On the recordJune 10, 2010
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are three different issues that I am compelled to bring up and to discuss. One, first of all, is with what is going on in the Gulf of Mexico. Being from Texas, we are particularly sensitive to what happens there. There have been so many days on the Gulf of Mexico coast, on the Texas coast--Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida--in all of those areas, and to see what is happening is heartbreaking. Two things need to be done. One is to immediately do everything we can to stop additional oil from flowing into the area. At the same time, we must clean up the area before we do any more devastation. Then the other thing is we need to find out what caused the spill and what could have been done better to prevent this kind of thing from ever happening. You know, we find out that British Petroleum had been cited 750 times, apparently, on rigs for safety violations. Compare that to others. I believe Exxon and Shell may have had one during the same period. So I mean there were indicators that perhaps BP was hurrying, that perhaps there was a test that didn't work out. Well, we've heard those rumors. Yet they still continued. There is the rumor of someone's yelling on the phone after the explosion: I told you, I told you. Are you happy? I told you. It's something to that effect. There are indications that perhaps people at BP knew that they were moving too fast and got careless. There was no reason for this. There was no reason for this.
