Hearing of the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmospheres, Fisheries, and Coast Guard of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation - Turning Ideas into Action: Ensuring Effective Clean Up and Restoration in the Gulf

Statement

As the single largest marine oil spill in our nation's history, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is both an environmental and human tragedy of monumental proportions.

Virtually no part of the Gulf region's economy has gone unscathed, and the devastation facing the environment is unprecedented in scale.

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez showed us just how unprepared we were when the massive oil tanker ran aground at Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, spilling over 11 million gallons of crude oil.

And today, the BP oil spill is showing us just how unprepared we still are in 2010.

Since the Exxon Valdez oil spill, there has been very little investment in research and development of clean-up technologies by industry, academia or government agencies.

Private companies, in their pollution response plans, must cite the technology and equipment that they will use to respond to a spill. To save on research time, however, they often outsource to non-profit groups known as Oil Spill Recovery Organizations, or OSROs, that provide contract services during oil spill cleanups, and simply list that contract in their response plan.

OSROs are responsible for incorporating their own technology and equipment, but typically only conduct R&D at small scales, if at all. For example, the Marine Spill Response Corp. -- an OSRO contracted by BP -- had only $88 million in spending in 2008, with no budget for research.

Our primary response technologies -- skimmers, in situ burns, boom and chemical dispersants -- were all developed decades ago.

Meanwhile, exploration and drilling technology has advanced at a meteoric pace due to heavy investment by the oil and gas industry in the drive to drill in deeper waters with extremely sophisticated equipment.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has revealed a huge disparity between our nation's ability to extract oil versus our ability to respond to an oil spill.

There are several promising technologies and techniques, such as solidifiers, remediation techniques, and absorbent fiber membranes. But these innovations have not yet been developed, assessed or made operational as part of an oil spill response.

For example, today we will hear from Dr. Fritz Stahr of the University of Washington, who has worked to develop Sea Glider technology for sophisticated under-water scientific monitoring -- a tool that could easily be used to detect underwater oil plumes in the Gulf of Mexico to figure out where the oil is, what impacts it is having, and how we might clean it up.

And we will also be hearing from Dennis Yellowhorse Jones, a geologist and entrepreneur who has developed an "organic" remediation method for breaking down oil using a unique mineral compound -- a method that could be used to help clean the Gulf's shorelines.

Today, I hope to not only hear about their technologies, but about their stories and struggles in trying to advance oil spill technologies.

As a result of the catastrophe in the Gulf, thousands of ideas and proposals have been submitted to the government and BP. The Coast Guard has received over 3,500 technology proposals so far, of which 77 have been approved and forwarded to the Incident Command for possible use in the Gulf. BP has received over 110,000 submissions, of which the company has only been able to process roughly 12,000.

We need to do everything possible to ensure this oil spill response is the best response that we can make it.

The government needs to take a serious look at every idea submitted to make sure that each good solution is brought to bear and no good idea is left behind.

Recognizing BP's inability to respond to its inundation of proposals, the Coast Guard's Research and Development Center established the emergency Interagency Alternative Technology Assessment Program, or IATAP. And while the IATAP process is doing its best, the struggles facing the Coast Guard in the midst of this emergency show that we desperately need a permanent and long-term process for vetting and evaluating oil spill technologies. The IATAP process is only a temporary fix, and we need a similar permanent process so we aren't back in this position again during the next big spill.

My colleagues and I have worked hard to successfully pass oil spill protections through the Senate in the Coast Guard Authorization bill, which is currently being conference with the House and awaits final passage. The Coast Guard bill includes important measures for oil spill response, like allowing NOAA to access funds from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

But there is more to be done, and it is essential that we take steps to:

* Jump-start oil spill technology research and development;

* Provide the incentive structure we need to turn new cleanup technologies from ideas into reality;

* And continuously add new layers of protection to our oil spill safety net.

That is why last week I introduced the Oil Spill Technology and Research Act -- a bill designed to achieve those exact goals and based on the oil spill research legislation included in my Oil Pollution Prevention and Response Act, which I first introduced in 2006. I hope this language will be included in legislation that will move through the Senate, and I would especially like to thank Chairman Rockefeller's support in that effort.

Twenty-one years ago we saw the devastating costs of complacency, and we're re-living that nightmare again today.

This oil spill is not a Louisiana tragedy, a Florida tragedy, a Mississippi tragedy, or an Alabama tragedy.

It's an American tragedy.

And it's up to us to ensure that America's waters and shores are protected with the greatest rigor that we can muster. Our oceans, coasts, and citizens deserve nothing less.

So we should ask ourselves: When the history is written of this oil spill, will they say we rose to the occasion? Or will they say we fumbled and dropped the ball?

For my part, I hope they say that we rose to the occasion, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on this Committee and in the Senate to make sure that happens.

Source