CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript
Interview
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BORGER: Congressman, can I ask you, going forward, what does the administration have to do, what do Democrats have to do, in terms of regulating deepwater drilling?
REP. EDWARD MARKEY, (D) MASSACHUSETTS: We are going to pass very strong legislation that will ensure that there are protections that guarantee that 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 whistle blower protection be built into the law to ensure that any one of these workers that knows that there's 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 for the execution and the management of these disasters?
MARKEY: Absolutely. The president has named Ray Mabus (ph), the secretary of the Navy and former governor of Mississippi to be in charge of the reconstruction of the Gulf. But we're also going to have to ensure that we go back and revisit this 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 was a much better command and control system put in place to make sure that 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 VandeHei, writing, let me 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 of gushing oil from an underwater camera. Democrats celebrated that 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 how 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 until that point. In fact the president, detailed-not just Admiral Allen, but also the Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, Marcia McNutt, who runs the United States Geological Service, to come in to make sure that BP did not have autonomy in making these decisions. It was their equipment that we needed in order to solve this 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 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, on other energy technologies that will take us away from this energy agenda, but we have been living with for the last generation.
BLITZER: But 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 that he was president to get the job done.
MARKEY: Again, there was a latent problem at this agency, but I do believe the president did respond in a way that ultimately will be viewed by the public as one that took command of this problem, ensured that BP, a private corporation, that turned a blind eye to all 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.
I think Ken Feinberg and Secretary Mabus (ph), and others, all represent part of that solution. That ultimately will be seen as a victory for President Obama.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BLITZER: A new warning that the recovery is petering out, should Democrats stop trying to pin the blame on former President George W. Bush? James Carville and Bill Bennett, they're here to face off on that.
And from computers to the power grid, our plugged in nation is vulnerable. But a system to prevent cyber attacks my come with a cost, an invasion of Americans' privacy.
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