>> transocean. >> and what position do you hold with transocean, sir? >> chief electronics technician. >> and how long have you been

s well team leader john guide acknowledged the company knew of transocean's record. do you know if transocean was behind on the scheduled maintenance on the "deepwater horizon"? >> there were some issues some issues that were behind schedule. >> brown: since the disaster, the obama administration has pursued a moratorium on deep- water drilling. a federal judge struck down one attempt as too broad, but interior secretary ken salazar recently announced a revised six month moratorium. at a house hearing today salazar was criticized by republicans for that decision. >> makes no sense to me to cut off the drilling in gulf, when you've not had any real problems except for this one catastrophe. and i just don't understand why the administration is taking this carte blanche approach? >> brown: but democrats defended the moratorium. >> the fact is that this was an environmental disaster, and that we should look at regulation appropriately and i think it's very appropriate that the administration take the steps to ensure that all the wells are safe. >> brown: for now, the mor

her husband worked for transocean, the company that owned the rig. >> we had many conversations about the pressure on the rig and the mud they were losing. i think he knew then he was going back to problems. >> reporter: a report obtained by the "new york times" seems to back that up. in it, many workers expressed concern about the rig's safety. one worker described a culture of "run it, break it, fix it." another report obtained by the paper said 26 components on the rig were in bad or poor condition. those reports were drawn up just weeks before the rig exploded. a transocean spokesperson told the paper that most of the problems on the ship were minor and it ran for seven years straight without a problem. katie? >> couric: and kelly, we have a question for you from a viewer tonight. >> reporter: well, b.p. feels fairly confident that they can pick up where they left off. the real issue is the loss of time, up to two weeks if they actually have to evacuate. the other issue out there, though, is really picking up that oil that's already in the gulf. the skimming, the burning doesn't w

>> transocean. >> and what position do you hold with transocean, sir? >> chief electronics technician. >> and how long have you been the chief electronics technician? >> approximately six months. >> prior to your becoming chief electronics technician, what was your positions within transocean? >> electronics technician prior to that for a period of one year and prior to that i was a roustabout. >> and how long were you a roustabout, sir? >> with transocean, two years. >> were you a roustabout with another company as well, sir? >> no, sir. >> did you have any other oil and gas experience outside of transocean? >> none. >> ok. as chief electronic tech, can you please briefly describe your job responsibilities on board the deepwater horizon? >> first and foremost job responsibilites included maintaining the fire and gas systems and any and all electronic signaling devices throughout the rig. >> can you give me a background of your experience? >> i was in the united states marine corps and i was certified avionics technician on aircraft. that was the educat

>> transocean. >> what position do you hold with trans ocean, sir? >> chief electrician. >> how long have you been the chief electronics technician. >> six months. >> prior to that what was your other positions within transocean? >> electronics technician prior to that for a period of one year. prior to that i was a roust about. >> how long were you a roust about? >> with transocean, two years. >> were you a roust about with another company as well? >> no, sir. >> did you have other oil and gas experience outside of trans ocean? >> none. >> as chief electronics tech can you please briefly describe your responsibles? >> first and foremost job responsibilities included maintaining a fire and gas system. any and all electronic signaling devices throughout the rig. all right. please give us -- give me a background of your education, if you had anticipate other jobs that might be involved with heck electronic technician? >> i was if the united states marine corps and i was certified avionics technician. that was the education level i used to achieve this

>> transocean. >> and what position do you hold with transocean, sir? >> chief electronics technician. >> and how long have you been the chief electronics technician? >> approximately six months. >> prior to your becoming chief electronics technician, what was your positions within transocean? >> electronics technician prior to that for a period of one year and prior to that i was a roustabout. >> and how long were you a roustabout, sir? >> with transocean, two years. >> were you a roustabout with another company as well, sir? >> no, sir. >> did you have any other oil and gas experience outside of transocean? >> none. >> ok. as chief electronic tech, can you please briefly describe your job responsibilities on board the deepwater horizon? >> first and foremost job responsibilites included maintaining the fire and gas systems and any and all electronic signaling devices throughout the rig. >> can you give me a background of your experience? >> i was in the united states marine corps and i was certified avionics technician on aircraft. that was the educat

workers were stunned by testimony that the rig's general alarm had been adjusted not to ring at transocean's insistence. >> they did not want people to be woke up at 3:00 in the morning due to false alarms. >> reporter: now, regardless of what kind of wallop bonnie packs, it has already altered the timeline to kill the well, pushing it 12 days past the mid-august target. lester? >> anne thompson tonight, thanks. >>> with all this, that means along the louisiana bayou, there is a new unknown to deal with, and that is causing some high anxiety for people already dealing with their share of disaster. michelle kosinski is in dulac, louisiana, for us tonight. michelle? >> reporter: hi there, lester. people's lives here are so close to the water, there isn't much they could do about the storm. they can either ride it out or get out. some people say a hurricane headed for them wouldn't normally faze them, but they have never had a storm mixed with oil. in new orleans this morning, they closed the flood gates and loaded up sandbags in plaquemines parish. a day to clean up, tie down, move out. >> wat

according to "the washington post," bp, transocean and halliburton are the targets of the investigation. officials are looking into whether relationships with federal regulators contributed to the disaster. the latest probe is just another sign at bp's newly named ceo will have his hands full. american bob dudley will replace embattled ceo tony hayward in october. >> we're going to learn a lot, both bp and the industry. i'm sure there will be changes. >> reporter: those changes are already taking shape. bp plans to sell $30 billion in assets and set aside $32 billion more to cover the costs of the largest oil spill in u.s. history. and bp says it will claim a tax credit for the cost of the clean-up and that could cost taxpayers about $10 billion. betty, we'll see how that goes over. >> yeah, we shall see. tara mergener joining us live in washington. thank you. >>> also in the gulf of mexico, workers are battling a new oil spill. 100-foot plume of oil and natural gas is spewing from a well head just off the louisiana coast after being struck by a passing barge on tuesday. clean-up crews

"the washington post" reports that bp, transocean, and halliburton are the initial targets. it could be more than a year, though, before charges are filed. the government is assembling a bp squad in new orleans to examine whether the company's obstructed justice or falsified test results on devices like that failed blowout preventer. but they're also looking into whether regulators might have gone easy on companies in return for cash or other incentives. meanwhile, the senate has canceled today's hearing on bp's role in the release of the lockerbie bomber, due to the lack of cooperation from the company. guess they're a little sidetracked. back to you. >> that's a big project too, thank you very much, courtney. >>> a game delay for san jose's big for the oakland, as. san jose's mayor, chuck reed, says he's consider postponing a vote on the major league baseball park until next spring. the president of major league baseball asked san jose to back off the idea of a november ballot initiative for a new stadium. major league baseball told reed it would help pay for a special ele

mike williams was the chief electronics technician on the deepwater horizon, a former employee of transocean and he says that rig was behind schedule for repairs. katie. >> couric: and kelly, what is the schedule now, given the weather, for that so-called static kill? >> reporter: well, both sides seem to agree that the static kill is now the way to go, first of all, although final approval has not yet been given. best-case scenario: they hope they can have some of the ships back on the spill site by monday. they have a little bit of work to do on the relief well before they can try the static kill, which is pumping the mud from the surface down into the cap and then into the well and killing it that way. but they think they may be able to go ahead with that by wednesday of next week, katie. >> couric: all right. kelly cobiella in grand isle, louisiana, thanks so much. meanwhile, severe weather is also causing problems in the midwest. in chicago, the heat index reached triple digits today, and more than ten states were battered by everything from heavy rain to tornadoes. and that's not all.

and transocean and halliburton going to be? that's why we need to pass this bill. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. smith: may i ask the chairman of the committee if he's prepared to close? if so, i'll proceed. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: mr. smith: i take the chairman to have said he has no further speakers other than himself so i yield myself the balance of tie -- of my time. the speaker pro tempore: think gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: this bill should be opposed for four reasons. first, the bill repeals the limitation of liability act which will hurt the victims of maritime accidents. repealing the act eliminates important protections for maritime victims, including the fund for compensating personal injury victims. this bill, incredibly, repeals the personal injury fund. it repeals the personal injury fund. second, the bill means the bankruptcy code -- amends the bankruptcy code in a man that's right national bankruptcy conference a bipartisan organization, be

early in the month of may we had the executives from bp and halliburton and transocean at the table. i was dismayed by all the finger-pointing i saw. jay leno referred to it in his opening monologue. he said president obama has had enough of it. no more finger-pointing and then he went out and blame the bush for the whole problem. and this hearing does come at a critical time. i am grateful we are able to defer to this in the past tense. we have had encouraging news that it seems under control. there is serious environmental and economic impacts to confront in the gulf. because this bill. some of the damage relates directly to the decision making in the aftermath of the deepwater horizon explosion. -- bp caused the spill. as people continue to clean up, the department of interior has made decisions upon the decision in recent weeks that make a lot of boards of 20,000 jobs in the gulf coast energy industry. some of this new wave of economic destruction is already occurring. this is when we're hitting people when they are down and need it the least. the governor of louisiana wrote a po

do you train transocean or do you -- with them and require on their training?e compliment to requirement your job. it's fun and something you and do all the re80's when you acted did it. do you have a bp officer who is a supervisor of the rig who is ulingtly the decision maker or do you actually delegate the division making ride po op to of how decisions are taken and who takes what, that should be set out in the contract ahead of time. so it could be that the bp company on board has certain decision man on board, and the tractor has certain addition rights, that would be set out in time. understanding that you obviously are doing a lot of internal investigations, post explosion to try and find out what happened. and i know that's an ongoing procedures, but has bp i guess i didn't mind explosions. if we find things that need responding to. then we abc lutely do that. so already we've initiated tests of low blowouts looking point our nephew would be addressed today step, hey, hey, hey. and your fourth statement on the culture of safety. it reads from your statem

>> i think we considered transocean to be a top flight drilling company. it was their rig. we consider their procedures to be world class, top of the line industry. so we had no reason to think it was anything other than a top flight operation. >> including the blowout protector that was underwater. was it considered to be the best practice or standard of the industry? >> i didn't know northwest details of that, but i had no reason to think otherwise. i've seen records in the past that it was tested routinely, these are tested routinely, frequently. no indication i would have had that it would be anything other than standard. >> mr. dickerson,ing what do you feel should be the prerequisite for lifting the moratorium in terms of dealing with some of the concerns about the safety of the industry that of became intensified with the deep water horizon disaster? >> well, i think our company and i'm sure a number of our competitors and other participants and offshore have tried to glean what we can from the limited data that's out there. i think bp has done a really good job of r

. >> reporter: she said her husband was worried about operations on the rig owned by transocean. >> wead many conversations about the pressure on the rig and the mud they were losing. i think he knew he was going back to the problem. >> reporter: that panel hears more witnesses today but really the focus today is on this storm, what happens next, and, of course, this storm will delay the efforts to plug that well by anywhere from 10 to 14 days. chris? >> kelly cobiella in grand isle, louisiana, for thus morning. thank you. >>> bonnie is expected to first hit florida later today. cbs news correspondent don teague is in key west with the latest on the preparations there for us this morning. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, chris. there are no mandatory evacuations here in key west. they are expecting quite a storm when tropical storm bonnie blows in here, stimulate they are afternoon, with at least 40 miles per hour winds. and up to five inches of rain. the second named storm of the season went from tropical disturbance to tropical storm bonnie in a matter of hours. blowing throu

the commission on tabeed two reports from -- obtained reports from transocean. 8:16. today, a federal judge will listen to argument for and against arizona's new immigration law. that law is set to take effect one week from today. alison burns is live in our washington, d.c. bureau with all of the detail. good morning, alison. >> reporter: good morning to you, dave. republicans here on capitol hill made a last-ditch attempt to try to get the justice department to stop going through with this lawsuit. but they failed in the 55-43 senate vote last night. the arizona law makes illegal immigration a state crime and gives police the authority to question a person's immigration status if they are detained for another crime and there's reasonable suspicion. today, the justice department and more than00 civil rights groups and individuals are alcoholling it in federal court, saying it's uncon city frugal. republicans say -- unconstitutional. republicans say cities like san francisco should be challenged. >> it's interesting that the obama administration is suing arizona for e

government agencies are now preparing a criminal probe of at least three companies involved ini bp, transoceants. investigators are looking into the relationship between the companies and the federal agency in charge of oil drilling. >>> people whose livelihoods are being hurt by the spill are telling their stories to lawmakers on capitol hill. emily schmidt has that story from wash >> reporter falches from the coast -- >> it's impacted us greatly. >> do you solemnly swear to tell the truth -- >> reporter: to the capitol where two different congressional hearings focus on people hurt by the spill. >> i don't know a single business in our town that has not been directly affected by this oil. >> reporter: the head of alabama's gulf coast convention and visitors bureau says hotels that are usuall thi wneree io. >> and this is not a sustainable business model. >> reporter: the u.s. travel association wants bp to earmark $500 million for a tourism marketing campaign. and in a separate hearing, witnesses called on the obama administration to reverse a deep water drilling moratorium imposed after the

on as there should be but we know many of the things that caused the problems on that rig on the transocean b.p. horizon and in fact, they were preventable. that's the sad part of this. this was a preventable disaster and if you look at what the companies do that are in deeper watters that don't have the safety problems b.p. had it's because they do things the right way and that's what we should be following. we should go and look to what the president's own safety commission came back with. unfortunately, the president when he got that 30-day report back from his scientist and engineers that didn't give him the results he wanted, it didn't suggest a moratorium, he wanted to do one anyway, so he threw away the science and trumped science with politics. that's a sad state of affairs for our country to be in where we're ignoring science that recommends the right way to go for safety and the president chose a path for a less safe approach that throws jobs away and makes our country more dependent on foreign oil. >> which flies in the face of the record of tremendous safety and producing oil an

summer 2009, the mms awards transocean's u.s. gulf of mexico operation a safety award for excellence and our secretary directed mms to begin focusing on promoting wind energy. elizabeth birnbaum assumes duties as director of mms. the new york times recorded that quote nr particularly and tasked with handling the issue of the 25-mile cape wind farm off of cape cod. what happens the next month august 2009, mms fails to perform a standard monthly expansion of deepwater horizon. august of that same month, white house -- at the white house's request, secretary salazar takes a break from her wind energy efforts to begin the big effort of selling health care reform. august 2009, you traveled throughout the west to tout obama's stimulus plan. i understand from this timeline that on the 21st of august that you were in grand canyon south rim on the highlighting 10.8 million stimulus dollars. 8/20, you were in utah. $3.6 million stimulus dollars and on the 20th you were in oregon on stimulus dollars. the very next month the national oceanic

summer 2009, the mms awards transocean's u.s. gulf of mexico operation a safety award for excellence and our secretary directed mms to begin focusing on promoting wind energy. elizabeth birnbaum assumes duties as director of mms. the new york times recorded that quote nr particularly and tasked with handling the issue of the 25-mile cape wind farm off of cape cod. what happens the next month august 2009, mms fails to perform a standard monthly expansion of deepwater horizon. august of that same month, white house -- at the white house's request, secretary salazar takes a break from her wind energy efforts to begin the big effort of selling health care reform. august 2009, you traveled throughout the west to tout obama's stimulus plan. i understand from this timeline that on the 21st of august that you were in grand canyon south rim on the highlighting 10.8 million stimulus dollars. 8/20, you were in utah. $3.6 million stimulus dollars and on the 20th you were in oregon on stimulus dollars. the very next month the national oceanic

summer 2009, the mms awards transocean's u.s. gulf of mexico operation a safety award for excellence and our secretary directed mms to begin focusing on promoting wind energy. elizabeth birnbaum assumes duties as director of mms. the new york times recorded that quote nr particularly and tasked with handling the issue of the 25-mile cape wind farm off of cape cod. what happens the next month august 2009, mms fails to perform a standard monthly expansion of deepwater horizon. august of that same month, white house -- at the white house's request, secretary salazar takes a break from her wind energy efforts to begin the big effort of selling health care reform. august 2009, you traveled throughout the west to tout obama's stimulus plan. i understand from this timeline that on the 21st of august that you re in grand canyon south rim on the highlighting 10.8 million stimulus dollars. 8/20, you were in utah. $3.6 million stimulus dollars and on the 20th you were in oregon on stimulus dollars. the very next month the national oceanic a

>> i think we considered transocean to be a top flight drilling company. it was their rig. we consider their procedures to be world class, top of the line industry. so we had no reason to think it was anything other than a top flight operation. >> including the blowout protector that was underwater. was it considered to be the best practice or standard of the industry? >> i didn't know northwest details of that, but i had no reason to think otherwise. i've seen records in the past that it was tested routinely, these are tested routinely, frequently. no indication i would have had that it would be anything other than standard. >> mr. dickerson,ing what do you feel should be the prerequisite for lifting the moratorium in terms of dealing with some of the concerns about the safety of the industry that of became intensified with the deep water horizon disaster? >> well, i think our company and i'm sure anumber of our competitors and other participants and offshore have tried to glean what we can from the limited data that's out there. i think bp has done a really good job of re