Olympia Snowe

We have passed legislation that includes all that rulemaking.

It just seems we must move heaven and earth, literally, to get this done in a way that is commiserate with the level of this destruction.

Yes, I understand your frustration. We've heard from others in that regard, and it's unfortunate that there hasn't been, as I said earlier, a level of urgency moving this process along.

Well, at one point prior to our last hearing there was an article in the paper that somebody from NOAA was even dismissing the idea that we needed to know the true flow rate.

Well, it was a huge issue at the time: trying to determine the true flow rate. That could have made a huge difference in our response, could it not?

I think that, again, it sounds like a massive bureaucracy and not at the level that's commensurate with the catastrophe at hand, frankly.

When you think about the lethargic response to this by the Federal Government, it is stunning, frankly.

Yes, thank you. Mr. Helton, did NOAA have any contingency plans in place with respect to a response to an oil spill in the aftermath of Exxon Valdez?

And was one developed since Exxon Valdez in that sense of with the use of chemical dispersants?

The corporate interests are not necessarily the public's interest.

It's kind of like working behind a guy who's hanging drywall, but you're handing him a sledgehammer.

This really is a crisis of epic proportion for this country. So what's at stake is the public interest now.

And there are five that are currently being tested. None have been fully implemented at this point.

Thank you, Chair Cantwell, and thank you, most importantly, for holding this hearing today on, without a doubt, the worst oil spill in the history of our country.

So it's really shocking to think that, in the last 20 years, we haven't developed either the methods or the technology as part of a contingency plan.

It's regrettable. I mean, someone is obviously making decisions that aren't in the best interests of fulfilling, I think, an urgent need here.

I just don't sense an element of urgency in this process.

As the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, I see it as our primary responsibility to ensure we close the loopholes that allowed this travesty to occur in the first place.

We've been told for months now that all available assets have been brought to bear on this crisis. Is that true?

In hindsight, we can look back and see, without a doubt, that the industry and the Nation were simply unprepared for a disaster of this magnitude.

It is remarkable that in 20 years since Exxon Valdez that we have not been able to put certain technologies or carry out testing of chemicals.

It is a terrible oversight that we wouldn't have had all this tested in the interim in response to the plan.

The Coast Guard should be making that decision, in the final analysis, based on what's in the best interest of the Nation.

I just hope that you won't dismiss it out of hand.

I think that one of the issues that has evolved from all of this in creating this vast department is being able to look across the spectrum.