Bill Nelson: “We have a huge potential economic and environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that is occurring as we speak. It was…”

“We have a huge potential economic and environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that is occurring as we speak. It was on an exploratory rig. It is almost unbelievable how far they can now drill beneath the surface of the water. In this case it was 5,000 feet, and then, at the ocean bottom, they were able to drill another 13,000 feet down to find a pocket of oil, all of which caused this explosion because of the pressure of the oil and the gas, the natural gas, creating such an overpressure that it exploded at the wellhead at the sea bottom. A device, a so-called blowout preventer, that had three safety mechanisms in order to stop the flow of oil in the case of a blowout--none of those three safety mechanisms have worked.”