mr. stupak. >> thank you for you and mr. waxman for holding this hearing and for your leadership. on the oversight committee, we have been investigating the actions of bp. this provides the committee a chance to examine the practices of the other major oil companies. he could be so that bp is the one bad apppe in the bunch, but unfortunately they appear to have plenty of company. exxon and other "companies are just as unprepared to respond to major oil spill in the gulf as bp. i've been examining the oil spill response plan of exxonmobil, the largest oil company in the united states. this document is over 500 pages long. in many respects, is virtually indistinguishable from bp's response plan and the response plans of the other major companies. at this time, mr. chairman, i would ask unanimous coosent that this be been a part of the record. >> without objection, so ordered. >> thank you. there is one major difference between the exxonmobil plan and the other response plans. the section dealing with tte media. bp, shell, conocophillips, aad chevron have plans with short media relat

mr. stupak cuholds.we are getting the facts out in as fast and transparent a fashion so that the american extent that it is possible to understand, what happened. there is no question that british petroleum oil company, the owner and chief operator of the reagan that had the accident -- of the rig that had the accident is responsible for the accident. it is the responsibility of our major oil companies do have adequate contingency plans when things go wrong. i am not trying to whitewash the private sector in terms of their responsibility for causing this problem, but i want to point out something that has not yet been pointed out. the five people most connerned about solving the problem are probably sitting before us today. exxon mobil, chevron, shell oil, bp america and conoco-philips have huge interest in getting it right and never being wrong again. if you add market caps to those five companies, they would not equal the market cap of some of the oil companies owned by sovereign nations such as saudi

mr. stupak. >> mr. waxman and i sent a letter yester day, and you coold respond a little bit to it. we found some areas where we think bp should have done things differently to get control of this well. you use the word "nightmare well" and one of the e-mails that we put in our report. i was struck that in your testimony, based on the industry's extensive experience, you state that what we do know is when you properly design wells in the range of risk anticipated, build and layers of redundancy, properly inspect and maintain equipment, kennuck test, and drill on best practices, that incident that we are witnessing in the gulf of mexico today should not occur. i mention that because the saying -- the exact same words are there in your testimony, but it is attributtd to the vice-president of exxonmobil global affairs. in your 500 page response, you stay on script. i have to compliment you. you are all on script and you are using the same words. that was the problem with the well that mr. waxman pointed out in his testimony. if it was not bp but one of you, one of your companies, if th

mr. stupak and mr. waxman are doing an excellent job working with dr. burr negligence and myself in conducting i think a fair fair oversight investigation. boar going to get into a number of tse issues. i'm speaking totally for myself, i'm not speaking for the republican party, i'mot speaking for anybody in the house of representatives but myself. but i'm ashamed of what happened in the white house yesterday. i think it is a tragedy ithe firks proportion that i would characterize as a shakedown, in this ce a $20 billion shakedown, with the attorney neral of the united states who is conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do that to protect the american people. participating in what amounts to a $20 million slush fund which i think set aster ribl precedent for the future. if i called you into my office. avshtd and i had the subcommittee chairman mr. stupak with me who was legitimately subjecting an oversight investigation on your compa and said if you put so many millions of dollars in a project in my constitutional district i could go

mr. stupak and mr. waxman are doing an excellent job working with dr. burr negligence and myself in conducting i think a fair fair oversight investigation. boar going to get into a number of those issues. i'm speaking totally for myself, i'm not speaking for the republican party, i'm not speaking for anybody in the house of representatives but myself. but i'm ashamed of what happened in the white house yesterday. i think it is a tragedy in the firks proportion that i would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown, with the attorney general of the united states who is conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do that to protect the american people. participating in what amounts to a $20 million slush fund which i think set aster ribl precedent for the future. if i called you into my office. avshtd and i had the subcommittee chairman mr. stupak with me who was legitimately subjecting an oversight investigation on your company and said if you put so many millions of dollars in a project in my constitutional distric

mr. stupak. there are questions that need to be asked, that are legget, because we don't want another oil spill of this magnitude or any magee tight in the gulf of mexico, and if this subcommittee can do things to make it much more difficult for an incident like this to occur in the future, then we will have done our work. i yield back. >> thank you. i will do my opening statement now. today is the 59th day of the bp oil spill that has devastated much of the gulf of mexico. 11 men lost their lives the day the deepwater horizon drilling rig exploded. and in the 59 days that have followed, countless people have lost their livelihood as the oil spill plutes the fishing grounds and plutes the states. this is the third hearing the oversight subcommittee has held and the fifth hearing overall in the energy and congress committee. our first committee discovered problems with the blowout preventor and several other factors. our second hearing was a field hearing that -- in new orleans where we heard from

mr. green. miss sutton for around opening statement. three minute, please. >> thank you, chairman stupak. it's been nearly two months since the explosion of the deep water horizon drilling rig resulting in the death s of 11 workers and injured additional workers. since then, we've witnessed the worst environmental disaster in our nation's history, that continues to pour an estimated 60,000 barrels of oil a day into the gulf of mexico. that has led to over 66,000 victims filing claims to receive compensation. through this subcommittee's work, several alarming decisions by bp have come to light to save money and time. it's unconscionable when companies pay more attention to their comforts andheir profits than to their own workers' safety and to our environment. at our last hearing one witness from transocean testified that a duplicate blowout preventer system comforts rough $15 million not used on the deep war horizon rig. bp also utilized a risky option for steel tubing saving $7 million. bp did not circulate drilling mud or secure casing hangers between biopsies of different dime terse an

mr. waxman. >> yesterday, chairman stupak and i sent a letter to tell me his word -- to tell me his word -- tony hayward that describes a series of decisions that bp made it that seemed to increase the risk of catastrophic blow out. i would like to ask each of you whether you think mistakes were made by bp. >> in reviewing the letter that you both cent, it appears clear to me that a number of design standards were not followed. >> if i could come quickly, you phink that they made mistakes. the answer you would give it yes.d be west depic >> we would not have drilled a well the way they did. >> we have just had a chance to look at your letter. our experts are taking a look at it. i have read it myself. from what i have seen, it is consistent with what the task force found. we have an opportunity to raise the bar, if you will, on standards in the industry, and it appears from your letter that not all standards that we would recommend or that we would employ were in place. >> do any of you disagree with the statement that bp made mistakes? >> is not a disagreement, it is just a confirmation that we

mr. waxman. >> yesterday chairman stupak and i sent a letter to yeny heyward, the c.e.o. of b.p. and it had questions about the design and decisions made by b.p. at the well. the letter describes a series of decisions b.p. made that seemed to reduce the risk of catastrophic blow out. i'd like to ask each of you whether you think mistakes were made by b.p.? >> in reviewing the letter that you both send, it appears clear to me that a number of design standards were -- i would consider to be the industry norm were not followed. >> let me go through this, if i could quickly. you think they made mistake? the answer you would give would be yes. >> we would not have drilled the well the way they do. >> how about you, mr. watson? >> just had a chance to take a look at your letter, it's quite lengthy with a number of details comments, our experts are looking at it. i've read it myself and it's consistent with what the joint industry task force found in that we have the opportunity to raise the bar, if you will, on standards in the industry and it certainly appeaas from your letter that no

mr. stupak: starting this book tax-free rebate ecks of $250 will be nt to seniors who have already hit the part d doughnut hole. this $250 rebate is a key improvement to medicare and the first medicare benefit of the new health care reform law to ta effect. the rebates are being sent three months ahead of schule and the first round of checks will reach nearly 80,000 seniors who are already in the doughnut hole. following this inial round o rebate checks, addition checks will be sent to seniors ashey hit the doughnut hole. it is estimated that four million seniors across the country will receive a250 rebate check this year. this is just the first phase of relief for seniors from prescription drug costs. next year seniors in the doughnut hol will see a 15% discount on brand name drugs. while the medicare part d prcription drug program has helped millions of seniors obtainrescription drug coverage, senis would fall into the doughnut hole and receivno financial assistance with tir prescription drugs aroften forced to put their health in danger by splitting pills or skipping treatments all toge

mr. stupak has emphasized that. this is something with which we have been overwhelmed. so part of that plan, i think we form an emergency response team. hopefully this will never happen again, but it would be nice to have if we are in that venue. >> we have a refinery locally in my area, i'm very proud of it. he says what risk do we face on land-based facilities as well? i think the story that's not told, and joe barton mentioned this a couple times, but you are in the deepwater because that's where major oil finds are, and i have marge natural oil production in southern illinois and it is about a barrel a day. we still produce. we are the 10th leading state. it's not very much, and we're proud of what we get out of the ground. since i've been to the refinery there, numerous times, one thing that is important, if we're talking about all the above energying strategy, -- energy strategy, and i'll talk climb ate debate another day, but we can agree on north america energy independence. what you are doing is bringing tar samples down through a pipeline that can be refined i