THE DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL SPILL CHAIN

OF COMMAND: AN EXAMINATION OF INFORMATION SHARING PRACTICES DURING A SPILL

OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MANAGEMENT,
INVESTIGATIONS, AND OVERSIGHT
OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION

JULY 12, 2010

Serial No. 11174

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security

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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi, Chairman
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
PETER T. KING, New York
LAMAR SMITH, Texas
JANE HARMAN, California
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas
Columbia
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
ZOE LOFGREN, California
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania
PETE OLSON, Texas
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
ANH JOSEPH CAO, Louisiana
LAURA RICHARDSON, California
STEVE AUSTRIA, Ohio
ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
TOM GRAVES, Georgia
BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri
AL GREEN, Texas
JAMES A. HIMES, Connecticut
MARY JO KILROY, Ohio
DINA TITUS, Nevada
WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York
VACANCY
VACANCY
I. LANIER AVANT, Staff Director
ROSALINE COHEN, Chief Counsel
MICHAEL TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk
ROBERT OCONNOR, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MANAGEMENT, INVESTIGATIONS, AND OVERSIGHT

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania, Chairman
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon
BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey
ANH JOSEPH CAO, Louisiana
AL GREEN, Texas
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
MARY JO KILROY, Ohio
PETER T. KING, NEW YORK (Ex Officio)
BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi (Ex Officio)
TAMLA T. SCOTT, Director & Counsel
NIKKI HADDER, Clerk
MICHAEL RUSSELL, Senior Counsel
KERRY KINIRONS, Minority Subcommittee Lead

(II)

CONTENTS
Page

STATEMENTS
The Honorable Christopher P. Carney, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Pennsylvania, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Management,
Investigations, and Oversight .............................................................................
The Honorable Gus M. Bilirakis, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Florida, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Management,
Investigations, and Oversight .............................................................................

1
2

WITNESSES
PANEL I
Col. Michael D. Edmondson, Deputy Secretary, Superintendent of State Police, Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections:
Oral Statement .....................................................................................................
Prepared Statement .............................................................................................
Mr. Frank V. Hibbard, Mayor, Clearwater, Florida:
Oral Statement .....................................................................................................
Prepared Statement .............................................................................................

4
8
10
11

PANEL II
Adm. Peter Neffenger, Deputy National Incident Commander, United States
Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement .....................................................................................................
Joint Prepared Statement ...................................................................................
Ms. Juliette Kayyem, Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs, Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement .....................................................................................................
Joint Prepared Statement ...................................................................................

35
38
40
38

PANEL III
Mr. Ray Dempsey, Vice President of Strategy, BP America:
Oral Statement .....................................................................................................
Joint Prepared Statement ...................................................................................

(III)

61
63

THE DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL SPILL CHAIN

OF COMMAND: AN EXAMINATION OF INFORMATION SHARING PRACTICES DURING A
SPILL OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
Monday, July 12, 2010

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MANAGEMENT, INVESTIGATIONS, AND
OVERSIGHT,
New Orleans, LA.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:18 p.m., in the Louisiana Supreme Court, 400 Royal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana,
Hon. Christopher P. Carney [Chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Carney, Green, Jackson Lee, Richardson, Bilirakis, and Cao.
Mr. CARNEY. The Subcommittee on Management, Investigations,
and Oversight will come to order.
The subcommittee is meeting today to receive testimony on The
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Chain of Command: An Examination
of Information Sharing Practices During A Spill of National Significance. I would like to thank all of you for joining us today.
We are here today to examine the command structure, including
roles and responsibilities for the response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We will examine whether the chain of command is
being properly followed by the more than 38,000 personnel responding to the spill and ascertain how information flows from the
Unified Area Command in New Orleans through the Incident Command Centers in Houma, Louisiana, Mobile, Alabama and St. Petersburg, Florida to State and local entities.
The most recent Government estimate projects approximately
60,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil are leaking from the damaged well
each day. Based on estimates of the Flow Rate Technical Group,
the spill has become the largest in U.S. waters, eclipsing the 1989
Exxon Valdez several times over.
Prior to the Deepwater Horizon spill, the largest release of oil
from a platform accident was the Alpha Well 21 Platform A disaster in 1969, also known as the Santa Barbara oil spill which released about 100,000 barrels of oil. The Deepwater Horizon passed
that mark in the first couple of days.
Although there have been seven spills of National significance
exercises, or SONS, the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill is so much greater spill that the preconceived command struc(1)

2
ture may need to be revised. It is hard to believe that anyone could
have imagined the devastation on the level that we are seeing
today.
Secretary Napolitanos Spill of National Significance declaration
triggered the incident command system set forth in the National
response framework and dictated from that point forward a unified
command structure established by the Federal Government would
be in place to coordinate the response to the spill. There are more
than a dozen Federal agencies involved in the Deepwater Horizon
oil spill chain of command. Confusion surrounding the chain of
command for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is exacerbated by the
number of Government entities, including Federal, State, local, and
Tribal that compromise the unified response. Moreover, the magnitude of the present spill has caused many of the Federal Governments best-laid plans to become inoperable under the present circumstances. Past exercises yielded a blueprint for the Deepwater
Horizon response. Unfortunately, the fact that the source has yet
to be contained and oil is continuing to flow into the Gulf has prevented those in the chain of command from shifting solely to a
clean-up operation and caused a much more complicated situation
than had been previously imagined.
Today, more than anything else, I want to hear how smoothly information is running up and down the chain of command. I would
like to hear constructive ways that that information flow can improve. We need to know where the bottlenecks are so that they can
be eliminated. I want to know if local and State entities are getting
all the resources and the information they are requesting as well
as the Federal Government and the decision-makers getting all the
information they request.
As much as I hope nothing like this ever happens again, none of
us in this room are that naive. Sooner or later our country will face
another environmental disaster. We would be remiss as a Nation
if we did not thoroughly reflect on our response to this incident so
that we could be better prepared for the next one.
I would like to thank all the witnesses for their participation and
I look forward to your testimony.
The Chairman now recognizes the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Bilirakis, for an opening statement.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As you know on May 1, I, along with a couple of other Members
of this subcommittee requested hearings to consider the Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guards informationsharing and dissemination efforts, Coast Guard staffing and resources, and the oil spills impact on the Gulf region. I am very
pleased that the subcommitteethank you, Mr. Chairmanis
meeting to consider these issues today.
It has been more than 80 days since this unprecedented disaster
began, and unfortunately there is no end in sight. Oil has now
reached the shores in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and
in my home State of Florida, damaging the environment and wildlife and adversely impacting the fishing and tourism industries, the
lifeblood of many Gulf cities and towns.

3
Like many Members of Congress, I am very concerned about the
Unified Commands efforts to share information with State, local,
and private sector officials. I have heard from numerous constituents representing both the public and private sectors, who are experiencing difficulty in receiving vital information about the impact
of the oil spill and recovery efforts. It is for this reason I am interested in learning from our Federal witnesses about how they provide information to their State, local, and private sector partners
and also how they respond to the concerns of these partners.
I hope that this hearing will serve to further inform BP and Federal responders of the needs and concerns of the residents of the
Gulf region that have been so terribly impacted. I am also interested in hearing about BP and Federal efforts to rapidly deploy resources and consider new alternative technologies to combat this
spill. We need to consider all available options, including offers of
international assistance. The Unified Command must rapidly consider and respond to local requests for resource deployment. We
cannot let bureaucracy get in the way of response efforts.
It was reported last week in the Washington Post that BP has
received approximately 120,000 proposals for technology that could
address the spill. I am concerned about reports of delays in approving and deploying promising technology that could help stop the
further spread of oil. How are the Government and BP processing
these proposals to ensure that credible solutions are deployed in a
timely manner?
As we progress further into what NOAA has projected to be an
activeextremely active, excuse meAtlantic hurricane season, I
would like to learn more about the potential impact of a hurricane
on oil spill response and clean-up efforts, along with hurricane preparedness efforts.
With that, I would like to welcome our witnesses here today. You
all have a very important job ahead of you and the Members of this
subcommittee stand ready to assist you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Mr. Bilirakis.
Other Members of the subcommittee are reminded that under
committee rules, opening statements may be submitted for the
record.
We have unanimous consent that Representatives Jackson Lee
and Richardson be able to sit and question the witnesses.
Without objection, the gentlewoman from Texas, Congresswoman
Sheila Jackson Lee, who chairs the committees Subcommittee on
Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection; and the
gentlewoman from California, Congresswoman Laura Richardson,
who chairs the committees Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response are authorized to sit on the
dais for the purpose of questioning the witnesses during the hearing today.
Hearing no objection, it is so ordered.
Todays hearing will be divided into three panels. The first panel
is comprised of State and local witnesses. The second panel will be
comprised of Federal Government representatives and the third
panel we will hear from will be from industry. I welcome each of
the witnesses.

4
Our first witness is Colonel Michael D. Edmondson. Colonel
Edmondson was appointed as the 25th superintendent of the Louisiana State Police in January 2008 by Governor Bobby Jindal, who
of course is an alumni of this committee. He also serves as the Deputy Secretary of Public Safety Services and is responsible for an
agency of more than 2,800 employees and a budget of nearly $0.5
billion. In his role as Deputy Secretary, Colonel Edmondson oversees the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission, the Office of Management and Finance, the Office of Motor Vehicles, the Office of
State Fire Marshal, the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinators Office
and the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Commission.
Colonel Edmondson is a career State police officer, having joined
the organization in 1981. He earned his bachelors of criminal justice in 1980 from Louisiana State University. He also attended
graduate school there and is a graduate of the prestigious FBI National Academy in Quantico and the FBI National Executive Institute.
Our second witness is the Honorable Frank V. Hibbard, Mayor
of Clearwater, Florida. Mayor Hibbard was elected in March 2002.
He is a graduate of Florida State University with bachelor of
science degrees in business and economics as well as an MBA.
He served as the volunteer executive to the United Way of
Pinellas County and the Board of Corporate Partners at H. Lee
Moffitt Cancer Center as well as a Board Member of the Jim
Moran Institute for Entrepreneurial Study at Florida State College
of Business. Mayor Hibbard is a graduate of the Class of 2000
Leadership Pinellas and the Class of 2007 Leadership Florida.
He currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Tampa Bay Area
Regional Transportation Authority, or TBARTA, and on the Board
of the Pinellas County Metropolitan Planning Organization, the
Ruth Eckerd Hall, Salvation Army, and Clothes for Kids. Mayor
Hibbard is a member of the Florida League of Mayors and the
Mayors Council of Pinellas County.
Without objection, the witnesses full statements will be inserted
into the record. I now ask each witness to summarize his statement
for 5 minutes, beginning with Colonel Edmondson.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL D. EDMONDSON, DEPUTY SECRETARY, SUPERINTENDENT OF STATE POLICE, LOUISIANA
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY & CORRECTIONS

Col. EDMONDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the

committee; thank you for inviting me to discuss the information
sharing atmosphere that exists between the Command Group in
the State of Louisiana during this oil spill of National significance.
Although I am here to discuss issues related to the oil spill
caused by the explosion and subsequent sinking of the Deepwater
Horizon, I would like to first take a moment to remember the 11
individuals who lost their lives on the night of April 20, 2010. The
loss of life is tragic and should remain at the heart of everything
we do. I ask the committee to remember these individuals and
their families in your thoughts and prayers. We do every day in
Louisiana.
The Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinators Office (LOSCO) was moved
to the Department of Public Safety in July 2009 by an act of the

5
Louisiana legislature. As you know and stated previously, located
within the Public Safety Services is the Office of State Police, State
Fire Marshal, Emergency Response, and Hazardous Materials.
These offices contain specialized units such as crisis response and
hazardous materials management that were thought by the legislature to be compatible with the core mission of LOSCO. From its inception in 1991 until July 2009, LOSCO was organizationally
under the Office of the Governor. The move to place it under the
umbrella of a large State agency provided a backbone of support
and resources to assist LOSCO in carrying out its mission. The Department of Public Safety is able to provide administrative, technical, and logistical support to LOSCO at levels not seen previously. The original numbers were seven; with the advent of bringing them into the umbrella of State Police and Public Safety, they
have the ability to have 50-plus individuals at their command
when needed.
In 1995, LOSCO and its partners in State government created a
plan that describes how Louisiana agencies will respond during oil
spills. Called the State Contingency Plan, this document helps clarify and streamline response procedures. LOSCO and its partners
are continually working to further refine the State Contingency
Plan. The results of this effort provide a more detailed chain of
command for oil spill cleanups, including a description of each
agencys responsibilities in accordance with the Incident Command
System.
The State Contingency Plan is augmented by the Area Contingency Plan. There are three of those in Louisiana; one for each
United States Coast Guard Marine Safety Office jurisdiction: MSO
New Orleans, Morgan City, and Port Arthur.
The plans describe response strategies for targeted areas, thereby providing an essential layer of preparation for oil spills. A committee guides each plans development and revisions. The committees are composed of representatives from industry, environmental
groups, and planners from Federal, State, and local government.
The committees meet regularly to update oil spill response plans,
identify sensitive resources and develop site-specific response strategies. The meetings are co-chaired by LOSCO and the United
States Coast Guard.
Louisiana responds to any emergency through the Unified Command process. Through this process, Governor Bobby Jindal receives input from the involved State agencies and directs their responses. The Unified Command Group is established by statute
and is defined as the strategic decision-making body for emergencies in this State with the Governor serving as the unified commander. The complex array of traditional and emerging threats
and hazards demands the application of a unified and coordinated
approach to emergency incident management not only during emergencies, but during day-to-day operation of State government. Governor Jindal established the UCG membership by Executive Order.
It is composed of 16 members and I am a member of the Unified
Command Group as well as the Oil Spill Coordinator. We have met
every day and this being day 84 since the oil spill, we have met
every day with the Governor to go over what is going on in the
State of Louisiana. We have been flown to places around the State

6
that have been impacted by the oil spill. The current Executive Director of the Oil Spill Coordinators Office is with me today, Mr.
Roland Guidry. He will be here for any questions you might have.
He and his Deputy Director, Dr. Karolien Debussche, are here with
me also and will communicate with me as they do on a daily basis
as to the status of the response and issues that may be communicated to them through local, State, and our Federal partners.
LOSCO staff prepares and disseminates reports to me and my command staff as to the status of the responses and the numbers and
assignments of staff assigned to the Deepwater Horizon event responses.
Unified Command Group meetings are held daily in response to
this disaster. Also in Louisiana, our trustee meetings that are comprised of the Department of Environmental Quality, the Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife, and Fisheries, LOSCO, and
Coastal Protection and Restoration, they meet every day as they
look at the National disaster plan and damage assessment to the
State of Louisiana. The Governor and cabinet members often
present action items or requests for information to these representatives, who take such items back to the Incident Unified Command
for review, response, and action.
A Spill of National Significance was declared by the Secretary of
the United States Department of Homeland Security on April 29.
Governor Jindal then issued a State-wide declaration of emergency
also on that same date. As the immediate emergency rescue missions ended, LOSCO engaged the Coast Guard and BP to begin
normal oil spill response actions in accordance with the Federal Oil
Pollution Act of 1990 and the Louisiana Oil Spill Prevention Act of
1991. It is crucial to note that under the Federal law, that being
OPA 90, BP, as the responsibility party, is legally responsible for
response and removal activities.
As the magnitude of the oil spill grewand as you know, on Day
1, there was a first report that came in there was no oil. Of course,
there was maybe 1,000 barrels and then maybe 4,000 barrels, then
maybe 9,000, 15,000 and then 19,000 and now anywhere from 30to 60,000 barrels a dayit became apparent that more defensive
measures to protect the coastline were necessary and that there
was time to implement those measures as the oil approached from
48 miles offshore. Local governments, concerned with the lack of
protective measures in their parishes, developed more robust plans
to counteract the approaching oil, but were frustrated with their inability to interact and participate in the response efforts. OPA 90
imposes responsibility upon the responsible party to conduct response and removal activities with oversight from the United
States Coast Guard for offshore spills. BP and the Coast Guard
were rigidly, with little or no impact, executing an Area Contingency Plan and the State and local governments found it hard to
influence those actions and to incorporate more recent analysis of
what critical areas needed protection. Representatives from the
State continued to engage the locals in preparing alternative response plans. These alternative response plans were then presented to BP/Coast Guard Incident Command, and vetted through
the Planning and Operations subgroups. These plans were not

7
adopted in full, but served as a framework for use by the Unified
Command in protecting the coast from impact.
A State whose territory is impacted by an oil spill does not have
the authority to direct response activities. This stands in marked
contrast to the emergency response framework for non-oil spill
emergencies and disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, ice
storms, and earthquakes, where State and local officials have the
authority and are expected to take direct actions to protect life and
property. Under OPA 90, it is the responsible partyin this case,
BPthat has the authority to conduct response and cleanup activities while the Federal Government maintains ultimate authority.
As the event continued into the first weeks, the Coast Guard incorporated the local governments into the response efforts, both to
take advantage of their in-depth knowledge of the local area, and
to adopt the detailed local response plans into the overall response
effort.
LOSCO representatives have maintained their interaction with
local officials since the early days of this event. A designated State
On-Scene Coordinator has been present in the Houma command
center since its inception. Representatives of State agencies have
been integrated into various levels of the Federal response to include the Houma Incident Command Post and the Unified Area
Command which was in Robert, Louisiana and is now located here
in New Orleans. Additionally, State employees have worked tirelessly with local officials to better coordinate resource requests and
serve as an ombudsman for local government. Additionally, LOSCO
engaged a full-time representative to enhance coordination with the
parishes.
The United States Coast Guard has stationed a liaison officer at
the State Emergency Operations Center. The Army Corps of Engineers, United States Department of Interior, NOAA, and the Department of Interior and others have been actively engaged in the
response to protect Louisianas coastline.
In conclusion, at this time, over 1,100 State personnel, including
our National Guard, are involved in the response, both in the field
and the Houma Command Center. The oil is the enemy and our response will remain firm and lines of communication will remain
open.
As of today, we need more skimmers to remove oil from the
water, more boom to protect our shores, improved surveillance of
oil so it can be removed from the water before it destroys more of
our interior wetland. Most importantly, we need the Federal Government to pay attention to strategies for combatting this oil spill
from those of us on the front line and to take action on them with
the urgency this fight demands. If the Federal Government agrees
this is a war, we need to see that they are in it to win it, as our
Governor stated. He further states that our prayers continue to be
with those on the coast and every Louisianan who is impacted by
this spill. We are constantly amazed by the perseverance of our
people in responding to this disaster. They are on the front lines
every day turning fishing boats into defense ships, dragging boom
to the oil to stop the oil and always coming up with more ideas to
protect our land and waters.

8
It is the same spirit of perseverance that strengthened us
through hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustaf, and Ike. This same perseverance leaves no doubt in our mind that we will win this war
against the oil spill and come back better than ever before.
To the people of coastal Louisiana, we will stand with you and
work along side you until every drop of oil is off our coast and out
of our waters and all of our fisheries, our industry are 100 percent
restored.
I stand available for any questions at the conclusion. Thank you
very much.
[The statement of Colonel Edmondson follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT

OF

MICHAEL D. EDMONSON

JULY 12, 2010

Good morning. I am Colonel Mike Edmonson, deputy secretary of the Louisiana
Department of Public Safety, Public Safety Services. Although I am here to discuss
issues related to the oil spill caused by the explosion and subsequent sinking of the
Deepwater Horizon, I would like us to first take a moment to remember the 11 individuals who lost their lives on the night of April 20, 2010. The loss of life is tragic.
I ask the committee to remember these individuals and their families in your
thoughts and prayers.
Chairman Thompson and Members of this committee: Thank you for inviting me
to discuss the information-sharing atmosphere that exists between the Command
Group and the State of Louisiana during this Spill of National Significance.
The Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinators Office (LOSCO) was moved to the Department of Public Safety in July of 2009 by an act of the Louisiana legislature. Also
located within the Public Safety Services are the Office of State Police and the State
Fire Marshal. These offices contain specialized units such as Crisis Response and
Hazardous Materials Management that were thought by the legislature to be compatible with the core mission of LOSCO. From its inception in 1991 until July 2009,
LOSCO was organizationally under the Office of the Governor. The move to place
it under the umbrella of a large State-wide agency provided a backbone of support
and resources to assist LOSCO in carrying out its mission. The Department of Public Safety is able to provide administrative, technical, and logistical support to
LOSCO at levels not seen previously.
In 1995, LOSCO and its partners in State government created a plan that describes how Louisiana agencies will respond during oil spills. Called the State Contingency Plan, this document helps clarify and streamline response procedures.
LOSCO and its partners are continually working to further refine the State Contingency Plan. The results of this effort will provide a more detailed chain of command
for oil spill cleanups, including a description of each agencys responsibilities in accordance with the Incident Command System. The State Contingency Plan is augmented by the Area Contingency Plan (ACP).
There are three ACPs in Louisianas coastal zone, one for each of the United
States Coast Guard (USCG) Marine Safety Office (MSO) jurisdictions.
MSO New Orleans ACP
MSO Morgan City ACP
MSO Port Arthur ACP
The plans describe response strategies for targeted areas, thereby providing an essential layer of preparation for oil spills. A committee guides each plans development and revisions. The committees are composed of representatives from industry,
environmental groups, and planners from Federal, State, and local government. The
committees meet regularly to update oil spill response plans, identify sensitive resources, and develop site-specific response strategies. The meetings are co-chaired
by LOSCO and the USCG.
Louisiana responds to any emergency through the Unified Command process.
Through this process, Governor Bobby Jindal receives input from the involved State
agencies and directs their responses. The Unified Command Group (UCG) is established by statute and is defined as the strategic decision making body for emergencies in the State with the Governor serving as the unified commander. The complex array of traditional and emerging threats and hazards demands the application
of a unified and coordinated approach to emergency incident management not only
during emergencies but during day-to-day operations of State government. Governor

9
Jindal established the UCG membership by an Executive Order. The UCG is composed of sixteen members. I am a member of the UCG as well as the Oil Spill Coordinator. The current Executive Director of the Oil Spill Coordinators Office is Mr.
Roland Guidry. He and his Deputy Director, Dr. Karolien Debusschere, are here
with me today and communicate with me daily as to status of the response and
issues that may be communicated to them through local, State, and Federal partners. LOSCO staff prepares and disseminates reports to me, and my command staff,
as to the status of the response, and the numbers and assignments of staff assigned
to the Deepwater Horizon event response.
UCG meetings are held daily in response to this disaster. Present at these daily
meetings are representatives from BP and the Coast Guard who brief the Group
with what they represent to be the most up to date data available from the Command Groups in Houma and New Orleans. The Governor and cabinet members
often present action items or requests for information to these representatives, who
take such items back to the Incident Unified Command for review, response, and
action.
A Spill of National Significance was declared by Secretary of U.S. Department of
Homeland Security on April 29, 2010. Governor Jindal issued a State-wide declaration of emergency also on that same date. As the immediate emergency rescue missions ended, LOSCO engaged the U.S. Coast Guard and BP to begin normal oil spill
response actions in accordance with the Federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA
90) and the Louisiana Oil Spill Prevention Act of 1991. It is crucial to note that,
under the Federal lawOPA 90BP, as the responsible party, is legally responsible
for response and removal activities.
As the magnitude of the spill grew over the first several days, it became apparent
that more defensive measures to protect the coastline were necessary and that there
was time to implement those measures as the oil approached from 48 miles offshore.
Local governments, concerned with the lack of protective measures in their parishes,
developed more robust plans to counteract the approaching oil but were frustrated
with their inability to interact and participate in the response efforts. OPA 90 imposes responsibility upon the responsible party to conduct response and removal
activities, with oversight from the U.S. Coast Guard for offshore spills. BP and the
Coast Guard were rigidly executing the Area Contingency Plan and the State and
local governments found it hard to influence those actions and to incorporate more
recent analysis of what critical areas needed protection. Representatives from the
State continue to engage the locals in preparing alternative response plans. These
alternative response plans were then presented to the BP/Coast Guard Incident
Command, and vetted through the Planning and Operations subgroups. These plans
were not adopted in full, but served as a framework for use by the Unified Command in protecting the coast from impact.
A State, whose territory is impacted by an oil spill, does not have the authority
to direct response activities. This stands in marked contrast to the emergency response framework for non-oil spill emergencies and disasters (such as hurricanes,
tornadoes, ice storms, and earthquakes) where State and local officials have the authority, and are expected, to take direct actions to protect life and property. Under
OPA 90, it is the responsible partyin this case, BPthat has the authority to conduct response and clean-up activities while the Federal Government maintains ultimate authority. As the event continued into the first weeks, the Coast Guard incorporated the local governments into the response efforts both to take advantage of
their in-depth knowledge of the local area, and to adopt the detailed local response
plans into the overall response effort.
LOSCO representatives have maintained their interaction with local officials since
the early days of this event. A designated State On-Scene Coordinator (SOSC) has
been present in the Houma command center since its inception. Representatives of
State agencies have been integrated into various levels of the Federal response to
include the Houma-Incident Command Post and Unified Area Command which was
in Robert, LA, and is now located in New Orleans. Additionally State employees
have worked tirelessly with local officials to better coordinate resource requests and
serve as an ombudsman for local government. Additionally, LOSCO engaged a fulltime representative to enhance coordination with the parishes.
The United States Coast Guard has stationed a liaison officer at the State Emergency Operations Center. The United States Army Corps of Engineers, United
States Department of the Interior, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of the Interior, and others have been actively engaged in the response to protect Louisianas coastline.
In conclusion, at this time, over thousand State personnel are involved in the response; both in the field, and in the Houma Command Center. The oil is the enemy
and our response will remain firm and lines of communication open.

10
Thank you.

Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Colonel.

We will hear from Mayor Hibbard. But Mayor Hibbard, please,
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF FRANK V. HIBBARD, MAYOR, CLEARWATER,
FLORIDA

Mr. HIBBARD. Thank you. I am very familiar with time limits;

thank you, Mr. Chair, committee. I am glad to have the opportunity to talk to you and give you a local governments perspective.
I would like to talk about communication between the Federal,
State, county, and local governments along with some of the effects
from an economic standpoint that this spill is having in our area.
I understand that we are functioning under unified command
and have gone through all the required NIMS training. At the
same time, there has been a disconnect between the data that we
are getting at the local level. It is incumbent upon county emergency managers to be at the top of the heap as far as local response. Initially the conference calls that those emergency managers were having on a daily basis with BP, the Federal Government, and State DEP, we were not privy to those. So a lot of that
data is not filtering down to the local cities that are dealing with
this on a daily basis and trying to prepare and understand the resources.
I did have the opportunity to visit New Orleans just a couple of
weeks ago and go out to the marshlands right here in Louisiana
and see the response and see the fact that you have limited resources. We want to make certain that those resources are going
where they are most needed. We do not want to steal those away
from the areas that are currently being affected.
That being said, we also want to know that when the time
comes, we will have resources should oil start to threaten our
shores. That is one of the great challenges for us.
I would also say that many of the conference calls which I have
sat in on personally are very good from a technical standpoint, to
keep someone like myself or our emergency managers up on the
latest events. But as all of you know, all of the issues that we face
have many facets, they are very complicated.
I would request that somehow, we get somebody who specializes
in public relations that can synthesize a lot of that data down so
that we can convey it to our citizens and our businesses. One of the
greatest challenges we have right now is educating people on what
truly is going on, what they can expect, what form the oil may
manifest itself on my beaches. We are also a victim of geography
and the very poor geography that most Americans understand.
They do not understand what a large State Florida is and the fact
that there may be oil in Pensacola but we are 8 hours away and
have not yet been affected directly by the oil. But certainly have
been affected by the stigma that it brings. That is most affecting
us right now with our European tourists that are normally coming
from Germany and Great Britain. Those people are guaranteed
that they will have a positive experience by their tour operators.
If they do not, they are refunded their money. Now our hotels are
giving money-back guarantees that there will not be oil on our

11
beaches and if there are, that the customers will not have to pay
for that. But the airlines are not giving the same type of treatment.
Therefore, none of the tour agencies in Europethey have taken
Florida basically off the map.
We continue to try to communicate where the oil is and where
it is not. A perfect example of poor communication was Visit Florida using a NOAA map and talking about how tourists should deal
with oil should it be on the beach, for the entire State of Florida.
That was disseminated to Europe, it was devastating. That is the
bad type of information that we are seeing out there and I think
that is something that certainly needs to be worked on.
Our area is just coming off of obviously the recession, we were
just starting to turn the corner, a very difficult cold spring and also
the demonization of business travel. We have lost tremendous
numbers of conventioners and we were just coming off that and
now we are dealing with it again. We do not have the benefit of
all the workers that Louisiana has. Our hotels just simply are losing business because people do not know that oil will not be there
in a month or 2, even though we know that the loop current probably will keep it away from us.
Let me give you just a couple of anecdotal stories. Our fishing
fleets are backing off, they are not getting tours any more, they are
concerned that some of our waters will be reduced. Our hotels, and
the hotels have a tremendous multiplier effect. There are people in
advertising, marketing, logistics that work with them and when
they lose business, that trickle down effect is affecting all of these
folks. We are even having real estate deals that folks are backing
away from. That means we do not have documentary stamps, that
means we do not have other transactions and that money is then
not in our economy.
So, Mr. Chairman, I will end there. If there are any questions
I might answer, you also have my written statement, which is far
more detailed.
[The statement of Mr. Hibbard follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT

OF

FRANK V. HIBBARD

JULY 12, 2010

I would like to thank the Committee on Homeland Security for the opportunity
to address the tragic events in the Gulf that we have been dealing with since April.
I will be focusing my comments on communication between different levels of government, BP, and the public. I would also like to provide anecdotal examples of how
this catastrophe is affecting our local and State economy.
I did have the opportunity to travel to New Orleans in June with the U.S. Conference of Mayors and tour some of the Louisiana coast line. I have seen the resources being utilized and the devastation to the environment and economy. I am
sensitive to efficient use of resources and making sure that resources are available
to those most in need. I do know that the issues in Louisiana are different from
those in Florida and believe the Federal Government has a responsibility along with
BP in recognizing this as a factor in allocation of resources.
It is understood that we are functioning under unified command throughout this
event but at times it is unclear whether BP or the Coast Guard has ultimate authority. The difficulty for local government is that we are in daily contact with our
citizens and businesses and they look to us to be a filter and advocate for them.
Currently the Coast Guard and White House have daily conference calls, originally
local governments were not privy to these calls, that has since changed.
We look to our County emergency managers on a local basis for mitigation strategies and to determine whether we have all the resources to combat oil should it arrive on our beaches and estuaries, and the different forms it may manifest itself.

12
We are concerned about usurping the resources that are currently needed elsewhere
but also want to insure that we are prepared and will have access to the resources
should they become necessary. The time frames in which we would be notified by
Coast Guard have been a moving target between 4 and 6 days. As a Mayor I have
to be able to assure our coastal residents and businesses that we will be prepared
to minimize damage and coordinate a rapid clean-up!
I have personally listened to several of the conference calls and they are helpful
in staying abreast of recent developments especially on a technical side. I would
hope that an additional format can be developed that is more appropriate for a layman. We need information that is technically accurate but can be used to educate
the media, citizens, and the tourist industry. Our greatest challenge in Clearwater
and along the entire Florida coast is getting accurate information about where oil
is and areas that most probably will not be directly affected.
While there has been a shift of economic activity in Louisiana from fishing to oil
clean-up, Florida is not reaping an offset of activity we are simply seeing a decline
in tourism activity. While those in Louisiana fight a legitimate physical battle with
oil we are in a fight with perception and the stigma of potential oil. We do not have
a flood of workers staying in our hotels on the contrary we are losing reservations
on a daily basis.
Currently we are in our high season for tourists from Great Britain and Germany
this is very challenging because these countries require tour operators to guarantee
the quality of their customers experience. This guarantee has resulted in many tour
operators taking Florida off their menu of destinations. They have done this because
even with the knowledge that oil is not on Clearwaters beach today there is no assurance that in a month when their client arrives that we will still be unaffected.
Many of our larger hotels have introduced programs that offer a money-back guarantee should oil be on our beaches, this is beneficial but does not eliminate the second issue which is airlines. The second roadblock is that airlines are not allowing
people to get out of their reservations and so they are choosing other destinations.
What has all this done to our economy? It has hampered what was starting to
be a slow recovery from the recession and a very cold spring. The multiplier effect
of this is tremendous impacting; restaurants, fishing charters, logistical companies,
retail, marketing firms, advertising, real estate, sales tax, car rentals, etc. We recently had a group meeting from the Labor Department that canceled because of
the threat of oil and is now going to Boulder.
A few examples of the multiplier effect; we recently had a convention coming that
had contracted with a limousine and bus company for all transportation it was a
contract worth $35,000 and with the conference moving to outside Florida that operator has lost that revenue which creates jobs for drivers and a means to cash flow
vehicles. A prominent realtor I spoke with recently lost two beach front condo closings due to the threat of oil on our sugar white sand beaches. This resulted in a
loss of commission that the realtor will not be spending locally. The State has lost
documentary stamp revenue. There is no need for movers or the buying of appliances or any of the other activities associated with a real estate transaction. Eventually those units will sell but possibly at a lower price which then diminishes property tax revenues that leads to fewer dollars for Police, Fire, and Libraries. These
are claims that are virtually impossible to quantify and will most likely never find
their way to BP.
We in Florida also face the challenge of geography, Clearwater is over 8 hours
from Pensacola but the media reports that oil is on Floridas beaches without distinguishing that the majority of the State is completely unaffected. I am not hopeful
at getting our Nation to become better at geography nor those from other countries,
that is why the quality of the information and the format in which it is presented
is so crucial. This falls to BP and the Coast Guard as the originator of data. I would
appreciate BP spending more money on public relations for the areas that have been
affected tangibly and simply through perception.
I hope that this synopsis is helpful and I look forward to answering questions not
addressed as we work together to repair this devastating tragedy.

Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Mr. Hibbard. I want to thank both of

you for your testimony.
I will remind each Member that he or she will have 5 minutes
to question the panel and I will recognize myself for 5 minutes. If
need be, we will go to a couple rounds of questions.
This is for both of you. Have you ever received conflicting information from the Federal Government and/or BP?

13
Col. EDMONDSON. I think you can go back to Day 1. I think as
part of our Hazardous Material Hotline Louisiana, the first calls
made into that line by BP was the fact that there was an explosion
on that oil rig, but there was no oil at that time leaking, there was
no impact to the State of Louisiana. That continued for several
days when they really did not know how much was coming out of
it. It could be as little as 1,000 barrels and it could be as much as
an unlimited amount. That changed every single day.
I think what was most disturbing for a member of the Governors
cabinet is the fact that getting resources into the State of Louisiana, we needed more boom, we needed more skimmers. You
know, you go back to Katrina, I was here during Katrina, I saw
the lives of families, I saw the looks on faces and the response
somewhat from the Federal Governmentand this is just honest
was maybe it is just not that bad. It is just not that bad, this is
New Orleans, there is a little water down there, they are used to
it, they are below sea level anyway. Well, maybe this incident in
the Gulf, maybe it is just not that bad, is what they are saying.
With that much oil even from Day 1 escaping from that line and
the ability of how close it was to Louisiana of coming here. Keep
in mind, it still has not stopped. I mean we are cleaning it up. It
is easier to clean off the beach but it still has an impact. Getting
inside those marshes, remember, that is what protects the city of
New Orleans and cities along interstate 10 as storms come into the
State of Louisiana. When that oil gets into the marsh, it just simply dies.
Mr. CARNEY. Colonel, was the fact that the first couple of days
or 2 or 3 days, that they said there is no or little oil coming up
as a result of the explosion, that delayed, in your mind, the response from the Federal Government and State governments in
terms of getting skimmers and boom in place and that sort of
thing?
Col. EDMONDSON. I think it certainly did and I think when you
look at BP, did they have plans in place. Most definitely they had
plans in place. Were they plans that looked at significance occurrence, was it worst-case scenarios? Because this was a worst-case
scenario in the beginning. It just did not seem like they were prepared at that point to actually fight that. To think that, again,
maybe it is just not going to be that bad and we will be able to
clear this up, because most oil spills in a regulated area, it is usually by space and even by time and this was one in the middle of
the ocean and 5,000 feet. Certainly when plumes of oil come up,
they do not go straight up, they move within the water. That is
what we saw within Louisiana and then every day, depending on
the weather, depending on the wind, it just kept coming right back
into it.
The other thing with NOAA, they rely on mechanisms within
models to be able to look at where the possibility of the oil might
go but if it is not a live eye looking at it that day because of weather or something like that, they really can only guesstimate based
on models out of another State, to see what is happening in the
Gulf of Mexico. So I think that was some of the earlier unknowns
and inability. Keep in mind, you are dealing with the State of Louisiana, a very diverse group of individuals that are going to go out

14
there and do the best they can to protect their areas and they
started doing that from Day 1.
Mr. CARNEY. Are the lines of authority clear?
Col. EDMONDSON. I think they are in some parts. I think you
have to go toyou can certainly do whatever you want, but it is
that reimbursement. The ability of whether you do those things
even though you are trying to fight the oil doing those things, there
may not be a reimbursement in that portion of it from either the
Federal Government or from the Oil Spill Act or whatever form or
mechanism or funding that is available to get those in.
Mr. CARNEY. I certainly hope that is not the initial decision point
before somebody acts.
Col. EDMONDSON. We certainly hope that also.
Mr. CARNEY. I am sorryMayor.
Mr. HIBBARD. I would say there were several things. I think the
lines are becoming clearer, fortunately.
One of the things that has vacillated is how the oil would manifest itself on our beaches. Would it be pure oil, would it be sheen,
would it be tar balls. We were told that Pensacola would not get
what I would call pure oil, that it would come in the form of tar
balls. That obviously has not been the case. That is something that
has been on-going.
We have been told anywhere
Mr. CARNEY. Excuse me. Who told you this? Was it
Mr. HIBBARD. We had information from the Coast Guard.
Mr. CARNEY. From the Coast Guard.
Mr. HIBBARD. Yes.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay. Is the Coast Guard your primary source of
information?
Mr. HIBBARD. It is one of our primaries, having Air Station
Clearwater, who did the most Katrina sorties, they are one of our
primaries. Also St. Petersburg has been one of the incident command points.
Mr. CARNEY. Right.
Mr. HIBBARD. So they have been a point of contact.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay.
Mr. HIBBARD. The other issue has been how much notice we
would get. Obviously we are dealing with weather, so that is variable.
Mr. CARNEY. Right.
Mr. HIBBARD. But it has gone between 3 and 6 days that we
would have a firm number, that if they thought it was coming to
our beaches in the central west coast. At first, we were told 6 days,
it has gone as low as 3 and now the party line is 4 days. The question is: Do we have the resources to deal with it? We have gone
to each of our fire departments to find boom rather than going to
the Coast Guard or BP.
Also the success of boom. I guess you have all taken the tour
today. Certainly when I was here a couple of weeks ago, you could
see that the boom is a very imperfect defense against the oil. We
too have estuaries very similar to the marshes.
Then just the effects of a hurricane. What kind of wild card is
a hurricane, and I do not think that anyone knows that. But getting a similar answer from different agencies is difficult.

15
Mr. CARNEY. Okay. My time is up. Mr. Bilirakis for 5 minutes.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mayor, are you hearing from constituents that the claims process
currently established by BP is sufficient? Are you worried that
claims that are difficult to quantify, such as the impact on the real
estate market or tax revenue will not ultimately be paid by BP,
and what input has BP solicited from your office to ensure that
they have complete information on the impact of this spill on the
Clearwater economy as they work to resolve the claim issues?
Mr. HIBBARD. Well, I would credit Mr. Dempsey, who you are
going to hear from shortly, to having very open lines of communication. He has done an excellent job.
We recently had a claims office open in the city of Clearwater,
which is a good and bad thing. Once people hear that you have a
claims office, they assume again that you have oil on your beach
rather than you are just being impacted by the threat.
I think the information on how people will go through the claims
process still needs work. That is one of the things that I continue
to hope to work on. Most of the people should be putting their
claims in on-line initially and then if they are having difficulties
with that, then they can go to an actual field office to talk to them.
I think the second part of your question, Congressman, is what
I am most concerned about and that is quantifying the effect of this
spill and the stigma attached to it. When you start getting further
and further from the source of revenue, I think that is very difficult. I do not know that we will be able to quantify lost sales of
real estate and what that means to our tax base and how that affects police and fire and libraries which we pay for through those
tax revenues. All of the other multipliers within that. I think the
further you get from the source, if you are not a fishing charter
boat, if you are not a hotelier that has not had a canceled reservation, how can you quantify the business that simply is not even
making inquiries in coming to your area?
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. As in many Gulf cities, the tourism
industry in Clearwater has suffered greatly from the cancellation
of events as a result of this spill. You mentioned in your testimony
a group from the Department of Labor canceling their meetings
and relocating them to Boulder, Colorado because of the threat of
the oil. This seems to illustrate the point that the Government is
not doing a sufficient job internally to share information, let alone
spread the message that the oil has only reached certain parts of
Florida. What efforts would you like to see taken in terms of public
relations and media messaging to alter the current perception that
oil has reached all of Florida? You mentioned Europe and other
parts of the country as well.
Mr. HIBBARD. BP has given money to the State of Florida. A portion of that recently did come down to our Tourist Development
Council within our county, which was our initial request to the
Governor, because we believe that we understand our market and
the markets that we serve better than Visit Florida does. We have
been trying to get the information out.
I think it is very difficult to get that information. The media has
not been as helpful as we would like in reporting on the stories of
where oil is versus where it is not.

16
My other concern I think is that we need to have another form
of information that is less technical, that is accurate. Accuracy is
critical but the information that we get from the Coast Guard and
FDEP is not the kind of information that we can pass on to tour
operators and hotels and our citizens. So there needs to be a more
user-friendly medium.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Question for the entire panel and my last question, Mr. Chairman.
What impact has the oil spill had on your hurricane preparedness efforts? Maybe Colonel, you could start on that.
Col. EDMONDSON. Of course, we started some time ago with our
hurricane preparedness. One of the main things we needed from
BP, which took awhile to get from them was exactly their evacuation plan. That is going to be important to us as we look at removing those people that are closest to the coastline of Louisiana. So
we need a plan from BP of actually how they are going to remove
those people from the oil rigs, from the working ships in that area,
to move them into Louisiana so we can get them out of harms way.
What is critical to Louisiana is the H-hour and that is the hour
when tropical force winds reach the coast of Louisiana. Once that
starts 40 hours out, we have to start looking at contraflow, which
is our last means of removing people from south Louisiana. Once
we do that, of course, we close interstates and move them in one
direction so we can move people. It is kind of like an hourglass.
Prior to contraflow, you can go anywhere you want. To move people
out, we encourage it, we assist people in doing that, but once those
tropical force winds get close to the coast, we have got to quickly
move those people out. So what has been critical, and we have gotten those plans from BP but it was a lot later than we would have
liked to have gotten them. But we have been working, that is a
constant effort that is on-going within Louisiana as far as hurricanes. We are certainly not, along with our brothers in Alabama,
Mississippi, Florida, and of course in Texas, we do know how to
deal with those things. Our concern is the life and property in the
waters, to actually move those prior to hurricanes coming in.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. Mayor.
Mr. HIBBARD. Congressman, it has not changed any of our plans.
Obviously those are in place. I think what it is, more than anything, is a distraction. As soon as we hit June 1, obviously we need
to keep our eye on the ball in preparation for hurricanes. I think
the spill has certainly distracted us from that.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Mr. Bilirakis. Mr. Green for 5 minutes,
please.
Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank you
for your visionary leadership. This is clearly a hearing that is timely. I also would like to thank the members of the Court and the
Court Administrators. It is not that often that we have an opportunity to have a hearing in such a stately and courtly environment.
Most appreciative that we have been afforded this opportunity.
Colonel, in my opinion, some things bear repeating. What you
said about the lives lost, it bears repeating. Eleven people lost their
lives, families are still suffering. Many were injured, still recovering. We should not forget that while we have other concerns that

17
have to be addressed, those lives that were lost must be considered
such that we never allow this to happen again. I do not want us
to lose focus and I am most appreciative that you called it to our
attention.
Mayor, I want to thank you for your testimony. You have a perch
from which you have viewed this that is exceedingly important to
us. So I will have a first question for you, Mayor.
Heard a lot about the moratorium and we hear quite a bit about
the jobs that are impacted. You are from another side of the Gulf.
I am interested in knowing what your people are saying about this
in terms of getting it right so that it never happens again.
Mr. HIBBARD. There has been great discussion on that, Congressman. Our Governor has called a special session to talk about offshore drilling on Florida, which was on the docket for the next legislative session. I think the majority of Floridians right now see the
threat that offshore drilling presents. At the same time, visiting
here several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be meet several
families, half of which were fishermen and half of which worked for
the oil industry. Those seemed to be inseparable. They believe that
they can continue to live in harmony. I think the key is making
certain that there are steps to increase safety on the rigs. We understand that we want to move towards energy independence.
I would make one comment. Certainly we should remember the
11 men that died on that rig, but there are lives being ruined right
now because of the economic impactpeople who will lose their
livelihoods, lose boats, lose family businesses, that they may never
get back.
Mr. GREEN. Thank you. I concur with you. There is a balance
that we have to achieve. We have to make safety of primary importance and I understand this and I have a special relationship, by
the way, with your State and with this State. I was born right here
in this city and was reared in Florida. You and I went to institutions that border each other, I was at Florida A&M. So I do understand both States and I concur with you with reference to what we
must do to do what we can to minimize the impact on the economy
throughout the area along the Gulf coast. That balance has to include all that we can do to stem the flow of the oil, to move on with
getting people back to work and keeping those jobs available, as
well as making sure that we do not have the tragedy occur again.
I just do not want us to lose sight of that as we talk about the
economy. The economy is exceedingly important but so are lives,
and it is that balance that we have to achieve.
I would like to ask you, if I may, Colonel, as you have been working with the various departments trying to maintain as much intelligence as possible, what has been the chief obstacle that you have
encountered in terms of having information flow to you such that
you would have the empirical evidence that you need to make the
decisions that you have made along the way?
Col. EDMONDSON. I think several issues that you have got to look
at in that. One, the ability to know where the oil is moving to. Evidence outside of models from other States that guess possibly
where the oil is moving to and then for us to see an impact to an
area that the models did not really show that. Nothing beats a live
eye, the ability for weather to be clear to allow a plane to fly over

18
to actually see from it. I think that was what was so important for
every single day as we finished our Unified Command Group meeting, we got on a Blackhawk helicopter with Governor Jindal and
we went to where we thought the oil was, so we could see firsthand, so we could talk to the individuals that were there and ask
them: How is it affecting you, how can we do this better? There
was an inability of that.
I think the flow of communication early on was significant, because as we needed more boom, you really were not sure where the
boom was. It was being deployed to other States, we certainly got
our fair share in Louisiana, but some got moved to other States
where there was no oil at the time. Then they would try to move
it back to Louisiana. We also know that there was not a large supply of boom in the world at that time and we were trying to get
as much as we could into Louisiana. But listen to that every single
day, knowing that we needed those skimmers, knowing how much
oil was coming out of that area, that it was just going to continue
to flow, you needed that information, needed to get it quickly. So
I think that flow of information early on to know the significance
of this event. Certainly, BP had to know the significance of what
the worst-case scenario would be from that oil and it just was not
given to us in the timely manner that we felt we could have been
a little bit more prepared.
Plans were there, but also the ability to be flexible sometimes
with those plans, to know your plan is this, this is what we are
geared up for. Well, but you know what, we know that area a little
bit better, we know that we should be flexible, let us do some other
things here. Just the inability to do that in a timely manner. We
will get back with you tomorrow, we will get back with you next
week. Then next week, well, you know, give us another week.
Every day that oil is flowing, every day lives are impacted, every
day the economy is impacted. The Gulf is 35 percent of our seafood
industry in the country, a third of our oil. So we know every day
what that impact was. I think it was an inability for that to be focused so that we could get the right resources in place. I think that
was probably the biggest obstacle as we looked at that, getting that
flow of information.
We have a working relationship with our Coast Guard, members
of the Coast Guard was in our command staff briefings every day.
So we had the ability to get that, but even from that point, sometimes his answer was, you know, I can only pass that forward. I
will get back to you tomorrow. Tomorrow is 24 hours later and
sometimes that is what the difficulty is. Both agencies were frustrated in ability to move forward on that. I think we saw that.
I was in the very first meeting when President Obama came to
Louisiana, I was able to be in that room that day. To hear from
the EPA of the impact in New Orleans, to hear on our coastline,
to hear from the Coast Guard, to hear from the officials first-hand
what was going on and even the inability of well, we really are not
sure exactly what to do, exactly what needs to be done. I think that
inability that we saw in those first few days and first few weeks,
I think we have paid the price for that as we move forward. Because it is hard to recoup that when the oil has not stopped. It is
still flowing every single day.

19
Mr. GREEN. Thank you.
Col. EDMONDSON. I just want to add this, if I could. What is most
important, and I know yall know this. This is not a 100-yard dash.
When that oilwe hope that when they place it on there, we can
stop that oil. We pray for that every day. But that is not the end.
We cannot declare victory after that. We still have to clean it up,
we still have to fix our fisheries, our coastline, our shoreline. That
is what we have to remember. This is a marathon. We need to be
in it for the long haul and that is why it is so important for yall
to have these hearings, that is why I am so pleased you could be
here to be able to talk about these things, because you need to hear
from us. We are in it for the long haul and we need to hear that
from yall.
Mr. GREEN. Thank you.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Mr. Green. Mr. Cao for 5 minutes or so,
please.
Mr. CAO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this important hearing in my district, which is at the front
line of this oil spill.
I have seen first-hand the confusion and the frustration caused
by what I see as a lack of a coherent command structure. So most
of my questions will be focusedwill be asked toward Colonel
Edmondson.
My first question to you, sir, is you stated in your testimony that
Federal officials should listen more to State and local governments
with respect to this oil spill. In what ways has the Unified Command lacked in that regard and how has this deficiency affected
the States ability to prevent oil from entering our most sensitive
areas?
Col. EDMONDSON. Well, I think we have certainly seen improvement. As we have all grown in this matter, we have certainly seen
improvement in that area. But I think understanding the fact that
people live in an area, work in an area, work within that industry,
they know first-hand the best ways to approach the problems of
significance in that area. I think we saw that and tried to get that
information out, to be able to be flexible in those plans and to get
the communication out. Maybe the original plan showed that boom
needed to be in a specific area, but to be flexible to know that, you
know what, it did say that, but it also needs to be here. As the currents flow within the Gulf, as weather has affected it, as winds affect it, the ability to be flexible and move those things in. I think
that was the frustration, as I saw it, from the beginning. Again, I
am here from the emergency response effort, to be able to talk
about that, and the inability for us to do that.
But certainly it was in place to address those matters, but just
the flexibility to change as those matters came in place.
Mr. CAO. Now did you see I guess mixed messages from the different agencies who were deciding on a number of projects or on
a number of procedures? Did you encounter, for example, one agency saying one thing and another Federal agency saying another
thing? What kind of confusion has that caused, for example, State
agencies to better mobilize?
Col. EDMONDSON. Well, I think just in line when you say I will
get back to you, the oil is still flowing. To say I will get back to

20
you when you meet again, it might be 24 hours later. I think it
takes sub-sea dispersements. We were against that, we wanted
more information on that. Certainly when you disperse oil, it has
got to go somewhere. When it breaks up into much smaller pieces,
there is some understanding from Wildlife and Fisheries and the
Department of Environmental Quality in Louisiana who were listening to our own scientists who work daily within that region and
knows the marshes, knows the sub-sea life and the fisheries there.
I think the lack of trying to get that information available, because
we do not know what the long-term impact is going to be on that,
we still do not know to this day.
So I think some of those things as you compile them together certainly were frustrating as we moved forward in that because there
were so many unknowns and even we might have had impact in
that and it did not necessarily go the way we would suggest it. It
had impact directly to the State of Louisiana.
Mr. CAO. Now if you were in the shoes of Admiral Thad Allen,
what would you want to implement?
Col. EDMONDSON. I am not in his shoes thankfully.
Mr. CAO. But if you were in his shoes, what would you want to
implement?
Col. EDMONDSON. Well, I certainly hate putting words in peoples
mouths, but I think the ability to just get everyone together and
really listen more than speaking, let us listen to exactly what is
going on out there, let us talk to the people. Let me tell you something, these Coast Guards that live and work in Louisiana, they
are Louisianans, they live and breathe and work here, they have
families here. There was even some frustration internally what to
do from the beginning because this was such a large magnitude.
You know, it is just like the worst-case scenario was not there. We
saw him do that, bring people in and try to get all the information
available and find out where are the resources. Take the game of
football, it takes a game plan, a game plan to get things done, to
move that football down the field, to score a run in baseball, to
score the winning goal in soccerit takes a game plan. You have
got to be able to stick to that game plan but be flexible in it also.
Mr. CAO. What can we do to improve information sharing between Federal, State, and parish officials?
Col. EDMONDSON. I think we are doing it right here, Congressman. I think by bringing people together, having oversight from a
committee such as this and make people talk about this so it is reported in the news, people see that. I think that is important.
But keep in mind, once this is cleaned up and we move forward,
we are still involved with the Coast Guard, we are still involved
with industry in Louisiana. We have got to be able to move forward
and I think that is why the open line of communication, listening,
learning from mistakes, learning from incidents that happen and
moving forward. I think that is going to be the key to this.
Mr. CAO. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Mr. Cao. Ms. Jackson Lee for 5 minutes, please.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the Chairman and Ranking
Member for what is a very important hearing as it lays claim to

21
jurisdictional concerns by the Department of Homeland Security
and this committee.
Colonel, you are right, we are communicating and I am listening.
It is not just communication, because this is, as my colleague has
indicated, a major tragedy. There are families, as we sit here
todayand some might think that we are speaking calmlywho
are still mourning the loss of their loved ones. There are families
who are still nurturing the wounds, both mental and physical, of
their loved ones.
Mayor, if there is a resiliency, it is in local government because
you have got to be the captain and the champion, you have got to
inspire your businesses and your local population to say hold on.
But I want to show a little bit of emotion and suggest that this
is gut-wrenching, this is fist-pounding, this is hair-pulling. We
should not be ashamed of it. Because the people of the Gulf are resilient. Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Katrina and others, what more
can they expect? Why have they been rendered this? Natural disasters we know may have no explanation, but a man-made disaster,
for people who are educated and versed with the technology of their
industry, you wonder why. So frankly, I am fist-banging today and
outraged.
My sympathy to the families and as well to the hard-working
workers, innocent families in the industry, energy industry, and
shrimpers and oyster persons and fishermen and others who depend upon the Gulf.
I want, Colonel, to say to you that I note the conflictiveness of
this process. BP is in charge, the Federal Government is ultimately
accountable. That is unique. I would like to raise a question that
if we can correct the structure of the utilization of what we call National disastera National disaster means that you pull upon Federal resources. The tension between not calling this a National disaster is to throw the burden on the Government as it relates to
money.
Would it not be helpful if we looked at that proclamation of a National disaster and had a modification of it that would allow the
private entity to pay, but draw in all the resources of a National
disaster? That is distinctive from a disaster of significance. Colonel.
Col. EDMONDSON. I think you are right on with that, Ms. Jackson
Lee. I think that is exactly something you have to look at and I
certainly applaud you for making that statement because that is
what we have to head into.
I have got to add, if I might, our thoughts to Texas. Yall were
so good to us in Gustaf. I was on the tarmac with Governor Jindal
as we watched ambulances there with people whose oxygen was
being depleted and once that was out, it was over. To see those
planes come from Texas, that was incredible, to bring the resources
that you have. I am going to be meeting with my counterpart in
Texas in Houston on July 20 and we are going to talk about preparedness, we are going to talk about this incident, and try to work
with the police chiefs in Houston, Beaumont, and Orange to try to
look at helping Houston, helping Texas the same way that yall
have been so good to us.
I apologize for adding that, I know that is not what we are here
to talk about, but I think it needs to be said.

22
Ms. JACKSON LEE. We appreciate it.
Col. EDMONDSON. Yall have been incredible neighbors and we
are going to certainly be just as good to yall.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. We appreciate it.
Col. EDMONDSON. Thank you for those comments. I think that is
something we have to
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me pose another question if I might.
The Federal Government, with its structure, if there was the provision that if a company had a series of violations of safety, that
the Federal Government could shut that company down in offshore
drilling. Would that have made a better situation, now that we
know how many safety violations BP had?
Col. EDMONDSON. I think certainly as we move forward we see
the significance, as the Federal Government, State government
gets involved in the investigation. I think you are going to see how
significant that would have been.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mayor Hibbard, let me ask you with respect
to the tourists and the effort that BP has had. Would you want
funds to come directly to local government and what greater efforts
can BP implement? Maybe they can use some of the advertising
dollars that they have utilized now. I certainly appreciated that
they tried to give the public more information. But I would think
that they have given them enough information about how many
good people are there trying to pay claims. Could they use some of
that or could you use some of thatyou do not have the ethical violations that might come upto pay to advertise the goodness of the
Florida coastline? Would that be helpful to you?
Mr. HIBBARD. That has been something, Congresswoman, we
have been asking for and have not gotten directly. But we do believe that we have the knowledge to really utilize those dollars and
in a way to ultimately save BP money because we would not have
the losses.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Less people for claims.
Finally, Colonel, let me just say that in Katrina, as you well
know, there was a degree of frustration, devastation, emotional distress. Legislation that I am writing called The Remedies Act includes some of the questions that I asked you. One that it adds is
resources for post traumatic stress, which I imagine is happening
to shrimpers and others, restaurant owners. Would that be a component in a disaster funding or structure that should be put in
place?
Col. EDMONDSON. Absolutely, and we are seeing evidence of that
even today. So that is absolutely something we need. We certainly
saw it in Katrina. I was there. Now we are seeing it after this incident. I think you are well within the right direction on that.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you. Ms. Richardson for 5 minutes. But before you do that, I think we will have enough interest in another
round for this panel. So go ahead.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I believe it is Colonel, right?
Col. EDMONDSON. Yes, maam.
Ms. RICHARDSON. I think you asked the question: Are we in this
for the long haul? The answer is yes, and that is why we are here.

23
Many of us could be in our district and doing other things but we
are here because we are concerned about what has happened. We
view that there is accountability that can go across the board and
that is why we are here.
Let me talk a little bit about communications and outreach. You
talked about laymans terms. I have got to tell youand let me say
I am so gladfirst of all, I want to thank our Chairman, Mr.
Thompson; I want to thank Secretary Napolitano for affording
Members an opportunity to not only be here for the hearing but to
actually come and to see some of the real world of what is happening out there that you are facing.
I have got to tell you thisand you know, many of us have our
frustrations and we are going to have an opportunity to talk to a
BP representative shortly, but one of my biggest frustrations, and
I am going to be very frank with you, is the media and how this
has been portrayed.
When I listened to you, Mr. Hibbard, it is almost criminal what
is being done on the television. I expectedand I am going to be
very frank with youI expected to go out there and see waves and
waves of oil. I had no idea to be able to put into perspectiveI am
from CaliforniaI had no idea, and I have been to New Orleans
many times, but I had no idea how to put in perspective the miles
of distance between New Orleans and where we are seeing the unfortunate impacts. So to me, shame on the media, which I think
equally has a role to play in this of hyping some of this up to the
point that people are afraid to come out of their homes, they think
birds will never fly again. I mean it is wrong what has happened.
So what I intend upon doing and what I intend to challenge some
of the Government agencies is shame on us for allowing the media
to paint the story of what is happening out there. If we have to do
our own television shows on CSPAN or YouTube or whatever it
is, then let us do it. But we should not be allowing the one or two
scenesyou know, I have some information I am going to show you
of, yes, oil that I saw, and, yes, it is there. But it is not what I have
seen on the television and it is wrong. So part of what is hurting
the economy is the failure to properly communicate what in fact is
happening.
So I wanted to say that publicly first and then I will get into my
two questions. One for each of you.
Colonel, in your testimony on page No. 5, you talked about participating in the response and you said, Local governments, concerned with the lack of protective measures in their parishes, developed more robust plans to counteract the approaching oil, but
were frustrated with their inability to interact and participate in
the response efforts due to the response framework dictated by the
OPA 90.
What specifically do you have as an example of what you mean
by that?
Col. EDMONDSON. I think most important is flexibility. I know
when you have an incident of this magnitude, you have got to be
able to be flexible to know that just because in your plan it may
have called for boom in one specific area, you ought to be able to
move it on an as-needed basis, that was hard to do. Also, when you
need more of it, you need to know when it is coming. Not just say,

24
well, you know, it is coming, it will be here tomorrow and the next
day well, it is going to be here the next day. I think every day I
think that hampered us and I think that was some of the things
we saw involved in that, in getting that information to them and
understanding they know it better than anyone does, especially in
those areas.
So I think more than anything else the flexibility of getting that
information and also giving them impact to know what is needed
in that area and try to get the resources there. I know that Chairman Carney actually said we hope that certainly did not impact
that, it certainly did and they moved forward and did some of those
things and whether we are able to fund that or not, certainly that
was the right thing to do. But there ought to be some flexibility in
there to actually allow them to do that.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Have you seen that improve?
Col. EDMONDSON. We have seen improvement in that. I think you
have seen that, and certainly as we move forward. But I think the
damage done in that critical early aftermath of it, I think that is
going to be the problems we see from this point out.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Okay, and then my last question of this series
is to Mr. Hibbard and I apologize if I am butchering your name
here. You said it was difficult to know who was in charge, whether
BP or the Coast Guard ultimate had authority. That was on page
1 of your testimony.
Do you not know that today, honestly?
Mr. HIBBARD. I feel much more comfortable now understanding
the chain of command. Those lines have been brightened.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Who, in your opinion, is in charge?
Mr. HIBBARD. I feel the Coast Guard is in charge now.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Okay.
Mr. HIBBARD. But at first, I really felt as though BP was calling
the shots and even had written the President a letter to that effect,
being very concerned. The Colonel had mentioned that it is like a
game plan for a football team. We really do need a single coach
calling the shots. I appreciate home rule, but you even have competing States for resources.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Absolutely.
Mr. HIBBARD. So we do need unified command. I think that has
improved, but it is something to be looked at for future events.
Ms. RICHARDSON. So as I close my first round, I just want to say
not to in any way portray that what I saw is not damaging and
it is not going to take tremendous work to repair, but what I also
saw is that it is not everywhere. All of the implications that I
thought were not certainly the case.
Thank you very much.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Ms. Richardson. I think we will do another round with this panel and I appreciate your forbearance. We
do not do this always.
Im sorry?
Col. EDMONDSON. If you need any part of the technical information also, it is available.
Mr. CARNEY. We will get to him if we need it. But the fact we
are doing this is testament to the compelling nature of your testimony. So thank you very much.

25
Colonel, does your office provide input on the spill response efforts? If so, how was that received and how was that information
treated?
Col. EDMONDSON. We have input at the meetings and as information goes forward, we have an actual on-scene coordinator through
Mr. Guidrys office. He actually was there from Day 1 probably for
the first 40-some-odd days, was actually there every day in the
command post there in Robert, Louisiana and then we moved him
to Houma because that is where the main emphasis was taking
place. So we have people in meetings, we have people that are listening.
I think what is critical here, if I may just go in this direction,
is the real-time information. I think that is what is so critical. You
get that in hurricanes, because everything is in the emergency operations center. With us having that emergency operations center
say in Baton Rouge, say in the capitals around Tallahassee or Austin, wherever, Birmingham, Jackson; we had an office in Houma,
we had an office in Robert and now in New Orleans. So getting
that real-time information and getting it to the Unified Command
Group, I think that is where some problems flow in there that you
had this, that you have those offices going on. So just getting that
real-time information has been difficult.
Mr. CARNEY. Mr. Guidry, how were you received? When you gave
your input to the group, did they embrace it and say thank you
or
Mr. GUIDRY. I was accepted by the unified command.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay, very good.
Colonel, did your office participate in the SONS 2002 exercise
they had in New Orleans when they hadplease step up to the
chair and join us.
Mr. GUIDRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I played the State on-scene coordinator for that along with Admiral Thad Allen. We worked the SONS. The first day after the spill,
he told me this is worse than what we had practiced. Yes, sir, it
is.
Mr. CARNEY. Right.
For the record, could you identify yourself and your position and
spell your name.
Mr. GUIDRY. My name is Roland Guidry, R-o-l-a-n-d G-u-i-d-r-y
and for the last 1812 years, I have been the oil spill coordinator.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay. Now, the spill that we are seeing now is
worse than you practiced in 2002. What could we have done to
close that gap between the reality that we saw and what you practiced? What do you see that we need to do differently?
Mr. GUIDRY. You know, I was the oil spill coordinator for
Katrina, Rita where we had over 700 spills. We had 1012 million
gallons of oil at one time that got into the environment. We put our
hands around it, but not by ourselves. We had the Gulf Strike
Team and the Coast Guard Strike Team from the Atlantic and the
Pacific coasts that came and helped us. We got into the branches
and we really spread this thing out pretty good. I think that is one
thing that we did not do fast enough, is get the strike teams activated and have the branches where it goes into the weed, where

26
the locals get into the branches and make things easier to work all
the way up.
Mr. CARNEY. That did not happen in this incident?
Mr. GUIDRY. That did not happen until probably 40 days into the
spill, 3540 days.
Mr. CARNEY. From your opinion and your observation, can you
say why that was the case, why it did not happen?
Mr. GUIDRY. No, I have no earthly idea. I asked for those guys
early on because I knew how they operated.
Mr. CARNEY. Right. So from Rita and Katrina, you had 1012 million gallons of oil spilled and you were able, using the strike teams,
to get a handle on that and clean that up.
Mr. GUIDRY. Pretty fast. When they came into the organization,
things started really moving. They are experts in what they do; so,
yeah.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay. Well, we will talk about that further I think
in the next panel.
Now, I have heard the word boom mentioned a lot and the shortage of it and not knowing exactly how much you had. Is there an
inventory done of this and if so, how often? Do you know exactly
how many feet of boom you have available? Do you know the type
of boom, the in-shore boom, the further-out kind ofdo you know
that going in or how often is this inventoried?
Col. EDMONDSON. We actually, Mr. Chairman, every single day,
we know exactly how much boom is coming into Louisiana, what
we have pre-staged, deployed in different areas that we can move
forward.
Mr. CARNEY. Prior to the spill?
Col. EDMONDSON. Prior to that. Keep in mind, this does not last
forever, so some of the stockpile in those areas, once not used, the
expiration dates on there, you cannot use it forward. So it was the
unknown of that, of exactly how much was available, and that was
some frustration early on to try to get that because there just was
not clearly enough to move forward on that.
Mr. CARNEY. Understood. I see my time is up. Mr. Bilirakis.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mayor, what kind of effect or impact has the oil spill had on the
seafood industry in Florida? Of course, knowing that most of Florida has not seen oil. Then Colonel, if you could answer that question as well with regard to Louisiana.
Mr. HIBBARD. It is a very similar effect, Congressman to what
the oil is having on the tourism industry. It is stigma. So whether
you go to a restaurant that focuses primarily on seafood or a seafood market or the grocery stores, people first of all want to know
where that seafood is coming from; and second, they are just avoiding it altogether. So it is affecting the seafood industry in that respect. It is also affecting a lot of the sportsmen that we have that
come from all over the country to fish in our waters for grouper
and other fish that we are really known for. So it is having an impact.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Colonel.
Col. EDMONDSON. Clearly devastation in Louisiana because it is
the source of what people believe, whether it is accurate or not. So
perception, as we know, based on reality, you are exactly right,

27
Mayor. My friends call me from around the country, I just saw
something from Louisiana, I am not going to eat it. Well, it would
not be there if it was not safe.
I think what the public needs to know around the country is that
every single day we have scientists out there, we have Wildlife and
Fisheries agents and DEQ specialists that are out there testing the
waters, testing the fish, testing the life within our fisheries and the
Gulf coast region and making sure that what comes in is edible and
we can move it forward. Every day we open and close areas based
on where we see the oil, based on tests that we have done and that.
If there is any chance for that to be tainted, we are not going to
allow fishing in that area, we are not going to allow it to be removed and we are going to continue to test it as we move forward
on it. But again, it is perception.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. We have got to get the word out, is what we need
to do.
Colonel, how manyI understand you are authorized to deploy
15,000 National Guardsmen in the State of Louisiana. How many
are deployed at this time?
Col. EDMONDSON. The average contingency is 1,100 that they
have working throughout Louisiana actively involved in the berms
and actually placing the rocks as we protect our coastline. You
know, you have got to say hats off to the Louisiana National
Guard. What they did in Katrina where they actually patrolled the
streets of New Orleans, and what they are doing in this area with
this oil spill is certainly outside the scope of what they have done
throughout the Nation. They have been a tremendous asset to the
State of Louisiana, but again, 1,100 of those are deployed. We have
another couple hundred that are every day actively involved in the
effort and response to this oil spill in Louisiana.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Do you plan do deploy more?
Col. EDMONDSON. Well, that certainly would not be my decision.
They are certainly available if more are needed, they could certainly do that; yes, sir.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. As noted in your opening statement, I am concerned about the delays in the approval of response requests. I
mentioned it, you did as well.
What response capabilities have you requested, aside from the
approval to dig berms, that have been delayed or denied and what
impact has the denials had on the State of Louisiana?
Col. EDMONDSON. Well, certainly when you look at what you exactly talked about has been the frustration portion of it, needing
more boom, needing more skimmers. Knowing that as this oil
moves in and out of our shoreline, we have got over 6,000 miles of
shoreline in Louisiana. Most people do not realize that. But when
you look at the topography of Louisiana, the inlets and outlets, it
is so many miles there and knowing as it washes in and washes
out, that that effect continues. I think that is why it is so critical
that we know how much boom is available, what types of boom are
available and getting those deployed in those areas. I think that
has been the primary frustration in that aspect along with what
you talked about.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

28
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you. Mr. Green, please, for 5 minutes.
Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Colonel, you spoke quite well about the flow of information as it
relates to top-down and of course you put emphasis on the necessity to have not only information, but accurate information, and
have timely information as it comes from the top down.
I would like for you to put a bit of emphasis, if you willand you
as well, Mayoron bottom-up. Were you able to have your ideas
given immediate consideration? Did you get a response with reference to things that you thought were important that had some
merit, that should be evaluated? Were you ideas vetted and did you
get the feedback that you needed so that you could make some determination as to how efficacious you were in terms of helping with
this endeavor? If you would, please.
Col. EDMONDSON. Certainly you had the initial input, but it did
not mean it was going to happen. I think you only had to turn on
the news to daily see Parish President Mr. Nungesser and Craig
Taffaro of Placquemines and St. Bernard Parish, every day talking
about I am asking for this, I am asking for this, where is it? Certainly understand the fact that this oil just kept coming and it is
still flowing in today.
Mr. GREEN. Let me interrupt you, please. What was the process,
as you understood it, for you to get your ideas to the top?
Col. EDMONDSON. Mr. Guidry can certainly comment on that also
because he was in those meetings every single day, but understanding every day listening to our parishes along the coast report
information up and getting that to the unified group in Robert or
in Houma, Louisiana and then getting that information to the Unified Command Group, of which the Governor is there and the cabinet secretaries. I think that real time, but also understanding that
if they need something, they need it. To know that it may be the
next day or the next week before it gets there, I think that was
some of the frustration that we saw early on.
Mr. GUIDRY. If I may. Stuff was slow coming. You know, boom,
we made a request daily for boom and it got to be almost like a
joke. I would say need more boom and everybody would quote,
you know, say need more boom, everybody there would say the
same thing, need more skimmers. Those were slow in coming.
As the Colonel said, we had probably 16 or 18 reports a day that
come in from all the State entities. We have a call in the morning
and in the afternoon, all the local branches call in and in the afternoon all the parish EOCs are all together at one time and they
comment on what they need, what they are doing, what is not happening. So the lines of communication are open to us and we pass
that on. Sometimes it is a little slow getting back, but that is what
we do.
Mr. GREEN. Mayor, let me follow up with you if I may. Your access to persons who were able to filter your information, did you
conclude that you had a fair vetting process in terms of getting information to the top?
Mr. HIBBARD. We ran most of our information through our internal emergency manager who would run it up the flag pole through
the county and then on to the Coast Guard and FDEP. It is a
somewhat arduous process. I can tell you that on a daily basis,

29
Congressman, I was having constituents give me new ideas on how
to either stop the well or to absorb oil. It is very hard to run all
those down and I certainly would not want to distract the powers
that be from the task at hand.
I think one of the other issues we ran into was a lot of volunteers
that wanted to be a part of any cleanup effort that might occur and
after having a list of literally thousands of volunteers that e-mailed
into the city and to the county, we were told that it would be the
responsibility of BP and the people that they hired to do any cleanups.
Mr. GREEN. Yes, Colonel. I want you to address another question,
so I want your response, but some of this waste cleanup, I am understanding that there is some desire not to have it located in certain places and persons have given their protest but the waste is
still being placed in areas pursuant to contracts that were negotiated between BP and certain State agencies.
I would like for you to comment on this if you would, please.
Col. EDMONDSON. Certainly that is true. Once it reaches the
coastline, we have a responsibility. Hazardous material is under
me as far as response. We have got to make sure it is properly collected and manifested and properly transported to an area. That is
a concern when that area transports to may not be an area it needs
to be in. So we are working very, very closely with EPA and of
course the Department of Environmental Quality, to make sure we
work through that. But once it is moved in that area and then it
becomes infected in that area, it causes problems. So I think you
are right in your comments, Mr. Green, in that area, that we need
to make sure that those places are done.
You did ask for examples and I think that we certainly need to
be able to give you those. I think when you look at booms, once you
are asking for the booms, and that will come in time, then that all
moves forward, then it is too late, it is in the marshlands.
One thing that we saw early on and we certainly had many conversations with the Coast Guard, who has tried to respond to these
types of things, but one thing they said early on was that we didnt
have skimmers small enough to get inside the marshes, which is
why we have started doing the vacuum barges. We have actually
got trucks on barges that are inside those marsh areas vacuuming
that oil from around the marsh area, because there is so much of
it and it gets thick in those areas.
I think those are instances right there that just shows the realtime that you talked about, the ability to real-time get resources
there, because once you lose that real-time, it has moved on and
then you have to start fighting it from a different angle.
Mr. GREEN. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Mr. Green. Ms. Jackson Lee, please, 5
minutes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Guidry, thank you for your work. I am
going to ask a series of rapid questions to sort of build the record.
Mr. Guidry, in your experience, have you ever seen an oil spill
like this?
Mr. GUIDRY. No, maam. The difference with this one and all the
other ones, the other ones, eventually the source stops. This one
here is like a thief in the night, it is not there today, tomorrow

30
morning it is here, next day it is here or it hits you back again in
the same spot. You know, things do not move very fast, boats move
very slow, so you have got to fly over the site and find out where
the oil is in the morning and then send the boats out to clean it
up.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. You have worked 18 yearsI am going to do
some rapid fire questions. You have worked for 18 years and you
have had oil spills and you have cleaned up oil spills, is that correct?
Mr. GUIDRY. Yes, maam.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. The Gulf has gone on about its business.
Mr. GUIDRY. Yes, maam.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. The oyster men and the shrimpers and the
fishermen have gone on about their business.
Mr. GUIDRY. Yes, maam. I am a former fisherman.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I think that is important to note, and the reason is because the magnitude of this disaster I think is something
that we clearly want to frame. But in terms of trying to fix the
problems, let me again go back to a question I think I asked and
would like to ask it more specifically.
My understanding is that BP had a series of violations that may
have been relevant to this well and that they were just in place,
on record in one of our Federal agencies. In a legislative fix that
might work, should we not have a certain numberfor example,
this was a high-risk drilling rigcertain number of violations could
bring about an automatic shutdown for a period of time of that
well. Mr. Guidry?
Mr. GUIDRY. I really could not comment too much on the size of
this, but I would tell you
Ms. JACKSON LEE. If there were a number of safety violations
that had been shown.
Mr. GUIDRY. Yes, maam.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Would it be appropriate for the Federal Government to shut down that well to ask for there to be remedy by
the particular parties involved?
Mr. GUIDRY. It could be, but I would have put some MMS people
on those wells 24/7 to make sure that these problems did not happen.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. If they saw that it did happen, you would give
them the authority to shut the well down?
Mr. GUIDRY. Yes, maam.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. Colonel.
Col. EDMONDSON. Absolutely. I mean we do not need to be a
country of reacting. It ought to be about proactive and the ability
to do what you are talking about certainly would allow that.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Do you thinkand you have mentioned the
fact that the Coast Guard strike teams have been very effective. Do
you think enhanced resources and making those strike teamsI
use a different terminology, like a SWAT team, but giving them the
additional enhanced resources and training would be helpful as we
move into these difficult drilling procedures. Colonel.
Col. EDMONDSON. Absolutely, you are going to have to have that
in place so they have the ability to move forward and move rapidly
to move those resources in; yes, maam.

31
Ms. JACKSON LEE. The chain of command for me is enormously
important. Do you thinkand Mr. Guidry said something and I
have heard this before of MMS individuals being on the rig and
that would be certainly something to look at. Would you also think
it is important to have a red phone on the rig that has the ability
to go to the right people when you can perceive something is going
to go wrong? I asked some of the officials of BP did they get a
phone call that night and the answer was no. Do you think there
should be a red phone call that reaches the appropriate persons
even though this was in the midst of an emergency, so that reaction could start right then and there? Colonel.
Col. EDMONDSON. You are certainly going to have to have that.
You are going to have to have some form of communication and listen to everybody on that rig. The ability for anybody, even at the
lowest level, when they see problems are occurring, they have got
to be able to bring that to someones attention. Most importantly,
when that phone rings, someone has to pick it up and listen.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. If we were toand this is a question where
I do not want you to think that I am trying to get you to write legislation, but the Department of Homeland Security has been labeled asand I think they have been very effective with the merger of so many different areas, the disaster homeland front line. We
see man-made disasters and we see natural disasters, hurricanes.
Expanding the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security such that all the resources or the crisis bearing could fall
under one department as relates to this kind of disaster, would
that help your question of where is the boom, where are the skimmers, who is in charge; so that once something like this occurred,
one call, one group of people tells whoever it is get this done.
Col. EDMONDSON. We certainly should have learned that in
Katrina, certainly from a Federal level to understand that that inventory is in place. But also the ability to understand from a Federal level, you have got to listen to the local people, you have got
to, because what worked in one State is not going to work in other
States. I think that flexibilitycommunication, flexibility, and having plans in place of where your inventory is. I think that is vitally
important.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Or having one Federal Government entity and
then working with the local officials, that might be helpful to you.
Col. EDMONDSON. I think so. I do not want them to get so big
that they become ineffective. I think when you get too big and you
put too much on your plate, you become ineffective. We do that as
individuals sometimes. I know I do, and I think you have got to be
careful not to put too much on that plate, but give them ability.
But I think you are moving in the right direction; yes, maam.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank you.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee. Ms. Richardson, do
you have questions?
Ms. RICHARDSON. Just a couple of very quick ones and then I am
looking forward to us continuing.
Colonel, it is my understanding that the State of Louisiana has
received $50 million. How much have you guys spent and what
have you spent it on?

32
Col. EDMONDSON. Well, we spent it on emergency response efforts going on with the oil, the direct response to the oil that is approaching Louisiana, both on the State level and on a local level.
I think that is what has been most important.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Specifically doing what though? When you say
emergency response, what does that mean?
Col. EDMONDSON. Personnel, resources, equipment. Again, all
aimed at combatting the on-going effect of the oil as it approaches
Louisiana. I can get the committee information on exactly what we
spent it on. I think that would be better than just trying to remember the different things. But I know from my perspective, what I
have used it on has been the people directly involved because I
think that is where it should be exactly involved every day in combatting both very proactively and reactively the oil as it approaches
Louisiana and making sure that it gets into those local areas.
Ms. RICHARDSON. So you will provide that to the committee how
much has been spent and on what?
Col. EDMONDSON. Yes, maam.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Has it all been spent?
Col. EDMONDSON. I am not sure exact numbers, I know that the
first $25 million has been. Again, that second $25 million has not
come into Louisiana. I know there was some monies that was
placed forward for some work within the coastline itself, but I am
familiar with the first $25 million that we have looked at. In fact,
that funding actually comes through the Department of Public
Safety as far as the area to oversee and disburse that. Again, we
do not disburse until we get actual evidence from a State agency
that they spent it on that. It is all through the PIRFA process that
the Federal Government uses to make sure we document expenditures of those monies.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Okay, thank you, Colonel.
Mr. Guidry, you mentioned that strike teams in the past have
physically gone into the marsh themselves and have cleaned the oil
out. Did they cut, did they flush it out with water, what was the
process used?
Mr. GUIDRY. They direct the clean-up, but in the past, like in the
roseau canes, we will cut a path and flush it out with pumps.
Ms. RICHARDSON. So you would cut a path to flush it?
Mr. GUIDRY. Yes, we cut a path in the roseau canes and from
there wash the oil out. We put boom on the outside so that when
the oil comes out the skimmers can pick it up inside the boom.
Ms. RICHARDSON. You work for the State, sir?
Mr. GUIDRY. Maam?
Ms. RICHARDSON. You work for the State of Louisiana?
Mr. GUIDRY. Yes, maam.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Okay. That is a very important point that you
just made because we saw that just today and there was an issue
with that.
Then finally for the record, I just want to say I equally was very
frustrated. I did not understand why we could not just put a whole
rim of boom around the site of the Horizon to be able to catch the
oil before it even got further out. But I have got to tell you, once
I physically saw it, with the waves, it only can provide limited protection. I think one thing we have learned out of this incident is

33
that BP and any other provider that does oil drilling must also use
some of that money to look at technology and research and make
sure that what we really have can do some work. Because even the
booms themselves cannot solve the problems.
Thank you, very much, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Would the gentlelady yield for a moment?
Could I just ask a quick question?
Mr. CARNEY. Yes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yield for a moment?
Ms. RICHARDSON. Yes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. Following up on her question, the
headline here says BP Works on More Secure Well Cap. You
made a very important statement, Colonel, it keeps flowing and we
cannot clean up. Can you expand on that and the gentleladys point
about having the technology, the redundancy on clean-up if something happens? Clean-up but stopping what happened.
Col. EDMONDSON. Just looking at the diverse shorelines that we
have throughout the Gulf, I mean looking at our beautiful beaches,
looking at our marshland, our estuaries and all that, all that area
requires a different type of response. I think what is most important is that we had so much flow at the beginning that we were
not even responding to because we did not know it was there. Then
all of a sudden, it was there and we did not have the resources
available, the real-time efforts to do those things. As we speak, it
is still flowing. Even once we get that cap on it and they capture
what they tell us is most of it, and hopefully it is, and hopefully
those relief wells that are being drilled are going to be effective and
they are going to work and do the things they need to. Then at that
point, this marathon, maybe we can get towards the end of it. But
I think that natural resource damage assessment has to be ongoing, we have to look at the efforts and we have to make sure that
this fightwe are in it for the long haul. I appreciate the fact and
certainly you evidence here today in the comments you are making,
I believe that yall are also here to make sure those things happen,
and I do appreciate that; and thank you.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee.
Quickly for all three of you. Where have the bottlenecks of the
information flow been that you can identify? Bottlenecks of information. Mr. Guidry, do you have a sense of that?
Mr. GUIDRY. Not really.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay, Colonel.
Col. EDMONDSON. I think what I talked about earlier, I think
having three different places of information that has to flow,
whether it is the State command post and whatever stage you are
in, and you have your National post which is now New Orleans,
your Gulf post which is in Houma, Louisiana. I think getting that
real time information is difficult when you deal with bureaucracy
in each one as you move that information around. I think that is
a bottleneck. I think that is when it is hard to understand that you
can make a decision here, but it has still got to be approved over
here and maybe over here. I think telling you I will get that answer tomorrow. Well, if you do not have it tomorrow, then we are
now 36 hours, 48 hours into getting that stuff and then it is past

34
the coastline, it is into the marshes, on the beaches, it affects the
economy, it affects the seafood industry and that. I think the effect
just moves on and multiplies when you do not have that real-time
information and getting that where it needs to be.
Mr. CARNEY. Mayor.
Mr. HIBBARD. I think certainly we saw bottlenecks at the State
level getting down to the county level and the county level to the
municipal level. The municipalities were not even included in the
process until just recently.
Last, I would say there was a bottleneck between professionals
and laymen and we need to get that out.
Mr. CARNEY. For the record, I had a shrimp po boy for lunch.
Okay? It was delicious, so thank you very much.
Gentlemen, thank you so much for your testimony. We could
probably do this another couple of hours anyway, but we have to
be respectful of the other panels. Our hearts are out to you and certainly all those who lost family in the explosion. But we are in this
for the long haul. My kids are long-distance runners and I know
what it means to be in it for the long haul, and as long as I am
in this Chair, we will stay here and work with you to make sure
this kind of thing does not happen again.
We will probably have further questions and we may come to you
in writing. Please respond as soon as you possibly can to our questions if we have them. Please free to contact our subcommittee and
our committee any time you think there is information we ought
to have.
We will adjourn this panel. We will reconvene in 5 minutes, so
people can refresh themselves.
[Recess.]
Mr. CARNEY. We will call the second panel now. I want to welcome our second panel of witnesses and thank them for their patience. I think the first panel was very interesting and we needed
to hear from them.
Our first witness will be Rear Admiral Peter Neffenger. Rear Admiral Neffenger serves as the Deputy National Incident Commander for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill response. Previous to
this assignment, he served as Commander of the Ninth Coast
Guard District from May 2008 to April 2010. In this capacity, he
was responsible for Coast Guard operations throughout the five
Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway and parts of the surrounding States, including 6,700 miles of shoreline and 1,500 miles
of international border with Canada.
A native of Elyria, Ohio, Rear Admiral Neffenger was commissioned in 1982 at Coast Guard Officer Candidate School in Yorktown, Virginia. He has a diverse career of operational and staff assignments across the spectrum of Coast Guard missions. Notable
among these, he was Captain of the Port, Federal Maritime Security Coordinator and Commander of Coast Guard Sector at Los Angeles/Long Beach, California where he was the senior Coast Guard
operational commander for an area of responsibility encompassing
over 300 miles of southern California coast, including the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, the Nations largest.
He has served in five Marine safety field assignments as an engineer on the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Gallatin; as Coast Guard liai-

35
son officer in the Territory of American Samoa; as Coast Guard fellow on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee and as a Chief
of the Office of Budget and Programs at Coast Guard Headquarters
in Washington, DC where he was the principal budget advisor to
the Commandant of the Coast Guard.
Rear Admiral Neffenger has earned three masters degrees in
National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island; and Public Administration from
Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government; and in Business Management from Central Michigan Universityby the way,
my wifes alma mater. He holds a bachelors degree from Baldwin
Wallace College in Berea, Ohio.
Our second witness is Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs Juliette Kayyem.
As Assistant Secretary, Ms. Kayyem has strengthened coordination of intergovernmental interaction across the Department, improving efficiency and consistency of communication with State,
local, Tribal, and territorial partners, and ensuring the integration
of their homeland security priorities into the policy development
process.
Under her leadership, Intergovernmental Affairs, or IGA, has assumed the primary communication and coordination role in a broad
array of homeland security initiatives including grant processes
and funding, drivers license security, energy efficiency, and intelligence and information sharing with the State, local, and Tribal
partners. In addition, IGA serves as the primary Tribal liaison for
the Department coordinating over 500 Tribes throughout the Nation on homeland security issues.
From 2007 until her appointment by Secretary Napolitano, she
served as the Massachusetts first Under Secretary for Homeland
Security and the Governors Federally designated homeland security advisor. In that capacity, she was responsible for developing
State-wide policies on homeland security, with a focus on all-hazards strategic planning, prevention, and response, information
sharing, interoperability, and energy security. Ms. Kayyem also
had oversight of the Massachusetts National Guard.
She is a 1995 graduate of Harvard Law School and a 1991 graduate of Harvard College.
Without objection, the witnesses full statements will be inserted
into the record.
I now ask each to summarize his or her statement for 5 minutesfor 5 minutesbeginning with Rear Admiral Neffenger.
STATEMENT OF PETER NEFFENGER, DEPUTY NATIONAL INCIDENT COMMANDER, UNITED STATES COAST GUARD, UNITED
STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Adm. NEFFENGER. I will do my best, sir.

Good afternoon, Chairman Carney and distinguished Members of
the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today about
the on-going response into the explosion and oil spill from the
Deepwater Horizon mobile offshore drilling unit.
What began as a massive rescue and subsequent search for 11
who unfortunately were lost, has become the most complex spill

36
our Nation has ever encountered and certainly the most complex
event of my career.
This spill is further complicated by the lack of human access to
the source, the challenge of measuring the total volume of oil discharge, the fact that the oil is spreading out in all directions, and
that we have a major new oil spill every day. This is not a single
monolithic spill, but rather has become thousands of small spills
that in total threaten all five of the Gulf States and the livelihoods
of the citizens of the Gulf coast.
As you have already heard in previous testimony, there are thousands of people and hundreds of organizations across the Gulf coast
that are responding to this spill. So I can understand why it sometimes is not clear how we are organized and command and control
functions. Let me try to explain some of how that works.
One of the lessons that we learned coming out of Exxon Valdez
and what led to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was that during
major incidents, you need National level leadership to set strategic
direction, coordinate National policy, facilitate collaboration among
Federal, State, and local governments and coordinate strategic
communications across Government and the affected communities.
In this case, you have a National Incident Commander named,
and that is Admiral Thad Allen, and as noted, I am his Deputy and
was named as such on the second of May of this year.
At the next level, we have the Federal on-scene coordinator with
the statutory authority for oversight of oil spill cleanup on the
water in the case of the Coast Guard. That individual directs the
operation, overseeing the incident commands and we have one in
Houma, Louisiana, one in Mobile, Alabama. Those are the two
most active incident commands. We have also established incident
commands in Galveston, Texas as well as Miami, Florida, for potential impacts in those areas.
The Federal on-scene coordinator sits at the Unified Area Command, and so the purpose of the area command is to coordinate resources amongst those various incident commands, but the actual
decision-making on a daily basis takes place in the incident commands. So those individuals in Houma, in Mobile, in Miami, in
Galveston, Texas make determinations for the geographic area for
which they are responsible.
So in an incident of this complexity, you have to have different
levels of organization to manage what are the countless numbers
of activities across the thousands of miles of water and coastline.
They do not do it alone, the area command, as you have heard, has
had State representation from the very outset of the event, and in
fact it is critical that the State be involved with us from the outset
because they know best how to protect their coastlines and we can
speak more to that during the question session.
Given the scope and magnitude of this event, we brought together all levels of government, industry, nongovernmental organizations, and volunteers to respond in unprecedented numbers.
As I said, my primary purpose is to ensure a tight linkage among
all those levels, to look for problems and try to correct those problems so that we have effective command and control, the guiding
principle of which is to push authority to the lowest possible level
so that on-scene leaders can act and can act immediately with flexi-

37
bility and autonomy to employ effective response strategies. We
continue to work to make that tenet a reality across the Gulf region. We learned a lot of lessons along the way and it is improving
and getting better with each day of this response.
I have personally briefed every day the five States Governors. I
do this 7 days a week each day, and we typically have at least
three of the five Governors on those calls. I have received valuable
and very frank feedback that has alerted me to areas where we
needed to adjust operations, expand efforts, and incorporate greater
State and local participation.
Harnessing local knowledge and leadership is a continuing priority and I would agree with Colonel Edmondsons assessment of
the need to involve State and localI mean local individuals. There
are a number of examples of how we have done that, pushing liaisons out to each of the parish presidents offices in the State of
Louisiana, to the county supervisors offices in the other States. We
have liaisons assigned to each Governor and we have liaisons at
the local branch levels, which are down in the local communities.
So we have attempted to continue to engage at greater and increasing numbers.
We have established vessel of opportunity programs where we
are giving local control of those vessels to local communities under
the over-arching guidelines established by the incident commanders.
I have spent a significant amount of my time in the Gulf region
over the last 212 months. I have visited spill sites numerous times
and have worked a lot with the incident commands to determine
what it is they need and how we can do it. We have identified
everywith respect to resources there are a number of critical resources and we have heard of some of those. We have identified
every foot of fire boom in the world, we have established a supply
chain for everything from dispersants to skimmers to boom. We
have procured boom from all domestic manufacturers and we mobilized all east and Gulf coast offshore skimming vessels. To that
end, we are now procuring nearly all Nationally produced snare,
containment fire boom, and we have engaged every domestic boom
supplier. Of note, the daily or the weekly production was a few
thousand feet prior to this spill event. We are now producing domestically a quarter million feet of boom per week as a result of
the demand placed by this.
So in closing, I think the success of this response hinges on a
unified coordinated effort at all levels in reaching down as deep
into the local organizations as youor local communities as possible. We will be here as long as it takes to get this region cleaned
up and made whole again. The Coast Guard will not be going
away. As was noted, we live here too. This is a community. I spent
8 years of my life in New Orleans in the Coast Guard and so I have
a lot of affection and concern for this area.
So I thank you for this opportunity and I welcome any questions
you may have.
[The statement of Admiral Neffenger and Ms. Kayyem follows:]

38
PREPARED STATEMENT

OF

PETER NEFFENGER

AND

JULIETTE KAYYEM

JULY 12, 2010

Good morning Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the committee. We
appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the Federal Governments
response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill specifically the chain of command for
responders.
On the evening of April 20, 2010, the Transocean-owned, BP-chartered, Marshall
Islands-flagged Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU) DEEPWATER HORIZON, located approximately 72 miles Southeast of Venice, Louisiana, reported an explosion
and fire on-board. This began as a Search and Rescue (SAR) missionwithin the
first few hours, 115 of the 126 crewmembers were safely recovered; SAR activities
continued through April 23rd, though the other 11 crewmembers remain missing.
Concurrent with the SAR effort, the response to extinguishing the fire and mitigating the impacts of the approximate 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel onboard began
almost immediately. In accordance with the operators Minerals Management Service (MMS)-approved Response Plan, oil spill response resources, including Oil Spill
Response Vessels (OSRVs), were dispatched to the scene. After 2 days of fighting
the fire, the MODU sank into approximately 5,000 feet of water on April 22nd. On
April 23rd, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) located the MODU on the seafloor,
and, on April 24th, BP found the first two leaks in the riser pipe and alerted the
Federal Government. ROVs continue to monitor the flow of oil.

As the event unfolded, a robust Incident Command System (ICS) response organization was stood up in accordance with the National Response Framework (NRF)
and the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP).
ICS is utilized to provide a common method for developing and implementing tactical plans to efficiently and effectively manage the response to oil spills. The ICS
organization for this response includes Incident Command Posts and Unified Commands at the local level, and a Unified Area Command at the regional level. It is
comprised of representatives from the Coast Guard (Federal On-Scene Coordinator
(FOSC)), other Federal, State, and local agencies, as well as BP as a Responsible
Party.

39

The Federal Government has addressed the Gulf Oil Spill with an all-hands-on
deck approach from the moment the explosion occurred. During the night of April
20ththe date of the explosiona command center was set up on the Gulf Coast
to address the potential environmental impact of the event and to coordinate with
State and local governments. After the MODU sank on the 22nd, the National Response Team (NRT), led by the Secretary of Homeland Security and comprised of
16 Federal agencies including the Coast Guard, other DHS offices, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), Department of Interior (DOI), as well as Regional Response Teams (RRT),
was activated.
On April 29, Secretary Napolitano declared the event a Spill of National Significance (SONS), which enhanced operational and policy coordination at the National
level and concurrently allowed Admiral Allens appointment as the National Incident Commander (NIC) for the administrations continued, coordinated response.
The NICs role is to coordinate strategic communications, National policy, and resource support, and to facilitate collaboration with key parts of the Federal, State,
and local governments.
The NIC staff is comprised of subject matter experts from across the Federal Government, allowing for immediate interagency collaboration, approval, and coordination. While the FOSC maintains authorities for response operations as directed in
the National Contingency Plan, the NICs primary focus is providing National-level
support to the operational response. This means providing the Unified Command
with everything that it needsfrom resources to policy decisionsto secure the
source and mitigate the impact. This will be a sustained effort that will continue
until the discharges are permanently stopped and the effects of the spill are mitigated to the greatest extent possible. Beyond securing the source of the spill, the
Unified Command is committed to minimizing the economic and social impacts to
the affected communities and the Nation.
VOLUNTEERISM AND COMMUNICATION WITH LOCAL COMMUNITIES

A critical aspect of response operations is active engagement and communication

with the local communities. Several initiatives are underway to ensure that happens.
1. Active participation and engagement in town hall meetings across the region
with industry and Government involvement.
2. Coordination of public involvement through a volunteer registration hotline
(18664485816), alternative technology, products, and services e-mail

40
([email protected]), and response and safety training scheduled and conducted in numerous locations.
3. More than 35,889 inquiries received on-line via the response website
(www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com) with more than 34,478 inquiries completed, with 4-hour average time of response.
4. Over 12 million page hits on response website.
5. Over 754 documents created/posted to response website for public consumption.
6. News, photo/video releases, advisories to more than 5,000 media/Governmental/private contacts.
7. Full utilization of social media including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and
Flickr.
8. Establishment of Local Government hotlines in Houma, LA (9854937835),
Mobile, AL (2514458968), New Orleans, LA (9859025253).
CONCLUSION

From the very beginning of this crisis, the Federal Government has been in
charge of the largest environmental clean-up effort in our Nations history. Thousands of ships and other vessels have been deployed to the Gulf. There are now
nearly 46,000 personnel working across four States to contain and clean up the oil.
These personnel are assisting in efforts to prevent more oil from coming ashore,
clean beaches, train response workers, and help process claims.
On July 7, Admiral Allen announced the launch of a new Federal web portal
RestoreTheGulf.govdedicated to providing the American people with clear and accessible information and resources related to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill response and recovery. The site is designed to serve as a one-stop repository for news,
data, and operational updates related to administration-wide efforts to stop the BP
oil leak and mitigate its impact on the environment, the economy and public
healthunifying web resources across the administration and increasing public access to the latest information.
The Unified Command continues to attack the spill. As of July 6, 2010, over 28
million gallons of oily water have been successfully recovered using mechanical surface cleaning methods. Further, over a million gallons of surface dispersants have
been applied to break up the slick, and controlled burns have been used as weather
conditions have allowed. In addition to the on-going offshore oil recovery operations,
significant containment and exclusion booms have been deployed and staged strategically throughout the Gulf region. These booms are used to protect environmental
and cultural resources, as well as critical infrastructure, as identified in the applicable Area Contingency Plans (ACPs). To date, nearly 3 million feet of boom have been
positioned to protect environmentally sensitive areas. Fourteen staging areas and
three regional command centers have been established across the Gulf Coast States.
The Secretary of Defense approved the requests of the Governors of Alabama (up
to 3,000), Florida (up to 2,500), Louisiana (up to 6,000), and Mississippi (up to
6,000) to use their National Guard forces in Title 32, U.S. Code, status to help in
the response to the oil spill.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. We are ready to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Admiral. Secretary Kayyem.

STATEMENT OF JULIETTE KAYYEM, ASSISTANT SECRETARY
FOR INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY

Ms. KAYYEM. Thank you, Chairman Carney and Members of the

committee. I thank you for the opportunity to testify before you on
the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the efforts that the Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard, and our Federal family have undertaken to respond to this incident in coordination
with our State and local partners. So my testimony will focus on
that fact.
My history, as you said, Chairman, I was a State homeland security advisor, I worked for a Governor, I now work for a former Governor. So I understand quite well the priority of focusing State and
localof understanding what State and local officials know, under-

41
standing their unique needs of their community and environments,
unlike any other entity.
As the Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at DHS,
one of my roles, ironically actually, was to serve as the intergovernmental lead in the SONS, the Spill of National Significance, exercise just a few months before this spill. During that exercise, we
were able to identify information gaps with our State and local
partners and update our plans to address these. Obviously, as Admiral Neffenger said, the exercises in no way were reflective of
what we are experiencing today, we admit that wholeheartedly.
From the outset, we knew that working collaboratively with the
State and local officials and responders closest to the incident
would be essential in order to effectively coordinate this response
and their input would be an invaluable resource for ideas and suggestions for improvement. This has been an unparalleled event
with many challenges along the way, and we sought to learn lessons from the past and use this local knowledge and experience to
inform our decision-making in every step of the response. We have
learned as we have gone along, there is no question about it. I will
describe some of the changes we made. We continue to try to improve every day, especially as the mayor noted in the previous testimony, very helpful for him to tell us and to tell you sometimes
we are speaking in Coast Guardese or we are speaking in a language that is not understandable for his constituents. We have that
as a take-away and we will continue to improve every day as we
shift from the immediate response to the long-term recovery and
some of the priorities the Secretary made as she takes on that essential and important agenda.
So as I said, since Day 1, the administration has engaged in allhands-on-deck response to this spill. As we transition from the
search and rescue operation into a larger incident response, we
begin then to more thoroughly engage with our State and local
counterparts in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, with Texas sort of not beingbeing more engaged as of late
because some of the tar balls have appeared there and we continue
to engage indeed along the eastern seaboard. We have had a number of outreach efforts with the Governors in those States.
These efforts were built upon the extensive coordination that
took place prior to this event, including of course the Area Contingency Plans and the work that people like Roland from Louisiana,
we have known him for a long time, the kind of work that we have
been doing from the get-go on oil spills.
We heard about the pipe leaking on a Saturday, I was down here
by Monday and we had our first Governors call on that Monday.
We were in close contact with the Governors and their staffs and
on that day the Governors staffs were invited into the Unified
Area Command. We made it a priority to set up different structures to allow State and local officials to have input into the response efforts and these structures took several forms. As I said,
we had the calls with the Governors, they became daily by the beginning of May and we have held these daily morning conference
calls with senior administration officials and the Governors of the
affected States and followed up in the afternoon with daily calls
with local officials in the afternoon. I think those were the calls

42
that the Mayor was speaking about. These calls offer an opportunity for Governors and local officials to obtain the most current
operational information and engage in a dialogue with the senior
administration officials who are overseeing the response, like the
Admiral, and to make suggestions or convey concerns. These include the briefings on leak stabilization, resource deployments, obviously a very large issue, and answers to questions officials have
received from local constituents, primarily on claims, of course.
For example, I will just give you examples, so that this does not
sound so theoretical. On one of the daily calls, Governor Barber of
Mississippi raised concerns about the communication capabilities of
boats participating in the vessels of opportunity program. You will
remember, a lot of boats, a lot of boat owners came forward, a couple thousand. It was a massive undertaking and the Coast Guard
actually working with the State of Mississippi and all the States
subsequently worked to put in place a task force system led by the
Coast Guard boats to improve communication between the vessels
and to get the resources available to those vessels, so maybe not
every vessel had all the high-tech needs that the lead vessel would
have but we had a way to be able to say there is oil here, we need
to move here.
As a result of these daily calls, it also became clearso this is
our lessons learned as we went alongthat the response would
benefit through increased and direct communication between the
Governors and the officials running the multi-State incident command posts. In response, the Coast Guard and the Department set
up deputy incident commanders. So instead of having it too topheavy, this was the beginning of the flat-lining of the response in
each State. So these deputy incident commanders are in each State
to give Governors direct access to the individuals running Coast
Guard operations in their States. This meant that not all the Governors had to come to Houma or Robertexcuse me, Robert, Louisiana, that facility is now in New Orleans. It meant that we were
able to get deputy incident commanders in each State. This also ensured that any questions, concerns, or requests from these Governors could be met promptly.
I also want to make it clear that we are DHS-focused, Coast
Guard-focused. This is being repeated in almost every level with
the Federal family. So there are weekly calls between the Labor
Department and the State workforce commissions, between OSHA
and the State employment workforce commissions. I could go
downSBA, I mean, we are polling and working with the entire
Federal family to make sure that their natural access points within
the States and localities; for example, Health and Human Services
working with the State health officials, are all getting the right information at the right time.
In addition to the daily calls, I am just going to highlight one last
thing, which the admiral focused on, which is the liaison officers
and the changes we made. As the mayor said, sometimes the States
have a governance structure that is not getting to the local level.
We understand that now. We are used to working with Governors
offices because of the State EOC structure, that is how it works.
So beginning in May, we began to deploy what we are calling the
Coast Guard Liaison Program, it was originally called the Parish

43
President Liaison Program but we realized we had other States
that did not have parishesand have deployed up to 80 Coast
Guard officials in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida to
provide direct access to response for local officials. We have people
sitting in these local government entities, whether they are mayors, county officials, whatever, trying to get to yes as quickly as
possible. We hear in the media about a lot of the nos, but when
you actually think of the number of decisions that are being made
on the local level about boom deployment, boat deployment, whatever else, that is all being done because of the close and localized
cooperation between the Coast Guard, the Federal family, and the
State and localities.
I have gone over my time, but I would be happy to answer any
questions about the governance structure and our responsiveness.
Thank you.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Ms. Kayyem. We will begin the round
of questions, each Member getting 5 minutes, of course, and we will
go until we are done. I will start and recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Admiral, when was the Coast Guard first made aware of the explosion?
Adm. NEFFENGER. On the day that it happened. I thinkI do not
know the exact time, I do not have a time line, but I think it was
within about an hour and a half or 2 hours after the initial explosion that we were notified of it and notified that we had the potential for both a massive search and rescue operation as well as a potential for a major oil spill. There were 700,000 gallons of fuel oil
on board that vessel, so from the very outset, we were concerned
about a major oil spill as a result of the explosion.
Mr. CARNEY. I saw pictures in the news and that was one hell
of an explosion.
Adm. NEFFENGER. It really was; yes, sir.
Mr. CARNEY. Why did it take 2 hours to notify you?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Well, again, let me double-check on that to be
sure. We got initial notification, I think it probably took us awhile
to get out there because it is quite a ways offshore and so by the
time you out on sea and it is going to be at least a couple of hours
by the time you get the helicopters launched.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay, so the on-scene is different than the time you
were notified.
Adm. NEFFENGER. Yes, sir.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay. Then what role did you play once you were
there?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Well, initially, it was a rescue operation.
There were over 100 people on board the vessel and 11 of whom
were very early on identified as missing. So the first was a rescue
operation and then a coordination of those vessels that were on
scene to fight the fire on board the vessel. The Coast Guard does
not do firefighting but we coordinate the efforts of those who do
come out and do firefighting. So the fire-fighting efforts were going
on, we were coordinating those efforts as well as conducting the
search. That search went on for, as you know, a period of about 36
hours or so.

44
Mr. CARNEY. Right, right. Now within your experience, did the
initial, the first responders and the initial response, did that all
work as pre-arranged within the various chains of command that
had been pre-established?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Yes, sir, in my experience, it went according
to our normal protocols and there were no delays in terms of that
response. This is something that we do every day.
Mr. CARNEY. Sure. You know, it is interesting because the initial
reports were that there is no oil flowing out of this explosion. So
we go from zero barrels a day to somewhere between 60 and
100,000. In fact, we have heard the range from zero to 100,000 and
we are still hearing that. That, I imagine, has to cause some confusion obviously in terms of response, et cetera. When did you actually notice the oil starting to flow?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Well, as I said, we thought from the outset
that we had the potential for a major oil spill, so we actually activated our strike teams on the very next day, on the 21st of April.
The first of the strike team members actually began to deploy the
21st, so the very next day, because again, there were 700,000 gallons of fuel oil on board. So at a minimum, we were concerned
about that.
We did not know what might happen with respect to the wellhead. We, like everyone else, assumed that the blowout preventer
would have operated, although we do not typically monitor blowout
preventers. But when the vessel sank on the 22nd
Mr. CARNEY. Let me stop you there. Are you now monitoring the
blowout preventers? Or are you relying on BP to do that or the industry to do that?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Well, again, the Coast Guard does not have
any statutory authority to do so. This is what was the Minerals
Management Service responsibility to do that. I think that that is
a question that needs to be asked with respect to Government oversight. Our responsibility is for the vessel itself, so the mobile offshore drilling unit. But all the drilling equipment and the connection to the drill floor was the responsibility of the Minerals Management Service.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay. I apologize, you were talking about the time
line.
Adm. NEFFENGER. Yes, sir. So anyway, when the rig sank on the
22nd and took down with it that 5,000 feet of riser pipe, when it
hit the bottom, it stirred up a tremendous amount of mud and silt.
So the initial attempts to see what happened were clouded by that
mud and silt. We did not know whether or not it was leaking, but
again, we were already responding as if we were going to have a
massive spill because it took 700,000 gallons of fuel oil down with
it. So at a minimum, we were concerned about that from the Coast
Guard. So we had actually begun to mobilize and we pulled out the
Area Contingency Plan, talked to the State and said we need to
start mobilizing. In fact, we had State representatives in that. The
incident command post in Houma was established on the 21st, the
very next day. The State provided a State on-scene coordinator on
that very day, and in fact, the very first incident action plan that
was signed, talked about mobilizing resources for a major oil spill.
So our approach was potential major oil spill from the outset and

45
our typical response is to then start rolling the resources in, which
we did with the strike team.
As it became clear that there were significant leaks coming off
the top of thatand it took about 24 to 36 hours for the turbidity
to settle and really to get a good look at that riser. Then we realized that we had a potentially much, much larger problem on our
hand. But as I said, we were already rolling a lot of resources in
or had already begun the process, I should say to roll resources in.
Mr. CARNEY. So it is beyond major at this point, by the time the
resources are rolling and the turbidity has cleared, it is clear it is
beyond a major spill. I am not sure what the next step is beyond
a major spill, but we are in the midst of it right now.
Adm. NEFFENGER. Well, it is a worst-case discharge at that point.
Mr. CARNEY. Obviously. The question I had is would you have
done anything differently had you known sort of what the magnitude of the spill was at that time? I mean what else could you
have done had you known?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Had we had perfect information, in other
words.
Mr. CARNEY. Yeah.
Adm. NEFFENGER. I do not think that initially we would have
done anything different. Remember, we were involved in a very
massive search and rescue operation first. That always takes precedence, safety and preservation of life. So that consumed the better
part of the first 12 to 18 hours, the initial 12 to 18 hours and actually stretched out over a longer period as we looked at it. The rig,
as I said, the rig did not sink until the 22nd but when it went
down, we were still looking forwe still had some hope that the
individuals might have survived on the rig, but just were not able
to get free, that they might have been able to free themselves as
the rig sank. But I do not know that there would have been any
different response initially because of the need to mobilize rescue
resources while at the same time beginning to move resources for
a spill response.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay, thank you. Mr. Bilirakis.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, admiral,
for being here and testifying.
Can you give us an update on the latest containment methods?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Yes, sir. Well, today, this is actually a critical
week with respect to containment and I do not know how familiar
you are with the various options that have been in play, but essentially you haveif I can just describe for a moment what was occurring up until yesterday and then what the plan is moving forward.
Up until yesterday, we had a vessel called the Discover Enterprise, which was the so-called top hat that you have heard about.
This is the one where you can see the oil leaking around the skirt
of it. That has been collecting somewhere in the neighborhood of
15,000 barrels daily off the top of that blowout preventer and lower
marine riser package. Attached to one of the lines coming off of the
side, it is called a choke line, is a vessel called the Q4000. It has
been collecting about 8,200 barrels on average a day. It has been
burning all those off because it has no storage capacity, so it has
just been flaring that off. So the combined total has been some-

46
where in the neighborhood of 24- to 25,000 barrels daily coming off
the top of that leak.
The plan moving forward, and this is actually taking place today,
was to remove that top hat and to place instead a sealing cap on
board. Basically another small blowout preventer that will sit on
top of the current blowout preventer, seal tightly and allow for a
100 percent capture of the oil coming off the top of that wellhead,
assuming you do not have any hurricanes or storms that would interrupt the vessel. So there are some additional vessels that have
come on scene in order to collect that oil. However, it also gives the
opportunity to attempt to shut the well in, which is the first thing
that they will do.
So there are Government scientists from the National Laboratories who have been in Houston for the past 80 days or so, and
they have been reviewing, along with the BP engineers and others,
the various steps associated with this. It really comes down to
whether or not the well bore has integrity. So when they close it,
there are three valves or three rams on this device that they are
putting on this weekend. They will attempt to make the initial closure of those rams sometime in the next 48 to 72 hours, depending
upon the testing and what it shows. They will see whether the well
bore holds pressure, and they are expecting it to hold a certain
amount of pressure. If it does, then it should be an indication that
you have a well bore that is intact, and they may actually be able
to shut the well in with no further outflow at all, with the final
closure of the well being the completion of the relief well.
I hope that is responsive to your question.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. When will we know whether this method, this latest method, is successful? Why did we not try it say weeks ago?
Adm. NEFFENGER. As I understand it, and again, I am not an engineer, a sub-sea engineer. But as it has been explained to me and
I have spent a fair amount of time talking with our scientists and
the scientists, engineers, that are working on this; part of the problem initially was that this arrangement of blowout preventer and
this device called the lower marine riser packagethese are actually two separate deviceswhen you have an emergency on board
a mobile offshore drilling unit, the first line of defense of course is
the closure of the blowout preventer. That is supposed to have
sealed it off. The second is what is called an emergency breakaway,
which should have allowed that second piece of equipment called
the lower marine riser package to break free and pull off the top.
Both of those failed, and that of course, isthe ultimate question
is how did that, how did you have a fail of all the fail-safe systems?
Well, because that package did not pull off as designed, there
was no way tohad that top package pulled off, you would have
had an ability to immediately attach another blowout preventer because all the fittings would have been exactly right. So the intervening time it has taken them to bothand you had the blowout
preventer that got kinked over at about a 5-degree angle. So over
the intervening weeks, they have slowly been straightening the
blowout preventer, straightening the fittings, fabricating new fittings to go on top of something that was never designed to take a
blowout preventer, and actually fabricating a new blowout preventer. It just tookas I understand it, it just took those inter-

47
vening days to do that. But they started working on this procedure
immediately when they determined that that piece of equipment
did not come off the top.
But all that tells me is that this is an exceptionally complex undertaking underwater, if not frustrating, that it takes as long as
it does to see results.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Okay, thank you. I would like to talk about the
use of dispersants. Representatives from the Southern Shrimping
Alliance, the director of which lives in my district, they have expressed deep concern that the use of dispersants poses a threat to
certain species in the Gulf of Mexico, including the shrimp. John
Williams, who is executive director of the alliance, wrote NOAA
and EPA weeks ago but has not received a response. My question
is why are dispersants still being used when the EPA called for BP
weeks ago to find a less toxic means of breaking up the oil slicks
at the surface and we have no clue what type of long-term ecological impact dispersants have on the seafood industry, but in general. Are there alternative technologies and then also if so, why are
we not using these technologies?
Adm. NEFFENGER. I think you rightfully note that the EPA is the
governing agency for use of dispersants and they have beenwe
have worked very closely with them with respect to how to use
those and how to use them effectively. They have used very carefully at the toxicity of the current dispersants, they are continuing
to conduct tests. I will tell you that the goal is to minimize their
use as much as possible.
If you have good weather windows, you can skim, burn, and otherwise attack the oil mechanically and significantly reduce the
number of dispersants that you use. But the real tradeoff is between shoreline impact, ultimately shoreline impact and the potential environmental damage that that can do, particularly in sensitive marsh areas and rookeries and the like, and using
dispersants to knock down that a bit. The other reason that they
use dispersants is to knock down the volatile compounds coming up
around the vessels because those pose, not just hazards to human
beings, but explosion hazards out on the sea.
So to that end, EPA has worked very carefully to set levels of dispersant use that they would like to see not exceeded. Those for the
most part have been adhered to, although there have been times
when operations have dictated use of higher levels. The hope is
that this week if they are able to shut the well in, then we can stop
using dispersants entirely because I think that no one ever expected to be using dispersants over this extended period of time.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. CARNEY. Mr. Green for 5 minutes. We are going to adhere
closely to 5 minutes.
Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, admiral,
for your testimony today. I thank the other witness as well. But I
also thank you, admiral, for your service to our country. We appreciate you greatly.
Admiral, there is not a one-size-fits-all response. You indicated
that you initially assumed that you had a major oil spill. Do you
make a distinction in your mind between a major oil spill and what

48
we have with reference to the wellhead and oil continuing to flow
from that wellhead at an enormous rate?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Well, I think that it is a new major oil spill
every day for us. That is the unprecedented piece. I mean we have
an event that has a beginning right now, but most oil spills have
a beginning, middle, and end, the Exxon Valdez, even the very
large ones are generally bound by an event. You have a full release
and then you are done.
So I think what makes this the most challenging oil spill certainly that I have been involved in and probably that this country
has faced is the fact that it is on-going and it is continuous. So
even on a good day when you can collect a lot of oil by skimming,
you can burn a lot of it off and you can collect a lot through the
containment systems, you are still facing another day the next day
of the same thing.
Mr. GREEN. If I may, Admiral, because time is of the essence,
when did you first determine that you needed to throw everything
that you have at it?
Adm. NEFFENGER. I think when we saw those leaks, when we realized that we did not havethe blowout preventer did not work
and when the first images of those individual leaks coming off the
riser pipe were seen, then we knew we had a real problem.
Mr. GREEN. When did you conclude that you did not have enough
resources immediately available to contain this spill?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Well, I just think back in my own experience,
Ive always assumed I do not have enough resources available because you cannot get everything you need fast enough. As an operational commander, I have always said send me everything you can
find and if I do not need it, I will send it back home.
Mr. GREEN. In this case, when did you say send me everything
that you can find?
Adm. NEFFENGER. I think it was within the first few days of discovering that we had that leak coming out.
Now again, I remind you that I became involved on the second
of May, but I can tell you that when I arrived down here on the
third of May, I saw people asking for everything they could get
their hands on. Now the interesting thing is that as I mentioned
before in my opening statement, there were only a few thousand
feet of boom being manufactured weekly in this country prior to
this spill, for obvious reasons. There was not a great demand for
it. So it takes some time to ramp up production and it certainly
takes some time to ramp up production of bigger ticket items like
skimmers, particularly the types of skimmers that you need for inshore and near-shore.
Mr. GREEN. I have two additional questions, Admiral, so I will
have to intercede. One is this, have you received an estimate or a
guesstimate as to the size of the pool of oil that the spill is emanating from?
Adm. NEFFENGER. The reservoir itself?
Mr. GREEN. Yes.
Adm. NEFFENGER. I just know that it is considered a productive
reservoir. I think I would refer that question toin fact, I can take
that question back to the BP engineers to get you an answer as to

49
how much they might expect to produce from that. But I do not
have that answer at my fingertips.
Mr. GREEN. I would like for you to, if you would, give us a written response.
Adm. NEFFENGER. I can do that.
Mr. GREEN. My next question is, given what has happened this
time and while your worst-case scenario, well, your major oil spill
did not coincide with what this has become, a worst-case scenario,
what would you need and what resources would you need, and
what would you do differently if you had the opportunity to have
the resources necessary? How would you go about this, coping with
this and making sure that you had minimal impact by virtue of resources that you could utilize to impact the spill itself?
Adm. NEFFENGER. I think we would always have been challenged
by moving resources in, because again, you havethere are a lot
of resources on the Gulf coast and most of those moved right away,
the large skimming vessels. So getting out to the source was not
the initial concern, it was really preparing, getting enough boom
and other protective devices and materials and technologies along
the beaches as you look at the potential for an impact across a 5State region. That is the unprecedented piece and you have hundreds and hundreds of small communities and sensitive areas and
the like. Most oil spills are limited in geography as well as limited
in time. So you can work to move those massive resources that you
have to those areas. So I think that the challenge is thinking about
what type of capacity do you need to have in reserve for something
that threatens this large of a geographic area.
Mr. GREEN. Thank you.
Mr. CARNEY. Ms. Jackson Lee, 5 minutes, please.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, our colleague has to leave and
I will yield to my colleague from California.
Mr. CARNEY. All right.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you, the gentlelady from Texas and Mr.
Chairman.
I am going to be very brief in my questions and if you could answer as much as possible yes and no, that would be greatly appreciated.
No. 1, Admiral, could you please provide to this committee the
time line for both the skimmers and the boom, how many we have
received, where we got them from and what is our plan forward?
You do not have to give it to us right this moment, but within the
next, preferably 48 hours, if you could give us the time line. I know
it has gone anywhere from 300 to 447 3 weeks ago to now I think
somewhere around 500-something. I think it is supposed to get to
750. So if you could let us know, because I think that is a key point
in how the recovery or the response occurred.
My second question, Ms. Kayyem, clearly from the comments
that have been made from the first panel, there is a concern about
the terms of what is being communicated. I have watched the admiral make his presentation, Admiral Allen, and although it was
excellent and all of that, to the general layman, it is quite complicated. So would you please take back to the Secretary for her
very serious consideration of immediately, not lessons learned next
time, but now, how quickly can we get a crew out here to begin to

50
televise on a daily basis pictures of what is happening, go out in
the boats, so people will accurately know what is going on. Because
as I said in my beginning comments, I have not found the coverage
to be accurate thus far, of what I viewed of the media in terms of
the entire coverage.
The next is
Ms. KAYYEM. Yes, I will. Thank you.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Okay. Admiral, if you would pleaseI do not
know if you had an opportunity to hear Mr. Guidry, but he works
for the State and when we were out there today in the impacted
marsh, he admitted from the State level that one of the processes
that they have used in the past has been to cut and to allow the
flow to go through. Apparently there is disagreement out there in
the sensitive area where we were, which was Pass a Loutre, of allowing that. So would you please double back and make a commitment to finding out if the State has already allowed it, why is there
a concern now in the sensitive area? If I am not mistaken, you are
in charge. So if you are in charge, the Coast Guard is in charge,
what my request would be is if there is any disagreement, test one
or two, and if it works, then we know. But to hold back and to
allow it to sit there when that has not always been the practice
that has been used I think certainly merits your review.
Adm. NEFFENGER. I will take a look at that and we will get a
report back to you.
Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you, sir.
Then my last comments that I just wanted to make was a little
bit of the facts of what I have learned, and I am on my way to
learn some more. One, I want to say that to my knowledge, over
600 media individuals have been allowed the opportunity to view
what is going on. I do not think that has been clearly communicated, that there has been a very free moving back and forth.
No. 2, 75 Members of Congress have been out here. There are
46,000 workers out there working right now every day, many of
them from 6:00 a.m. in the morning until 10:00 at night, and that
is not being said.
No. 3, finally, what I think is most important, my closing point,
is to your liaisons. Commander Dan Precourt, who is in the Tammany area in Slidell, and Commander Claudia Guiser, I just want
to say what incredible people and what they are doing and the
folks all who are working with them, not just with the Coast
Guard, but other teams as well, local, State, and so on. The people,
what they are doing, the passion that they have, they are doing everything that they can. If they could lay their bodies out there and
stop one more seep, they would do so. I do not think enough people
know it. It is our job to make sure that they are aware of it and
to give them the resources that they need.
But I am very grateful for what has happened and hopefully we
will make sure that this never occurs again.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you. Ms. Jackson Lee, you may reclaim your
time now.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me
thank the witnesses very much and to admiral, we meet again in
New Orleans, as you well know, it should be noted well that you

51
were ever present during Hurricane Katrina in being first on the
search and rescue of 22,000 individuals. That number may have
gone up out of the waters of Hurricane Katrina right out of this
city, and again, we want to offer our appreciation.
To Madam Secretary, let me just suggest beyond those who are
working here, to make it very clear that in the instance of this administration, a quick response has been evident. The Presidents
establishment of a task force that included the Secretary of Homeland Security, the many hours that the EPA Administrator has
been on the ground, the Secretary of the Interior, collaborative
work of the Secretary of Homeland Security and, of course, the U.S.
Coast Guard that has dual jurisdiction in transportation and homeland security have been ever-present. I think that is important because it is difficult to explain the work that the Government is
doing.
I was with the EPA Administrator this weekend and I know that
she has spent a number of hours, along with the Secretaries, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Homeland Security. This is important because as you heard the Colonel say, are you going to
leave us, are you going to stay and to finish the mission?
My question to you, Madam Secretary, are we going to finish the
mission? Two, what are you doing to answer the question of the
mayor as it relates to more resources from BP to help them with
their tourism quandary that they are in? Also, his question as to
how we can translate technicalese language, reporting language on
conference calls to comforting language to businesses and citizens.
Ms. KAYYEM. Well, let me begin with the first one, which is no
one is going anywhere. I do not just speak for the Coast Guard or
the Department. To describe the number of Federal agencies who
are working with the States and localities on everything ranging
from the health issues and the EPA issues, which you described,
to worker exploitation, to the environment, marshland, and cleanup is an amazing relationship between the Federal Government,
the States, and localities. Part of what their job is, is to not only
help right now, but to lay a foundation for the important long-term
reconstruction and recovery of this area that is not just about the
environment and the waters, but of course about the people who
have lost jobs or who may have to change jobs. So all of those are
part of the mandate that Secretary Mabus, as the President had
described and one that we are in partnership with Secretary
Mabus team. You know they have been down here a couple of
times already, because we view both the response and the longterm recovery as hand-in-hand.
To the last point about the speaking inbeing able to speak to
communities, we heard that, we hear that, and we will continue to
do that. Part of that is being able to explain to people sort of outside the noise of a lot of the complaints that we have received. We
are not immune to what we see on TV either and so I asked this
morning, just to give you an example, because I hear it. It sounds
like we are not permitting emergency permits given the speed by
which we need to get things done and I actually learned this morning that of the emergency permits on the environmental side by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, they have gotten 101 permit requests, 79 have been issued, only 8 are pending.

52
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I only have a few more seconds.
Ms. KAYYEM. Yes. So in terms of putting this in perspective for
people to know the speed by which we are working.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much.
Admiral, if you would, strike teams have been very effective and
I think people were confused about the line of command and who
was leading, if you will. I have always or I have cited what is going
on with BP as a cardiac surgeon having the talent to operate on
a patient but having no talent to close the patient and the patient
bleeds to death. What would be helpful in terms of more resources,
more knowledge on technology on our strike teams? Secondarily,
has BP, after the June 9 letter of Admiral Watson, provided you
with their redundancy if Plan B and C do not work? What then are
we expecting and what kind of enforcement will the unified command have, the strike teams have, the Federal Government have
on the fact that they have no further answers or making them get
an answer?
Adm. NEFFENGER. I will start with the first question on the
strike teams. I think that is a relevant question. You know, we
have three strike teams in the Coast Guard, they are managed out
of the National Strike Force Coordination Center in Elizabeth City,
North Carolina. I think it is important to take a look at what type
of resourcing we need there going forward and what we learn out
of this spill. They are sized for a certain type of expectation and
I think that this spill response has taught us that maybe we need
to take a look at what those expectations are. So I think that is
a good question to ask.
Second, with respect to the letter to BP, they have indeed provided a plan for redundancy. I described part of that plan just a
moment ago with this cap, but there is a significant additional collection capacity that is on scene in the event this cap does not
work, that we believe will be adequate to contain everything coming off of the top of that. If it is not, then they will have to continuewell, I will put it this way, if what they currently attach to
it is not enough to collect it, then they have got additional vessels
on hand that we expect them to bring into the fight to continue to
collect.
So I think that moving forward, they have provided us with assurances that they understand the need for redundancy, they have
not yet failed to provide anything that we have asked for and we
are hopeful that the combination of what they are attempting this
weekend and the additional vessels that have come on scene should
be enough to contain 100 percent of what is coming out and/or close
it in completely.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. You will not be giving up?
Adm. NEFFENGER. No, maam; no, as I said before, we are in this
until it is over, however long that is. So this is my job for a long
time.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, maam. I hope not too long.
[Laughter.]
Mr. CARNEY. But we are glad you are here.
Now the last SONS exercises in March of this year, were any of
the lessons learned there brought to bear in this particular case?

53
Adm. NEFFENGER. Well, what I would say is you learn a lot of
immediate lessons out of exercises and communications is always
one of the first lessons. You have to talk to people up and down
and sideways. It is always the greatest challenge.
I think the real challenge in this one goes back to what I mentioned earlier and that is that it affected so many different communities so quickly and it is on-going. This is really the first response
where you are already dealing with recovery and restoration issues
in the middle of an on-going response.
So some of those lessons are always carried forward. The final
after-action report I do not believe has been done yet for that, but
as I said, the initial lessons are that you need to establish a National incident command, that was one that we learned and we did
that immediately as this was declared a Spill of National Significance. You need to work very quickly on establishing effective communications and getting a good handle on the information flow. As
you know, those have been challenges, but we are getting better
with that as we go along.
Ms. KAYYEM. That was exactly the lesson that we learned working with the Coast Guard, in the Office of the Secretary, was the
inner-governmental communications could not be fast enough or
constant enough given, in that case, an exercise that just hit I
think two States and the east coast. Given the breadth and depth
and just how long this has been, that is why we have so many people deployed, that is why we established a liaison program and, as
I said, we are learning as we go along. The States are one thing,
and as you heard from the mayor, they have communications
issues within their own chain of command and within their own
State. Where did the $50 million go that BP gave to the State, that
is something that the States will have to answer to and so there
is a lot ofjust because we are talking to a Governors office does
not mean that that is going to be acceptable or necessary for the
locality. So that is why we deployed these 80 folks into only local
parishes or jurisdictions.
Mr. CARNEY. One thing we learned from the previous panel is
the issue of flexibility. I think that word was said about half a
dozen times. In terms of communication, Madam Secretary, where
are you going to go with the flexibility of communication, you
know, to take input from locals who seem to know how to respond,
who have done it in the past and work that all the way up to the
President if need be?
Ms. KAYYEM. I think some of them have. So I think part of our
lessons learned is, No. 1, do people know where to go to actually
with their ideas or their response plans? I think, as you heard, we
have worked that through much better now. I think part of that
is because people see Coast Guard officials in their local EOCs,
they know how to access the Coast Guard at the State EOCs. We
have got a lot more people deployed, so they know how to access
it. That is the first thing.
The second is a much more difficult issue, which I will just be
blunt with you about. Sometimes we cannot get agreement. I mean
you have seen it on some of the more large, grand proposals that
have come out of some localities. Sometimes there is just going to
be reasonable disagreement. What we are trying to do is explain

54
to people why we are going to go one path and not the other. So
we are taking seriously both the access to information issue and
speaking maybe to more people more effectively, and then also explaining why certain decisions were made. Just quickly, the marsh
issue, right? There is reasonable disagreementthese are things I
never knew beforeabout why you would let oil sit in marshes and
just evaporate, because if you put a lot of people in there to clean
it up, you are going to kill the marshes. I did not know that, we
need to explain it better. I did not know that before and we need
to explain it better. That is a choice that we have made through
the unified command.
Mr. CARNEY. Oil does not kill the marshes?
Ms. KAYYEM. Pardon? It does. These are the choices. None of
these are ideal choices. I mean we start every day knowing that we
are dealing with the worst environmental and oil spill. So any time
there is slightly good news, that is a better day, and hopefully we
are getting closer to some better days.
Mr. CARNEY. Mr. Bilirakis.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, as I noted in my opening statement, NOAA has predicted this will be an active to extremely active as far as the hurricane season is concerned. High winds and rough seas from Hurricane Alex delayed response efforts. In addition to the delay in the
response efforts, what other impacts on the response and clean-up
do you anticipate if another hurricane enters the Gulf and what
impact might hurricanes have on the trajectory of the oil and to
what extent does the Unified Command work with FEMA to define
roles and responsibilities for dealing with the potential of more oil
coming ashore as a result of a hurricane?
Adm. NEFFENGER. With respect to the planning that we are concerned about. As you know, there are mature structures in place,
mature plans in place for hurricanes along the Gulf coast. So we
have a lot of experience, just like the State. Working together with
them to plan for the normal types of evacuations that you might
expect to see. In our case, it is evacuating people from offshore and/
or conducting the various rescue operations that generally come
with weather systems that move offshore.
The spill, of course, added some significant complexity to that.
We have a lot of critical resources now that we have put to bear
on this spill, whether it be skimming equipment, specialized vessels, boom and the like. So without speaking about the interruption
of the actual attempt to clean, you have got to think about how you
protect that equipment by retrieving it, putting it into safe harbors
and/or safekeeping and then immediately putting it back on scene
after the hurricane passes.
So in real terms, you are probably looking at about a 2-week
interruption by the time you get that equipment out, and we have
been working with logisticians and the DOD and others to think
about how you would actually take 6,000-plus vessels out of the region, protect them, over 3.5 million feet of boom out of the region,
protect it, and get it re-established, re-deployed. So that is a significant challenge. I do not say that lightly because I think that it is
likely that it would be difficult to save all the boom, for example.

55
In fact, most of it you would have to consider lost, but it will do
its own damage.
Storm systems typically push in from the south, as you know, so
you are going to get strong southerly winds. Alex is a good example
of some of the challenges that we would face. It raised the storm
tides by about a foot and a half and we suddenly saw tar balls coming into Lake Pontchatrain. That is because of the surge action
from a storm that was in the southwest of the Gulf. That flushed
back out fortunately and we saw many of those tar balls come back
out of Lake Pontchatrain. But you would see some type of impact
like that.
With respect to FEMA, we have been working very closely with
FEMA over the past month and a half to define responsibilities, respective responsibilities, under this spill response. The definitions
are already there for a normal hurricane but we had to determine
what happens with this spill response. The basics of what happens
is that the Federal on-scene coordinator remains the Federal onscene coordinator for clean-up of any oil impact from this spill.
FEMA has responsibility for the Stafford Act declaration that
might follow and the normal assistance and support to the State
and localities that would result from that. So we have drawn a very
clear line and if you are interested, there is actually a very detailed
hurricane plan for this response, which we can provide.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. We would like that.
Adm. NEFFENGER. Okay.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Madam Secretary, would you like to respond as
well?
Ms. KAYYEM. Just to make absolutely clear to you that for purposes of the individuals who would be impacted by a hurricane,
what they know, which is the Stafford Act regime, will apply. So
there is nothere is this bright line because what we heard from
the Secretary and the President was we do not want to mix anything up. So just to be clear that that regime of remedy would still
absolutely apply regardless if the spill had stopped, was on-going
or whatever else.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you.
Admiral, do you have sufficient resources to carry out your additional missions? Can you answer that question? Because I know
this is a big responsibility, and how can we help as Members of
Congress?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Well, I think as I said to somebody once, you
know, there is no operational commander who will ever say no to
additional resources. But as I look at it, the real challenge for any
agency going forward would be surging to this extent for an extended period of time. We have a significant number of our personnel assigned to this response, a significant number of our vessels, quite a few aircraft, and we have to do that while balancing
the needs around the rest of the country. We are fortunate in that
we have no other major incidents occurring in this country right
now. But if we were to have one, it wouldwe would be stretched
thin I believe.
So I think the question going forward is what is thehow much
surge capacity do you need a single agency to have and if you cannot afford the surge capacity you think it should have, how best to

56
integrate all the other arms of Government to be part of this, because honestly this event, there is no single agency that could manage an event like this by itself, you really do need all those other
departmental agencies to be part of it as well. So I think that moving forward, the planning has to take into account how you integrate, effectively integrate, all those different arms of Government
to take their various roles. But I think that it will remain a challenge for us moving forward if this were to extend for another extended period of time.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, appreciate
it.
Mr. CARNEY. Mr. Green.
Mr. GREEN. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
One question, admiral. The BP worst-case scenario plan, that
plan is something that you were privy to: True?
Adm. NEFFENGER. For this particular well?
Mr. GREEN. Yes.
Adm. NEFFENGER. No, sir, there is no requirement for the Coast
Guard to have reviewed the plan that was submitted to the Minerals Management Service. We required a plan for the vessel, for
the mobile offshore drilling unit, because it is classified as a vessel.
We required a response plan for that
Mr. GREEN. Have you had occasion to review the plan at all?
Adm. NEFFENGER. I have reviewed the plan since this event; yes,
sir.
Mr. GREEN. All right, given that you have reviewed the plan,
whether you were required to or not, what is your assessment of
that worst-case scenario plan?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Well, I would say that it did not envision this
type of scenario. Their plan, as most plans do, envisioned a bounded event, an event that had a beginning, middle, and end. So it did
not take into account the potential for a well that was uncontrolled
for this period of time.
Mr. GREEN. The plan has been criticized, as you know, in the
various media outlets. Some of the criticisms have gone to animals
that were to be preserved that no longer exist; persons that were
to be contacted that are no longer with us. What other deficiencies
did you find in the plan? I want you to be a little bit specific if you
can, please?
Adm. NEFFENGER. Well, I can give you a more complete answer
for the record, but I would say in general terms, ifand going forward, I think that we need to look at closing that gap, so that
it is clear to me that we need to haveif the Coast Guard is responsible for overseeing and ensuring the effective response to oil
spills in the maritime environment, then I would like to know what
the plans are associated with those, all the plans associated with
the potential for oil to spill in the maritime environment. I think
a detailed review of that plan is in order, as are all other plans associated with the potential for oils to spill, not just from vessels but
from any entity on the outer continental shelf, because I think that
that would be helpful in terms of our response.
I will say though that regardless, we prepareI always assume
its going to be the worst possible thing that is going to happen. Because as I said before, you can always turn things around and send

57
them home. But with respect to specific deficiencies, I think that
what I would like to do is let some of the investigations really play
out and see what they recommend coming out of this. I know that
there are a number of investigative arms that are taking a good
hard look at that, and I am interested in seeing what their recommendations are for how to improve those plans in the future.
Mr. GREEN. I will yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay, Mr. Cao is here, so he gets to ask a question.
Mr. CAO. I just have one question to the Secretary. Post-Katrina,
we saw a lack of communications between Federal agencies. Now
in regards to the oil spill, we again see a lack of communications
between the different Federal agencies with, for example, just looking at the construction of the berms, the Army Corps of Engineers
would say build and then someone else would come and say well,
let us stop, move the pipe someplace else. It generated all kinds of
confusion for the State as well as for the local governments.
What do you have planned to promote better inter-agency communications in the event of a future natural disaster or a future
oil spill?
Ms. KAYYEM. Well, let me talk generally and then to that specific
issue. So twice a day, both the cabinet Secretaries and then the
White House hosts an inter-agency call as well, just to get the Federal family in place because of that concern that we wanted to have
everyone on the same page. There are a number of important equities involved with this response. We take the environmental concern seriously, we take the response concern seriously, everyone
has a seat at the table. Even within the Federal family, we may
not always agree, but everyone has a place at the table for the ultimate decision-maker, which is of course the President, but the National incident command structure, which oversees this.
So in terms of communication, that is how we are trying to get
a unifiedthat is how we sort-of demand a unified voice by the
Federal Government. Then as I described earlier, the sort of outreach to the States and localities about what it is that we are doing
and why we are doing it, and we have lessons learned in terms of
how we are communicating. So, for example, you know, on almost
every sort of major initiative announcement, say the Ken Feinberg
claims announcement, we were very, very clear about what that
would mean and what it did not mean and then we are sort of a
unified Federal family.
On the issue about the berm, and obviously a very controversial,
very, very publicyou know, we have an Army Corps of Engineers
that is running quickly on its emergency permits, it has issued all
but one in less than 17 days. So we are focusing on the big one,
but we are focusing on the minority in terms of what the Army
Corps of Engineers is doing every day. If someone heard the Army
Corps of Engineers say this is advancing, apologies for that, but actually the Army Corps of Engineers always knew it was not the ultimate decider. So even if it had approved something, which it had
only approved a piece of it, ultimately the decision is made by the
National incident commander. The Army Corps of Engineers is just
looking at the feasibility of doing this; the National incident commander is looking at is this actually something that is going to

58
bea larger question which is, is this part of the response or feasible response plan.
Reasonable people disagree about that, but that is why it may
appear the focus of where we are, but we have heard you and others concerned about was that red tape. For us, that was actually
the necessary sort of different equities that had sort of a strong
different agencies having a strong equity in the ultimate decision.
Mr. CAO. What I have seen at the ground level obviously is the
inability of the Federal Government to make quick decisions. In situations such as an oil spill, we do not have a period of weeks or
months to do one study and another study and another study.
Quick decisions have to be made and again, there seems to be the
inability of the Federal Government to do that. What ways can we
streamline
Ms. KAYYEM. We had the similar concern and so over the course
of two and a half or however long we have been doing this, the
summer of 2010, part of what we have been doing is to ensure that
the Coast Guard and all the agencies are flat-lining their decisionmaking authority. It does not meanthe deputy incident command
structure that is established, it is the liaison structure that we
have in place with these 80 folks who are making sort of basic decisions. So flat-lining it so the decisions are made quickly about the
deployment of assets, when things are coming in, making sure that
every Federal partner knows the seriousness of this so, once again,
people believe the Corps of Engineers is studying, studying, studying, when you actually look at the numbers, 79 have been issued
out of 101 permits with 12 of those withdrawn because they were
never going to satisfy the Corps. So we have only done two denials
and we issued all but one of them with in 17 days. That is not
ideal, you want decisions made in a day, but that is pretty fast
from the perspective of the kinds of projects that we want forward.
The movement of boom is always related to the weather, we are
making those decisions every single morning.
So we are concerned about that, we have heard it, we are trying
to flat-line the Federal family and work with the States about what
are they doing and what assets are they utilizing that can support
us. So as you know, 17,000 National Guard had been authorized
by Secretary Napolitano and Secretary Gates in that first week to
be used. Only a small fraction are being utilized by the States.
What can the States bring to the table as well on the Federal bill,
and ultimately the BP bill actually, to assist in getting to yes, very,
very quickly. So we look forward to working with the States in sort
of the expansive use of their National Guard as well.
Mr. CAO. Thank you, I yield back.
Mr. CARNEY. Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Questions always start mounting when you
hear other Members raise concerns.
Let me pose to you, admiral, I represent a large segment of the
Gulf region that has individuals who live off the Gulf, whether it
is fishermen and shrimpers, and when I say represent, they are in
the region in Texas and we have worked with them through different hurricanes as a Member of the Homeland Security Committee. But also thousands of innocent workers who are in the oil
and gas industry, who live off those types of opportunities, if you

59
will, and many around the Nation do not understand that. I think
one of the witnesses said they were sitting next to shrimpers and
people in the industry and both saying the same thing about the
need to preserve their way of life, their opportunity for an income.
With that in mind, you have been very careful not to step on jurisdictional toes and I respect that, but I want from your experience just as you have seen the building blocks come together,
would you think it would be important that we ramp up and make
more stringent, for example, the kind of recovery redundancy
plans, the kinds of plans that the industry has previously had to
file on something as catastrophic as this oil spill is?
Adm. NEFFENGER. I think that is a major lesson learned already,
that we need to revisit the types of plans that we require and what
those plans contain. I think that is something that we are already
looking at inside the Coast Guard.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. One of the ideas that I have and let me say
it and not necessarily ask you to comment unless you feel positively
inspired. But I like you being gracious about the many agencies
and I think the collaboration has been wonderful, but after 9/11,
America woke up and said we need a general, we need a chief, we
need someone to protect the homeland. It is the Department of
Homeland Security, we cannot get away from it. Frankly, as I
looked at a legislative fix, I think it is enormously important to
vest that authority, even more so, in the Department of Homeland
Security, which then raises the ante for the component that you
may have, for example, because I think the Coast Guard, who has
been very effective on the high seas of going and boarding ships
and arresting people if necessary for the ills of the sea, has the
kind of authority that can make it clear that your recovery plan
must be of a great level of excellence and that there be no tomfoolery at relates to this kind of business which can be very dangerous. It can be very positive, but it can be very dangerous.
Do you have thoughts about the need to ensure a better enforcement so that we can be attuned to who is not following the law and
who is?
Adm. NEFFENGER. I think your points are spot on. With respect
to the particular planning enforcement, it goes back to my earlier
comment about what I have already seen to be a gap between the
requirements of what was the Minerals Management Service for
producing plans, and the requirement of the Coast Guard for producing vessel plans. Those two did not come together. In retrospect,
those are two things that should come together. So I absolutely
agree that at a minimum, we need to look at closing that gap, so
that those agencies, such as the Coast Guard, that are responsible
for responding to and overseeing cleanup of oil spills on the water,
understand all the potential oil spills that might occur.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, very quickly, I am going to
suggest that we try to overcome those sticky jurisdictional issues
and look at coming together, the vessel plans and the rig plans; but
I know you have an answer. But let me just quickly throw this to
you as my time goes.
First of all, you can go back to the Secretary and indicate that
Congresswoman Jackson Lee wants the Coast Guard to have arrest
powers as they go on the drilling rigs if they are not going to ad-

60
here to the commands that are being made, if there is a dangerous
situation.
But I do want to ask you quickly about this claims system which,
again, is ad hoc. We think the person who has had great history
with 9/11, but I think there should be a better claims process, independent claims process, that comes under an umbrella of some
agency when it is required, beyond FEMA because this is not a
natural disaster, has not been declared. What about a claims system that would be based or have some connection to the Department of Homeland Security and are you all ensuring that this
claims system is working? I do not think it will because there is
a push-back by BP for shrimpers and oyster men, where are their
receipts, where are the restaurants receipts? It does not work that
way.
Ms. KAYYEM. So, just very quickly, we do have confidence in the
independent assessments and claims process that Ken Feinberg is
sort of reviewing right now. He is going to be completely up and
running within 2 weeks, he has spent a lot of time in the field. In
the interim, the Secretary recognizing the same thing thatmost
people know Stafford, we have got to deliver on their needs. She
set up with Tracy Waring, who is behind me, is the lead in integrated services team that is taking all the claims available to folks
and all the money that might be accessible, explaining it to them,
providing them information. So in terms of claims, just even today,
53,000 total checks have been written, 160,000 claims filed. So that
is about 50 percent right now.
The biggest issue right now is ensuring that what is in place now
and the Ken Feinberg regime which is going to be up and running
within 2 weeks, that it is perfect for the individuals and the businesses. That is what we are committed to, so that is why we are
going to continue with the integrated services teams.
On the moratorium issue and the 100 million that was reserved,
we have been pushing BP to determine what in fact is going to be
covered by that 100 million. I believe today or tomorrow, the Department of Justice will be issuing a letter to BP regarding what
are the plans in terms of those who may be further down, sort of
involved with issues related to the economic impact of the spill and
so
Mr. CARNEY. Madam Secretary, I am going to cut you off there.
We are going long, we have a number of folks that need to get on
a plane and we still have another panel to go.
I would like to thank both you and the admiral for your testimony. As all good panels do, you stimulate more questions and boy,
we are going to let you have it. Please respond promptly once we
send them, but we need to start the third panel.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Dempsey, are you awake?
Mr. DEMPSEY. I am, sir.
Mr. CARNEY. Good for you, that is great.
I think we are just going to jump right into it.
Okay, our only witness on this panel is Mr. Ray Dempsey, Vice
President of Strategy for BP America. Mr. Dempsey is currently deployed as part of the Deepwater Horizon response team, leading external affair activities across the State of Florida. For the response,

61
Mr. Dempsey is based in the Florida peninsula command post in
Miami.
Prior to being deployed on the response, Mr. Dempsey has been
Vice President of Strategy and Portfolio for BPs Chicago-based
Fuels Value Change Strategic Performance Unit, a Fortune 100size division of BP. Mr. Dempseys responsibilities include crude oil
and fuel products market analysis, development of long-term strategy and business plans, business development, portfolio management, and project implementation.
Previous to this current role, Mr. Dempsey was the Vice President and Regional Director for BPs Latin America and Caribbean
Region with responsibility for external affairs, crisis management,
planning, and strategy.
Over his 20-year career, he has held various engineering, environmental, strategy, and financial roles in BPs refining, retail, and
corporate staff organizations. Mr. Dempsey holds a bachelors degree in industrial engineering from Kansas State University in
Manhattan, Kansas and a masters degree in business administration from Northwestern Universitys Kellogg Graduate School of
Management in Evanston, Illinois.
Mr. Dempsey is a member of the Board of Directors for the BP
Foundation and is a member of the Deans Advisory Council for the
College of Engineering at his alma mater, Kansas State. Mr.
Dempsey also is a member of the BP Advisory Board for the National Society of Black Engineers and is a Board liaison for the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, NACME.
Without objection, the witness full statement will be inserted
into the record. I will now ask Mr. Dempsey to summarize his
statement for 5 minutes, please.
STATEMENT OF RAY DEMPSEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF
STRATEGY, BP AMERICA

Mr. DEMPSEY. Thank you, Chairman Carney, Ranking Member

Bilirakis, Members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the invitation to appear today before this subcommittee to discuss information-sharing practices related to the oil spill response efforts.
I have worked for BP for 20 years, as you noted. On May 6, 2010,
I became a senior BP official in the St. Petersburg Unified Command, which directs the spill response efforts for the west coast of
Florida and works together with incident command centers
throughout the Gulf region. As part of my responsibilities, I also
oversaw the St. Petersburg Joint Information Center where BP
worked with the Coast Guard and other Federal and State government representatives to share information on spill-related efforts.
The St. Petersburg Incident Command Post is now a branch of
the Miami-based Florida Peninsula Command Post which I joined
in early June. While I am directly responsible for supporting BPs
response efforts in Florida, I also work closely with my colleagues
across the Gulf region and have spent time along the Gulf coast as
we stand united in this unprecedented response effort.
We are devastated by this horrendous accident. It has profoundly
touched all of us and we are committed to doing the right thing for
the people affected by this spill. The friends, family, and loved ones
of those who lost their lives in this tragic accident remain in my

62
thoughts and prayers. Even as we absorb the human dimensions
of this tragedy, we are also committed to doing everything possible
to minimize and mitigate the environmental and economic impacts
of the spill on the Gulf coast.
As you have heard in earlier testimony, the overall region-wide
spill response efforts are led by the Unified Area Command and retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen is the National Incident
Commander with ultimate responsibility for the overall response
effort. Coast Guard Admiral James Watson is the Federal OnScene Coordinator and the Unified Area Command currently based
here in New Orleans includes personnel from BP, Transocean, the
Coast Guard, multiple Federal agencies, and the affected States.
To support the Unified Area Command, Incident Command Posts
have been established in Mobile, Alabama; Houma, Louisiana; and
Miami, Florida. The Incident Command Posts facilitate direct communication with State, city, parish, Tribal, and county officials and
direct a significant portion of the near-shore and on-shore response
efforts. BP personnel play key roles in supporting the incident command posts along with personnel from the Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security and other Federal and State personnel.
In addition, the BP Command Center based in Houston, which focuses on the source control, is supportive of the Unified Area Command.
Importantly, all sub-sea, surface, and shoreline response efforts
are coordinated through and must ultimately be approved by the
Unified Area Command. The response currently involves approximately 46,000 personnel, over 6,000 vessels and 118 aircraft. As a
result of the efforts, approximately 740,000 barrels of oil have been
collected or flared by available containment systems and approximately 3 million feet of boom have been deployed.
BP has committed tremendous global resources to the response
effort. Our efforts are focused on two goalsstopping the flow of
oil and minimizing the environmental and economic impacts from
the spill. Towards this end, BP is deploying resources to fight the
spill at the sub-sea, the surface, and the shoreline. These activities
are carried out under the direction of the Unified Area Command.
A key responsibility of the Unified Area Command is the timely,
accurate information sharing. This is critical to the success of our
operations and our obligations to governments, businesses, and individuals in the Gulf who have been affected by the spill. Our information-sharing expectations and objectives can be summed up
rather simplyto ensure the timely, accurate updates to the public, to ensure close alignment and communications within the Unified Area Command to facilitate effective operations, and to effectively liaison with local officials, the private sector, and nongovernmental groups to address concerns and assure that recommendations are fully considered and implemented as appropriate.
To successfully meet our goals, we have developed a number of
formal and informal channels of communication.
First, the Unified Area Command holds regularly scheduled
meetings to facilitate timely information sharing among the Unified Area Command members.
Second, in addition to the formal briefings, the Incident Command Posts communicate with the Unified Area Command mul-

63
tiple times throughout the day. Decisions and recommendations
made in the Incident Command Post are communicated up through
ordinary command and through the Government and BP channels.
Third, BP, within the context of the Unified Command and as
the responsible party, regularly responds to information requests
from key Federal and State entities such as OSHA, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy. Moreover, Federal
Government personnel, including the Coast Guard, have been a
continuous presence at the BP Houston command center.
Finally, the Unified Area Commands external communications
are largely handled by the Department of Homeland Securitys
Emergency Support Function Number 15, which includes the Joint
Information Center, a Government affairs team and a community
affairs team.
We believe the Unified Area Command structure in place has
been largely effective. With any undertaking of this size and complexity, there is always room for improvement. We are committed
to making these improvements every day.
BP is under no illusions about the seriousness of the situation
that we face. The world is watching us. President Obama and
members of his cabinet have visited the Gulf region and made clear
their expectations of BP and our industry. So have Governors and
local officials, Members of Congress, and the American people. We
know that we will be judged by our response to this crisis and I
can assure you that my colleagues and I at BP are fully committed
to ensuring that we do the right thing. We are mounting the largest spill response effort in history. The complexities, as you have
heard described, are unprecedented. We and the entire industry
will learn from this terrible event, and will emerge from it stronger, smarter, and safer.
I am very happy to answer your questions.
[The statement of Mr. Dempsey follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT

OF

RAY DEMPSEY

JULY 12, 2010 1

Chairman Carney, Ranking Member Bilirakis, Members of the subcommittee, I
am Ray Dempsey, Vice President for Strategy & Portfolio for BP America. I am
pleased to appear today before this subcommittee to discuss information sharing
practices related to the oil spill response efforts.
I have worked for BP for 20 years. On May 6, 2010, I joined the St. Petersburg
Unified Command, which directs spill response efforts for the west coast of Florida
and works together with incident command centers throughout the Gulf region, as
a senior BP official. As part of my responsibilities, I also oversaw the St. Petersburg
Joint Information Center, where BP worked with the Coast Guard and other Federal and State government representatives to share information on spill-related efforts. The St. Petersburg Incident Command Post is now a branch of the Miamibased Florida Peninsula Command Post, which I joined in early June. While I am
directly responsible for supporting BPs response efforts in Florida, I also work
closely with my colleagues across the Gulf region and have spent time along the
Gulf Coast as we stand united in this unprecedented response effort.
There is an enormous team working on the response efforts, with over 47,000 personnel deployed throughout the Gulf region. In my role, I focus on information sharing within the Unified Area Command generally, and the Florida Peninsula Command Post more specifically.
1 The data described throughout this testimony is accurate to the best of my knowledge as
of Friday, July 9, 2010, when this testimony was prepared. The information that we have continues to develop as our response to the incident continues.

64
We are devastated by this horrendous accident. This incident has profoundly
touched all of us, and we are all committed to doing the right thing for the people
affected by this spill. Even as we absorb the human dimensions of this tragedy, we
are committed to doing everything possible to minimize the environmental and economic impacts of the oil spill on the Gulf Coast. I volunteered for my current assignment because I want to help the company respond to this spill and to address the
needs of the people in the Gulf Coast region.
THE UNIFIED AREA COMMAND STRUCTURE

Overall region-wide spill response efforts are led by the Unified Area Command
(UAC). Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen is the National Incident Commander with ultimate responsibility for the overall response effort, and Coast Guard
Admiral James Watson is the Federal On-Scene Coordinator. The UAC, currently
based in New Orleans, Louisiana, includes personnel from BP and Transocean, the
Coast Guard, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOE), and other Federal entities such as the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Energy, and Defense, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the affected States.
To support the UAC, Incident Command Posts (ICPs) have been established in
Mobile, Alabama; Houma, Louisiana; and Miami, Florida. The ICPs facilitate direct
communication with State, city, parish, Tribal, and county officials and direct a significant portion of the near-shore and on-shore response efforts. BP personnel play
key roles in supporting the ICPs, along with personnel from the Coast Guard and
DHS and other Federal and State personnel. Twenty branch locations (nine serve
under the Houma ICP, nine under the Mobile ICP, and two under the Miami ICP)
serve as Forward Operating Bases to help protect the shoreline and provide locations for efficient storage and deployment of the equipment, materials, and personnel needed for this response. Local government personnel engage with the BP
and U.S. Coast Guard personnel at these branches. In addition, the BP Command
Center based in Houston, which focuses on source control, also supports the UAC.
Importantly, all subsea, surface, and shoreline response efforts are coordinated
through, and must ultimately be approved by, the UAC. The response currently involves approximately 47,000 personnel, 6,670 vessels and 118 aircraft. As a result
of these efforts, approximately 740,000 barrels of oil have been collected or flared
by available containment systems and approximately 3 million feet of boom has
been deployed. These actions have all been carried out under the direction of the
UAC.
BPS ROLE IN THE UAC

BP has committed tremendous global resources to the response effort. Our efforts
are focused on two goals: Stopping the flow of oil and minimizing the environmental
and economic impacts from the spill. Towards this end, BP is deploying resources
to fight the spill at the subsea, surface, and shoreline.
For example, immediately following the explosion, in coordination with the Unified Command, BP activated its pre-approved spill response plan and began mobilizing oil spill response resources including skimmers, storage barges, tugs, aircraft,
dispersant, and open-water and near shore boom. Today, BP carries out these activities through the ICPs. Currently, the Houma ICP directs offshore and near-shore
skimming, dispersants, and controlled burn efforts. The nine branches serving
under the Houma ICP direct the tactical response for near-shore skimming, marsh,
and beach clean-up activities. Similarly, the Mobile ICP and its branch locations direct near shore, marsh, and beach activities for their area of responsibility. The
UAC provides high-level strategic oversight of all ICP activities.
In addition, all source control procedures and activities undertaken by BPs Houston command center are approved through the UAC prior to execution.
INFORMATION SHARING WITHIN THE UNIFIED AREA COMMAND

As a senior BP official in the Florida Unified Command, I have spent substantial

time working with government officials at all levels to address concerns, to discuss
requests and recommendations, and ultimately to take the appropriate actions to
meet our responsibilities in the Gulf region. This is a key responsibility of the
UACtimely, accurate information sharing is both critical to the success of our operations and our obligations to the governments, businesses, and individuals in the
Gulf who have been affected by this spill. Our information sharing expectations and
objectives can be summarized simply: Ensure timely, accurate updates to the public;

65
ensure close alignment of communications within the UAC to facilitate effective operations; and effectively liaison with local officials, the private sector and non-governmental groups to address concerns and ensure that recommendations are fully
considered and implemented as appropriate. To successfully meet our goals, we have
developed a number of formal and informal channels of communication.
First, the UAC holds regularly scheduled meetings to facilitate timely information
sharing among UAC members. Under the Incident Command System (ICS), the
UAC must hold regular situation updates, briefings, and meetings. For example,
daily situation briefings are held twice each day. They are attended by section
heads, including BP and the Coast Guard (although any member of the UAC is able
to attend), and led by the planning section chief, as prescribed by ICS.
The UAC also holds daily area command briefings, which include personnel from
BP, the Coast Guard, and Government agencies, including Federal and State officials. Participants receive briefings from the ICPs, discuss requests, and receive updates on weather, oil movement, and status of operations.
Second, in addition to the formal briefings, the ICPs communicate with the UAC
multiple times throughout the day. The ICPs were established to ensure more direct
access to and communication with local officials, businesses, and residents. Decisions and recommendations made in the ICPs are communicated up through ordinary command and through Government and BP channels. Moreover, IPCs continually seek input from localities, consider seriously any concerns and issues raised,
and do our best to address them accordingly. As a result, our operations and information-sharing practices are constantly evolving. As a result, our operations and information-sharing practices are constantly evolving. For example, we just recently
enhanced our Florida unified command structure to include additional branch locations in the Panhandle region. This is intended to bring an enhanced level of command and control that includes representatives of local government. Local government best understands the needs of their communities, and we are striving better
to integrate them into response efforts.
Third, BP, both within the context of the UAC and as a responsible party, communicates directly with Federal and State government officials. BP regularly responds
to information requests from key Federal and State entities, such as OSHA, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Energy. Moreover, Federal Government personnel, including the Coast Guard, have been a continuous presence at the
BP Houston command center. Through these activities, BP seeks to ensure up-tothe-minute information-sharing with key Federal and State personnel.
Finally, the UACs external communications are largely handled by DHSs Emergency Support Function (ESF) No. 15. ESF No. 15 has external affairs staff (led
by the Coast Guard), including the Joint Information Center, which is staffed by
representatives from BP, the Coast Guard, the Department of Defense, and Federal
agencies (e.g., EPA, NOAA, USFWS), and which is responsible for responding to
media inquiries. There is also a Governmental affairs team composed of liaison officers who provide information to and coordinate visits from elected officials and other
interested parties. The community affairs team, composed of community liaisons, coordinates with BP and DHS community representatives working at the ICPs and
branches. Community liaisons are responsible for working with affected members of
the public and local officials in the affected areas and elevating issues to the UAC
when necessary.
CONCLUSION

We believe the UAC structure in place has been largely effective. With any undertaking of this size and complexity, there is always room for improvement. We are
committed to making these improvements every day.
BP is under no illusions about the seriousness of the situation we face. The world
is watching us. President Obama and members of his Cabinet have visited the Gulf
region and made clear their expectations of BP and our industry. So have Governors
and local officials, Members of Congress, and the American people.
We know that we will be judged by our response to this crisis. I can assure you
that my colleagues at BP and I are fully committed to ensuring that we do the right
thing. We are mounting the largest spill response effort in history. The complexities
are unprecedented. We and the entire industry will learn from this terrible event,
and emerge from it stronger, smarter, and safer.

Mr. CARNEY. Thank you for your testimony. We are going to go

out of order in this case to respect Mr. Greens need for a flight.
So I recognize Mr. Green for 5 minutes.
Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

66
Mr. Chairman, I am going to make a distinction between BP
high-level management and BP rank-and-file with reference to my
statements. The high-level management is where the policy emanates and I am going to address my questions to high-level management.
People are unhappy with BP. I am one of those persons. BP has
become synonymous with broken promises. BP has a record that in
my opinion indicates someone in high management is not doing his
or her job, and possibly many people.
Texas City, 15 people killed, a report indicating that there was
willful neglect. Willful neglect in the sense that there was knowledge that a problem existed and the problem was not corrected at
Texas City. The North Slope of Alaska where penalties were paid.
Now we have 11 additional person dying right here with the Deepwater Horizon.
BP is not only going to be judged by how well BP responded to
this incident, BP ought to be judged also by how well BP performed, allowing this incident to occur. An investigation ought to
take place, people ought to be investigated. Oil companies themselves do not commit crimes, people do when they fail to take the
proper measures to protect human life. We cannot allow another
BP tragedy to occur. The public is not going to forgive us.
It has been said that this was a wake-up call. This indeed was
more than a wake-up call. The wake-up call was in Texas City
when we lost 15 lives. This is a second alarm and I am not sure
that we will have an opportunity to convince the public that we
have done our jobs if a third alarm should occur, if something else
should occur. I think that we have got to do what we must do, and
that is have an external investigation of BP. I separate the rankand-file workers from the upper-level management where these
policies and decisions are being made.
Someone has to understand that the American people are not
going to allow this kind of negligence to continue. I believe it to be
negligence based upon the reports that I have seen thus far. If
other reports to the contrary are presented, I will review them. But
I am not happy with BP. I think that it is time for BP to understand that you cannot come in after the fact and throw your money
around and then in some way think that you have now compensated for the lives that have been lost.
I think that what is happening to this economy as a result of BP
is also something that must be investigated such that not only will
those persons who are closely related to these damages that they
are suffering, but also those that are remotely related will receive
some degree of compensation as well.
This incident has to be the last straw for BP. We cannot continue
to allow this company to continue to behave the way it has through
the years15 lives, 11 lives, and God knows what is ahead of us.
So I am just letting you know that I am going to push for a thorough investigation of this process. I am interested in the response,
but I also want to know what happened to allow this to occur
again.
No more deaths. BP has got to keep some of these promises that
it continues to make.

67
Finally this, I appreciate you being here today. Your credentials
seem to be impeccable. You are at one level and I am confident that
you are capable, competent, qualified. But at some point, I am
hopeful that we will get the President of BP or someone in that policy-making room with the President to come before a committee
and give us some responses. I understand how you arrived here
today, no disrespect to you, sir, but I just want you to know that
I am speaking for a lot of people who cannot speak for themselves
who are fed up with BP and the way it has responded to other crises that have already occurred, such that this one has now risen
its ugly head. BP has got to do better if it is going to continue to
do business in this country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no time to yield back and I appreciate your courtesy.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Mr. Green.
I will recognize myself for 5 minutes now.
Mr. Dempsey, did BP participate in the SONS 2002 exercise in
New Orleans?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Mr. Chairman, I understand that BP has been a
participant in a number of exercises around the Gulf for a number
of years. In an earlier role of my own, I was accountable for the
crisis management team through the United States. My understanding is that yes, indeed, we were part of the SONS exercise in
2002.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay. The lessons learned from your participation
or BPs participation, were they applied in this incident?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Mr. Chairman, I believe that in every case of an
exercise of the type that was conducted, there is a very thorough
debrief, there is a very thorough reflection on what were the lessons learned and what changes can be implemented within our industry and within the Governmental agencies with whom we work.
I believe that those lessons learned from that exercise have indeed
been applied in BP and throughout our industry.
Mr. CARNEY. What were those lessons learned in 2002?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Mr. Chairman, I think one of the most important
observations that relates to this response and relates to our previous exercises is very much about a subject you have heard described throughout this hearing by previous panelists. A critical
priority is to ensure the early and continuous involvement of local
officials, officials who have deep knowledge and understanding of
their geography, of the waters in their areas and of the concerns
and priorities within their area of responsibility.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay, I want to ask you a question. The number
of gallons or barrels per day leaking started at zero and now it is
somewhere between 60- and 100,000. How was that determined,
how do you arrive at that number?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Mr. Chairman, in the early weeks of this response,
the flow rates were developed and supported by the Unified Area
Command and that was based on data provided by BP. In more recent weeks
Mr. CARNEY. Stop right there. So BP provides Unified Area Command with a number of the flow, right?
Mr. DEMPSEY. No, sir, Mr. Chairman. The data provided by BP
relates to the imagery which many of us have seen, it relates to

68
the amount of oil that has been contained or burned through the
series of exercises going on on the surface. Based on that data, estimates were made in a cooperative way by Unified Area Command
and now, sir, by the Flow Rate Technical Group, which is an independent body appointed by the National Incident Commander. We
continue to provide data to the Flow Rate Technical Group who
have developed the most recent estimates for the amount of flow
coming from the well.
Mr. CARNEY. So it is true that BP was part of a team and not
providing the initial assessments of the flowof the output?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, that has indeed been the
case.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay. Now does BP have an interest in reporting
or urging for lower flow rates as opposed to higher ones? Is there
some liability that BP may face if the flow rates are actually higher
than lower?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Mr. Chairman, I do not know of any specific distinction that would be made in terms of liability as a function of
the flow rate. I can assure you that the response that has been
mounted here has not been a function of an estimate of the flow
rate, it has been based on the reality of the oil that has been identified on the surface and the threat that we have perceived as it
relates to shoreline response and response efforts. The resources
that have been deployed are a function of BP bringing to bear the
entire resources of our company from around the world, and they
have been put into place to address whatever oil and whatever
threat is identified through the decision-making of the Unified
Area Command.
Mr. CARNEY. So what you are saying is BP does not face a larger
or smaller fiduciary responsibility based on how much oil has
flowed out of the well?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of any distinction
in the liability that would be a function of this response that relates to the flow rate.
Mr. CARNEY. Okay. If you learn differently, or please investigate
that and send your answer back to the subcommittee.
Mr. DEMPSEY. I will.
Mr. CARNEY. I now recognize Mr. Bilirakis for 5 minutes.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
What is your response plan for the west coast of Florida, God forbid the oil comes near us?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Congressman Bilirakis, I have personally been involved in the planning and the preparation for response on the
west coast of Florida. As I noted in my testimony, I was assigned
I volunteered, franklyto go to St. Petersburg and arrived there on
the 6th of May, where I became a senior BP official. One of the earliest priorities that we identified was to invite in representatives
from each of the counties in the 13-county area in the St. Petersburg sector, which starts in Taylor County in the north down to
Collier County in the south. Our aim was to work with each of
those counties on the Area Contingency Plans to make sure that
there was a real sense of clarity about the sensitive areas within
their counties, about the protective strategies that were in place according to those Area Contingency Plans, and that any adjustments

69
that were needed in respect of this particular response were made
and made in full cooperation with the counties and local officials.
At this time, the planning and the preparation which includes
the development of those Area Contingency Plans has been put into
place and, as has been noted in earlier testimony, we are in the
process now of engaging through the liaison team to go deeper into
communities and make sure we are aware of the priorities, the concerns that are raised by communities and by local officials, and
that our response plans continue to be responsive to those priorities.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Will you include the cities as well?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Congressman Bilirakis, I have met personally with
Mayor Hibbard on at least two occasions that come immediately to
mind. Indeed, part of my priority over the last month has been to
meet with local elected officials, community leaders, business leaders and citizens around the State, and particularly around the west
coast. Just last week, I was in a couple of counties up in the eastern edge of the panhandle with Congressman Allen Boyd, where we
held a series of community meetings with his constituents to make
sure that we listened to their priorities, their concerns and that we
helped to share information with them about the preparation that
has already taken place and is continuing and the potential threat
to their coastlines.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you.
So, you do not think that this miscalculation with the flow rate
had any effect on the response; is that what you are saying?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Congressman, my understanding of the way we
have mounted this response from the very beginning, which began
frankly on the day of the incident; and on the day after the incident, BP personnel were here in New Orleans, with Admiral Mary
Landry, who at that time was identified as the Federal On-Scene
Coordinator. Admiral Landry put into place the Unified Area Command structure and from that point we have mounted a response
that is focused on addressing the threat that comes from the well.
Without specific regard to the estimate of the amount coming from
the well, the resources that have been deployed including the activity at the spill site, the near-shore response and the clean-up efforts have been a function of what is there. Therefore, my assertion
to you, Congressman, would be that the estimates of the flow rate
did not limit our ability to mount this response.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Okay, next question. I understand there has been
a problem with the claims process in the State of Florida and that
BP is working on that issue. Can you please give me maybe an update on that?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Congressman, I would say to you that the claims
process has been quite a learning experience in many ways. In 84
days now of this response, you may know that we received over
100,000 claims, we have paid out more than half of those or roughly half of those in an amount totaling roughly $165 million. We
have made a commitment of a $20 billion fund to be administered
over time, and as you may also be aware, we have appointed or we
have had appointed an independent administrator, Mr. Kenneth
Feinberg, who brings deep experience in this process from the work
that he did post-9/11.

70
In Florida, we have managed to pay out individual claims now
in a time of about 4 to 5 days. We now are paying out business
claims in a time which is roughly 6 to 8 days. Our priority in recent days has been to streamline and improve the process for the
local government entity claims process and just in the last week we
have completed payments to a number of counties in the panhandle
that had expended resources in this response and monies have
been transmitted to them in reimbursement for their costs that
have been put into place for this response.
I know that Administrator Feinberg and his team will build into
their plans ways to further increase the efficiency, the pace and the
assurance that the objective here is to get money into the hands
of those who ought to have it just as quickly and efficiently as we
can.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Okay. I have heard reports that BP
Mr. CARNEY. Mr. Bilirakis, we will do another round.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Okay, thank you very much.
Mr. CARNEY. Ms. Jackson Lee, please.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Dempsey, for appearing here
today.
I know that BP has a command site in Houston, Texas in its corporate headquarters. My question to you is the willingness of BP
to meet with me and my constituents as Texas prepares for the
possibility of a hurricane and the intrusion of some of the oil spill
in our region. Could you arrange that and ensure that we would
have the opportunity to meet with locally elected officials, emergency preparedness individuals, to talk about being prepared in the
State of Texas?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Congresswoman, I would be very happy to go back
with my colleagues in Houston and ensure that we can facilitate
just such a meeting.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. Does BP intend to file bankruptcy?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Congresswoman, I have been asked this question
before. A month ago in Washington, DC in a Senate hearing, I was
asked a similar question by one of your colleagues.
What I can tell you is that we are certainly committed to this
response and we have brought to bear the full resources of our
company to ensure that we stop the flow of the oil and we mitigate
and minimize the environmental and economic impacts. We provide
information to our shareholders and we provide information to
Wall Street security analysts community and the City of London.
They have made their own analyses of the potential liabilities, the
potential costs, and they have drawn their own conclusions about
whether or not BP will go out of business.
I can tell you that within the organization, I have not been privy
to any discussions that suggests that that is an intent that we
would pursue.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, let me just say this, and I thank you for
that answer. I think BP owes the American people a forthright pronouncement that they will not file bankruptcy and they will not file
to the detriment of those who are still suffering.
The second part of my question is I have repeatedly asked BP
to understand the uniqueness of small restaurants, the tourism

71
business, oyster, fishermen, et cetera. My visit here, my first visit,
was to oystermen, fishermen, and others and asked BP to provide
them with a lump sum payment. To date, the restaurant is still on
the brink of closing or already closed, the owner cannot pay her
mortgage, and fishermen and oystermen have not gotten compensation based upon BPs, if you will, entangled process of calling for
receipts.
I do not think these people are trying to defraud BP and the
question is can BP move this process along now that the independent claims person has it? I frankly do not believe it is going
to move any quicker if we have the same standards that BP is
using. What are you doing to help these people who do not have
traditional financial records?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Congresswoman, I can tell you that from the early
days of the claims process, we
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Dempsey, I do not want to interrupt you,
but my time is very short too and I am leaving for the airport. Are
you going to work with these individuals to provide them with
funding? Can I get this back in writing? Why do I not just ask for
an answer back in writing about the payment to these individuals.
I will just move on.
The other question is, quickly: What you are doing regarding
health concerns and mental health concerns, which I think is also
challenging? In addition, there have been many who have technology and I know that you cannot answer everyones call but there
are individuals such as an African-American who has discovered a
technology that is now presently on hold and I am trying to find
the individuals nameRodney Whitneybeen on hold for 6 weeks
and has not been able to get a response from BP on utilization of
this technology.
Do you have any insight on small contractors who are waiting to
be helpful and seemingly cannot get a response, along with the
mental health issue?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Congresswoman, just as it relates to your earlier
question, I am not familiar with the specifics of the case that you
were describing there, but I am happy to follow up with you and
I will follow up to pursue that.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I appreciate that, thank you.
Mr. DEMPSEY. We share your concerns around mental health impacts and I know that there is a conversation underway with
States around the region to get clarity as to the best and the most
effective way to support those concerns.
As it relates to the third part of your question there, I am sorry,
will you please
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mental and physical health concerns.
Mr. DEMPSEY. Right and there was
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Compensating for that.
Mr. DEMPSEY. There was a third part to your question, Congresswoman and I
Ms. JACKSON LEE. It was the small business.
Mr. DEMPSEY. Small businesses.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes.
Mr. DEMPSEY. Yes, that is right; thank you for the reminder.

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Ms. JACKSON LEE. The independent claims, whether or not you
are able to move forward on paying people that do not have the
traditional financial records that BP seems to be insisting on. Everybody is committing fraud, as we seeminglythey are interpreting that everyone is trying to, you know, take advantage of BP
and these people are dying.
Mr. DEMPSEY. Thank you, I will go back to that and then return
to the question around the ideas.
So from early in the process, we created an advance payment facility for fishermen and a boat captain could go into any of the 35
claims offices around the region and in many cases with very little
documentation, presumably a payroll stub or some sort of a bank
deposit receipt, could walk out of the claims office with a check for
$5,000. A deck hand similarly could walk into a claims office with
very little in the way of documentation, again, a check stub, a payroll receipt; and in many cases, frankly, Congresswoman, we would
make a call to a boat captain to confirm their employment, and
those deck hands could leave the claims office with a check for
$2,500. The substantiation that would follow would give the opportunity for us to true-up their true compensation. So in the event
that a boat captain earned more than that, they would be trued up
in the following month.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. If I could just have you answer the other
questions in writing. What you are repeating to me, there are those
that are saying that they have not gotten checks in months and literally they are dying on the vine.
Let me just conclude and thank the Chairman for this excellent
hearing and say to you, Mr. Dempsey, that I too represent thousands who are innocent that are in the industry and I would only
say that I believe your company and the entire industry owes, in
a stand-up way, the American people an apology and an explanation of who the oil industry is. Not putting their head in the
sand, and begin to talk about how they can do better and how they
can work together with the American people to preserve what we
have and to improve upon what needs to be improved. They owe
us an apology and they are my constituents, because you are hurting not only the American people, but you are hurting all these innocent workers who are frightened for their jobs. That means those
in the oil industry that I represent. Leadership owes a pronouncement to the American people that we will not go bankrupt. Your
partners need to come out of hiding and they need to stand with
you and own up to paying the American people, because everyone
knows there are more than just BP on that rig. These individuals
are hiding and you should not allow them to hide.
So, Mr. Chairman, I hope as we try to construct a better management or command structure, that we also look at all the parties
that were involved in this catastrophe, we call them out, let them
stand before the American public and tell us how they will fix it.
Mr. Dempsey, I appreciate your leadership and what you are trying to do. But you are trying to climb up the rough side of the
mountain and you need your leadership to recognize that.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee; thank you for your
questions.

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Mr. Dempsey, media reports after the explosion occurred indicated, There was no one in charge aboard the rig. Who was actually in charge or who should have been in charge? Was it BP, was
it Transocean, who?
Mr. DEMPSEY. CongressmanMr. Chairman, I should say that I
think this answer is also a bit responsive to the comments made
by Congressman Green and the comments made just now by Congresswoman Jackson Lee. I think it is really important to note
that, first of all, this is indeed an unprecedented event and it is
something that is beyond the scope of our previous experiences.
There is an investigation underway and as Mr. Green called for
and as Ms. Jackson Lee also called for, I want to make sure that
it is clear that there is an investigation underway, both by BP and
by the Federal Government.
I am certain that given the conclusion of those investigations, we
will learn what went wrong here and I believe that we will put into
place changes in the policies, the practices, and the procedures to
ensure that this kind of incident cannot happen again.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you. From your experience watching the flow
of information up and down the chain of command, where do you
see the bottlenecks? Where do you see constrictions in flow and response?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Mr. Chairman, I think that the unified command
structure is actually quite purposeful in that it brings together expertise from different parties. The role that BP plays in the unified
command structure is probably quite different from that that could
be brought by the Coast Guard and by the other associated State
and Federal agencies.
I think that because there is a need for us to work cooperatively
and collaboratively, there have been occasions where the time it
takes to understand each others points of view, to understand the
most effective ways to protect the shoreline have taken more time
than many of us might like. I am not sure that I could point, Mr.
Chairman, at any particular constriction, but it is important to
note that working in the unified command structure, there is indeed a decision-making process and we are working very carefully
within that to ensure that we make the right choices to maximize
our protection of the shoreline.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you very much. Mr. Bilirakis.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Getting back to the claims process, I know there is a claims process now going on with BP and the $20 billion trust fund, which Mr.
Feinberg is in charge of, the independent trust fund. How is that
going to jibe in, how is that going to work? Is he going to be responsible for all the claims once the guidelines are established?
You know, my constituents need to know where to go to, where to
turn to.
Mr. DEMPSEY. I understand. So, Congressman Bilirakis, I believe
that the independent claims administrator, Mr. Feinberg, will
make very clear over the next couple of weeks the scope and the
range of the work that he and his team will do. My expectation is
that they will indeed take accountability for executing the claims
process for individuals, for businesses, and for local Government
entities.

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Mr. BILIRAKIS. Okay. With regard to the relief wells, there was
a report I guess 3 or 4 days ago that the one well at least will be
on-line by possibly July 20. I know that the target date is mid-August. Tell me something about that. Can you give me an estimation
when it will be completed?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Yes, sir. Congressman, I am as anxious as the rest
of the world to know that we have successfully completed the relief
wells and will have killed the well. I listen every morning to the
briefing provided by Admiral Allen, the National Incident Commander, as to the progress and the status and the expectations as
to the timing of the completion. I believe that his briefings are
thorough and comprehensive and the estimates that he provides
are the best authoritative view as to when that work will be completed.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. How about the latest containment method that is
going on right now, anything on that?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Earlier today, Congressman, Admiral Allen provided a briefing on the placement of the containment cap. From my
perspective, he was quite hopeful that within a matter of days now,
we will have some clarity as to our ability to contain the flow from
the well and will make some judgments about how best to ensure
that that work is continued, but that the ultimate ending for this
remains with the completion of the relief wells.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Okay, last question. In your testimony, you noted
that local government best understands the needs of their communities. This is something of course that I strongly agree with. I am
pleased that you indicate BP is striving better to integrate them
into response efforts, especially considering the comments we heard
from Mayor Hibbard about the need for better communication efforts with local communities. What changes are you making to better integrate the expertise of State and local officials and businesses into the response efforts?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Congressman, I think the most powerful example
of the adjustments that we have made as we have been learning
throughout this process is the implementation of these deputy incident commanders and the branches in the States throughout the
region. In the State of Florida in particular, we have established
a Florida Command Post based now in Tallahassee, led by a unified command structure that includes the Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Sole, a BP Incident Commander
Mary Schaefer-Maliki and Coast Guard Commander Joe Boudreau.
Their accountability now will be to bring much more closely to the
local jurisdictions, the counties, and the municipalities, to understand the planning, the preparation, and the response efforts that
are underway in their communities and ensure that we understand
their concerns and that we make adjustments in real time for maximum protection of their coastlines. This development of this deputy incident command came directly out of the understanding and
the learning that the operations being directed from Mobile, while
very comprehensive, left a distance from the voices of those on the
ground within the counties and the municipalities.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. If my constituents have questions or issues, can
we contact you directly?

75
Mr. DEMPSEY. Congressman; yes, sir, you may. I would be very
happy to try to address any concerns by those constituents based
in the State of Florida, as that is my primary accountability.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, appreciate
it and I appreciate you holding this hearing.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Mr. Bilirakis.
Mr. Dempsey, one more question and we can end for the day.
Will BP make this situation whole, fix this situation regardless of
the cost?
Mr. DEMPSEY. Mr. Chairman, I remember early in this exercise,
early in the response, there were questions about the $75 million
liability cap to which we suggested
Mr. CARNEY. Yes or no.
Mr. DEMPSEY [continuing]. That we were not going to be focused
on that. My answer, Mr. Chairman, is yes, BP is committed to
bring the full resources of our company to meet the requirements
of this response for as long as it takes.
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you very much.
I really want to thank everybody who came today, everybody who
stuck around today. I especially want to thank the staff of the
courthouse for going way above and way beyond. This is I think a
very important hearing to hold, it affects New Orleans, it affects
the region and it affects the Gulf, it affects the entire Nation. So
your efforts on our behalf are truly appreciated; thank you all on
the staff.
Once again, the staff that we have on our subcommittee is amazing, they do a great deal of work to prepare us for this, for these
hearings. We are not done with this, we will be asking questions
long into the future.
Mr. Dempsey, I imagine you will receive some questions in writing, I appreciate your candor and we will get back to it at some
point.
But right now, the subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon at 6:01, the subcommittee was adjourned.]