affecting all of those in important ways. yesterday, we heard from the admiral from the coast guard and we had a discussion with him about their preparedness and plans and actions and what they have learned. one of the things that he told us echo -- echoed that mr. holloway said, if we look at this after the fact and how our plans developed, what they lacked is a real role for local governments. and he has heard that from across the gulf coast region. we also heard from him and actually got sole similar affirmation on our visits that the commission made that particularly where the coast guard and working with b.p. has been here, been in the parishes and local governments for a

while, that they are getting better, the relationships are getting better. on the other hand, some of our commissioners from some of the areas more recently impacted said they are still learning. give us some advice that may be built on what mayor holloway said, what we learn in this from the parishes and the cities with working in a preparation mode so we are better prepared to deal with these events into the future. any of the three of you. . .

make it that tactical. but also include the people that know the territory. >> and she's right. it took so long to get that done. all we -- you know, we met with president obama. we said, send me one guy, one woman and just make some decisions on the ground with us. we had to go to sheave port, louisiana. i had to drive an hour and a half away and listen to 30 people make decisions of where

we were going to do this. we had to get a 48-inch bomb, 18-inch bomb. -- boom. we had so many chiefs. we had to buy stuff maybe up to a minimum of a few thousand dollars and they alternated them seven and seven. it was like fema. i am not criticizing fema during katrina. we showed you the whole town and all of a sudden they sent francis in. it looked like what was happening with b.p. and they had to start over again with it. one of the things i forgot earlier, bringing about the stuff was, you get mom and dads not making money. what we did is got with b.p. and asked to hire the kids from 14-year-old to 17-year-old boys and girls. we bring them to the shop, put them on a bus and it's litter control and they got their first paycheck last friday -- no, wednesday, i'm sorry.

and they were so excited because they couldn't go in their living room and saw their mom and dad frustrated, fighting. they were afraid to ask for $5 to buy ice cream or go to the store. all their values taken away. what happens is they make their own money and you can see talking with the parents now things got a little better inside the house, that the kids are making their own money. and we make sure we feed them breakfast. they take two hours off for lunch. but that's one of the things i wanted to tell you. every day we add more and more kids, and b.p. is picking up the tab. but the bottom line, to answer your question, it did get a little better but it's still kind of a few more chiefs and a vessel of opportunities that we're all working out. and the coast guard has been working closely with us, learning the territory, not leaving us. so it is getting better in that situation. >> i think i have to give a lot of credit to our governor who stepped in and brought our

people down on the coast, the director and some of our staff. d.m.r., the department of marine resources, is located right there in biloxi, as their staff there. b.p., to start with, had people coming in and they were rotating them out, about like fema and mema does, get them in here for a week and gone, we have no contact. they hired some local engineers that is stationed on the gulf coast there that work with the local people. i think that's made a difference. it's more stable. you know where you with go to get answers. you know who to go to to ask questions. i think that's been one of the stabling thing that's happened in the biloxi area. >> i want to assure you as a former mayor and as a person from alaska where it took 20 years for our fibbermen to get

paid. how much i can relate to your comments here this morning. i want to offer a suggestion to you that we learned as a result of the exxon valdez tanker spill that regional citizens advisory committees can be a powerful force in assuring on an ongoing basis the kind of watchdog role of both industry and for that matter federal and other agencies that can be important partners with keeping your communities safe in the future. i know that this doesn't specifically address the immediate concerns you have, but when we're thinking about the future and things that you might want to consider, a system of regional citizens advisory councils, along the lines what's happened with the prince william sound regional advisory councils, i really urge this region to seriously

consider. take a look at what has happened in alaska and model it. i realize you have more communities, more states, more jurisdictions that you have to integrate, but there's something there that i think will be useful to you. because it provides in an ongoing basis, not only an opportunity to create a forum to ask tough questions but also integrate planning and to engage local people in a way that helps them feel part of the solution, not just sort of helpless bystanders. sco i urge you to look at that. i know that some folks have proposed that in congress to create something along those lines for this region. obviously for local leaders like you to be engaged in shaping that and supporting it might help make that happen. the second piece, i don't know, advice from alaska is that a fairly comprehensive mental

health and behavioral health outreach plan was developed and is available as a tool that also could be useful to you. it's sort of a citizens' guide and a community leaders' guide to how you can deal with spom of the stress associated with a catastrophic event like this. and if you want me to give me your business cards before you leave i'd give you copies of that. it will be tailored to your needs in your region. but, again, it could be very useful so to the extent we don't have to reinvent the wheel, we can take advantage of what has happened elsewhere and hopefully that can help. thanks again for being here today. >> thank you. >> are there other questions? yes, mr. garcia. >> just to follow-up on what commissioner ulmer was referring to, mayor, you had

mentioned the need for mental health counseling. have you made a request to either b.p. or to the state government for assistance in that counseling? and the same question to the other elected officials. >> we have to the state, yes. we have to the state health department. >> not to b.p.? >> i haven't, not to b.p. the state may have. >> yes, b.p. brought a couple, three or four men in maybe the last two weeks and they are visiting some of the communities -- i mean, some of the residents in the area. >> we are working with b.p. but our state department of health and human services -- >> excuse me. madam president, could you speak into the microphone. >> we are working with b.p. but they are also being requested to fund the state's department of health and human services'

request for many health services so they will have it on a consistent basis, yes. >> and none of you mentioned this -- perhaps it's not a problem -- but when senator graham and i were snoring in the pan hauntle of florida, several officials mentioned to us their frustration about getting their local citizens hired to do work in connection with the cleanup. and that workers from outside of their counties, from their communities were being brought in to do work that could be performed by local residents. is that still an issue here, was it an issue? >> we had to baby-sit it every day, being honest with you, we had to watch was going on and go to command post so you don't get contractors from all over the united states coming in. for instance, hopefully today they are going to hire the local tractors, some of the

tractors on the island, backhoes to work on the beach. we met with b.p. last week and told them it's not going to work bringing 18 wheaters and tractors to rake our beach when we have people here that can go to work. so you have to stay on top of it, remind them because what happens is as b.p. in some areas they want to help you but they have some new comers in and they call in buddies to bring in other buddies to bring in equipment. that's kind of like frustration of the vessel of opportunities. you might see four, five vessels in there, fishermen stand by the dock saying, mr. mayor or parish president, why are you letting them come through? with all the issues we have, we can't baby-sit everything, but the fishermen get frustrated because joe from b.p. knows his buddy in wyoming, making that phone call and bring equipment in. so we walk the beach, we monitor the beach. i got a fire chief that's all he does is stay in meetings to

represent me to let me know what's going on. if we don't stay on top of it, it will happen. that's what we testified in washington. we are there witnessing it, yes, sir, but we have to monitor it. in fact, we ran two or three contractors out and said it ain't going to happen. you know, our environment has been changed because the subcontractors coming in and renting homes in the residential area and the residents are upset so last friday night i told b.p. they had to move them out because it's a residential area and they had 40 men and women staying in one home. and it's a whole different atmosphere. we used to live with our windows down, our keys in our car. we all knew each other. if the kids run across the street and play, it changed all our lives. now people are scared. so it's all -- you know, we have -- we don't get a chance

to -- i don't know where i am at in grand aisle we needed to get ready for -- grand isle we needed to get ready for the tourism. everything is oil. you go to bed with oil and wake up for oil. you don't know what contractors are coming in. so he's right what you're witnessing. and we have men and women that monitor that and our fishermen watch that. i had six or seven tractors come up and say i can't believe you made that happen. we don't know until we can go and scream and say, what are you doing? so everything's a fight. it's all about the mighty god. they want to come and make their quick buck. if they just listening to us we can save everybody money. we can put b.p. across the table and say, look at the money you're spending here. it's crazy the price that you're paying. and i think they're

understanding that now. but we got to baby-sit them and we got to watch them. and they want to work with us. they're starting to work with us. so it is frustrating to seeing that you got 18 wheelors of tractors coming in your town and all of a sudden your local people have tractors that are tied up. so we have to try and watch everything. it's not easy. >> we now have a flotel, we have tents, we have various means of housing people that pretty much appeared out of nowhere without any warning and then all of a sudden new people started arriving and said, what are they here for? and they said, to clean the beach. it is a daily monitoring effort to ensure that, first, our residents aren't being shortchanged and that they can supply the goods necessary. and secondarily, some of the people being brought in are not

runaways from the law. let's be honest about it. and some of them have been arrested. initially we didn't have a check system. now we do. and certainly we make certain that the people who are now among us are just like us. >> you're correct on that. i bet you one thing that you're talking about, too, a vessel of opportunity is one of the hardest things we had to keep up with of people coming from all over the southeast coming, bringing boats with three people running around the gulf with just doing -- i couldn't see them doing anything. just riding around, getting a suntan. and the same thing with people working on the beaches. they bring them in with greyhound buses or charter

buses and put them in a certain place and move them from up and down the -- nine miles of beach that we have in biloxi. i'm sure the same thing going on the west of me. but the vessels of opportunity is one of the waste of money that i've seen. >> are there additional questions? >> i think mr. -- >> i'm sorry, mr. cooper. i apologize. >> b.p. just ok'd and is going to pay for a community outreach. we are going to open up an office, and one of the b.p.'s got us -- he's retired. he came to her and now we are going to have a community outreach so we can start hiring our local people to come in and go to work. so they are moving forward on that issue. it is a problem for busing people in. we have more people busing in than we have in our community. our community is so disrupted that it's unbelievable.

we have over -- right at 6,000 people that have come into our community. we are only about 4,000, 5,000 people in our community so we have more people coming into our community than what we live in. we have a safe place. we don't -- we don't deal with all this crime and what's going on but now we have people walking the streets all hours of the night and day. we have to lock our doors. there's one thing i want to talk about. i kept hearing the e.p.a. and noaa talking about it's a tradeoff, it's a tradeoff. to us as fishermen, and it's not just myself, it's all of us, the tradeoff will be our industry. you say this stuff. our fish with bottom feeders and the shrimp are bottom feeders. the only tradeoff is our industry. we've been fighting tooth to nail from the very beginning. we are totally against it. let it come where we can see

it. we putting booms out and skimmers out there that get to these. a testimony while ago, they see it. the salt and boom beads it up and erodes it right off of it. for them to say we haven't seen it, we have boats out there that have seen it. it doesn't soak up. it's all in a ball and it rolls right off of it. the only tradeoff is our industry and our waters. if it's -- how can we let them do it here? is it safe to use it here if it ain't there? what's the difference? it's us and -- they in control? this has to stop. we can't fight something we can't see. we don't know the long-term effects for our saltwater fisheries. just like the lady that said in

alaska. it may be 15, 20 years from now. quit spraying it. quit -- we have people saying they've seen planes. i am not going to get into that. i'll leave it alone. the only tradeoff is our fisheries and that's the way i feel. thank you. >> yes, i'd just like to say one more thing. i don't know if you guys picked up on this. you guys are having a plan and we have to build a plan. because of the way this has been controlled and the people who are in charge of this, we had no plan. i was with this man in plaquerman's parish at a meeting and there was nobody there. we couldn't even get a b.p. man. the state had no plan, the federal government had no plan. we have put ourselves in position where we're dependent on all company plans. i mean, this is ridiculous. i love the community part because we know, we know our land. we know our passes and we know

our people and we should have a big input into a plan because there was no plan. we are having to wing it down here, we're having to build our own plans. because the federal government is not supporting us, we're having more issues. not only the rocks -- not only the rocks, but let me give you a good example of what it does. i live beyond hurricane protection. all the things he talks about is barrier islands. when we get a surge with oil on top of it, i had 16 inches of water for hurricane ike and 16 inches of water for hurricane rita in my house. what's it going to look like? i am 30 miles from the gulf. by not allowing us to go ahead and do what we know what is right and what will work, this is -- it is amazing to me that you can -- people up in washington wouldn't give us more support than that. i mean, this is ridiculous.

>> any our question? frances. >> quick question. thank you all. you've given us a firsthand view of how challenging it is to serve your own communities. and in that light, have you been able to staff up in your cities and towns to have additional capacity to assist your citizens? has that -- is that something b.p. would compensate you for, basically bringing additional help to address the issues that you've race -- raised with us today? >> actually, b.p. is doing a lot of its staffing itself. they're staffing the claims offices. they're running vessels of opportunity. but we are attributing many of the overtime hours and staffing to b.p. right now because it is -- it is a 24/7 job. >> it sounds like it. >> so, yes, the opportunities are there to increase as we

need. >> thank you. >> i have total like 56 employees. i think i lost nine of them so far working for b.p. they can make so much money a day driving a boat and they take a leave of absence and just write me a letter. mountain meantime, it brings down the local stuff for me to big the ditches and clean the streets -- in the meantime, it brings down the local stuff for me to dig ditches and clean the streets. i am down to two girls. we're not -- just looking at those girls saying, go make some good money because we're not making money here. it's very -- we are not going to stop nobody from making money, better money.

my employees are scared. they know that they can probably tomorrow -- b.p. will tell them they don't need them anymore. and i tell them the doors are open, you can come back. they're very scared. like the fisherman said, they want to go to work, they want to go shrimping but the shrimping season, it's open today but closed tomorrow. it's the same thing with the employees. they're scared. they want to make sure it's ok. b.p. say, we don't need you tomorrow. they hired five fisherman last week and made a mistake. they needed speed boats instead of trail boats. fishermen are so excited. when i go back today and tonight and tomorrow, i'll go back at the command center and get these fishermen back on. the secretary said they're devastated. talk about charter boat captains and also some

fishermen had some wrong boats. they were all pumped up. wife was excited, got him a job. two days later b.p. said, we're sorry, we picked the wrong boats. terry, to answer you, that's all we do is baby-sit and try to satisfy our constituents every day. you got 2,500 salesmen that can stop the leak, come clean your beaches, come from all over the world. i got one girl in my office, that's all she does is sorry, mayor, we don't have time to see you. i'm sure she can tell you. the mayor, oh, we got the best plan in the world. we send him to shreveport. i think they get 8,000 calls a day. it's very frustrating. anything you can think of, we have to fight and baby-sit. and watch what's going on. it might take us two or three days to catch what's going on but we have to go back and

fight to straighten it up. you know, that's not taking care of basic service. you know, meaning if the old lady calls you at 10:30 in the morning and the garbage man failed to pick up the garbage, they're fussing at us. that's basic service that we don't have time to look at. it's just oil, oil, oil. it's a fight. >> madam president, gentlemen, thank you for your very informative information. as we said with the previous panels, we hope this will be the beginning of the dialogue. as we have additional questions, we hope we can get back in touch with you. and if you have any questions of us, we'll give you pint of contact and we'd like to stay in touch. good. thank you.

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>> live coverage of the commission investigating the gulf of mexico oil spill. this is the second day of public meetings on the spill. wrapping up with remarks from local officials. here's how the rest of the day is expected to play out. there will be a lunch break until about 2:30, we're told. could stretch a little bit. during that break we'll begin our live coverage of the u.s. house as members are returning from their fourth of july recess. today the house will debate a number of suspension bills mostly dealing with public lands and we will have live coverage of that starting at 2:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. when the house finishes debate this afternoon we plan to return to live coverage of the oil spill meeting. by the way, you can see all of this on our website at c-span.org. while the commission is breaking for lunch, a couple of news stories here. earlier today the senate judiciary committee committee met to vote on the nomination of elena kagan to be the next

supreme court justice. republicans on the committee called for a one-week delay so they'll reconvene next week. if approved the full senate will then vote on the nomination. also, president obama announced his new budget director nominee. jacob lew will move over from the state department to fill the place of outgoing director peter orszag who steps down this month. if confirmed, mr. lew will assume the cabinet level post with the administration facing a deficit that exceeds $3 trillion for the first third quarters of the fiscal year. we'll have more live coverage of the oil spill commission when the house takes a break. you can watch all the proceedings on our website at c-span.org. yesterday, a number of people gathered outside the hotel where this oil spill meeting is being held. they were protesting the response.

>> why are you out here protesting today? >> because this is an enormous environmental disaster and economic disaster and b.p. and the government have been consistently consealing the truth of censoring the truth, have been reducing full accountability and full transparency. they have not mobilized all necessary resources to stop this catastrophe. they have not protected the public health. they have not protected the environment. so we need a massive people's response to fight, you know, all hands on deck, a societal-wide battle to save the environment here and to

demand that the government and b.p. bring all resources necessary. why aren't they forcing all these other oil companies with all their technology to be cleaning up oil and helping stop this gusher? why aren't they telling people what the full scope of the environmental disaster is? why aren't they supporting local efforts to prevent the oil from getting ashore? why aren't they protecting public health? why aren't they giving the workers respirators? just today we're learning that 20% of the workers on the cleanup are being exposed to very high levels of very dangerous chemicals. so we're demanding this stuff and these hearings, we're demanding there be no cover-up at these hearings, no, you know, excusing the criminals that caused this disaster. and in my view, these hearings

aren't even legitimate. how account system that created this disaster investigate itself in any kind of real way? >> from michigan. i came down here because i wanted to be part of the solution. i wanted to take some kind of proactive role to do something to bring us to the awareness of the american people so, you know, we say, you know, we can't just sit back and allow big corporations, oil, coal, whatever, government to destroy our country and our planet for the sake of profits, for the sake of money. and that's what they're doing right now today. >> i'm out here to support the lifting of the moratorium in the gulf. i think it's a mistake to punish all of the oil companies and all of louisiana and the rest of the country for what one irresponsible company has done. >> basically it affects not only the oil and gas industry

but also marine industry, the commercial fishing industry, tourism industry, everything that makes south louisiana lively and viable will be affected by this moratorium. it's going to be a domino effect that really has a lot of negative impact on the state as a whole. it's really going to hurt us. >> what would you like to see happen at these meetings today? >> well, i'd like to get some attention brought toward the moratorium. i'd like to see it lifted. you know, hopefully we'll garner enough support to back up some of the judge's decision lately to lift the moratorium. >> like katrina, this is a crisis for which we have not had a road map. there's not been an experience of this magnitude in the past. i think everybody involved is

cutting, you know, it's new territory, as they work through it. so what is enough at this point? i think everybody is doing their best to try to find the best answers, including president obama. he, after all, is not an oil and gas expert. he has them at his disposal and i think he's doing his best to make the best use of those experts and that expertise as he possibly can. long term we have to look at and i think it has to be studied much more closely the impact of the moratorium. this is a community that has thrived on energy-related jobs. we're not yet out of the katrina crisis. our businesses have not popped back were that experience.

and to go into another loss such as this is detrimental is an understatement. captioned by the national captioning institute ---www.ncicap.org--- [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> i'm the operations manager. we have built this village for people that are working on the boats and on the beaches that are actually the ones collecting the oil and trying to get it off the water or off the shore. they are the ones that put out the booms. they do the siphoning of the oil. they are picking up the oil that comes onto the beaches, and it's mainly for people that

are 50 miles or more away from home, ok, or away from this location so they can't go home, they can't have a place to stay, we have a place for them. we built this in about eight days. now, when i say we built it, we actually had it ready for about 1,000 people in eight days. so half the camp was built and then we've added onto that camp as we moved some of the people from other locations. but this location was absolutely nothing when we started. when we started it it was all brush. there was nothing here, grass. we took it from the ground level up. we scraped the ground, we put a base in there that is a stabilizing base. then, we put sand on top of that. we put another stabilizing base on top of that and then we put

gravel on top of that. >> and how many workers are stationed here right now? >> right now we have about 450 had a are located here. we have housing enough for 2,000 at this location. we are cloge filling it up. it takes -- we are slowly filling it up. it takes a while to get new people in. every day we're receiving new recruits that have come in and that are working on the boats. >> do the employees have to pay anything to live here? >> no, the employees don't have to pay anything to live here. we serve them food, three meals a day. we also have the housing for them. we have a shower for them. we have a full laundry service for them. we have medical service for them. everything is provided. we have entertainment that is

provided for them. everything is provided to them at b.p.'s cost. what you're going to see now is one of the typical trailers that we have that is set up for people to bunk in. ok. so each bunk has a personal sheets, blankets all come in this, ok, and they can pull the screen so that they can have privacy, do whatever they want to do. if they want to listen to their own music, read a book, do whatever they want to do, they have the ability to do that. 36 people in each bunkhouse. ok. what you're seeing now is the entrance to our food tent and we serve -- right now we're set up to serve about 400 people. we will expand that eventually to 600 people at a time.

as the camp gets larger. we have a full kitchen service in the back, it's a catering service. they cook all the meals here. boy, are they good. the guys really like them. because this is a partial construction site and we do have several people working here on construction, we leave water and sports drinks out for them. we try to keep that as safe as we can. four waters to every one sport drink in this hot weather. we also leave a snack table out for them that they can have some snacks during their break time. lots of people use that in the middle of the day. ok. this is our kitchen facility. as you can see very clean, very neat, organized. >> how much do you cook on a typical -- for a typical day?

>> jimmy, how much do you cook for a typical dinner? >> product-wise, two main aunt rays which is two proteins, we do a starch, two vegetables. we do a soup. green salad. it's a lot. this -- >> this will be one of three entertainment tents that we'll have. this one will have pool tables, foosball tables, board games, tv that they can watch. the other two tents, one will be weight lifting, exercise machines, something to keep them healthy. the other tent will be a quiet tent with books and they can have wi-fi, be very quiet and enjoy just a quiet time.

ok. so we have the pool tables, the fun tables with the foosball, tables that we can get games that they can play. here's movies that they can watch, games to play, books to read. tv to watch. i don't know if you notice it had by now or if i mentioned it enough, look how clean it is. we try to keep a clean place for them to live in the village. when they go to work in the morning or when they come home in the evening, they have to catch buses. it's about eight miles that we have to transport them back and forth between venice at the actual dock location and where they're living here. so when they do that and they come back off the buses we have to have some way to track who's in camp, who's not in camp. if we had an emergency we need to have names so we can account

for everyone in an emergency situation. they file over. if you see right here there is a gate system right here that they will file through the gate. the blue trailer over there has windows on the other side. and those windows they have a system that they can actually card in with these electronic cards. everyone wears in the camp. and when they card in or card out we keep track of them and that way we know who's here and who isn't so when we have an emergency we can take care of it. >> andrew smith, i'm from lafayette, louisiana, and i'm a diesel mechanic. >> and what do you -- when did you first come down to the venice area? >> about a week ago. >> ok. and what brought you -- what brought you down? >> money. >> ok. what -- now, do you live at the responders' village here? >> yes. >> what's been the experience like so far? >> pretty good, actually. feed you very well, three times a day, it's open 24 hours.

you get free time in your leisure time, you have pool tables, foosball tables. i live better here than i do at home. >> why did you decide to stay here as opposed to some -- i know that some people have stayed in hotels or motels? >> this is just my option. i'd probably rather stay in a hotel but -- >> and what kind of hours have you been working here? >> 12 hours a day, seven days a week. >> i know it's hard being away from home but it's like home away from home for them. we try to make it as comfortable and appealing as we can and as positive an experience as they can have. [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> and a live look now as workers using robots undersea continue to try to seal that leak on the rig in the gulf. b.p. said they've made some progress installing a new tighter cap. as the day goes on they'll close a number of valves on the new cap over the next 48 hours and they'll continue testing to see if the leak is sealed. rig workers are making progress on those two relief wells which they believe will be a permanent fix to the leak. first of the two wells could be done in the next few weeks. retired coast guard admiral thad allen said the last 24 hours has been significant as b.p. has tried to stop the oil in the gulf. the company is testing that new tight-fitting cap that was installed last night. >> thank you, good morning. it's been a very consequential 24 hours in the life cycle of this response. as you know we were able to

land and lock down the capping stack yesterday on the marine reiser package from the blowout preventer from the rising deepwater. this morning, several significant activities are taking place. we just finished a seismic run through the field. about 2.5 kilometer run basically from north to south with a boat called the gecko toe paz carrying various akucinichcal sensors. that is a baseline from which we can detect any anomalies after we do the -- and the sequence of events that will take place and will start sometime afternoon today, we are still -- to have that vessel background requires you to clear just about everybody out of the area, not only so they can have a very clear way to hear and do their sensing

but also their navigation issues. that's the reason it was done in daylight. we tried to do it yesterday but we ran out of daylight. that's why we did it first thing this morning. after everything is deployed, these things will happen in the following sequence. when we get ready to start the well integrity test we'll seize production through the q-4,000 and the he licks producer one. we will then divert all the hydrocarbons in the new capping stack. vatives for the kill and choke line will be opened and the center bore is already open. we will be venting through three different exits on the capping stack, the kill line, the choke line and the main line going through the boor. then in sequence -- the boar. then in sequence we will continue to close the stack down and assess the pressure readings as we do that. the first thing we'll do is close the three rams. the middle one will be closed.

that will basically shut off the flow outward through the capping stack. at that point we'll take pressure readings. we will then close the kill line which is the second remaining outlet and take pressure readings. the third and most critical will be the choke line. there's a special device that's been built on the capping stack. you will see it, if you look at the video, it it is yellow it is long horizontally and there is a capping pipe. that choke line will be controlled by a remotely operating vehicle that will slowly close it incrementally. this will be very, very important because we want to measure the amount of closure, which will be measured radially by turns of that choke line valve by an r.o.v. simultaneously taking pressure readings. the goal is to slowly close that down and understand the changes of pressure as we're closing it until that choke line is closed at that point. there will be no hydrocarbons

exiting from the capping stack and go to a period where we'll take pressure readings. it will go in basically six, 24 and 48-hour increments depending on the results. as we said before while maybe counterintuitive to some, in this exercise, high pressure is good. we have a considerable amount of pressure down on the reservoir forcing the hydrocarbons out through the well boar. we're looking between 8,000 and 9,000 p.s.i. inside the capping stack which would indicate to us that the hydrocarbons are being forced up and the hydrocarbons are withstanding that pressure and that is good news. if we were down around in the 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 range that could potentially tell us that the hydrocarbons are being diverted someplace else and and there are gredations as we go from 4,000 to 9,000 p.s.i., it will have a great deal to do

with the pressure readings and what the impeercal readings tell us and discussions with b.p. and the science tech neckal team that is representing the government from some of the labs around the country. we will at some point try to get to 8,000 to 9,000 and sustain that for some period of time and these will be done basically as i said, if we have a very low pressure reading we'll need at least six hours of those readings. if it is higher we need 24,000 and if if is 8,000 or 9,000 we need 48 hours to see if it can sustain those pressures. this could be six, 24 or 48 hours and at that point we will have beater idea, not only of the pressure, it will tell us something about the condition of the well boar itself and ultimately it will also tell us something about the flow rate which today has been based on estimates based on the digital

imagery, acoustic testing and so forth. a consequential today. somewhere in the afternoon a technical team is being assembled. after this press conference i'll be meeting with secretary chu from the department of energy, the u.s. geological survey, people from different labs and we will be discussing how we will resolve issues that are going to come up as we get pressure readings and try and understand what's going on. there are a range of options that can come out of the testing of the stacking cap including knowledge that the cap itself could withstand 8,000 to 9,000 p.s.i. pressure indeterminately, indefinitely, which means there will be an opportunity of the shut-in of the well, which means to hold it at that point. anything less than that might have a decision to continue to produce. at this point we will be able to produce off of four lines. the choke and the kill line from the original blowout

preventer plus the choke and the kill lines from the new stacking cap. that is intended by around the 18th of july to take us to a capacity of 60,000 to 80,000 barrels a day which we think will exceed the flow. so there is a potential shut-in of the well are being able to produce most or if not all of the flow we believe is generated. either way we will have a way to contain the oil. if we are successful in the pressure readings, and i say if we are successful. this is very, very important because it will allow us to manage the hydrocash ons but the ultimate success of this entire endeavor will be the relief well and development driller three is now at 17,000,840 feet measured depth. they have been there for a day or two. they are doing testing to make sure they have the right angle of attack 17,840 feet measured depth. they have been there for a day or two.

they are doing testing to make sure they have the right angle of attack. and they have four feet, four inches. so you can manage this gets pretty precise as they hit the point where they can drill and potentially to a seven-inch casing pipe. so that continues as well. one other thing. if we are to go to a full production, four different outlets around the 17th, 18th, 19 of july, requires us to continue to build and construct the free standing reiser pipe, that is in pro -- free-standing riser pipe, that is ok. skimmers have been an issue for us. we know as we extend our defense of the coastline from florida to south central louisiana. we are in pace at this point by the end of the month of july to have 1,000 skimmers in the inventory. we are just below 600 and we will continue to ramp up,

including our international sources of supply. and we continue to aggressively acquire skimmers. some critical resources that we're starting to come to grips for, it my not be intuitive to you but interesting to note, we are using about two million timex suits a day. that is the light suits we use to clean up the beaches. we may run into a natural supply issue. those suits are used for a variety of other emergency response purposes. we will be looking at the source supply and how we deal with that. as we increase our aerial surveillance, we will put some more people out there. we will have trained people that can characterize the oil we see and any issues regarding wildlife and so forth. so this continues to be a very complex nuance and broad based

response, a lot of things going on. in addition to everything else, we brought the he licks producer online last night and we'll take it back down. that will have the cape -- the helix producer online last night and we'll take it back down. it will produce 1,000 barrels. in addition to the q-4,000, which was able to flair off in both gas and oil about 7,291 barrels, we actually produced while we were switching out the cap 8,300 barrels yesterday. so a complicated operation, a lot of densely compacted ships and r.o.v.'s out there, so far safely done, we'll continue to watch with great anticipation. we realize there is significant chances we can improve our ability to contain these hydrocarbons moving forward and everybody will be watching closely over the next 24 hours. with that i'd be glad to take your questions.

>> maybe you can take us through some of the backup planning. if the well were to rupture while you have it shut in, what happens then? is there some sort of emergency response plan that's in place or vessels, i mean, onhand? what happens at this point? >> if we have very low pressure readings, like i said, we'll do it in increments. if we have low pressure readings, we know we can't sustain that in the long run. while there is hydrocarbons working in formation, there is an acceptable range whether or not we establish that's the true pressure but the scientific team has gotten together and low pressure readings of about six hours will be the threshold before which we make a decision and move forward. >> admiral, harry webber from the associated press. can you bottom line for us, if possible, what odds do you give to the success of being able to shut in the well using this cap? and if you are successful, when do you think fishing areas

along the gulf that have been closed will be able to reopen? what do you say to those peoples, lives that have been affected by this as far as, you know, what's next, you know, when can life go on for the people that have been affected, can you kind of give us some kind of idea? >> well, i can tell you this, i think we're very confident. we can take control this hydrocarbon stream and slowly close this valve and stop the emission of hydrocarbons. what we can't tell is the well condition below the boar. that's why we're doing a well integrity test. we need to know that for the purpose of being able to manufacture and control the hydrocarbons. we need to know this because the ability to withstand those high pressures at 8,000 or 9,000 will also facilitate the killing of the well when we try to pump mud into it from below. this is all very, very important. we can't tie an -- a percentage to it.

regarding the fishing areas, this is closely being monitored by noaa and my colleague and her folks. we have about i think 34% or 35% of the gulf right now is closed. they are aggressively reviewing on a day-to-day basis on where the spill trajectories are at. and when they open new areas they'll open them when it is safe and sound to do it. safety in the food chain is very, very important and noaa is working closely with the f.d.a. to make sure that the fish caught are safe for consumption and they are -- this has been a very, very focused effort by both f.d.a. and noa. regarding what comes next, i've said on several occasions, even if we contain the well and the well is capped in mid august there is still a significant amount of oil out there and the impacts of this oil will extend well into the fall of oil coming on the shore, tar balls, cleanup. and we'll try to understand the

long-term environmental and ecological impact of the event. [inaudible] >> there have been some confirmed amounts of tar balls from the b.p. oil spill washing ashore in texas. and in galveston, i'm wondering, if you know of any recent test results on the tar that was washed up there in galveston island and bolivar, and the skimmers you're trying to expand the use of will coming around the waters near the texas coastline? >> we had some tar balls. some of them had the characteristics of this spill and some of them have not. the ones that have had the characteristics of this spill exhibits a characteristic of oil that was far weathered. we're looking at whether vessels may have inadvertently transferred oil there and it come ashore.

that said, taking no chances, we've got a command in galveston. our folks are in touch with the land office and in touch with governor perry's office. we'll continue that moving forward. right now there's no presence of oil on the surfevers there that would require skimming capability right now. the tar balls sometimes are suspended and come ashore. we are looking to put skimmers where we need. we'll keep ordering them until this event is done. i'd rather be pushing supply and critical resources out. >> hi, thank you. if the pressure is low at the top of the well, does that indicate that oil's flowing out through some other point of the well, and if so, what are the theories on where it is escaping? >> that's what we'll try and determine from the pressure. one could make the case that there is something -- there's some structural integrity issues with the casing.

i don't think we'll know that until we take the pressure readings and try to see where that information takes us. it is unknown whatted to that well boar at the time of the explosion, the events that immediately followed that. that is largely the biggest unknown, not only in trying to do anything from the well from the top, the top kill which we tried, which was not successful, or the ultimately the bottom kill moving forward. there are some indications when we finally go in and drill into the pipe to do the bottom kill, the ultimate capping of the well, that we will get an indication of whether or not there is oil in the opening area from the casing pipe and the well boar or the oil is inside. we'll make a determination of burst places. that will give us another idea of how much pressure was exerted and what the structural integrity of the well is.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> we're leaving this briefing from earlier today. by the way, you can see it on our website, c-span.org. we'll go live to capitol hill as the house is returning from its july 4 recess. with legislation on federal parks and votes at 6:00. speake of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father coughlin. chaplain coughlin: lord god, without beginning or end, in the passing scene of life, help the members of congress to keep focused on the public trust they have been given. may they make just and prudent decisions that will strengthen this nation in its constitutional integrity and

bring peace and prosperity in our day. with your blessing may each moment of this session of congress be dedicated to justice and may our public service give you glory both now and forever. amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentlewoman from of north carolina, congresswoman foxx. ms. foxx: please join me in the pledge to our wonderful flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house the following communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. madam, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the senth of the senate on july 13,-secretary of the senate on july 13, 2010, that the senate passed 2872. that the senate agreed to without amendment house concurrent resolution 289. appointments, national advisory committee on institutional quality and integrity. with best wishes i am, signed, robert f. reeves, deputy clerk for lorraine c. miller, clerk of the house. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? >> to address the house for one

minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from south carolina is recognized for one minute. mr. wilson: mr. speaker, over the last week i have held six town hall meetings across south carolina's second congressional district focused on job creation and washington's reckless spending habits. residents in akin, barnwell, orange grove came out to express their concerns and hear the opinions of their neighbors. madam speaker, the message i bring back from south carolina's second district residents is simple. stop this out-of-control spending and pass job creation policies that incentivize small businesses to create jobs and families to invest. people are concerned. they are concerned about their family's economic future. they are concerned about the enormous debt being imposed on our childrennd grandchildren. i encourage residents who couldn't attend to take advantage of two new interactive forums designed to give americans a voice in congress to share policy

solutions. america speaking out.com and youcut. in conclusion, gob bless our troops and we will never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from north carolina seek recognition? ms. foxx: to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman from north carolina is recognized. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. i had the honor to visit a north carolina business success story last week, mr. speaker. bridgestone aircraft tire located in rockingham county came to north carolina in 2007 from miami when their miami manufacturing facility was taken in an eminent domain proceeding. bridgestone brought about 70 new jobs to the community as well as what they call it's united nations of employees. the bridgestone employees hail not just from rockingham but around the globe, including colombia, venezuela, jamaica, singapore, japan, haiti, and honduras. best of all they have been

active participants in the community. plant employees volunteering their time recently helping to restore the local river park to become the newest state park in north carolina as well as supporting united way, salvation army, and a local charity for noninsurance cancer patients. mr. speaker, this facility and its dedicated hardworking employees are truly a tremendous asset to north carolina. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman from texas is recognized for one minute to address the house. mr. smith: mr. speaker, 2/3 of americans say they are angry at the national media, according to a new rasmussen public opinion poll. the poll suggests that americans are angry because the national media's clear liberal bias. by a margin of more than three to one, americans say the average reporter is more liberal than they are rather

than more conservative. by almost the same margin, americans think reporters are trying to help president obama pass his agenda. most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win. and a majority think reporters would hide information that might hurt a candidate they wanted to win. americans will continue to be angry until the national media reports the facts and stops telling the american people what to think. the speaker pro tempore: are there any further one-minute requests? the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 8 of rule

20, the chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote or the yeas and nays are ordered and on which the vote incurs objection under clause 6 of rule 20. record votes on postponed questions will be taken after 6:00 p.m. today. for what purpose does the the gentlewoman from guam seek recognition? ms. bordallo: i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3923, as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 3923, a bill to provide for the exchange of certain land located in the arapaho roosevelt national forest in the state of colorado , and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from guam, ms. bordallo, and the gentlewoman

from north carolina, ms. foxx, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection without objection, so ordered. ms. bordallo: h.r. 3923 was introduced by our colleague from colorado, congressman jared polis. since 1967 the forest service has issued two special use permits to the sugar loaf fire protection district to own and operate two fire stations on the national forest system land. the district would like to own the parcels of land on which the fire stations sit in order to build an area for firefighting training and bathroom facilities. currently the fire stations do not have running water because state and county regulations prohibit well and septic

systems on public lands for private use. the district would receive approximately five acres of federal land on which the fire station sits and the forest service would receive land of equal value from the district. a specific in holding owned by the district has been identified for this exchange. mr. speaker, we commend congressman polis for his work on this bill and we support passage of this measure. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from north carolina. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. throughout the west thrure communities struggling to provide basic services because of a limited tax base and a shortage of nonfederal lands to build infrastructure. the sugar loaf fire district in colorado has provided services to the surrounding national forest area for years and is simply seeking a tiny parcel of

land in order to make much needed improvements in their facilities. this commonsense land conveyance should have been handled administratively by the forest service. something is not working right when cash strapped fire districts who are providing benefits to federal lands have to spend years and money they do not have to push for legislation for something that should be handled quickly and at the local level. with that, mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from north carolina reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i yield to the gentleman from colorado as much time as he may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from colorado is recognized. mr. polis: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today in support of my bill h.r. 3923, the sure gar loaf fire protection district land exchange act. this legislation is the result of a long-term effort by the

sugar loaf fire protection district in sugar loaf, colorado. this exchange will be of great benefit to those volunteer firefighters and the communities that they serve. the sugar loaf fire protection district and u.s. forest service have always worked closely with each other since the fire district's inception in 1967. the sugar loaf fire protection district volunteers are key first responders to both wild land and residential fires as well as car accidents and health emergencies within th communities and the public lands that they serve. in its start, the fire district's physical home was established in an existing building on u.s. forest service land through a special use permit. three years later a second building was constructed under another special use permit, both in important locations for accessibility to the few main roads in the mountainous area. this bill today would exchange the small amount of federal land on which these facilities exist with private land that's been purchased by the fire district for this transfer.

land that's better suited for the scenic and recreational services of the local public lands. while the u.s. forest service and special use permits have been invaluable to the over 40-year history to the fire district, it's now important they have the autonomy to better self-direct its future, invest, and ensure the modernization of its facilities. currently these biddings are without even the most basic amenities like running water in rest rooms and their location on public land has precluded them from making modernizations. as the surrounding communities have grown considerably in the past few decades, these willedings -- buildings have taken on added responsibility making it even more important they be updated to accommodated this new role and this bill will allow them to be updated. i would like to thank chairman rahall and ranking member hastings as well as subcommittee chairman grijalva for their hard work on this effort. as well as the gentlelady from guam for their hard work on this effort.

it's an important measure for the local communities of my district and i urge a yes vote on this measure. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentlewoman from wyoming is recognized without objection. >> mr. speaker, i wish to inquire about whether there are any other speakers on the majority party side. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i have no additional requests for time and would inquire of the minority whether they have any additional speakers. mrs. lummis: we do not. so i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming yields back the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, we have no additional speakers. i would like again to urge members to support the bill and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam yields back the balance of her time. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r.

3923, as amended. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from guam seek recognition? ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3967. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 3967, a bill to amend the national great black americans commemoration act of 2004 to authorize appropriations through fiscal year 2015. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from guam, ms. bordallo, and the gentlewoman from wyoming, mrs. lummis, each will control 20 minutes. the chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all

members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, h.r. 3967 introduced in october of 2009 by our colleague, representative cummings, helps tell the story of the african-american struggle for equality. for the last quarter century, doctors jo ann and elmer martin have worked tirelessly to create a safe, nurturing environment for baltimore's youth. . they have created a unique opportunity to teach and connect with young people, to tell the story of great african-american leaders in the history of our united states of america. h.r. 3967 amends the national

great black americans commemoration act of 2004 to extend authorization for federal grant funding. representative cummings is to be commended for his work on behalf of this outstanding education and outreach program. and, mr. speaker, we support this legislation, and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from wyoming, mrs. lummis. mrs. lummis: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. h.r. 3967 renews the authority to spend appropriations for the great blacks in wax museum in baltimore, maryland. a hearing was held on this bill but the national park service did not provide us with information about this program and the necessity to fund it. what we learned is that this will be funded and overseen by the department of justice leaving us with even more questions, not the least of

which is why this bill went through a public lands committee. that being said, i am concerned that extending federal spending at this time may not be appropriate. until we can better understand how this program will be administered and what has been done in the last six years since it was originally authorized. finally, while i have no doubt that the great black in wax museum is a positive influence in the city of baltimore, it is unclear why it is necessary to involve the federal government in the wax museum industry. this may be yet another highly illust tif example of why we are -- illustrative example of why we are in debt. mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: i have no

additional requests for time and i would inquire of the minority whether they have additional speakers. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, we do not, and we yield back the balance of our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming yields back the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, we have no additional speakers, so, therefore, i urge -- again, i urge members to support this bill and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam yields back the -- her time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3967. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from guam seek recognition? ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4514 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of

the bill. the clerk: h.r. 4514, a bill to authorize the secretary of the interior to conduct a special resource study to determine the suitability and feasibility of designating the colonel charles young home in xenia, ohio, as a unit of the national park system and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from guam, ms. bordallo, and the gentlewoman from wyoming, mrs. lummis, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, h.r. 4514, introduced by congressman lacy clay of missouri, directs the national parks service to discover the suitability and feasibility on designating the colonel charles young home in

xenia, ohio, as part of the national parks service. colonel charles young was a distinguished african-american officer during the late 1800's and early 1900's and the first african-american to hold the rank of colonel. young is also credited with being the first african-american national park soup intendent when as command -- superintendent when as commander of the 10th calvary, he was part of the grant park in california. this will review the cultural and historical resources established with the remarkable story of colonel young and determine how best to interpret his role in american history. so, mr. speaker, i commend congressman clay for his effort to highlight the story of this great american, and i urge the house to support h.r. 4514. and i reserve the balance of my

time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from wyoming. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, this bill authorizes the secretary of the interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating the colonel charles young home in xenia, ohio, as the unit of the national park service. the bill also directs the secretary to consider other initiatives for protection of the home and interpretation of the life and accomplishments of colonel young. colonel young was the third african-american to graduate from west point and had a distinguished career in the u.s. army from 1884 to 1922, including command of troops in the spanish-american war. colonel young is also the first black to serve in fact as the superintendent of a national park because he commanded the army unit assigned to protect sequoyah national park and general grant national park.

colonel young served our country with great distinction, and i hope this study will help us find appropriate ways to honor his life. mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i have no additional requests for time and would inquire of the minority whether they have any additional speakers. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, we anticipate that mr. austria of ohio may have a statement on this matter, but he has not yet arrived and i would hope that he would be allowed to speak out of order on a subsequent bill with his statement. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back the balance of her time. the gentlewoman's time has expired gaumgaum -- the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i again urge members to support the bill, and i yield back the balance of my time.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam yields back the balance of her time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4514, as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative -- ms. bordallo: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the rules are suspended and the bill is passed -- for what purpose does the gentlewoman from guam rise? ms. bordallo: i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20 and the chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from guam seek recognition? ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4686 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the

clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 4686, a bill to authorize the secretary of the interior to study the suitability and the feasibility of designating prehistoric, historic and limestone forest sites on rota, commonwealth of the northern mariana islands, as a unit of the national park system. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from guam, ms. bore -- bordallo, and the gentlewoman from wyoming, mrs. lummis, will each control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from gaumgaum mr. speaker, -- guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, h.r. 4686, introduced by congressman sablan, directs the national park service to study the cultural of the forest sites on

rota. they will determine if they're suitable and feasible to the national park system. the n.p.a. has done a preliminary survey of the island and found some wonderful cultural resources and important natural features. the study, authorized by h.r. 4686, will allow for a more complete examination of these resources. and just as importantly, provide for full public participation as the agency considers whether to recommend establishment of a park on rota. mr. speaker, i commend congressman sablan for his diligence in pursuing this matter, and i urge the house to support h.r. 4686, and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from wyoming. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. lummis: thank you, mr. speaker. this bill authorizes the secretary of the interior to

study the suitability and feasibility of designating sites on rota as a unit of the national park system. with now almost 400 parks, our national park system is already vast and under this bill will be extended further to include the island of rota in the commone wealth of -- commonwealth of the northern mariana islands. the caves and relics should be appropriately preserved, and its limestone forests and sites commemorating the japanese occupation properly managed. but it is a mistake to assume that designation as a national park is the only way or is always the best way to manage places that require special administration. although our good intentions adding to the park system are unlimited, our ability to pay for every conceivable new park is limited, and our ability to manage the upkeep of our

existing parks is obviously in doubt. so i feel compelled to raise a note of caution about this and certain other bills that add to the already very long list of new park ideas awaiting evaluation by the national park service. now, mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from ohio, mr. austria. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. austria: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the gentlewoman from ohio for yielding, and i rise in support of h.r. 4686, but also h.r. 4514, the colonel charles young home study act, which the bill was previously passed. just to talk about that bill -- the previous bill, if i may, the bill conducts the secretary of the interior to determine if the home could be designated as a unit of the national park service. the colonel charles young home built in 1859 is a national

historic landmark and has been designated as the future site of the national museum of african-american military history. colonel charles young was a distinguished officer from buffalo, a soldier in the third african-american to graduate from the u.s. military academy at west point. he served in the army for 37 years carrying out a variety of assignments throughout the u.s., philippines, haiti, liberia and mexico. when forced into retirement -- and this is very interesting -- by the army for medical reasons, charles young rode his horse 500 miles from ohio to washington, d.c., to prove he was fit for duty. i can tell you i drove 8 1/2 hours over the weekend that same route. so that's a long way. and after petitioning the secretary of war, young was reinstated and promoted to full colonel, becoming the first african-american to reach his rank by world war ii. in addition to a distinguished military career, colonel young was professor of military

science in xenia, ohio, and named first african-american superintendent. he was made -- has made not only military history but american history and it's necessary that we recognize his achievements by passing this legislation to determine if his home can be determined as a unit of the national park service. i'd like to thank representative clay for his help, also, on this bill. again, i support both these bills and i thank the woman from -- the gentlewoman from wyoming for yielding and i strongly support, again, h.r. 4514. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentlewoman from wyoming. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, we have no further comments on this bill, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming yields back the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i yield to congressman sablan for four minutes.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. sablan: i'd like to thank the distinguished member from guam, chairwoman bordallo, to assist us in managing the bill. i also want to thank chairman grijalva, and his staff for helping bring this bill to the floor and thank nick rahall for moving this bill through the committee. the legislation means a lot to my constituents on rota. without objection, i'd like to add to the record a letter of support for h.r. 4686 from the mayor. . thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, when they first asked me to expose the possibility of a national park on their island, h.r. 4886 did just that. the secretary of interior to determine whether the cultural,

archaeological, historical resources are of national significance. if they are of national significance the bill asks the secretary to report to congress on the feasibility and suitability of designating parts of rota as a unit of our great national park system. as the hearing before chairman grijalva's subcommittee, rota was represented. she described her islands to the subcommittee. she spoke of the ancient and cultural sides of the chamorro people and the village and the quarry where the ancients carved out the massive stones that hold up their houses. she spoke of the caves where they have the drawings. she spoke of the structures from the japanese colonialism in the early 20th century. she spoke of the unique limestone forest, home to rare and endangered bird and plant life, which remains on parts of

rota. another island in the northern mariana islands, volcanic activity, and the impact of modern day humans have largely removed this forest. representatives showed the subcommittee photographs of the faces she was describing. the presentation was so powerful that one of the subcommittee members called rota a jewel. i could not agree more. but this jewel needs protection. as interior department witness at the hearing noted, rota is at a crossroads. the elements is bearing down. just a few miles across the o shun a national buildup of forces is about to commence on guam. that growth is about to spill over to rota as military families look for weekend get aways. the national park study offered the people an opportunity to make some thoughtful decisions about what is truly important to preserve. the process of public input and discussion that will be a smart and the cataloging of natural

and cultural resources will help the people make this determination. and if a park is recommended and one day designated by congress, that clear definition of what most needs to be preserved will also allow development of the rest of rota to proceed with more freedom. it is the goal of rota to be a site for equal tourism. no development there will be conducted in the way to spoil their character of the island. in fact the presence of a national park which underscores the rarity and importance of the archaeological, historic, and natural resources would complement and enhance the tourism destination. it is a win-win. we can spur economic growth, create jobs, and increase protection of significant national treasures. but for any of this requires a study offered in my bill so let us take the first step today and i urge my colleagues to vote in favor of h.r. 4686. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, we have no additional speakers. i again urge the members of congress to support the bill. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from yields back the balance of her time. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4686 as amended. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. without objection, the title is amended. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from guam seek recognition? ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4438, as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 4438, a bill to authorize the secretary of interior to enter into agreement to lease space from a

nonprofit group or other government entity where a park headquarters at san antonio missions national historical park to expand the boundary of the park, to conduct a study of potential land acquisitions, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from guam, ms. bordallo, and the gentlewoman from wyoming, mrs. lummis, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, h.r. 4438 was introduced by representative rodriguez from san antonio, texas. the bill would expand the boundaries of the san antonio missions national historic park and require a study of possible further additions. san antonio missions national historic park was established in 1978 to preserve, restore,

and interpret four spanish missions along the san antonio river. h.r. 4438 would expand the current boundaries of the park to include 151 acres of land that has already been found suitable for addition to the park. the bill also would direct the n.p.s. to study other lands that might be suitable for inclusion in the park boundaries in their and wilson counties. the version before the house today does not include language that would have authorized the park to lease space outside the park for headquarters offices and educational center. we have removed that provision to address pay-go concerns. mr. speaker, representative rodriguez has been an excellent advocate for the many people in his district who hope to see this important and historic park grow and to flourish. i commend his efforts and i

urge the house to support this excellent bill. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam rifes the -- reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from wyoming. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. lummis: thank you, mr. speaker. h.r. 4438 has both fiscal and policy problems. the stated purpose of this bill is to expand the park by an additional 151 acres. the reasons for the expansion are vague, but c.b.o. cost estimates are fairly precise. $4 million. after this another $350,000 that will be spent by the national park service to determine whether it wants even more property. the current level of federal spending is too high to rubber stamp the flood of plans to expand our government's property holdings. our parks are important assets, but i question the wisdom of

going further into debt to continually expand park service holdings while our existing parks face a $9 billion backlog in maintenance and upkeep. i am pleased that the resources committee did include one republican amendment to prohibit takings by condemnation. however, under this bill property owners who have not consented to being included within the expanded boundaries of this park may find themselves spending off the unwanted attention of federal officials pursuing their land. this can be an overwhelming burden and not one with which we should yoke the american people. i'm also concerned that national parks are increasingly being used by litigation pro-environmental activists and some in the national park service to control activities outside the congressionally determined down terrorist of each park. -- boundaries of each park. bumper zones have been used to

interfere with energy projects near and far from national parks. to restrain this particular abuse, republicans offered amendments in the resources committee to prevent the park designation from being misused to prohibit construction and maintenance of power generating facilities. whether coal-fired, wind, or solar. with some people opposed to almost any new power facility, and others opposed only to those near their back yards, this has been an escalating problem. the national parks has participated in killing or delaying affordable and renewable energy projects from coast to coast. unfortunately committee democrats rejected these commonsense amendments on nearly part-line votes and those protections are not in this bill today. unfortunately we are considering this bill under suspension of the rules and we are being denied the opportunity to offer amendments

to salvage this flawed legislation. i urge my colleagues to exercise some fiscal restraint here today, support property rights, and oppose this bill. mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i yield to the gentleman as much time as he may consume, the author of the bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. rodriguez: mr. speaker, madam chairman, i stand here today in support of my legislation, h.r. 4438, a bill to authorize the expansion of the san antonio missions national historic park boundaries and to authorize the boundary study that would identify possible lands for inclusion in the park within bear county. this bipartisan piece of legislation is co-sponsored by all three of my colleagues from san antonio, congressman charlie gonzalez, congressman

lamar smith, and congressman henry cuellar. my colleagues in the senate, senator kay bailey hutchison, has also introduced companion legislation. the san antonio missions is the largest concentration of catholic missions in north america, and served as some of the most well private representations of spanish colonial history. influence and cultural in the southwest. it is on this foundation that the city of san antonio was established and today the nations serve as an important reminder of the connections to the city's rich past. built along the san antonio river in the early 1700's by spanish missionaries, the missions became important social and cultural centers of the time. today, four missions still stand and continue to be active parishes. establishes as a national park in 1978, the national park

service and city of san antonio have worked diligently to restore and preserve the missions and the surrounding river area. after years of generalization, the area along the river is at last being restored to its natural ecosystem. preserving the natural habitat in an urban area is hugely important and has long been a priority of the san antonio community. now that this process is under way, expanding the mission national park is included in this area is vital to create a continuous and seamless part along the river. this legislation will authorize the acquisition of previously identified lands currently owned, and i stress currently owned by the city of san antonio and bear county that are suitable for inclusion in the park. it would also authorize a

boundary study for future areas. this bill will continue the deep tradition of preservation for the parks and river region while also ensuring its future growth. the need to prepare for this growth is clear. just last year alone in 2009 the park had a record breaking year of visitations with over 1.7 million people visiting the park, a 35% increase over 2008 levels. this legislation ensures that future generations will be able to walk along the river and see the city through the eyes of its past inhabitants as they looked upon these historic structures and learned about them, people that settled the region. i urge my colleagues to join me in support of h.r. 4438. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentlewoman from guam reserves. the gentlewoman from wyoming.

mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, i inquire about whether the majority party has additional speakers. ms. bordallo: we have no additional speakers. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming yields back the balance of her time of the the gentlewoman from galm. ms. bordallo: -- from guam. ms. bordallo: , mr. speaker, aid like to recognize myself for one minute, please. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i would note that the gentlelady from wyoming has expressed concerns over the pending measure and the one we considered prior to it which was national park study bill. the next bill we will consider is also a national park study bill and i will be pleased to support it noting that the gentlelady from wyoming is that bill's sponsor. mr. speaker, i again urge

members to support the bill and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back the balance 6 -- of her time. the question is now will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4438 as amended. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended -- the gentlewoman from wyoming. mrs. lummis: on that i ask for the yeas and nays. . the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are ordered. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen , the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20 and the chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from guam seek recognition? ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and

pass h.r. 3989. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 302. h.r. 3989, a bill to authorize the secretary of the interior to conduct a special resource study to determine the suitability and feasibility of adding the heart mountain relocation center, in the state of wyoming, as a unit of the national park system. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from guam, ms. bordallo, and the gentlewoman from wyoming, mrs. lummis, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from gaumgaum -- guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, h.r. 3989 was introduced by congresswoman cynthia aluminum miss in november of 2009 -- cynthia lummis in november of 2009.

this was one of 10 japanese internment camps set up during world war ii when anti-japanese sentiment was running rampant following the attack on pearl harbor. at its peak nearly 11,000 japanese americans who were forced from their communities in california, washington and oregon were detained in heart mountain's tar paper barracks. h.r. 3989 would direct the national park service to conduct a special resource study to determine the national significance of heart mountain and the suitability and feasibility of designating it as a unit of the national park system. mr. speaker, we support the passage of h.r. 3989, and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from wyoming. mrs. lummis: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker,

between 1942 and 1945 heart mountain was one of 10 confinement facilities for japanese americans run by franklin roosevelt's war relocation authority. at its peak, the camp confined nearly 11,000 people, most of whom were united states citizens. this bill would authorize the secretary of the interior to conduct a special resource study to determine the suitability and feasibility of designating the heart mountain relocation center in the state of wyoming as a unit of the national park system. the park, if created, would be on bureau of land management land and on land owned by the wyoming heart mountain foundation. former united states senator allen simpson and former congressman and secretary of commerce and transportation, norman mineta, met as boys when

he was interred at heart mountain. both now serve on the board of the wyoming heart mountain foundation. under their leadership, the foundation is currently building an interpretive center that is scheduled to open next year. if the park is created, the wyoming heart mountain foundation has indicated its willingness to donate its land to the park service. no additional acquisition of private land is contemplated. creation of this park has strong local support in park county, wyoming, and as the author of the bill, i urge my colleagues to join me in voting for it. and, mr. speaker, though the gentlelady from guam raises an excellent point about the fact that i have questioned the propriety during these tough economic times of purchasing land in the previous bill, h.r.

4686, that is a proposal for the national park service to purchase land, and authorizing $4 million to do so. whereas, the heart mountain proposal is to donate the land if the national park service chooses to accept it and recommend it as a unit of the national park service. that being the difference in the bills, mr. speaker, i yield back -- excuse me -- i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i have no additional requests of time and i would inquire of the minority whether they have any additional speakers. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, the minority does not have additional speakers. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming yields

back the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, we do not have additional speakers, and i ask members to support the bill and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from yields back the balance of her time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3989. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from guam seek recognition? ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4773. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 303. h.r. 4773, a bill to authorize the secretary of the interior to lease certain lands within fort pulaski national monument, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the

gentlewoman from guam, ms. bordallo, and the gentlewoman from wyoming, mrs. lummis, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, h.r. 4773, introduced by representative jack kingston of georgia, would allow the national park service to lease a small facility at fort pulaski national monument to the savannah bar pilots association. the pilots perform a vital public service, keeping the savannah river and the harbor safe, and they have used this facility at fort pulaski for more than 40 years under a special use permit. h.r. 4773 would regular lies that arrangement under -- regularize that arrangement

under a lease. mr. speaker, we support h.r. 4773, and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from wyoming. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. lummis: thank you, mr. speaker. h.r. 4773 would allow the savannah bar pilots association to continue leasing a facility at fort pulaski national monument as they have done since the 1940's. the national park service supports this legislation, and we are pleased that this is one piece of legislation that will not place additional burdens on american taxpayers. i urge my colleagues to support the legislation. mr. speaker, also, at this time, i ask unanimous consent to insert in the record a statement from the author of the bill, mr. kingston. he is traveling back to d.c. from his district and will be unable to participate in this debate.

mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the request will be covered by general leave. the gentlewoman reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i have no additional requests for time and i would inquire of the minority whether they have additional speakers. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, we have no additional speakers, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming yields back the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i again urge all members to support the bill, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam yields back the balance of her time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4773. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative -- ms. bordallo: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: on that i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted.

a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. and pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20 and the chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from guam seek recognition? ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and concur in the senate amendment to h.r. 689. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 689, an act to interchange the administrative jurisdiction of certain federal lands between the forest service and the bureau of land management and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from guam, ms. bordallo, and the gentlewoman from wyoming, mrs. lummis, each will control 20 minutes. the chair would now recognize the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, h.r. 689 was introduced by our colleague from california, representative herger. the bill authorizes an interchange of land between the forest service and the bureau of land management. the specific lands are located within the shasta-trinity national forest, and on adjacent public lands in northern california. the purpose of the interchange is to ease problems that offhighway vehicle users are having with permitting. the administration supports this legislation. h.r. 689 originally passed the house by voice vote on june 2, 2009. the senate has amended the house-passed version of the bill to clarify the hazardous substance cleanup responsibilities of each agency. so, mr. speaker, we support passage of this measure with the senate amendment, and i reserve the balance of my time.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from wyoming. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming is recognized. mrs. lummis: thank you, mr. speaker. i want to commend congressman herger for his excellent work on this legislation. working closely with many constituents who enjoy outdoor recreation, congressman herger developed this bill allowing forest service and bureau of land management officials to better manage a complex mix of administrative jurisdictions in shasta county. this legislation will not only help both agencies will you will also greatly benefit the many families who enjoy wholesome outdoor recreation in the area, especially the many offhighway vehicle users who have been using this area for generations. not surprisingly, the bill has widespread support among the local hoba users. it's a local feat to have two separate federal agencies and

the public all agreeing that a particular piece of legislation is worthy of praise. congressman herger should be congratulated for this win-win legislation. mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i have no additional requests of time and i would inquire of the minority if they have any additional speakers. mrs. lummis: mr. speaker, i, too, have no additional speakers, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming yields back the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i, again, urge members to support the bill, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam yields back the balance of her time. the question is now will the house suspend the rules and concur in the senate amendment to h.r. 689. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the senate amendment is agreed to and without

objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from guam seek recognition? ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4973 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 4973, a bill to amend the fish and wildlife act of 1956 to re-authorize volunteer programs and community partnerships for national wildlife refuges and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from guam, ms. bordallo, and the gentlewoman from wyoming, mrs. lummis, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. bordallo: mr. speaker, h.r. 4973, the national wildlife

refuge volunteer improvement act, was introduced by our colleague from maryland, representative frank kratovil. the national wildlife refuge system encompasses a national network of public lands and waters set aside to conserve habitat and protect natural resources and consequently plays an integral role in our national network of federal public lands. during these difficult economic time the government has looked for efficient and practical solutions to lower costs while maintaining critical refuse system services. the national wildlife refuge volunteer program serve this is purpose. last year, volunteers contributed to more than 1.5 million hours of support, the equivalent of nearly 750 full-time employees. this is better than $7 returned on each $1 invested.

the pending measure would make the volunteer program permanent, establish a volunteer coordination strategy and form alingize a reporting schedule to asewer -- assure oversight and compatibility. i ask members on both sides to support passage of this bill and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam reserves the blabs of her thisme gentlewoman from woim. mrs. lummis: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. lummis: while individuals have been volunteering their time and talents to the national wildlife refuge system for nearly 30 years, the value of their work has significantly increased from $1.1 million to $30.3 million. volunteers now perform about 30% of the work done on refuges

and for each refuge employee there are nine volunteers. without these dedicated men and women, many offices would be open less frequently, fewer opportunities would be available, many hunting programs would not occur and important fish and wildlife population surveys would not be completed. mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming reserves the balance of her time. the yom from guam. ms. bordallo: i have no additional requests for time and would inquire of the minority whether they have further speakers. mrs. lummis: i have no further speakers and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming yields back the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: i urge members to support the bill and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4973 as amended? those in favor say aye. those opposed, no.

in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from guam seek recognition? ms. bordallo: i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 2864 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 305, h.r. 2864 a bill to amend the hydrographic services improvement act of 1998 to authorize funds to acquire hydrographic data and provide hydrographic services specific to the arctic for safe navigation, delineating the united states extended continental shelf and the monitoring and description of coastal changes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from guam, ms. bordallo and the gentlewoman from wyoming, mrs. lummis, each

will control 20 minutes. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. bordallo: recent findings show the arctic ice is shrinking with smaller amounts of summer sea ice cover. consequently, more open water space in the arctic ocean will be available for ship travel which will present a changed landscape for international marine commerce and national security interests and greater accessibility to natural resources. these activities are likely to create substantial new demands on the national oceanic and atmospheric administration to provide hydrographic data and hydrographic services in the near term. i sport this noncontroversial legislation to amend the hydrographic services

imprufplgte act to givenoaa special authorization to conduct hydrographic surveys and provide other hydrographic services in the arctic. i urge members on both sides to do likewise. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam reserves the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from wyoming. mrs. lummis: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. lummis: h.r. 2864 would authorize hydrographic surveys in the arctic region, an area which lacks up to date survey day tafment the last major survey in the arctic occurred more than 60 years ago after world war ii. since the majority of u.s. foreign trade by weight moves by sea and the arctic has the potential to become a viable shipping corridor, it is essentialy we support these surveys to help create accurate

nautical charts. i compliment the author of this measure, congressman don young, for his leadership this bill has been scored by the c.b.o. as having no covepls i urge support of the bill and i yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from ske, mr. young. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. young: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: wok. mr. young: just yesterday, the "skea dispatch" -- the alaska dispatch" had an article about increased navigation. the polar ice breaker will be out of service until next year and the polar star ice breaker won't be available until 2013. as a result, there are no ice breakers to come to the aid of anyone in need. my bill would amend this act to

authorize much needed funds for hydrographic surveys. sadly, we still need many charts and surveys for are regions in the country. it is my understanding they last major hide roe survey campaign in the arctic was fol woelowing world war ii, 60 years ago. currently data is inadequate and unable to support current let alone future works. this is an effort to move this process toward by dwecting noaa to provide hydrographic services to the arctic region. skea is the only arctic zsh alaska is the only arctic state in the nation making this bill critical for my state and

people. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentlewoman from wyoming. mrs. lummis: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: i have no additional requests for time and would inquire of the minority whether they have additional speakers? mrs. lummis: i do not, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wyoming yields back the balance of her time. the gentlewoman from guam. ms. bordallo: i wish to take this time to congratulate my colleague, mr. young, for his work on this legislation. also, i've -- i would like to thank the gentlelady from wyoming, i enjoyed managing the bill this is afternoon with you. and mr. speaker, i urge members to support the bills and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from guam yields back member the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 2864 as amended? those in favor say aye.

those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended -- for what purpose -- ms. bordallo: i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20 and the chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this mollings will be postponed. -- on this motion will be postponed. pure sunt to clause 12a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in

what happens is that the numbers of people in need of

services have dramatically increased. the state has attempted to have some social workers and others working in the area, but it's not to the extent it's needed. the plan was to do a group of 10 people that would actually work from -- work the entire area. they are still hiring those people. they have one person on grand island itself working with the people hired by the state. catholic charities actually has some funds to provide counseling but has not done this because of the fact that the other, the state agency was going to provide counseling services. there is a tremendous need. we see people coming in to the center on grand isle, you know, on a daily basis. a man walked in just last week and tears in his eyes and asked for food for his family and he

just was so overwhelm and distraught -- distraught and began to cry. he said, i need to see a counselor and i need to see her right away. the worker was stunned and said, wait, we'll get one for you. she called and the person said i can't see him until this afternoon but i will see him in this afternoon. so he left the building, he came back twice, crying and saying, i need to see somebody right away. and she had to send him away. that was frightening because you and i know that anything could have happened to that man. my concern is how many people are not even coming in. it's just so overwhelming, when you see your whole life, you know, disappearing in front of you and you can't feed your family and you don't know when the next shoe is going to fall, how can you do anything but be despaired?

>> we have the added problem of not having any bilingual workers anywhere. we had a mental health meeting about a week ago, we had a gentleman from the national headquarters who came down who was in the mental health field and he held a meeting and explained to people about the dangers and all of that. we are at this moment partnering with people in mississippi and i understand the surgeon general, dr. benjamin is come do you think to meet with us on this very issue. it is a stigma for general populations for the southeast asian population, it is a thousand-fold. we are hardly ever told we have to find out through other people. we have to sort of assume and take steps before that. our organization has formed -- has a protocol we use where it's a peer group, people speak

to each other. we are trying to get fund so that we can implement that in all the communities. it's very, very difficult. it's not something you have to use a translator for. people don't want to speak to a counselor through a translator and let them know their business. it's a really big issue. no one has addressed this but the whole sense of family is changing because you have to understand, fishermen go out for periods of time and they are not in the home and the women are usually the ones who work in the processing plants or oyster shuckers. now the husband is home all the time and the wife is home all the time because no one is working and the children are off from school so we want to implement programs, for example, in one of our offices we want to do a program where we teach children how to use computers. if we have a program for children we can partner and get food and nutrition as if we were a school for the summer

program so we can at least feed the children. we try to give out food, that takes off a little bit of stress. we have to anticipate where the stress is going to be we can't ask people, are you ok? but we do find people are coming in all the time just to hang around because they need to get out of the house and so those are signs that we know are what people are doing just to make sure that they don't get out of control. >> i have a question about the experience that you described of having people come into your community who are strangers, who drive through your yards, raise the shoplifting problem, who makes the decision to assign such people to your community? is there no one in authority in your community who had to acquiesce in their arrival? >> well the community i was speaking of that this is happening in is grand isle. you've heard the mayor speak

this morning. but what was happening is they would come into the community for work and you know, it's an hour to the next town. so they'd come into town and apply for work and be told, come back and do the training in two days and then you can go to work. so people would get there, have no place to stay and they would become homeless. and that was an example of the person i said was sleeping and many of the people sleeping in the camps. the one whors coming in who are working are being brought in by other providers of services. they'll be staying in camps. so when we say the population has doubled, there are twice as many people on the island as there usually is, and these people are possibly either waiting for work or looking for work and they're not the same people that would normally be there that would be tourists.

>> but i understand those are $12 an hour jobs. >> i'm not sure. >> that's what i've been told. if that's the case, what prevents your people from going to the point of the training center, signing up for it and taking responsibility for their own community? and to whom do they apply? who makes the decision to give them training? >> i didn't understand the question. the people that live on the island? >> i was thinking about the people that are without work whom you say see in your community, do they -- were they to go to the training center and apply for training, could they have some priority to work in their own community? >> yes. >> and secondly, would they -- they would get the training presumably and then be dispatched there but to whom would they be applying? the coast guard? >> to no, there are different contractors in the community center there on grand island

and other community centers throughout the parishes where people go in and apply for jobs, it's contractors with b.p. and also the state has people that will take applications for jobs. with the opportunities program, those are the people you heard us talk about who don't have a job or don't go for jobs, they've applied and been found eligible but there's more people that need work than there is work. so the people that are not having work, from the community, are the ones that are home with no pay. the ones that are homeless in the community are people who have come from away, from other states, they follow the work. they hear there's work and they come. and then they don't get work. >> i see. and the contractor, typically are they local contractors? >> i'm not sure. >> can i just add, a lot of the reason why people are not working is because initially a

lot of people with recreational boats were hired and so -- and sometimes two and three boats and five boats and they're getting paid $3,000 a day. making $105 a week. then someone with a shrimping boat is not getting called. also, previously in order to get called, you had to get training. some people went to several different trainings. now you can't go to training unless you have an m.o.b. number, you have to be on a list with b.p.. and b.p. realized a lot of it is recreational and they've promised to turn it around and make 10% recreational and 90% people who really need the jobs and who actually are not working because of the oil spill. not people who bought a boat and came in from another state and get hired because their best friend is on some

committee. >> the reason they're choosing people who have recreational boats are because the boats are more suitable for skimming or what? >> now they say they're going to keep 10% in case they need flass-flat bottomed boats to go in the marshes, but we have boats like that, oyster boats can do that as well. in the beginning, there was no anything. people -- you cannot believe how many people with recreational boats have huge contracts and have made so much money right now. >> my impression is that in alaska, the exxon valdez, those jobs were given to the fishing cooperative. maybe there weren't so many recreational boaters in prince william sound but that's a difference. i don't recall complaints, in fact, i recall the fishermen thought they were well taken care of even though they couldn't fish. >> this complaint has been throughout the gulf coast, that the people have not been called and a lot of -- the vietnamese people either they didn't understand all the training

which is frightening me because they'll go to train, it's not translated and they get a a certificate and now they're going out and they have no idea what to look for or what the hazards are. >> i was going to say, to be fair, there are different sized boats needed for different jobs, so when the contractors are looking for certain types of boats, they have that information and that's who they're trying to call. but there are -- when you talk about a boat and you talk about a captain of the boat, there's also the deck hands of the boat, the different people that were involved in the labor before that may not be included in the jobs to go out. >> mr. ray, you were not involved in the decision, i take it, with respect to disburseance, right? >> no. >> but there was a phrase you out everyday scientists in positions of great stress and uveragetcy are sometimes

temperatured to make decisions they were not usually make. were you referring to the decision to use disperse isn't as? >> i was -- dispersants? >> i was referring to the people in the industry. i feel they're the most able to make those decisions with day-to-day data they get and collect. my other comments were perhaps maybe -- i was trying to be a little bit kinder. i'm going to be a little more blunt. i'm incredibly frustrated by some of my colleagues making statements that are not fair or accurate to the point that it is socially disripting people. so when i hear scientists say that the gulf is not going to recover for four decades, i can just about full my hair out because there is no data to substantiate that. we're not only doing science a

misjustice, we're misinforming many, many people whose lives rely on it. i would like to see a little more prunes and in the case of sometimes there's stress, and sometimes, i speak to thes preoften and the press want an action and they'll push you for a number, how many more years and we just don't know how many more years a certain fish will respond. >> were you troubled by the volume of dispersants used initially? >> no, i'm not troubled by the volume that's been used overall. i am curious to see why and how the decision making was for subsurface thresm release of them on the surface, this is part of training. there are whole textbooks on oil spill dispersants on the surface. the knowledge base is there no re-- to release them at the wellhead, at the blowout is new.

i'm more curious about how that decision is being made and is continuing to be made and what data is used to make that decision. i am curious to see that. >> professor overton, do you have a view on dispersants generalry or in this instance? >> there are basically three tools in the toolbox to get oil off the water. you can use chemical means, dispersants, mechanically get it up, skimming, or you can burn it. if i were doing it, i would use mechanical means to get as much oil as possible, problem is oil when it gets to the surface starts spreading out and you can't skim oil that's not real thick system of what i would like to have seen is fairly quickly and early on bring in significant skimming capability , assets to find where the tick oil was and guide the skimmers, what you can't skim, once you do it right and by that i mean

manage your skimming capability, then use dispersants. unfortunately, we were initially led to believe we were dealing with 1,000 barrels a day, then 5,000. i think the consensus was that was a manageable volume that could be dispersed. when we finally realized we were talk 50g,000 to 60,000 barrels a day, that probably is beyond what is reasonable in just using dispersants. so now there's a greater effort on skimming. i would like to have seen it happened the other way. that's hindsight and we're not monday morning quarterbacks, but those are the three options you've got to clean it off and frankly if you can skim it, you can recycle that oil, recycling is good. once its dispersed it goes to the water column, it's converted to co-2. if you can burn it, it concerts to it co-2. if you put in it a tanker, you

can recycle it. i would skim and skim with everything i have, get ocean skimmers, manage them with aerial assets. what i couldn't skim offshore, i would try to disperse and have a fleet of skimmers near shore, oil that gets in there, it's not coming in in a big black tide, it's globs. get in there, get those globs so that it doesn't get on the shoreline. >> thank you. >> about a month ago, i guess, b.p. announced it was creating a $500 million science research program and has an independent committee to assess that. are either of you, professor overton or professor reddy, familiar with that? does it put in place the long-term ecological research you are talking about orre a

there other programs being developed to design that that you're aware of that would put in place a long-term monitoring program? >> i think it's not in place yet, is my understanding, of course b.p. has given the various states $25 million, $10 million to florida, $10 million to the northern gulf alliance and $5 million to l.s.u. and they are talking about a long-term, 10-year, $500 million research. i do not think the management of that system is in place. at least, certainly i haven't heard about it, how it's going to be controlled that is a very active area of speculation by everybody in the country, as you can imagine. but that kind of focused research represents a focused effort. i hope it's done, i hope it's focused on the communities impacted by this. the scientific communities throughout the gulf coast need to take the leading role in that and we need to take

experience, one of them is here, but i hope the focus is along the gulf coast, sea lab and the various labs in mississippi and in florida. >> do you think the government also has a role in that, that there's a parallel role for noaa, e.p.a., others to ensure that that kind of long-term monitoring takes place? >> noaa of course is doing the natural resources damage assessment and spending a lot of time and effort getting baseline samples pyre to the oil getting in and understanding it. that's generally a long-term effort. i think what scriss is referring to, there are other opportunities. we have massive amounts of oil being dispersed subsurface. what's going to happen to that? we don't know. next time there's a spill have we missed the opportunity to understand, was that good or was that bad? it wasn't good.

but the question is, how bad is it. is it horrible or is it just not very good? those are the options. if it's horrible, we shouldn't do it again. if we can tolerate the damage, then perhaps we can. we need the rerge in place. this is a good example to take advantage of the opportunity collect the samples of what -- of it while the spill is occurring. if they shut the oil off today or tomorrow that opportunity is gone. >> thank you very much. to sharon, clearly your organization is being stretched as everyone who testified to us in the last couple of days. do you have the resources to add additional capacity to provide the kind of services you're describing to the communities you serve? is your experience similar to the experiences of other social service organizations across the gulf that are protrying to provide those services?

do you know? >> when she talked about the fact that the nonprofit organizations are the first ones on the ground what we've found is that we're not being funded, foundations who would normally fund us are -- their donors are saying, b.p. is responsible for this so b.p. should be paying for it. their funding has gone down, so our funding has been going down. my staff has been at 1/3 less pay and we're working overtime to address the needs of the people. all the nonprofits we work with are in the same position. they don't have the fund, they're doing the work because they feel like it's necessary. but we know that if all the government people down here were told that you're not getting paid, i don't think anybody would be here. so it's really rough and we're -- we've been putting that argument out continuously that the nonprofits need to be paid for their services, like she said, we're bringing, no matter

who comes down, we're taking them, touring them, explaining and it's because we need the exposure we need people to understand what's happening so we can get help from people. we continue do this and continue to do it but we're not getting the funding we need. >> thank you. >> i have to echo that. we are sort of in an awkward position. we can't not help the people but we don't have funding to help people and there's no source. we are all 501c3. we go for grants. there's no place giving funding for this. i'm going to say what i usually say to people we would love to get funding from, we've done so much with so little for so long, we could do almost anything with nothing but think of what we can do if we have something. so please fund us. [laughter] >> we're all stretched too thin and it's not just a 9:00 to

5:00 thing, people are meeting at night, people are meeting on saturdays, people are meeting on sundays and you'll never find a more dedicated group of individuals than the people who work for the nonprofits on the gulf coast. we've worked on katrina, partnered with each other to get people to get local jobs to put them back to work. we really would love to complete this and to do it in a better way and if you can find any way we can get that funding, we would really appreciate it. >> thank you. she mentioned the gulf coast act, a bill we were trying to pass through congress last year, it's now in this year's, it's been appropriated -- no, i don't know the right word. it's one of the bills that's out there and right now we're trying to see if the president will do a declaration, the bill itself is mentioned in the pages that i gave you in my speech but -- what it can do.

it's something that the nonprofits all along the coast have been promoting and several of our congressmen have signed on to the bill. >> thank you. >> don and then jerry. >> we're fortunate to have two very distinguished environmental chemists with us on this panel, dr. overton and dr. reddy. i wonder if you could help us understand, expertise and experiences on this panel, something more about dispersants, what kinds of compounds are in them, whether -- how rapidly they biodegrade, what is the potential that they're bioaccumulated are they carcinogenic, those sorts of issues. we have knowledge about the

composition of those material what can we say that might help us appropriately and objectively judge the fear and risk people have? >> the 9500-a, the current composition. dispersants were initially very toxic to the environment and they've gotten successfully less benign with more research and development. they've evolved from a very dangerous material to be used in an environmental insult like an oil spill to a pretty good tool to help solve an environmental problem. now i've got analyst from nalco, i assume it's correct, but in the current version of it, there are six different components, all of them are either licensed by the f.d.a. for use in food or food products or in food packaging. for example, if you start looking at it, there's a

solvent that helps the sur fact tants -- the surfactants mixed in with it, those are basically lighter fluid you would use on a charcoal grill. there are other ingredients used in toothpaste and other products that allow the molecules to dissolve into the nonpolar oil. the oil is nonpolar and water is polar system of you're fooling mother nature to get the oil -- oil wants to stick together. you've got to fool it and make it break apamplet it's a series of compounds that does that. it typically does that at a concentration 1/10 the amount of oil. the normal dispersant used is one part dispersant into 10 parts oil or 20 parts, something like that. all those are biodegradable,

none of them are bioaccumulated which means if they don't accumulate they won't biomagny fie. they are all degradable. that's not necessarily the case with previous versions. i know that one of the earlier versions had a compound in it that was a suspected human carcinogen, that's been removed. will we find something wrong with the current version? there will be undoubtedly a lot of testing, it's entirely possible that some of the components in there now, let's do all the testing we did before and find it might be toxic to certain parts of the environment. we don't know. but as of today, i think it has passed a great number of tests because it's been affected over the last 40 years. >> i tend to agree. the science has evolved so that

the natural resource council has published books on the dispersants and most of the dispersants highlighted in this book are very close to it. i agree with everything professor overton said. one thing about biodegradeability, and this is often said about oil as well, it's kind of -- you have to put in what context. people will say a couch can biodegrade, but it just means it can. it doesn't mean how fast it will happen. so they do biodegrade. it may take some time. but they won't bioaccumulate. the key is not the dispersants themselves but the dispersed oil. what does dispersant plus oil make and what is its impact and effects. the dispersant alone at 1/10

the load is not ideal but i think is necessary. it is a relatively benign solution when you look at it, the components that were released a month ago. >> one more brief question. this is -- i don't know if either of you were here earlier, the presentation made by assistant administrator stanislaus from e.p. heamplet reviewed for us the steps take tone valuate the efficacy of the subsurface application and whether it really worked and also the tox toxisity testing they had done. further, the monitoring efforts to look at both the concentrations of the dispersant as well as the tox i isity using the toxicity -- the toxicity test. is this information freely available to scientists like yourselves that you can

evaluate? >> it may be. there is so much out there i don't have a chance to find everything. most of this is acute toxicity, 24, 48, 96-hour tests. we're not considering chronic tests which are much longer, months, even longer. there are tests being done, they may be pointing to acute toxicity -- >> isn't that the exposure, acute? it dissipates, sflithe >> chronic and acute don't always go hand in hand. you might have a chronic effect from someres. dye due from a dispersant or dispersed oil that may not be acute at the time. what i'm saying is, there are more tests available than just acute testing. >> i understand. >> there can be a chronic problem. >> we know so little about the ecology of deep oceans, certainly the dispersant was not tested with deep ocean

organisms at all. we don't have them. we can't go into a lab. so what's happening is surmised from what happens up closer to the surface and the numbers of organisms. if i could add one more point, over the years, offshore oil production has generated billions, hundreds of billions of dollars every year in revenue. and we have not taken any of that money to try to understand what's going on in the deep oceans and look at with how we could do that none. zero. virtually zero. m.m.s. does a little bit. but this is a perfect example. had we diverted just a modicum of those revenues from the production of offshore oil in the gull of mexico to look at research, we wouldn't be here. we might know some of these questions. we didn't do it. floip to get back on track in producing the energy our country is using an needs, not just energy but the source for all the plastics and petroleum

hydrocarbons that make our everyday life, we are going to have to understand the impacts of these oils and one source of revenue that has not been used and could be used is those offshore oil revenues. >> thank you. jerry. >> dr. reddj and -- dr. reddy and dr. overton, do you feel we have an adequate baseline, not just the impact of using dispersants in the deep ocean, but an adequate baseline of that environment around this well at 5,000-feet plus, in order to say what's being impacted? >> i don't know. the problem is we don't live in a "c.s.i." television drama show in which the data comes out in eight seconds.

unfortunately, the public expects day to to come back instantaneously with absolute certainty. there will be samples collected in and around the well where the blowout is and in concert with perhaps bottom water velocities so we know which way the water is flowing in that direction and we would want to collect stamples -- samples in that direction, to say, this is where the water is holding -- water is flowing, and this is what it looks like and then look at what it looks like upstream. that would be an important experiment that needs to be done and needs to be done frequently. in order for you to build a three dimensional image of what happens at such depths. >> i think dr. overton was answering this question a moment ago, do we have adequate research on the deep ocean? and the answer, you're saying, is no. >> absolutely. and it's in the just the

chemistry down there we don't know about the microorganisms, right now we're trying to monitor for dispersant use by collecting water samples to see if there's oil in it or if the oxygen level has been depleted. what about, are there adequate -- the answer is, yes, we've got thousands of gallons, barrels of oil every year going to the gulf. two exxon valdezes. so there are communities down in the deep watter that degrade it. but most of the oil stays right near where the oil is coming out, other than the gas that bubbles up. but this is coming out into the water, being moved by the currents and is getting over a large area. we really don't know. >> thank you. you said that corruption is everywhere. do you feel comfortable

elaborating on that? have these instances been reported to the authorities? are they taking it seriously? and i'd like to hear from ms. cote as well. >> i don't think they're being reported. people have come to us to find ways to report it. we met with the department of labor, the corruption in that sense, where someone is hired to go out for b.p. they get a certain amount of money and they're supposed to pay their deck hands $200 a day, someone called me last week, would not give me his name to tell me that someone in his family was a deckhand, she was -- she had received $425 for two weeks' work. she was told now that it was supposed to become $300 a day but it wouldn't happen until august. now whoever the person is who is captain on that boat getting that money he knows she's supposed to be getting that daily, $200 a kay, and she's

not. we have other reports of people who have been heads of associations and have convinced these independent or whoever, we don't know all the details, where they -- where the people who picked who went out in the oyster boats or whatever that were supposed to get $1,200 a day. people received only $600 a day or $800 a day. then there's all kinds of corruption with what's happening on who is being picked, on who -- i call it corruption because it doesn't seem to be what it's supposed to be and it's going on everywhere from the attorneys who have come down and used the interpreters, they're with someone who, i think it was two weeks after, said they worked with our organization and people got together thinking we were holding a meeting and an attorney came in from florida and tried to sign up as many people as possible and so those kinds of things, what's

happening as attorneys are signing people up who are not, attorneys who do tort clients and they approach other attorneys who do and give them a box full of compliants and say, i want this percentage, here's a lot of compliants for -- clients for you. it's running the gamut for everything. you find people who are out there on their boats who have never had their commercial fishing license. now, in alabama, it's going differently, because the mayor is contracting with b.p. oto have an independent person. he's called a committee and they've put prerequisites. but other people say it shouldn't be that way. people are complaining nall three states about all of it. i think the bottom line is whether it's definitive that whether we give you names and instances, it's happening enough that people are

who did what to come kind of thing. >> thank you. >> we are going to start the public comments at 3:00. there will be a brief period of setting up for that. so when the answers to this question are completed, we thank you very much for your very important contributions. >> i have a question about human health and it relates specifically to oil spill workers. there were certainly reports of human health problems associated with the exxon valdez cleanup, workers experiencing red rash and also respiratory problems. they ended up calling it the valdez crud. but it was, you know, a serious problem and i have heard a

little bit of reporting of that here. you have the added challenge of cleaning up in extremely hot temperatures. so i'm just curious, how much reporting are you hearing and do you, particularly those of you working in the community and hearing from a lot of folks, do you feel b.p., coast guard, etc. are being responsive to the concerns you do hear? >> i would like for her to answer as well, i know she's probably heard a lot. we have the problem of communication. people don't understand who to talk to. the question earlier was, have you reported it, or who do you report it to? there's a mot lott of miscommunication and people don't know who to believe or where to go with comments or concerns. they're also afraid if you tell something about what happened then you won't be able to get your check any longer if you're getting a check.

some of those situations. i really can't answer the question, but i am concerned about the health of even the people on the ground. i know it's supposed to be the people that are working, that you're asking about. but when i go to grand aisle and a -- grand isle and i'm there for a week, i've asked the e.p.a. about it, because myself and some other workers there, we come down withs preprier to problems, i've even had nose bloods and it clears up when we go back home. so we know that there is something to be concerned about, but i don't go on the beach or go by the oil. i'm not within where the oil is that this should be happening to me. so the family there is are also concerned about what are the effects and what can be the long-term effects, but i'm not familiar with what happening to them. i've heard some of the same things expressed bier earlier

but it's all thirdhand. >> can i make a quick comment on that? the -- in exxon valdez you know. this oil is weathered so the known toxins are are gone by the time it gets on shore. the exxon valdez, they used pretty rigorous steam cleaning methods, so there was a lot of air sol and if you weren't wearing respiratory problems. you either breathe it, eat it, or determinal exposure. we're talking about compounds we don't know a lot about of the semivolatiles, almost all testing relates to the benzenes, the known things osha looks for with human health. in an oil spill, you have different compounds, particularly the aromatic compounds are not apparent. so very little is known about

those toxicities and the other is we have a -- we have to get a route of exposure. you're not going to see benzene. it's gone. it was in the oil. it isn't there anymore system of what are these people really being exposed to and if anything, if -- you can smell the oil, it has an odor. most of that is high molecular weight sulfur compounds our noses are sensitive to. are they toxic? don't know. we haven't done testing on those high mo elect rar weight compounds. almost everything has been on the readily volatile chemicals. >> we have a situation where people who are no longer working also have no health insurance. a lot of people are not going to doctors. every week, i get on two phone calls every friday, one with osha and one with the white house call and they are assurings they do testing on

the ground and the air but people who are out on the water. they say the majority of the illnesses they are seeing are heat related. so that's why people work 10 minutes on, 20 minutes off, whatever that might be. we also feel that the one thing no one had brought up here, except this gentleman with the scientific is is we need long-term plans. we need quick fixes right now but we really feel that there has to be a long-term plan for the gulf. not after what happened to katrina where we still have people who if we gave them anything it would be an increase. we need a plan to put people back to work, back to ways of life. and then also especially in the health field. not that, ok this didn't happen now but six months from now, maybe it will. and we don't know what we're breathing, as dr. overton said. we hear rumors about people

getting sick out on the boats, but then there's no followup on that. we're not being given that information. i wish we were. but from what we are getting on the calls, it all seems to be heat related. >> again, thank you very much. we are anxious to don't stay in touch with you as we develop additional questions and if you have any questions you'd like to ask of us, you will receive a point of contact and we hope that today's first encounter will become an ongoing dialogue as we deepen our understanding of these issues that you have opened for us today. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> the next itonal the agenda will be the public comment period, which is an important part of the agenda here. if we could ask everyone who has signed up who is registered to speak in the public comment period to line up here on the right side of the room. we're going to have the public comments from the table. there'll be a staff member who will send you down to the table, three at a time. if we could get everyone to line up on the right side of the room and we'll be ready to start in five minutes.

>> as we continue live coverage from the hilton hotel in new orleans, the national commission on the b.p. deepwater horizon oil spill continuing their public meeting, investigating the spill. this is the second day of testimony, taking a short five-minute break. while they're doing that, we'll look at a meeting in biloxi, mississippi, on using local workers in the gulf coast cleanup. after that, we'll come back to a panel on public comment. >> i and some of my colleagues in the worker -- forkwork investment agency, and our colleagues are basically here to work with community-based organizations, elected officials and the citizens here

to try to help do what we can to facilitate people getting jobs here. people getting safe jobs, good jobs. and ensuring we're thinking about the next step. part of what i do is try to get contractors to hire people in a nondiscriminatory way, we can go in and awe dilt and enforce, but what i'm hearing is that we've got to get local people hired angott to get jobs, that's what we're trying to do working with elected officials to see how we can make that happen and kind of get out of a little bit out of the enforcement mode and get into the resolution mode. >> we work with several contractors. have an obligation to pay for their jobs. and that is one way to ensure that local people get jobs and apparently that's not happening. they are -- a lot of people who are not local people are

getting jobs that other people need. and there are a lot of recreational benefits, we understand. out-of-state tax. doing some work that the local people need. >> one of the things that we're concerned about and we appreciate all the contractors coming in on the first day and the second day helping out, but now we're 80-something days into it and we want mississippiians working in those jobs. >> we work with several

contractors. have an obligation to pay for their jobs. and that is one way to ensure that local people get jobs and apparently that's not happening. they are -- a lot of people who are not local people are getting jobs that other people need. and there are a lot of recreational benefits, we understand. out-of-state tax. doing some work that the local people need. >> one of the things that we're concerned about and we appreciate all the contractors coming in on the first day and the second day helping out, but now we're 80-something days into it and we want mississippiians working in those jobs. when jobs that's a problem. >> i am with the mississippi department of security and i oversea the one-stop career cities which covers 24 counties and i actually oversea all the oil spill jobs, the cleanup, so i'm the person that is the point of contact. >> with the process first started, very fragmented. you had employers coming in, trying to come in through the back door, so to speak. now we have a process where an employer wants to post a job with us stayswide, he contacts me, i contact my representative with b.p. and verify they are a legitimate b.p. subcontractor. >> to date we've referred over 4,000 people to jobs and we just got the hiring of this and working through our hiring list right now which is over 3,200 people on that hiring list. so we're working that list

right now to see which ones came through the one-stop career centers here on the coast. so within the nerks couple of weeks we'll have a more definitive number of how many people we actually placed in jobs. >> it ranges anywhere from $10 to $18 an hour. the majority of it is for oil spill cleanup, going out to the beaches and looking for oil and cleaning oil. >> have you come to any conclusion about what the next -- >> you know, we very much are waiting for the state to kind of make those decisions. washington is not here in the state of louisiana and mississippi, what's the next step? i think it's sometimes painful. painful things going on here. the cultural, the history are really being affected by all this. the much bigger question is one we have to keep our eye on.

just to know that we got to move forward. >> and now back to live coverage of the deepwater horizon oil spill investigation , the committee returning from a short break now. up next, an hour of public comment to be followed by closing remarks. this is live coverage. >> and this is during the economic crisis of 2008-2009. i want to personally thank each member of the commission. like it or not, this is therefore incumbent upon our commission to remember that the commercial aviation industry did not have to wait on the findings of the 9/11 commission to be published before flights resumed.

we were back in the air in just over four days. i want to encourage the commission to seek the minds of the industry who are here on the gulf coast of the united states of america. they are proud of the job they are doing. it should not be overlooked as an asset. i'm inviting all y'all, y'all's staff to visit a.p.t.'s site, drilling rigs a firsthand view. i want to close by adding my heart felt condolences to the families of the deceased. i broke out in this industry about 30 years ago on offshore rig. so this incident and our response to it truly resonates with me thank you very much for your attention. >> thank you for your statement. >> my name is roy adams out of larose, louisiana. we offer tug boats here in the

gulf. the recent daster is a major concern to us all. we as an industry understand how failing to follow specific plans compound about oversite resulted in loss of life and damage to the environment. the moratorium will cause greater problems and there are more reasonable methods that could be employed. rules, policies and procedures are essential for well-being of workers and for the protection of the environment. implementation of connolly accepted certified methods such as i.s.m., international safety management and international standards organization have helped us establish and enforce these policies using precise guidelines that will periodically through third party oversight. it is less discriminatory and complying with these you lose your certification. the new b.o.m. should require

i.s.m. and i.s.o. certification throughout the offshore industry. issues involving the army corps of engineers -- pardon me -- also need to be addressed. understand that we're operating under a state of emergency. my local leaders needs more cooperation, not roadblocks. over the last 70 years under the watchful eyes, louisiana has lost 1,500 miles of coastline. we're losing 25 to 30 square miles a year, about a football field every 30 minutes. the response has been inadequate at best, and all those are being negatively affected by this spill, it's wrong to conveniently use this disaster for our blame for our coastal problems. we need action. hundreds of companies support the oil and gas business. thousands of people are unemployed and forcing them to collect unemployment is not solutions. rather, this will create

another unbearable burden to the state, a state already struggling because of the revenue it is losing due to this spill and the moratorium. many of the states that depend on the outer citizen shelf will be affected. mr. obama says he needs us to be less dependent on foreign oil but this moratorium will cause us to be more dependent. mr. salazar and others should only be ignored. an industrywide moratorium will only destroy an already hurt economy, locally, as well as nationally. although we respect the meeting with us, it is questionable considering there seems to be a lack of knowledgeable experts to address all the elements that is at stake. our message to the president is this -- we need leadership, solutions, decisive action and we need it now.

please, start leading. >> thank you, sir. >> thank you. >> thank you for allowing us to be here today. my name is philip ray and i'm president of the harvey canale industrial association. it was founded in 1946 by and for companies along the can mall along the west bank of jefferson parish which is six miles from where we sit today at this hotel. it has supported the gulf coastal system. we've imported the oil and gas industry since drilling began more than 60 years ago. be sure to understand to the members we represent and never understatement the tragedy that was the deepwater horizon or forget the loss of the 11 crewmembers. we want first what happened and work together to develop the technology and standards to guarantee safety in the workplace as well as set the standards needed to ensure protection of louisiana's coastal environment. in the 68-year history of gulf

drilling, more than 2,000 deepwater drills have been made. over 16.3 billion barrels of oil have been produced in the gulf of mexico with a 0.023% of that oil lost to spills. as you are aware, 80% of the oil and 45% of the natural gas in the gulf come from the deepwater exploration. of the more than 7,300 active leases in the gulf of mexico today, 58% of them are in deep waters, including the 20 highest producing leases in the gulf. additionally, exploration production for oil and natural gas in the gulf of mexico supports hundreds of thousands of jobs. in late 2007, the harvey canale completed an economic impact study that was six miles along the harvey canale. the study was related to hurricane protection projects. the total important of the study was 1,619 people with a peril of $67 million, average

earnings of almost $42,000 each. taxes to the local parish government totaled over $2.8 million. the study estimated the impact provided 8,848 direct and indirect jobs in jefferson parish plus 6,360 in other parishes resulted in $7.1 million in payroll to bring a total tax revenue of $14. billion. the harvey canale industrial association recognizes the deepwater development is an essential part of oil and natural gas production in the gulf of mexico. we support industry leaders and organizations like the american petroleum institute in working together to develop standards that will ensure safety for our workers and make sure we can set standards for the world in the offshore development. louisiana played a critical part in helping our nation lead our energy needs. we urge our this committee to

work with us to help keep our citizens working. thank you. >> thank you for your statement. >> sir. >> i work for a company called amart. we provide diesel engine compressor turbine monitoring safety and protection solutions. i worked all my life in the oil and gas industry and i'd like to bring some safety issues to the table that needs to be addressed so that we don't have these kinds of explosions again in the future. during the b.p. investigation hearing which was conducted by m.m.s. in louisiana, there were a lot of questions on diesel engines that exploded on the platform. we requested the commission to look more into this issue before any moratorium was lifted, so we don't have these kinds of exemployeeses again. these engines play a key stake

in offshore and onshore drilling. they can inject methane gas to go into overspeed mode and explodes within seconds. this is what happened on the b.p. deepwater horizon platform. current m.m.s. regulatory standards needs to be updated to improve safety on offshore and onshore rigs. for example, current standards allow manual valves on some engines. this should not be allowed. why? because companies to save money are buying r.v. toilet valves which is full of asphalt, on diesel engines, which are going on the offshore platforms. this is dangerous. this is taking a lot of risk. this must stop. secondly, by allowing manual shutdown valves, you're taking a lot of risk with people.

diesel engines can explode within seconds. totally -- not acquired on certain engines per the m.m.s. standards. that also needs to be updated. we don't know why some of the engines are excluded from that. totally, there are no standards on spark -- they are installed on diesel engines and exhaust engines to prevent hot particles coming out of the engine's exhaust. as there's no standard, companies are installing the least expensive, ineffective spark resistors including fire and explosion risk. you know, for the last two years, i've been, wog -- i've been working with m.m.s. to update these standards with no success. we should upgrade our standards here so that we don't have

these explosions in the future. thank you. >> i was looking at standards in terms of engineering standards versus process engineering safety standards. this crosses multiple organizations, m.m.s., osha and others. and from what you've seen here, for example, based on what my colleague had stated, if there were more engineering standards that defined the requirements to protect safety on these plat for and as well as on land-based rig operations, we would see less and less of these incidents. we've been very focused working with tal osha, osha, as well as m.m.s. on these issues for the last two to three years and hopefully under unfortunate circumstances we hope something will move forward, more diligently, versus being

reactive. we offer our condolences to the families of the deepwater horizon, of course, all family members in the oil and gas industry focused on land-based rig operations as well. thank you. >> my name is charles louie. i am with ees of a. which is part of -- i'd like to mention a few of my people on our staff and that would be wayne bennett from essi. dr. tom jackson, president of essi. bruce sevin, c.e.o. of essi. mike sal, c.o. solution on microbes. gene shringer out of florida.

dr. michaud, hydrologist. dr. molly, scientist. dan moss, ocean engineer, and john blumenthal, with aeration and flow generators. i did that to qualify who we are. we are not presently on the gulf. we are getting ready to make booms hiring local people. what we need to say to you, the commission, we think outside the box. we have an awful lot of inoat vative -- innovative ys and plans that would work -- innovative ideas and plans that would work rather than what's going on right now. right now it's everybody going this way, that way, nobody's getting anything done.

it's just building up, building, up building up. it's not really a moratorium that you're looking. what you're looking at is companies that is trained in order to recover this kind of a spill. and that's what we offer you. now, if we can control that spill and keep the fishing industries open and things like that, you need to drop the moratorium and let the people drill and let the people keep their jobs here in louisiana. we're down here just for the people of louisiana and the gulf states and we came here to do a job and that's what we're going to do. we're not here for the money. >> i'm robert wayne sizemore. i'm a resident of new orleans. i've lived here for 16 years. attending this has given me a

great deal of respect for this whole situation. i had a hard line attitude on moratorium, on wanting moratorium. and after attending this for the past two days i've changed my view on that a good deal. i want a underscore a couple things that has said. the idea of transparency and accountability may be small ideas but they represent a great deal in terms of being able to live out this situation. i'd like to refer to one earlier today and his comment about corporations and to allow corporations and entities to govern themselves is a bit like having the fox run the hen house. i'd also like to refer to one's

statement about the commission itself and the need for a commission or a committee that can deal with these problems that you're hearing now and that can be dealt with immediately. and that people who are in a great deal of stress can have some sort of relief and not wait for six months on what may come from you. and living in new orleans since katrina i've dealt with five years of bureaucratic red tape so i know how long and extended that red tape can be. in emergency situations, the bureaucratic red tape, it would seem there would be something in place to stop the proper channels for bureaucrat, bureaucracy, to go through its

normal terms and try to deal with an emergency situation. thank you very much. >> your statement. >> good afternoon. eye name is sandy fury and i appreciate the opportunity to comment on behalf of chevron. first, i'd like to thank the commission pour providing the opportunity to speak together today. we support all companies operating with the same high standards with safety and reliability to prevent tragic incidents like the one with b.p. from happening again. we resume responsible and safe drilling operations that will get people back to work and developing the energy america needs. this tragedy has been a humbling experience for our industry and my company. we offer the condolences of those that perished on the discover horizon. that is an incident that never should have happened but the

reality is that it is. since the april 20 incident the industry has not rested one day. we've worked tirelessly to understand the expectations of the secretary's 30-day report to the extent those expectations had been made transparent. we believe that the objectives outlined in the recommendations of the secretary can be met in short order delivering enhancements to safety while minimizing disruption to u.s. energy supply and impacts to local economies. the industry has provided and continues to provide technical experts and equipment to assist b.p. and the government and their efforts to contain the well. the industry has provided people and equipment to b.p. to aid their response to the spill. the industry has created four joint industry task forces to make recommendations to the department of the interior on how to improve safety and well designed to prevent future incidents, how better to stop a leak and prevent a spill if

prevention and intervention are not successful. the work of the four joint industry task force continues with over 100 companies meeting fromly with the focused intent to bring forth recommendations which will raise the standards for all operators in the gulf of mexico to best of class in their levels. their work is in the following areas -- offshore equipment design and testing, offshore drilling safety and operation processes, well control, mitigation, containment and oil spill response and recovery. chevron is one of the largest lease holders and producers of crude oil and natural gas in the gulf of mexico. with over 60 years operating in this region, chevron has proven to be a leader in a safe and environmental responsible operations. we have more than 13,000 employees and support more than 5,000 small and large businesses throughout the gulf of mexico region. we're committed to this region

and to the long-term opportunities here. it's imperative for us to make sure we're able to still employ and support the people in this region for whom we do business. we are seeing the impact of local job loss and feel a sense of urgency to return this industry to work. according to the secretary's report, it's acknowledge that the gulf coast provides as many as 150,000 direct jobs in support of energy development on the o.c.s. these jobs are now at risk and the potential for permanent damage to offshore energy development. we understand that the ens hansment -- enhancements to contain a leak should occur in prevention and intervention fail and all necessary aspects. we're committed to that cause and look forward to the bureau of ocean industry to start having permits again. the work of the commission will -- is important. we encourage you to stay

focused on the commission, recognizing the need to engage the experts necessary to fulfill your charge. and to move forward with a balance of speed and careful -- >> ok. i'm going to have to ask folks in the audience to please hold your comments until you get to the table. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> sir, good afternoon. >> good afternoon. my name is chet, i'm executive director of a company in louisiana. thank you, commission, for being here, especially a few of you on the board. with that we service 18% of the entire oil supply in port lafourche.

the moratorium or suspension of drilling activities has a direct impact on port lafourche and its tenants. the only elected port commissioner in the state of louisiana has made a proactive move reducing our tenant's rate by 30% and an attempt to maintain their business through this time. however, this will not last forever. the reduction can help them get through the next cupful mopts but certainly not until november -- couple of months but certainly not until november 30. it is clear that people will lose their jobs in port lafourche. up to 14,000 people. we must figure this out. one point i want to make, we have been advocating for offshore oil revenue sharing since then.

in 2006 bail was passed in congress that stated that louisiana would receive royalty revenues and sharing those revenues. up to 37% in the year 2017. that's not going to cut it. we need the money now. in 2006 as well louisiana passed a congressional amendment that stated that any royalty revenue funding that we'd receive in the state would be spent on coastal protection and restoration and critical energy infrastructure. it is imperative that we get those funds, not in 2017, but today. thank you. >> good afternoon, committee, senator graham. i am wiley harris moore, speaking as an individual, as a member of the national indian education association and both caucuses for the american indian and alaska native

c.t.a., california teacher association, and the national education association. believe it or not, i'm on vacation. and when i read about this i came yesterday and i'm here to speak to you today on three issues. all i've heard today and yesterday i wanted to inform the commission that you might have access through the senate indian caucus, native american caucus, the information that may help to you relate to the local indigenous tribe here that lives on tribal land and has for a long time. i encourage the commission, according to what we heard yesterday from senator landrieu, to expand your site and to deal with this as you have and will have and recommend doing so with all other peoplen louisiana.

my second point comes from an important issue to all of us, whether indigenous or not. people were sickened emotionally by the alaskan spill. i want you to help the fine people that i've met here in louisiana, tribal people as well as the people who are working on these platforms. and this leads to my third and final point. nothing i've heard, claimed by the people i heard today, and b.p. yesterday, mr. wells, addresses any issue of once we close this thing off it looks like we're close to getting that pressure equalized, when it's sealed who's going to

check on it? b.p. itself has over 600 wells that have been drilled in the gulf and the united states department of interior, has had no ability to check on all of the thousands of wells, either temporarily closed with a one-year moratorium, and if closed permanently, no way to check on those. this includes a flyover to see if there's a slick. i think once we get through this, the committee would be well advised to make sure that they take care of the indigenous people, the chitimacha, tribe, to take a look at the oversight of closed wells. there is no system to guarantee

those wells do not continue to leak. thank you very much. >> thank you for your statement. >> my name is bill. thank you for the time. i'm here as an individual. just want to pass along a few things, though. i've been in this industry, the oil and gas industry, for almost 30 years. i'm a drilling engineer by trade. i'm a degreed at the -- petroleum industry. i've worked in texas, mississippi, louisiana. i've also worked in china, indonesia, australia. during my entire career i've believed that the u.s.a. leads the world in oil and gas. houston, texas, is the top. and tobasco hot sauce is on every rig i've been on. and there's a reason for that. the purpose of this commission was primarily to determine the cause of the accident and prevent any future curns.

i've heard a lot about dispersements and the effectiveness on communities. this is a disaster, no doubt. but i have not heard from the experts about what caused the disaster. i did note that the boem was going to meet in about a week to look at the well design. almost 90 days into this tragedy. i can assure you that industry started looking in on it the first week and the look at the design. the concurrence from every engineer i've spoken with is that b.p. had a very weak well design. they used inadequate volumes of cement and they should have run a liner to isolate the zone. there's also a rumor that b.p. did not install a lockdown assembly device on top of the seal assembly. this is critical. as you go forward, i cannot stress enough, you need to ask

about the lockdown assembly on top of the 9 5:8 casing. f.m.c. of b.p. should have prevented this entire incident. this moratorium has gone forward. it's called arbitrary and capricious by the courts. it's been to trial. it's been to appellate court. the court ruled this moratorium is artreash and capricious. -- arbitrary and capricious. and what i wanted to end with is that everyone i know in the industry is an environmentalist. they all fish. they enjoy the outdoors. they enjoy the beach. they love to get out. and so louisiana needs these jobs. there's no reason to keep this what i believe is an abuse of power by secretary salazar, and we need to get back to work. thank you. >> thank you, sir, for your

statement. sir. >> hello. my name is casey. despite my irish name i am in fact 50% cage un-french. -- cajun-french. my mom is a melancon. we've been here on this land for quite sometime. we settled this area, we farmed the land and we fished the waters. throughout those passed 28 -- those past 280 years, we have lived well as good stewards of our precious resources. cage un-- cajun cooking and the cajun hospitable way of life is known today throughout the world. we have shared our hospitality and opened our hearts and our homes to all those who have

come in peace to share in the bounties that mother nature and the good lord have provided for us. but these gifts come with a responsibility and a duty of due care for our precious and fragile environment. we alone as human beings are not the only ben factors of this richland. this land belongs to all of god's creations. this land belongs to the brown pelican and the other sea birds that populate our coastline. this land belongs to the shrimp and the crabs and the oysters and the speckled trout and the redfish that have thrived in our waters long before we arrived. this land -- excuse me -- this

land belongs to the alligator that has survived and thrived here for perhaps millions of years, long before we arrived. in those 280 years, never in that time have we so fouled this area as has this corporation, british petroleum, with this disaster that's currently going on in the gulf. while there will be investigations well into the foreseeable future as to the specifics surrounding this catastrophe, one thing is abundantly clear to me, this accident was the result ultimately of greed and gross negligence. we must find a way to build

into today's corporate structure morals, ethics and responsibility orwell continue to have these catastrophic mishappens inflicted upon our people and the environment. one may occur that we will not be able to recover from. we may not be able to recover from this one. i'm almost finished. that is yet to be seen. all in the pursuit of profits. when will we learn? what will it take? it may well be time to seek the higher power that has led us to our greatness as a free society. in recent years we have turned away from god as a society. perhaps it is just as time now to turn back to him.

thank you. >> thank you for the opportunity to express my thoughts to this esteemed panel and best of luck in your endeavors. >> thank you for your statement. >> i wanted to thank the commission. i think that your broad range of experiences and expertise along with some of the things you heard today will be invaluable to us. my name is monique gerhart and i work to a coalition of associations throughout louisiana, alabama and mississippi. we formed from katrina. most of the members today, most of our members are in coastal and low-lying areas of the gulf coast. faith-based and community organizations. i just wanted to, you know, you think about solutions, mentioned that, you know, as you know the full spectrum of impacts is yet of known in terms of social impacts,

cultural impacts, ecological. and so just trying to stress that as the science and the impact unfold that we have mechanisms in place for citizen participation, transparency and oversight. i think this is something that chancellor ulmer mentioned earlier in terms of the regional citizens council that was in place post-valdez. we collectively -- i think some organizations across the gulf coast hope that can be introduced as a floor amendment as legislation is moving through committee. i want to say that the congressional budget office has been scoring b.p. crisis related legislation. i think legislation that is moving through congress right now or that will move through is, you know, potential to some challenges. i just want to say that. in terms of mitigation, in

terms of this commission's work in mitigation in the event of future disasters, as mr. henry mentioned earlier, we were already in crisis -- our wetlands were already in crisis. the impacts of the oil and gas industry really are visible dating back from the 1930's. and so because we were already in in crisis that impacted the effects of this spill. you know, while we look forward to -- while the president has put forward this restoration plan and we hope it builds on the white house road map put through by c.d.q. and noaa some months ago, we hope that community participation and local science can be drivers of that plan. there can be meaningful participation and how, also, their permanent long-term funding streams in place to move projects for, through implementation, unlike the appropriation process we have

in place right now. thank you. >> thank you for your presentation. >> my name is ann. i am just going to read this to speed things up a bit. about a month ago, in my own writing, unfortunately, about a month ago the japanese high-tech ship, which filters the oil out of the water and returns the water to the sea, was rejected by the authorities in charge. and some of you probably know about that. instead, we see individual men with paper bags trying to get oil in the marshes after the damage is done after the oil reaches the shore. instead, the high tech -- the japanese high-tech filter ship, the weaker remedies seems to be preferred. besides going into marshes, it

is now also in international waters because it's an international problem because it's in international waters as mexico claims and scientists argue will be happening more and more. just as former president bush developed a coalition to deal with problems in afghanistan, if is perhaps time to talk with the u.n., nato and other nations such as brazil and northern europe to establish an international coalition of science tists and high-tech -- scientists and high-tech companies to filter or stop the flow of oil as it proceeds into international currents but also develop rules and a system of safe practices. thank you. >> hello. i'm judy from pascagoula, mississippi. in front of me i have 152-page standard operating procedure book from the m.m.s. office

website. the first regulation that states in it is first most important, it states that to drill oil in this country to obtain a lease for a permit, anything to drill oil, you have to be a united states citizen. i think this has been manipulated over the years. it's ok when foreign companies come here and open businesses as long as they're spreading revenue and paying taxes. but taking our natural resources from the ground and taking them over to britain or another country, this is wrong. this second -- on page 52 of the standard operating procedures it states that suspension of leases. now, a company's lease is suspended if your rig is floating out, idling in the --

out wherever over 180 days nonproductive. also, when there is neglect present, meaning neglect when you hurt fish, endanger the environment, hurt people, wildlife, your lease is suspended. as of yesterday, i talked to the m.m.s. office and it's been very difficult trying to get an answer. you know, i finally did. they said that b.p. is still in possession of their lease and it's not suspended. also, there was a second scenario i wanted to share with you. it's not been documented on the deepwater horizon. now, i heard it from a few oil people. we have a lot of oil business in pascagoula, mississippi. and the type from the rig to the well after the explosion was still intact. when it explode -- after everything the rig laid there

eyedled quietly, when it plunged into the ocean the pipe that was connected to the well gouged out the well making a lot of damage and this was one of the reasons it's been very difficult to tap that well. and my question is, i know nobody's answered it, i've asked a lot of companies and organizations, is there any way to detach that pipe there? and that was something maybe we can consider in the future if there was some kind of automaticed release to if that might not happen again it would be somebody we could consider. also, i understand that a.g.i. -- i know it's not been documented -- is their insurance company. now, if they just got bailed out from the government, how are they going to bail us out? thank you so much. >> thank you for your presentation.

>> hello. thank you very much for the opportunity to address you today. i appreciate it. and my organization is www. area21.org, and that's 2-9. so area29.org. my organization is coastal and environmental advocacy organization that typically deals with issues in san mateo county, california. i happened to be here this week on vacation. i flew in on july 3 to visit my dad for the fourth of july. my father lives on dolphin island. since i've been here we've been to beaches in florida, we've been to beaches in alabama and we've also been to beaches in mississippi. i do documentary photographery as a hobby. i took a lot of pictures and walked a lot of beaches during my trip.

today, i happened to be in new orleans and i heard about this hearing so here i am. one of the comments that william reilly made this morning when this meeting started was the moratorium is having a bigger effect than the spilled oil, and that comment struck me as rather arrogant. the reason i think it's an arrogant statement is because right now from what i heard today from osha and from the e.p.a. the information that's available on the long-term effects to the environment and to human health and safety is just unknown. there is a lot of question marks and a lot of none answers. i don't think at this moment it's appropriate that we know that the moratorium is having a bigger effect than the actual spill. so that was one thing i wanted to comment on. since i've been here, i've had

an opportunity to see a lot of the b.p. workers on the beaches at work. i just want to tell you that i've seen on more than one occasion b.p. workers with t-shirts tied across their faces because of the air they're breathing. i got sick after 24 hours of first being here on dolphin island. and the kind of symptoms people are experiencing are respiratory, stomach aches, stomach flu-like symptoms, food poisoning-like symptoms. i actually witnessed and so did my father a b.p. worker throwing up in the parking lot at prieto bay beach. i'd like to ask this commission to ask the e.p.a. to require that respirators be made available to the b.p. workers, and that's the workers on the vessel of opportunity as well

as the workers at the beaches. i think at this point there's too many unknowns and those respirators need to be made available to the workers that feel they need to use them. thank you. >> the remark that you quoted from me was in fact a quotation from another panelist yesterday. it was not mine. >> well, you drew a lot of attention to it. >> yeah, because we heard that message over and over again. >> well, i'm hoping you'll hear some other messages. i'm sorry if i misinterpreted it. it did strike me. thank you. >> thank you. sir. >> i thank the committee for the opportunity to speak. i've been in the business for 35 years. and i was listening to the speaker before me, i was pleased by your initial comment this morning of seeing the moratorium having more effect than the spill. i did not take it in the same light that she took it. i am glad you are recognizing this moratorium. being in the industry i'm

speaking more from the moratorium perspective and wanting to get involved. after reading the friday issue of "the wall street jurm" there was an article regarding your committee and stating how the vice of the committee is more oriented toward the environmental side of it and said it was like a -- trying to win the afghan war. it was in "the wall street journal" if you have not seen it. the agenda that you have worked on is to find the cause of the spill and environmental -- in the testimony today it seems to be heavy environmental. congressman waxman in his committee did a very good job of finding out the cause of the accident and it's very well documented in his congressional hearings. you can go through that and look at all the points they did. in one committee, one speaker earlier, b.p. makes a very simple mistake.

very easy to solve. there's some very simple rules from the government -- the government should be able to solve. it would be real easy to mandate it in the industry. one thing i'd like to talk about regarding the international workers. 25 years now that oems. i don't know how the media can come up with the cozy industry with the industry and m.m.s. i have worked with these guys in the gulf of mexico as well. you dread it when an m.m.s. helicopter lands on the platform because he was going to go through your paperwork, write you up for noncompliance. i've had meetings. i've had some bad accidents. i've had meetings in new orleans where i was basically very reprimanded very severely for the accidents. i don't know where the cozy relationship between the m.m.s. and the industry exists. i'd like to know. i need to correct the testimony earlier from mike. there is not in any shelf wells approved since the issue five

and six. the m.m.s. right now does not want to make a decision to approve everything. they have a new boss. they have a new leader and nothing is getting done, shelf or deep water. i addressed him in the hallway and he checked all my issues before this committee and, yes, nothing has been approved. they are like a deer in the headlights right now. rigs are not going to stop drilling. they are going to go someplace else. and one is ecstatic because they had a bid out for 25 new rigs to be built. and now we got 30 rigs in -- ok. i'm sorry. they have 25 rigs. they are going out for bids. now they don't have to do that anymore. as soon as israel taxed iran and blocked the strait of hormuz, the world will change. i hope the committee will come

up with a solution. i know you have been given a liberal amount of time but the information is not there to come up with a recommendation to move forward. thank you. >> thank you for your statement. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. i'd like sitting down much better than standing. my statement is a little bit different. first, i'd like to shout out to my mom and my daughter, shannon and shelby, my granddaughters and my girlfriend, our daughter. today at this moment, all with the exception of my mother, are living in rochester, michigan. i'm from royal oak, michigan. i'll use my time to address president obama through you people because you are his commission appointed. in 2008 i was living in rochester hills. demographically, it's a highly conservative republican area, and i rode my bike door to door to get the vote out supporting

president obama and his campaign for presidency. and even though i do not agree with all of the decisions he made in office i support him up until this response because of the b.p. response. i understand right now it sounds like they have another chance to stop the leak, the gush of oil coming from the bottom of the ocean 50 miles from shore. i am not sure of our feeble response of stopping the oil hitting the new orleans coastal shoreline. we did absolutely nothing. i cannot understand why you would put confidence in the mayor running the coast guard, admiral thad allen, in charge of this response when all he's going to do is refer to b.p. and their expertise in technology. it was their expertise in technology that created this huge disaster, this unsurmountable disaster. i'm trying to understand -- i understand that president obama

likes to delegate. he likes to create coalitions. it's time for him to step up. it's time to bring in the navy or some action besides the feeble response to this oil spill. i understand they're putting people out there to work, but they're -- i've seen them on grand isle. we're not hitting this thing full force because b.p. does not want to spend the money cleaning up the oil until they stop the leak because it will be an ongoing cost. it's all about greed and profit. they could care less about our environment. i believe if i was president i would have tony hayward and his boss from sweden behind bars and i would seize b.p. from making the open acts of hostility against our sovereign nation for the sake of money. and destroying our environment and our way of life. thank you. >> thank you for your presentation. sir. >> hello. thank you for your time. i'd like to first comment on the fact that i think that this

public comment session was not given enough forewarning for the public to come. i think that three hours for all of the folks in the entire gulf coast is not an adequate amount of time to make their comments. for them it's during a weekday during work hours so that means i'd like to tell you my piece. i'm extremely disgusted by the use of disperseants due to the fact that they were used in 1979 on a spill in mexico and we're told that there's no information on the long-term effects of them. it bass actual -- was actually -- corexa brand of dispersants. in that report it says no toxicity study has been done on

this product. it also goes on to say that you are not to contaminate surface water with this. e.p.a. says you are not supposed to use it underwater. so if you look at the contradiction you're not supposed to use this. it's further said that in the event of planned entry in concentrations in a positive pressure, full face breathing apparatus is to be used. that means the people using this are getting poisoned by it. we've been told that the corexa is less toxic than the oil that is dispersing, but according to a report it says that it is actually twice as toxic and when combined it is 15 times as toxic. you know, we've been told that the lesser of two evils, but when you have oil on the surface you can deal with it and do something about it.

when you have oil dispersed within the water column we don't know what to do with it. i liken it to folks throwing away garbage. they think it disappears forever. but in reality it's going someplace else. and that's what's happening with the oil in the corexa. i have a full team of researchers that i've been working with. many of them are toxicologists. and i would urge you -- i'm leaving my contact information. if you want my information i'd love to give you all the reports that i have because this is factual information. it is not qualitative, it is quantitative. thank you. >> thank you. sir. >> good afternoon. my name is clarence hunt, rechting h.r. management and the small business exchange based out of oakland, california, and also new orleans. i'd like to thank the commission for being here and conducting the hearings that you have going on today and yesterday.

we've requested the commission to recommend to the federal government and all of its related agencies and stakeholders, including b.p. and their related stakeholders and interested parties, to alert small businesses to -- contracts to small businesses in the various areas of procurement that is coming before -- and also we'd like to ask your commission to award contracts to the small businesses and your efforts to get staff or other professional services. great. that's great. we're further interested in the federal government and all related stakeholders in b.p. in awarding all areas of procurement contracts in