we re already over 50% on overseas sources. i just want to be clear on that. because the interior department had said last week i know there were some questions about whether the moratorium did affect shallow water drilling. and the government agency came out and said that it was for deepwater drilling. what you re telling me is new permits are not being issued right now and i think one of the things we re urging the president to do is differentiate clearly so that where we know that you can get to it, if something happens, that we have the ability to keep costs down and keep these jobs in america. when the president talked about it last night, he didn t give a lot of specifics but he said it is really time to figure out an energy plan, a comprehensive energy plan for america that makes sure we have the fuel we need to move forward and to grow but also protects the environment and gets us off of a reliance on oil. would you support an overarching
tragedy that people continue to see unfolding? there is a difference between the deepwater, where this accident happened, and shallow water. our concern in the letter and our meeting this last week was about shallow water drilling. the blow-out protector above the water level is a whole different situation. if something goes wrong, it s easier to fix. nothing has ever gone wrong in the gulf coast on shallow water drilling. so we are trying to get the hundreds of thousands of workers in the gulf coast area back to work, drilling shallow wells. that has been the subject of our letter and our meeting this past week. i think that is about to prevail. no reason to look at what went wrong with the deepwater rig to shut down shallow water drilling which is a different matter altogether. shannon: i know you have a great concern of the economic impact. we have want to share the letter that you signed so the folks understand what we are
who is likely to replace him? speculation is it s the new public face of the clean-up, a gentleman named robert dudley, acquired by bp, much more familiar with the u.s. deep water drilling. he has been the one who has really been handling the publicity and the remarks on behalf of bp of late. so that s the possibility. tony hayward, we don t know whether or not he s leaving. but there is some speculation that it will be happening at some point in the near future. meanwhile, in louisiana, there is a rally under way at the moment. it s a rally against the government moratorium on drilling. it s being held in lafayette, louisiana. it s an interesting situation for them, because so many of these people have been all right, particularly those who are shrimpers, oystermen, fishermen, in the gulf of mexico. but many have now got work as part of the clean-you up from bp. in addition to that, over the
i hope he also listens to this message that we can do shallow water drilling in an entirely different way from the deep water to get thousands of gulf coast americans back to work. shannon: senator, i know part of the outreach has been requesting someone from the administration meet with possibly a representative of the shallow water drilling companies. do you have any indication whether someone would be willing to do that and talk about the concerns? as a matter of fact, they have met with us. it give administration credit for that. also, we had a very productive conference call on friday afternoon about that. there is a possibility if additional safeguards can be put in and inspections can be put in, we can have the shallow water rigs in operation, some of them maybe within a week. and when others are put in
yesterday accomplished a good bit. we have some boat owners, some shrimpers, some charter captains whose boats can be used and the president, i think, is about to take ownership of that and get in and allow these people who actually are losing their livelihoods to get out there and be part of the solution. i think the claims process has been terrible. i think it s about to get better, i hope. and there are a number of things that we can do. i m grateful that the administration is prepared to allow shallow water drilling, which is a whole different safety issue to resume again because we don t have the safety problems with shallow water drilling than we do with deep water. so i think there s progress being made, and i thought we had a very businesslike productive meeting yesterday. now, one of the things that has been raised by some of your colleagues over on the house side, waxman and stupak in particular, and we ve seen the hearings today, is bp s lack of preparedness and the fact t