Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the manager's amendment to H.R. 3534, ``The Consolidated Land, Energy and Aquatic Resources (CLEAR) Act.'' The manager's amendment provides a number of provisions that will ensure that there is greater chance of preventing an incident such as the April 30, 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. The Manager's amendment includes my amendment which requires redundancy in accident and spill response plans as part of the permitting process under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Specifically, my amendment will require that businesses applying for permits to drill and produce crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico submit detailed spill mitigation and recovery plans as part of the permitting process. Not only must they have recovery plans, but they will be required to have backup plans, in case their first response fails. Additionally, those plans must be vetted by impartial experts, rather than rubber-stamped by insufficiently vigilant regulators. With this additional layer of response planning, there is a better chance that we will be better prepared to respond to future incidents like the Gulf oil spill. The Manager's amendment also includes provisions that do the following: Clarifies that the Secretary of the Interior may enter into cooperative education and training agreements with safety training firms in establishing the National Oil and Gas Health and Safety Academy.…”