category of dr. doom. his estimates gravely larger than anything we heard back today one. do you believe the flow rate estimates are approaching your earlier speculation in a month and a half ago. first of all i just can t believe. i was so hoping when you first had me on your show that i had somehow really overexaggerated this. if it s true, it s the worst thing we ve ever had. i turn on the today show on the 22nd of april. i heard this tragic news about this great company, one of my best complaints, transoceans, one of the finest rigs engulfed in a fire i ve never seen anything like on the gulf of mexico. and being described as a rig fire. we re seeing the biggest blow out we ve ever had. i bet the pressures are
12th, i asked and revealed that the blowout preventer was modified in ways that it wouldn t work, okay. one modification, for instance, was to remove the important variable boar ram and replaced it with a test ram that made it ineffective. at our hearing i asked mr. mckay, the president of bp america about these modifications. he testified under oath. he took the oath, and he said he didn t know anything about modifications. we ve since learn that had bp approved modifications despite being warned that it would reduce the safety of the blowout preve preventer. this is tab number ten. here s the letter from 20 2004 from transocean sent to bp that bp signed and acknowledged. bp acknowledges that the conversion you asked for, the conversion will reduce a built-in redundancy, potentially
the priority of everyone involved in the operations is safety. that doesn t come before anything. not anything. it s something i believe personally, very passionately. the women talked about in their testimony. i m sorry. i ve gone over my time. finish your question. the women talked about in their testimony that their husbands worked for the drilling rig company, for transocean and they pushed savety, they pushed safety. they pushed safety. but in discussions in weeks prior to the explosion, their husbands talked about bp waving. saying keep going, keep doing. i ve heard growing up in south louisiana, about the two pusher or the drilling foreman and the company guys getting in
it was harmed. it was damaged in the hurricane. so you replaced it with deepwater horizon. in november of last year. tran ocean pulled out the blowout preventer buzz the sheer rams were not working. and the upper annualer had been stripped during a well control event. we know bp was aware of that. document number 12 in our binder reflect conference calls with bp about the problems with the blowout preventer. in addition, transocean records indicate, the incidents date that the estimated down time force bid the malfunction is a conservative ten days at 444,000, 111 per day. or $4.4 million as it shows. so how can you say blowout preventers are fail-safe devices when the blowout preventer had to be removed because of
[ low male ] plop, plop. [ high male ] fizz, fizz. president obama is scheduled to speak at the white house any minute now. just moments ago, bp agreed to set aside $20 billion to pay the victims of the oil spill. the agreement comes as the president holds a big meeting here with bp executives at the white house. they said that kenneth feinberg will be in charge of that escrow account. he s the same guy that oversaw payments to the 9/11 families and also executive compensation under t.a.r.p. pelicans now facing damage on two fronts. not just the oil but from the clean-up crews as well. some experts say the crews are trampling nests in plaquemines parish nests. louisiana senators are trying to subpoena transoceans officials.