Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague, and I think his point is a very cogent one, and it's even worse than we're discussing because not only did we consciously decide during the Bush administration and by previous Congresses, frankly controlled by our friends on the other side, consciously to exclude such oil drilling from the regular environmental review that could have detected problems, but it was worse than that. Let me give an example in terms of what measures that at least could have mitigated the impact of this disaster. Canada, as my friend from Oregon knows, requires deepwater rigs to have contingency plans for offshore oil drilling, including the capability to drill relief wells soon after constructing primary wells. If this well, this Deepwater Horizon well, had predrilled such relief wells, it would have allowed the closing of the leak weeks ago, but they weren't required to do so. Norway and Brazil require something called acoustic valves which are backup devices for closing the pipe of a blowout preventer. In 2003, under the Bush administration, the Minerals Management Service concluded that the $550,000 acoustic system is not recommended because it tends to be very costly. I would say to my friend from Oregon, as he knows, as of June 7, the response to this oil spill cost $1.25 billion and climbing. That $550,000 investment in an acoustic valve could have saved billions of dollars and could have saved an ecosystem now at incredible jeopardy.”