oil coming out? >> you know, chairman bingaman, i think -- i mean, i will say this, something that you might want to confirm with secretary chu and the scientist from the labs that have been involved in this, but their view is it has been communicated to me that the range of increase may have been somewhere between 4% and 5% over what it was before. >> okay. all right. let me ask what -- what d you expect this other report, the one the president continues to refer to which is this six-month report, what do you expect that to yield in the w of -- is it going to make another series of recommendations similar to the recommendations that came out of your 30-day report, or i it going to be trying to do something different? >> i will have deputy secretary david hayes respond to that because he's in charge of the investigations and helping with setting up of the commission, but there are multiple investigat going on, many reports that are coming in and we are getting to the root causes, and everything that is happening here and will happen over the next several months will be fed into the presidential commission at the at the end of the day there will be one report but i will have the deputy secretary provide some additional information on that question. and, senator, could i ask you again which report is -- >> well, the president has said that the moratorium will be in place until he gets his six-month report, and that's t one that i'm just interested in knowing, what are we going to learn from that report or is going to be another series of recommendations in addition to an investigation, or what can it going to be? >> yes, yes, thank you. he report from the new commission that has been established with senator graham and bill riley. that commission, we will be working with closely per the secretary's comments to fold in everything that's going on so that they have in front of them theull record. theris,course, a minerals manament service united states coast guard joint report that is going on right now, joint inveigation. that will be fed into the presidential commission. there's an independent evaluation by the national academy of engi that will be fed into the commission and the commission itself will be undertaking its own investigation, so we will be looking to the commission ultimately a we expect to be in have every of information potentially important for their delibetions on what their long-term recommendations are. >> senator murkowski? >> mr. airman, secretary salazar, you mentioned the decisi as it related to the cha chacii and beaufort. i don't know if you reviewed the white paper presented by the u.s. arctic research commission. they essentially are advocating for additional research in subarctic conditions. it's something that this commission has been focused on for some time, spent a fair amount of stu on and it is a time draft but i want to make sure y've had an opportunity to review that so we'll make sure you get a copy if yound your staff haven't. i wanted to ask you about the study or the review that was conducted, this 30-day review prior to the new deepwater ban, there was an immediate inspectionered by you to review all the deepwater ocs falities. can you give any me detail in tes of the results of those inspections and did you unearth anything that wascularly revealing in terms of possibly a culture of unsafe activities? i know it was a very quick review and you're now going into the longer term review but was there anything that was noticeable in that initial review? >> no, we ordered the immediate inspection of all 33 operations that were under way as i recall, the information that came back to us is that they were all in compliance with the requirements of the regulations and with the exception of two or three and the incidents of noncompliance were relatively miner. i will say this, senator murkowski, that one of the things that has been learn here is that there is much more that can be done with resct to what we are doing concerning the safety requirements imposed on companies, for example, the testing of blow-out prevention one thing learned by the deepwater horizon incident, the beginning of drilling the relief valves which is the ultimate solution t this particular spill. they have done the testing of these blow-out preventers in the subsea in ways they haven't done before so the new requirements th w imposed throu the notice the lessees we sent out yesterday has significant additional requirements and so there will be a whole panoply of those requirements that have to be met. >> let me ask you specifically about that. it was my understanding that the blowout preventer with the deepwater horizon had actually undergone a couple tests only days before it failed and those tests actually were successful. so how are we going to -- i mean i understand the purpose and don't disagree with additional testing but do we really believe that recertifation of the b.o.p. would he done anything to enhance the reliability of at testing? are we doing the right st, i guess is t question. >> well, there's a whole host of things that are going t out with respect to blow-out preventers including the kind of redundancies built in, additional casinghear rams that we will be requiring and additional redundancies in their actati a actuation and i'll ask steve black to comment briefly on the report because he was the principal author of the report on the safety recommendations. >> and when you do that, mr. black, in addition to understanding that, i'm curious know, there's going to be a t of new technical requirements that will be required going forward and undetand th. but what about instituting some minimum training standards, for instance, if you're going to have new standards on certification, will you also require certification of people on the rig that are working in these areas that are related to safety and control so you got the technological side but you so have the human side and i think we recognize there's been human error here, as well. how does that integrate as well if you can address that? >> thank you, senator murkowski and mr. chairman, thank you for the courtesies of sitting here today with the secretary. to your first question, senator murkowski, with respect to the blowout preventer and the testing it's important to remember this safety report doesn't presuppose any investigation or the outcome of any investigation that's currently ongoing. it instead attempts to identify safety measures that can be taken immediately and improve the safety margin with respect to offshore drilling, the blowout preventer on the deepwater horizon was, in fact, tested but i think what we've learned is those tests, as you suggest, dn't reveal perhaps modificationso the blowout preventer equipment or incompassable between the rov hot stabs and interface panel on the blow-out stack so we want to make sure that the -- that all br, all subc.o.p.s are reinspected and any repair or modification that h been made to a b.o.p. stack is properly reported and understood so in the event of an emergency an intervention can occur. with respect to training the report does in fact recommend that mms in conjunction with other sers develop new guidance and new regulations with respect to training, inspections and a variety of other safety measures so those in fact will occur. the department will lead that effort through work groups that we set up at the partment. but we do very much intend to work with industry, work with other skeholders to develop that kind of requirement. >> senator, senator udall, is he here? i don't see him at this point. let me go to senator shaheen. >> thank you, mr. chrman. mr. secretary, i appreciate the efforts that you have taken and that you have talked about this morning to reform the culture of corruption that has existed within mms and recognize that this is a culture that has been created over a number of years that you inherited when you took over this job. about w reorganation concerned efforts will really address some of the corruption that exists there and the individuals who may have been part of that and whether it's reshuffling of the deck or whether it will really allow you to deal with that culture and get rid of the folks who have not been operating in a mannerhat they should be as they're lookingt what needs to be done to regulate this dustry so can you talk a little bit about how confident you are about the reorganization that you have underway? >> senator shaheen, let me -- it's a very good question. let me say our reorganization is not cosmetic. our reorganization is essentially blowing up mms and it into different parts of the department and separating functions to avoid both perceived and real conflicts of interest it is overhaul of this function of the government in every cplete sense of the way. it doesn't mean that things that we did will taken away. for example, still requiring ethics training and having ethics counselors and having hics part of the performance standards, that all will be done, as well. what we have done under the secretarial order and will be implementing is a complete reconstruction of the mms function and deputy secretary david hayes would likeo comment on that, as well. >> senator, you raise a point that is central to our thinking in terms o the reorganization effort. in our view is that what is most necessary is a clarity of mission and under the current structure where you have the folks forward leaning under the statute leasing and being encouraged to do more and more leasing, more and more permitting, almost by virtue of the statutory st have the employees accepting that mission executing it. there has not been as clear a mission on the enforcement and safety side candid di and we th structurally by separating these functions, creating a clearer mission, there will be execution. it has bdent tous, frankly, in the last 50 days that the employees can execute a mission. we have asked them to turn on a dime to put in placeome ements and they are doing it. so we have some views that we can do this if we get clarity of mission byating these nk you.ns. i want to switch the topic a little bit. i know tt everyone is focused right now on ending the current ill and dealing with cleanup. buone of t things that struck me when we had the principals from bp, halliburton and transocean here before this committee was their response when i asked them what they were doing to address research on deepwater spills and cleanup and the answer from three was zero. they are committing no resources to doing anything about how deal wit these kinds of situations in the future. and as i'm sure you all know, ri we're spending about 50 million a year as the federal government to fund r&d for exploration and production of oil and gas and alter deep waters but we're not spending nearly that amount to address cleanup and containment and what happens when we get into the kind o that we're in right now. we're fortunate at the univerty of new hampshire to have the coastal response research center which is one of the premiere centers in the country that's looking at these issues and in talking to their director, dr. nancy kinner, one of the points she made to me is that rht now what we really lack is any funding either in the industry or from the federal government to address this kind of research, so can you talk about whether you think we should be spending at least as much on cleanup and containment as we're spending right now on how to drill in deep water and if you have thoughts about how we should be looking at this issue in the future and where the resources should come from? >> senor shaheen, this will be and is one of the questions that will be addressed by the presidential commission and that we are addressing as well. the fact is that bp did have an oil spi response plan. the fact is that that plan contemplated the ability reond hured thousand barrels per day. th fact also is that t plan has not been effective in protecting the sensitive ecology of the gulf of mexico and the people of the gulf of mexico and so there will be a review of all of these issues determine what is it that is needed. there is research under way with respect to oil spi issues of the time, in fact, in senator menendez's state of hj knowledge there is an oil spill laboratory which looks at oil spills and how to contain oil spills and so this is an area obviously which will be one of those lessons to be learned. >> but would you agree that, in fact, the resources to really look at this issue have not existed? >> the answero that is yes, i me, the resources in terms of looking at spill response and dealing with some of the deep water issues i don't think have been there. thank you. >>enator sessions? >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you, mr. secretary, for your directness. you've talked to directly. you haven't used notes. you have obviously gotour head straight on challenges you face and we appreciate that and i want to work with you to deal with this crisis. we're now in the 51st day, the people i talk to in my state are concerned on -- they are concerned that we're not doing enough to stop the flow, and they're concerned about the effectiveness of our barriers and so forth. i will say that thursday and friday of last week i was in mobile. i met with the coard and bp officials. we met friday with local mayors, county commissioners, state rep leadership of governor riley who has personally been committing much of his time to this effort and the mood was not good. people felt like there had been a lot of promises made, a lot of uncertainties there that they still haven't gotten true facts about but i believe our people are determined. they want to bounce back from this, and i'm confident that we will but we don't need to make any more mistakes. we need to be as effective as we can. so with regard to particularly a problem that i believe resulted from a violation of an agreement with the governor of alabama concerning the boom material that was removed from our state, i do believe that you have responded to that and there has been some progress in restoring at least some of that, and i think thas important. it's just a matter of good faith if you are working with the governor and make commitments you have toake sure that tries to happen. i believe it is a coast guard decision but is a matter that was important. as we build the ate, local and federal teamwork we need to deal with this crisis to follow up on the chairman's question about the flow, first of all, i'd like to get a little better picture about the flow, how much is coming out. you've indicated that it was originally projected to 12 to 19,000 barrels ada. is that correct? that's the last report you have and you have another report coming out soon? >> yes and i'll speak more to it when you finish your question. >> well, that would be my question. where -- what is the statusf the flow today? do you expect to see any changes in your reporn the futur and i'd like to follow up on how much is being captured and how much there has been a reduction in the flow, ifany? >> let me make a comment and then i'll have david hes who has been working, frankly, for most of the night on this issue with the flow rate comment on i. it was important for us to have our own independent assessment with respect to the flow rate because there are legal consequences, as you well know from every barrel that is spilt so we have not relied on bp for the flow rate analysis that has been done. under the command of admal thad alle there has been a flow rate group that has been established which is headed by marsha mcnutt, the director of the u.s. geological survey a group of scientists came up with those initial ranges of 12,000 to 19,000. there's decisional information that has developed now post-riser cut which those scientists are working on very hard to try to come up with a clear awer so that the american public knows what the flow rate is and so that we can make sure that we are as prepared as possible to do the response. >> can i interrupt you? you know, the information is so different, for example, you indicated that after the cut of the rider we may have had a 4% or 5% incase in flow rate. but originally i there was a projection from some official source of a 20% increase and i see some people have projected far more than that. ho confident are you that we sustained just a 4% to 5% increase? >> let me say that it is important for us to have the right number and that is what is being worked on right now. in fact, you know, sectary chu and marsha mcnutt and i have a meeting on this coming up today to make sure that we get to -- . and we will get to that right number because the american people need to know it. it has been difficult toet to the right number because of the subsea condionshat have been operated -- and i'm going to have david comment on that but i just want to respond, senator sessions, my friend, that the issues relating to alabama and the issues of boom, the president thad allen who is a national incident commander on this, he calls it as he sees it. i think he has resolved those issues withhe governor including putting it in writing what was to happen so let me just say on the part of thad allen with whom i work with multiple times every day, no effort is being spared to make su that the people of the gulf coast are being protected and if you find that there are things that are not going on, senator sessions in your state, please give me a call, and we' get to thad allen immediately. i'd like just because he has be working on it all night and may have more recent information on the flow rate maybe to kind of give you a sense of what's going on because i think it's of interest to the chairman as well as to all theembers of the committee so if that would be okay with you, mr. chairman. >> w that, mr. hayes, if you -- time is -- my question is over. i would just hope that you would talk aut how much is being captured and w what you project is a reduction, if any, in the . >> certainly, senator. leme sort of paint the picture here of t government's effort to identify the flow rate. as the secretary testified, a flow rate technical group was formed and dr. marsha mcnutt, the director of the usgs is in charge of that. there are seven independe scientists that are on tha group, a couple of weeks ago, they -- they -- before the riser was cut, t looked at variety of data streams to do an estimate of how much might be leaking out of at that time there were some leaks in the kink of the riser and then at the end of the riser and also at that time there was a tool tt was bringing some of the material uprom the end of the riser, youl recall and collecting some of that material. what they did is they had several different work streams. they had -- they had video that they ordered. the governmentequired bp to provide the video so they could look at the video age attempt to calculate how much might be coming outment they also did a mass balance based on aerial work and subsea work to try to estimate how much had -- was on the surface, how much had evaporated and sort of back calculate how much might be coming out. and those were the primary apoaches. what they ce up with was a range, a kind of aange of two of the work groups came out with a range of 12,000 t19,000 barrels a day. the video work group came up with 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day with a lot of uncertainty beuse of the difficulty of -- there was not good information about what the oil and gas ratio s so when you're looking at the video it was difficult to figure out essentially how much would be oil versus the gas which behaves differently. they -- they also were asked to estimate -- this is to your question, senator, how much, if we cut off the riser, would there be an increase in the amount of fl