michael bromwich was sworn in as -- to lead the bureau of ocean energy management regulations and enforcements formerly known as mms. on june the 21st, 2010, director bromwich previously served as inspector general for the department of justice and as an assistant u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york, most recently director bromwich was a partner at the law firm of fried and frank where he specialized in conducting internal investigations. we welcome both of you. at this time i ask that each witness deliver their testimony within five minutes, which will allow the committee ample time to raise questions and also considering your time constraints, secretary, of course, you know the rules that they start out, the light is on green and then, of course, you know because you know all about these lights and all of a sudden they caution -- >> i'm not sure i know about these lights. >> that's another issue but also at the end it becomes red so, mr. secretary, you may begin. >> thank you very much chairman towns and thank you, congressman issa and all the distinguished members of the comm

michael bromwich was sworn in as -- to lead the bureau of ocean energy management regulations and enforcements formerly known as mms. on june the 21st, 2010, director bromwich previously served as inspector general for the department of justice and as an assistant u.s. attorney in the southern dtrict of new york, most recently director bromwich was a partner at the law firm of fried and frank where he ecialized in conducting internal investigations. we welcome both of you. at this time i ask that each witness dever their testimony within five minutes, which will allow the committee ample time to raise questions and also considering your time constraints, secretary, of course, you know the rules that they start out, the light is on green and then, of course, you know because you know all about these lights and all of a sudden they caution -- >> i'm not sure i know about these lights. >> that's another issue but also at the end it becomes red so, mr. secretary, you may begin. >> thank you very much chairman towns and thank you, congressman issa and all the distinguished members of the committee

we will show you two sections from this morning including michael bromwich, the director of ocean energy management with the department of interior formally known as mms. we will also hear from elected officials. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> the department of interior and the national oceanic atmospheric association and the environmental protection agency. following that at 10:45, the commission will hear from a local -- from local officials including the president of one parrish, the mayor of grand island, louisiana, and the mayor of biloxi, mississippi. we will break for lunch at noon and at 1:30, we will reconvene with a committee on ecological impacts. we will hear from the bayou interface shared community organizing from boat people s.o.s. and from woods hole oceanographic institution. we will take a break from 2:30- 3:00 which will be followed by one hour of public comments from 3:00-4:00. i would like to have the floor over to our co-chairman. >> thank you, chris. these remarks will be brief. fi

and that is being done under the leadership of wilma lewis and michael bromwich, they bodes have great credentials and they were chosen by me to run the agency in large part because of the ethical improprites which this committee and which the inspector general had uncovered. so we have been working hard on making sure that those ethical lapses are not there. we understand there's still significant reform that we have to undertake in the days and months ahead and we will will to wased on and look forward to working with you and members of this committee to make sure that the new organization ultimately gets it right. let me finally, know some of you will have questions on the moratorium. i will be delighted to answer those questions. finally, in terms of what i hope the legacy of this crisis is. i would hope that as we learn the lessons from this crisis that at the end of the day we'll look back and say that we have together as a nation developed safer oil and gas production in the outer continental shelf that does in fact protect the environment and protect the safety of the workers.

. >> interior secretary ken salazar and michael bromwich, the new director of the ocean's managementt regulations and standards for oil and gas drilling. this meeting is along over three hours.

michael bromwich. they are from the u.s. department of interior. mr. secretary, we welcome you once again to the committee and as i have done many times publicly, i commend you aad your department for the tremendous manner in which you have responded to this disaster. you have put all your resources available and i commend you for that response you may proceed as you desire. >> thank you very much. -- the key very much. we continue our efforts on this day with what has been a tremendous effort to solve this problem in the gulf. we are not resting and we will continue to move forward until we have the solutions with respect to relief efforts. i thought i would do a couple of things at the outset. first, i would bring the committee up-to-date on what is happening with respect to the leak containment and the efforts to kill well. on the containment measures, about 25,000 barrels of oil were collected and contained and have been captured, notwithstanding some high seas that have been as high as 7 feet. over the next few days, the containment capacity will