CBS "Face The Nation" - Transcript

Interview

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JOHN DICKERSON: Joining us now is Congressman Ed Markey, who heads up one of the
congressional committees investigating what went wrong in the Gulf. Welcome, Congressman. I
want to ask you--
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY (D-Massachusetts; Committee on Energy & Global Warming)
(overlapping): Thank you.
JOHN DICKERSON: --about what you heard here about these initial estimates. You pressed BP
to get these images, we're now all quite familiar with, out in the public. They delayed. You
pressed them because it was important to see how much was coming out so that relief efforts
could be targeted in the right way. Did BP know about how much oil was coming out at the
beginning?
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY: BP did. I asked BP to provide me with the documents that
related to what they felt in the first week the size of this leak actually was. And I have an internal
confidential BP document which says that they believed in the first week that it was one
thousand to fourteen thousand barrels per day. But what they said publicly was that it was one
thousand barrels per day.
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY: I think if everyone understood right from the get-go that BP
felt that it could be upwards of fourteen thousand that that would have changed a lot of
perceptions. Because BP was actually promising in that first week or two that they'd be able to
handle-- handle this spill in a regularly-- regular way without any great problem.
As the magnitude of the problem became clearer, as individual, independent scientists were
able to do their own evaluation, once this film, once this video became public, it was clear now--
the government scientists have confirmed this--that it's somewhere between twelve thousand
and nineteen thousand barrels per day.
In other words, confirming with what BP knew in the first week that it was one thousand to
fourteen thousand.
JOHN DICKERSON: So that was a month ago at the beginning of this-- more than a month ago.
And-- and Miss Browner mentioned that BP has an ongoing financial interest in playing down
this or--
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY (overlapping): Mm-Hm.
JOHN DICKERSON: --has on-- in this operation. So give me your assessment of their
truthfulness, how straight they're being given their ongoing financial interest.
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY: Yeah. BP has a-- a stake in their own liability here. And that
mean-- and by that I mean that the fine which can be imposed upon them is dependent upon
how many barrels per day is going out into the Gulf. If it's one thousand barrels per day, it's a
relatively low fine. But if it's ten thousand, fifteen thousand, or twenty thousand barrels per day,
it could wind up billions of dollars in fines that the BP executives have to pay to the federal
government.
So, their focus was not completely on the livability of the Gulf. It was also on the liability of BP.
And as a result, they had a stake in lowballing the number right from the very beginning in terms
of the amount of oil going out into the Gulf.
JOHN DICKERSON: So you think they lied?
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY: I think that they were either lying or they were incompetent.
But either way the consequences for the Gulf of Mexico are catastrophic.
JOHN DICKERSON: When you hear assessments about this Top Kill procedure that failed,
given your sense of their veracity, what was your-- they said there was a sixty to seventy
percent chance that this effort, that has now failed, might work. What was your thought about
that?
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY: My thought right from the beg-- right from the beginning,
talking to other scientists, was that the likelihood of success was much lower.
But, again, this is all part of BP's boosterism which always leads to a certain sense of
complacency for a period of time which then leads to a continuation of the disaster. They initially
said the rig could not sink. They then said that they could clean it up at a magnitude of two
hundred and fifty thousand barrels per day. Ten or twenty times what we're now seeing. And
none of this has turned out to be accurate. BP has been making it up as they go along the
whole way. They have not been prepared. They do not know for sure what the result is going to
be of anything which they are doing.
JOHN DICKERSON: So you, obviously, don't have much faith in their new estimates about this
next effort?
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY: I have no confidence whatsoever in BP. I think that they do
not know what they are doing. They started off talking about golf balls going in as a junk shot.
People thought that they would be dependent upon MIT or Caltech instead of the PGA and golf
balls. And that was in the first couple of weeks.
So, I don't think that people should really believe what BP is saying in terms of the likelihood of
anything that they're doing is going to turn out as they've predicted.
JOHN DICKERSON: Let me get your sense then of an assessment. BP and the government
seemed to share which is about these relief wells, the kind of-- the last measure that's going to
shut this all off in August, maybe. Carol Browner seemed to think that was a pr-- pretty good
chance that was going to work. What's your then assessment of that?
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY: My assessment is that BP only wanted to drill one relief well.
But the government, that is, the Obama administration, insisted that BP also drill a second relief
well. We cannot afford to have something go wrong with the relief well. We have to have a
second one also being drilled simultaneously to make sure that by the time we reach August,
we know that this catastrophe has come to an end in terms of the leak, not in terms of the
consequences. So--
JOHN DICKERSON: So you're on board with the idea that by August it will-- this will be shut
down?
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY: I think that with the second relief well, it doubles the
likelihood that we will be successful. And I feel fairly confident that they will be able to pull that
off although to be honest there's still is no absolute guarantee.
JOHN DICKERSON: Final question. Speaker Pelosi has suggested the liability cap on BP
should be lifted or an oil company should be lifted. Where are you on that position?
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY: Yes. I do not believe that large energy companies should be
able to escape, having unlimited liability for the catastrophes which they create. That's
something we're going to have to pass in Congress as well as a new innovative energy agenda
for wind, solar, all electric vehicles. We have to move to twenty-first century safety technologies
as well if the oil industry wants to drill in ultra deepwaters we need ultra safe technologies as
well.
JOHN DICKERSON: Quickly, BP-- was this criminal activity do you think?
REPRESENTATIVE ED MARKEY: I think that without question if the word criminal should be
used in terms of an environmental crime against our country that what's going on in the Gulf of
Mexico is going to qualify, yes.
JOHN DICKERSON: Okay. Congressman Ed Markey, thank you so much.
We'll be back with more on the oil spill in a moment.

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