Ken Salazar

He's going to rework the order and perhaps get approval the next time around.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar struck back in a statement tonight, saying that he will issue another order in the next few days that -- quote -- 'eliminates any doubt that a moratorium is needed, appropriate and within our…

The investigations of claims about Atlantis should be done by mid-September.

It is an existential issue for BP.

The answer to that is yes because it is much easier to deal with these kinds of issues in shallower water than in deep water.

In the North Atlantic, we took that off the table from any drilling exploration.

We ought not to allow BP to do it by themselves.

We ended up postponing leases that had been planned in the Chukchi and the Beaufort Sea, as Senator Murkowski well knows.

The fact is that BP did have an oil spill response plan.

In fact, in Senator Menendez's State of New Jersey, there is an oil spill laboratory which looks at oil spills and how to contain oil spills.

I appreciate the comment on the role that the engineers played and will continue to play as we try to move forward with the new safety regime for OCS.

Our reorganization is essentially blowing up MMS and putting it into different parts of the department and separating functions to avoid both perceived and real conflicts of interest.

The fact also is that that plan has not been effective in protecting the sensitive ecology of the Gulf of Mexico.

BP is responsible, and BP is responsible for all the damages that flow from the BP oil spill.

There is much more that can be done with respect to what we are doing concerning the safety requirements imposed on companies.

I signed up for this job, I signed up for it in large part because it is, in my view, the Department of America.

There is research underway with respect to oil spill issues all of the time.

We have, through Secretarial Order, ordered the dismantling of MMS as we knew it into what now will be three components going forward.

Thank you, Chairman Bingaman, Ranking Member Murkowski, and Members of the Committee for the opportunity to be here today.

I want to work closely with you to make sure that the organization that we put into place will ensure the goals which were articulated by you, Senator Bingaman, and that is that we have safety and environment as a critical concern of how…

We are holding BP accountable. And that accountability effort that we have under way, we have them by the neck and we will keep them by the neck.

We are looking at all of those issues, and at a point in time when we can give assurance to the American people that we can move forward safely, we will make whatever adjustments are appropriate.

I see this incident as being a catalyst for moving forward with a gulf coast restoration program.

So our job is basically to keep the boot on the neck of British Petroleum.

The moratorium in place does, in fact, apply to the Alaska wells and to the exploration wells Shell had proposed to put into place.