MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript
Interview
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SCHULTZ: Welcome back to THE ED SHOW. Our Battleground story tonight, it's oil and how to clean it up. The Obama administration is stepping up the effort to distance itself from BP. The feds are working on a criminal investigation and put an end to the joint press conferences. The change comes as administration officials are expressing frustration about BP's lack of transparency and the discrepancy after discrepancy when it comes to comments about the situation.
Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland just came back from touring the disaster area yesterday, and joins us now here on THE ED SHOW. Congressman, good to have you with us tonight.
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: good to be with you, Ed.
SCHULTZ: You bet. Tell us what did you see? Is it as bad as everybody says it is?
CUMMINGS: It's pretty bad. The fact is that there's a lot of effort going on down there to clean up the mess. But clearly when you see the--the large plumes of oil and you see birds that have been destroyed because of this oil and other animals, it really concerns you, and--
SCHULTZ: You just--the folks down there must feel like they're just not making any progress at all, being overwhelmed by this. Videotape--what about that?
CUMMINGS: They feel very frustrated and--but you know, a lot of them--one of the things I tried to emphasize to BP and to the Coast Guard is that there's a lot of personal pain. A lot of people aren't able to get the money that they need to take care of their families. Maybe they were fishermen or shrimp folks, and they can't get the money that they need. So we've been pushing that process along. And I think we made some progress actually yesterday.
SCHULTZ: Congressman, that brings me to my next question as far as a long-term recovery plan. I don't believe we've heard anybody talk about a long-term recovery plan. You know, in business, you have a one-year plan, a five-year plan, a ten-year plan. Should the Congress start thinking now about, OK, if this goes until August, it is going to be irreversible damage in our lifetime. Is it time for the Congress to step up and start making plans for a long-term recovery? How would that be done?
CUMMINGS: I think we definitely need to do that. As a matter of fact, the Transportation Committee is going to be holding hearings next week, first of all, to look to see whether BP has the type of liability insurance that they need to cover a lot of this long-term recovery that we're talking about. We're concerned about that.
Another thing that we have to do is we have to make sure that we figure out, Ed, exactly what happened here. Did BP create a monster that it could not control? Did the Minerals Management Service not do what they were supposed to do? So it's a lot of things that are going to go into this. But yeah, we have to start looking long range. No doubt about it.
SCHULTZ: A lot of corruption involved, no question about it. In the midst of all of that, congressman, you don't want to put a ban on offshore drilling. Where do you draw the line on where we should drill and not drill?
CUMMINGS: I think we have to look--we have all kinds of folks now doing investigations. I think we need to look at that. And, you know, the fact is that the damage that has been done has left a very bad taste in the mouths of many of us in Congress and certainly many residents on the Gulf Coast. I think we're going to have to look to see what the research shows, figure out what happened here. Can this be done safely without damaging our environment and bringing so much harm? And if it can't, we're going to have to really put restrictions, and the president may have to go far beyond this six-month moratorium he's already put forth.
But I think he"s taking the appropriate action for this moment. But I kind of think he may have to go beyond that six months.
SCHULTZ: Congressman Cummings, good to have you with us tonight. Thanks for speaking up. Thanks for going down there. Appreciate your time.
CUMMINGS: Thank you.
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