the question, is our goal here to stop all 

offshore drilling? So I really think it is premature to move a bill 

this complex so quickly. We need expert testimony. We need to 

really develop into the impact of this kind of legislation. And then 

I—we certainly want these wells to be drilled safely with precaution maximizing the opportunity that there will not be a blowout, but I also notice in here we have a $10 million criminal fine, 

we have ten years in prison criminal penalties, so we don’t need 

to be putting an unnecessary damper on the exploration for oil to 

help make our country less dependent upon foreign oil. We need to 

be doing things to maximize safety, but also encourage development. 

So I think we need to move with great caution on this legislation, 

and I look forward to the testimony and the questions that are 

asked. 

Mr. MARKEY. We thank the gentleman. The chair recognizes the 

gentlelady from California, Ms. Harman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JANE HARMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Ms. HARMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This committee is doing 

what it does best, regulating dangerous activity to protect the public. We have a recent history with toy safety, drug safety, auto safety and now we are going to try to improve deep water drilling safety. I think that the draft bill is very good. Improvements, I am 

sure, can be made. We are not rushing it out of here in 10 minutes. 

We have a discussion draft and tomorrow we will have a serious 

markup. But we will have additional witnesses, and the legislative 

process is the regular order. And the bill I am sure once it passes 

or when it passes will be better. 

I personally would prefer no deep water drilling because I think 

it is inherently unsafe, but I recognize that there are regional differences among us. They are not partisan differences, they are regional differences. And I also feel a bit sheepish that I hail from 

the land of one person, one car. 

Let me just mention that at the markup tomorrow I will offer an 

amendment, or hopefully it may be included in the manager’s 

amendment, if we have one, to study whether drilling a relief well 

or—relief well simultaneously with drilling the main well makes 

sense. One of my constituents suggested this idea, and it seems to 


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me to make sense, and I would like us to probe whether as a matter of legislative policy it makes sense. 

So I appreciate what you are doing, what we are doing, think it 

is consistent with the glorious history of this committee, and yield 

back the balance of my time. 

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentlelady. The chair recognizes the 

gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hall. 

Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman, I will not use my time except to say 

that I have dealt with desperate situations like this before for all 

the years that I have been in politics, and I find that members of 

each party want to support their party’s push or their party’s 

thrust. Sometimes the penalty for not doing it is losing their committee or whatever. But I think—and the way we used to handle 

things like this in the Texas Senate when anything this outrageous 

comes up that they are going to give a civil penalty of $10,000, a 

civil penalty is oK, but 10 years in jail. 

We set up an amendment, and I may do just that, an amendment to add on the death penalty for the second time they do it 

or add on for every person who is an employee of that company 

gets 10 years or the—that is how outrageous it can be. I yield back 

my time. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Melancon. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLIE MELANCON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA 

Mr. MELANCON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dingell, thank 

you for your comments. The Gentlelady Bono Mack at the opening 

of the hearing, thank you for your comments about keeping this 

thing from being bipartisan. Let us work together. I have problems 

with the bill. We need to work through it. But as always, I appreciate the work of my colleagues on this committee as well as the 

rest of the body. I want to thank the Judiciary Committee for the 

fine work that they have done on the Spill Act, which will come to 

the floor today and I hope that you will all join me in supporting 

this great legislation that will give the 11 victims families the right 

to recover some measure of compensation for the losses they have 

suffered. 

Today is the 72nd day of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico and 

there is no defense or excuse for BP’s inability to cap the oil well 

and stop this manmade disaster. But the panic you see from my 

constituents is because the damage doesn’t stop when the well 

stops. The environmental impact of this leak will decimate our wetlands, leaving us even more vulnerable to summer storms and hurricanes which threaten to arrive in a week. And we may never see 

our fisheries recovery. As you have heard me say many times before, our livelihood and our way of life are slipping away from each 

of us each day this well will continue to pollute our waters. I believe this is a time that demands action. I want to see BP throwing 

everything they have got at the problem. 

There will be times for PR and commercials later. I want to see 

the rest of the industry continuing to give unfettered support and 

resources to this disaster. After this leak is contained, this country 


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will continue to demand affordable energy, and we intend in Louisiana to work hard and provide it for them. But we as a State and 

as a Nation can never let this happen again. 

As has been mentioned in this committee before, it seems that 

the speed of expiration and innovation, great strengths in our country, left behind comparable research and development in the field 

of response and recovery. We are drilling with 21st century technology but still using 20th century methods to contain and clean 

up the spill. Because our State and our people have committed to 

give so much to power the rest of this country, I think it is fair to 

ask that every company and every agency involved in offshore energy production to cooperate and determine a safer path forward. 

I hope this hearing today plays a part in that discussion. 

We need to find a middle ground between drill baby drill and a 

moratorium to keep the committee going in our area and it is a difficult task for me to stand in oil up top my ankle asking for more 

oil, but it is important to our lives and our livelihoods. I yield back 

my time. 

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. And we thank the gentleman for his incredible work in Louisiana and the Gulf and the 

Congress on behalf of his people. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Barrow. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Vermont, Mr. Welch. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PETER WELCH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT 

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is often said that Congress does two things: One, it does nothing and, two, it overreacts. 

This is a time when I hope we get it right. This committee has provided some real leadership, the chairman took a bipartisan delegation to the Gulf shortly after this catastrophe occurred. And as the 

information has unfolded in significant part because of the diligence of this committee, including the spill cam that made visible 

to all Americans what was spewing from the floor of the Gulf. 

It has allowed us to get more and more information about what 

happened. And, in fact, when you get that information, it is clear 

that BP cut every corner possible when it came to a choice between 

safety and saving money. And it is also clear that the government 

agency, the mining and mineral services did not do its job and the 

whole point of the inquiry and the investigation was to find out 

what happened and what we can do to prevent this both with better regulation that works on behalf of the environment and the 

people and also safety standards that BP cut short. So this is timely and I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman and my 

colleagues on both sides of aisle for Congress to get this right. 

Mr. MARKEY. We thank the gentleman very much. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will waive my opening statement. 

Mr. MARKEY. And the chair recognizes the gentleman from New 

York, Mr. Engel. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the wake of this tragedy, serious questions have been raised about the cause of the exVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:16 Mar 07, 2013 Jkt 077917 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A917.XXX A917

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plosion and the adequacy of industry practices and regulatory 

standards relating to oil and gas drilling. 

Mr. MARKEY. Is the gentleman’s microphone on? 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ELIOT L. ENGEL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW 

YORK 

Mr. ENGEL. Sorry. Thank you. In the wake of the tragedy, serious questions have been raised about the causes of the explosion 

and the adequacy of industry practices and regulatory standards 

relating to oil and gas drilling. We must take action to improving 

industry practices and strengthen regulatory standards to try to 

ensure that this never happens again. Before us today is the Blowout Prevention Act of 2010, the legislation establishes a number of 

standards and procedures to help ensure that the use of appropriate safety equipment and practices during high risk oil and gas 

and drilling activities. It is good legislation. I think it can be improved. 

In particular, I would like to discuss with witnesses the addition 

of acoustic backup control systems and other emergency backup 

control systems. What really frustrates all of us is that we had 

been told time and time again that things of this magnitude really 

could never happen; and that if it did happen, there would be all 

kinds of safeguards in place. And we see now that was really not 

the case. So I have a hard time believing oil executives when they 

give us reassurances that this is a ones in a lifetime thing and it 

can’t happen again. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for 

pushing this bill. 

I thank you for the hearings we have had. I think the American 

people want to get to the bottom of this. I am very, very upset with 

this. And obviously this is a catastrophe of monumental proportions for our lifetime and generations to come. I yield back. 

Mr. MARKEY. We thank the gentleman very much. All time for 

opening statements from the members has expired. 

We now turn to our witness, David Hayes. He is the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Interior. Deputy Secretary Hayes has 

played a leading role in organizing the administration’s response to 

the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and is an expert on energy 

and natural resources policy. This is his second tour of duty at Interior. He also served as Deputy Secretary during the Clinton administration. Welcome back to the committee. Mr. Hayes, whenever 

you are ready. Please begin. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID HAYES, DEPUTY SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ACCOMPANIED BY STEVE BLACK, 

COUNSELOR TO THE SECRETARY 

Mr. HAYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Upton and members of the subcommittee. Let me apologize for 

being a few minutes late. We had a fender bender on the way, but 

no serious injuries to be sure. I am accompanied here by Steve 

Black, counselor to the Secretary. Steve is the primary author of 

the 30-day report that I will talk about a little bit that we provided 

to the President on May 27th. And that mirrors a lot of the points 

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man, at the outset, that we appreciate your leadership in this matter. We also appreciate the leadership of Chairwoman Waxman and 

the full committee. We want to continue to work with all committee 

members as we deal with this horrific problem. And it is in that 

spirit that we are here today. We endorse the aim behind the Blowout Prevention Act of 2010. In fact, many of its provisions are right 

in line with recommendations that we are now implementing administratively under the ample authority of the Outer Continental 

Lands Act. And I will go through that briefly in a moment. I would 

like to just take a couple of minutes, if I can, to give a little bit 

of context here in terms of how we are approaching these issues 

and then return to your legislation, and I look forward to questions 

and answers with the committee. 

Just to step back and provide a little bit of context. Secretary 

Salazar recognized when he came in the door on January 20th with 

me and a small group that there were serious issues with the Minerals Management Service. At that time, the issues were associated 

with the revenue side of the organization and the scandal in Lakewood, Colorado. The Secretary took immediate action on the ethics 

side and on the prosecution side and then in the succeeding 

months, also looked at the regulatory underpinnings of the problem 

of revenue collection and, in fact, proposed to and we are now implementing the abolishment of the royalty in kind program because 

structurally it provided the impetus and the opportunity if you will 

for inappropriate relations between regulators and the regulated 

industry. 

And the Secretary also looked very hard at the outer continental 

shelf and issues a writ large as the Secretary looked at a proposed 

new 5-year plan for the outer continental shelf. We had four public 

hearings, a half a million comments on all issues dealing with the 

outer continental shelf. It led to a conservative approach that the 

Secretary and the President implemented in canceling lease sales 

in the Arctic because of concerns about spill response capability, 

and in taking some areas completely off the possibility of outer continental shelf drilling, including Bristol Bay in Alaska because of 

environmental concerns. 

As to deep water, the National Academy of Sciences was commissioned in the late fall to review the inspection program by the Minerals Management Service because we were concerned about the 

adequacy of that program. We also in the two budgets, we had 

prior to the accident asked for substantial budget increases for the 

Mineral Management Service and in particular the inspection capacity of the Minerals Management Service. 

After the accident, of course, we have redoubled, tripled and 

quadrupled our efforts to deal with the obvious problems that led 

to the accident, even as we continue to explore the root cause of 

it. In particular, the President asked the Secretary to deliver within 30 days a report that would suggest safety improvements that 

could be taken and should be taken immediately and also in the 

medium and long term to increase the safety of offshore drilling. 

That report was submitted on May 27th. It is a comprehensive report and it is clear that your committee staff and you have reviewed it carefully because many of the concepts appear in the 

draft bill that you are reviewing today. 


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Also as you know, the Secretary and the President, within the 

last 10 days, announced a new head of the Minerals Management 

Service, Mike Bromwich, and the Minerals Management Service reorganization is proceeding. It is now the Bureau of Ocean Energy 

Management, Regulatory and Enforcement, and it is being divided 

into three parts that separate out the regulatory and enforcement 

and also the revenue sections. 

With regard to the bill before you, we look forward to working 

with you and members of the committee on the bill. The 30-day report that we put out and that Mr. Black, in particular, led, has 

many of the same concepts, certification of equipment, third party 

review of equipment, new inspection reporting requirement, new 

casing and cement design requirements, new fluid displacement 

procedures. 

These already are being implemented, but we had a notice to lessees on June 8th that laid out immediate requirements. We are 

also doing emergency rulemakings. We have a 6-month process of 

rulemakings that will generate new rules under our current authority for secondary control system requirements, ROV interventions, new emergency back-up control system and inspection and 

implementation requirements, including line shear rams, new testing requirements, new cementing well control requirements. 

We are working very, very hard along these lines. We see many 

of the same things in your legislation. We are proceeding under 

current authority and believe that we can and will implement 

many of the aims of your legislation, but we look forward to working with you as you proceed to markup and through consideration 

of the bill. We would be delighted to sit down with your staffs and 

review in detail where we are in our regulatory processes and help 

identify and have a dialogue with you with regard to any gaps you 

see or any complementary actions you think would be useful to 

pursue. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I will close. And I look forward to answering any questions from the subcommittee. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hayes follows:] 


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Mr. MARKEY. We thank you very much, Mr. Hayes. The chair 

will recognize himself for a round of questions. Would you like Mr. 

Black to be able to make any comments, or is he there just to answer questions? 

Mr. HAYES. He is here to bail me out, Mr. Chairman, if necessary. Thank you. 

Mr. UPTON. We don’t use bailouts here anymore in this Congress. 

Mr. MARKEY. It is a lifeline. Mr. Hayes, in the past 2 months, 

we have learned just how unprepared the oil and gas industry is 

to deal with blowout, especially those that occur deep beneath the 

surface of the ocean. We have learned that top hats, junk shots and 

riser cuts can’t stop the oil from flowing. We have learned that 

skimmer, boom and fire can’t stop the oil from washing ashore. We 

have learned that dispersants are themselves toxic. We have 

learned that hurricanes can completely disrupt even the overwhelmingly response efforts currently underway. We have learned 

that even the relief wells are not certain to work. In fact, when we 

had the 5 largest oil company CEOs in front of the committee a 

couple of weeks ago, they all agreed that when faced with a blowout like this, they really had no good solutions. 

Clearly relying on the industry’s ability to respond to a spill like 

this in the future would be an enormous mistake. Don’t you agree 

that when we need to—what we need to do is to take all necessary 

steps to prevent a blowout from occurring in the first place? 

Mr. HAYES. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. So what that means is basically the blowout preventers must be able to prevent blowouts, the wells must be able 

to be sealed so that oil and gas can’t just gush into the ocean. The 

well design and operation must have the best and safest technology. Do you agree with that? 

Mr. HAYES. I do. 

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Hayes, do you agree that the Department 

should be required to periodically update its regulations to ensure 

that safety requirements keep pace with any expansion of drilling 

and related risks? 

Mr. HAYES. I do, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. How do you propose that we would do that, Mr. 

Hayes? 

Mr. HAYES. Well, I think it is the kind of examination that we 

are proceeding with right now where we take a comprehensive look 

at the status of the regulations and update them. One of the truths 

that we have seen from this incident is that the technology has advanced more quickly than the regulatory system and the regulatory 

system has to keep up certainly, if not lead the technology. So I am 

not sure exactly what the appropriate time frame is, but there certainly has to be vigorous periodic updating of regulatory requirements. 

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Hayes, your testimony raises the question 

whether the Interior Department already has the legal authority to 

impose some of the requirements in the legislation now before us. 

It is true that current law requires the use of best available and 

safety technology that is economically feasible and cost justified. 

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tive, the critical questions are what the Interior Department has 

done with its broad discretionary authority and what the Department may do with it in the future. Perhaps not under this administration, perhaps under an administration that looks more like the 

previous administration, which took an attitude of complacency towards safety. 

Mr. Hayes, isn’t it true that not withstanding the Department’s 

current legal authority, its safety regulations for offshore drilling 

prior to the Macondo well blowout were clearly inadequate? 

Mr. HAYES. I would say, Mr. Chairman, that the combination of 

the regulatory framework and the enforcement structure was inadequate. In terms of the regulatory approach, there are broad—the 

current regulations are actually quite comprehensive, both in terms 

of having performance standard, which are the approach that many 

other countries are taking, such as Norway, the U.K., et cetera that 

have had major accidents and a blending of prescriptive standards. 

What has been lacking, I think, is strong enforcement of those. But 

also clearly the kind of periodic review that you were referring to 

in your previous question and updating of the regulations. And 

that is underway. 

Mr. MARKEY. So that authority was not used? 

Mr. HAYES. The authority certainly was not used to the extent 

that the law allows. 

Mr. MARKEY. Isn’t it true, Mr. Hayes, if Congress does not establish adequate minimum standards for safety there is a real risk 

that a future administration will again slide into complacency because there would be no minimum standard? 

Mr. HAYES. Well, I think some minimum standards certainly 

make sense, Mr. Chairman. And we are in the process of implementing the same through our regulatory process. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Hayes. My time has expired. The 

chair recognizes the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Upton. 

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Chairman, what is the situation with votes on 

the floor? 

Mr. MARKEY. The second bells about have already rung? Well, I 

would leave to the discretion of the gentleman. If he would like to 

begin and end his questions in 5 minutes, I think we can do that 

or we can adjourn right now and come back. That is the gentleman’s wish. The committee will stand in recess until the completion of roll call. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. MARKEY. The Subcommittee on Energy and Environment reconvenes. And the chair will recognize the ranking member of the 

committee, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Upton. 

Mr. UPTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, Mr. Hayes, I was not 

able to read your testimony before I left last night and even though 

I started early this morning, 6:30, I didn’t see it so I heard your 

oral testimony. You did say in the written testimony but not in 

your oral testimony that the administration was not prepared to 

give their support for the bill; is that right? So that is as it would 

be cleared by OMB? 


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Mr. HAYES. That is correct, Congressman. That we do not have 

clearance from OMB to have an administration position on this bill 

at this time. 

Mr. UPTON. OK. Now, there are a good number of things—there 

are a number of things in the bill that I support. I support the 

blowout preventer and the requirements that include the independent third-party. And you all have the ability to require that 

now by regulation, right? 

Mr. HAYES. That is correct. 

Mr. UPTON. What are the current regulations as it relates to the 

blowout preventer? Are there any regulations along this line? 

Mr. HAYES. There are some. There is a general regulation and 

then some specifics in terms of types of for example systems that 

need to be in place in BOPs, for example. But it is more of a menu 

as opposed to much of a prescription. For example, there need to 

be under the regulations some redundancies, two types of redundancy, but there is not a prescription that it has to be a certain 

type of blowout prevention mechanism like for example acoustic devices can be used but aren’t prescribed to be used and what we are 

doing right now, Congressman, is essentially filling in what we 

think are gaps in those regulations under the 30-day report that 

we are now implementing. 

Mr. UPTON. It talks about, and of course, we had a number of 

hearings here, not only oversight, but as well as this subcommittee. 

And I read the detailed report by the oversight subcommittee, 

which I thought was very good. One of the things that came out 

in our hearing a week or 2 ago was that when we had the five 

CEOs come, that four of them indicated that they had the stopwork requirements on their rigs and pointed out probably that BP 

did not take advantage of that. Is the Department of Interior looking in the absence of this bill, where are we on stop work provisions? 

Mr. HAYES. We are very interested in that point. We think it is 

an essential ingredient of any regulatory system that there be an 

understanding that if there is a risky situation that develops, that 

there is an obligation to take a conservative route and shut down. 

We are looking at that from a couple of different perspectives. We 

are finalizing some safety system regulations that have a similar 

type of effect. But quite honestly, we are going to look at what you 

all have put here in this bill and see whether we are—we have a 

strong enough regulation underway to deal with it because we certainly agree with the point. So we will examine that further. 

Mr. UPTON. I have two questions I want to get to before my time 

expires. Have you all done what we call a side-by-side of what the 

rules and regulations are for offshore drilling in this country as 

compared to what U.K. and other countries overseas have done? 

Pluses and minuses. 

Mr. HAYES. We started that process in connection with a 30-day 

report and have a discussion in the 30-day report that provides essentially a fairly high level analysis of that. 

Mr. UPTON. Could we get a copy of that? Can that be made available? 

Mr. HAYES. Certainly, we will be happy to get that to you. We 

want to do more than that. We want to have world class standards 


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here and we want to lead the world. But Norway, and the U.K. in 

particular, both had some very serious accidents and as a result of 

that, revamped their regulatory systems. And, in fact, our separation of the regulatory side from the enforcement side is something 

that both countries have done and did after their accidents. So we 

want to learn from them. We are in that process and we need to 

continue it. 

Mr. UPTON. The last question I have, the staff—we have looked 

at the language that makes the definition of the high risk well. 

Their thoughts are that it would, in fact, the definition would capture all offshore oil and gas rigs and could potentially capture all 

onshore oil and gas rigs as well. Is that your understanding of the 

definition? 

Mr. HAYES. We would want to study the definition more. That is 

the kind of thing we need more time to study. There certainly is 

a differentiation among risks in terms of well with pressures and 

temperatures and that sort of thing. But we don’t have a view on 

the definition in your bill at this point. 

Mr. UPTON. How long might you take to come up with a conclusion on that? 

Mr. HAYES. We would be happy to follow up informally at the 

staff level in terms of getting—and are available to do that at any 

time. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair recognizes the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On April 30th, the 

President directed the Secretary of Interior to conduct a review of 

the Deepwater Explosion disaster and provide recommendations on 

additional precautions and technologies that should be required to 

improve the safety of offshore oil and gas operations. This 30-day 

report was delivered to the President on May 27th. We are working 

to craft legislation with the same goal of improving safety and the 

30-day report has helped inform our efforts as you know. The report has several recommendations related to ensuring the effectiveness of the blowout preventer. These devices are supposed to be a 

fail safe way of preventing blowouts from occurring. Mr. Hayes, one 

of the recommendations in the report was that blowout preventers 

should be required to have 2 sets of blind shear ram spaced at least 

4 feet apart. Why is that important? 

Mr. HAYES. That is important, Congressman, because the blind 

shear rams which are designed to cut through a pipe and through 

the drill pipe in an emergency where you have to just get complete 

closure have the potential to hit the joint between the casing 

strings, and if they hit the joint, they won’t be able to shear 

through. If you have them separated by 4 feet, you are sure to get 

an area of the pipe that is outside of the joint interval. 

Mr. WAXMAN. We agreed with that provision and we thought we 

needed to make sure at least one set of blind shear rams could cut 

through and seal the pipe. So we included that as a minimum requirement in our bill. The 30-day report also includes recommendations that embrace the concept of third-party certification of blowout preventers. Why does the Department think this is a good approach? 


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Mr. HAYES. Well, it is an approach, Congressman, that actually 

has been taken in other jurisdictions, Norway, U.K., for example, 

take that approach. We think it helps ensure that the industry is 

not simply self-regulating and/or dependent upon government inspectors, that there is an additional enforcement mechanism. And 

interestingly, we are already imposing some of that under the notice to lessees—that we sent out the safety notice to the lessees 

that we sent out earlier this month. And there is a lot of activity 

and it seems the industry folks recognize the significance of it or 

so they have told us. So we think it is an important step. 

Mr. WAXMAN. We agreed with all the things you said, and we 

also thought that it will help ensure break out preventers are properly designed for the well and that it is properly maintained. So we 

had that requirement that they be certified by an independent 

third-party before drilling begins and every 6 months after that. 

Another key issue is well design and cementing procedures. The 

30-day report emphasizes the need for new rules for casing installation and cementing. What do you see as the weaknesses of the 

current regulation of well design and cementing? 

Mr. HAYES. Well, on the cementing side, I am not yet a petroleum engineer, but there are a variety of question marks regarding 

the type of cement that is used, the time of the curing of the cement, the expectation of how far up and down the annulus the cement job has to fall. There are views there could be weaknesses in 

all of those aspects. And we are doing an emergency rule making 

to help develop standards in that regard. Similar with regard to 

the well design. There are concerns about single string casing for 

certain types of wells. The same type of issues, Congressman, that 

your bill is addressing. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, we took that recommendation and provided 

that there be a third-party certification of an oil company’s casing 

designs and cementing procedures in order to maintain well control. We also require cement bond log tests to ensure the defective 

cement jobs are detected before it is too late. Something we wish 

BP had done and they could have done and they didn’t. We appreciate all of your efforts to improve the safety of offshore drilling 

and we look forward to working with you and our colleagues to be 

sure that we do the best we can to learn from the experience, prevent it from ever happening again and leave enough flexibility so 

as new technologies are designed, you have the flexibility to accommodate those concerns. But not just delegate the authority to the 

companies to make the decisions on their own, which could lead to 

them cutting costs and cutting corners at the same time. Thank 

you. I yield back my time. 

Mr. INSLEE [presiding]. The chair recognizes Mr. Barton for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. BARTON. I thank the distinguished subcommittee chairman 

there. It is good to see you on the chair as opposed to on the baseball field last nights. Chairman Markey asked some questions 

about existing authority versus new authority. What authority that 

you don’t have do you need statutorily in this bill? 

Mr. HAYES. Congressman, we think we have the authority we 

need to develop a more robust regulatory system, but we are happy 


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to work with the committee as Chairman Markey suggested to help 

identify minimum standards. 

Mr. BARTON. And I think the Republicans are open to giving new 

authority where necessary. I want to clarify. You could to use your 

phrase develop new robust standards without existing new statutory authority, is that not true? 

Mr. HAYES. That is true. I will say that another aspect of the bill 

is to increase the penalties for failure to meet the regulatory standards. And we have testified elsewhere that we are open to increasing those penalties. 

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Upton asked some questions about the definition of high risk. As currently drafted, it could be interpreted to 

apply to almost any well drilled on shore or offshore, is that not 

true? 

Mr. HAYES. I unfortunately don’t—can’t comment on that. But 

we understand the importance of having a solid definition of high 

risk. There are differentiations among wells and we would be 

happy to work with the committee—— 

Mr. BARTON. For example, would the current definition of high 

risk or the lack of definition of high risk in the pending draft, could 

it apply to wells that are on private land or State land on shore? 

Mr. HAYES. I cannot comment, Congressman. 

Mr. BARTON. You can’t comment that it could or it couldn’t or 

you just won’t comment? 

Mr. HAYES. No, I would be—I need to review that. I am not trying to be evasive, Congressman. I need to review the language 

more closely. 

Mr. BARTON. Do you agree that before we legitimate we should 

have a definition that is clear and precise and easily understood? 

Mr. HAYES. I do. 

Mr. BARTON. That is a good answer. That is a good answer. Does 

the Department of Interior have a position on drilling in the OCS? 

Mr. HAYES. In terms of a moratorium? 

Mr. BARTON. Not to the moratorium yet. Is there an official position on generic drilling in the OCS? And if so, what is it? 

Mr. HAYES. We support drilling in the OCS in accordance with 

the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, yes. 

Mr. BARTON. If that is the position, do you or the administration 

agree that legislation that is passed to deal with the oil spill should 

still make it possible to drill in the OCS? 

Mr. HAYES. Well, the predicate, of course, to our statement is 

that the drilling can proceed in a safe and environmentally sound 

manner. And we are open to legislative improvement that would 

help assure that result. 

Mr. BARTON. But I think it is clarifying for the administration 

and the committee to understand that everybody wants to drill 

safely, environmentally, protectively. But if you set the standards 

and the regulations so strenuously or tightly, it is at least conceivable that you can end up not getting any drilling, and that means 

we would be even more dependent on foreign choices of energy. 

So the key for the committee and the administration is to tighten 

up where necessary, clarify where necessary, do everything necessary to prevent if possible a recurrence of what happened ever 

again, but still make it possible to generate the domestic energy 


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that is beneath the waters of the OCS that helps our citizenry on 

shore. Do you agree with that? 

Mr. HAYES. As a general matter, yes. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. I recognize Mr. Dingell for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As one of the two authors of NEPA, which I cosponsored back with my old friend, Scoop 

Jackson. I am troubled about the fact that here, the agency appears to have required a full EIS with regard to the overall leasing 

but not with regard to the particular well. Am I correct in that? 

Mr. HAYES. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Is that going to be a continuing practice or are you 

going to see to it now that you have environmental impact statements issued on each well? 

Mr. HAYES. We are in the midst of a very intense evaluation of 

that issue with the counsel. 

Mr. DINGELL. I will tell you that that statute requires you to do 

this whether it is going to be an impact upon the environment and 

I think as you look about you it has had an enormous impact on 

the environment and a political impact on everybody concerned. 

And I want you to know I will make that political impact considerably worse if you don’t engage in the practice of seeing to it that 

you have environmental impact statements following each one of 

these deep-water wells because the consequences are quite frankly 

horrific. Now, if you did not do so, on the Macondo well, will you 

please submit the rationale for the record? 

Mr. HAYES. Certainly. 

Mr. DINGELL. And also submit for the record statutory authority 

under which categorical exclusions were granted. Were there any 

statutory bases for the exclusion or not? 

Mr. HAYES. There was a regulatory basis, the counsel on environmental quality has a rule that applies here. 

Mr. DINGELL. Please submit that. 

Mr. HAYES. We will. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, how many categorical exclusions under 

NEPA were granted for drilling projects in the OCS? You can submit that for the record. 

Mr. HAYES. We will. 

Mr. DINGELL. That is a substantial number. Now, section 3 of the 

discussion draft before us requires redundant sets of shear rams on 

the wells. I happen to think that is a good idea, but I have a great 

apprehension and that is that this may, in some way, stall, slow 

or prevent development of even better and newer technology. How 

are we to address that concern? 

Mr. HAYES. I think you raise a very important point, Congressman. We are interested in triggering a complete reevaluation of the 

technology for blowout preventers and certainly with today’s blowout preventer, a duplication of the shear rams makes great sense, 

but query whether there isn’t better technology that can be brought 

to the table and we are very open to and expect to be evaluating 

that. 

And we—to your point, we hope that legislation will not inhibit 

the ability to move with technology and move beyond the current 

approach. 


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Mr. DINGELL. Any regulations you issue pursuant to that I hope 

will encourage rather than inhibit that process. Now, as I see the 

way you ought to do this, first of all, you need to gather full information for the proper decision-making process then you need to ensure that the development of the well is done safely including safe 

development. Then I see that you need to engage rather specifically 

here in prevention of failures because prevention is a lot easier to 

do than cleaning up some damnable mess that is created. Then I 

see you have to have on hand an adequate and quick response to 

failure. I note here that there was no adequate quick response. And 

I note that there were no cleanup plans, and I note that there does 

not appear to have been constant review of practices and developments and new technologies as you went forward. Do you agree or 

disagree with that statement? 

Mr. HAYES. I agree that there is a 3-legged stool. There is the 

safety and prevention aspect of this that we are working on. There 

is the containment issue. If a spill curse that has not traditionally 

gotten enough attention and there is the spill cleanup requirement 

that clearly needs attention. 

Mr. DINGELL. In your regulations, are you going to make an effort to see to it that the regulations do reflect those concerns? And 

if you will, please, tell us what—in what fashion this legislation 

does not ensure that those steps are taken? Because if we want to 

see to it that if we do this, it is done well. 

Mr. HAYES. Well, I do note that your section 2 has performance 

standards in your legislation that deal with all three of these 

issues and that strikes us—strikes me as a very appropriate approach. In terms of what we are doing on the containment side, it 

is part of our 30-day report is a suggestion that we are following 

through on on evaluating how to be much more prepared for this 

eventuality which despite hopeful thinking that this cannot occur, 

it obviously can occur and we need to be better prepared. 

Mr. DINGELL. My time is ending, so I have to get this question 

in. You did not have a quick and adequate response to the failure 

which occurred, and I do not believe that you had adequate cleanup 

plans which placed proper burdens upon the company that did the 

drilling. Are you making steps to change that and see to it that 

proper actions are taken in that regard, both with regard to existing leases and coming up leases? 

Mr. HAYES. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. Would you give us a statement as to what you are 

doing there and how it is progressing so that the committee can 

have a look at that, please? 

Mr. HAYES. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. We would recognize Mr. Scalise for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hayes, are you familiar with the 30-day report that was conducted by the Department of Interior to come up with recommendations? And they 

would come up with a number of specific safety recommendations. 

Have you looked at those safety recommendations and implemented any of those? 

Mr. HAYES. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SCALISE. Which ones? 


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Mr. HAYES. We implemented five specific safety recommendations in the June 8 notice to lessees. I am sorry, it was more than 

five. More like 8 or 10. 

Mr. SCALISE. Are you familiar with their concerns about the moratorium issued by Secretary Salazar? Specifically, I know a majority of that panel that was put together, those scientists, those engineers, a majority of them actually said this moratorium implemented by the Secretary would reduce safety. Are you familiar 

with those concerns that they expressed? 

Mr. HAYES. There were concerns expressed by some of the reviewers. 

Mr. SCALISE. A majority of them. 

Mr. HAYES. The question of the proposed—the concept that there 

was a higher risk associated with the drilling moratorium was not 

endorsed by a number of those folks. 

Mr. SCALISE. But a majority did say that? A majority actually 

said that this moratorium would decrease safety. Are you aware of 

that first of all? A majority of the panel put together by the Secretary. 

Mr. HAYES. We had a number of these folks in the office with the 

Secretary. There was not unanimity on that point by the folks who 

were visiting with us. 

Mr. SCALISE. But a majority signed a letter and I don’t know if 

you saw the letter, but a majority of the scientific panel you put 

together, the actual experts that you assembled said that the moratorium would decrease safety. Are you aware of that? 

Mr. HAYES. I am aware of the letter. 

Mr. SCALISE. I would hope you all would go back and look at that 

because many of us are concerned that not only does it hurt economically to have this moratorium, but it will actually reduce safety. And there are very specific reasons that they cited for those reductions in safety. And if we are as concerned as I am about increasing safety, then the Secretary should be very concerned that 

his own moratorium actually would decrease safety on offshore 

drilling as recommended by his own panel that he put together, a 

majority of those members. 

So I would hope you would go back and look at that. But going 

back to the actual report on safety, but specifically about the bill 

we have before us. Can you tell me in the bill which provisions 

would actually help us cap the well right now? Which provisions 

in the bill right now will help us cap the well that is leaking? 

Mr. HAYES. I think this committee is more familiar with the bill 

than we are. 

Mr. SCALISE. Have you read the bill? 

Mr. HAYES. Yes, I have read the bill, Congressman. 

Mr. SCALISE. Do you know of any sections that would increase 

our likelihood of capping the well? 

Mr. HAYES. Section 2 has a performance standard that requires 

containment. 

Mr. SCALISE. That requires containment not related to this well, 

though. Can you tell me, then, in the bill where does it actually 

have any provisions that help us battle the oil and keep it off of 

our coast today which we are battling with every day we have been 

battling with for over 2 months. 


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Mr. HAYES. Well, Section 2 says that the oil response plans need 

to be revised. There has to be an assurance that BOP will work. 

Mr. SCALISE. That is nice down the road but that doesn’t help us 

today. I am pointing out, the title of this hearing is legislation to 

respond to the BP oil spill and yet I don’t see anything in this bill 

that actually helps us address the problems we are dealing with 

today. Now, I know some members are scrambling around to try 

to defend this administration’s failures, but if you actually go and 

talk to the leaders on the ground, the people who are battling that 

oil every day, they will tell you that they are spending more time 

fighting the Federal Government’s incompetence than they are battling the oil. That is inexcusable, yet that is still happening today. 

We are not talking about something that happened in the first couple of weeks it has been resolved. 

Just last week, we had two more very clear examples of efforts 

where our leaders were trying to battle the oil and they were being 

blocked not by BP, but by the Federal Government. So maybe some 

people that want to defend the administration would be better 

served to actually go down to the Gulf and go meet with those leaders and help us. We want to help solve the problems on the ground, 

and I know this bill has got all kind of things, and I would like 

to ask you about some of the specific things that are very undefined that literally would allow complete elimination of drilling not 

just offshore but also on shore. 

But we want to be focused on actually solving the problems that 

we are battling with that are holding back our leaders today from 

dealing with this crisis, the worst national disaster this—this worst 

national environmental disaster probably in the country’s history. 

And we are spending more time fighting the Federal Government. 

I don’t see anything in this bill that helps us give our local leaders 

the tools we need to fight the battles today. Now, we also need to 

be focused on fighting battles tomorrow. 

If this hearing is titled Legislation to Respond to the BP Oil 

Spill, you would think we would spend some time focusing on that 

problem that we are battling every day right now, and unfortunately, so many times against the Federal Government which there 

is no excuse for. And hopefully in the second round we will have 

had a chance to get into that. I know I am out of time, so I yield 

back. 

Mr. INSLEE. The witness, if you would like to respond to that at 

all, you have a reasonable period to do so, Mr. Hayes. 

Mr. HAYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Federal response 

working with the States is unprecedented in scope. Throughout the 

administration, we are working every hour of every day, incredibly 

intensely to try to deal with this problem. There are daily calls to 

the governors, there is—I have been to the Gulf multiple times as 

has every senior administration official in every affected agency. 

One would not expect this bill to have anything to do with the current response. We are proceeding with the current response under 

current authority and throwing everything we have at it. And I resent the implication that we are not. 

Mr. SCALISE. You need to talk to the local leaders then because 

they will tell you exactly what is going wrong that is not being addressed to this day. 


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Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Scalise, thank you for your interruption of the 

witness, but we need to move on. 

Mr. SCALISE. He made some statements that were not accurate. 

Mr. INSLEE. Are you done, Mr. Scalise? We would like to proceed 

with the hearing. Is that OK with you? Thank you very much. We 

appreciate your courtesy so we can get on with this. Mr. Green, are 

you prepared? 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I think your answers 

to some of the questions earlier from some of the other members, 

department interior feels like they have the authority right now 

under current law to do the best you can in not only dealing with 

what is going on now, but also into the future. Do you think the 

Department of Interior has the ability to provide regulations on redundancy, on blowout preventers on inspection systems? Is there 

anything stopping the Department of Interior from right now going 

and investigating every well in the Gulf of Mexico? If you have the 

staff to do it, that is. 

Mr. HAYES. There is nothing stopping us, and we are redoubling 

and tripling our efforts along those lines, Congressman. 

Mr. GREEN. And I understand the nature of this bill is to give 

additional authority and something we can look at and so—I know 

the draft we have is still a working in progress and it is going to 

take a lot of work and I appreciate any suggestions from interior 

because I have been working on legislation for a while on a separate issue and we submit it to agencies for their response and it 

is really helpful. So if you would—I also want to comment, and I 

don’t expect you to respond to it, but—because I know the Department of Interior should be the lead agency in dealing with offshore 

development. And whether it is in consultation with the EPA or in 

consultation with any other agency, the Department of Interior 

should be the agency. And if we can beef it up on any way reasonable, I want to help and I think anyone who represents areas along 

the Gulf Coast want to do that because that is our jobs and our 

tax base. 

And one of the issues I have—and I don’t know if you have the 

information. We have been working with both the Department of 

Interior and the new subagency I guess and in the 6-month moratorium did not cover shallow wells. And I know we have been meeting on a weekly basis with conference calls with both industry and 

Members of Congress. And I was just told—and I was going to 

see—have there been any—since a shallow well is 500 feet or less, 

up until last week, there were no permits issued. I understand in 

the last week there have been. 

If you don’t have it, if you could get it back to the committee on 

what is happening. Because my fear is that not only are we having 

a 6-month moratorium on deep-water wells, but a de facto moratorium on shallow wells where we do produce a lot of our natural 

gas. Do you have any personal information about any permits of 

issue since Horizon for shallow water drilling permits? 

Mr. HAYES. I know there is—I don’t have the exact information, 

but I know that there are a number of permits now that are mature and that we are looking to process. We had a notice to lessees 

about 10 days ago requiring some additional information from folks 

on blowout scenarios and that information has been coming in and 


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ones that information is in, the APD decisions can be made, and 

so we talked about this with a group of industry folks at the Department just a couple of days ago. We expect more shallow water 

drilling, APDs to be granted in the near future. There is no moratorium on shallow water and we want to move it through. But we 

were requiring that operators meet the new safety requirements 

that are laid out in the 30-day report. That has been broadly supported by industry and we had folks in, as I say, a couple of days 

ago to confirm that and then there was this important gap in terms 

of the expiration plans of having a description of the blowout scenarios, and that is being built now and that will database the combination of those two things will enable those permits to continue 

to be granted. 

Mr. GREEN. My next question would be I know the bill talks 

about a high risk well. And with the thousands of wells that have 

been drilled without any problems, I would hope that—do you have 

a suggestion on what a high risk well would be? Obviously from 

what happened in Horizon, it would be a deep-water well, 5,000 

feet or more. But again, shallow water wells or land side wells 

seem like they have a pretty good safety record. Is that the experience with the Department of Interior? 

Mr. HAYES. The historic record in terms of blowouts has been 

generally good. But obviously, the implications of an uncontrolled 

blowout are horrendous as we are seeing now. We are happy to 

work with the committee to help define relative risk among wells. 

There certainly are some criteria that could be utilized and we 

have a lot of expertise in the agency that might be useful as you 

proceed. 

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, just one more. 

I know in Texas and Oklahoma there are lots of wells that are 

called stripper wells. They are very low-producing wells, maybe 10 

or 12 barrels a day. And, of course, when it is $150 a barrel, it is 

really great, but there are times at $8 and $10 it wasn’t hardly 

worth the electricity to produce it. I would surely hope that there 

would be some reasonableness in those type of wells that produce 

a great deal for our country would not be considered high-risk. 

So, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your patience. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Griffith. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to talk about third-party verification. Where we mention 

that we have lifted the moratorium on shallow water, that is dependent on that third-party verification of the safety requirements. 

What is the approximate cost for a third-party verification? Do 

we have a number that would be applicable to the cost for this 

independent contractor to do a verification? 

Mr. HAYES. I am not sure. 

Steve, do you know? 

Mr. BLACK. I don’t know the cost. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. If you could find that, we would appreciate having 

that. 

The second thing is, is this independent contractor immune from 

any liability should something happen after the certification is 

given? Is there a liability to this independent contractor? And I 


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would appreciate knowing that, as well. And are they bonded? And 

what are the limits of their liability after they verify? 

The second thing is, how many of these independent contractors 

are out there? And if we are going to require an independent contractor to verify the safety to allow drilling to go forward, the number of those, the cost to the industry, their liability, are they bonded, that is an important concept. 

Because, in fact, if there are not enough independent contractors 

that are willing to verify, that are willing to inspect, sign their signature, put their company at risk, then, in fact, that moratorium 

is still in place if there are not enough out there. So I would appreciate knowing that, as well. 

Mr. BLACK. Congressman, I will attempt to answer that now, to 

the extent I can, and we would be happy to follow up with additional information. 

As you point out, the first safety NTL does require certain thirdparty verification. The Minerals Management Agency, now the Bureau of Offshore Energy, has provided clarification with respect to 

each of the points you raise, has made clear that the third party 

must have adequate bonding or insurance and must have the requisite engineering experience to review whatever it is that is being 

verified. 

So far, the industry has not expressed any concern or problem 

finding those third-party validators. They are contractors, consultants that do this on a routine basis. So they are available, and, to 

my knowledge at least, this has not been a problem so far. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. So it wouldn’t be an impediment to the moratorium? It would be something that would be—we are ready to take 

that on, we have plenty of independent contractors, and the cost is 

not prohibitive. Or we will check into that. 

Mr. BLACK. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. The other thing that I persistently hear is that 

Norway and the United Kingdom, that have had similar problems, 

have developed techniques for removing oil from water that are far 

superior to the ones that we might be using in the gulf. 

Is there any truth to that? And are we making an effort to get 

their equipment into the gulf that they say is superior to ours, or 

BP’s, that are being used now? Is that a rumor? Is there any factual information about that? 

Mr. BLACK. Mr. Griffith, I am not aware of the technology that 

you are referring to. I know, obviously, Kevin Costner has offered 

some solutions along those lines. I am not an expert or a petroleum 

engineer on that, and so I don’t have an answer to your question. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. So the rumor continues. OK, I hear you. 

The other thing is that it sounds like to me, from the questions 

that have been asked and some proposals that have been made, 

that it would be in our best interest, as far as the United States 

is concerned and its energy resources, that we have a greater 

amount of information before we finalize a bill. Would that be fair? 

Would you be more comfortable with more information and more 

investigation since it is an ongoing investigation? 

And you have mentioned that you have the regulatory authority 

to do pretty much what you want to do now without a bill. So is 


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there really a hurry for us to do a bill without completing the investigation? 

Mr. HAYES. Congressman, we will leave it to the Congress to decide what is appropriate. What we are doing is, even before we get 

the final root cause figured out, we are moving to shore up safety 

issues that we think do need some attention. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. OK. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. Great. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington State, Mr. 

Inslee. 

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Hayes, Mr. Scalise took some political shots at 

the administration. I guess that comes with the territory. But I 

want to ask you about the response that is going on. Because we 

all, across the country, want to be as vigorous as humanly possible, 

given the suffering of the folks in the gulf right now. 

I am told that, as of the beginning of this week, the Obama administration has mobilized over 40,000 people to fight the spill. 

There are 7,200 vessels today that are fighting the spill. 

I am told that the administration has also authorized the deployment of 17,500 National Guard troops to respond to the disaster in 

four affected States: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. 

However, I am told that only the Governors of the respective States 

can actually deploy them. And, thus far, although the President 

has authorized the use of 17,500 National Guard troops, those Governors have only deployed 1,675 troops. 

Is, in fact, that the situation? And, in fact, is it the Governors 

who have the ability to deploy those troops? 

Mr. HAYES. Congressman, that is my understanding. Although, 

I will caveat that the Department of Interior is not the lead in 

terms of that issue. 

Mr. INSLEE. So, given the needs, shouldn’t these Governors deploy these troops that the Federal administration has authorized to 

be used? If, in fact, Mr. Scalise is right, there is not an adequate 

response, why don’t the Governors authorize the deployment of 

these troops? 

Mr. SCALISE. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. INSLEE. No. And the reason I won’t yield is because you 

didn’t respect the witnesses and the time that we had. 

So, Mr. Hayes, go ahead and answer. 

Mr. SCALISE. That is not accurate. 

Mr. HAYES. I am not comfortable speaking to the question of the 

potential benefit of the National Guard in terms of the Governors’ 

requests. I do know that the administration has been supportive of 

requests to employ the National Guard. As to why they are not 

being utilized, I am not sure. 

I do know, per your general point, that the Governors, the parish 

presidents, the other local folks in Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, and the Federal folks have a massive joint response effort 

under way under the framework law that this Congress passed in 

1990 to respond to this oil spill. It is an enormous challenge because this oil has continued to leak into the gulf at a huge rate for 

now a very long time—— 


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Mr. INSLEE. Well, I appreciate that. And I think it would be helpful if we had bipartisan teamwork to try to figure out how to force 

the oil industries to have adequate spill response plans so we 

wouldn’t be behind the curve, as we have been in this situation, 

trying to play catch-up. 

And if we had a little more teamwork from the other side of the 

aisle to figure out how to pass a law to prevent this from happening, of people trying to make things up as they go along because 

the industry didn’t have an adequate spill response plan, then 

maybe we could be in a better position if this were to happen 

again. I hope we have that kind of teamwork. 

I want to ask you about, going forward, to try to prevent the next 

tragedy. My view is that we ought to have the same level of assurance to prevent this tragedy as we do in the aviation industry. And 

I think the FAA is a pretty good template to look at to try to design 

a regulatory system to prevent that. 

I have been talking to some folks in the FAA, and what they tell 

me they do is they set a standard of performance that you have to 

have. You can’t expect, for instance, a loss of control of your airplane to happen more than one in a billion instances of takeoffs. 

And the industry then is expected to propose and provide an engineering analysis to say that that expectation will be met. 

Shouldn’t we have something similar in this situation as to each 

and every critical system of offshore drilling? Shouldn’t we design 

in this third-party mechanism an expectation in something in that 

regard? 

Mr. HAYES. I think an expectation of a very high standard of 

safety is necessary and appropriate. 

Mr. INSLEE. So, in this third-party mechanism, should we have 

an expectation that they set a level of statistical performance that 

the engineers have to show will be met? Shouldn’t that be something we put in the statute? 

Mr. HAYES. I think potentially we are open to working with you 

on that, Congressman. 

Mr. INSLEE. Next question: Should we be using the best available 

technology? And it is probably an amendment I will be offering, to 

require the best available technology to be used. Is that something 

you think would be a good idea? 

Mr. HAYES. Certainly for this deepwater drilling operation, yes, 

Congressman. 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. MARKEY. Great. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Shimkus. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And welcome to the panelists. I am sorry I haven’t been here, as 

many of us filter in and out. But let me first yield some time to 

my colleague from Louisiana, Mr. Scalise. 

Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman from Illinois for yielding. 

And, you know, one of our other members listed off, and we hear 

too often all this, you know, litany of things that are being done 

when they try to defend the failed response on the ground by the 

Federal Government, and we have this deployed and that deployed. 


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I will just give you an opportunity, Mr. Hayes, to address one of 

the issues that we battled last week with the sand barrier plan. 

This is a plan that the President, just a week and a half ago, 

bragged about in his national address, bragged about approving— 

he only approved 25 percent of the Governor’s plan to build a sand 

barrier protection that we had wanted to protect the marsh. Of 

course, we had submitted that plan 3 weeks prior to the approval 

when there was no oil in the marsh, and now there is. 

But, last week, an agency in your department shut that plan 

down for almost a week. Why these kind of bureaucratic delays? 

Mr. HAYES. Well, that specific situation was because the State 

and its contractor was violating the permit agreement that had 

been provided the basis for it. And we are happy to supply record 

information about this. 

But there was an agreement as to where the sand could be taken 

from. Because if it was taken from the wrong spot, we would not 

have the Chandeleur Islands, and it would take away the ability 

to maintain that island system. There was a—— 

Mr. SCALISE. That is not accurate. According to our State’s coastal protection authority, which runs this, they had a permit from 

the Corps of Engineers to go and get that borrowed sand. They actually had—— 

Mr. HAYES. But not from the location. What the contractor requested on a temporary basis, waiting for piping to take sand from 

a location that was not permitted, the Federal Government said, 

‘‘We will let you do this for 4 or 5 days, no more, because, at that 

point, the integrity of the island system will be affected.’’ They did 

that for 4 or 5 days and then asked for another 10 days of taking 

sand from an area that was not allowed in the permit. 

At that point, the Fish and Wildlife Service, backed up by the 

Corps of Engineers, said, ‘‘No, you have to agree to the permit conditions that you agreed to at the outset of this project.’’ And that 

is what happened. 

Mr. SCALISE. Well, unfortunately, they had the permit from the 

Corps, it took them over 3 weeks to get the permit. This comes in, 

shuts the project down for almost a week, I think it was 5 or 6 

days, shut the project down. They had to go back and forth and 

fight with you all. 

And, you know, you can have all your reasons about what you 

are concerned about. They are concerned about protecting the 

coast, from stopping these pelican nests from being destroyed, 

which they are being destroyed. But you can have your bureaucrat 

haggling back and forth. 

Mr. HAYES. It is more than a bureaucratic issue, Mr. Congressman. 

Mr. SCALISE. Well, then let me ask you this, because we just 

heard all this bragging about all these vessels deployed. Just a few 

weeks ago, the vessels that were supposed to be out skimming for 

oil were sitting idle at the dock, not skimming for oil, again, as oil 

was coming into the marsh. I don’t know if you have any explanation for that. 

But, I mean, just over and over, we get—and I am sure you have 

reasons why you think you should hold on to and pull back permits 

that were issued or want to change plans, but—— 


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Mr. HAYES. If I can please—— 

Mr. SHADEGG. If I could reclaim my time. 

Mr. SCALISE. And I will yield to the gentleman from Illinois. 

Mr. SHADEGG. I did want to give my colleague and friend time 

to rebut. 

I think part of the frustration is, I mean, we are all frustrated 

about this whole mess that we are in. And I think the executive 

branch would have done itself well if they would have went to the 

locals and said, ‘‘Locals, what do you need,’’ and deployed. 

In fact, I have told my friend from Louisiana, I probably would 

have done it without Federal permits. If the locals said these 

marshes had to be protected, do that. And I think public opinion 

in their States, they would have scored sky-high. 

But that is the emotion involved. 

Let me just put my comments on the record, on the mark, so the 

chairman understands concerns. Two hundred miles means everything. Getting a good definition for ‘‘high-risk well,’’ what is a highrisk well. Is every well a high-risk well? I don’t think so. 

Onshore and offshore—we have onshore instances. I have marginal oil wells. Does that mean they are going to go into my cornfield now and deal with—marginal oil wells that produce, you 

know, a barrel a day that people get royalties on. 

And the civil action—if we had the civil action aspect that is in this mark, we probably, Mr. Chairman, would not have the $20 billion BP settlement, because they would have had to hold their 

money to be prepared to fight these lawsuits. 

So I put that on the record, Mr. Chairman. We look forward to 

working with you, and I yield back my time. 

Mr. MARKEY. We thank the gentleman very much. 

Just for the record, the citizen suit provision exists under existing law. So it is not anything that we are adding; it is existing law. 

The chair recognizes the gentlelady from California. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Hayes, thank you for being here and for your daily efforts 

to stop the leak, to contain the spill, and to deal with the aftermath. 

I just want to make a real quick comment before I turn to you 

to substantiate what my colleague from Washington said earlier. 

And that was that, in the early days of the spill, the Defense Department did approve the State of Louisiana’s request for 6,000 National Guard troops. But according to a CBS News report, the Governor of Louisiana has only, to this date, deployed 1,053 of the National Guard to fight the spill. And the national incident commander, Thad Allen, has said, and this is a quote, ‘‘There is nothing standing in the Governor’s way from using more National 

Guard troops.’’ 

Now, Mr. Hayes, one of the main functions of our government is 

to make sure that activities that pose a high risk to the health and 

safety of Americans and to our environment comply with basic requirements. If a company is building a skyscraper, there is an engineering and construction requirement in place to protect the people 

who work in that building and who walk on the streets below. We 

don’t let an airplane fly without meeting numerous safety and security regulations. So it is no surprise that drilling for oil and gas 


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off our shores carries with it the responsibility to meet some basic 

requirements. 

The Blowout Prevention Act starts with a basic commonsense requirement. To get a Federal permit to drill a high-risk well, an oil 

company has to demonstrate three things. And the first one is that 

they have to show that its blowout preventer and well control 

equipment will actually prevent a blowout from occurring. 

Mr. Hayes, would you agree that companies drilling in U.S. 

waters should have effective blowout preventers that are going to 

work when they are needed? 

Mr. HAYES. Absolutely. 

Mrs. CAPPS. And do you want to explain or do you want to say 

a sentence about that? 

Mr. HAYES. Well, I think that we are seeing the horrific result 

of not having adequate oversight and regulatory requirements in 

place with the BP oil spill. And we must not let that happen again. 

I fully endorse your proposition that there are some activities 

that folks look to and expect the government to address. And this 

is the type of activity that, without oversight, one cannot count on 

self-regulation to deal with such a dangerous situation in an acceptable way. 

Mrs. CAPPS. So, for the government to require a demonstration 

that the equipment works, that is number one? 

Mr. HAYES. Yes. Yes. Yes. Demonstration of design, appropriate 

design, and then appropriate operation and continued inspection 

and testing throughout the life of the equipment. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Second, the company needs an oil spill response plan 

that demonstrates the capacity to promptly stop a blowout if the 

blowout preventer fails. In other words, what is the back-up mechanism. 

This clearly hasn’t happened in the gulf. BP just wasn’t prepared 

to stop a runaway well. And when the BOP didn’t function, they 

had no backup plan. The last 2 months has been a series of improvised—I mean, we have all watched it daily—long-shot responses, 

I mean, just ranging to the absurd. 

Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, admitted to a congressional panel that the oil industry is not well-equipped to deal with 

a blowout. 

So, Mr. Hayes, would you agree that companies drilling in U.S. 

waters have a basic obligation to be ready to stop a blowout if the 

blowout preventer fails, that this is the second level of a requirement that should be in place for all industries? 

Mr. HAYES. I absolutely agree. And as someone who lives this 

day-in and day-out and is tracking and engaged in the continued 

efforts of containment, I agree with an exclamation point. 

Mrs. CAPPS. OK. We will note the exclamation point. 

The third requirement for getting a permit to drill is that the 

company must be able—and this is part of the legislation that is 

before us—that the company must be able to show it has the capacity to begin drilling a relief well within 15 days of a blowout and 

to complete a relief well within 90 days. 

Three months is a long time to have a well spewing oil into the 

sea. If an oil company is not able to demonstrate that it has the 


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capacity to drill a relief well in that time frame, I don’t see how 

they can claim that their operations are safe. 

I would like to have you comment on this. What do you think 

about this, Mr. Hayes? Do you think it makes sense to require a 

company seeking to drill an offshore well to show that it can drill 

a relief well in a timely manner? And this would be that third 

backup as a last resort. 

Mr. HAYES. I think, certainly, in a timely manner there needs to 

be that capability. And it is, of course, what we are relying on right 

now for the BP oil spill. 

Mrs. CAPPS. We really have no guarantee, do we, that this well 

that is being dug is actually even going to function? 

Mr. HAYES. There is no guarantee. I will say the best minds in 

the world are working on this to make sure this relief well does, 

in fact, plug the well. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. Great. I thank the gentlelady. 

There are roll-calls which apparently are going to go off at approximately 12:45. So I think we might be able to get all three remaining Members in and their questions. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Burgess. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Secretary Hayes, thank you for being here with us. 

Let me just clarify when you were answering the gentlelady from 

California’s questions, her first requirement to you was that the 

blowout preventers work. Is that not a requirement today? 

Mr. HAYES. It is. 

Mr. BURGESS. So you are not just asking that someone put down 

a sham blowout protector that we never expect to work, is that correct? 

Mr. HAYES. No, that is right. I mean, there is a performance 

standard in the regulations today for blowout preventers, but we 

think the regulations can be improved and enforcement can be improved. 

Mr. BURGESS. Let me ask you a question. This whole bill that we 

have before us is the Blowout Prevention Act. And the one piece 

of information, of course, that this committee and no committee can 

get right now is the detailed description of what went wrong with 

the blowout protector that is down 5,000 feet below the ocean surface. I recommended to the chairman that we subpoena the blowout 

protector, and he said it wouldn’t fit in the room. 

So we are going to make recommendations—or we are actually 

going to legislate to prevent something from happening to a blowout preventer, which we don’t know what happened, and so we 

can’t possibly know how to prevent the preventer from misfiring in 

the future. I mean, that is a very difficult task. 

Do you have any particular insight from your position within the 

Department that would allow you to help us craft that legislation 

without knowing what is wrong with the one that is down there? 

Mr. HAYES. Well, you certainly have a good point, Congressman, 

in that we don’t know exactly what happened with this particular 

blowout preventer. We do know, though, however, as part of our 

follow-up from this incident, that there are some weaknesses in the 

regulatory structure, some of which are addressed in your bill. 


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Mr. BURGESS. And there is no question, through the multiple 

hearings we have had—and unfortunately we don’t get many 

chances to talk to the regulators, but through the multiple hearings 

we have had, there was a mistake made with just the human direction on the platform and not calling a cessation of activities when 

they realized that this well was very dangerous. And, certainly, 

that could have even happened several hours before the final 

scenes played out. There is a problem with the blowout protector, 

which we don’t know what it is. 

Now, when they went down to do the infamous kill shot, they 

had to stop. And we have not really gotten good information on 

why they had to stop, but you keep hearing things about thief 

channels and cracked casings. And, of course, there were problems, 

we believe, with the cementing that occurred on the well, such that 

if you actually were successful with a kill shot, you might blow a 

blowout preventer. Is that correct? 

Mr. HAYES. The concern—yes, in terms of the concern was that 

there may not be well integrity down below the surface so that—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Let me ask you this. If we had a functioning blowout protector on that day that fired and stopped the flow of oil at 

the wellhead, would we still have had the problems beneath the 

surface, potentially, that could have led to a much more serious 

problem? 

Mr. HAYES. That is a very important open question that—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, then let me ask you this. We are writing legislation to alter the way you do things, and we don’t even know if 

the legislation we are writing might create a greater problem than 

we have to deal with today—that is, an open crater on the bottom 

of the sea floor discharging oil until the reservoir is depleted. 

Mr. HAYES. Well, I would just say that part of the legislation and 

part of what we are doing also deals with well design. And to the 

extent there may have been a loss of integrity below the surface, 

it may well have been due to a poor well design. 

Mr. BURGESS. Now, let me ask you a question about that, because the interruption of the cement bond log that was to be carried out, they were there, the people who do that sort of work were 

there at the rig. Why did they leave? 

Mr. HAYES. I don’t know, sir. 

Mr. BURGESS. Did they leave because of concerns for their safety? 

Mr. HAYES. I truly don’t know. I do know that that and every 

other fact around it are part of the ongoing investigation. 

Mr. BURGESS. You know, there are so many things that have 

come up as a result of the questions today. I do hope we have other 

opportunities to visit, and I do hope we have a chance to have the 

Secretary here. 

You worked in a previous administration? 

Mr. HAYES. I did. 

Mr. BURGESS. And what was your capacity in the previous administration? 

Mr. HAYES. For the last year and a half of the Clinton administration, I was the Deputy Secretary. 

Mr. BURGESS. So this sort of activity would have come under 

your purview at that time? 

Mr. HAYES. Yes. 


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Mr. BURGESS. Was there any point where you felt you did not 

have the tools you needed to manage what you were asked to manage? Was there any point at which you said, boy, I wish I had 

‘‘this’’ so that a Deepwater Horizon-type accident wouldn’t occur? 

Mr. HAYES. I think, back then, much like I think all of us, we 

were—I certainly was unaware that there was a potential serious 

issue here. I will note that deepwater drilling really just started in 

the late 1990s and that the—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Under your watch. 

Mr. HAYES. Yes, yes. With the encouragement of the Congress 

and incentives, deepwater drilling began, really, in the late 1990s 

and then accelerated as the technology accelerated through the last 

decade. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

I am told that the roll-calls are going off in the next 3 to 8 minutes. So I think we can recognize the two Members. 

And I recognize the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Matheson. 

Mr. MATHESON. Thank you, Chairman Markey. 

Mr. Hayes, we are here today talking about this proposed legislation to look at enhancing or changing our existing set of rules and 

regulations to better prevent something like this from happening in 

the future. 

One question that I seem to anecdotally get different answers to 

is, if we look at our existing set of rules and regulations, are there 

other countries in the world that have sets of rules or regulations 

that are different from the ones of the United States that, perhaps, 

are stronger? Are you familiar with other countries’ deepwater well 

regulations? 

Mr. HAYES. Generally speaking, yes, I am familiar with them. 

And I think it is hard to compare systems one against the other. 

Ironically, some of the systems that folks look at for guidance 

and potential emulation, like the UK and Norway, tend to not have 

as much prescriptive requirements in them. They tend to be performance-standard-based, but with systems in place to ensure 

those performance standards will be met. 

I think we can learn from each other. And we need to both have 

better performance standards but also prescriptive standards, 

where appropriate. 

Mr. MATHESON. To the extent there are different standards, do 

you think that they are stronger than what we have in this country? Weaker? Or is it apples and oranges? 

Mr. HAYES. Well, personally, the sense I have is that, for example, the UK and Norway have put in place, perhaps, better systems 

at this point than we have. And that is unacceptable. We need to 

be leading the world here, in terms of safety. 

Mr. MATHESON. This is very interesting. I was in a Science Committee hearing some time this month, maybe late May, but I think 

it was this month, and someone from MMS didn’t think there was 

any difference with others around the world. But I had heard there 

was, so that is why I wanted to get this question from you. 

And it seems to me that it would be prudent for us to take a look 

at these other systems that are used around the world. If we are 

talking about changing what we do in this country, I think we 

ought to consider that. I think this committee ought to look at that. 


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And so, again, I am all for doing something to make our regulations better. I said that in my opening statement. But I am concerned about—we are talking about marking this up tomorrow, and 

there may be a lot of good ideas out there from around the world 

that have not necessarily been considered. And I would just offer 

that for everyone’s consideration. 

Mr. Hayes, just a couple of specific things about the proposed legislation. The legislation does not specify a specific regulator, but instead refers to an appropriate Federal regulator. 

Do you believe that the Department of the Interior would be best 

suited to oversee the implementation of the requirements of this 

bill? Or what other agencies would you foresee being involved? 

Mr. HAYES. I think the Department of the Interior is the appropriate agency, in that we have a workforce of about 1,700 people 

with substantial expertise in this area. 

Mr. MATHESON. OK. 

You have heard a lot of discussion from others about the concern 

about how this applies onshore, offshore. Have you been able to 

evaluate the legislation to determine, as it is written, what the impact would be on onshore oil and gas development? Or the process 

the Department of the Interior undertakes to permit onshore—— 

Mr. HAYES. Right. I think they are really separate animals, if I 

can, Congressman. This legislation is focused on offshore well development. And we certainly look at—I will say, at the Department 

of the Interior, there are different—as you know, FLPMA applies 

to onshore, and the Outer Continental Shelf Land Act applies to 

offshore. So there are certainly commonalities in terms of technology and that sort of thing, but we are focused on the offshore. 

Mr. MATHESON. As you should be—— 

Mr. HAYES. Yes. 

Mr. MATHESON [continuing]. And as I think we should be. 

But my concern is, as an unintended consequence, this legislation is going to affect onshore in ways that we haven’t thought 

through, because we are all thinking offshore right now. 

Mr. HAYES. Sure. 

Mr. MATHESON. And I would submit that we ought to consider 

what those implications would be. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. MATHESON. Yes, I will yield to my friend from Illinois. 

Mr. SHADEGG. The issue on the onshore issue is it is on private 

property. 

Mr. HAYES. Right. 

Mr. MATHESON. One of many issues. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Right. 

Mr. MATHESON. Public lands, too. But thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I will yield back and give my colleague from 

Texas some time. 

Mr. MARKEY. We thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez, is recognized. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Quickly, let’s see. And I am not sure if someone already asked 

this, and I apologize if they did, because there are Members of Congress that have written to the Department of Interior regarding the 

blanket nature of the moratorium in assessing what really is the 


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riskiest ones that are out there at a certain stage as opposed to 

others that should be going forward. So when the moratorium is 

lifted, with all the safeguards and procedures, they will not be so 

handicapped in going forward in what they need to do. 

Are you proceeding in that fashion? And can we expect that you 

are going to be making a distinction among different levels of operation? 

Mr. HAYES. The Secretary is in the midst of considering the moratorium issue, because the court enjoined the moratorium that had 

been entered about a week ago. And so the Secretary is looking at 

all aspects of it, including relative risks associated with various 

types of activities. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Any idea when you may arrive at some determination so that we just don’t have—and I understand the courts 

are involved, and who knows where all that goes. 

Mr. HAYES. Right. Well, I know that we have appealed, and the 

circuit court has established an aggressive, and appropriately aggressive, briefing schedule. But, independently, the Secretary is 

looking at this, and on a very time-sensitive basis. We understand 

the importance of clarity on the issue. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And then I believe Mr. Black may give me some 

guidance here. And this is really old information. But this is a 

presentation way back, June 18, 2003, regarding ‘‘Deepwater Drilling: Where Are We Headed?’’ and regarding the lack of proper 

equipment, testing, anticipation and such, and then capping a 

blowout. 

What is a blowout, exactly? Because they indicate, ‘‘Blowouts 

have been occurring regularly throughout the petroleum history,’’ 

and then they go into the percentages. But, in essence, what we 

had out there with Deepwater Horizon was a blowout? Would that 

be an accurate description? 

Mr. BLACK. Yes, sir. Although the investigations are not concluded, we know two things: There was a failure to control the 

well, and that happened as a result of a number of things, potentially. And then the hydrocarbons from the field below that well obviously escaped into the environment. That is the blowout. So the 

blowout preventer is designed to prevent that blowout in the event 

of loss of well control. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. So we have had other blowouts in deepwater 

drilling, have we not? 

Mr. BLACK. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And they were somehow obviously capped, contained, and so on. So something worked in those other instances. 

Would that be accurate? 

Mr. BLACK. Yes. I mean, we do review in the report the history 

of loss-of-well-control events throughout the world. And to varying 

degrees, those have been controlled, some with a relief well, many 

weeks after the original blowout. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Well, let’s get to the blowout preventers, because 

in this presentation it was very interesting. It seems that the authors of this report seem to indicate that there was no way to really simulate the conditions when it comes to deepwater, at those 

depths and such. 


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So we can have blowout preventers, but how do we assure that 

they actually work? How do we simulate real conditions? Is that 

available today? 

Mr. BLACK. Congressman, that is a very important question. And 

as Mr. Hayes has already testified, one of the things the Secretary 

wants to do and that we suggest through this report is reexamine 

the technologies available for preventing a blowout or stopping a 

blowout if it occurs. Those technologies do continue to evolve, and 

there are a number of companies looking at that question. 

But, as you point out, this blowout occurred at great water 

depth, high pressure. And, obviously, our experience in dealing 

with a blowout of this type is very limited. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Way back in 2003—and my fear is that we 

haven’t really moved forward since 2003 as to how we prevent, how 

we cap, how we contain. But this is one of the remarks. And maybe 

this is not applicable, but I believe that it is. ‘‘There are many dynamic kill simulators on the market.’’ 

Is that what we are talking about? Dynamic kill simulators? 

Mr. BLACK. I don’t know the answer to that question. And I believe you are referring to the MMS study that was contracted in 

2003. But I would have to go back and double-check. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. ‘‘There are many dynamic kill simulators on the 

market.’’ Maybe I am misinterpreting this, but I am just figuring, 

how do you simulate something, and that is what they are talking 

about. 

The next sentence is, ‘‘None of them fits our need.’’ None of them 

fits our need. That was 2003. So I am hoping that we have made 

some progress. Because what you are telling me is we are not even 

sure we are going to be able to test these blowout preventers under 

real conditions. I mean, do we have the technology to even do that? 

So we will never be able to really tell the American public that 

whatever we have in place would avoid a recurrence of what we 

have with Deepwater Horizon, Mr. Hayes? 

Mr. HAYES. There are some—in fact, we are already requiring 

more testing for the BP relief well for the blowout prevention 

mechanism. 

There have never been tests required for the secondary systems 

that come into play once you have a failure. We are now requiring 

those secondary systems to be tested, both on the deck and subsea. 

And it is a very, very important addition to the regulatory arsenal 

that already has identified some potential issues and provides a 

much higher margin of safety. 

So, to your point, I think, in fact, there are some inspection, certification, and testing requirements that can substantially increase 

our level of assurance that a blowout protector will work. That is 

not to say we don’t also have to improve in the containment and 

spill response capability. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Chairman, I am going to use my last 30 seconds real quick. 

One of the great concerns out there is the industries having multiple regulators. It doesn’t matter what industry it is, by the way. 

We are talking about that in the financial world. But there is a 

reason for that. 


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And I am not sure, and I have to look at it very carefully, as to— 

we know that most of the responsibility would be with Interior. Mr. 

Hayes, you already indicated in response to Mr. Matheson’s question that you believe that would be the proper place to have the 

authority. But there also may be, in certain instances, my understanding, where the Department of Energy and EPA would be in 

some sort of a default position. And I will be talking with the chairman of the subcommittee and others on that. 

Any concerns regarding having multiple layers, multiple regulators? 

Mr. HAYES. We implement the laws that Congress requires, and 

we will implement whatever you all require. We are committed, 

simply, at the Department of the Interior to upgrade and implement better safety standards for this industry. We think we have 

the capability to do it, and we look forward to working with you 

to demonstrate that. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. We thank the gentleman. The gentleman’s time has 

expired. 

All time for questioning of this panel has been completed, with 

the thanks of the subcommittee. We thank you, Mr. Hayes and Mr. 

Black. 

We will take a recess for as long as it takes for each Member to 

cast three votes on the House floor, and then we will reconvene to 

hear the testimony from the second panel. 

The subcommittee stands in recess. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. MARKEY. Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome everyone back. 

We apologize for the delay, but we have two very distinguished witnesses that I think will really help the committee to flesh out the 

record. 

And we will begin by recognizing John Martinez, who is consulting production engineer of Production Associates. Then we will 

go to Elgie Holstein, who is the senior director for strategic planning of the Environmental Defense Fund. 

Mr. Martinez, whenever you are ready, please begin. 

STATEMENTS OF JOHN MARTINEZ, CONSULTING PRODUCTION ENGINEER, PRODUCTION ASSOCIATES; ELGIE HOLSTEIN, SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND 

STATEMENT OF JOHN MARTINEZ 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Well, I would like to claim we brought this great weather from 

Texas for you, but I would say we are just enjoying your great 

weather here. 

Likewise, I would like to take a moment to recognize my wife, 

Lupe, and my brother, David, who lives and works here in the D.C. 

Area, sitting in the back as visitors. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. What high school did you guys go to? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I was in San Antonio and went to Harlandale 

High School on the south side. 


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Mr. GONZALEZ. Beautiful. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. And Lupe, my wife, is also from San Antonio. She 

went to Tech High School, now called Fox Tech High School, in San 

Antonio. So, long-term residents in Houston, though. 

Mr. MARKEY. Well, thank you for bringing your expertise to this. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Yes, exactly. 

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am John Martinez, 

independent consultant and advisor to the major international and 

national oil and gas companies. I am honored to be before your 

committee to testify in support of your proposed bill to protect 

health and safety and the environment by applying the oil and gas 

industry’s best practices and technology to well control and drilling/ 

completion of high-risk oil and gas wells. 

Just as the Piper Alpha platform accident in our sea led to numerous industry improvements in piping design and safety devices 

at platforms, this unfortunate Gulf of Mexico blowout can lead us 

to improve the blowout preventers and the drilling/casing/cementing designs used in wells. 

I have been working for 42 years in oil and gas operations technology, 11 of those as an employee of a major international operator, the remaining 31 years as an independent consultant, serving 

as an advisor, project engineer, teacher, mentor of young engineers 

and operators for the large, integrated oil and gas companies and 

for the national companies in various countries. 

With the expertise gained over these years, I have dedicated efforts to writing standards and recommended practices within my 

industry’s production technology with the American Petroleum Institute and the International Standards Organization. 

Drilling and completing a complex high-risk well requires a 

project plan for the wellbore design, well control safety systems, 

casing and associated cementing programs, and the contractor rig 

and personnel needed to implement the project. We use industrydeveloped best practices based on shared experiences, but the current blowout in the Gulf of Mexico also indicates the need for additional and mandatory checks of the plan at various times prior to 

and during the drilling of the well. 

I support a more thorough functioning and pressure test program 

of blowout preventers, the safety devices used in well controls that 

are enabled when the drilling mud is compromised and is not able 

to control the well. I also support redundant shear rams that can 

completely shut in a blowout preventer when loss of well control is 

imminent, and the control systems to independently activate these 

shear rams. 

I favor independent, third-party certification of blowout preventer function and pressure testing, as well as other certifications 

proposed in this bill. I expect that many experienced drilling and 

production people, recently retired and living in these oil field communities, not only are available but also would see this as their 

duty to serve, not as a full-time job, necessarily, as these periodic 

assignments to witness and certify tests or drilling plans would 

permit these individuals to continue to serve the oil industry while 

also contributing further to the benefit of the general public. 

I am a production specialist in wellbore construction, completions, fluid flow, and artificial lift. Based on my knowledge and exVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:16 Mar 07, 2013 Jkt 077917 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A917.XXX A917

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perience with the blowout well, I suggest it will be difficult to control when the relief wells intersect its wellbore due to the very high 

rate of gas, oil, and water flowing from the reservoir zone. 

I offer this observation relative to designing a wellbore that is at 

lower risk of loss of control to a blowout. That is, because it is difficult, we want to make sure that the designs and the barriers we 

put in will lead us from having that problem in the first place. 

Section 4 of the proposed bill addresses well design, cementing, 

casing, and prevention of ignition explosion. The first section, or 

the first part of that section, well design requires three barriers, 

which could consist of: one, cement; two, casing; and three, the casing liner hanger or a casing hanger at the surface. 

The cement will qualify as a barrier if it completely fills the casing-borehole annulus and extends up into the casing-casing annulus above. In addition to increasing safety, the cement will reduce 

external casing corrosion. When we use this approach, the wellhead 

valves at the surface must be designed to accommodate thermal expansion of liquids that might be trapped in the casing-casing annulus. 

Cementing and casing calls for regulations that require adequate 

cement volume and cement bond logs. My prior sentence defines 

‘‘adequate’’ as requiring cement fill into the borehole annulus and 

into the casing-casing annulus above. Also, this section above, 

which is 4.a.1.D, should include a requirement for centralizer design that promotes fill of the casing-borehole annulus. Cement bond 

logs or newer technology should be required in the production liner 

or production casing to ensure fill of the casing-borehole annulus. 

Prevention of ignition and explosion should mention a diverter 

just below the rig floor that should be connected to a flare or vent 

line designed to handle the capacity of gas that could flow from an 

uncontrolled well, thus minimizing the risk of explosion. 

In summary, the industry, of which I have long been a part, has 

largely been self-regulating on design and safety issues. By reaching consensus among operators and regulators, this approach, for 

the most part, has served us well. 

But the more recent deepwater, high-risk wells have a complexity and cost to rival that of NASA in relation to space travel. 

Like NASA, we as an industry must ensure safety and quality and 

not settle for or take shortcuts in an attempt to save some millions 

of dollars, which could cost lives and billions of dollars in damage 

instead. 

We need to have a quality design in the wellbore that will result 

in—— 

Mr. MARKEY. If you could summarize, please, Mr. Martinez. I 

apologize. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Yes—improved safety, as well as lessen casing 

corrosion that is associated with remedial maintenance costs. We 

also need to follow proven safety procedures for well control that 

can prevent a blowout. 

Good design, maintenance of all the equipment, certified testing 

can greatly reduce our risk of an accident, as well as the total cost 

of wells and development projects. 

Thank you for the privilege to testify before you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Martinez follows:] 


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Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Martinez, very much. 

Our second witness for this panel is Elgie Holstein, senior director of Federal strategy at the Environmental Defense Fund. 

Mr. Holstein has had a distinguished career in energy and natural resources, serving as chief of staff at the United States Department of Energy, Assistant Secretary for National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration, and associate director for Natural Resources, Energy, and Science at the White House Office of Management and Budget. 

Mr. Holstein currently coordinates the Environmental Defense 

Fund’s response to the gulf oil spill. 

We welcome you, sir. And we welcome you back, as a former 

staffer here, well-remembered and respected from a time so long 

ago that only I remember it. 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. Very long ago. 

Mr. MARKEY. What year did you start as a staffer on our committee? 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. Oh, my goodness, 1975. 

Mr. MARKEY. 1975. So welcome back. 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. Thank you very much. 

STATEMENT OF ELGIE HOLSTEIN 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. Mr. Chairman, I will summarize my testimony. I 

appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and the other 

members of the subcommittee. 

It is sobering, however, to think that, while we are sitting at this 

subcommittee hearing today, as much as a half a million gallons 

of oil are spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. 

This disaster, the exact causes of which are still not fully understood, is emblematic of the fact that our government’s system for 

regulating offshore drilling simply did not keep pace with the growing complexity of deepwater frontier drilling. As Chairman Waxman said at the beginning of the hearing, we have had a culture 

of complacency on the part of both government and industry. 

In the long term, of course, we do need to move the country and 

accelerate our movement in the direction of a clean-energy future, 

one that will create jobs we can’t export and one that will reduce 

the likelihood of these kinds of disasters. Nonetheless, we understand that oil will continue to play—as will gas—will continue to 

play a part in our Nation’s energy mix for some time to come. 

So the work of this subcommittee comes at a critical time. The 

oil and gas industry must rebuild public trust and confidence in 

their ability to produce the public’s resources without causing catastrophic harm to the environment and to the economy. And the 

government, for its part, must demonstrate its willingness to be a 

tough cop on the beat and that it has the expertise necessary to 

protect the public interest. 

So the legislation begins an essential effort to govern the development of future high-risk wells. In my testimony, I present a 

number of principles, and I am not going to go through all of them, 

but just identify three or four of them very briefly, principles that 

I believe should represent the underpinnings of any legislation in 

this arena and that are, I am happy to say, largely reflected in the 

excellent legislation that is before the subcommittee today. 


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The first principle would be that technology and regulation must 

evolve, because the industry is evolving. Just a few years ago, as 

Deputy Secretary Hayes was explaining, wells at this depth were 

largely unheard of, and they are rapidly becoming commonplace. 

We need a system for ensuring the safety of these wells and the 

workers who work on them that evolves with the industry. 

Second, safety systems must be redundant and integrated into 

all key systems and processes. Defense in depth is a critical way 

to ensure robust defense against future blowouts. And this is a 

principle enshrined in most major complex industrial environments. 

Third, safety must come before oil company budgets. And I would 

simply direct you to this morning’s front page of The Wall Street 

Journal that describes in some detail this conflict between oil company budgets on the one hand and the need to ensure safety on 

drilling platforms on the other. And lastly, I would mention the 

principle that oil spill cap containment and response equipment 

must be available in sufficient quantity in order to deal with the 

consequences of the low probability but still high consequence 

events such as we are experiencing now. And this equipment must 

be prepositioned. I think it is an insult to the American people and 

dismaying to the extreme that we have to rely on other countries 

to help bring in some of the equipment necessary to contain this 

spill. I will conclude with just 2 or 3 additional recommendations 

in which I would like to place some emphasis, Mr. Chairman. 

One, an issue that was raised very, very briefly, but I think very 

importantly raised by Mr. Inslee this morning, and that is communication systems must be designed so that emergency equipment 

can be triggered remotely. And I would expand on that principle 

just a bit by suggesting that modern communications should make 

it possible for wells to be monitored as necessary by inspectors and 

regulators off the premise, off the site of the well. 

Secondly, I would recommend that technology deployment which 

is critical for blowout prevention and is a centerpiece of this legislation become part of the Department of Energy’s assignment. The 

Department of Energy has a very robust fossil energy department. 

I think it would be a good thing to do to assign to them a cost 

shared industry and government program for developing jointly the 

R&D necessary to accomplish the objectives of the legislation. 

And finally, Mr. Chairman, with respect to the stop-work requirements of Section 5, I think it would be helpful to make clear 

that the government inspectors would be authorized to issue stopwork orders should they find a basis for concern that there is imminent danger and risks to the workers on board the drilling platforms or to the integrity of the well itself. And with that, Mr. 

Chairman, I will welcome any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Holstein follows:] 


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Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Holstein, very much. Mr. Martinez, 

a recent press article indicated that blowout preventers on Alaska’s 

north slope have been used a staggering 12 times in the first half 

of 2010 and 10 of those incidents were BP wells. It seems to me 

that blowout preventers are sort of like air bag, you want them to 

be there in the event of an accident, but you don’t want to have 

to use them every day. Would you agree with that. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I agree. That is correct. 

Mr. MARKEY. But up on the north slope they seem to be used 

every 2 weeks. One thing we have learned in our investigation into 

the BP spill is that the blowout preventer is the last thing that 

went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico. The problems with the cement 

job, the drill mud circulation, the choice of casing BP used to line 

the well bore are likely reasons the blowout began in the first 

place. Would you agree that mandatory standards for all of these 

very important well design elements are necessary to ensure the 

safety of offshore drilling operations? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I think that is a step in the right direction, yes. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you. Mr. Martinez, blowout preventers and 

well design and cementing procedures are used for all offshore 

drilling, are they not? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. They are. 

Mr. MARKEY. This applies to the drilling phase of both exploratory and production wells; is that correct? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. That is correct. 

Mr. MARKEY. It applies to both shallow water and deep water 

drilling; is that correct? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Correct. 

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Holstein, in our first panel, a number of members asked whether the Interior Department’s existing authority it 

adequate. What is your response to that? 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. Mr. Chairman, I think that for several reasons it 

is important for Congress to legislate and not defer to the Department of Interior to simply go about a process of trying to update 

its regulations. And I say this first because the scope, the scale of 

the current disaster in the Gulf I think really cries out for additional congressional statements of purpose and direction to Federal 

agencies. 

The current focus on this disaster and on high-risk drilling won’t 

continue indefinitely and the culture of complacency could easily 

return absent the kind of framework that the legislation you have 

before us would put in place. In particular, the third party assessments for example, the inspectors and importantly, the advisory 

committee approach that would bring to the government the very 

best expertise available worldwide in this industry. But I would 

also add that another important reason for the legislation would be 

the opportunity for continuous improvement. And Federal agencies 

are particularly not good at that just as a regulation writing bureaucratic approach. I think one of the important elements of this 

bill, easy to overlook, but very clear, nonetheless, is the fact that 

it does lay the groundwork for a continuous improvement in the 

technology and the quality and also the quality of the government’s 

oversight. Those are important things and they should be in the 

legislation. 


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Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Holstein. My time has expired. The 

chair recognizes the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan. 

Mr. UPTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Martinez, how would 

you define a high-risk well? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Well, that is a very difficult decision to make because we can have high-risk wells on land because of pressure and 

temperature constraints or possibilities. We could have in shallow 

water, as we are going to more and more subsea development to 

reduce platform costs. So that is a difficult one to define because 

it has more to do with pressures, potential flow rates, temperatures 

and location, not just arbitrarily some generic class. 

Mr. UPTON. Is it easier to define a low-risk well? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. No, no easier. 

Mr. UPTON. That is one of the concerns that we have. Let me just 

read you a couple of things that the staff prepared as relates to 

Section 3. Section 3 proposes that regulations later be proposed will 

require the use of blowout preventers in all high risk well drilling 

operations, will set forth safety standards for such blowout preventers. The prescriptive requirement for two sets of blind shear 

rams will require the loss of test rams on subsea stacks and will 

result in the potential loss of managed pressure drilling system capability on tension leg surface stacks. The requirements proposed 

in this section for independent redundant hydraulic inactivation 

systems for each blind shear ram and casing shear ram would 

seem achievable, but it would require a second bank of accumulator 

bottles being deployed on the sea floor and a foundation pile. 

Time to design, manufacture and determine a deployment method could take a year or 2 if possible on some of the rigs. Would you 

agree with that time frame? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. You would really have to talk to the manufacturer, such at Cameron, the manufacturer of this particular BOP 

and others who are going to be much more familiar with the various details of design. It is possible to have all these pieces of 

equipment, but we, as users of the equipment, we always take into 

consultation the manufacturers whenever we are developing some 

new piece of equipment because we are going to manufacture it for 

us. So it is really both from the users perspective and what we are 

trying to accomplish in terms of safety. But likewise, including the 

manufacturers in the process of developing acceptable equipment, 

but that is safe is our objective here. 

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Holstein, would you agree with that? 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. I would, Mr. Upton, although I will defer a great 

deal to Mr. Martinez’s expertise here as a person with actual oil 

field operating experience. 

Mr. UPTON. So in other words, as we think about this, it wouldn’t 

necessarily be practical for all the offshore rigs that are out there 

and then you have got to make—you have to differentiate between 

what might be a high risk and low risk as to whether these regs 

would apply to that; is that right? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I think you are going to have to come up with 

that definition of what is high risk and where it will apply. And 

the reason is that you want to the define it so that the manufacturers and the oil companies and the contractors such as Transocean 


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all have the same bases for starting. And then jointly as we always 

work our problems, we can, in turn, with the manufacturers develop equipment that is indeed going to serve the purpose. We are 

always trying to make our equipment serve the purpose, match the 

fit, the risk, et cetera. And we don’t want to put into place equipment that is vastly overpriced and over capacity for the given 

wells. So we do need to define those things and then proceed forward. 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. I think, Mr. Upton, in response to your question, 

I would simply summarize my agreement with Mr. Martinez by 

saying that while deep water and the pressures that it typically entails and the operational challenges it imposes are certainly likely 

candidates for consideration as being high risk, but they are not 

the only circumstances in which one could imagine the geographic 

location or the particular well conditions of the kind of that Mr. 

Martinez has described that might well call for an extraordinary 

level of caution and care in the drilling of any wells. 

Mr. UPTON. Thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair recognizes the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank both 

of our witnesses for being here today. My understanding, Mr. Martinez, if I can start with you, is that you have over 40 years of experience in the industry that at various times in the last several 

weeks, my staff has sought your expert views and you bring a real 

insider’s perspective to the problems we are trying to solve. Let me 

ask you a very general question to start with. The regulatory structure that has grown up around well drilling in the last several decades has relied heavily on voluntary industry standards and best 

practices. Do you believe that we need to establish a regulatory 

system that goes beyond this voluntary industry approach? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I think that we need to by regulation, be it mandatory or by legislation, be it mandatory, that we require certain 

testing to go on and certain design that we approve of as experts 

in the field. And likewise, by being mandatory, then the operating 

companies as well as the manufacturers and the contractors all 

have an incentive to develop these equipment to meet the performances we are requiring. When it is voluntary in many cases, you 

will have some who will not adhere to the volunteer regulations or 

self-regulating best practices. When it is mandatory, obviously you 

have to. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Let me ask you some specific questions. We identified numerous shortcomings with the blowout preventer. To fix 

these problems we have a series of new requirement, for example 

we focus on redundancy in shear rams and in the activation systems for these rams. We also addressed the design, testing and 

maintenance of blowout preventers. Do you think these new requirements are appropriate and will they—will they reduce the 

risk of blowouts? One, I think they will, if indeed we adhere to the 

redundancy both in the equipment, as well as in the activation systems. It is critically important here, as well as working with the 

manufacturers to ensure that we can develop any new equipment 

as well as the activation systems necessary. 


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So it is really a combination of us from the operator’s side along 

with the contractor personnel like Transocean or others working 

with the manufacturers to ensure we can do those things. 

Mr. WAXMAN. We also have well designs, a minimum of three 

barriers to prevent the flow of dangerous gases. We have new requirements for safe cementing and we require regulators to establish new standards for diversion of dangerous gases and explosion 

prevention. Can you tell us if you think these new provisions will 

reduce the risk of blowouts and are there provisions where you 

think we need to be more specific or more stringent? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I have advocated in my testimony perhaps a bit 

more stringent standard, which is sufficient volume of cement in 

the bore hole casing annulus to totally fill that space and thus not 

prevent any possibility of leakage of any kind of hydrocarbon or 

saltwater or anything else back on the backside. For both safety 

purposes as well as for me, a person that works in the production 

industry, casing corrosion issues which are likewise as important. 

So I do advocate a more stringent standard. And actually, I am 

advocating in testimony that we adhere to this more stringent regulation whether internal or by legislation are passed. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Finally, we establish a new independent expert advisory committee to provide the best and most up to date advice 

the Federal regulators in order to prevent blowouts and to ensure 

safe drilling. People with your level of expertise are likely to serve 

on this advisory committee. Can you tell us about the role you 

think that this independent panel can play? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Well, we all have good experience. We need to 

have a number of personnel involved because we all have different 

experiences in different parts of the world. And so the combination 

of folks like myself, regulators, manufacturer, if they can come to 

some consensus relative to what are good practices that can be incorporated into regulation and legislation. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much for your help. I appreciate 

it. 

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the chairman. The chair recognizes the 

gentleman from Texas, Mr. Burgess. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Martinez. Two 

weeks ago we had before this subcommittee CEOs from, I think it 

was five major oil companies and BP. BP was the only one that did 

the well, the way the Deep Water Explosion was done. Every other 

CEO who was there on the panel said we wouldn’t have drilled the 

well that way, we wouldn’t have used those procedures. So what 

was it about the oversight in your opinion, what was it about the 

oversight of the drilling of that well that allowed BP to proceed in 

a manner that the other five gentlemen felt was unsafe? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Well, from what I have read of documents provided to me and newspaper reports, I would say part of the failing 

is that there wasn’t this independent third party advisory person 

or panel to review some of these—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Correct. But there was a regulatory agency that 

was presumably excerpting oversight over these activity; is that 

right? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I believe that is correct, but—— 


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Mr. BURGESS. Was there anything preventing them from asking 

for the same best practices that the other five companies adhere to? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. That is the reason I am advocating that we have 

some of these improved standards and make them mandatory because it is totally up to the operating company whether they are 

going to follow best practices or not. 

Mr. BURGESS. What was it about MMS or the agency previously 

known as MMS—I don’t know what it is known as now—but what 

was it about that agency that allowed them to approve a well of 

a design where every other—maybe it was just—they were—the 

benefit of 20/20 hindsight to say, no, we wouldn’t have done it that 

way. But I have got to believe—I mean, we heard from one of the 

CEOs—I asked the gentlemen who were arrayed in front of us had 

anyone ever worked on a deep-water well. Well, it turns out deepwater wells weren’t drilled when they were of the age where they 

could have worked. But one had worked on offshore rigs. It wasn’t 

deep water, but he had worked on an offshore rig. 

I asked the CEOs in front of us if any of them had ever shut in 

a well, because of it—feeling that they were not going to be able 

to control it. That same individual raised his hand. And later on 

in response to another question he said look, you go too fast on 

these things, you are going to get someone killed. I think that was 

the voice of experience speaking. What I am saying is that it is not 

always wrong to rely upon the expertise of the industry. 

I just wish somebody had been comparing the practices between 

the various companies and saying look, this long string design with 

very few centralizers and not paying attention to the cement bonding this is a problem. And of course, the blowout preventer that ultimately failed aisle still not certain if the blowout preventer failure didn’t prevent a bigger problem. You heard me ask the other 

question to the Secretary about the thief channels and cracked casings and things that were talked about when the top kill was 

stopped. Had the blowout preventer worked, at least in my mind, 

it is possible if those conditions existed deeper down in the well 

bore, there might have been a very serious problem had the blowout preventer actually worked. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Correct. Well, Congressman, what I would say is 

that in large measure, that is the difference between regulations 

that exist right now that allowed BP to design the well, the way 

they did and with the practices that they did. 

Mr. BURGESS. How are we going to ensure that our regulatory 

agency actually functions. Of course we won’t call them in here and 

take testimony from them so that makes it very, very difficult. This 

could go on forever. Mr. Holstein, I wanted to get a couple of questions into you if I could. And you are here as a representative of 

the environmental defense fund; is that correct? 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BURGESS. Under what conditions does the Environmental 

Defense Fund support offshore exploration and drilling? 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. As I mentioned in my testimony, we understand 

that offshore drilling and oil and gas production in general are 

going to be part of America’s energy mix for sometime to come. And 

subject to the appropriate safety and environmental protections of 

the kind discussed here in the subcommittee today, we continue to 


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support domestic production, though we certainly empathize with 

the need to develop renewable and alternative energy technologies 

so that we can move to a cleaner energy future and more efficient 

one. 

Mr. BURGESS. You heard the Assistant Secretary’s testimony that 

in the previous administration, he felt he had all the tools that he 

needed and presumably earlier this year before this accident happened he felt he had all the tools that he needed. Would Environmental Defense Fund’s position have been the same prior to the accident, not knowing what we know now? 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. Well, I think it is safe to say we know quite a bit 

more now about not only the failings of the agency—— 

Mr. BURGESS. That is the point. Let me just ask you this before 

I run out of time. You have talked about shipping jobs overseas. 

Solar panels and wind mills can be shipped overseas as we have 

seen with some of the money we put forward in the stimulus that 

went to China through the Department of Energy. But the oil is 

our oil. The natural gas is our gas. Those are jobs that really cannot be shipped overseas; is that correct? 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. I don’t think this is a contest between different 

types of energy sources and America. I think—— 

Mr. BURGESS. You referenced clean energy. 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. I think we recognize that oil and gas, as a representative of an environmental group, I am here being as constructive as possible in saying that if we are to have oil and gas 

as part of our energy mix, we need to do it responsibly. And the 

problem that we have today, not before the spill, but today the 

problem that we face is that this industry and this government 

must reestablish public trust and confidence in the ability of the 

industry to carry out these activities safely and in the ability of the 

government to be a tough cop on the beat. 

Mr. BURGESS. On that we agree. The problem is that the cop on 

the beat for the last 18 months really has been asleep at the 

switch. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. The chair recognizes by 

unanimous consent the chairman of the Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee who is leading the investigation into the blowout disaster, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Stupak. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for allowing 

me to sit, as you always sit on the Oversight investigations. Together we are trying to get to the bottom of this. One of the things 

that Mr. Burgess just said about the last 18 months, the cop on the 

beat was sort of asleep at the switch here. But, Mr. Martinez, I 

guess I will take issue with what Mr. Burgess said because the design that BP put out on this well, there was no authority for MMS 

to say, no, you can’t do that. The design is still up to them and how 

they did it. There was nothing that said you can’t do it, right? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. That is correct. 

Mr. STUPAK. So they weren’t asleep at the switch. If I am the 

driller and I want to try a new design, unless I can prove there 

would be horrendous circumstances, I can go ahead and do it as a 

driller; isn’t that correct? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. That is correct. 


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Mr. STUPAK. Let me ask you this: We focus a lot on deep-water 

drilling and rightfully so because of what has happened in the Gulf 

and tragically people died. Is there something we are missing in 

this legislation? We are talking about high-risk wells. Is there 

something else we should be doing in this legislation? How about 

the shallow wells? There is hundreds of them in the Gulf. How 

about on-land drilling? Is there something else we should be doing 

in this? Our focus has been deep water in all of this. Are we missing something here? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. You need to make sure that you incorporate pressures that we could potentially be drilling into, temperatures, the 

location. Because what may be shallow water for a platform well 

could be still a risky situation when it is a subsea well. And we 

are going that direction in technology because is cheaper for us; 

and as a result, this so-called high risk is not just a matter of being 

deep water high risk. It could be a number of situations that are 

high risk. So that has to be evaluated. And that is why it is a little 

tough to give just an easy answer of what is high risk. 

Mr. STUPAK. Let me ask you this: You had 40 years of experience 

and we have called upon you, our committee, to help us out every 

now and then to get your advice. One of the questions that members constantly ask is we have developed technology to go deeper 

and deeper and go into these high-risk areas. Where has the technology been to be developed in case there is a spill? It seems to us 

it has been lax. Shouldn’t we have an independent advisory panel? 

Is that part of their responsibility? Should we have a separate 

panel just to do that, to look at that? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I think that when you have some of these advisory panels with a little bit of teeth in whatever you judge them 

or give them the ability to do that can advise both on offshore containment, as well as the drilling, as well as completion, we do need 

to use our expertise. We have lots. Obviously we were not prepared 

in this particular case. But we still need these advisory panels to 

help us go in the right direction and not just reinvent wheels. 

Mr. STUPAK. What about technology on a spill? We haven’t really 

developed that. It seems like we are doing the same stuff. Boom, 

burning it off, the same things we did back in the 1920s and 1930s. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I am not an expert on that, but I would agree 

that it appears that we are doing the same thing. 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. Mr. Stupak, we need absolutely to improve the 

quality and the functionality of the containment and cleanup systems that we have. Once this oil reaches the marshes, for example, 

there is really very little that you can do after that point. The damage is horrible and it is done. But I think there is no more stark 

demonstration of the challenges we face that is implicit in your 

question than the report that was issued by State Department yesterday that indicated that 30 foreign countries have offered their 

assistance to the United States. 

We have accepted some of that assistance. For example, boom 

equipment and skimmers have come from Mexico, Norway, Brazil, 

Canada and Japan. That tells me anyway that we are not ready 

to respond even with the substandard equipment that we have now 

that does a fairly poor job of capturing the oil if the seas are rough 

or the winds are high. We need to get working on that, and one 


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of my recommendations in my testimony is that this would be an 

appropriate area for the Department of Energy to work in a cost 

shared research and development with industry to vastly improve 

and maybe the Department of Transportation and interior, whomever. But this could be a government and industry joint research 

effort. 

Mr. STUPAK. Let me ask you both this question if I may. It appears that BP, whoever, no matter what their track record is on 

drilling, whether they have safety violations or environmental 

problems, BP, and from where I sit as chairman of Oversight for 

the last 5 years, we have been constantly doing investigations. But 

if I am BP and I want to lease land in the outer continental shelf 

to drill on, so long as I pay my lease, there is nothing the government can do that can prevent me from doing that, right? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Providing that they are adhering to regulations 

at MMS or the successor has in operation. 

Mr. STUPAK. The Secretary or MMS, no one has the right to say 

you are a bad actor, and we are not going to allow you to drill in 

our country until you clean up your act, is there? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Not to my knowledge. 

Mr. STUPAK. Do you know of anything, Mr. Holstein? 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. If they have a bad track record, no. And for that 

reason, I have suggested in my testimony, in addition to the legislation, that the inspector’s program, the on sight inspection program, be modified a bit to ensure that the problematic companies 

receive more attention. This would be more efficient, it would be 

fairer and it would also—it would be less costly. And it would be 

an important incentive for the oil industry and operators to do the 

right thing even when as the Wall Street Journal outlines today 

companies find themselves under cost and budget versus calendar 

or time line pressures. 

Mr. STUPAK. My opinion is, if they are a bad actor of the last 5 

years, why are they even drilling? Why are we even allowing them 

to drill in our country, so you don’t have to worry about inspectors 

trying to get a stop order? 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. It is a reasonable point. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mrs. CAPPS [presiding]. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. 

We are expecting votes shortly, and I am the last person to ask 

questions. So maybe just brief answer. I have a question to ask 

each of you that doesn’t have to be long. Mr. Martinez, because you 

have already been on the witness stand for a while, Mr. Martinez, 

your testimony highlights the difficulty of successfully using a relief well to kill a well under blowout conditions a topic of expertise 

for yourself. You point to this as a reason we need to redouble our 

efforts to ensure that blowouts are prevented in the first place. Of 

course, we are all eagerly looking towards the success of the relief 

wells in finally stopping this disastrous spill in the Gulf. But many 

are kind of holding their breath about the difficulties we may encounter in killing the well. Can you just talk about that for a couple of minutes? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Well, Congresswoman, I am a specialist in the 

fluid flow and reservoir delivery that occurs from wells. And the 

more capable they are, the higher the flow rates, particularly of 


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gas. It is more difficult to circulate that mud into position to replace these lighter hydrocarbon densities with a heavy hydrocarbon 

heavy density mud and kill the well. That is the process that we 

are going to undergo. It means that we have to have high capability of pumping and thus replace that column of flow density material with high density material. So it is difficult. It is one in 

which that is our standard approach when we can’t shut in the 

BOPs and we can’t control the flow at the surface. But it is not— 

I don’t want to mislead you and make you think it is just an easy 

thing to do. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Holstein, let 

me lead up to the question for you. I believe the appropriate Federal regulators should be required to assess the response and spill 

capability for various spill scenarios in the environmental review 

process. Unfortunately, most cleanup efforts as we are painfully 

discovering, are only 10 to 15 percent effective. Requiring an analysis is critical to ensure that the public and decision makers are 

not misled into believing that spills can be effectively cleaned up. 

The British Petroleum Act says a company needs an oil spill response plan. Do you agree that these impacts must be addressed 

up front and not after a spill occurs? In other words, are we correct 

in requiring this ahead of time so that not only those methods that 

will avoid exacerbating spill impacts are allowed? 

Mr. HOLSTEIN. We would emphatically agree with that. And we 

believe that the capability to accomplish those objectives is readily 

available in the form of better modeling and better expertise of the 

kind that this legislation contemplates. I would point out that we 

have in our organization’s possession copies of internal memorandum that make clear just—and the subcommittee, particularly 

in oversight investigations, has developed additional evidence that 

shows the gross inadequacy of the probability—risk probability determinations and the response capabilities or necessities, requirements that would be required if the unthinkable were to happen. 

And that set in motion, then, a train of errors then by other parts 

of the Federal Government. 

For example, the Fish and Wildlife Service simply accepting the 

risk calculations and the projections of impacts that were being developed by MMS. That is not the way it should work. Doing the 

work up front, as you suggest, and requiring that, as Mr. Dingell 

I think was getting at in his questioning, would be a valuable addition, I think, to the process. And give both the lessee and the government the confidence that a set—that there is an agreed upon 

set of assumptions going forward. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you very much. And I believe that the questions have been asked and they have been answered well. So the 

hearing now comes to a conclusion. Thank you very much both of 

you. 

[Whereupon, at 2:28 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:] 


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