CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript

Interview

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BLITZER: Hold on for a minute because Congressman Markey is joining us now. I want you to join in the questioning. Congressman Markey, are you there?

REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I'm right here, yes.

BLITZER: Help us -- give us your reaction to this positive news, at least of right now, that for the first time in three months no oil is spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

MARKEY: Well, we're at a very sensitive point right now. This is like the very early stages of a bone marrow transplant. The pipe obviously is still in very sensitive conditions. There's still a very great concern that it will not be able to sustain the amount of pressure that is now being placed upon it now that the well has been fully capped, so we're going to have to wait and see. We're hopeful, but there is still a possibility that the well cannot in fact take this kind of pressure, but we all are praying and hoping that it will, so that we can move on to just the stage where we have to clean up this spill and not have to deal with the continuing to spill out into the Gulf.

BLITZER: What you're concerned about, and we've discussed this on several occasions, is the structural integrity of that entire well. That's why every six hours BP and federal authorities, they are checking the pressure to make sure that this so-called solution doesn't result in catastrophe, but you're worried about the structural integrity whether the pressure can be handled.

MARKEY: Again, this is like someone out in the backyard. They have a hose and now they have put their hand on top of the hose. That is going to put tremendous pressure on all other points in the hose going all the way back to the source of the water. Sometimes leaks then come right out of the hose at other points where it is weak. This particular hose, this particular pipe, this particular well is thousands of feet long. This is now having enormous pressure to be put upon every single point of that pipe. We have to determine whether or not the structure, the integrity of the stability, the fragility of this pipe is such that it cannot in fact hold on to the oil and that the cure becomes worse than the disease. That's going to take several more days to make that determination.

BLITZER: And that's why we're not celebrating it, at least not yet. Congressman, Gloria Borger and David Gergen are here and they have a question they would like to ask.

BORGER: Congressman, can I ask you going forward, what does the administration have to do and what do Democrats have to do in terms of regulating deepwater drilling?

MARKEY: We are going to pass very strong legislation that will ensure that there are protections that guarantee that we not -- we not again see blowout preventers that don't work, that we have oil companies that do not have spill response plans that are in place that can respond rapidly in the event that there is an accident, and that there will be liability for these companies if in fact something does occur, that whistleblower protection be built into the law to ensure that any one of these workers that knows that there will be a problem will not be punished by the companies that they work for. We know that they existed on this well but there was great fear, so all of this will have to be put in place. We will be giving every member of the House and Senate an opportunity to vote on that kind of safety legislation in the next several weeks.

GERGEN: As you know, Congressman, the president and the administration got some blame here for being too slow to react. Will Congress revisit the command and control structure not only for preparation for natural disasters but also for the execution and the management of these disasters?

MARKEY: Absolutely. The president has named Ray Mabus, the secretary of the navy and former governor of Mississippi, to be in charge of the reconstruction of the Gulf, but we are also going to have to ensure that we go back and revisit MMS, go back and revisit this agency that should have been a watchdog but instead was a lap dog. This was a ticking time bomb that was set several years ago, back during the Bush administration that continued forward, much like the derivatives and the financial instruments that were not properly regulated that then exploded over the last year. We have to make sure that there is a much better command and control system put in place to make sure we never see an occurrence like this again.

BLITZER: And Congressman, let me get your reaction to what Politico wrote about you today, John Harris and Jim Vanderhigh, writing. I'll re-read it in case you didn't hear what I read earlier. "Representative Edward Markey beat his chest to force BP to make public the footage of the gushing oil from an underwater camera. Democrats celebrate that had as a victory for public accountability, but it was actually a painful defeat for Obama. The camera produced an indelible image played 24/7 on cable that highlighted hue ineffectual Obama was for two months in stopping this catastrophe." Do you agree with that assessment?

MARKEY: I do not agree with that assessment. I forced BP to put up the spill cam so that BP could not continue to hide behind the low balling of this problem that they had been engaging in up to this point. In fact, the president detailed not just Admiral Allen but also the secretary of energy, Steven Chu, Marcia McNutt who runs the geological service, to make sure that BP did not have autonomy in making the decisions. It was their equipment that we need to solve the problem but the discretion could no longer be left with them. I think the president did act as the commander in chief here but under very difficult circumstances where like the financial crisis it was something that was created by an earlier administration that then exploded on his duty, on his watch, but I think ultimately when people look back on election day, if this well is finally capped, that they will see that he did the job, and we will in fact be rewarded rather than punished, especially after we have an energy bill on the House and Senate floor that will give Republicans an opportunity to vote on renewable energy, on plug-in hybrids and other energy technologies that will take us away from this energy agenda that we've been living with for the last generation.

BLITZER: Congressman, he did have more than a year to clean up MMS at the department of interior under his watch, and apparently nothing happened during that first year he was president to get the job done.

MARKEY: Again, there was a latent problem at this agency, but I do believe that the president did respond in a way that ultimately will be viewed by the public as one that took command of this problem and assured that BP, a private corporation that turned a blind eye to all of the safety warnings that were there, to ensure that this problem was solved and then put in place a recovery program for the people in the Gulf, and I think Ken Feinberg, Secretary Mabus and others all represent part of that solution that ultimately will be seen as a victory for President Obama.

BLITZER: All right. Ed Markey, Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts, thanks very much. We're going to go back to the Gulf region in just a moment. Ed Lavandera standing by, and also dramatic developments on BP stock. Stay with us.

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