We have your statement. It will be including the record in its entirety and under the circumstances, you can deliver it in its entirety if you wish or summarize, either way. I will summarize it. I am here to provide a frank response the questions regarding the Exxon Valdez Oil spill and to describe our continuing efforts to deal with its consequences before this i do this however i want to express sincere regret as to what happened on behalf of all the employees of the exxon and certainly on behalf of myself. I really cant tell you how sorry we are this disaster occurred and we are particularly sympathetic to the impacts on the residents of alaska and in particular those in the Prince William sound area thats where the difficulty is really creating a great deal of problems for those people. As has been said many times this morning and by us earlier than this we take full responsibility and weve done so from the beginning and well continue doing all we can to clean up and mitigate those bills are facts and all necessary resources or being fully employed it has already been mentioned by secretary skinner that the environment in the area and the remoteness and the high tides and the physical problems associated with it make it a particularly difficult problem. A few comments about the spill, just to put it again in perspective, its been mentioned many times the spill has been an estimated 240,000 barrels that occurred early on march 24. We have all this factual information. The weather was clear. The ship had no known mechanical difficulties. The course change was requested an authorized because of ice in the outgoing channel. The captain subsequently left the bridge and tests made some time after the grounding showed the captains alcohol level was above the limits of established by the coast guard. Thats clear. There are still many Unanswered Questions as to what occurred during this period of time. Were conducting of course not one but many investigations within the company as are the National Transportation safety board and the coast guard there are other federal state investigations in all that are also underway and were participating in old on. The all still contingency plan was activated immediately called for 2 phase response the 1st phase was the responsibility of alyeska. The 2nd phase was our responsibility as the shipper and our response was immediate. We immediately established the priorities. 1st priority was to prevent additional spills from the damage tanker which had approximately 100,000,000 barrels of course load crude on it and certainly trying to immediately mitigate the impact of the spill on the environment and the people of alaska. A major mobilization began immediately and by now involves as the secretary said many hundreds of people were 1000 people a lot of boats planes helicopters and so forth i wont go into all of the do with. Currently were receiving support from a large number of organizations we have a large number of experts academics and so forth. Under contract and we have 200 exxon experts and other consultants that are attempting to manage our part of this we are mobilized to mitigate the Economic Impact on the communities of Prince William sound a claims office was staffed by 30 people where its open and adequate funds are placed in accounts and local banks. Those funds are available to provide immediate advance payments to those requiring monetary support while claims are being prepared, reviewed and process and ive insisted that that be done as expeditiously as possible. Our intention is to provide fair, reasonable and prompt settlements. As of noon tuesday we had the remaining oil that could be removed from the tank or what was on the reef we had off the reef. We had that all out of the ship as im sure most of you read in this mornings paper the ship was successfully refloated and its now in an area on naked next to naked island where we will do temporary repairs and when thats completed well take the ship into drydock somewhere and repair it permanently. Couple more comments for now its too early to assess the long term environmental damage. Natural resource Damage Assessment studies are underway and as has been mentioned a number of them being made with the e. P. A. And others, noaa, and weve also having a number done ourselves. We cannot judge how long recovery will take in Prince William sound but i can assure you that since march 24th the accident has been receiving our full attention and will continue to do so until the job is done. Were continuing to cooperate fully to establish the facts as to what happened. More importantly, however we want to help in any way we can to establish what might be done to reduce the chances of such an incident happening again i can assure you that actions are already underway within exxon to revise policies and procedures in the light of this accident and preclude what happened. From happening again unless theres a different set of circumstances on it did it not happen again it is exxon learned mr all not sure if such a valuable cargo on an immense vessel the length of 3 football fields which takes a couple of miles or so to even turn course, to risk that to just one pilot and not have a copilot . I mean is that this right now if i weigh it out on that say 3 or 4 of the exxon supertankers to small would i find only one master pilot licensed and capable those are just there at the Prince William sound areas is unusual that. Most of the the 3 mates plus the captain is licensed. To pilot a ship in many areas in Prince William sound as has been said many times this morning the you have the state pilot takes it to a certain point and then can you hear me on that i know it go in and out of weve tried to, it all mono out try to talk a little louder please do yes there, hold up but in this, the pilot of the pilot was also the captain obviously we had no knowledge of or of how he was, i think its possible, eyes i understand the law there its possible to have 2 mates on the bridge at the same time and in a case like this to where you could in fact. Do what needs to be done when you have ice in one channel and it was a great deal of concern about the ice and so im not trying to make any excuses on this but the facts are there are ways to do that if in fact as you suggested in earlier conversation with secretary skinner that it one had a heart attack or something it just seemed kind of ridiculous so there were other op options available now the same impairment apparently that created this spill to begin with created a situation where maybe. The master could have said bring another made up and. They had there actually when the skipper was on the bridge there were 4 people there was a lookout on one of the wings there was a person that was. In charge which then with the captain there was a 3rd mate who it was his ship and there were also also the the man it was steering or the persons steering the vessel so that was the situation had when he went down as i understood it he could have sent up another and been legally, responsible. Whether or not that ship would hit the reef or not i would expect it would have had a much better chance of getting through. Ive had a lot of difficulty understanding this the second and third mate were not asked or pilots of this vessels. You should have known. Is it not the case, the record shows this particular master of the vessel had three convictions, of driving under the influence of alcohol . In other words, he had an alcohol problem . Yes, sir it shows that. And that would scare me to death in the border of our their own excellence board. But if you had told me that the throw it fell ahead had three convictions, running up that extensive cargo and this vessel, was only three years old, i would say, we are not sure. At long island, we can give you all the masters you are. Yes. So, you have no explanation for that. No, sir. You are not going to try to press that point. We have some things in place, and it came up a little bit earlier regarding random testing for drugs and alcohol and the difficulties that you have in some cases negotiating those. But we can impose that in certain instances and weve imposed that. Not before this bill but weve got it in the policy and were going to do it if we get lawsuits on it were going to take the lawsuits on it i would have felt a lot better had we taken a lawsuit is kind of a thing and then said well we you know went to court and we lost it rather than the situation we find ourselves in that now that. Sir there with theres more to this alcohol question and then. You youre probably aware let me clarify them for them, we didnt know about the d. W. I. This and i course i didnt need never heard this man until 2 weeks ago so obviously. Im not looking for any sympathy but it but we did know he came in as i understand it and said i have an alcohol problem a number of years ago he was rehabilitated that was consistent with an alcohol policy however the judgment to put him back on the ship is a judgment made at a operating level. And i dont operate in a level obviously it was a bad judgment could have been a bad judgment in a lot of peoples eyes on a going in basis and mine being one but many of the and i just want to make that clear in case you hadnt heard of that i didnt want you feeling like i didnt level with you when i was up here talking and i appreciate, the 3rd meet, you find no culpability that i take it because you fired the mouse to you and i have corporate counsel, you dont find yourself responsible for the 3rd mate is that right well what we found when you find yourself in this kind of a situation and im not too. Expert in these answers but ive asked the same question. In a case of the captain and they surely we told him to get his own counsel this was before we knew that the alcohol situation would show up and by the way that was tested and show up you may recall until several days later but we knew that one when the ship went to ground and he wasnt on the beach we obviously had a conflict between a corporate interest and probably between a corporate interest in the individuals interest so we said you get your own counsel well pay for that when we found out however there was alcohol involved and they decided other circumstances we found that he violated a lot of policies he was terminated on a case of the 3rd mate. Its sort of in that same phase we really there has been to my knowledge. No testimony taken under oath in this case yet weve both the National Transportation safety board is still developing during the hearing times over it but everyones been interviewed by those individuals by the coast guard by acts on it so forth but we have to let this thing get into venue i think. 1st phase response 1st was asked and the 2nd in line was for you exxon and you responded immediately inferring that perhaps it was in a prompt on Immediate Response flatly asked what is your immediate on that . Im sure youve heard this before but there is a there are a number of Oil Spill Contingency plans that are involved in this situation. One of them was the alyeska Oil Spill Contingency plan and which by the way the 1st one had to be in place before the pipeline started up and that was in 1977 the 76 that this play was in place its been revised several times since then the shippers were separated out of, pipeline and they had to have a spill contingency plan in that circuit and early eightys im not really sure i think they need to we. When i said that the 1st part was alyeska its relatively the spill invasion for alyeska per se in phase one is a relatively small spill i think the numbers were mention this morning there has always been recognition that if you had a tanker spill in Prince William sound and you mentioned the probable case nobody ever thought it was probable that a spill would be this large but there has been a rather modest. Write up in the contingency plan for that recognized the possibility of 820000 barrels bill which is in the same ballpark as what were talking about here. The there are certain times as to when you mobilize resources from other ports and around the world and we are in our case were bringing them from europe to florida and other places now. Important part of that Contingency Planning plan anything that large required and in effect had approved by the federal agencies. The e. P. A. And the state of alaska agencies involved recognize that you had to promptly disperse a dispersant in this case correct that 9527 would have been the proper dispersant that started most was mobilization started on that on friday a team left houston a Management Team the president of the Exxon Shipping Company the man mentioned earlier today mr rossi was sent with a number of the associated we have Response Teams on the west coast and the gulf east coast and we also have not only current employees but anyone thats been in our Research Effort in these regards in recent years and wants to do it we put them under contract we call them all these people convene the Management Team was there later on the day on friday we had c 130 available for spring and we had a large amount of correction in 9527 on saturday and then we had some delays that occurred some problems occurred not because the plan didnt provide how the decisions would be made but because the plan provided for a number of people to be involved in the Decision Making process. Ive got a lot of other questions but i will yield to you. Thank you very much. Mr all i know what you say you didnt know this captain personally and we, dont apply it in personal. In our feelings but. My problem dealing with us now is the, of the multiplicity apply ends, its my understanding that they ask you did have a contingency plan theres a, response team, there was a, William Sound company, would you do us a favor of asking your people to give us a copy of each one of those since the, of the pipeline, out of valdes i believe you have the i have to get them anyway for the lawsuit i, this oh i dont have those series are you do you want to be chief member of the the council but then let me tell you and i am pleased to tell the Committee Bill stevens is a friend of mine a matter of fact i think distantly related we talked about that one night is the president of your, company he came to alaska and made a statement saying that exxon would accept the total responsibility for this you have made, similar statement here, but after mr stevens left alaska your Legal Department indicated that as far as the the the liability to the customers in terms of failure delivery that exxon was going to rely on an act of god there is that correct when mr stevens made his statement and by the way senator you probably know hes the brother of exxon usa which made up of our pretty early in this country. Theyre talking about. The impact of the spill in alaska because if you start getting into something downstream of that in terms of or soon you told our customers and things of that sort of major you can roll that on around the and theres just no way in doing that i just want you know it was interpreted in alaska as being a 2nd thought of exxon and it left as significant doubt in the minds of alaskans as to the extent that the that the exxon Major National company was going to accept the statement of liability that. M stevens made, many of us are lawyers, or the president the company. But your lawyers allow me to go to court and say after all that was not a legal obligation, there was a statement of policy, and you are not defending against those suits. What is the policy of exxon, in regards to any expense, that develops as a result, of this spill . Well obviously, i said again this morning, its our intention to stay after the, spill clean it up to the best of scientific policy, the best that we can do. And also to pay those people, in your state, that have been damaged by this bill. And theres a variety of kinds of damages. When you talk about suits, we got suits. As im sure you are aware. You are all lawyers i am not a lawyer. But there is a lot of these suits, that are legitimate suits. And hopefully none other people in alaska that have been damaged, will have to go to court. I share this the problem about the necessity for these People Living in towns, as a matter of fact, very few of them have active courts. I am hopeful that the system, the system will be put in place by the president for the Emergency Declaration i hope. That would put the spf, and the federal Emergency Management agency and others are there to give temporary systems, if there are claims that can be presented that your company will pay, then they will repeat. In the mean while theres a lot of people work in the earthquake, who had severe financial losses as a result of it. That is going on right now, not only in my state, but thats going into seattle. We have to have some temporary systems, does not a problem i didnt make sure from the point of view of the company, that active guard the fence of the deliveries of the also customers, has no relationship to the events that took place in my state. I have a map here, that i made when i was up there. We drew these things on their, it draws the former koreas. Its my understanding that the obligation remains that a pilot on board, basically came down to this line. And that the third made was qualified to handle the ship to this entrance, but he was not qualified to pilot this vessel above that line. Its also my understanding, the captain was the only person on board, after the pilot cut off as the ship came through. On these narrows. The captain is the only person on board i was qualified to run the ship. Is that your understanding . My understanding is that the captain was the only man on board, licensed as a pilot to run the ship. Thats right. Thats definitely my view as to who is qualified in unqualified. Its my understanding, the third made was not qualified, to run that ship pass this really. Im not trying to pin you down to a threat here. Im having trouble seeing the map, but i know the channel goes. Unfortunately its my understanding that it came down, the captain was required to get it passed this island here, and he did not do that. We just learned this morning, as a result of this oil spill yesterday, that the computer on this vessel, was programed by the captain of the pilot left, and the target left it, and the third office or, attempted to countermand a computer program, and it was actually the computer that drove that vessel on the reef. Is that your understanding . No it is not. My understanding in this is as a result of interviews made with the third officer, that he turned that he could turn the computer off. And it was not at the time, he hit the rocks on automatic pilot. Under telling you what he has said. What he has testified to. Ive taken too much time here this morning its my understanding from the visits in court over. The court over people that built those, are built by people in that area, to enhance the production of salmon in the area. They felt compelled, and you go acquire the boom, and asked for the protection of those hatcheries. The exxon group would not move into their opinion, quickly enough to start the protection. That is the basis of the feeling, and the principal Williams Town now, that there should have been federalization. Have you talk to people as to why, some of the offers of assistance that were made were refused, for instance. The interdepartmental team, headed by parole line management, went there, stay there two days and it was rejected. There was a crisis Management Team that were financed by the taxpayers. It did worker a contingency plan to protect the resurrection and the National Park. Secondly, i am told that the soviets came in and made an offer, the norwegians made an, offer this weeds made an offer. Weve had a series of offers from and it is sort of dealt with oil spill in the past and your coordinator refuse their assistance. Now, is that a Company Policy . And were you informed of that . First, its not a Company Policy, second, a lot of those things that are, alleged that have been set out there, it is my understanding, for, example we are willing to accept the russian offer. Will that ship be allowed in there to help now . I dont think we would be able to keep it anyway, but certainly we have asked to have, it we are accepting all the help have been trying to accept all the help. The norwegian offer the had allegedly been made early in this, was really that they wanted to have environment standards, for observers to come and look at as far as im concerned, i know, that was approved but there was no, what i understand, offered to help, if they want observers, they want observers, there was a fragile for about observers, and the other. The germans also contact do you. The germans. Now, there is a question of offers of help, and then there is a question of a lot of people just want to see how you deal with a large oil spill, so, it is a little bit different. The words are different and the intent is different but we have not turned down in the offers. Now, in terms of the fishermen, court over, it is my understanding that we are utilizing a lot of those people, with their boats and trying to fully employ them. We are not dealing with beaches that look like miami beach or somewhere else up there. Hes a very difficult conditions and that is why it is such a pristine area and why it is so tragic and why it has all the wildlife it has but we also had concern we were getting thousands of volunteers from our own people in the u. S. And around the world and we are getting thousands of letters and telephone calls from people all over the country saying, we want to go and help, but one of the only good things i can say about this thing is that so far, no one was killed in this operation and im sure there have been some minor injuries but as you know, if of hit 18 foot high, which is very unusual in the u. S. Anyway. We may have soon enough 1 million in the bay of fundy somewhere, or somewhere like that but, when that water goes in and out, and you fall off the beach, when the tide is going out, you had better be a hell of a good swimmer somebody had better better with book so, we are talking but a very risky situation. We have been slow and cleaning up the beaches. It is going to be slow cleaning up the beaches we are not at the beaches of france that were cleaned up were Pretty Simple kind of a cleanup but were going to get it done. The oceanography are afraid to has been studying this for his lifetime. He said you have to view the Prince Williams town as being roughly capable of producing more about 500 times more freshwater annually than the mississippi river. That comes out of that area and as the water exits Prince William sound, most people think they are dealing with saline water. It is basically freshwater. He is trying to make an input on these plans, tried to make an input on the plans now for the recovery from this. I gave his name to the people when i was there on friday, i beg the people on saturday to talk to him. He sent me another contingency of a report that ill be able to make the committee today. This, the people who had knowledge of what was predictable, that has left a great feeling. This, this man is to us a key man for this area. This incident team, one of the first things they did was to contact him for the plans dealing with the National Park and resurrection bay. I think anyone who has looked those plans will tell you theyre absolutely perfect, and they determine the areas that have the greatest sensitivity and is not going to our federal team, the first area was a response when it was the city of steward. They said that was the number one salmon producing stream in the area, and i had to be protected first. They gave your people, who have got to say came forward and said, we will pay for it but we cannot move, and we had to scurry around and find people to move, but what i am telling you is, there were over there in valdez on sunday and monday. This is interdepartmental team. They were in an abandoned warehouse asking each day to be heard and they were told they were not needed. Now, if you want to know what we feel so strongly the shoe to be in a federal presence that is it. Your people said, we dont need you. I was with the National Guard general, a general in his own, right we are very proud of him. He offered assistance and then we said, we dont need your help now, you have a wonderful company, the pride of our country i think that youve been able to do with the company internationally what you have done but in this instance, we feel you have let us down and ive got to say it and i will say it again,. Thank you. Senator. Senator stevens asked you, mr. Roll, about what he considered you did to be away from your agreement to assume responsibility when you said you would treat as an act of god and he claims by a customers, your response to him was there that did not limit your responsibility to alaska and impacted by this bill. Senator stevens, pointed out that there are people outside of alaska who are impacted by this, and many of the fishermen who regularly fish in William Sound are from the state of washington or from the state of oregon. Would your answer to him another attempt to limit your liability only to people who are putting residents of alaska . Or does it extend to everyone whose livelihood is impacted by the spill . Senator, you can understand how sitting here, i presume you are a lawyer. I am not. But you have to get the specifics in this. If in fact there is a fisherman in your home state who had been going up to alaska during the summer and fishing and so forth and has records to show that presumably he would be damaged and i am sure he has access to council because there are plenty of council who have spent a lot of time looking at this. I cannot accept, the, liability at him tonight him, wherever he goes in the world, the rules are proof and so forth, whatever they mean, have to be taken care of in this regard. We are doing what we can do now. Weve been very busy trying to get the ship off the rocks. It is now, thank god, over in a cove where hopefully they can patch it appropriately and get it to a dry dock. By the way, the senator from oregon is not here nobody made a speech this morning about putting that ship in oregon and talking about the bar and so forth, and he said that was what explanation do. Exxon had a question. Where is there a dry dock in the west coast of the u. S. They could take a ship that size but was important in oregon . They got transported somewhat in the press i guess. There are other places in the far, east i am not saying where the ship is going but the governor of oregon has already asked, and communicated through the paper, through the newspaper, i cant really say that this is what he actually said because, sometimes we misquoted slightly ourselves, but is indicated you want it in the state. We did not even make a decision yet as to where we go, but i just want to make the record clear on that. I hope i have tried to answer your question but it is pretty difficult. Youre getting me in legal areas i dont want to get into. You are not attempting right now to make a distinction and say that youre only responsibility would be to the president of alaska . Right, when you Start Talking about customers. I was not asking about customers . No, but that is the basis that senator stevens used you referred to. That is an entirely different thing. I take it at the parent Exxon Corporation sometime ago made a decision that it was wise corporate policy for it to own its own shipping line and his ship alaskan oil in vessels owned by a company or by a subsidiary. Well, we actually used chartered ships also. In international trade, exxon has 71 ships worldwide. Roughly, and i may be off a ship or two, 19 in this country. So we do use chartered ships. In any, event this ship is owned by a wholly owned subsidiary of a company what you are ceo. That is. Correct you give me the chain of command that we go from you as chairman as a Parent Corporation down to that Subsidiary Corporation of this captain, maybe workers back it, up who was the captain supervisor, and who is the supervisor, and so on . It is a supervisor, and there may be another supervisor who reports to a manager on the west coast in the u. S. There are also other people who tell this captain what to do in terms of scheduling and we know these captains work a few weeks on end a few weeks off but then, that individual on the west coast who was import information, california, which is the San Francisco area, he was reporting to houston where we had presumably some we will call Operations Manager and then as the president of the Exxon Shipping Company who reports the Senior Vice President of exxon usa who, reports the president of the company. We really had management committees, at the level of exxon usa and we had management committees in new york, now, i dont know how many levels there is, but i want very early to make a suggestion to mr. Roth, whatever the success of exxon in the past, it now has the dubious distinction of having dodged one of the most severe manmade disasters, or environmental disaster in our history. We are constantly preparing ourselves in this country sometimes on favourably, sometimes i may, say unfairly, with the japanese. As i understand the corporate structure, when Something Like this happens, everyone takes responsibility, from the individual who was directly in charge up to the ceo and everyone offers his resignation at that point, so that a new team can take over and restore the credibility of the corporation. I suggest the disaster that your company has caused calls for that kind of response, and particularly happy to hear your comment on it but that expresses my opinion on this event. I appreciate that expresses your opinion, and not about to comment on it except a lot of the japanese killed themselves also and refused to do it. A resignation as an order. I dont think so. Senator kerry . I think that was turn irans anger and frustration, and so forth. And, there is not any real way to excuse what happened. I dont think we can gain a great deal by posturing up here at this point, and somehow you have recognized. And most people in the country appreciate the forthrightness of what you have tried to release a try to accept responsibility. And be involved in the cleanup. And except the cost there of. There are obviously some questions in the question these things have a way of ameliorating after time goes on. It comes dissipated and other things get in the way, and it will be clambering, from one end to the country to the other. Let me try to see if i can get a full understanding. Because now the press reports i dont know how active extensive they are as to what you see now when you declare as your full responsibility here. For instance to what extent in the essex meant to federal state agencies as a has a process been put in place . To assess to reimburse to the federal government . I dont really know what the extent of it is. What we will reimburse the federal government. We will have to look into that. That has not been our instant concern. I will give you an example. They have been thirsty to encourage somebody on a global warming, the impact of ozone and ecosystems and so forth. Much of the resource has not to be diverted, to come in here and find out what the impact of oil which settles on the bottom is going to be a micro organisms, and life systems and so forth. Will it be your intention to redress that additional cost, i will look at everything. Thats all i can say. When you get this big advertisement in the newspapers, which apologizes and says right to come for cross and make a good. To what extent have you thought that out. What is making good mean . How long will the fishermen continue to be compensated for the loss of life. First thing we need to find out is what are the effects of the environmental disaster. There is many around the, world some have mentioned here, some like the fire on the coast of mexico, that have been all moral, but did not have lasting effects. Terms of we pay the u. S. Government a good part of the delay in my view, early days in the delay, from the time that we are ready to spray detergent, which is part of the approved plan. Its a detergent that is approved by the epa, its approved by the state of california, which is fairly tough on these kind of things. 12 countries around the world. We had it available, we had aircraft, we are already through spray, and it has been tested and it has been in this plan for a long time. In this size bill. We could not get approval from saturday morning, when we requested approval on friday. We couldnt get approval from saturday morning until 6 35, on sunday evening. And by then the weather had gotten bad, as im sure you heard. Weve got some Government Agencies involved in that. You got some responsibility involved there. As a lawyer, im hearing mitigation of damage arguments. Im not mitigating anything. When you start pointing out who is at fault, when you start saying the ship went aground, and we have a plan. We were not able to start the plan. As a lawyer, thats maybe what you are hearing. But what im telling you, in good conscious, we will try to fix. When you Start Talking about compensating the government, every one of us compensates the u. S. Government all the time. This company pays a lot of taxes every year. We creator attacks on crude oil. I know youre not suggesting to us that that somehow compensates for what is happen. Thats right. But i presume a lot of these Government Agencies services are provided when you have a disaster. I have a hunch, that had we had a little more clear authority, we had people on the ground to exercise the authority we probably couldve mitigated to some extent. We were gonna claim the damage up. Let me ask you this. In your judgment, was the all u. S. Apply and, to which you are one of apart with, was that adequate . Retrospectively, its difficult to say was adequate. Retrospectively, a lot of these plans were looking at all these plans. Let me ask you point blank. Is it difficult to say its adequate, if the maximum amount of oil, contemplating being aware that you plan for, that this bill dumped three times more. It talk about the alley ask a point to begin with, which is a point to take a certain amount of spill, and sort of upstream, where does it hit the rocks. That a plan is the plan that the ship was supposed to have, that we were supposed to pay. But the early response is alaskas problem. There are some difficulty. I can tell you a few hundred thousand barrels of oil in the water, that they had to tell that could unmitigated this problem very much is what im saying. With respect to the company, let me ask a couple more questions on that line. In terms of the restitution for the fishermen, how long does exxon plan to provide execution to the fishermen along of the damage in alaska have to see it about perspective things i dont even know the initial damage is gonna be a lot of places off your home state which you are probably aware of the great forecast did not result. Its a different and environment different kind of oil. The facts are we just have to see what about in terms of the clean up the wildlife extra resources. Have you put a mechanism in place for determining who is going to be paid, what period of time or are you currently putting that in place . The national the resource cleanup. We are doing it we are contractors doing it. Until no more can be done. Oh alaska, there was mention today sometimes you can overwork some of those environmental problems. Will be moving descent from the beaches. When i get it cleaned up. Is that not withstanding the cap, the 14 million and the consequence 76 . Those numbers are just numbers obviously. It was 86 by the way. 14 million was like you pay on your car. You have a deductible. You have to pay that under the tax. Its 100 Million Dollars, that gets paid by we pay 20 of that 283 Million Dollars or so. Then we go to other cooperatives that we belong to worldwide. A number those. The insurance is very complex. Theres a number of other questions and so forth. We have to see how it works out. Have you spoken to mr. Cousins to determine what took place . No i have not. Are you aware what he says took place . Yes i am. What is exxons policy, when a captain is incapacitated, and no other licensed or authorize personal are on board . I frankly dont know precisely what the policy is. Is there a policy . Im sure there is. But youre not aware of it . I saw questions that arent asked allen. In your knowledge to react in conformance to Company Policy, by assuming command of the ship in that situation . I dont know the policy. But i doubt it. But i really dont know the policy. And you are currently, your lawyers are clearly representing him. We are representing him, obviously everyone has the right to representation, if he is really not at fault here, temporarily we are representing. And where youve made no determination based on this conversation, as to what happened. I did not have the conversation, one of the lawyers did. From what has been reported to you, you have made no determination as to whether or not he acted in conformance to Company Policy. I dont know. Is the valdez equipped to maintain communication with exxon headquarters during transit . We time out exxon horn quarters, were talking about an office in new york where i work. Non timeout they presume we have really equipment that it several points we have people, to stay in touch of the ships, but i dont know precisely what equipment, reequipment i had, on but they have had no trouble communicating, to my knowledge. Other situations in the past you are aware of where an unlicensed person is taking control of ownership . Not that im aware of. Can you give us some idea of the impact of this reduction in the north slope of crude oil oil supplies in the lower 48 states in terms of gasoline prices and supply . Well, it has had some impact. And at times it has been substantial and of course every time someone, possibly the governor of alaska says, were going to shut down a pipeline or open a pipeline, the oil market is very volatile. The word oil market is very volatile, if the minister clears us through, the market sometimes goes up and down. We have had a tight supply, relative gasoline in this, country since last year and there have been some refinery turnaround. Now, there is more product move into the west coast. We have moved a lot of the west coast, with the crude prices went down yesterday, to west texas, in immediate pricing, that was predicated on the fact that the word was out of the ship was off the rock. Then they started talking about something else, it is tight but manageable on the west coast, but i hope now that she put out of the way that they can operate those ships in and out, with whatever kind of regulations transpire, we can relieve the anxiety and it is sort of a psychological thing, people buy it when they dont even need it, and are concerned about running out of it. Obviously you have heard the many people who said this was never supposed to happen, all guarantees were given and so forth, foot once again, humans seem to have found a way that defy the odds. Is there a lesson you withdraw from this in terms of our future efforts with respect to Oil Exploration and delivery . Well, obviously, there were a couple of situations that we have looked at and have taken some steps on. In terms of all exploration, antiquated in this country. I think it is very as you know, i dont have to quote a, lot were importing 40 possibly oil we are consuming. We have a balance of payments problem but we also have these tankers, some of which exxon does not own, thank god, there in transit when we are not working on this. What we are getting at is, you look at all of the circumstances now that in summary seem to be very disturbing. You have a pilot who may have gotten off before the ship was at the point it should have been. Im just saying, allegations in the air. Allegations. You have the ship that changed course and so forth, captain incapacitated, you have a coast guard that