I think it is particularly important for EPA to be alert to the damage that both carbon pollution and chemical pollution are likely causing or are causing in our oceans.

I think it is an incredibly important issue, and as I say, you could make a fairly tight suggestion that it was the biggest public health issue humanity has ever faced.

the toxic soup notion of either chemical interactions working against the environment or its effects on a particular creature accumulating from one chemical harming them here to one chemical harming them there, it is a very real problem.

We are starting to get there today on global climate change, and that is good.

We need to have a stronger international leadership to deal with the complexities of what is happening in our oceans.

the worst effect for humankind of the carbon pollution of our planet may very well prove to be ocean acidification.

I think your evidence shows that no matter where you go, whales that feed at the top of the food chain carry enormous loads of toxins in their bodies, even in the farthest corners of the globe.

We were told something like this cannot happen. It did.

I think that anybody who really believes that should go tell that to the tourist economy of Florida.

Clearly we need, as Senator Cardin said, a review of our energy strategy.

I appreciate your championing that initiative.

I applaud the Obama administration's rapid and comprehensive emergency response to what could become the largest ecological disaster this country has ever seen.

Is that argument to be made that the dispersants have more of a cosmetic effect by making it no longer visible on the surface than an actual benefit environmentally in the long run?

the legislation that you put forth today for an independent commission will help us along the way in that regard.

We also put forth a bill co-sponsored by Chairman Leahy of the Judiciary Committee to reverse the limitation on punitive damages.

How about the Clean Air Act?

But you are comfortable that the EPA's current statutory authority allows it to consider these kinds of harms in its analysis of what parts of the environment need to be protected.

So it bioaccumulates not only in the body of an individual whale as it continues to swim and eat and age, it will also bioaccumulate in the species because lactation passes it on to the next generation in an upward ratchet of poisoning.