And you are comfortable that that is a viable indicator?

To go back to bioaccumulation, once you have combined the dispersants and the oil, and now it is being taken up by the bottom level food chain species together, are you equally confident that the bioaccumulation problem is as minimal as it…

And the reason we were told for that is because the damage to the cells is so immediate and so acute that you can't pick up endocrine disruption.

But would you expect to yet? I mean, is this even the feeding season for some of the species?

And the reason that that acute toxicity is not showing up in your field studies is because the concentration that you are testing at is below the level that would cause it, or is it because the creatures you are testing are fundamentally…

You found indication of endocrine disruption, but not scientifically significant endocrine disruption, or not a scientifically significant signal of endocrine disruption?

Let me, if I may, Senator, just add.

So reforming that administrative process is something that is underway within EPA?

Particularly when you have what the Administrator referred to as a real emergency going on, the time at that point for the RRT process to go through a scientific evaluative process of determining what the toxicity consequences are off of…

It may be appropriate to differentiate within that list, and it may be important to have somebody other than the manufacturer in a basically unreviewed disclosure of certain toxicity data come to a decision about the safety or not of the…

That is why the National Contingency Plan explicitly states that having a product on the product schedule does not constitute approval by the EPA.

But there is no testing of any kind that is done about its toxicity or its health effects at that time by EPA?

We owe this to the communities along the Gulf Coast, but we also owe it to all Americans to assure them that we are prepared the next time such a disaster strikes.

When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, it took 11 lives and triggered a chain of events that have led to what may be the largest and most destructive environmental disaster in our history.

To go back to what we do know about the dispersant that Chairman Boxer referred to, which has these characteristics of hazard to humans of liver damage, internal bleeding, and all those sorts of things, how does that transpire?

I am not suggesting that we have perfect knowledge, I am not suggesting that we don't need more information and more monitoring.

I am purposely focusing on, as I often say, the data, the data, the data.

And bioaccumulation can be a very powerful and concentrating force if the ultimate animal to which the human is exposed is at the top of the food chain.