mr. barton of texas. mr. burgess and i will do ours harriet. mr. barton? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, there hayward, for appearing before us. we have kind of a duel -- dual track. we are trying to track the facts of what happened with the oil spill in the gulf of mexico a month and a half ago, trying to find out the cause of that spill, what can be done to prevent it in the future. we are obviously very concerned about the mitigation and the cleanup. we have a system in america built up based on the british tradition, over 200 years of due process and fairness where people who do bad things, in this case a corporation that is responsible for a bad accident, we want to hold them responsible and do what we can to make the lieable -- liable parties pay for the damages. we are all working together in conducting i think a very fair oversight investigation. we are going to get into a number of those issues in this hearing, and we are going to ask you some pretty tough questions. i am speaking totally for myself. i am not speaking for the republican party or anybody in the house o

mr. barton, for creating that atmosphere which made it ssible. i think that this gives a historic piece of legislation, mr. waxman and i and all the members on our side, really do believe that this is the way congress should work. i congratulate the gentleman for his work on it. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan controls the time. mr. upton: thank you, mr. speaker. i will yield myself the balance of the time and yield back and let my friend, mr. markey, finish with a close. i just want to say this is an issue we sat down together for the last actually couple years. examining the facts. many of us that particularly live in areas for me the midwest coming from michigan we had a devastating tornado come through this weekend. for many of us, myself included, our electricity went out for a number of hours. and then a number of times, particularly during the winter and even in the summer with these electric storms that come through sometimes, sometimes electricity may be out for a couple days. we look to our friends down in haiti who,

mr. barton . >> the stakes are higher and the consequences more dire but reminds me a built of monday morning call-in radio talk show after the redskins have blown another one. everybody has an idea what should have been done and now that they know what was done and it wasn't done properly, they're much smarter than the coach on the field and the quarterback on the field at the time. so it's very easy to second-guess and to point out the problems. there's kind of good news, bad the bad news is i agree with chairman waxman. judgment calls were made that now that we're -- now we know what happened those were the improper judgment. that's bad. but the good news is, and this is what our industry c.e.o.'s are saying, i think, is it is preventable. i don't know what this task force is going to recommend that mr. tillerson has alluded to, but if the recommendation is that best practices on these deep wells ought to have these double sleeves, i think we could butt that in regulation if we need to. if the best practices is you ought to put the lockout collar on the well before you do the final cementi

mr. barton said have so much at stake and has so much potential to be part of the solution. i hope we can use this hearing to understand why our government and british petroleum could possibly have been so poorly prepared for this disaster. certainly the people in the fishing industry and tourism industry want answers to this problem and thhre's plenty of blame to go around. i don't think the administration or the government ageecy has done everything that they have -- that they can to be prepared. incredibly, seven weeks after that deepwater horizon explosion, we're still lacking resources for containment. the booms, the skimmers, the things they should have been readily available, they're still not apparently there in the ways that we need them to go. weeks ago i introduced legislation that would require ready access to the things necessary to contain the problem if a problem developed in the gulf. we're learning more and more every day about the failings of both the industry and the government, and the regulators leading up to the incident. however remained focused today

mr. barton asked questions on there. back on june 4th, you wrote an editorial to the wall street journal. you stated, we in the industry have long had great confidence in the blowout preventer as the ultimate fail safe piece of safety equipment yet on this occasion it failed with disastrous consequences. do you believe the the blowout preventer should be considered the ultimate fail safe? >> i believe so. either that or some similar mechanism. >> i'm surprised by your comments because the committee received a document and you have the document binder there, you play want to refer to it that evaluated the blowout preventer used on deep-water horizon rigs. it was prepared in 2001. it is tabbed 14 there and we put it on the screen. in 2001, when transocean bought the blowout preventer. i want to show you the executive summary in which b.p. participated with it in this review. it says engineering and operations personnel identified 260 failure modes. you see where it says that? toward the top third? okay. so b.p. engineers h

mr. barton: so in the spirit of the moment, we cannot say that chairman slaughter ran a closed rule out on us. it was an open rule. it was fair competition, and luckily for both sides the real winners, as you said it, the boys and girls club and the washington literacy council. i do want to commend my republican team. i'm very proud of them. john shimkus pitched his heart out. you know, bill shuster made an almost unassisted double play when he caught the ball and picked somebody off at first base. every member of our team got to play. they all were in good spirits and good fellowship. and we will show up next year with warmth in our hearts and continue this tradition and hopefully with a more pleasureable outcome for our side. -- pleasureable outcome for our side. mr. doyle, you deserved to win. we congratulate you. thank you. mr. doyle: thank you. thank you, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, five-minute voting will continue. the unfinished business is on the vote on the motion of the gentleman from california, mr. filner, to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 4505 o

mr. barton said in his opening statement. not only is the compensation fund that was created yesterday at the white house in an agreement reached by president obama, not a slush fund and not a shakeup, rather it was the government of the united state working to prote the most vulnerable citizens that we have in our country right now. # we cannot wait as infortunately so many citizens whoere victims of the "exxon valdez" spill had to wait years in order to see those families compensated. we can't lose sight of the fact that the 1984 bopaul disaster and the lawsuits that were related to it were only settled last week. after examining the documents bp gave the family $5,000. the families in the gulf will be crushed financially unless this compensation fund is put int place. as each day and week and month goes by, the history of these families are going to be altered. and permanently altered unless they are given the financial capacity to take care of their loved ones, their children, their families. is that's why this compensati

mr. barton, ranking member, for questions. >> thank you, i appreciate the opportunity to ask some questions. mr. tony hayward, yesterday when we had a hearing in a different subcommittee of this full committee we had four ceos of other oil companies. to a person, and i could be indicated they either would not have drilled this well, or least would not have dreaded the way repeated. your response? >> i wanted to understand exactly what happened through our investigation, compared with other practices to determine the truth. i cannot comment today on the. >> all right. i have had off camera discussions with a number of experts in the drilling processes for the deep gulf of mexico. they all say that bp has a different culture, that for example, in most of the other companies operating in the deep gulf there are number of individuals on side who have what is called a stop order afford. if they see something that is going on to compromise safety and integrity, they have the ability to stop production. but i am told that bp does not give that authority. that is further up the chain of command. is

mr. barton votes no by proxy. mr. smith votes no by proxy. mr>> madame clerk, i do have a proxy for mr. schuler. he votes aye. the clerk will report the tally. >> there are 20 ayes and 11 nays. >> i am pleased to be able to report to you that we send you the approval of the financial reform bill. >> we congratulate you on a terrific job. house members will now vote on the senate side. the ayes will have it. [laughter] i asked the clerk to call the roll. >> mr. chairman, aye. mr. johnson, aye. mr. schumer, aye. ms. lincoln, aye. mr. leahy, aye by proxy. mr. harkin, aye by proxy. mr. shelby, no. mr. corker, no. mr. gregg, no. >> the clerk will report. >> the votes are 7 aye, 5 nay. the bill is passed. >> i thank my colleagues, immensely. [applause] >> will the house and senate conferees in favor of passage of the bill, i declare the bill passed and the conference committee is now adjourned. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> i think chairman frank and his team. we recognize the tremendous effort of the staff, representative barney frank and i worked together the last couple of years.

mr. barton votes no by proxy, mr. smith the its no proxy. mr. issa boats and no by proxy. >> madame clerk, i have a proxy for mr. schumer and evokes aye by proxy -- and he votes aye by proxy. there are 20 ayes and 11 nays. >> the house send you its approval of a financial reform bill. >> thank you very much, chairman frank and let me thank you on a traffic job. house members will vote on the senate side and all those in favor said aye debate ayes appear to have it. [laughter] i will ask the clerk to call the roll them mr. chairman, aye, mr. johnson aye, mr. reid, aye, mr. schumer aye by proxy. . licoln aye, mr leahy aye, mr. ahrkin aye by proxy, proxycorker no, mr. greg no. the votes are seven ayes, 5 nays, the bill is passed. >> i thank my colleagues immensely. [applause] >> conferees in favor of passage of the bill, i declare the bill passed and a conference committee is now adjourned. [applause] [random chatter] [random chatter] [no audio] [no audio] [no audio] [no audio] [no audio] [crowd chatter] >> we have consumer protection for the first

mr. barton staying on as the leader of the -- the leading republican of the energy and commerce committee republicans win back control of the house in 2010, joe barton would be the chairman of that committee. guest: that is a decision for minority leader bay near, and the committee that makes those decisions. i'm not on that -- minority leader john boehner. the committee makes those decisions. that is not the view of the vast majority of republicans. he needs to recognize that when he speaks, he speaks for a lot of us. his remarks have done immense damage of changing the focus from what it ought to be, which is how do we fix this problem and who is at fault. clearly, in my opinion, bp was at fault. host: independent line, michigan, chad, good morning. it is interesting hearing representative shadegg simultaneously protect the zero industry, saying that -- and simultaneously attacking president obama or democrats in general. it's interesting listening to him suggest, using terms like "domestic reception." i was watching him dance around that issue. anyone who understands how the industry w

mr. barton said in his opening statement. not only is the compensation fund that was created yesterday at the white house in an agreement reached by president obama, not a slush fund and not a shakeup, rather it was the government of the united states working to protect the most vulnerable citizens that we have in our country right now. # we cannot wait as infortunat they had to wait years in order to see their families compensated. we cannot lose sight of the fact that the 1984 disaster and the lawsuits related to it were only settled last week. disaster and the lawsuits that were related to it were only settled last week. after examining the documents, bp only give them $5,000. the families in the gulf will be crushed. they will be crushed financially unless this compensation fund is put into place. as each day, week, month goes by the history of these families are going to be altered permanently unless there are given the financial capacity to take care of their loved ones, their children, their families. that is why this

mr. barton: mr. speaker, i yield myself such -- mr. bartlett: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. i rise in strong support of this resolution which recognizes the heroic efforts of the west virginia national guard and local responders for rescuing 17 persons from a navy helicopter that crashed in the wintry mountains of that state in february of this year. i want to commend representative nick rahall far sponsoring this legislation. this incident, precipitated when a navy helicopter was forced down a remote mountainous terrain, shows what's best about the national guard and their ability to work with local civilian responders in crisis situations. without the rapid integrated response of the west virginia army and air national guard, the volunteer efforts of local citizens, the support of local emergency management services and perseverance of state and local fire and rescue services and agencies, 17 people could have died from their injuries and from exposure. thankfully there were people at every level of government who were tr

mr. barton? >> no, by proxy. >> mr. smith votes no by proxy. >> issa? >> no, by proxy. >> mr. graves? >> no, by proxy. >> madame clerk, mr. schumer votes aye by proxy. >> mr. schumer votes aye by proxy. >> what is the tally? >> 20 ayes, 11 nays. >> the house sends you its approval. >> let me congratulate you on a terrific job. we will now vote on the senate side. those in favor aye, those opposed nay. the ayes have it. [laughter] i will ask the clerk to call the roll. >> mr. chairman? >> aye. >> mr. johnson? >> aye. >> mr. reed? >> aye. >> mr. schumer. >> aye, by proxy. >> ms. lincoln? >> aye. >> mr. harkin. >> aye, by proxy. >> aye, by proxy. >> mr. shelby? >> no. >> mr. crapo. >> no. >> mr. corker. >> no. >> mr. gregg. >> no. >> mr. chambliss. >> no. >> the clerk will report. >> 7 aye, 5 nay. the bill is passed. >> i thank my colleagues. [applause] >> with the votes of the house and senate conferees in favor of passage of the bill, i declare the bill passed and the conference committee is now adjourned. [applause] >> nice to meet you. take care. >> i'm on the cleanup crew. >> congra

barton. i'm very disappointed in him. host: what does mrs. peterson think? caller: she thinks the same thing. i tell you, we are down here in the oil country. host: i appreciate you calling in and we will talk to you in a month or so. fort myers, fla., please go ahead. caller: i am here in florida and we are anxiously awaiting and praying that the world does not hit our beaches here in southwest florida. host: right. what did you think of yesterday's congressional hearings? caller: i think this is a lot of showboating by a lot of congressmen. we have people from michigan grilling a someone and they have no clue what we are going through in florida and louisiana. we need to put this aside and stop the oil. we had people explain how they had a similar situation on friday and dave were able to drain the oil and -- and they were able to drain the oil and contain most of it. host: has agreed to your beaches in fort myers? caller: no, it has not. host: has it affected the tourism? caller:, it has because of the media -- yes, it has because of the media. there have

barton. i'm very disappointed in him. host: what does mrs. peterson think?ller: she thinks the same thing. i tell you, we are down here in the oil country. host: i appreciate you calling in and we will talk to you in a month or so. fort myers, fla., please go ahea caller: i am here in florida and we are anxiously awaiting and praying that the world does not hit our beaches here in southwest florida. host: right. what did you think of yesterday's congressional hearings? caller: i tink this is a lot of showboating by a lot of ngressmen. we have people from michigan grilling a someone and they have no clue what we are going through in florida and louisiana. we need to put this aside and stop the oil. we