National Security and Dependence on Oil

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Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Garamendi, thank you for having this Special Order. We in Virginia--not all of us, but many of us--watch with sadness at what happened to the California shores, and we don't want it repeated in Virginia. Even though the Governor and the Republican Party have pushed and pushed with these silly mantras, Drill, baby, drill, and Drill here, and drill everywhere, we're not going to let it happen. If we had not been diligent, we might have some drilling rigs off the shore of Virginia today, but we don't. And they're not going to go there until there is substantial modification of the industry practices with regard to offshore drilling.

Let's bear in mind that what we are talking about is our Nation's oil. It's not oil that's owned by these oil companies or by the private sector. It's owned by us, the taxpayer. It's public land. It's owned by our children and our grandchildren. And instead of being put to our benefit and their benefit, because of neglect, carelessness, irresponsible decisions, it is destroying the ecology of the gulf and could well destroy the ecology of the Everglades along the Florida shore, and could even go up the east coast. We have no idea how extensive this damage is going to be, nor how expensive

it will be to clean it up. But we're now getting an idea of why it happened.

And I would say to the gentleman and to the Speaker that we ought to be mindful, first of all, that this was not under President Obama's watch. It was not under any kind of Democratic policy. It was under the administration of a President who owned an oil drilling company, an oil exploration company, a Vice President who was the CEO of Halliburton, who made money from manufacturing and installing drilling rigs--in fact, continued to own thousands of shares of Halliburton while they made enormous profits not only from drilling rigs but from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So while these two folks sit back, the damage is being inflicted upon people who bore no fault but, in fact, became dependent upon this industry. And our hearts go out not just to those who lost their lives but to those who have lost their livelihoods.

Now, when we trace back how this particular drilling rig exploded, we find that there were a number of points along the way where it could have been avoided. Back in 2003, the Interior Department--the Bush administration's Interior Department--agreed with BP and other oil companies that installing a $500,000 acoustical shutoff switch on every offshore rig would be unreasonably expensive, even though such a shutoff switch would have prevented all of this oil from spewing out. Now it's costing BP billions of dollars. It's costing our country billions of dollars in tourism, to the fishing industry, and it's costing the lives of thousands and thousands of people because they cut corners. They weren't even willing to spend $500,000--a half million dollars on a shutoff switch.

And then they feel badly. They think they are being beaten up on by the Congress. Well, let me share some of the reasons why they've lost their credibility. For one, they started out telling us that it was about 1,000 barrels a day that were leaking. I think the gentleman will remember that. Of course there are 42 gallons in a barrel, which would mean that every day, about 200,000 gallons of oil were being emitted. Well, it wasn't 1,000. Then they went up to 5,000, which means that--well, with 5,000 instead of 42,000 gallons of oil a day, it was 210,000. But the 5,000, even though the scientists at the Minerals Management Service say, We think it's much larger than this, the scientists continued to be ignored. And now we find that every second, 18 gallons of oil is being emitted from this spill.

Now, think about that. Most of us, to fill our tank, the gas tank in our car, it takes about 18 gallons. All of that is going out into the gulf every second, which means that we've got more than 1,000 a minute. We've got 65,000 gallons an hour, and we have 1.6 million gallons every day. It's hard for the mind to comprehend that, but 1.6 million gallons of oil is coming out into the gulf every day. And this has gone on for, what, 50 days.

Now, what has to happen in the future is there needs to be a time-out. No more deepwater drilling until, number one, we have the technology on hand. The Minerals Management Service has been assured that this cannot happen again.

We had a 30-day open window when they had the ability to determine whether permits should be issued. Under the Bush administration, it was automatic. They didn't take any of that time.

But in the future, we need trained personnel. We need tested equipment. We need all of the technology to be on hand. And all of that research that should have been done, it needs to be paid for by the oil companies. The taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for that research. The taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for the training. And the taxpayers, obviously, shouldn't pay for the equipment. All of it needs to be tested because it is the taxpayers' oil. It is the taxpayers' land, and it has been exploited and a lot of people have made billions of dollars by drilling off our land, drilling the oil that really belongs to our children and grandchildren.

Well, it is time to put a stop to this. As far as I am concerned, there should be a moratorium until we can assure the American public and our children and grandchildren that this can't happen again because the government is going to be the sheriff in the future. The Obama administration is going to put in the people that care about our environment that are going to regulate this oil drilling and are going to ensure that this kind of catastrophe never happens again because we are not going to show the kind of negligence and greed that drove this situation to occur.

So I thank you, Mr. Garamendi. Again, let me conclude by ending where I started, that we feel bad for what happened to California. We feel worse for what is now the worst ecological disaster in the gulf, but we have to make sure that we learn from this and we never, ever let something like this happen again.

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