the residents of the prince william sound area. that is were the difficulty is really creating problems for these people. as we have said many times times come we take full responsibility and we will do so from the beginning. all necessary resources are being fully employed, as had already been mentioned by secretary skinner, that the environment in the area and the remoteness and the high tides and physical problems associated with it makes it a difficult problem. bill --ents about this about the spill. occurred early on march 44.

the ship had no known mechanical difficulties. authorized because of ice in the outgoing channel. show in the captain's alcohol level. that's clear. there are still many unanswered questions as to what occurred. not one butcting many investigations. through other federal state investigations and also underway . the oil spill contingency plan was activated immediately. the first phase was responsibility of -- the second

was our responsibility as a shipper. we immediately established the priorities. first priority is to prevent additional spells from the damaged tanker. and certainly trying to immediately mitigate the impact on the environment and the people of alaska. the mobilization began immediately. and involves many hundreds of people, thousands people. currently we are receiving support from a large number of organizations. number oflarge experts, academics and so forth. we have 200 x on experts attempting to manage part of this.

we attempt to mitigate impact on communities. inadequate funds are placed in local banks. those funds are available to provide immediate monetary support, while claims of being prepared and produced in process. ask that be done as expeditiously as possible. of tuesday, we had the remaining of all that could be removed. the ship was successfully refloat it, and it's in the area where it will be repaired.

once that's completed we will take the ship into dry docks somewhere and repair it permanently. a couple more comments. for now too early to assess the long-term environmental damage. natural resource damage assessment studies are underway. a number of them are being made with the epa and others. we've also had a number done ourselves. i can assure you that since march 24, the accident has received our full attention. to fullyntinuing established the facts. that cano help any way ofdone to reduce the chances that happening again.

to preclude that from happening again. >> did exxon learn not to risk such an immense vessel. the length of three football fields, which takes a couple of miles or so to even turn course. right now, if i went out on three or four other exxon supertankers, what i find only one pilot, nasa -- one pilot, master pilot capable of >> the barriers are unusual. the three mates plus the captain is licensed to pilot this ship in many areas.

they have the state pilot that takes it to a certain point. we all try to talk a little louder. case the pilot was also the captain. i think it's possible. mates on the bridge at the same time. do what needs to be done in the channel. i'm not china to make any excuses. there are ways to do that. it did seem kind of ridiculous. there were options available.

we created a situation where they could have said bring another made up -- when the skipper was on the bridge there were four people. there was a look at on one of there was a person in charge. there was a third mate and also the man steering the vessel. he could have sent of another and have been legally responsive. wouldr or not that ship have hit the re-for not, i suspect it would have had a much better chance. i have a lot of difficulty understanding this myself.

,> the first lesson we learned the copilot is entirely equipped . as is required. you said you didn't have any knowledge. and yet they'll say in the law , that the have known record shows this particular master of the vessel had three convictions of driving under the influence of alcohol. >> yes, it shows that. >> that would scare me to death in the board room. the fellow had three convictions. i would say, we are not that short of masters.

give you all the masters you want. you have no asks the nation of that. -- no explanation of that. earlierme up a little regarding drugs and i'll call in the difficulty in some cases negotiating those. that in certain instances. and we've imposed it. not before the spill, but with -- but we got it into politics. i would have felt better if we went into court and we lost it, rather than the situation we find ourselves in. there's more to this alcohol question then you're probably aware of.

we didn't know about the dwis. i've never heard of this man until two weeks ago. in a couple he came of years ago, he was rehabilitated. that was consistent with an alcohol policy. the judgment to put him back on the ship is a judgment made at an operating level. obviously it was a bad judgment. could have been a bad judgment on a going in basis. i want to make that clear in case you hadn't heard of that. >> i appreciate that. you find no culpability there, i take it.

you know have corporate counsel representing the third, is that right? >> when you find yourself in this kind of situation, i'm not i'm a too an expert in these cases. told him to get his own counsel. this is before that we knew that the alcohol situation would show up. but we knew when the ship was on the ground, we obviously had a conflict between the corporate interest and the individual's interest. when we found out there was alcohol involved and other circumstances we found that he violated a lot of policies. in the case of the third mate, it is in that same phase. knowledge,een, to my

no testimony taken under both in this case yet because the national transportation safety board is still hearing at the time. we have to let this thing get into that venue. >> you said that the first phase response was for -- thethe second in line with exxon, you responded immediately. what is your position on that? >> there are a number of oil still -- oil spill contingency plans involved in this. the oilhem was contingency plan, which had to be in place before the pipeline started up.

august -- 1977 or 76. spillad to have a contingency plan in the early 80's. when the first part -- relatively in phase one it was a small smell -- small spill. there was always recognition that if you had a tanker spill in prince williamstown, nobody ever thought it was process -- nobody ever thought it would be probable. rather modest right up in the contingency plan for that recognize the possibility of 200,000 barrel spill.

there are certain times as to when you mobilize resources from other ports around the world. in our case we are bringing them from europe, florida and other places. an important part of that contingency plan, anything that required and in effect had been -- by they the path federal agencies, the epa in alaska state agencies involved recognized you had probably disperse a disbursement. mobilization started on that on friday. president of the exxon shipping company. we have response teams on the west coast and east coast.

we not only have current employees but anybody in our , we put them under contract and we call them. later inement team was the day on friday. we have a large amount of correction saturday. we had some delays occur and some problems occur. providethe plans didn't that decisions wouldn't be made, but that the plan wouldn't be provide for a number of people involved in the decision-making process. >> i've got a lot of other questions. >> i know what you say, you didn't know this captain personally. we certainly don't imply .nything personal

my problem dealing with this now is the problem of multiplicity plans. my understanding, they did have a contingency plan. there is a regional response team plane. there was a prince william sound company plan. would you do the favor of asking the people to give us a copy of those since the beginning of the pipeline shipments? i think this committee ought to have those. if you want each member of the committee to just send them to the council. >> and police to tell a committee bill stevens is a friend of mine. we talked about that one night. he is the president of your tankard company. he came to alaska and made a statement saying exxon would

accept the total responsibility for this. you have made a similar statement here now. alaska,. stevens left your department indicated that as far as the liability to the customer in terms of fair remote -- exxon relies on a act of god series. is that correct? >> when mr. stevens made his statement, and he is the , they areof exxon usa talking about the impact of the spill in alaska. get intoart to ,omething downstream of that you control that on around the world and there's no end to it. it left a significant doubt

in the minds of alaskans as to majortent that the exxon national company was going to accept the statement of made.ity that mr. stevens .any of us are lawyers your lawyers are liable to go to court and say after all that was not a legal obligation. regard to any expense. >> i've said again this morning, no attention to say up -- to stay up. and also to pay those people.

suits, we've about got suits. the facts are there are a lot of these suits and legitimate suits. none of the -- have realw of them active courts. system willthat the be put in place by the president for emergency declaration. others out there to give a temporary assistance, which, if there are claims that they can the people that can get that assistance can repay it. ,here are a lot of people

people who weren't even in the area of the earthquake and a severe financial office as a result of it. we have to have some temporary assistance. the act of god defense that was raised in regard to deliveries of the oil to customers has no relationship in order of the that took place in my state. i have a map that i made when i was up there. that was the exxon valdez. understanding that the obligation was to have a pilot on board, basically came down to this line. as the third mate was qualified to handle the ship -- he was not qualified the pilot vessel up

the line. it is my understanding that the captain was the only person on offd after the pilot got the ship to the valdez narrows. is that your understanding? >> my understanding was that the captain was the only man on board as a pilot to run this ship. >> it's my understanding the third mate was not qualified to run that ship passed the reef. demo frankly i'm having a little trouble seeing the map. >> unfortunately it's -- it's my understanding that it came down,

, and heain was required did not do that. we just learned this morning, as a result of the explosion yesterday, that the computer on was programmed by pilot -- andnd the that the third officer attempted to counter the computer program, and it was actually the computer that drove that vessel on the reef. is that your understanding? >> no, it is not. it is my understanding that he turned to that computer off and it was not, at the time, he hit the rocks on automatic pilot.

i'm just telling you what he has said. again i've taken too much time this morning. if they understanding cordova people who built those, they were built by the people in the area to enhance the production of salmon in the area. if they felt compelled and did go and start at the protection of those hatcheries, because the exxon group would not move quickly enough to start protection. that is the basis, i think of the feeling in prince william's town that there should have been federalization. talk to people as to why some of the offers of assistance .ere made and refused

the interdepartmental team headed by the bureau of land management went to that -- went to valdez. team. a crisis management it did work out as a contingency plan. told the soviets came into this offer. the norwegians meet an offer, the swedes made an offer. they have dealt with oil spills in the past, and the coordinator refused. were you informed of that? things thatthose have been set up there, it's my understanding we are willing to accept the russian offer.

i don't think we would have been able to keep it out anyway. we have been trying to accept all the help. there -- the norwegian offer, a number of people may be wrong. as far as i'm concerned, that was approved. but there was no, as i understand, offer of help. there was a french offer about observers. >> the germans also contacted me. helpere is a question of and a question of how do you do with a large oil spill. lots to be learned up there. the words are different and the intent is different. in terms of the fisherman out of cordova, and it's my

understanding that we will people a lot of those within those boats. we know better than most and those room including me that we are not dealing with beaches that look like miami beach or somewhere else. conditions, and that's why it's such a pristine area. we are getting thousands of volunteers around the world. we are getting thousands of letters and telephone calls all over the country. one of the only good things i could say about this is so far no one was killed in this operation. i'm sure there have been some minor injuries. we have a 15 foot tied in prince william sound. he have to go to your state to find anything like that.

when that water goes in and out , when the tide is going out you better be a held a good swimmer or some but he better be there. we've been slow in cleaning up the beaches. and the beaches of friends that were cleaned up were a pretty simple kind of cleanup compared to what we are facing. you, the tell oceanographer i refer to has been studying this for his lifetime. to do with au have prince williamstown that this roughly capable of producing about 25% more freshwater annually. then it comes out of that area and goes southwest, the last

coastal current. exits, it is basically freshwater. most will think they are dealing with saline water. he has tried to make an input on these plans. try to make an input on the plans now for the recovery from this. i gave his name to the people there on friday. he sent me another contingency, just a report i will be glad to make available to the committee today. the people had knowledge of what was predictable were not consulted. that has left a great feeling with alaskans paid the key man for this area. didof the first things they was to contact him for the plans dealing with the national park and resurrection bay.

i think anybody who has looked at those plans will to you they are absolutely perfect, they set the priority. they determine the areas that have the greatest sensitivity. it was the first area under the response -- under the response of the city of seward. it had to be protected first. the people came for in said we will pay for it. what i'm telling you is they were over there and valdez, they were over there on sunday. and monday. this is the interdepartmental team. asking each day to be heard. they were told they were not needed.

there should have been a federal presence -- if there is any reason we feel so strongly there should have been a federal presence, that was it. he offered his assistance. in my presence they said they don't need your help. you have a wonderful company that is the pride of our country , what you have done internationally, but in this instance we feel you let us down. i have to say it. i say it anyway. senator stevens was asking about what he considered to be a backing away from your agreement to assume responsibility, when you said you treated it as an act of god

any claims by your customers. that did not was limit your responsibility to alaskans impacted by this spill. properlytevens quite pointed out that there are people outside of alaska who are impacted by this, many of the fishermen who regularly fish in prince william sound are from the state of washington and oregon. was your answer to him another attempt to limit your liability, only to those people voting in alaska, or does it extend to everybody who's livelihood is affected by this spill. mr. rawl: senator, you can understand, i presume you are a lawyer and i am not, but you have to hear the specifics. if there is a fisherman in your home state who been going to alaska during the summer and fishing and so forth, you know, has records to show that,

presumably he would be damaged. i'm sure he has access to counsel, that is plenty of counsel around spending a lot of time looking at this. onannot accept liability line item items and wherever it goes in the world. you know, the rules and so forth, whatever they mean have to be taken care of in this regard. where -- we're doing what we can do now. we have been busy trying to get the ship off the rocks. weis now over in a -- where can patch it appropriately and get it to a dry dock. by the way, the senator from oregon is not here, but he made a speech this morning about putting that ship in oregon. talking about the bar and so forth. wantsd that is what exxon

to do. where is there a dry dock that could take a ship that size, it was in portland oregon. that the translated in the press and so forth, i guess. there are other places in the far east. i'm not saying where the ship is going, but the governor of oregon, we can communicate it through the paper, i cannot really say that this is what he actually said, but sometimes we get misquoted ourselves, but he indicated whether he questions whether he wants it in his estate. we did not even make a decision on where it would go yet. i just want to make the record clear. i have tried to answer your questions, but it is difficult. you are getting the illegal areas -- legal areas -- sen. gorton: you are not saying the only those -- that only those affected will be in alaska? mr. rawl: when you talk about

customers. sen. gorton: i'm not talking about only customers. mr. rawl: it is an entirely different thing. sen. gorton: ok. i take it that the parent exxon corporation some time ago made a decision that it was wise corporate policy for it to own its ownership antiship alaskan oil -- and to ship alaskan oil owned by a company or by a subsidiary. mr. rawl: we actually use charter ships many times come also. i do not know how many we are using in alaskan trade, but in international trade exxon has a 19ships worldwide, roughly of them in this country, so we use charter ships. sen. gorton: in any event, this is owned by a subsidiary of a company of which you are ceo. mr. rawl: that is correct. sen. gorton: can you give me the

chain of command that would go from you as chairman of the parent corporation down to the subsidiary corporation, or work it back up, who was the captain, his supervisor and so on? mr. rawl: when it gets to the lower levels, i lose track, but the captain has a supervisor. that supervisor presumably, that could be another in between, reports to a manager on the west coast of the u.s. there are also other people who tell the captain what to do in terms of scheduling, and the captains work two weeks on, weeks off. and then that individual on the west coast, who is import -- in in the sanicia -- francisco area, he would report to houston where we have an operations manager. and as president of the exxon

shipping company, who reports to the supervisor, who reports to the president of that company. we have management committees at the level of exxon usa, we have committees in new york, the president of that company reports to me. i do not know how many levels that is. sen. gorton: i want to make a whatevern to you, uh, the success of exxon in the past, it now has the dubious decision of having caused one of the most severe man-made disaster in -- an environmental disaster -- in our history. we are constantly comparing ourselves in this country, sometimes unfavorably, sometimes unfairly with the japanese. as i understand, their corporate structure, went something like this happens everyone takes responsibility from the individual who was directly and

cause of it to the ceo, and everybody offers his resignation at that point, so a new team can take over and restore the credibility of the corporation. i say just with this disaster -- suggest your company have this response. that is my opinion on this disaster. mr. rawl: i appreciate your opinion. a plot of the japanese kill themselves also and i refuse to do that. i think an: resignation is in order. mr. rawl: i do not think so. i think that notwithstanding everybody's anger and frustration and so forth, and there isn't any real way to excuse what happened, but

i do not think we gain a good deal by posturing at this point, and somehow doing other than to say that you recognize, it is a must people in the country appreciated the forthrightness with which you tried to accept responsibility and the cleanup, and accept the cost thereof. there are questions, these things have a way of -- as time goes on and commitments can become dissipated and other things tend to get in the way, lawyers and so forth will be clamoring from one end of the country to the other. let me try to see if i can get a full understanding, because the press report, i do not know how accurate or extensive they are, but as to what you see now, what have you declared as your full responsibility here? for instance, to what extent in the assessment preparation

process to federal, state agencies, has a process been put in place now to assess the cost to the federal government, what is the extent of that reimbursement? mr. rawl: i do not really know what the extent of it is or what we will reimburse the federal government. we will have to look into that. the has not been our instant concern. sen. kerry: let me give you an example, the subcommittee has been thirsty to encourage -- to do more on global warming, the ozone, the ecosystem and so forth, much of their resources will have to be diverted now to come and find out what the impact of oil that settles on the bottom is going to be on microorganisms and life and so forth. will it be your intention to redress that additional cost at

a time when the federal government is hard shaft -- hard strapped? mr. rawl: i will look at everything. sen. kerry: when you get these big newspaper advertisement that apologizes and says we will make a good, to what extent have you thought that out? what is making good, what does that mean? how long will the fishermen continue to be compensated for the loss of livelihood? mr. rawl: the first thing we have to find out is what is the size of this environmental disaster. there have been a number around the world and some of them we will mention here, others like the fire off of mexico that spilled a lot more oil into the gulf of mexico, that did not have lasting effects. pay the u.s.e government a good part of the -- in my view, early days in a delay, from the time we were ready to spray detergent, which

was part of the approved plan, a detergent approved by the epa, a detergent approved by the state of california, 12 countries around the world, we had it available and we had aircraft ready to spray, and it has been tested and it has been in the plan for a long time in this size of a spill, and we could not get approval from saturday morning, while we requested approval on friday, we could not get approval from saturday morning until 6:45 p.m. on sunday evening. and by then the weather had gotten bad, as i am sure you heard. some government agencies involved. and there is responsibility involved. sen. kerry: as a lawyer, might years -- my ears are ringing with litigation. mr. rawl: when you start pointing out who is at fault, we

say the ship ran aground and we had a plan and we were not able to start that plan. as a lawyer, maybe that is what you are hearing, but what i am telling you is that we are going to try to fix -- b when you startut -- but when you start talking about compensating the u.s. government, everyone of us compensates the u.s. government all the time. this committee pays a lot taxes every year. we have paid a profit tax on a number of years on crude oil. sen. kerry: i know you are not the just in this, i know you are somehowesting that that compensates for what is happened. mr. rawl: that is right, but i prism however that a lot of these are government services that are supposed to be provided when we have a disaster. i have a hunch that had we had a little more clear authority or people on the ground who felt like they could exercise their authority, we probably could have mitigated this, we might have gotten rid of the damage. sen. kerry: in your judgment,

was the plan with which you are one of the contortions, was that adequate? mr. rawl: retrospectively, it is difficult to say if it was adequate. areot of these plans -- we looking all of these plans. sen. kerry: is it difficult to say it is adequate, the maximum for,t of oil contemplated it was $74,000, and this dumped three times that. is that a difficult issue to decide? mr. rawl: you are talking about the plan to begin with, a plan that takes a certain amount of skill and upstream from where this tanker hit the rocks. another plan was a plan that the shipper is supposed to have, which we are supposed to pay, but the early response was -- and there was difficult to, but

i can tell you with a few hundred thousand barrels of oil on the water, had they had the re was ad so forth, the great deal of problem, obviously, it is doubtful to say how that would've mitigated this problem very much. that is what i'm saying. sen. kerry: with respect to company -- let me ask a couple more questions on that line. in terms of the restitution for the fishermen, how long does exxon plan to provide restitution to the fisherman? mr. rawl: how long is the doom is going to last, we have to see -- is the damage going to last, we have to say. a lot of places, some of them off of your home state, the forecasted not result. now, there is a different environment and time, but the facts are we will have to see. sen. kerry: what about in terms

of the cleanup, the wildlife and natural resources? have you put a mechanism in place for determining how -- who is going to be paid, how it over what period of time? are you putting that in place? [crosstalk] the cleanup. mr. rawl: we are doing it and we have contractors doing it. we are going to do it. sen. kerry: for how long? mr. rawl: until no more can be done. what the damage is at that point and how long it will last, i think it was mentioned today that sometimes a you can overwork those environmental problems. like removing the sand from the beaches. we will get it cleaned up. sen. kerry: is that notwithstanding the cap, the $14 46?ion and subsequent mr. rawl: it was 86. the $14 million was something you pay on your car and you have

a deductible, we have to pay that under the paps. then it is $100 million, which i think senator stevens mentioned, that gets paid by the tax. which by the way, we paid 20% of that $283 million ourselves by shipping down that pipeline, which we are 20% owner. then we go to other cooperatives we belong to worldwide, a number of those, the insurance is very complex, there are a number of other questions, so we will have to see how it works out. sen. kerry: have you personally spoken to mr. cousins to determine what took place? mr. rawl: no. sen. kerry: are you aware of what he says took place? mr. rawl: i am. he is the third made. sen. kerry: correct. mr. rawl: what is exxon -- sen. kerry: what is exxon's policy when the captain is

incapacitated and no other personnel are on board? mr. rawl: i do not know precisely what the policy is. sen. kerry: is there a policy? mr. rawl: i am sure there is. sen. kerry: you are not aware of it? mr. rawl: i have asked a lot of questions, but not that one. sen. kerry: did he act in conformist with company policy, assuming command of the ship under that situation? mr. rawl: i do not know the policy, but i doubt it. i really do not know the policy. sen. kerry: notwithstanding, you are currently representing him, your lawyers are representing him? mr. rawl: we are representing him until, as you say, i thought you said you were a lawyer, obviously everybody has a right to representation and if he is not legally at fault -- we will represent them temporarily. sen. kerry: you've made no determination based on this conversation with him as to what happened? mr. rawl: i did not have a conversation, one of our lawyers did. sen. kerry: from what has been reported to you, you have made

no determination as to whether or not he acted in conformist with cupping policy? mr. rawl: i do not know. is the ship equipped to maintain communications with exxon headquarters during transit? mr. rawl: we do not -- you are talking about exxon headquarters, we are talking about the office in new york where i work. presumably they have radio equipment that can communicate with various points where we have people to stay in touch with the ships, but i do not know precisely what radio equipment. they have had no trouble communicating. sen. kerry: are there situations in the past that you are aware of were unlicensed persons have taken control of one of your ships? mr. rawl: not that i am aware. sen. kerry: can you give us some idea of the impact of this reduction from the north slope

on crude oil supplies in the lower 48 states, in terms of gasoline prices and supply? mr. rawl: it is -- impact. at times it has been substantial. and of course, every time someone, possibly the governor of alaska, says, we will shut down the pipeline or open a pipeline, the oil market is very volatile these days and the world market is volatile. anytime they clear a pipeline, the market goes up and down. we have had a tight supply situation with gasoline said last year, demand is up, as you know. there have been refinery turnarounds. now, with more product moving to the west coast, we have moved a lot from the gulf to the west coast, we are trying to get it out there. but the crude price went down yesterday, the west texas intermediate pricing, that was

on the fact that the word was out by the ship was off the rocks. then you talk about something else, i do not know -- it is tight, but manageable on the west coast. i hope that now that the ship is out of the way we can operate with whatever kind of regulations transpire, we can relieve anxiety -- it is a psychological thing, as i am sure you know. people buy it when they do not need it concerned about it. sen. kerry: obviously, you heard of the many people who of said this was never supposed to happen. all guarantees were given and so forth, plans were in place, but once again, you know, humans have found a way to defy the odds. a lesson that you would draw from this in terms of our

future efforts with respect to oil exploration? and delivery? mr. rawl: obviously, there were a couple situations that we have looked at and where taking -- were taking steps on. in terms of all exploration, i think we need it in this country. i think it is very -- as you know quite do not have to quote 40% of, we are employing the oil consumed. and we have a balance of payments problem, but we also ,ave these takers -- tankers some of which exxon does not own, thank god, when we are not working out of alaska -- sen. kerry: when you look at all the circumstances now, that is some reason to be very disturbing, you have a pilot who may have gone off before the ship was at the point it should have been, you have -- mr. rawl: i had not heard that before.

sen. kerry: i am saying allegations in the air. you have a ship that changed course and so forth, the captain incapacitated. guard that didt not have control. the greater was not working. it seems as though this is murphy's law, it seems like there was a complacency in a very risky process, where major guarantees had been given to citizens, not just in alaska who are profoundly affected, but all over this country, about this process -- is that fair to say, but there was complacency about, that the plan for cleanup was not adequate. even if it worked according to the way it was supposed to work, it would not have done the job, it was not enough. the ship was far in excess in terms of capacity. i heard sam skinner say earlier,

there is no magic solution.i , think we are looking for basics that avoided negligence. mr. rawl: i think you used the word guarantee a number of times. it was clearly stated all the time that there were no guarantees -- sen. kerry: i'm not talking about a guarantee. i'm talking about the elimination of a fundamental risk level. it seems like there was complacency here. mr. rawl: it is fair to say when you get into large spills, you are not going to guarantee anything. but you are going to make every effort to avoid them. like airplane crashes or whatever else happens. but that is what you can do. sen. kerry: what you are saying is, a higher expectancy then that you are going to get into a large spill? mr. rawl: this one should not have happened, i have said that. the equipment is state of the

art. thisis not an old steamer, is a $125 million ship. sen. kerry: it is not state of the art. maybe when summary is try to turn the wheel and the computer system is governing it, there should be an alarm bell that goes off. mr. rawl: we will have to find out what the facts are. the man says that he turned the automatic pilot off. but if you turn the wheel, i presume, if you are an experienced person. he is experienced -- i suppose that is, you can tell whether you are getting -- i used to have a boat, you can tell whether it is having an effect on it. you do not get going and run into something. now, why he got out of that channel, i have no earthly knowledge of that. i cannot tell you why. we will make every effort to find out. we have to see.

sen. kerry: thank you. experienced third mate, the radio contact, did you not get permission to take over? mr. rawl: i do not really know that. i do not know how that works, thickly. -- frankly. i assume not. >> do you know -- has radio contact? mr. rawl: i know they had radio contact with the coast guard. and i know if he had said to the coast guard, i want to take over or the captain wants me to take over, they would say you are not the licensed pilot. so i really do not know. >> then that is a good answer, because the requirements for the master license, for the master pilot, is very precise and astringent. -- and stringent. the testimony was there is only one license. and certainly exxon is not

contending that you can -- a man the license requirements. mr. rawl: actually not. >> you know the policy, you do not count a man. mr. rawl: but of course, there could be a circumstance, as you said, where somebody has a heart attack or something and some but he says, can i park the ship? >> they still would not be licensed. mr. rawl: you cannot tell them to run itself. >> that is the policy of exxon right now, you do not have a policy for a copilot. mr. rawl: we have a -- we have a circumstance i mentioned earlier, it is my understanding that the coast guard permits to officers to take over those kinds of circumstances and we have a number of officers that could have been on the bridge or could be on the bridge in a dropdead

circumstance. you are getting me into -- sen. hollings: i am getting into what i know, and i'm inexperienced, but if the captain had a heart attack it would be the policy of exxon that it should run itself, because you did not have anybody licensed to take over. mr. rawl: we have people who could run the ship. we had people who could take over. sen. hollings: the only person who can run the ship is a licensed pilot. [crosstalk] mr. rawl: i just said, as i understand it, and i have a lawyer here his can tell me again if i am not stating this properly, that you can have two officers on the deck, along with the helmsman, in addition, without the captain there, we will leave out the licensed pilot, but if you want to quiz me on the rules of the road you have the wrong witness, i will get somebody here who can spend all day talking about this stuff

and he will find out a lot. sen. hollings: we know the rules of the coast guard with respect to license. a master pilot, you had one. mr. rawl: yes, sir. sen. hollings: no more than one. mr. rawl: on that ship at that time. if it is appropriate, we will have more than one, in the future. sen. hollings: if it is appropriate. when asked by the senator if you learned anything, you did not even learn that, that it was not adequate and we ought to have a viable ship of $125 million -- mr. rawl: i am not sure, senator, since this master has was-- or indicated that he under the influence of alcohol sometime after this, right? had he been piloting the ship, the licensed pilot, it is possible we would've had the same circumstance. i do not know that. it might have happened. but a license does not necessarily make anybody

effective, whether they are piloting an airplane or ship. but you brought up a good question. we are changing that. sen. hollings: it is not your contention that the vessel should have been controlled by coast guard radar at the time of the collision. colliding with the rock, went aground. mr. rawl: all i know about it is the weather was clear, there was ice, which they were trying -- sen. hollings: i am not asking about the weather conditions. i'm asking about the coast guard. mr. rawl: i am answer your questions. it is pretty obvious that -- whe ther the coast guard had the radar on, controlled it or didn't. sen. hollings: i am asking whether you think the kos card should have had radar control under any circumstances? mr. rawl: i think it obviously, we would be pleased if the coast guard had called and said, take

a right turn and get back in the channel, or something like that. it would've saved us a lot of money into the government too. sen. hollings: that is a hypothetical. what is the actual policy, do you think it was your responsibility, or do you think it was the responsibility of the coast guard to continue with radar coverage of that vessel? mr. rawl: i cannot comment. i have not studied that, what their obligations are in that regard. sen. hollings: what is your reaction? i take it you say that exxon is performing accurately? is that correct? mr. rawl: i think we've done a good job of getting the ship off the rocks and getting the oil out of it, and that is no mean feat. when you bring up a large ship from a reef, that is difficult. in terms of the cleanup, has been mentioned many times the very high tide, we are chasing the oil and doing what we can,

we will use all the resources available to us. but some of this stuff, as we talked about, it is moving fast and now we are starting to clean up islands that we are convinced it has passed. i think we're doing a good job. sen. hollings: what is your reaction to the government of alaska's suggestion that they take over, the coast guard take over the project from exxon? mr. rawl: i think we will have to look at that. sen. hollings: we are both going to look at it, what is your reaction? mr. rawl: if somebody has an instant cure for this i would be delighted, but i have a hunch we will have to keep up and keep doing it. now, some of the delay, as i mentioned early on, was because we didn't have helped in getting started. the admiral, he is ready to testify, and we have two other witnesses.

do you have any questions? >> while i was gone, just one thing, when i was in valdez i asked about the disbursements. there was an exercise last summer of the contingency plan and i asked if this disbursement had been used in certified, the run-through of a contingency plan, and i was told it had not. this person said the company tried to use this time, but it had never been approved before by the coast guard or the fisheries people. did you know that? mr. rawl: i did not. i know it is a proved. >> this person has been part of that contingency plan in terms of understanding and has been tested. it has been improved in california. not been tested and approved for those conditions and waters. mr. rawl: let me tell you, this is not toxic.

all, the toxicity is magnitude less than the toxicity of crude oil. the point is, if they were concerned about the toxicity rather than whether or not it -- the toxicity is not a problem, if we were willing to spray it and it did not perform well in terms of litigating this bill, which it did, but it should have been sprayed earlier than that, it would've been more expense for us. >> i was told it is only effective on fresh oil. once the oil is not fresh, it will not disperse. mr. rawl: it is less effective when the oil is not fresh, but as oil was still spreading. originally, saturday we had a by one-mile,ile basically. and then when the wind came up on sunday night it really got strong out. and we had an opportunity to mitigate that spill

considerably. of course, after that a lot of the vaporized. 40% of the oil is already vaporized. a bit then we have the gunk we are trying to work with now. >> the committee appreciates your willingness to testify. thank you. admiral? admiral yost, the committee is indebted to you for two appearances. on the house side earlier, now coming to us, we do appreciate it. we have had secretary skinner and mr. larrabee going to detail detail.to

and they say you are the man in charge. we gladly accept your statement in its entirety, and you can give it in its entirety, highlighted if you wish. we have two other important witnesses. admiral yost: i think i would like to go immediately to the questions to save us both time. >> very good. go ahead. let me ask you this with respect ofthe licensing requirements a master pilot of a vessel. as i understand them on the original application, i have never been licensed before, you would do a background on me on the original application, is that correct? admiral yost: the application is somewhat more complete than. a renewal.

there is a requirement to report drug use or convictions of serious crime and those kinds of things. on a renewal, it is less obvious, but there is still a requirement to report convictions in the past five years. on thoseings: convictions it would've shown, in this case, perhaps we have learned -- i know the coast guard has been a leader on random junk testing -- drug te sting, and it has diminished its occurrence. we have congratulated the guard on that at buschmann. now with respect -- that a kabul schmidt. to thewith respect requirement of policy to the system,. admiral yost: the licensee must

report in his application. in this case, the master did not report the convictions he had had for driving while under the influence. that was absent from his application. we have 25,000 applications a year that we process. it is impossible with the current level of computerization and manning to do a background check on every application. the system is if there is abuse on the vessel, the master is responsible for reporting that abuse to the coast guard, and we would then proceed against the license of the officer involved. in this case, the master himself was abusing. in nobody reported it. -- and nobody reported it. sen. hollings: is there a backup requirement of the master is under the influence? admiral yost: yes, the chief mate and engineer have a responsibility to take over the operation of the ship, if they feel the master is incapacitated. sen. hollings: but they were asleep. admiral yost: they were asleep

at the time of the collision, i doubt if they were asleep at the time the vessel left the dock. knew theher they condition of the master will be developed in a broader investigation. sen. hollings: it did go down to the third mate and he was not licensed? admiral yost: the third mate did not have a first-class license for that particular area. first-classquires a license, it allows that requirement to be filled by a ship's officer up to rocky point, where the normal state -- gets a board. areathe vessel was in an where the master was the only one to have that license. the third mate was qualified to operate a vessel, but he did not hee a license for the area, should not have been on the bridge by himself. that is very clear. sen. hollings: on this point,

would you recommend or have considered a copilot being required, or was this an aberration on this particular vessel and do they regularly people whenensed these things are put to see and it is a long voyage and bad weather? a pilot who gets sick as a dog could give up the vessel -- what about a copilot or what is the policy, if any? well, we ought to examine and will whether more than one officer on a ship ought to have first-class piloting for that particular area of prince william sound. i understand a federal pilot is required in the narrative. i assume that means in the narrows, as you go on up, you

have to have a state piloting license as well as an officer on the vessel with piloting. sen. hollings: beyond, when the collision occurred, there is only the requirement, as far as the coast guard is concerned, you could not have gone up, assume there was not an accident that evening and he found just the captain of board and forget about the out call. you would not have arrested the captain or charged him with anything because he was the only one licensed? admiral yost: we would've charged him if he was not on the bridge. he would've been in trouble, his license would have been in jeopardy at that point. sen. hollings: right. the question is, should we require two officers on these long voyages. that is the question we will look at. sen. hollings: and it is super tankers. let may go to that question.

the double hull of a vessel, like we require for chemicals and the gas vessels and every thing else that requires these for safety, it has been untested that would not have saved -- attested that would not have saved this oil spill, am i right or wrong? admiral yost: we will have to see. it is probable the damage was deep enough through that vessel, that the double bottoms would not have helped. we will not know until we get her in dry dock. sen. hollings: the question is whether we go back to smaller the 430,000her than barrels, go back to the 74,000 used to have we because we cannot afford this kind of catastrophe hereafter. the environment and the fisheries are such a precious resource, that on the safety

side -- like on a highway we would not allow the trucks to have tandem trucks, but you cannot get by them. so as a policy matter we say you cannot have three tandem. maybe as a policy matter the supertanker has shown us, as they are trying to attest that it could not have had sufficient equipment to have arrested or stayed the spill in any real market degree. that it would've continued to spill. i thought if they had gotten up there promptly, maybe they could have prevented it, but i am confused in my mind, what is your comment with respect to both? namely the smaller tanker on the one hand? he worstcapacity and t possibility, both? admiral yost: last year, we had

about 2000 tanker passages in that strait. those are with 240,000 barrel tankers. say i go to a smaller tanker, half that size. if we had those, we would not have 4000 packages. i do not know what the trade-off is between a greater risk with this the number of passages and the lesser risk of only having half of the oil aboard, in case you get in trouble. there is a trade-off. it will have to be looked at. as far as the response, let me forthis, the plan provided a five-hour response. that was not met. that my view in any scale the sooner you get there and get the boom around this bill, the better off you are. i would have been delighted had we had that thing boomed in five hours, but we didn't. we did not get there until 10 or

12 hours, then it takes time to boom it. shortly thereafter the wind blew everything away. i would have been much better pleased with a better response, whether it would've made a great deal of difference is problematic and i can discuss the disbursements in the same general way. sen. hollings: senator stevens has to leave. is a meeting there and i have just been called. i think that the senator should sit in. i want to speak to the coast guard about establishing a vessel control system in this area, like we have in puget sound. oil is 25% of the nation's moving through that passage and i have the correspondence, i complained when they changed the radar and shortened the capability of the radar, so this

requires we take action to ensure that this area is controlled. questions, but i have to go make that speech. >> i am supposed to be over there, too. >> you are embarrassing me. the president pro tem is saying i am to make a speech. >> that might be the best beach you ever made it -- speech you ever made to stay here. [laughter] >> the senator has been very understanding, because it really raises an issue with other senators here before and i will show that i can, i can ask the questions. to the point, what is your reaction to the government of alaska's request that the coast guard take over the project up there from exxon? admiral yost: the governor and i are not very far apart on this. we do not want to federalize this, we do not want to take the responsibility for funding this

it isit is -- sppill, going at about $1 billion a day and we have about $3 billion or $4 billion left on the cape fund. i do not know what we would do on the fourth day if we federalize it. the governor has suggested more control by the coast guard, more direction or guidance, and im in line with that and that is what is happening there, yesterday and today. as the discussion between excited ourselves about the coast guard stepping more in to the direction and guidance of the cleanup. we are organized for that and we are a pyramid organization, exxon is a business. we are ready to do an operational thing and they are having trouble doing it, in my view, so that means we need to step further into it without federalizing iit, without this funding it, but with more guidance and direction, we are

doing that. >> i am reading from governor , "we believeter the coast guard is suited to call on the response." sen. hollings: whether you are really calling it, the governor of alaska has that question, do you agree? admiral yost: yes, we will do much more coordination and guidance than we have, but we do not want to federalize it. sen. hollings: i am try to find out the difference in my my between federalizing and you taking over prime responsibility. admiral yost: let me explain. federalizing means we take over all the control and the direction, we take over the contracting, and we give orders to everybody up there. that means i'm need about 30 contracting officers up there the contract with every fishermen, every company and everybody who is working for us.

coordinated means we allow exxon to continue to fund it, to get their checkbook open, to do the contracting with the cleanup people. and we basically direct and guide exxon in where we want the cleanup, where we want to the boom, how much boom tending, where we want the beach cleaners, that kind of thing, and we perhaps a bring in forces. sen. hollings: what do you mean by yet? admiral yost: when what i propose to do this? we are doing as we sit here, transferring the guidance and direction more to the coast guard, and we are discussing that with exxon. sen. hollings: because god is responding at the governor's request? admiral yost: yes, we were doing it at the time he requested it. we have been talking with the governor about this, we spoke this morning about moving people into their operations center and

taking over some of the operational guidance. sen. hollings: no emergency legislation is necessary? admiral yost: no, at least if it were i think the president would request it. i was in the oval office with the president and with mr. riley and others yesterday discussing some of these same matters with the alaska delegation. sen. hollings: with respect to radar guidance, is it not the policy or responsibility of the coast guard at that time, when it went beyond radar guidance -- admiral yost: we do not do radar control in the way that faa does aircraft control anyplace. what we do is it is an advisory service, we tell the vessel what vessels they are liable to meet and other things the copy their passage. in valdez, we do more than anywhere else, we for the traffic except one way traffic through the narrows. and we check that vessel in the narrows, we plot it every three

minutes. once it gets out of the narrows, this shorter rocky point, we stopped plotting it. they discharge. they go out to see under the officer aboard. i think it is fair -- sen. hollings: you know, you have a sympathetic committee that is part of you and the guard -- proud of you and the guard, in fact i have a suspicion now, there is only $3 million in a fund over at the secretary of transportation and it seems like i could have been a hesitancy because it was only $3 million there, i assume the responsibility for $100 million, with only $3 million in the fund -- admiral yost: that is very true,

it has never been much more than $15 million, now at $3 million, i would be more comfortable with it at $12 million. we may take a look at that and ask our committee to take a look at it. but as far as the traffic thatce, the only effect on , and i do not think it is a serious one, was in the 1980 a budget cut that the coast guard took, we removed seven people from the valdez vessel traffic service and reduced the watch from two to one on watch. in taking that budget cut of $103 million that we would take it from areas that were least, that the need was least. we are feeling -- we were feeling at the time we could remove a watch standard. we did that. if i was to do that this morning, i would probably have a different decision. i do not think it had an effect

in this accident. sen. hollings: let's assume -- is there anything you need from the congress? anything you need from congress? exxon valdez oil spill no, the present budget -- admiral yost: no, the present budget is one i have said i could live with. two vessel i closed, services, one in new york harbor -- i'm glad the spill was in there, because then there would be the question of why we closed that one in new york harbor. i also closed one in new orleans. this was because of a budget cut. need,n you ask, what do i i need to present budget. i have not asked for them to be reopened. sen. hollings: let's assume you

are at the coast guard academy and on reflection what should we have learned with respect to this particular collision disaster? admiral yost: let me talk broadly in terms of the support the coast guard gets from congress. we have lawyers had trouble getting a reasonable budget -- have always had trouble getting a reasonable budget in this government. we come here year after year with a budget that is austere and we usually leave with a budget that is less than our budget. so i think every time that we close the coast guard station, we close a vessel traffic service, we assume more risk to anemic and people for accidents. i do not believe this accident is the responsibility of having closed the something, but you ask whether congress can do, i think the congress should support the postcard -- the coast guard. this committee has been wonderful to us, i am talking

about appropriations, they need to the port that support because guard at a higher level. sen. hollings: what have we learned environmentally about this particular incident? anything. for one thing, i am not expert enough to ask questions that senator stevens was getting at, but it seems like the pilot was required beyond come up to the point even -- but somehow that requirement was cut back -- admiral yost: several years ago. we had pilots from hitch and brooke in. the only people that required, the only vessels that were required where the farm vessels. and we had an injury of a pilot tried to get aboard, then extremely rough weather, so that requirement was knocked off. but for only nine vessels, there were farm vessels in the system. i think what we should have learned, what we have learned, and more lessons will come out of the investigation, that in

this day and age we have to tighten up the application requirements and background looks and people coming in for licensing. we have to have a better feel for a man who comes in and falsifies an application by not putting the convictions he has had for junk driving. people could come in and falsify drug use. and i think they will. i do not think people will write down drug use on an application for a license. they avoid writing down dwi's. we have to get behind that application and to see what is happening to these people. sen. hollings: but no one in the audience is going to fly home this afternoon in a commercial flight that has only one pilot. they would not want to get on that airplane. we are not talking about people getting drunk, normal things can occur to an individual like heart attacks and otherwise,

they have. but with a vessel as long as three football fields, $125 million, a million gallons of fuel and everything else, it seems rather puny and nonsensical to have only one master licensed pilot to take it , i guess in some instances there, but in some instances they go all the way to saudi arabia and come back. all the way to the persian gulf. i cannot understand that particular. admiral yost: let me comment on that. every vessel of that size does not have a pilot and a copilot, as an aircraft would have come it has a pilot, a master meet, a second mate and a third mate, so for officers qualified to run that -- four officers qualified to run a vessel.

it does not have more than one that has pilotage for that particular area they are coming into, whether it is new york harbor or amsterdam or prince william sound. they require two people on the vessel, that they all have pilotage for the area that they come into, that would be an added requirement. i do not object to that. but do not think that they do not have somebody who is qualified to run that ship. we have four. for that third mate, who is a qualified officer and passed examinations, who has had a lot of trips into valdez to have run that ship on the beach, something awful happened on that bridge. some kind of a loss of continuity, a loss of something that we do not know yet. but there is no reason that the third mate was not completely competent to run that ship in the area he was. he had the competency, but he did not have the license. we do not have a bumbling idiot

on the bridge, we have a guy that is trained and well licensed. sen. hollings: by way of his ability, he should have been able to see the channel markers. admiral yost: yes, it was a clear night. you can see forever. sen. hollings: that is what i was thinking. a comment was made public that there was a 10 mile wide channel and my boy michael could have run the boat through there. admiral yost: that played a lot better outside of the beltway, than inside the beltway. [laughter] sen. hollings: have you notified your member of the governor of alaska -- the federal regulations section 300, are you ready to notify the governor now that you will take over immediately the project? admiral yost: the governor has asked, the governor has asked that the disaster have a federal

input outside of the clean water act. that is not my responsibility. was is what senator stevens talking about them opening of the funds, other associated funds to that. the senator -- no, i may be wrong. he has not asked to federalize the spill, he has asked the coast guard to take more direct of action -- a directive action. we are talking about that right now with exxon on the scene in alaska. and if it is necessary, i will go up myself and to take that up the way that it ought to be. sen. hollings: i think the governor has been more specific. he refers to that section of article regulations, section 300, and that gives a specific authority and responsibility for coordination. admiral yost: is that the clean water act? the governor has asked that and he has backed away from it.

it is not my understanding he has asked for it again this morning. he has asked for it in the past. sen. hollings: we have a copy of the letter. he has asked for it again. admiral yost: what is the date on what is the date on it, sir? 5, 8:00lings: april last night. let me get this letter to you. admiral yost: yes, sir. sen. hollings: when you say the aw for alaska, only moving a u.s. flag, i understand you say nine foreign vessels have gone to valdez to lower oil over a period of time? admiral yost: yes. u.s. refinery.

let me say i am not prepared to federalize this bill in the legal sense of the word because it would open the responsibility to fund it, and i have only got $2 million or $3 million in that fund, and we are spending $1 million a day. we will assume the responsibility for guidance and direction through exxon, and it is basically a lot more control than it is now, but we might want to stop short of regulation, and it might apply to fishermen and everyone else. i do not know he did federalization he talked about control. sen. hollings: well, you will have a chance to clarify and meet with him. is there anything you would like to add to your testimony at the moment? we appreciate you coming over. admiral yost: no, but i would like to say one other thing to do not feel like i am at odds

with mr. rawl. the feel like the timing of disbursements and what could have been had disbursements been put in the water. had it been coordinated in to save people made, in my opinion, the right decision, which is do not let disbursements go in the water and less they would be effective, and we knew they would not be effective because of wave action, we missed it up, hands at that point. we had 10 million gallons of oil in the water, and they had a few tens of thousands of disbursements, a few thousand gallons of disbursement. it was a drop in the bucket. away, --everything they blew everything away. understand they have gotten around to starting

to repair it. admiral yost: i am very disappointed they were not able to keep the plan. it is not a federal plan or a coast guard plan but a requirement by the state of alaska before it is permanent. those two parties were advised with a planned that they should be able to execute. for a number of reasons, they were not. for a's bill, then you are in major trouble. every hour you are late multiplies the drama. sen. hollings: appreciate it, admiral, appreciate very much your appearance here for the committee. we have a panel of dr. evans, the undersecretary of deputy director steve

robinson of fish and wildlife service. i would ask him to come forward. [indistinct conversations] >> would you clarify? >> we had that at the very beginning. yeah. sen. hollings: mr. evans, mr. robinson, we do appreciate your presence, and we apologize. as you can see, we tried to move along as quickly as possible. your statements both will be included in the record in their entirety, and you can highlight it. you have been inducted with the committee, and would you like your statement in full or highlighted? dr. evans?

dr. evans: thank you, mr. chairman. because of the seriousness of what we are discussing here, i brought dr. heeler, who is the head of our group that deals with hazardous materials, and he is insisting that the team has been working on this oil spill from about 11 hours after it actually happened. legal counsel with me, campbell, since i am not a lawyer, people were saying that they were lawyers and using that as an excuse. i am not a lawyer, so i brought one with me. sen. hollings: i can see you are very proud of that. [laughter] i would like to do, chairman, is go through a lot of the testimony, because i think it is important. thisril 2, the oil of

spill, the 11 million gallons, head spread throughout an area of more than 1100 square miles. prevailing currents and wins moving in a south westerly direction for the open waters of the gulf of alaska. veryocky shores has been heavily oiled. the oil is expected to follow the coastline of the peninsula, where biologically productive and sanitary, such as sounds, resurrection theybay, and a national park. the economy of the area that we are talking about is based on natural resources. prince william sound supports major fishing, shrimp, halibut, fisheriescommercial

are resources that each year are worth $100 million to the community. recreation of prince william to anchorage makes the population center of alaska, makes it a favorite of local ists who use it for fishing, camping, sightseeing, hiking, and there is also a cruise ship that is the area. we do not know the economic impact that will be all that. there is hunting, lodging, transportation. is the sudden trench, as we know, of the alaskan pipeline. perhaps most devastating of the event is the timing of the spill. the resources of prince william put in jeopardy. a lot of fisherm are coming in r

the purpose of spawning, and n important time for them. beal fisheries had to canceled, and that means not only lost jobs and income but also lost revenue for the united states. the more valuable even is the salmon fishery. be affected when they return to the spring in the -- area in the spring and summer. their life time of cycle that they are most dependent on the marine environment impacted by the spill, and there is a good chance many will not survive. the effect will be felt down the years when the adults are not available for spotting and will be likely rippling for years.

the naturalon resources and human uses form the basis of the assessment work that will be taken by the cotrustees. onthis case, noaa acts behalf of natural resource and coastal and marine areas. the secretary of the interior, the secretary of agriculture, and others also have significant trust the interest. s. it is drawn from the therehensive environment, liability act, the clean water act, as well as other management statutes provide legal, procedural framework for potentially responsible parties for losses resulting in injuries, the natural resources caused by oil spills. based on this legal authority, noaa has four principal responsibilities before and during an oil spill. coast guard and on

seeing quarter maters, acts asally noaa, noaa a liaison. on seeing quarter, models projections for spilled oil, for example, chemical sampling and analysis, toxic properties, physical and chemical characteristics in very environmental conditions, advisers on safety precautions, areas of biological importance, the on scene coordinator responsible in greece from local, and federal agencies for scientific studies in the environmental assessment the public relations effort on scientific issues. as a member of the regional response tom, rep. burgess

the on scene coordinator. addressingse to losses associated with injuries and natural resources against the responsible parties. marine pollution and research agency, noaa examines the consequences. from noaa for the national response team, the laboratory, the office of airport operations, the national weather service. hazardous material response experts have examined the resource of prince william sound to monitor the swift movement and identify the threatened areas. hazardoushe noaa material response team has more collective experience than any spilly oils

around the world that has occurred over the last 15 years. they have been involved in almost all of those, involved in oil spill's, including the argo merchant and the blowout. and what did we learn, let's say, from the amount of oil spilled on the coast of britain? for one, it took them five years to get the study. and then other than putting it in a library somewhere, what good does the study do? i do not know if i can address that, but i could perhaps get someone else to. it is what we are doing during the day, sir. sen. hollings: if it took five years for that one, how long are

you going to take this one? dr. evans: just to be able to do an assessment on the effect on salmon, we will have to be able to put five years downstream, because some of them will not be able to come back over five years, so other long-term toxic events that we do not know, and it could be another five years beyond that. sen. hollings: do you agree with that assessment? >> certainly, there are things being done right now. the completed long-term assessment of some of these damages will take us anywhere between three years and five years to see some of the longer-term effects, many of the short-term effects, very visible right now, and we are measuring those and documenting those. it may take longer. sen. hollings: and then what do we do when we document them all?

have multiple studies. has that led to any legislation, policy, better practices. ? what have we learned? hler: i would say the immediate would be to get to that we could in fact file claims. immediate way to do it. sen. hollings: and what is the responsibility of noaa for the government to file claims once the assessment is made? once we: have made the assessment, we will present a bill to exxon. is there any:

limit to that bill that you are going to give to exxon under this? dr. evans: no, sir, not that i know of. >> under the clean water act, if ignorance is shown, there is responsibility, however absence of willful ignorance, there is a cap under which the statute is written. sen. hollings: -- dmr. campbell: oh, no. we put a value on the resources and attempt to identify how best asrestore those resources closely as is possible. sen. hollings: you say it is minor compared to this one. ehler: let me refer to some

of my material in my assessment, mr. chairman. this is a very special part of ep bottom, a very ste can come up very rapidly, as we have seen, 50 miles per hour, we have high tide moving in and out of the it is a-foot, difference between having something in a bottle, if you are looking at the difference between a quarter panel and a piece of engelman, it is one thing if you let it blow up, to spread too, but in the enclosed area, it enhances the impact of it, and i think that is what we have got here, is that it moves around with all of the cubbyholes and everything in that area, they will be places where they are having a potential effect on fisheries

and others that we may not even discover for a couple of years. sen. hollings: what is the potential effect, if any, on upper shores? as i understand, the current goes north. arctic in thee pacific, put this refresh your? ? dr. evans: no, i do not believe so. senatorction now, as stevens said, it goes towards kodiak island. working down it toward british columbia. direction,nd the although the accuracy of our forecasting of the direction is based on wind and currents, that we could give you about 24 hours for the trajectory. i think on an overall basis, we can have a pretty good idea of where we all going to see

things. at this stage, it is what the current when systems are. but what we are concerned about that inw is the fact other places, alaska, kodiak, as senator stevens said, we have some concerns, because if it goes to the chillicothe straits, --have a problem there, and is a multibillion-dollar resource, is beginning to spawn, and we do not know what the impact is going to be on that. so that is a little scary, but that is a possibility. bud, do you have any idea what direction, far down? >> generally going westerly.

dr. evans: generally going westerly, sir. sen. hollings: mr. robinson? dep. dir. robinson: mr. chairman, i appreciate the opportunity to be here today. sen. hollings: move that microphone a little bit. dep. dir. robinson: i will talk about the resources in that area, and john martin is the director of the alaskan maritime refuge, which has been impacted by this spill. the oil spill has had adverse in austin fatal -- often fatal effects on wildlife, migratory auditors, and the marine fisheries service has authority over other marine mammals and fisheries in that area. none of the bird species or the sea daughter are listed er are listedott under the protected species act.

meters of beach on the island in the passage of this bill, it is highly unlikely that can be those oil birds recovered and cleaned, although we are making every effort to do so. we just make seabirds could be recovered and cleaned. absent nbn recovered and cleaned, the birds covered in oil will simply not survive. at this time, we have an estimate to the likely number of be recovered and cleaned. bald eagles have been observed scavenging oil spill birds. the service believes the oil spillonnected to lawrence could kill bald eagles. there are approximately 750 bald legal residence in the

prince william sound area. aerial surveys are not expected to produce accurate surveys, and many birds and mammals simply cannot be seen in oil. b there is a generally accepted figure of about 350,000 bird residence in prince william sound, as dr. evans has mentioned, as migratory birds are coming in as we speak, it will add another 100,000 to that population. in addition, over 100,000 birds element and this is an of the maritime refuge, to the southwest of the sound. haveirst streams of oil already reached those sounds. population,a otter about half of those, is located in the southeastern part of the sound. this represents the highest

population of sea otters. the population in the east has not been affected by the spill as of yet. approximately half the otter population in the sound is likely to be impacted by the spill. it includes directions, including the southeastern area, if the situation worsens the radically for the otter. has and wildlife currently charteredpeople, two boats, and 16 people located to locate oil otters and bring them to be cleaned in valdez. are monitoring the movement of oil with relationship to the seabirds and otter populations, and these aircraft are also on alert for oil otters, and send ships to the area where the otters can be captured.

the spill could reach kodiak island by this weekend. service personnel and others from the national response to name or identifying -- response team are identifying those areas that could be affected b in the island. this consists primarily of surveys, bird surveys, mammal surveys, sea otters, to determine how many of those critters have been affected and how many have been affected adversely. an assessment of the natural resource damages under the provisions of the environmental response, and it has been initiated that is what we are doing now. wildlife, the injured that can be used in the future for compensation. that concludes my prepared statement, mr. chairman. i look forward to any questions. sen. hollings: nice to see you.

>> chairman, on april 4, i received a prediction of the prince william sound oil spill from dr. order. i sent it to various teams that are working on this. i think it is very important to examine what he says. if you take a couple of minutes with a couple of these witnesses here, he says the oil spill will exit the sound and follow the coast to the west-southwest. it enters alaska coastal current, a relatively swift, low flow affected by water runoff and wind. it has surface currents of .75 knots at this time of year. it might best be thought of as a

river running along the coast. the oil will be in this flow in and willt manner depend on local winds with offshore support saving no transport on shore. easterly winds will accelerate a long short transport of the oil and will cause the oil to wash up on exposed beaches. the oil patch or patches should be at the mouth within six days -- my view, that was april 4, he in six to 10- days, it will probably be a series of patches extending from prince william sound inlet. once again, the amount entering the inlet will be known at the time of the arrival, but roughly half of the oil at the entrance will enter. the remainder will travel southward along the western shore of kodiak island. here the coastal current becomes

less intense and cross shelf mixing of this oil will take place. this unknown fraction of oil entering the cook inlet and off the kodiak will continue down the aleutian island chain. here the current is not as intense, but it is a broad and fierce flow killing rather than a narrow coastal flow as it is along the gulf of alaska. of the oil,ortion whatever portion remains in the water column, should begin to go through the past sometime in june or july. s that thee pas crystal bay goes through in crystal bay. it should be shown in several weeks, though the deep waters fall,not be flushed until when the deepwater renewal takes place. the coastal flow increases in

the fall of two 3.5 knots due to the annual precipitation cycle, and this should rapidly transport the oil out of the sound to the west. means thations than the oil should be in cook inlet sometime between april 10 and april 16. it should arrive in the kodiak sometime between april 14 and april 21. -- passwill be in own a mac sometime in june with the possibility of it when it will help all of this, a deep water , which is intent, if you see the cycle, it is intense in september, october. now, gentlemen, what do you think should be done with regard

to the areas beyond the damage today? we have not had damage yet in cook inlet. we have not had damage yet in kodiak. we have not had damage along the coast, the aleutian island chain coast, and particularly we have not had any damage in unimak pass yet. do any of you have any knowledge anywhere in the world to try and change the flow of this oil as it streaks out and these large saw of itwe being current driven up there? i am notr stevens, aware of any. one of the things we were aware of is the information presented reuter and others. we certainly will check with him and any information that he has theater one of the things we have been doing is our model, interestingly enough, seems to

agree very closely with that description that you just gave, and one of the things that we have been doing is trying to get our team and some of the members of our team getting out ahead of assessing the and area for the damage assessment. i know that does not mitigate what a oil is going to do in that area, but there are people in place in stuart and other places to try to put booms up id do whatever we possibly can to see if we can keep it out of sensitive areas, but other than that i do not think we are mitigating it. sen. stevens: the thing that bothers me about the current totrol of the actions prevent further harm is they are related to damage control and not provisions.

some of them on. the booms are a preventative concept. but i was told in one area that hey -- hay had been dropped on the beaches. as the oil came in, it hit the hay and that was raked up and burned later. i ask if that was being considered for alaska and i was told, no. then i asked about the use of a ift net, i asked about putting one of those out down to seeing it if they can pick up some of this as it moves toward kodiak, and remove the booms as they get oil soaked, and i was told, that has never been tried and we are not going to experiment. now, are you going to experiment

at all as this gets out in the open areas, and certainly be on the prince william sound sound and beyond the capability of anybody i know so far to come up with suggestions. any experimentation at all? >> let me refer to the doctor, he is more familiar with the programs. any not aware of experimentation. i would be in favor of it if it would increase our knowledge of how to deal with this. we may havew, programs going, but let the doctor address that. ehler: i think that those alternatives, to my knowledge, they are not being tried. there are teams of people who are running over every possibility of mitigating the effects of this spill. information onhe

what is being considered right now, but i would suspect all of those alternatives have been run over in some detail. the refinery spill in ireland -- and the procedure to protect the beaches was used there successfully. sen. stevens: that is what i was told. they said there is no market for hay, do not even ask. europese in now -- several have been brought in, piled up somewhere and nobody has thought about slinging them out there doing some good. they are harmful to fish, but we could try. an chairman, there has been unwillingness to try to experiment, because some reason somebody says, if they try and

it does not succeed, who will pay the bill and will it inc rewase the damages -- it increase the damages to exxon and will they object. that is why we want the coast guard in control there. even then, i do not think the coast guard is really thinking in terms of experimentation yet. i have to tell you, i wish we could get a plane and fly the full committee up there and see is what is going to happen to kodiak. if anybody saw that, they would come back as mad as i am. i am mad because nobody is thinking of trying to stop this thing. bill, you guys have good brains and you know, the whole group was involved here, and steve -- you people know this area, like i know it, and there is no reason to accept the inevitable, being that this is going to destroy kodak fishing areas, it

is going to go down the chain and into the same and run. -- salmon run. even if you fail, you have to try. i do not know how to get you going. is it money? i was told yesterday all you need to do is ask exxon and within the foreseeable, the limits you could not dream of, money is available. they have had vendors liability -- have liability if this hits the kodiak, just horrendous. you can name the things that are over there, king crab, scallops, whole fleets. and half of our sol is coming out of the north pacific. the bottom fish, it is the home of the bottom fish. you closed it was because it was so sensitive, after the problems were developing their. -- there. now, i think we could safely say

this is the largest producing area fr fisheries -- for fisheries in the world today that was healthy and so much 24. and people seem to accept the inevitable, that we cannot stop it. somehow or another we have to get an attitude that we are going to try to stop it. i would hope you would help us get some control. the sea fences, have you heard of those? >> yes, i heard about them this morning. i was here when they were talking about them. sen. stevens: they have them stopped -- stocked and they offered to send them over here. i have had some on the way this afternoon, if, you can find them and try them. >> what about -- he is an expert on hazardous materials, is there something more that we can be doing from your point of

expertise? it seems like that could be more preventative measures being taken. dr. ehler: i think there is always more that can be done. the point is there is uncertainty about what is actually going to happen and where the oil is going to go. nothing is inevitable. there is a great deal of unknowns with where this bill is moving, where it will be in the water column, what effects it will have on living resources in this area and in areas further west. sen. stevens: everybody has to be somewhere and this oil is going to be somewhere for at least the next four or five months, do you agree? dr. ehler: i agree. sen. stevens: what is the problem with doing something about it? dr. ehler: there are people on the scene try to do something about it in the first place, predicting where it is going to go, and minimizing the effects. sen. stevens: do you know of anybody who has attempted to

change the direction of it in terms of the open spill moving down the coast, coming out of montagu straits, going into the gulf? dr. ehler: there is no one to my knowledge. sen. stevens: i do not know if anybody has even experimented to try to change the flow. dr. ehler: i agree. sen. stevens: and they have done a good job of booming off some areas, they have done a good job working with the instant response team and what they tried to do in terms of protecting the resurrection creek, protecting the national park, and now moving in to protect the -- area. i hope you move it over there. and we are looking even further in the kodiak. but all of that is on the basis of how to we protect the beaches when it gets there. i do not know, maybe we should take all of the boats from frank's part of the state and

turn them around and let them boil that oil south. maybe people would be worried about if it was going south. they are not worried about it when it is going north. it is going toward the greatest salmon run in the world today. know, you have seen it. you have seen the salmon fishermen. --.t will not ruin sen. stevens: it will not get there. >> we can end this hearing. [laughter] you gentlemen have been obliging. we appreciate the testimony now and i hope you appreciate the concern we have. and do not let the budget hold you up. i want to know about that immediately. i want to thank senator makowski for sticking with us, as well as senator stevens.

much, mr.ou very chairman. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ago, onr: 30 years march 24, 1989, the exxon valdez spilled her -- tanker close to 11 million gallons of crude oil. george h.w. bush was president at the time. he and several cabinet members held a briefing about two weeks after this bill t- -- the spill. taking questions from supporters is dick cheney, samuel skinner, and william riley. this portion is about 25 minutes. i have a statement and then i will be glad to take questions and refer them to our experts. virtually, every american is familiar with the tragic environmental disaster in alaska

waters. more than 10 million gallons of oil have been spilled with deadly results for wildlife and hardship for local citizens. we all share the sorrow and concern of alaskans and the determination to mount a sustained cleanup effort. our ultimate goal must be the complete restoration of the ecology and the economy of prince william sound. including all of its fish, marine mammals birds and other wildlife. the exxon corporation has acknowledged responsibility for this spill. and its liability for the damages. exxon should remain responsible for both damages. and for employing civilian personnel. necessary to control further damage. however,