Ends and the determination to mount a sustained cleanup effort, our ultimate goal much to be the complete restoration of the ecology and the economy of Prince William sound including all of its fish, marine mammals, birds and other wildlife. The Exxon Corporation is acknowledged responsibility for this bill, and its liability for the damage. As exxon should remain responsible for both damages and for employing civilian personnel, necessary to control further damage. However, exxons effort, standing alone are not enough. And after consulting with the congressional delegation, senator ted stevens, senator frank macau ski, congressman don young, i have determined to additional federal resources to the cleanup effort. In addition to the considerable federal equipment already on the scene. This new effort will focus on the job of helping recover oil now in the water, and restoring beaches and other damaged areas. This effort should not in any way relieve exxon from any of its responsibilities or its liabilities. I have asked our secretary of transportation to serve as the cordon nature of the efforts of all federal agencies involved in the cleanup and to work with the alaskan authorities and exxon. Admiral paul yost, the commandant of the coast guard will return to alaska to assume the personal oversight of developments, we all know the coast guard has many assets in place right now. Also at my direction, defense secretary dick cheney will make available u. S. Armed forces, personnel and equipment to assist in the cleanup. The military will provide personnel for direct cleanup activities, as well as assisting with logistics, the needs of logistics related to the cleanup. And of course, these efforts must be undertaken carefully, so that further damage the fragile areas will not occur. Intensive planning now going on as well as appropriate cleanup training will be completed before ground units are deployed, and in addition to the apartment of defense personnel i have asked my staff to develop plans to enable volunteers to participate in cleanup activities. By summer we hope to have develop facilities to enable us to accommodate a court of alaskan volunteers, i want to say develop facilities, the gentleman will tell you, we are dealing with a very remote areas in some cases here. I have asked epa administrator bill riley to corny the Long Range Planning to restore the environment of the sound. Epa will draw on the expert of leading scientists an oil spill experts in this work and it will also consult with other federal agencies that are assessing Scientific Data regarding the effects of the spell. We will not forget the residents of alaska, who have suffered extraordinary economic loss, and when you talk to this congressman as i have and get it brought home on a case by case basis, we have to be concerned, and we are concerned, and in addition to paying damage claims against it, we encourage exxon to increase its local hiring for the cleanup efforts. Secretary skinner will also work with exxon an appropriate agencies to develop appropriate long assistance programs, to assess those who have suffered economic injury. This situation is demonstrated the inadequacy of existing contingency plans, and consequently, i have directed a nationwide review, of contingency plans of this type to determine improvements that may be necessary. And describing these measures, we should not be under any illusions, the job of cleaning up the oil from both the sea and the affected land areas will be massive, prolonged, and frustrating. Nothing we can do will totally resolve this problem in the short term, rather we must be prepared for a long, sustained effort. Learning from this experience, we also rededicate ourselves to Transportation Safety and to realistic planning for accidents that to occur. At the same time or National Security interest in the Domestic Energy supplies should not be forgotten, the excellent Safety Record that was recorded prior to this incident must be restored and maintained consistently into the future. I really do have to run and i will just turn this over now to sam skinner, and the congressmen and senators. Thank you very much. Not at all, good luck. We want to help in we care about what is happening. All right. laughs inaudible weve already begun immediately to implement the president s program, we have met with a department of defense resources which secretary cheney will talk about in a minute. We have already met with the exxon people, we will be meeting with him again this afternoon. We are out fullscale, we are moving fall skill ahead on the president s directive, and we are totally committed to do everything we can to restore the alaskan area around Prince Williams town in any other areas that are affected too close to nature as possible. I think secretary chaining them bill rally would like to i will be very brief, obviously our role, the pentagon, this effort is a supporting one, it is important people realize that we have been actively involved already. We have had a large number of flights into the air you would see five eight and c 40 winds to move equipment, there will be a team leaving today to see what Additional Support and assistance we can provide, all of this will be under command of general who is a three star general and up in alaska on a regular basis as well. The kind of things we think we can be helpful in as to establish control and continued activities in the area, we plan to send a commanding control platform to saudis, it is the Main Community up there but there is very little Housing Available for people in the area so we think we can dispatch amphibious ships into the region to house, feet and provide comfort for those who are involved in the come clean up effort, we will establish one on the scene task force involve these and see what we can do additionally in terms of building up transportation resources. My mandate from the president is to do whatever i can to be helpful and supportive and certainly i will divest. Mr. Riley. As you know the environment of Prince William sounded ending extraordinarily rich one in terms of sea life, in terms of birdlife, in terms of sea mammals and commercial fisheries. We want to restore to what it has been, and has obviously suffered a very serious blow, we have no way of knowing processing at this time how enduring the impact will be, the president has directed that i coordinate the planning for the recovering, the restoration of the ecology of the south on, the National Association is taking under the ecological assessment, it will probably be several months before we have even a preliminary idea of what we are looking at here. The overall assessment will take three years, on my first job will be to bring to bear on this problem a group of scientists, we are looking around the world for the very best scientific resources that are available, people who have dealt with Significant Oil spills before, we want to bring that expertise to bear on this problem. Questions . Can you clarify something, what is the president saying about liability, has exxon agreed already or will we have to go to court . First of, all exxon is pouring millions of dollars a day and to alaska right now in support of the effort coordinated by the coast guard, im a meeting with him this afternoon to discuss the cost related to this additional offered, in addition, either a crossed of the senators and the congressman from alaska, we have begun to explore with exxon as well as the federal government, other possibilities to make economic loans are small no interest loans available to the people that maybe injured as a result of the disaster there, so this effort as a coordinated effort, i cant give your precise answer on dollars, that is part of the assessment that is ongoing, i think is important to recognize the president is committed to restoring that area as close as we can to its original condition and the resources of the United States government have been put it might just puzzled to make sure that happens, and i plan to use them. The last time you were here you stated that you found it almost unbelievable that this tanker could have hit ground given it was going through a ten mile wide area, are you satisfied that the alleged intoxication of the captain officially accounts for this auction or are there other circumstances . As you, know almost moments after it went to ground i asked the national Transportation Safety board to investigate assessment rain casually, that is a job that normally the coast guard would have done but because the coast guard had a Vessel Traffic Service in the area i asked national Transportation Safety board to do it. They are doing, it they are doing it craftsman like job, when the we got the results of the investigation we will know more than we know now and that is all that i can tell you on that issue. Can you give me numbers on you can say what you want and will try and coordinate this, secretary cheney i noticed there are questions for him. Can you say what the president meant when hes on military personnel would be involved in the actual cleanup itself . They will be involved in terms of providing transportation support, providing housing, and terms of trying to move an amphibian ships into the area, one of the things we need to do is to improve the operations of the valleys airport for example, its not 24 hours right now, we have the capacity to help solve that problem. It may involve as well the direct involvement of u. S. Military personnel in the cleanup, just as they were involved previously for example in fighting the forest fires in yellowstone last year. I dont know enough yet this morning to be able to see you these are those specific tasks and they all perform but we will do our best to help. What and this point nearly everybody is involved, obviously admiral yoes is in effect beyond the scene, head of the operation. The army will be involved, in the director a military support general will be coordinated in doing Additional Support needed there. It is a unique, incident in alaska in terms of the environmental disaster that has occurred, for those kind of military support to deal with a domestic problem is oftentimes occurred before. I have a long list of examples if anyone is interested. How many people are you talking about . I dont have an answer to that today. Here is now in control of the cleanup . Who is in charge . Is it exxon or the federal government . I will turn that over to sam scanner. laughs as you know as the president indicated, one of the major objectives was to offload a tanker that had 40 million gallons of fuel, that has now been done, as a result of that offloading operation and conversations that weve had in the last two days, the coast guard has taken a greater role and the overall cleanup, obviously as a result of the president s made today will have a more significant role, admiral roast will be going to alaskan the not too near future again to make sure that that effort is coordinated but to answer your question is the coast guard the overall coordinator, there is one that designates attacks on, the state of alaska, the other military organizations who will be supporting him within there in command structures. Sure the federal government take over part, of a use had federalize a sham beyond Prince Williams town, house right now the president s decisions on that. Im satisfied that the president has come forward and giving us a considerable portion of the request that we have made to him and his staff and the cabinet people here, i still have great concern that the oil is going out of Prince Williams town heading towards kodiak and admiral is someone we have confidence in, very pleased to see he will be coordinating this effort now, we have never asked for federalize a shun, we have asked for federal control of the further actions that must be taken to try to deal, we feel there are at least 2 million gallons still going out of the sound towards kodiak and we must try to do something about it but beyond that, i dont know if you know the extent to which secretary cheney has already been involved, he has 100 naval officers up working for us now, not officers, personnel, they have 22 scammers up, there that is, probably i imagine the main force of the navy scammer fleet up there now, we have a tremendous increase in efforts in the last three days and we are pleased to see this increase effort, we still have a request that there be an emergency declared. Under the stafford act at the department of justice as i understand has reservations and we are pursuing not and we still have the question, the overall question of who is going to be in control of the review of these contingency plans and im discussing that with mr. Riley. From yesterday today is the difference between night and day as far as a federal presence in regards to dealing with this massive continuing disaster. The earthquake lasted four minutes, this is going to last years and i think everybody but i realize that its going to last years in terms of the recovery. Allen and then back to you brett. About a week ago you and your colleagues said that exxon was doing a decent job, what is happening in the last week . Did they blow it . What is going on . Whats happened is we have now offloaded the vessel, we now have had the flow and we have seen the flow of fuel and oil out further than we anticipated, its moved on further, than ever it has to change, we now are beginning to address the longrange cleanup of the islands and land that has been damaged, this is something that senator stevens pointed out will go on for months, and this effort now is beginning, it wasnt appropriate to begin it at that time because all of the resources were dedicated towards containing and getting the oil off of the, tanker we are now moving into a new phase, not new faces to begin the cleanup of the islands that have been affected, that is the offer and the department of defense is going to help support along with the coast guard, says dozens of alaska and other, people the president has personally indicated that he wants civilian involvement, maybe a youth involvement the spring and summer but this effort will go on so what has changed is the mission has changed because we have gone through one phase and we are moving into another phase. The coast guard is now side to be the overall height of the offer unenlightened the larger federal presence, here why do you reset saying that the governor that the cleanup has been federalized when it halves . It has been a significant increase, the word federalization is aware that may have statutory connotation, the important thing to recognize is not there is a significant increase in federal offer, and we have for the south the word federalize because of some legal connotations, and made out on that issue, spoke with Governor Cooper last night, Governor Cooper indicated to me that he is far more coordination and more support along the lines that weve indicated, he did not ask for federalization, as a letter was inaccurate in that request, so if you have been reporting that he asked for federalization, he is not asking for federalization. What is your position on liability, is exxon liable for returning the environment to a near pristine condition and will exxon be asked a foot part of the bell for the federal offer. Exxon has already been spending millions of dollars a day, we are talking about Additional Support from exxon and administrator reilly has been discussing with them the office that need to be made to restore the environment, so number one, near liable, theyd knowledge liability, they are working with us including Funds Available to restore, to recover and to repair, and all of that is going on a concerted basis with the coast guard. When you were here last week, asked a rally said he mentioned to exxon that they should take on the honored responsibility of cleaning up the beaches and doing the extra work to get it to a more natural state and the side as i recall their response to u. S. Thought it was an interesting idea. What i suggested that you are referring to is that they consider establishing a fund for lasting conservation that will go well beyond this immediate period and provide monies for future ecological restoration efforts, that is a different matter from the cleanup its all in which they have invested i think theres Something Like 350 or so people currently working on beach cleanup, that are working for exxon we feel that is not enough, we think that the size of this disaster, the very large scale in which we are operating in Prince Williams town is going to require a lot more people than intensified efforts and thats what we intend to see now. Contingency plans, when we ask you specifically, what steps would take in a broader context the review that is already underway going off the california coast, what specific steps are you going to take and light of that . Those are two different issues, a National Response team is now beginning to look a contingency plans for oil spills really around this country, i think given what we have learned here about the obvious inadequacy of the plan that existed for Prince Williams town, that is reasonable proof of the urgency, the task force that includes this groceries as looking at the feasibility of protecting the environment adequately of ensuring that we can in fact go forward with those two sales off the coast of california and florida and we will do that. What will you take with this event to the lease holders of california and florida wet you will take to the review. I think that effort already had a very strong expression of president ial concern, the administration after all is forgoing almost half a billion dollars in revenues from the sale of those leases this year, we are already giving everybody of attention that we could to making sure that that extremely important environment, the very sensitive areas were protected and if they cannot be adequately protected we will not go forward with the sales. You have no idea how much is gonna take how many people, how much it will cost. We have the special Operations Group of the department of defense met yesterday in his meeting today with the coast guard, we are going to assess what realistic support is necessary, we have a pledge from the president and the secretary of defense to have that support meat available, so we do not have, while, clearly there will be a significant increase in the effort but to quantified at this point until the department of defense coast guard has been on the scene and has come back to us with would be in my opinion, illadvised, so we will be making that assessment, we will put the program together and once we have it together and the not too distant future within days we will be back to you. The important thing to recognize, first of all the team is on its way today, they will be back, well have a complete program put together early next week, we will then begin to deploy it doesnt make sense. We are not gonna what people up there until they are equipped and trained and ready to do it thank you very much, sorry last question. I dont know the federal coast guard with the d. O. D. , is the such a National Emergency to even discuss the possibility. This is a major civilian disaster, it is being treated as such by the president s, it is not a National Military disaster that were called for federalization of the coast guard, thank you. Hey bill. Were at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway home of the largest single day sporting event in the world, the indianapolis 500. Next to me is the car that won the first indianapolis 500 in 1911. We learn more about the race and why its based here in indianapolis. White flag. White flag. White flag. Tomorrow the speedway will be quiet. Waiting for the next running of
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