. >> thank you, mr. mckay. that completes. the opening statements. rewill now turn to questions by the committee -- we will now turn to the questions by the subcommittee members. the chair will recognize myself. as i mentioned in my opening statement the gulf of mexico response plans for exxonmobil, conoco phillips and shell are virtually identical to b.p.'s, and just as depisht. -- as deficient. as you can see by looking at the covers of these five plans on the screen and over my head, the pictures are the same for each plan. all that's changed is the color of the cover of the plan from each of the companies seated at the table. this tillerson, like b.p. on page 116 of your plan the response plan lists walruses under sensitive, biological and human resources. as i'm sure you know, there aren't any walruses in the gulf of mexico and there have not been for three million years. how can exxonmobil have walruses in their response plan for the gulf of mexico? p> congressman markey, those response plans incorporate a number of broad-based studies, marine

and you, mr. mckay, in the first week, your company developed a document that showed that your range of possibilities for an accident was 1000 to 14,000 barrels per day, and yet your company continually in the first week lowball the the number and said that it was only 1,000 barrels per day. you are now estimating that it could be upwards of 40,000 barrels per day, and you are today capturing 15,000 barrels per day of oil from that gusher. are you ready to apologize to the american people for getting that number is so wrong, having been so incompetent or deceptive to the american people and that proper preparations were not put in place because of bp's low balling of the actual amount of oil that was going into the gulf of mexico? >> first, just to be clear, those were unified area command estimates. they came from the 5,000 barrels per day was an estimate done on april 26th byynoaa. our input after that was a range of 1000 to 14,000 barrels per day. our best estimate was above 5,000 barrels per day. th

mr. lamar mckay, the president and chairman of b.p. america. mr. mckay, please begin when you are ready. >> thank you. chairman markey, ranking member upton and members of the committee, i am chairman and president of b.p. america. before addressing the main topic of today's hearing, i would like to reiterate the profound sorrow and regret all of us at b.p. feel for the loss of life and the oil spill horizon explosion and fire. this is very prnlbole to me and b.p. i am from mississippi. i grew up in mississippi. i spent summers on the gulf coast. most of my family's in new orleans. anha

mr. mckay was asked to resign. in my culture, we do things differently. we would give you a knife and ask you to commit hara-kiri. what they would like for me to ask you to do. without having been said, this process has been -- this has been dismal. and one week into the oil spill, i approached bp about establishing an account and i received no response. and now that the president is asking this, what would be your response. >> i do not think any decisions have been made on the trust account. we have said that we will pay all legitimate claims and the whole company will stand behind this. the decision for the trust fund has not been made just yet. >> i have hundreds of constituents who say that they are legitimate and you are saying that they are not. how do you respond? >> i do not understand the individual claims. if these have been submitted, have they been rejected? >> they have been delayed, and if their life is on the line, they cannot afford the delay. >> i know that if there are issues, that we should talk about offline, i will be glad to do this.

everyone with the exception of mr. mckay said, if there is any idea that would stop that leak from occurring in the gulf of mexico, is there something you could share with us that has not been tried that will bring a rapid conclusion to this. we know bp does not have that idea. to many of the rest of you? >> we have provided our experts to assist, congressman. i am not aware of any ideas. >> no ideas or suggestions that have not been taken up. we know that bp has not been to the white house to talk to the president. have any of the rest of you had conversations with the white house about the management of the situation in the gulf? mr. tillerson rrmark >-- mr. tillerson? >> that was a very brief conversation. >> with the president or with his advisers? >> with both. >> let me ask you a question. a week ago we went down to the gulf and had a hearing on the investigation. we heard from workers on the rig. i did not get a bit of information that date from yourself, transocean, halliburton, and others. i learned a lot more from

mr. mckay, i further call on bp to deposit dividend funds into this escrow account so that the citizens of the gulf and the taxpayers f this country can be a short they your commany will meet its obligation. i yield back the balance of my time. >> we thank the gentleman. the chair recognizes the gentleman from utah. >> bank, mr. chairman, from holding this hearing. -- thank you, mr. chairman, for holding this hearing. i know the way that your company does business and we're also going to hear about the explosion on april 23 you will discuss your safety records and lessons learned from past events. i think it is fair to say that many of your companies are immune from criticism and accidents couldst happen at any place. as has been mentioned already on friday night, the chevron pippline began leaking in salt lake city, and before being shut gallons of oil. it leaks into the jordan river which empties into the great salt lake. the great salt lake is one of the most important estuaries for migratin

mr. mckay was here. we had the ceo of exxon, chevron,, goodfellas, and shell. we ask them questions. --, called phillips and shell. we ask if they would have proceeded, and everyone of them said no. they were asked about safety measures. or the safety -- are there safety measures that your company could have taken to prevent this incident? everyone of them said yes. you are here this morning saying your company had no reckless behavior, yet all of your peers, the ceo of exxon, chevron,," phillips, and shell, all pointed out your reckless behavior. later on, alberta and warned that the well could have a severe problem. were you aware of halliburton's warning? what i want to know is, you, in your position, has anyone understaffed 32 about held burton warner company it could have a severe f-bomb -- about halliburton warning it could have a severe incident? a bp official who recognized the risk of proceeding for caution to the went in an e-mail just four days before the disaster, stating who cares, it is done, in the of story. did you know about that email? >> i ha

i am sure you have spoken with mr. mckay and such. shell, exxon, chevron, they all said -- when i asked them if they could give 100% that this would not happen if they did it, they could not give that. they all would say that they would do it safely. let's be honest with the american people that there is risk.nd it's a calculated if we can provide enough assurances that it is a risk worth taking, then we will be out there, what we? they would not do it, but noelie it or not. what they said is that it would never have happened because there fashion of drilling is different than what you were doing. i do not want to start a war among you guys, but do you believe the way day explore and drill in deep water is substantially different than what you are doing out there? >> and not to my knowledge. >> i tend to agree with you. let's talk about planning. ms. capps pointed out something very important, as far as exxon. what he said, is we could not do with it if something like that happen. it is an incredible statement to make, is not it? you

corporate culture, the chairman of president of lamar mckay that there's a willingness to cut costs and take greater risks, i look forward to hearing the aners of mr. hayward our many hard hitting committee member also hear today. i hope we will hear honest, contrite and substantive answers. mr. hayward, you owe it to all americans, for the americans who live and work on the gulf coast, it may be years before they get their lives back, for the americans who lost their lives on the rigs, their families may never get their lives back. mr. hayward, i'm sure you will get your life back and with a golden parachute back to england. but we in america areeft with a terrible consequences of bp's reckless disregard for safety. i yield back my time. >> today it does open our third hearing and a very critical hearing in the deep water rizon oil spill. this hearing provides the subcommittee with an important opportunity to directly question the man who ultimately leads bp, mr. tony hayward and bp's role has been central to the causes of the incident and to the response over the course of our inquiry today, committee investigators working in a by partisan fashi

culture, the chairman of president of lamar mckay that there's a willingness to cut costs and take greater risks, i look forward to hearing the answers of mr. hayward our many hard hitting committee member also hear today. i hope we will hear honest, contrite and substantive answers. mr. hayward, you owe it to all americans, for the americans wh% live and work on the gulf coast, it may be years before they get their lives back, for the americans who lost their lives on the rigs, their familiis may never get their lives back. mr. hayward, i'm sure you will get your life back and with a golden parachute back to england. but we in america are left with a terrible consequences of bp's reckless disregard for safety. i yield back my time. >> today it does open our third hearing and a very critical hearing in the deep water horizon oil spill. this hearing provides the subcommittee with an important opportunity to directly question the man who ultimately leads bp, mr. tony hayward and bp's role has been central to the causes of the incident and to the response over the course of our inquiry today, committee investigators working in a by partisan f

let's start with mr. mckay. >> does the change-over and the transition of alternative energy will take a while and tremendous investment. >> let me ask you this question. is there a degree that we have to up our investment in clean energy if we are going to solve this problem of carbon dioxide acidifying the ocean. >> please make it yes or no. >> these issues are too important and too complex. >> live at 7:00 eastern, your calls and comments on "washington journal." . >> learn more about the supreme court in cspan's latest book. it can a conversation with all+ the supreme court justices active and retired, available in hardcover and as an ebook] >> this week on