the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentleman from vermont, mr. welch. mr. welch: i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from nebraska, congressman terry, is recognized for one minute. mr. terry: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to recognize our guest chaplain, a constituents of the second district of nebraska, father steven bayse, on july 1 he will celebrate five years as the national executive director of boys town, one of the largest nonprofit, nonsectarian childcare organizations in the united states. he is the fourth priest to secede father flanagan who founded boys town in 1917. a native of iowa, he holds a bachelor degree in sociology and master degree in theology anddy vinity. he also holds a master's degree in counseling from creighton university, in omaha. a priest of the omaha arch by sees since 1985, he previouuly soifled as the director of st. augustine

i thank the witnesses for being with us today and let me join my good friend mr. welch in requesting b.p. to consent to an escrow fund that will provide a modest recommend eddie for those who have been -- recommend eddie -- remedy for those who have been harmed. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. gonzalez. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i will be very brief. i don't usually make opening statements but think i can read the minds of the witnesses and think they're all saying all these individuals are stating the obvious and the political and you're absolutely right but i think when we get into the questioning it will be a different world as far as the political to be honest with you, all those that are blaming the president for not meeting with b.p.c.e.o. immediately, had the president done that, i assure you today the statements would be what was the president thinking of meeting with the b.p. executives at the outset without first visiting the areas or meeting with the coast guard and first responders. that's what would have happened. what i ho

let me join mr. welch in appreciating the complexity of the task of moving people and goods when mr. welch and i planned tierney were in afghanissan llst year we listened to agriculture ministers explain that for a simple agriculture farmer, the farmer or company they were contracting with were stopped 20 or 25 times for various forms of illegal payment, i can't imagine the added complexity when you're dealing with security concerns of + national military shipments, military convoys. my question to you, mr. motsak, is on the issue of the reports that our investigators detiled, were made to the departmmnt from the ddfferent contracting pntities. i appreciate the fact that a lot of this information is new to you and you have to figure out what to do with it. but we have a volume of reports that went from ccntracting agencies to the department of defense that detailed a variety of different leeels of information regarding payoffs. one memo from one particular contractor to a contract manager detailed, quote,

mr. welch: madam speaker, america needs jobs. the unemployment is too high, and there are concrete things we can do to create jobs. one is to pass the home star energy retrofit bill into law. the senate has to act. the house passed it in a bipartisan basis last year. it's a partnership between homeowners, the private sector and government. it will create 170,000 jobs where we need them the most in manufacturing, in retail by getting customers to the local hardware stores and in construction by putting out-of-work home builders to work retrofitting homes. this is a triple play. it will allow us to save $10 billion in energy bills. it will put 170,000 out-of-work folks to work and it will help homeowners save on their energy bills. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. for what purpose does the gentleman from nebraska rise? >> to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> madam speaker, yesterday the united states supreme court upheld a federal ap

mr. welch: thank you very much. we have to acknowledge something, thoss of us who supported the stimulus as something necessary, those of white house decided to attend to the request by president bush to stabilize the financial system and do something we didn't really want to do but felt it was necessary to do, and that is that despite the gross domestic product increasing, despite the positive signs that have been cited by you and mr. ryan, this is still a depression for any american who doesn't have his or her job. when you have 10% unemployment, which i think is the real measure of the strength of this economy, you know we have an economy that continues to struggle. and we have to do a number of things. yes we did have to have a ptimulus. it was focused where it would do the most good. we did have to stabilize the financial system, bbt that's going to add a burden until that is repaid. + but one of the things we have to do is understand what is the proper role of the private sector and what's the proper role of g

mr. welch, you are recognized for five minutes. >> i am amazed at your capacity to get goods from here to there. i do not think the american people have any appreciation for how incredibly complex and difficult it is. thank you for your work. the big question is whether, in the accomplishment of that, the approach that has been chosen by others to pay $2 billion to a half a dozen private contractors who didn't provide security to equip our soldiers is the right approach. would it be better to do what has been done in our history and a sign that responsibility to the afghan security force were there would be under direct control and supervision of our commander. i would be interested in your opinions about the pros and cons of each approach. i guess i will start with you because people are looking at you. i want to give deference to our men in uniform as well. >> sir, we do not believe that the afghan security forces are mature enough to take over this mission. in a perfect world, this would be

mr. welch, opening statement, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. hayward, in the 49 days since the deep water horizon explosion 'caused this extraordinary environmental ppcatastrophe, we've heard time and again from bp this was an abration, the facts regrettably tell a different story. in 2005, when bp's texas city operation blew up, 14 workers lost their lives n 2006, a bp oil pipeline in texas ruptured and spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil n in 2007, the year you became ceo, the bp corporation settled a series of criminal charchgs not civil charge, krill unanimous charge and paid $370 million in fines. according to risk met tri, an independent okay, bp has one of the worst health, environment and safety records of any company in the world n only one year, the occupational safety and health administration found more than 700 violations at bp's texas ty refinery and bp paid a record $87 million in a fine. bp was charg with putting profits before safety. earlier this year, a refinery in toledo was fined $3 million for willful safety violations in

mr. welch, opening statement, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. hayward, in the 49 days since the deep water horizon explosion 'caused this extraordinary environmental catastrophe, we've heard time and again from bp this was an abration, the facts regrettably tell a different story. in 2005, when bp's texas city operation blew up, 14 workers lost their lives n 2006, a bp oil pipeline in texas ruptured and spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil n in 2007, the year you became ceo, the bp corporation settled a series of criminal charchgs not civil charge, krill unanimous charge and paid $370 million in fines. according to risk met tri, an independent okay, bp has one of the worst health, environment and safety records of any company in the world n only one year, the occupational safety and health administration found more than 700 violations at bp's texas city refinery and bp paid a record $87 million in a fine. bp was charged with putting profits before safety. earlier this year, a refinery in toledo was fined $3 million for willful safety violations

mr. welch, opening statement, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. hayward, in the 49 days since the deep water horizon explosion 'caused this extraordinary environmental catastrophe, we've heard time and again from bp this was an abration, the facts regrettably tell a different story. in 2005, when bp's texas city operation blew up, 14 workers lost their lives n 2006, a bp oil peline in texas ruptud and spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil n in 2007, the year you became ceo, the bp corporation settled a series of criminal charchgs not civil charge, krill unanimous charge and paid $370 million in fines. according to risk met tri, an independent okay, bp has one of the worst health, environment and safety records of any company in the world n only one year, the occupational safety and health administration found more than 700 violations at bp's texas city refinery and bp paid a record $87 million in a fine. bp was charged with putting profits before safety. earlier this ar, a refinery in toledo was fined $3 million for willful safety violations includ

. >> next for questions, mr. welch was not here. mr. green? >> yesterday mr. tillotson from exxonmobil testified that in the aftermath of the exxon valdez investigation and implementede far-reaching decisions. have there been any specific reforms that bp has implemented following the alaska pipeline disaster in the texas city refinery disaster? close we did implement major change following the incidents in both 2006 and 2007. changes to people, in terms of skills and capabilities. changes to the training that they get, and expertise to develop. we have implemented significant changes to all of our operating practices, including implementation of operating and management system that covers all of the company's operations. it has been a root and branch review from top to bottom. >> my concern is, having called both the alaska pipeline and the texas city refinery disaster, those reforms have not worked. what will be done differently this time and the last almost 60 days? has there been discussion on why the reforms from the texas city and pipeline in alaska have