CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript

Interview

COOPER: Congressman Markey, tomorrow, Tony Hayward is expected to say -- and I quote -- that, "From the beginning, we have been committed to a transparent response."

Are you floored that he is actually going to say that in front of Congress?

REP. EDWARD MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Right now, there would be no evidence to convict BP of being transparent.

They knew that it was not 1,000 barrels of oil a day in the first week. They knew it wasn't 12,000 barrels of oil a day. And, if they didn't know, then they're grossly incompetent.

But, without question, the public has had to fight every single day for 57 days to find out what BP knows about what has been happening in the Gulf of Mexico.

COOPER: In -- in his printed testimony, he is also apparently going to say that the Exxon Valdez showed the need to learn better ways to respond to an oil spill. And now he's saying that -- that this spill, that this accident shows the need to develop better ways to respond to a deepwater spill.

I mean, it seems like the -- the time to have developed better ways to deal with a deepwater spill was before this occurred, long ago.

MARKEY: They did not learn the lesson of the Exxon Valdez. In fact, what they did was, they all, all of the oil companies, have -- are suffering from collective amnesia, selective amnesia, so they did not have to put in place the safety response capability that would make it possible to minimize the damage in the Gulf of Mexico.

COOPER: Congressman Stupak said today that he thinks that they basically made up numbers for the regulators in terms of their -- their spill response plan.

We know that the BP plan said they could deal with 250,000 barrels a day. Obviously the fact that, you know, they're struggling to deal with 60,000 barrels a day -- that's right now the upper estimate -- shows that the -- you know, the numbers seem to be made up and Stupak is saying he thinks they did just make up numbers for regulators.

If that is true, isn't that illegal?

MARKEY: BP obviously does not stand for "be prepared." Yes, they were making it up. They had no response plan. Each of the oil company executives yesterday said that they would have had no better response than BP has.

And so representing to the American government that there is a response capability to protect the people of the United States and its oceans in the event of an accident, in my opinion, merits the opening of a criminal investigation.

They do not have the capacity. They would all be relying upon the same boom. They would all be relying upon the same skimmers. They would all be relying upon this -- a prayer and hope that somehow or other a solution would be found to a problem after it had already unfolded.

COOPER: Are you satisfied with this $20 billion escrow account or roughly $20 billion and the man who's going to be overseeing it?

MARKEY: It's a very good first step, but that's all it is. We could not have a better person than Ken Feinberg of running this fund. I have known him for years. And he is probably the best person in the country to take on this job.

But if a hurricane ever hits this region with all of that water out in the Gulf, $20 billion will be just the down payment.

COOPER: Congressman Markey, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

MARKEY: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

COOPER: I should just point out again, throughout the program tonight I've tried to represent BP's position as much as I can in conversations. We always invite them on the program. We again invited them on the program tonight. They declined.

The invitation, of course, still stands.

Still ahead, our up-close look inside the Ft. Jackson Oil Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. That's where I am right now. That's what's behind me. More oil-soaked birds arrive every day; A lot of people working very hard around the clock to try to save the lives of these birds.

We'll take you inside in just a moment.

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