It would be a far smarter economic decision to rectify the permitting process at Interior and get our fellow Americans back to work in the Gulf rather than selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

To say that the work of the NRDA Trustees is important would be a huge understatement.

I really don't think it will be helpful to mandate removing, in many cases, premier fish habitats.

Thank you both for your work.

The incident also resulted in the largest oil spill in history, period; an incident that pummeled the Gulf Coast and left significant environmental and economic damage, which is an ongoing challenge.

the Interior Department's mismanagement of permitting is way too high.

I guess that is my question in all of this, and I don't mean to interrupt, but to get to the heart of it, you need some baseline.

It remains appropriate that at least 80 percent of those fines levied on BP go toward restoring the Gulf.

The idea that investment in restoration could take upwards of a decade is really unacceptable.

Is any of that work being done in this context helpful in terms of the broader NOAA stock assessment responsibility?

To say that the work of the NRDA Trustees is important would be an enormous understatement, for Louisiana coastal restoration has been an ongoing challenge.

Legislation to dedicate the funds and establish a council to administer them has seemed, to me at least, stalled in Congress.

I think I represent all Gulf States in saying that we strongly support the recommendations of the National Oil Spill Commission.

It may be prudent in the near future to look at moving S. 662, legislation written by me and cosponsored by my colleague Mary Landrieu, which would require a significant down payment on NRDA liabilities.

I think that equation needs to be flipped over. I think that the public should be in the driver's seat.

The impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill come, as I mentioned, on top of longer-term degradation of important habitats and resources of the Northern Gulf of Mexico.

Our citizens have already been victimized. Our economy has been victimized.

The commission recommended that Congress dedicate for this purpose 80 percent of the Clean Water Act penalties, as Senator Vitter mentioned earlier in his discussion of legislation.