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David Vitter is a former United States Senator from Louisiana, serving from 2005 to 2017. A member of the Republican Party, Vitter was known for his focus on issues such as transportation, infrastructure, and environmental policy. During his tenure, he served on various Senate committees, including the Environment and Public Works Committee, where he addressed topics like water quality and pharmaceuticals in the nation's waters.
What I am scared to death about is that for energy companies and related industries, all of a sudden, the political risk in the United States of America is higher, is worse, is more threatening than it is in West Africa or a lot of other…
I want to go back to the broader issue of not just the formal moratorium in deepwater, but the de facto moratorium in shallow water and the threat of unreasonable regulation.
I am very disappointed that our witnesses don't include any representative of the Obama Administration.
If the formal and de facto moratoria continue for six months or more, what revenue impact will your jurisdiction and your local school systems see, and what service cuts will that lead to?
If this moratorium continues even a few more months, we will lose more jobs because of it than we will lose from the oil itself.
Right. And just to be clear for the record, as of three weeks ago, the number of those new drilling permits in shallow since the Deepwater Horizon explosion was zero.
The administration exempted the defense budget from spending freezes being applied to other parts of the government.
The initial legislative intent behind the defense QDR has degraded over time.
The 2010 QDR lacked a clear future planning construct going forward 20 years.
One misperception up here I am very concerned about is that for this moratorium these rigs, these businesses are just going to sort of sit back and wait and then 6 months and a day will turn the light switch back on and go back into…
I talked to Bill Reilly, a co-chair, yesterday and he did not defend the moratorium in any way.
I invited the President to send any responsible witness to lay out the rationale for the moratorium.
If those rock jetties were there, Senator, we would not have additional oil coming into Barataria Bay.
What our frustration is is the Federal Government is essentially saying we don't know what the adverse effects of the rock jetties may be.
I am afraid perhaps OPA 90 had this assessment-restoration model set up, but no prevention model.
Natural resource damages assessments are extremely important, but like Councilman Young I have been more focused on natural resource damages prevention.
All of those areas have been dramatically impacted by this spill, and those are areas Senator Merkley and Senator Cardin and others joined me in visiting.
Again, if you could have NOAA respond more specifically to me, I would appreciate it.
This isn't a non-emergency situation. This is a clear emergency situation, and clear environmental damage was happening every hour of every day.
What the Federal agencies were best at was raising countless objections, slowing things down to an impractical pace.
I again want to quickly emphasize my extreme concern with the drilling moratorium in the Gulf.
I urge everyone in the Senate to come together around my legislation which would remove any cap for this event.
The natural resource damages assessments are imperative for cleaning up this mess properly and to ensuring the future environmental health of the Gulf.
Politicians like David Vitter
