believe the country should aim higher and that the region deserves better. that's why we've recommended that the federal government working closely with the gulf state make a renewed and national commitment to the gulf of mexico and its natural roirses. currently no funding source exists to have restoration efforts. estimates of the cost of gulf restoration vary widely, but according to testimony before the commission, totally restorying the gulf requires $15 billion. the litigation process related to the deepwater horizon spill will generate some of the needed funding, but congressional action would be required to ensure that those funds reach the gulf. the commission recommends that 80% of any clean water act penalties and fines be directed to restoration. should clean water punishments not be redirected, congress should consider other mechanisms for a dedicated funding stream not subject to annual appropriations. the commission also recommends that congress create an effective state federal authority to administer gulf ecosystem restoration policy. this counsel should implement a strategy for the region that is compatible with existing goals. if funding is to be sufficiently directed long term, a decision making body should see that binding priorities are set and funding criteria is adhered to. congress should say the decisions of the counsel are informed by input from a citizen's advisory counsel that represents di veers stake holders and restoration decisions are rooted in sound science. coastal restoration is critical, we have to devote greater attention to the marine environment. scientists emerged with more precise questions to investigate, swems a better -- as well as a better sense of monitoring needs. this should be a national priority. a commission recommends that as part of management and restoration efforts, greater attention should be given to new tools to manage ocean resources with the potential to improve overall efficiency and reduce conflicts. this country's need for oil will continue for the foreseeable future. the simple truth is that the bulk of new finds are offshore and in deep water of the gulf. we simply cannot walk away from the resources even as we remain cognizant of the real risks. because we know that drilling will continue to the gulf, it's vital to take this opportunity to invest in the valuable ecosystem and undo past damage and i want prove its resiliency. mr. chairman, thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. garcia. we're now going to go to admiral thad allen. i want to take the opportunity to publicly thank you for your service to our country. very few people in our nation's history have been called upon to do what you've been called upon to do. one of the largest disasters in form of a hurricane with katrina that you were called into to put the pieces bag together, and had extremely high marks on the boferred, coming down on the coast guard at a critical time when they needed exceptional leadership, and you went above and beyond with that. certainly, the issue we're here with today. one the disasters that our nation could imagine to deal with, and you were asked and responded to serve your country. we owe you a debt of gratitude, and we thank you for being here today. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and chairman gibbs, ranking member larson and bishop, thank you for letting me speak today. i'll limit my remarks here this morning. a couple caveats before i begin. i'm no longer in public service having retired from the coast guard on july 1, 2011 having departed government service as a senior executive on october 1. accordingly, my e associations with spill response and recovery activities and regulatory reviews and policy discussions regarding offshore oil and gas development is limited to information pretty much contained in the public reel. . i have been assisted by the coast guard with information regarding my duties, but that is guided by the antilobbying act and has been complied to fully. i'm employed as a senior fellow and teaching at george washington university, and my capacity here today is representing myself only and none of those entities. i have reviewed the findings of the commission, and i commend them for the detailed work and how they went about their business. i would say there's a number of inquiries as noted by ranking member ray hall earlier on that are in progress by the department of interior, coast guard, and others done by the department of justice. i realize there's attention on acting on what the commission reported, but i think there's information that will be developed in the inquiries that somehow should be taken into consideration given there are two phases associated with this, and commend to both committees it's my personal recommendation that subcommittees take advantage of the initial efforts to be included in legislation that may be considered going forward. for the purposes of my testimony here today, i'd like to focus on eight areas. there will be a federal on scene report coming out as well focusing on issues focused on my responsibilities as incident commander. this came about when there's a spill of significance and where to focus when moving forward. the first is oil spill government and the role of the national response team. throughout the entire response, even before i assumed my duties as the national incident commander, there was significant misunderstanding about what the national plan is and what it does. a lot of that was jux posed against the staff ford act and what is done pursuant to an emergency declaration in relation to state and local governments and their jury dictions. we need to have a frank conversation about what that means. i think it's undenial we have to have greater participation of the state and local levels regarding our area planning process and oil spill exercising process. spills of narnl significance in the national incident command i believe going guard, we need to consider having a presidential declaration when the things are occurring in the subsequent things to kick in on automatic authorities to be sought. these will be things like given authority and jurisdiction to act under the clean water act, the authority to reduce standby requirements or equipment elsewhere in the country, and make that available should we need it. there's already been comments made about oil spill prearptness and research and development. i can tell you the worst time to do research and development is during an oil spill. the research and development system following the act of 1990 an inner agency formed to do that is something we need to seriously look at, age i highly commend the recommendations to reestablish a fund and have a robust -- research and development program moving forward. we did not make process in skimming and use when the legislation was passed after the excon more valdez. there's talk about the trust fund, and we have to look at the limit of the trust fund that stands currently at $1 billion. it needs to be looked out because there's a limiting factor on what the government could do if there was not a party. inner agency coordination was key. my goal as the national incident commander was to create unity of effort. we need to look at the role of the inarm response team moving forward and how they are employed. we establish an inner agency solutions group at the national incident command to hand m unique challenges handed to us like the flow rate problem. that these to be institutionized in the national response team and made part of the plan doctrine moving forward. assistance as previously stated, we accepted every reasonable our of the assistance from foreign countries, and regarding the application of the jones act, there was no impact on the jones act on this response. seven waivers were requested and never utilized. they were utilizedded in the event of heavy weather was required to bring them in waters. that was never utilized and was nots a factor. two final issues, one, air space coordination. we took a lessoned learned from highty. we took control of the gulf and that improved our performance. i would have done that on the first day. i'll answer any questions you may have regarding the implication of the lessons for future operations of the arctic, and i thank the chairman for inviting me here today. thank you. >> thank you, admiral. i'll yield my time to mr. young. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank the panel and especially thank the admiral. in the aftermath of the deepwater horizon spill response was purely inadequate. relearned from the exxon-valdez spill. i'm not excited about the commission's recommendations, and i thank you for looking at the rest of it because it doesn't give us the answer to why the explosion occurred, the deepwater horizon, and i think that's what we ought to address, what human factors were involved and whether it was mechanical, a criminal action, and until we find that out, i don't believe we should rush into writing legislation. actually, what we came out for valdez was harbours. we didn't have any protection until exxon-valdez. it wasn't good in the deep water area. they are going to require response capability of 400% of worse case scenario discharge, but yet how to ensure it, they say that's not our job. we're in the boat people. then the coast guard, all do respect, you're no longer with them, they say that's not our job. our job is not to say how much oil gets picked up or how. our job is to ensure whatever method is employed is safe. as you can see, there's a gap, a regulatory gap, and as a result, the industry's left to police itself. the very thing and every reporter concluded is the major problem of the deepwater horizon. some are proposing to have the shipping fill that gap. abs does work for both agencies, and it does expertise in evalbaiting specifications in the equipment plans. what would you think about the usbs taking over that program? either one of you, all of you, i don't care. >> first of all, i think it's clear that it's third party inspection of drilling systems. we shouldn't be left to industry standard, and that's done by a variety of institutions. the abs has a process where they drill that -- i'm sorry, inspect that, and review the plans. simple components of these drills systems have to be the subject of my view. the blue and yellow control pods, and choke and kill lines. >> right now, it's not being done. we could do that. we could set that up? i don't want the government to do it right now. >> right now, there's a certification. >> you guys agree with that? >> yes, that's consistent with our recommendation. >> glad to hear that. that's one of our biggest problem. last summer's spill reminded us of the association with risk. there are risks by the way. 42,000 wells drills, and that is the first blowout we having, and we did not have the capability to do it, but there was in mexico, there was a number of vessels nearby to assist in recovery and cleanup immediately. what steps has the industry taken to reduce the spill in area areas of the arctic. i'm from the arctic, guys. i want to drill there, and your report is too enthuse yat tick about that, and i'm hearing other comments like we can't do it until we have proper ice breakers, ect.. by the way, we're not getting ice breakers out of this congress. i helped build them, and two are in docks. we can have them leased as they should be at a cheaper rate. i've been pushing that for a long time than buying them k because we will not get the money for them. we need them in the arctic. what steps have been taken by the industry like shell and ect. and the arctic that's different in the gulf to work on it? any steps? >> congressman young, we do address the arctic in the reports, and we do indicate in our report that drilling can be done in the arctic. we are suggesting that there's certain steps that should obviously be taken before drilling commenced. you noted most of them which is industry should demonstrate it has the capacity to respond and contain blowouts. there's clear difference in the arctic than the gulf. it's shallower than the gulf, but we were concerned about the governments and the industry's ability to respond. if they can show they have the capability of overseeing and responding to a spill, then drilling should commence. >> but my problem is it is shallower. it's low pressure; is that correct? >> yes. >> the chance of blowouts are minimum, and because i don't believe we've had one in the arctic anywhere, and iceland drilling, there's china drilling now, i believe russia is drilling now, greenland is drilling now. everybody's drilling in the arctic but us, and i want to suggest respectfully that, mr. chairman, if we keep delaying this action, we are doing this country a disservice because they have done the job. as far as i can tell and i've reviewed their reports. now, we don't have the ice breakers. we need to figure out what can be done in the arctic. it may be easier to clean up in the arctic if there was a spill because the colder climate. i don't want to keep saying no, no, no because it's not failed safety. you said that, mr. garcia. >> yeah, i agree. there are clear differences, but also, as you know, in the arctic, there are challenges. e remoesness of certain -- remoteness of certain areas, the ability to stage personnel and equipment, the ice, darkness throughout much of the year, all of that is fobbing tored in. -- factored in. nothing in the report suggests we should not drill in the arctic. it's just saying the lessons learned from this incident should be incorporated to any decisions to move forward. if i can add one other thing. the report, and i just commend it to the record and to your reading, but the report does address the root causes and immediate causes of the blowout, and our chief counsel is coming out with a report next week that will be highly detailed going through each of the factors that caused the blowout of the macondo well. >> well, that may be, but, you know, i've checked the background of the commission and their support in the past, and i want you to know that, and i'm somewhat critical. we had two people before the natural resource committee, and i chewed on them a little bit. i haven't chewed on you, and i might. >> i appreciate it. >> i might. i think there is a prethinking process for offshore drilling, and gentlemen, we have a problem in this country. as you mentioned, we're not going to get off this kick for oil. there's no way for a long, long period of time, and i have, as you know, talked about economical disaster in the gulf is really because the moratorium. that's the biggest hardship other than the oil. the lack of work has been lost. we're buying that from vennels venezuela now, and all our ships are going to brazil. we have to go to where the oil is and do it correctly. thank you, mr. chairman, i appreciate it. >> thank you, mr. young. mr. larson. >> i want to get him some meat to chew on and leave the folks alone that are testifying. >> you know me. [laughter] >> i want to thank the folks for testifying. also, i want to thank the employees at the bp refinery in cherry point, ferndeal, district 13, and those from epa region 10 out of seattle for being willing to take an assignment to go down to the gulf and help with response and cleanup during the response over the summer. before we get started, they are working side by side and hand in hand, everybody rowing last summer. i have questions regard to some of my opening statements, and that's about the cost and budget, and first off for admiral allen, you know, this congress is exploring deep cuts to discretionary spending. assuming the coast guard funding is constant, there are recommended investment that take funds from other coast guard accounts. based on your experience with the coast guard, would that allow the coast guard to adequately perform missions if we were to follow through on some of the recommendations we're looking at in congress? >> i'm not the commoner now, so any comments i have is reflected on my experience i had. i say as a general statement, you get faced with a choice in a constrained budget on what to do with capital investment, replace aging assets, and if you don't, there's a hollow force that collapses on itself. i made difficult decisions to make sure i sustain to what was possible, the acquisition fund and build cutters because we need those desperately. if you do that on a constrained budget, look at your operating accounts as an offset to do that. what is needed is a frng open conversation about the opportunity costs of doing that. i talked in the budget development inside the administration about risk associated operations to make capital investment. there's nothing wrong with talking about that. we need a frank conversation about what it is we're trading off. i think we have a real reluctant to talk about those things. my decision as it related to budget reflected my dmeedz to build coast guard cutters and operating companies, and you take a short term position managing with fewer resources, make sure you ensure the long term viability of the service. >> thanks. i know that current admiral has made commentings recently about the budget environment they are currently in about what might have to occur there with the coast guard coming into the future. for mr. garcia and mr. boesch, does the report -- did you look at the amount of the investment needed to implement your recommendations, but for the 80% of the -- >> we did -- our staff has done a general apprisal. we're not recommending in terms of approving the capacity in the department of interior and studies and the like, but in a general stimtion to put it into context we can understand, i think, our estimate is that it might be a cost between 7%-12% or cents on a barrel of oil produced, and you put it in terms of the gallon of gas, it's less than a quarter a cent for a gallon of gasoline. we recommended these fees not be recovered from the general taxpayers who are the land owners in this case paid by the oil companies for the right of exploiting the land and resources, but by the industry itself as much as the federal communications commission is funded by that industry, so we think this can be done in a cost effective way that would actually increase the efficiency of regulation. right now, there's not enough folks to review the permits that are there under this new standard, but also do it in a way that doesn't affect the federal tax situation that our own fiscal health in this nation, but also a very modest cost easily affordable to the industry. >> admiral allen, just a few seconds left with the chairman's indulgence, perhaps you'll have an answer. you discussed the initial difficulties to work with state and local officials. perhaps because of the difference between how people approach the natural disaster versus a disaster like we see in the gulf. do you have specific recommendations we should be looking at in regards to the act or any other legislation? >> i do. first of all, the area contingency plan are applied to sensitive area and thousand they are protect -- how they are protected. i think it's absolutely essential that we get state and local governments more involved in that. the heretofore representing the counties or the per riches. it was clear during the spill that the determinations made and priorities established in that planning process were not understood by the local leaders and areas impacted. i can see no other way moving forward to solve that problem than to bring them into the process and consult them and let them have a role in it. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. gibbs. >> thank you. i wanted to thank admiral allen for his service to the country and appreciation for what he's done an your response coordination is something to look at. the first question i want to address to the other two witnesses, in your oral testimony you talked about ecosystems, restoration, and obviously, that's important, but i noticed in your oral testimony, you didn't mention what was the root cause of the disaster. in your written report you do. the commission talks about there's several key human errors, engineering mistakes, and mechanic problems. pressure tests conducted that wasn't identified that the cementing was failure, fallout procedures in securing the well with the mud and getting the mud out of the well bore, apparent inattention to impending blowout, and i suppose, obviously, human errors and management and engineering errors. where i come from up in ohio, we don't have deep water drilling, but my experience in the legislate legislature we've had problems. somebody didn't do the rights thing. what's been bothering me is when you think of all the challenges in deep water drilling and the technical challenges and all that and the amount of investment compared to just drilling, you know, a normal well in ohio, what is the function of the regulatory person? before i see in the one part of the report talks about creating a new regulatory structure. before i would support that, i need to know a deal like that there's no regulatory person on these rigs, or what's the oversight? can you expound on that a little? >> sure. thank you for the question, congressman. one of the findings of the commission was there was a failure of oversight. there was a serious failure. you had an agency that had an inherent conflict. individuals responsible for overseeing safety were also involved in the collection of royalties and making leasing decisions. we suggested that we need to separate those functions, and the department of interior is moving in that direction. we think they should probably go much further. we suggested removing it from the political process within the interior department. inspectors from mms went out to visit rigs, but clearly the oversight was inadequate. we have a number of recommendations on how the government can be more effective as well as have the industry being more effective in monitoring its activities and policing itself rather than having the government be solely responsible for that. >> okay. so, yeah, independent agency oversees that? that's your response? >> an independent agency within the new mre, however they pronounce their new acronym, but also we have suggested that the industry follow the example of the nuclear industry and set up an industry watchdog that would police its members to set standards of excellence so that an outlier would not be able to impact the entire industry as happened in this case. >> okay. my last question, mr. chairman, dealing with the commission's reasons why state and local authorities were not more involved in spill planning, and i think that can go to all three with the recommendations on how the coast guard can be more effective on working with local authorities in the response. >> i don't think there's disagreement between the commission's finding and with where i stand that if there's an effective local response of the local political leaders can't feel they are disenfranchised and didn't have a say in priorities. there was a plan made with the state representatives that they reflected the representation of the state and local governments. that was not the case especially in louisiana, and i think moving forward, there that there has to be visibility on what's protected and preparedness, and most of all with local governments. >> i would add we heard a lot about this. i traveled through the gulf. clearly a better job needs to be done of bringing elected state and local officials into the planning process, and they understand what's happening, and so that was one the diskettes in this -- disconnects in this incident. >> thank you. >> to mr. bishop. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and thank you all for your testimony, and admiral allen, thank you for your service. it's nice to see you again. i want to focus in on the issue of financial liability because i believe this is an area that the deepwater horizon disaster clearly demonstrates where our current law is insufficient. current viability limits for deep water drilling is the responsible parties are responsible for the cost and cleanup, 100% of that, and then for $75 million of other costs. that's the cap. thankfully and responsibly, bp indicated they will not be constrained by that cap. the legislation that we passed last summer, the clear act, had completely eliminated the cap. there was no cap that the responsible party would be responsible for all costs associated with the spill. the commission has recommended an increase in the liability to cap but without specifying it. my question is how exposed are we? what are the consequences of our continued failure not to have passed legislation that addresses just that one narrow issue? >> they are pretty substantial exposure because if an incident like this or even much less than this occurred and the party was not having the deep pockets of bp and made the commitments bp had, we would have been in a difficult situation. the commission did not recommend raising the cap. obviously, i think that was, you know, it was clear from what had gone on, we did not recommend unlimited liability nor a specific amount because this requires more analysis than we were able to do within information we had. specifically, the issues of insurance and how that insurance market would work, and secondly as was pointed out, there's specific companies involved in the industry, and we didn't want to, by making a recommendation without further analysis, exclude the participation of those companies in this industry. >> understood. admiral allen, you've indicated, i don't want to put words in your mouth, but i believe you indicated we should take a go-slow approach with respect to legislation, wait until we have the reports in hand and so on, but in this area of liability cap, suspect it fair to conclude that we already know that the current liability cap is insufficient given the e norty of the -- enormity of the tragedy in the gulf, and at least that one area is an area that really demands that we move much more quickly? >> i think you can separate out what we know to a certain that it needs to be fixed right now and what we need to know from the detailed investigations and forensics going on right now with the joint investigative team. i don't know how that translates to the agenda you have regarding legislation, but there's a tension here. we just need to recognize it exists and the bets way forward -- best way forward. there's not an issue with the liability cap and total overall amount to spend on a response. the key is finding the balance and the small operators in the gulf that is represented and others. i think there needs to be some serious research done in that regard on what the impacts would be on that liability. there was a case in the delaware river several years ago where there was a vessel ran against an object in delaware bay, there was a significant spill. the company walked and the government was insured. . we have to look at what's going on. under the pollution act of 1990, we had certificates of speedometer for vessels entering u.s. waters carrying crude oil. there was a lot of talk at the time that might have a significant negative impact on the tanker business. it did not. we adjusted and moved forward. >> thank you. just to, you know, make the point more pronounced, mr. garcia, your testimony was fully restoring the gulf will require over 30 years an expenditure of $15 billion if we have the existing cap in place and the responsible party is not being as responsible as bp is doing. that amount would very quickly dwarf the amount of money availability in the trust fund and the work remained undone would revert to the taxpayers; is that right? >> actually what we're recommending is the penalties under the clean water act separate from the natural resource damages, and those penalties can be substantial. they are based on the amount of oil spilled in the water per day. >> those remain to be calculated; correct? >> correct. whatever the amount, 80% should be directed to the gulf. congress will need to take action to allow that to happen because if you don't, those funds would then revert to the treasury, so what we're suggesting is that congress authorize that 80% of the clean water act penalties from the incident be directed to the gulf for restoration. >> a, that's requires legislation? >> yes. >> thank you. i'll yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman bishop. >> thank you, mr. chairman. one of the things i'm concerned about is a chain of command failure and break down. one of the i things was concerned about reading about this up in minnesota and one of the things i saw a governor enlisting 16 barges trying to save his shoreline, and they were shut down by the coast guard. admiral, who made that command? who shut those barges down? >> i'm not sure i know the specific incident, but it might have to do with the barges used as a protection at the harbors moved with incoming predicted weather associated with a particular hurricane. the coast guard has overriding gurs deers with the safety of waterways and there's a separate oil response responsibilities. with hurricanes approaching -- >> this was not for hurricanes. it was because they didn't have fire extinguishers on board. >> oh, i understand now. i didn't know what barges you were talking about. they brought in barges and put backing trucks on the barges, took the barges out to skim oil. we wanted to make sure there was not a maritime accident associated with the fact that you put skimming trucks on barges. the company operators were completely sportive of making sure the inspections were done correctly and safe to operate before they did that. the states did not understand why we held them up, but there was an overriding safety need on those particular barges. >> was this an extremist situation that the government was trying to work in? >> i believe that you don't complicate a problem by putting people's lives at risk in the middle of the response. >> was it an extreme ition situation? >> it was, but we didn't want to people people's -- put people's lives at risk, sir. >> okay. the deepwater horizon spill was the first spill of significance. admiral allen was the first commander. the plan does little to define the roles of authority of the narnl incident commander or the additional resources and procedures necessary to mitigate the spill of national significance. what change, and i can ask all of you, what changes of the national contingency plan are necessary to better define the authority and chain of the command responsibilities during the spill? >> we didn't get into the specifics of all of that other than to indicate that obviously there was not sufficient forethought in definition of what the complexity ofs dealing with the spill of national significance. admiral allen noted in written testimony that there have been plans to exercises that were engaging the government on the spill of national significance, that took place just a month before the incident, and there was not an adequate involvement of the appropriate officers at the right level in government to make that or get learning from that experience, so it's not only the question of having the cry criteria that would move it to that level of response, but also making sure the government is ready to actually exercise and perform under those capacities in an incident which could be once every decade or so. >> as i mentioned a moment ago, one of the big problems was the failure to involve and the planning process state and elected officials who clearly need to be involved in and understand the procedure when there's a spill of national significance, and we have recommended that steps be taken to make sure that all levels of government are familiar with it. i would say though that the professional career oil spill experts and responders at both state and federal levels were fully trained in responding. it's just that many of them had to be moved aside because this thing was so big that elected state and local officials understandably wanted to be and had to be involved. >> i understand. i'm sorry, sir, go ahead. >> i think you're asking about the national incident commander and authorities needed. currently the protocol calls they designate a commander, and that's previously understood to be a two or three star commitment. we were in the process of the succession change in the coast guard, and i was designated. first of all, the commander should be pet issue designated. there should be a standing delegation of clean water authorities, once that is made, and that commander should have the authority to redistrict assets nationally and drop standby requirements to move response equipment where it is needed sir. >> thank you. i'm out of time, and i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me ask a question here of admirable allen who might be the appropriate party. the vessel was flagged under the rules of the marshall islands, and they have different standards than we have. do you believe that we should have all of these vessels under united states safety regulations and flagged by united states standards? >> sir, i would submit to you there's an effect we need to achieve, and it is this. right now for those vessels to operate in the waters, they have to be with the mother time organization. to do that, the coast guard does an organization of whether or not they met the national standards in certificate of compliance where we normally for a u.s. flag ship issue a certificate of inspection. we need to look at the protocols used for cruise ships that carry a large number of u.s. passengers and we do a control verification examine that involves a physical inspection. there are two ways going forward. you can have the discussion whether they should be u.s. or not, but they certainly should be held to a higher standard and inspected, and i would say that the current regime we use to ensure the safety of cruise ships is a good model to use for goaf shore drilling units. >> the marshall islands missed standards, and i think they had somebody perform the safety standards from that area, and it was like a 4-8 hour examination if i'm correct. if i'm wrong, correct my premise, but is that accurate? >> i'm not sure what you're referring to, sir. what we do with a cruise ship is an expensive inspection while the ship was being built in the shipyard. there's an examine in the service and quarterly inspections. i've taken a part in those myself as a field commanderment i think that type of regime should be applied to foreign and flag vessels operating in our waters, sir. >> you mentioned, i think, in response to mr. young's questions, and it might have been mr. gar garcia, i'm not sure. the government should not be the one to determine the standards. that's what i understood. what was it? mr. garcia, it was something mr. young asked and didn't think of the government should be the third party of the safety inspections? >> i think he's referring to certification of drilling systems. right now a blowout preventer is built by industry to certain standards issued by the american petroleum institute, and that constitutes the level of due diligence applied to the construction and operation. i think what we're saying with vessel inspection and up dependent third parties like american bureau ships is classification societies to come in and verify especially a blowout preventers, kill and choke lines, and blue and yellow pods on these operations. >> thank you. are there systems that make sure that there's not influences there to make those standards more to the industry's liking rather than maybe the public's need? in government, it's a bad rap, and government can and have proper regulations and proper oversight. that's one of the issues in this congress is about regulation and regulation hurting the government or hurting business, and yet there's a lot of regulations here that need to be adopted and implemented, and these might cost, i don't know there's something about the reigns b agent, $100 billion and whether this is determined as $100 billion, i imagine it would, and if you couldn't get the senate to go along with what the house had in some regulation on standards, we'd have no standards. >> yes, sir, if i could comment, there's an issue raiseed in the commission report and it's not alluded here yet today. if you look at the rest of the world managing oil exploration off the coast, thousand use a safety risk regime, and as part of the process, they have to submit a plan. that's the subject of detailed discussion. my personal view is you need a hybrid system in drilling systems and away to present risk and how they manage risk, but the commissioners may want to comment on that. in fact, that's what we recommended that there be a hybrid system where we need to obviously change and strengthen the regulations. >> let me stop you for a minute because i have 12 seconds, and then you can go on. [laughter] if you had passed the act with regulations from the government that couldn't go into effect unless the house and senate approved them, you could have a disastrous oil spill because there's not regulations, and how much would that cost business in the gulf? fisheries, tourism, ect.. would the lack of ability to force rules and regulations cost business a lot of money? >> yes, sir, it would cost business a lot of money. >> great answer. .. safety case approach, and what that requires is that the operator and the driller must demonstrate on a site specific basis that they have put into place all of the adequate safeguards and measures necessary to properly drill in a particular place. further, we recommended that the industry, it's in the industry's interest that it should set up its own watchdog of the would be of and by and for the industry to provide oversight, similar to what the nuclear industry has done and which has been very effective. >> thank you, mr. sherman. >> thank you we are going to try to be accommodating in this committee, but i think it's important in the initial session -- mr. cohen, he pointed out a good point in the last couple sessions i wasn't going to cut off the witness is but that isn't fair to the folks who don't squeeze in a question right at the last moment, and it's really important we will go to a second round. we won't cut you off if you have your questions, but i would just ask the members to keep that in mind. >> thank you. i have a judiciary committee hearing going on simultaneously, so i missed some of the testimony, but i appreciate the contribution the panelists made. mr. garcia, let me put this question to you. presidents moratorium on oil and gas drilling was technically lifted mid october i think. but i'm told that there have been very few permits granted. let me put to all the three part question. did the commission conclude deep water could be done safely, the commission conclude deepwater exportation should continue to ensure our energy independence and national security in the third, how critical is the offshore drilling and gas industry to the economy in the gulf? >> [inaudible] the first answer to the first two questions is yes, it can be done safely and it is important to our energy supply, and finally it's very important to the economy of the northern gulf of mexico. what we -- we did not partaken the moratorium. we didn't act -- in fact two of our co-chairs spoke about it ill-advised to have a blanket moratorium. i understand the page plea is that in deep water during the one requirement, which is actually in our recommendation in the secretory interior is in play now is the need to demonstrate, certify that one capacity to control a blowout if it occurs. i am a stand from a comment made the day before yesterday by the head of exploration and development of chevron that they are just days away of coming to that agreement, and on the basis of his comments, we anticipate the permits for the deep water drilling would be granted. for those companies that have actually met the standard pretty soon. >> thank you. admiral, let me put a three part question to you as well plea monday morning quarterback. if you believe the department of homeland security cingular leadership was fully aware of how the oil still as opposed to function under the master contingency plan, and i am told, admiral, some of the senior leadership at the dhs, and in some cases failed to adhere to the plan, and did their misunderstanding of a process affect all oil spill response efforts? >> let me start with a context will comment. the oil delusion act of 1990 and the contingency plan predate the development of the homeland security act and establishment of the department of homeland security. the major incident command under which the secretary operates the homeland security presidential directive number five. from the start, we've never been able to align, integrate or d conflict the role of the secretary homeland security and incident management across the entire country with this is a doctrine called off in the national contingency plan. the first in polls by the political leaders is to go with what the understand and know. in this case it is the role of secretary under the age as pt five, since the was never d conflicted there was never a determination of what supersedes and healthier integrated. we worked that out, but one of the recommendations i have continued to make is going forward the differences in the two regimes and the authorities and accountability of senior leaderships' need to be resolved. >> thank you, sir. thank you, mr. chairman, and i yield back. >> mr. larsen, you have the unanimous c yonsent request? >> mr. chairman, i ask unanimous consent statement of the congresswoman johnson be entered into the record. >> without objection, so!h ordered. the gentleman from coastal louisiana, some questioned? >> is, thank you, mr. chairman. admiral ellen, you favor past [inaudible] told me to tell you hello to date. [laughter] >> tel dan hello. >> i have three questions and i appreciate you keeping the answer as short as possible. they are very important to read a lot has been said about the jones act, and my question to you, admiral ellen is do you feel the weight of provisions in the jones act provide sufficient flexibility to the emergencies? >> yes i do. >> great. >> after reviewing the commission report, and this is for you, admiral allen. based upon my experience and listening to people back home who have worked 50 plus years in oil and gas industry, it is apparent that there were regulations that were already in place that were being supervised by the mms that seemed to have been violated. in comparison i haven't seen that there were any regulations that were under the purview of the coast guard that caused the accident. would you agree with that? >> sir, that relates directly to my earlier statement, that we need to understand the results of the joint investigation team. if you think about it, what we had was a vessel that was attached by a riser pipe to a well. at the bottom of the riser pipe was a system regulated by the department of interior. at the top of the riser pipe was a vessel regulated by the coast guard. there were issues with well control, issues with a cement job, if she was with the gas that cannot. once the gas was released you have the gas rebuilding a vessel that was issued a certificate of compliance by the coast guard to see that they comply with international standards comes with a joint investigative team is going to be doing is not only looking at the cause of the loss of control of the well, but for instance, how did the gas that came up be brought into the intake system into the engine room -- >> so you're looking at the five-year and safety issues related to the vessel itself so it is much more complicated system because you have a floating platform connected to the well and the jurisdictional issues both into that. that's the reason i think we need to take a very, very close look at everything associated including the performance of the fire suppression systems on the vessel would sell. >> why hope not to have to get to the five-year suppression systems. my only point to you all is that it seems as though the inspections and then by the coast guard out on the gulf of mexico are very sufficient. and the mms may have missed the boat on this, i guess you could say. the recommendations to build additional bureaucracies within the stadium department that oversight of mms, which is now the boem. i have a lot of confidence in the coast guard, i guess that's my point here. the last question very quickly. the motor vessel tashi was on location at the time, and of course this incident occurred in the spring when the water temperatures were certainly starting to warm up. but it isn't required to be at that platform, there is no her regulation that mandates that the vessel be there. if that dessel would not have been there and this would have been in the wintertime, and the men and women who had to jump off of the facility would have ended up in the water do you believe we would have been able to recover all of those who did survive? >> sir, getting back to my original point we need to look to the entire event and the issue with the loss of life. >> do you believe -- >> whether they were capable of receiving all conditions is a different point. >> on september 2nd the platform had an accident where the ten gentleman ended up in the water. one of them without a life preserver. again, in the summer. it took ten hours. there was no stand by. it took ten hours before we recovered. my question to you is this. if that would have happened in the winter, when all ten of those men have survived? >> would depend on the procedures and if the safety suits and the systems they are supposed to use. >> fell one dhaka ended up in the life preserver. my question is you would agree that they can be -- that hypothermia can certainly affect them. >> is it can, -- >> and ultimately lead to death? >> yes. >> okay. >> a quick follow-up from the gentleman from the coast of louisiana. you indicated you felt like the waiver provision of the jones act was adequate to deal with the situation with my understanding was the weavers were taken ten days to get the process. you think ten days is a reasonable enough time in the event of a disaster like this blowout or something like katrina? >> the waivers requested or stand by and then we had to move the vessels to heavy weather so there wasn't an extremist or urgency situation attached to that. i have been involved another in frear mental response is in my career where we needed a timely weavers and receive them as part of an environmental response. >> great. item one of the other points that we talked about both in the arctic and drilling in the gulf of mexico is the united states isn't the only participant. the united states oil companiesç and there is land out there that isn't regulated by the united states and the gulf of mexicona you have gotten drilling from of cuba, and what i see out of this report is a plethora of new regulations and taxes on the domestic oil companies with no happen in the event of an accident like this occurring on but d.c. and do think the focus might be on developing more on developing better responses for domestic oil company had a competitive disadvantage. >> , chris minn, certainly there is a challenge right now and international waters, you're right. the gulf of mexico is shared by several nations and the arctic has a number of nations whose companies are bargaining -- beginning the possibility of drilling and we need to address that. some of the companies are very safety challenged. it would be a serious problem for us and the commission did in its report identified that has a problem. it's going to require a transnational solution. we did recommend changes for the u.s. industry. again, we think that there are changes that can be done that would involve minimal cost and would make this industry safer. the commission's report was designed to get the industry back to work, and i think that if you have read it hopefully you would agree with that. was getting during some of the opening statements, but i haven't read it cover to cover and i look forward to reviewing there was also a comment regarding the fully restoring the gulf, and i would be the find, and as you know, the operations. obviously we have got a huge of time, but the fossil evidence in the arts and crafts indicate there is an ecosystem in place leave to mother nature? >> first of all, let me if i can just amend the comment but also reflect to mr. yanna's point above the arctic development, oil and gas development taking place in the arctic nations. we have some specific recommendations for the arctic but also internationally that it is in the u.s. interest to work with those others, with the international industry but also the other nations to develop the common standards both in terms of safety as well as a response. and in the arctic, i want to point to the last part of admiral allen's testimony which he said a key part of that is the gratification, the u.s. ratification of the sea that is greatly supported by the industry, by the military command is -- we need to do it and have a level playing field to deal with these issues. specifically with respect to restoring the ecosystem and the we recognize you can't fully restore the evolving and changing gulf of mexico to the way that it was a certain time. what we are interested in and we are recommending is that the environment be restored to the point where it recovers a certain resilience so that rather than in the current state of the function is able to function so if you have the future oil spells it is a much better capacity to withstand the impact and that is what free recommended terms of the restoration program to restore the longer term damages. there is the natural resource damage assessment which specifically addresses the correct those to the way that it >> finally, just for one second, the institute is incorporating state and local response is with the federal government. i commend them to you as a resource. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have a background of medicine, i was a cardiovascular surgeon and one thing i learned from medicine is that the international community can be very valuable in understanding health care, and my question goes to the fact that they're obviously have been oil spills another part of the world that we have not been involved in, and other than from the government response has been from a regulatory standpoint or otherwise, are there things we have learned or could be learned about their platforms about how they actually end up the cleanup afterwards, and were those countries offering advice in our case that u.s. regulations prevented us from utilizing those resources and helping us? >> i will make a short comment and pass it to my colleagues. first of all, the two best examples are probably norway and the u.k.. in the 1980's there were two serious accidents with significant to move to the safety case based system that we talked about earlier on the safety management systems. there was a recent blow out of the montara oil rick gough of the northwest coast of australia in 2009. they operate under the same system and the was operated as a part of the response, it still supports the safety case way to go forward as we said earlier and i am supportive of the system that would to get in touch of what we learned overseas with the requirement to third party delegation of the drilling systems. islamic i fully agree with the admiral. one of the other things we found is the industry was not sharing the best practices and informations of the industry could do a better job of that. and the congressman, if i could say on the board of the hart institute so i agree with the statement. >> i and stand the changes from the government level, and what your comment about the industry sharing technology. are there cleanup methods that they have used that we could have used that our u.s. regulations prevented? ibm nigh e to those. that's not my area. and if there were, like i said in medicine, the information from the international community is usually very valuable, and i have always found as a citizen of the united states people always ask us to help, and we usually help, but when people asked we don't generally ask for as much help as we can come in and i think sometimes there are things to be learned and take advantage of maybe we ought properly utilize. that is my overall assessment. thank you. >> the overwhelming majority of the officers of assistance that we dealt with had to do with the actual fiscal equipment and this had to do with how much we could get and how we needed it and how fast. usually involves scanning equipment and fire retardant and dispersive when we were using dispersants. some of the more novel we might have used like the new technologies fallen to the comments i made earlier where because of the policy of the research settlement to place the last 15 years we were at the point we were trying to do research and development to bring the products to market. we can't allow that to happen again and the challenge was domestically to bring those technologies in and get them into the game. >> and sir, i would just say that one of the sad facts of this incident is that the industry simply did not have the response and continent technology that was adequate to contain this blowout in a reasonable amount of time. it took them almost three months. >> just to comment and then i will finish. again, going back to madison, i learned that there is international studies in health care especially in the heart surgery area related to the press that it devices and the like that have been utilized in europe and other areas around the world for many, many years that in the united states are prevented from being utilized by medical professionals based on our very slowly and very onerous regulatory process. and so i guess i would -- my question was directed at are there things like that in your industry that are out there but that we wanted to roane or indy 500 and we don't rely on the international data, and that our structure really presents us from using for decades when there have been found to be effective in other areas. >> i guess i would say in regard to the containment of the well because it was operating offshore basically in waters outside state waters and bp and the industry were ones that had the means to control the attwell and cap it that the free market was flowing just about what was working and could be used to that site. >> let me say also on that issue there are two organizations the industry is standing up to supply that capacity to contain a blowout well, and so that's representing some substantial investment that they know they now need and it's going to be based right there in the gulf of mexico in mr. landrieu's district, the capacity to stand by the research and development associated with it is part of the economy, each holding economy and the new world from the offshore leal and gas to the limit. >> thank you. >> mr. harris. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. first call, admiral allen, thank you very much for coming and hearing and you are a great feast to the u.s. government really during the entire crisis and i thank you for that. dr. boesch, it's good to see you sitting on the environmental committee in the state of maryland i've seen you many times and glad to see you here. >> called you senator >> that's right. let me just ask a question, i had the privilege of attending a briefing by senator gramm and the natural resources committee, and my colleague from alaska suggested at that time that the commission members call me have had an initial by yes against offshore oil exploration and drilling, and i was pleased to see that in the foreword to the report, it suggested on the last page offshore energy enterprise is threatened in the nation's economy security are threatened and i couldn't agree more wholeheartedly. of maryland, which is one of the frontier areas described in the last part of the book our coastal counties have an unemployment rate between ten to 18% of seasonal employment, but it's how i and i personally feel perhaps we should be looking at offshore exploration drilling off the shore. in the chapter where you talk about chapter 10 of the report, you do say that the biological and environmental factors are well understood in those areas unlike the arctic, and therefore my question is do you think if we implement what's found here, and this is specifically for dr. boesch and mr. garcia, do you think we should in fact, because of our nation's economy and security, go forward with the explorations of the midlantic coast? >> well, we take no specific position about the expansion of oil and gas production -- exploration and production outside the two areas we focus on other than to indicate that we need to approach it in a different way where there is more substantive analysis that engages the of your agencies in addition to interior, that in which the environmental -- potential environmental risks are judged in the context of the amount of economic gain and benefit and with respect to the energy supply that maybe there. one of the things that focused our attention on alaska quite frankly, in addition to its unique and sensitivity is that the industry and the u.s. gse is saying that for most of the remaining oil is outside of the gulf, so there's going to be in the enormous pressure to develop it and we need those resources it can be developed safely. the other areas are less rich in terms of resources and we have to do that analysis. >> mr. garcia. >> i would just add that the commission report was designed to provide recommendations on how to drill safely. where that juggling might take place would be up to the administration and perhaps the congress. >> let me get into it because dr. boesch comment indicate you didn't take the position on the safety, i'm going to ask you not as the commission but personally to address mr. young's qassam de fielder to implement the recommendations in the gulf is it safe to do it in the gulf? and should we in fact be doing it in the gulf? >> if the recommendations are implemented, yes, we have said you can safely drill and we believe this report sets that out, and i would also say in response to mr. young's point about whether there was a bias, i believe mr. reilly said we should let the report speaks for itself, and our position is contained in this report. >> let me take the next step. if your position is that yes, it should -- it safe to do in the gulf and perhaps should be done in the gulf, and in chapter 10 use a well, of the midlantic coast of biology and instrumental considerations are fairly well known. perhaps should be treated different than the arctic, and if there are reserves fell off the coast of maryland for instance or virginia both of which will help employment in my area in my district, and would you confirm should be done in those areas also if there are reserves that are proven to be economically beneficial? >> as i understand, the president acted earlier last year with respect to the congress's lifting the moratorium are not the larger area saying that the u.s. is going to evaluate these questions whether the resources are there or the potential risks as well as the more detailed analysis of the existing data. what the comments were meant to suggest is that in those environments we are not talking about were suggesting that one needs five years of intense study and data analysis that we already know about those regions, and that information, just as the proposal should be brought into consideration and making that determination. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. harris, congresswoman edwards. glad i made it back in the nick of time. thank you very much to the witnesses. the question i have actually regards oversight issues that came up during the 111th congress and related to the smoke rate and the variations of the slow rate estimates and the impact on response coordination. there were some questions that came out in our oversight in the last congress about risk assessment and contingency planning and particularly, i raised issues related to the worst-case scenario which didn't even seem to come close to the scenario the was reached in this bill, and so i wonder if you can talk to me a bit about the recommendation that you have made and how we can improve the independence of the assessment that are done so they have a little bit more validity because that's also related to what the financial liabilities far as well and so if you could shed some light on that, i would appreciate it. >> sure. first of all, you are right. if we did address this issue of the flow rate. first of all, with respect to the flow rate estimates, it probably had relatively little effect on the spill response in terms of the assets and resources that could be deployed. that is a function of where the oil is going. however, what we concluded is there are two important lessons from that underestimation of the rate for so long. first is that it became very important to the right side of design, the containment effort, the initial effort to try to control and contain the well were doomed to failure because the assumed the flow rate. so the containment is important. second, for confidence of everyone that the government is on top of this that diminished that confidence comes over the freeze alone. then finally as you pointed out the flow rate becomes important with respect to the assessment of damages under the clean water act. >> conagra's woman, if i could just add, the good news is there are some simple fixes we have suggested in the report that would allow the government and the industry to be able to accurately estimate flow rates so you don't have this problem in the future. it's just a matter of putting some simple instrumentation to the blowout preventer, and it is a relatively inexpensive fix. >> kinetic comment please? first of all, i agree. very low in cost investment would give an accurate flow rate without any big dispute i think among the people involved. we've never had to deal with a well blowout at 5,000 feet and having to establish a flow rate that has never been presented to any response in this country's history. in response, when this became a matter of public concern and political concern, i basically took that function and gave it to the flow rate technical group as a spinoff of the group's highest published in the incident command to have an independent government way to assess that with the means we have lacking the sensor data that should be there and that is using the high resolution and other means. once we did that that allowed the baseline to tell what bp had to go in terms of containment. >> last, if one of you could please comment on this question of the kind of risk assessment and contingency planning because both the estimates, and when i looked at the standards for what was essentially rubber stamped from the mms regarding the risk assessments, it almost seemed as though the industry could kind of put a risk assessment in front of mms. there were few questions that were asked about it and they were all pretty much the same. that in itself i would guess had to contribute tremendously to the ability to project with the risk might be and to establish mechanisms that would allow for the appropriate contingency planning. >> congress woman, you are right. we have suggested in the report that a better review begun of response plans. i think you're referring to the fact that most of the company's essentially xerox and submitted the boilerplate to mms for their response plans and neither the government nor the industry apparently were paying attention since the referenced species that didn't normally make their homes in the gulf such as walruses'. so yes, a much better job needs to be done and again, it indicates the widespread failure of oversight as well as complacency within the industry. >> this is very important, because we have gotten some criticism by the use of the word systemic problems, and by systemic we don't mean that all companies were equally negligent as bp. by systemic we mean all companies were using those same irrelevant plans. none of the company's high containment capacity. any number of things were widespread problems not only for the industry but the regulatory regime. >> thank you mr. chairman and the witness is particularly for the thoroughness and the expeditious manner in which you got this report done. with that, i yield. >> thank you. i just got some important questions i want to kind of -- let me just make a comment. i appreciate you all continuing to edit your comments on sestak -- i.t. you should go back and look, and mccaul oil companies design and engineer the wells the same. so you are getting their, mr. boesch. [laughter] admiral allen, there are parts of this report - i am interested in helping to implement and one of them concerns the safety of the workers so i simply want to go back to those scenarios and asked do you or don't you believe having standby vessels or a vessel within at least an hour's time where there are drilling activities of platforms does that or does that not create a safe environment for those workers? >> obviously having the vessel standing by is a safer environment regarding the threshold requirement i think those are the types of determinations we made by the current on going to try investigations. it's not only looking at the incident occurred itself with the performance of the system on the vessel and the lifesaving systems on the rig as of devotee was a logical areas for inquiry into the need to be adjusted as they should be. >> mr. chairman. >> mr. larsen? >> thank you, mr. chairman. just quickly page 142, won 43 of the commission report discusses the jones act and says the restrictions didn't even come into play for the majority of the vessels operated because the act isn't blocked foreign vessels from loading and unloading oil more than 3 miles off the coast when the appear to have granted waivers and exemptions in question. did i read that accurately? >> yes, sir. >> page eight of your testimony, admiral allen come in reality, the jones act had no impact on response operations; did i read that accurately? did my reading of those statements accurately reflect your thoughts as well? >> yes. >> with regards to the oil has built response recovery organizations, the osros, this is about wanting to get equipment but not really needing the equipment where the osros had equipment here in the u.s. and i wouldn't say that it was a scramble, but the folks in washington state and the district 13 and try and to identify who had what, what would be useful and how soon can you get there without impacting state based needs and operations do you have recommendations about the osros and oil skill recovery and how they can fit in better and create an inventory to know where this equipment is when we need it? >> i think we certainly do and we identify first of all the lack of capacity to respond to something with such wide scale lasting so long as the osros, but also related to that is our observations and conclusions about the lack of advancement of the technology that they've used and the degradation of their assets and capacity if they were mainly dealing with smaller scale activities on the more routine basis to then deal with something of this consequence. there were clearly not going in that sense, so we need a more effective way to do that. perhaps admiral allen has -- >> i think what you're referring to is we went through an emergency rule making to allow us to lower the standby requirement for the conduct of operations at facilities that had oil skill responsive grumet but couldn't legally move it because it was a condition of operations. this became very, very complicated because the only way we could do that was to issue an emergency federal rule, and even then, there were residual issues with state law and state requirements, in some cases personal why the devotees for the operators and facilities and commanding officers naval installations where they get the equipment up if something were to occur. i think moving forward we need to look at this because if you have this bill and you want to bring all available means we have emergency contacts between the states that allow the movement of resources when they need that. i think their needs to be measured discussion and evaluation how we can do that and that's the reason i said if there's a national incident commander designated there should be a presidential designation and what it should come with is the authority to move the resources and if it is needed without coming to an emergency rule making process. that said, we need to understand the threshold of what needs to stay behind so you have a minimum level to respond if you have an incident. >> something along the lines of when the national guard might move from one state to the next four firefighting to help with the mutual aid. >> exactly, sir. >> with regards to the arctic, i will talk to mr. young afterwards, so i want to be sure i'm not -- we have a good relationship, and i want to be sure i talked to him about these questions, so i want to be clear about it. but he mentioned icebreakers who could we lease icebreakers with the arctic operations if we had to lose? >> well, sir, if i could take a step back there's a defect and implicit assumption in his statement that we need icebreaking capability. how you stores that where you build or lease an icebreaker is a second step. we haven't even got to the point in this country where we recognize there's a capability requirement and we need to do something about that. the lease is just one way you could remedy that. i tried unsuccessfully for four years to get this on the agenda because we will have no floating capability to exert the command kunkel from the point where all must have the strength capable to do that. leasing could be one way to relating we need to have more organic capabilities inside the united states to do that, but regardless of that the issue is nobody's talking about the icebreaker capability problem and they are staring us in the face. >> i understand russia, china, sweden all have icebreaker's probably none of them are willing to loan them to us or lease them unless they can recover the lack of -- recover the dollars for the lack of opportunity they would have to use them for the same functions we would not use them for. >> the national science foundation leases the vessels to break out for the annual supply and stopped using the u.s. icebreakers. >> other questions? [inaudible] >> on the capacity of response from the arctic and can you comment on the capacity to respond to a situation in the arctic separate from an ice breaker issue? >> i'd be happy to -- >> plans, trains, automobiles? what you have? what's going on? >> if i could, and try not to infer there is a response capability the should be the decision whether or not to drill and these gentlemen already stated that themselves. >> absolutely. >> my premise has been because we used assets to alaska in the summer to see how they operate, there's the lack of infrastructure footprint and accessibility by the equipment up there to be able to stage a response and use command and control that you need to do that. if you were to go to robert, louisiana, new orleans or mobile and look at the command post established to try to deal with this oil still, there's no place on the north slope of alaska to put something like that. and i'm differentiating what a oil exploration company might have out there in terms of response vessels. the oversight that has to be done, the access to the air strips, all weather aircraft, all those are issues that come into play on the north slope of alaska, and from my standpoint as a former commandant, my concern was if i'm held accountable to conduct a type of oversight that would basically pulled through by this commission, there is a lack of a footprint out there to do that. this is independent of the merits associated with oil and gas exploration. it's been an absolute. let me be clear i wasn't implying planes and automobiles would be part of this. i'm trying to talk about the broad range of infrastructure for response for the record everybody. thank you. >> admiral allen, we talked about this a little bit. oil pollution act required the federal government to conduct exercises every three years to give you prepared -- to be prepared, and we think that was a good idea. was the failure of these officials to participate in march 2010 and missed opportunity for them to better understand how oil spill response functions under the national contingency plan would work in your view? >> i do believe a was a missed opportunity, but i think we need to take a look at whether or not this was a problem or the commission. we are under siege of the tyranny of the president. this isn't a tier one exercise. it didn't technically require the participation of cabinet level officers. so there was basically no foul, but we gave no benefit from having those folks exposed to the doctrine. my recommendation contained in my testimony is to hold another drilling within one year, to have cabinet level officials involved and let's immediately test the premises and the notions contained in the commission report and what comes out of the investigations let's not wait until the cycle let's do one and figure whether or not we fix the problem petraeus benet i don't want to second-guess what you might say, but if the officials, whoever these officials might be, had participated that could have affected in a more positive way the response? >> you have to look who was called in when this occurred. when the gig sought to beat goes on, napolitano were in the office briefing the president on what had happened. the people who were in the office having the discussion or not the people because it wasn't a tier one exercise. it would have been involved in that in these international significance. that is the reason my premise would be moving forward to schedule another and make it a tier one exercise on which the cabinet level officials will participate. >> ms. edwards? >> thank you, mr. chairman. to commissioner boesch and garcia, you've made some significant recommendations that really go to what you've indicated or the commission has indicated the failures and oversight and the regulatory structure, and you've made some very significant recommendations to improve the regulatory structure. i wonder if you could comment, please come as we are in an environment in which there are deep cuts proposed to some of the agencies that you believe in your report need to step up in terms of their oversight of this industry and process at the department of interior come at nowak, epa and coast guard. do you believe there is any inconsistency in the kutz recommended in these agencies in the ability of the agency's then to fulfill the recommendations you have made to prevent both the safety concerns and environmental concerns that might come to pass if there were another spill of this kind of national significance? >> we certainly have indicated the changes need to be made in the agencies and the need to be adequately funded. one of the problems for the mms was the was underfunded and undermanned, and thus incapable of effectively and foley overseeing this industry. now we have suggested that the new boem be funded through the fees that the industry pays, and right now the industry is paying just a tiny fraction of that agency's relatively small budget, and it wouldn't be unreasonable for the industry which is reaping large benefits from this resource to pick up the cost of confident and effective regulator. >> dr. boesch? >> yes, we have been at this together, we think alike and finish each other's sentences, but one just to add to that is that the interior, secretary interior requested a congress appropriation for fiscal 2011 which would enhance the capacity of the former boem to meet these highest standards and to process these applications, and so the lack of those funds obviously presents a handicap but only if implementing the recommendations but getting the industry back to business. >> if the congress is unable or is unwilling to impose the fees that are recommended, and inevitably the cuts that are proposed for the agency that would have oversight and responsibility is this regulatory framework is simply unable to implement the regulations that you have put forward opening us up, you could comment, opening up to the possibility that we would have another bill of deep water that we would be unable to clean up and unable to properly project. >> conagra's woman, i would say this bill has cost us tens of billions of dollars and the final price tag or the tab is not in yet. so to the extent the failure to properly regulate the industry would regulate the funding that would be a tragedy. >> i would just conclude and yield my time. i mean, it does strike me that there is a very significant inconsistency in our desire to make sure that both the industry and commerce are not impacted by the spill of this kind of significance in the future if we are unwilling in the congress to do what it takes to make sure that the resources are in place so that our agencies can fulfil their obligations. and with that, i will yield. >> are you looking for more time? >> i just want to address the gentleman from washington's comment -- >> if you have additional questions i'm going to suggest you submit them for the record. i don't want to cut anybody off, but we could go on for a long time and i think we need to wind this up. okay. i want to thank the panel very much. this was very informative. the subcommittee stands adjourned. 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