Ed Markey: “I thank the chairman very much. I thank him for his excellent work and for his timely hearings on this catastrophic…”

“I thank the chairman very much. I thank him for his excellent work and for his timely hearings on this catastrophic event. I thank the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps) for her excellent work on this indispensable piece of legislation and for working together in a bipartisan fashion with the minority to ensure that we have an historically accurate assessment of what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico. Madam Speaker, President Obama established a bipartisan National Commission to investigate the causes of the BP disaster through Executive order. However, the President does not have the authority to give the commission subpoena power. That requires the Congress to act. BP's response continues to be marked by catastrophic failures. Just today, an accident with an underwater recovery at the bottom of the sea has forced BP to remove the containment cap, and oil is now gushing into the ocean at a rate of 25,000 to 50,000 barrels per day. BP's mistakes seem to be without end. BP said the rig couldn't sink. It did. BP said they could respond to an Exxon Valdez-sized spill every day. They couldn't. BP initially claimed that the oil spill was 1,000 barrels a day. It wasn't. BP knew it. Internal BP documents show that, in the first week of the disaster, BP estimated the size of the spill could be as high as 14,000 barrels per day. It took BP 23 days to finally agree to release video footage of the oil spill.”