On the recordJune 16, 2010
In conclusion, I do want to say that I work very closely with Mr. Oberstar, the Democrat chair of the T&I Committee. When we found out that the $1.6 billion fund has a $150 million cap for emergency use, we came together last week. I offered legislation specifically to deal with that. Again, we have to act in a responsible manner for the country. We passed that. The House concurred with us. We have provided some temporary relief. Again, I'm not going to let the $1.6 billion or the $150 million be a piggy bank for BP or for any responsible parties, but we want to make certain that all of the resources are there on an emergency basis to the administration, to the Coast Guard, to whomever, so no one can say that Congress didn't act in a timely fashion. We were alerted that some of the funds were running low in that emergency portion of the $1.6 billion, which is put out in advance. So I talked a little bit before about the legislation we are looking at on liability caps, and that is what we have done in a bipartisan fashion today. We did that, and we are prepared to do even more on the caps, whatever it takes and whatever resources and assets of the government and of the private sector we can bring to bear to bring this horrible disaster under control.
