dr. f.r. beck. and mr. elmer danenberger retired in january as the chief of regulatory programs for the minerals management service. if those two gentlemen would come forward -- because of the gravity of this hearing we have as that all witnesses testify under oath so i would ask that if each of you would stand please and raise your right hand -- do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to get to this senate committee on energy and natural resources should be the whole truth and nothing but the truth? thank you and please be seated. let me mention a couple of housekeeping matters. first of all, your written statement will be made part of the record. we would ask you to take six or eight minutes to summarize the main points that you think we need to understand from what you have developed testimony. depending on the number of senators who come to ask questions, we may want to have only one round of questions. this is a so we can also hear from the second panel before we have to adjourn for the

dr. beck, in your testimony you said it was operated by hydraulic pressure and that applying hydraulic pressure at a water depth of 5,000 feet can be a complicated task and is an engineering marvel in itself. what is the difference how they are installed and more importantly tested as well as operated at deep water levels. do you believe they are less reliable in deep water than shallow water? what is the testing for that? >> senator, as i said in my introduction. i do not portray myself as a deep water drilling expert. the issues, i have not dealt with in my career so i would decline to speak about specifics that are going on in the testing and the installation of those. there are much better experts than me. >> are they tested at those levels? >> repeatedly on 14-day intervals. >> at 5,000 feet? >> on the sea floor i believe but once again i'm stretching out of my expertise. it is a very difficult task to retrieve it off of the sea floor. maintenance and testing work should be done. >> right