Offshore Oil and Gas Worker Whistleblower Protection Act of 2010
Floor Speech
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Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman, and I thank GEORGE MILLER for his decades of work in ensuring that whistleblower protections are built into the laws of our country in order to ensure that workers are not living in terror, that they stand up for safety.
During the last 3 months, Congress has conducted a vigorous investigation into the causes and response of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. What we've found was that BP was woefully unprepared for this kind of a spill. From the beginning, BP has been making it up as they go along. BP said the rig could not sink. It did. They said they could handle an Exxon Valdez size spill every day. They couldn't.
Early on in the disaster, BP was talking about using a junk shot where they shoot golf balls into the well. Well, when we heard that they were bringing in the best minds and that they were working on this problem, we thought they meant MIT, not the PGA.
BP also talked in the first 3 weeks about deploying nylons and hair to soak up the oil. The American people expected a response on the par with the Apollo Project, not ``Project Runway.''
And from the start, BP has been more interested in protecting its own liability than preserving the livability of the Gulf of Mexico. BP started by saying this spill was 1,000 barrels a day. It wasn't. They knew it. They said it was 5,000 barrels per day; they knew that it was not. And by now, we know it was much, much larger, upwards of 60,000 barrels a day.
Our investigation uncovered that no major oil company would have been able to respond to this type of spill any better than BP. In fact, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill response plans from Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell were 90 percent identical to BP's. They were such dead ringers for each other that they listed the phone number for the same long-deceased expert as the person to call. The response plans also included plans to evacuate walruses from the Gulf of Mexico, even though walruses haven't called the Gulf of Mexico home for 3 million years. It seems that the only spill response technology that the oil industry had invested in is a Xerox machine. No oil company took this responsibility seriously.
The legislation that we will vote on today will ensure that there will be accountability, stronger regulations, and a requirement that before oil companies drill ultra-deep that they have the technology necessary to make it ultra-safe and can respond to a spill ultra-fast.
We need whistleblowers to make sure that we never again see what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico, and that is the important piece of legislation that we are debating right now: whistleblower protection. In this legislation, we are putting into place state-of-the-art protections for oil and gas workers who are retaliated against because they report safety concerns or they report a failure on the part of their employer to have a good blowout response plan.
We know from our investigation both into this disaster and another BP rig operating in the gulf, the Atlantis rig, that BP has cut corners on safety, even if it meant risking workers' lives and environmental calamity. For example, an employee working on the BP Atlantis rig warned in 2009 that BP was failing to meet its requirement to maintain accurate engineering drawings aboard the rig which would enable an effective response to an accident. The whistleblower was fired after making his disclosure. BP continues to deny this problem on the Atlantis rig exists, even though former Federal district court judge Stanley Sporkin who was hired by BP to serve as an independent ombudsman has confirmed that the whistleblower's allegations are true.
And on the BP Deepwater Horizon, workers were also fearful of the extent of the problems aboard the Deepwater Horizon. Jason Anderson told his wife that he couldn't discuss his concerns because, quote, the walls are too thin. Mr. Anderson died in the April explosion.
This bill will ensure that all workers who report safety or blowout response plan concerns who are then fired, demoted or otherwise retaliated against by their employers will be protected. These workers will be entitled to due process at the Department of Labor; and if the Department of Labor fails to act, they will be entitled to a jury trial. They will also be entitled to receive appropriate damages to ensure that they are made whole.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
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Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman.
In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, we have heard that the workers aboard the rig had safety concerns. But in the end, they were powerless to stop the cascading string of bad decisions by BP that led to the disaster. They clearly feared for the loss of their jobs and of their livelihoods.
Our legislation will protect these brave Paul Reveres in the oil industry who sound alarms in the future. I thank Chairman Miller for his historic work on this legislation. I thank all of the Members who are focusing on this issue, so that people who stand up to protect the safety of workers do not have to lose their jobs.
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Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. The gentleman put his finger right on it. There would be a completely different response if the spill were not 1,000 barrels or 5,000 barrels per day but, rather, 30,000 to 60,000 barrels per day. It delayed the response. Much more harm has been done to the people in the Gulf of Mexico. There was a greater delay in bringing in all of the skimmers, all of the new technologies to be able to deal with this spill. If a whistleblower knew that it was not 1,000, knew that it was not 5,000, they should not have to fear that they would lose their job if they wanted to protect the oceans of America and the workers in the Gulf of Mexico rather than being afraid that they would lose their own job and their own family's livelihood. That is why this legislation is so important.
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