CNN "American Morning" - Transcript

Interview

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ROBERTS: Thirtyy-seven, almost 38 minutes after the hour. When it comes to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, size apparently does matter to the White House now. The president wants to know how much crude is really gushing from that broken well, and he is dispatching a team of experts to find out once and for all.

CHETRY: In the meantime, BP has finally agreed to let the world see what they've been watching all along. The live feed of the spewing crude a mile underneath the sea that's in part -- because of Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts who asked and demanded that that be put up so people can see it. He joins us now from Washington. Thanks for being with us this morning, Congressman.

REP. EDWARD MARKEY, (D-MA) CHAIRMAN OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND GLOBAL WARMING: Thank you.

CHETRY: So, you've been badgering BP to make this video feed public calling it the greatest environmental catastrophe in the history of the U.S. Up until this morning, about maybe, I guess, 45 minutes ago, it was black. When you went to the website, you couldn't actually see the video. Now, we can see it again. But the bottom line is the federal government getting in too late on this? I mean, there have been engineers who have been saying that this number has been wildly underestimated since the very beginning. Why are they just demanding answers now a month out?

MARKEY: Well, I have been asking for BP to make this live feed available to the American people and to scientists all around the world. And I had a hearing on Wednesday bringing in the scientists. Each of them said that 5,000 barrels per day was an absolutely ridiculously low number and that it was at least 40,000, 50,000, perhaps upwards of 100,000 barrels per day. And so, I was trying to put more pressure on BP to finally release this.

And once you see it, you realize that this is a gusher coming out of the bottom of the sea. And while they are making some progress and they now say that they are actually capturing 5,000 barrels per day, it's obvious that that's just a small fraction of what is now spewing into the Gulf and that will inform us in terms of what our response capability is going to have to be in the weeks and months ahead.

ROBERTS: And BP still refusing to come up with some sort of a new estimate, Congressman, on how much oil is out there. They say we want to focus on shutting this well down. Not have much oil is out there in the Gulf. What do you think of that attitude?

MARKEY: I think it's irresponsible, first of all. They should have made this public right from the beginning. It's obvious that they are trying to limit information in order to protect themselves against legal liability, but unfortunately, the livelihoods of people in the Gulf region are going to be impacted by that. And I think that it's now time for us just to say that BP has mismanaged this entire incident from day one.

They should not be trusted going forward with the representations which they make. They should not be allowed to make the key decisions, and they have to be monitored. And I think that's why it's important that this live feed of the gusher from the bottom of the ocean be seen by everyone at all times, because that is the one sure guaranteed way to keep the pressure on BP to solve this problem.

CHETRY: But you're still saying it's on BP to solve the problem. I mean, when does it become something that the federal government should take over? That the White House needs to have a more active role? I mean, do you have any criticisms of how the administration and the Congress has handled this?

MARKEY: Well, again, the White House has been all over this right from the very beginning, but it's very clear that BP has not been telling the truth. That is at the core of this problem.

ROBERTS: Congressman --

MARKEY: BP has been in possession of the information, but BP has refused to allow it to be disseminated in a way that would allowed for informed decisions to be made so we can respond properly to this disaster.

ROBERTS: Congressman, let's talk about these dispersants because I know that you wrote a letter to the EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, earlier this week criticizing the use of Corexit. We learned there has been another dispersant, tens of thousands of gallons of exceeding just outside of a warehouse in Texas. There is toxicity to this Corexit that is now just really come to everyone's attention, although, environmentalists were talking about it before.

It is less effective than some of the other dispersants out there. On this issue of dispersant, should all of this have been known before they released even a bucket load of this stuff into the Gulf?

MARKEY: My belief is that we should have used the least toxic, most effective chemical, right from the very beginning. Again, the problem, BP was allowed to make the initial decision. They should not have been allowed to make that decision. Now --

CHETRY: Who should have seen to it, Congressman, that they were not allowed to make that decision because now we have a month out. The EPA saying stop using it and start using this other one that you ordered three weeks ago. Why is that just happening now?

MARKEY: There was an approved list of chemicals, but when I saw the chemicals that were on that list, I wrote a letter to the EPA. I asked them to create a new formula that did, in fact, ensure that it was the least toxic and most effective chemical. And as a result, they have now announced that BP only has 72 hours to come up with a new strategy for the dispersant which they are going to use, and it will be something which is dramatically lower in terms of its toxicity.

ROBERTS: And, Congressman, just to finish this off, here you claim that BP has mismanaged this. Has the federal government also mismanaged this?

MARKEY: I wish that the coast guard had been a little bit less trusting of BP, I have to admit that, but who would think that a company would actually lie about the size of a spill that was going to effect the lives of millions of people. I don't think anyone could expect that, which is why I think going forward, they are very concerned about their legal liability.

CHETRY: Not only about the scope of the spill but just in terms of the chemicals. I mean, that's why we have the EPA. That's why there are federal regulators out there to make sure companies aren't doing things like dumping toxins into the water. And we've seen now that this has been allowed to happen for a month.

MARKEY: Again, there had been a traditional approved list of chemicals, but hey had never been used at these depths of the ocean. And that's why I was concerned and why I basically raised a warning flag that perhaps we should re-examine that particular chemical that was being used and make a determination as to whether or not there was something that was safer. And that is now being done.

ROBERTS: Congressman Ed Markey, good of you to come on this morning. Thanks so much for your time.

MARKEY: Thank you, sir.

ROBERTS: Stormy weather hitting the Midwest and the southeast. Do you want some nice weather? You might want to decide to head into New England today.

Forty-five minutes after the hour. Jacqui Jeras got the weather forecast coming right up.

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