MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript
Interview
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SMERCONISH: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
The oil spill in the Gulf has been capped, but will it hold?
Congressman Ed Markey is the chairman of the House Energy Independence Committee and a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Congressman, thank you for being here. Please tell us what you know.
REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Well, I only know what you know. And that is that we all hope that this is going to be a success. But this is a little bit like a bone marrow transplant operation right now. We"re in the early stages. We don"t know if it"s going to completely take.
There"s a well, a pipe, which is thousands of feet long that now has intense pressure being applied to it. We know it"s fragile. We know it"s been traumatized. And we won"t know, for some time, whether or not, in fact, it can contain all of the oil under these much higher pressures that are now being applied to it. We all hope it is.
But, at this point, we"re all praying that this is the end of the--of the nightmare.
SMERCONISH: Given your understanding of the methodology that, as you say, we all hope was successful--is it something, Congressman, that could have been done prior to the 87th day?
MARKEY: Well, obviously, if BP had a real plan in place to deal with the spill back 87 days ago, yes, there could have been. But, obviously, they had no plan to deal the spill at this depth, anymore than any other oil company did. So, unfortunately, BP has been forced to make it up all along.
We reached a stage here where in coordination with the federal government and top scientists in America, we"ve reached a stage where, hopefully, this cap will work and the pipe will be able to withstand these pressures. But, again, we"re not going to know the answer for some time. But, at the end of the day, BP, unfortunately, has taken all this time because BP did not stand for "be prepared."
SMERCONISH: I know that you were a catalyst of bringing into all of our living rooms that film footage, making sure that we had access to that camera. What do you think the political ramifications of that were? In other words, did having that imagery available to so many Americans on a daily basis, 24/7, have some blowback effect on the administration?
MARKEY: Well, I think, first--the first impact was it forced BP to either stop lying or being grossly incompetent that the spill was not 1,000 barrels per day or 5,000 barrels per day. It made it very obvious from that point on that trusting BP to make decisions alone was really not well-placed. And so, I think the spill cam had the impact of bringing in top scientists, taking away discretion from BP, having the Obama administration and its top scientists and others in the private sector come in to help construct this plan, which hopefully will work.
And I think, if we are successful, we all have our fingers crossed that we will be successful, that the Obama administration will have been viewed as playing a constructive role in ensuring that BP finally shut off this well.
SMERCONISH: And what"s the prognosis, assuming that we have shut it down for offshore drilling, particularly in the Gulf?
MARKEY: Well, I think that we first have to ensure that if we are going to drill in ultra-deep waters, that it is ultra-safe, and that any response to an accident is ultra-fast. So, the first thing that will have to happen is that we pass legislation. And that"s the goal that we have in the Congress right now. And in the next several weeks, I think that you will see that moving through the House and the Senate.
But until we put in those safety measures, I think that people are going to be very apprehensive. I think one other thing, by the way, that is going to happen is that this will now give us an opportunity to measure the full amount of oil that was going out into the Gulf of Mexico. If it is 60,000 barrels per day, times $43 per barrel per day, which is defined in the event of gross negligence, that could wind up being $6 billion to $8 billion fine on BP, and we"ll finally be able to be--to be able to determine what the ultimate total damage was to the Gulf of Mexico.
SMERCONISH: Thank you very much, Congressman Ed Markey. We know you"re in demand.
MARKEY: Glad to be here. Thank you.
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