Ed Markey

Everyone up in this community who was affected, we want to hear your stories and it will be included in the record and we welcome that, urge you to do so.

We are going to take the lessons of this disaster and then turn them into laws so that we can ensure that no community, no family anywhere in Massachusetts or the United States has to experience a tragedy like this ever again.

I think it's important for their voices to be in the congressional record.

They've just not earned that privilege and that to keep doing business in our country after the death of a young boy and after the immense chaos they created in this community.

So thank you. We're going to give them an A+ to the people from Merrimack Valley----

The Columbia Gas Emergency Response Plan was woefully inadequate.

Thanking you for letting us tell what happened to us.

I worry that something like this just wipes them out or puts them on such a downward path that they can't recover.

And what grade would you give them on the first day?

We're not going away. We're going to be here with the people of Merrimack Valley to make sure that your company is made accountable.

Can you elaborate on that?

Thank you, Chief, and---- again we're in your debt today but every day for what you do. So we thank you so much.

I want to begin by thanking Senator Markey for advocating on behalf of our communities to bring this hearing to Lawrence.

The people up here don't want to live questioning whether or not there are safety standards for the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant.

We don't let nuclear power plant operators...determine what the level of safety is at a nuclear power plant.

So the question of long-term relief is also important because these businesses, these families that are going to be impacted, and we've been pushing the Trump Administration, Small Business Administration, trying to make sure that there is…

It's absolutely incredible and unacceptable.

I would give them an F.

This is the beginning of accountability, the beginning of a process to ensure that our promise to the American people... that this never happens again.

There are huge deficiencies in the regulatory system in our country, that there is a huge regulatory black hole

The onus, Mr. Roberti, is on your agency to ensure that the pipeline companies are operating safely.

They guaranteed that they would fail to execute a swift and effective response.

The same thing should be true for PHMSA and it is not today.

I think that it is absolutely imperative that there be some price which is paid for what has happened.

Your recklessness took a wrecking ball to the lives of residents in these communities.