Washington, DC - Today, Congressman John D. Dingell (D-MI15), who has taken a lead role in multiple investigations of BP over the last decade, made the following remarks at the Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Energy and Environment hearing “Combating the BP Oil Spill.”

“Mr. Chairman – thank you for holding this important hearing today.  The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held a hearing a couple of weeks ago where we heard from the BP, Transocean, Halliburton and Cameron.  Today, we have Administration officials.  Mr. Chairman, I commend you for having the Administration officials here today – their testimony and answers to questions are equally critical in terms of finding out what when wrong and why.  To our witnesses, thank you for being here today.

"Mr. Chairman, as I have mentioned in previous hearings, I have been a supporter of off-shore oil and gas drilling – when it is done right and in compliance with all of our environmental laws – for many years.  I come from Michigan and we are a manufacturing state.  Domestic manufacturers need energy sources.  Domestic oil and gas drilling as part of a comprehensive energy policy can reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources and increase our manufacturing competitiveness.

“On the other side of that, Mr. Chairman, I am an avid conservationist.  I wrote many of our cornerstone environmental laws.  This includes the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.  These laws are like my children.  I have protected them for years and intend to continue doing so as long as I am able. 

“Balancing these views has often been challenging.  Today I am forced to come to a difficult conclusion.  We need to establish a complete moratorium on all leasing and drilling activity until it is established that all of it was done and is being done in full compliance with various environmental laws – most notably NEPA and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. 

“I don't believe that new regulation is necessary at this time, quite frankly because had our current environmental laws simply been followed, we might not be in the mess we are currently in. And the fact that NEPA and Marine Mammal Protection - damn good laws that work when enforced - were set aside for BP Deep Horizon is unacceptable behavior by our government.

“I am extremely dismayed, disappointed and down-right angry about the process, or lack thereof, used by the Mineral Management Service.  Drilling at any cost seems to be the modus operandi.  Cash bonuses have been handed out for meeting deadlines for off-shore leasing, broad exemptions from our environmental laws have been granted – including in the case of the Deepwater Horizon - and scientists have been ignored.  After everything we have learned over the years about BP, I might expect this kind of behavior from them, but not from the federal government.

“I appreciate and commend the Administration’s efforts to reform the way we do oil and gas leasing, but I just don’t know if it is enough.  We need a time-out.  We need to take stock of what is really wrong with the system and we need to make sure our laws are being complied with.  The stakes are too high to do otherwise.”

Dingell has spent years investigating BP – between the Texas City incident and Prudhoe Bay pipeline closure due to corrosion in pipelines leading up to the Alaska Pipeline which led to one million liters of oil in Alaska's North Slope.  In a hearing in 2007 regarding Prudhoe Bay, Dingell said, “Workers were often forced to forgo safety measures to save money and to ultimately increase BP’s profits” and “yet these [safety] programs in many cases appear to have been halted or cut do to budgetary reasons.  This is the core of what we’ve learned about the way BP managed Prudhoe Bay.  Until BP fully acknowledges the role cost cutting and budget pressure played in creating this mess, I fear other problems, like this, may be incurring at other BP facilities through the United States.”

For more on Dingell’s work investigating BP, please see the following link: http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=868&catid=67&Itemid=58