FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE              CONTACT: ROBERT DILLON (202) 224-6977

JANUARY 26, 2011                                                MEGAN HERMANN (202) 224-7875

                                              

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today made the following comments on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Commission’s final report during a hearing before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee:

 

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing.  I had hoped to be able to welcome our new members today, but, unfortunately, we are still waiting for assignments to be made.  Attending our hearings is always educational and worthwhile.  I understand the Chairman’s desire to have this hearing on a timely basis, but I also observe that this issue is a difficult and complex one.  I believe that, once the Committee has been fully organized, we will need to ensure that every member of the Committee has an opportunity to not only hear, but ask questions and express their views on these matters.  Every one of our constituents uses energy, and they rely on us to help make sure it is affordable, secure, and increasingly clean.

 

“The past year was challenging on many fronts, and I don’t think anyone on this committee would ever want to relive the events of last spring and summer.  We lost 11 men, we lost the oil rig they worked on, and oil was released into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days.  I’ve said before that this terrible tragedy brought back the worst memories of the Valdez spill in Alaska, twenty years earlier.  Last year’s spill was stopped in mid-July, but it remains appropriate for us to help those impacted by it, and to seek to prevent future disasters. 

 

“Along those lines I’ll point out that, as this hearing’s background memo notes, there are four other prominent reports on the Deepwater Horizon incident:

 “As expected, these reports are not perfectly congruent.  That leaves a lot of work for us to do up here in seeing where there is agreement among these conclusions and where there might be more need for inquiry. 

 

“Another item I hope we will at least informally agree on today is a threefold pledge regarding our offshore policy: that no victim of a spill should ever go uncompensated, that taxpayers should never be on the hook for a company’s damages, and that these priorities are managed in a way that not only preserves, but also promotes a competitive domestic offshore industry.  That should be agreeable and achievable for all of us.

 

“One of the true ironies and tragedies of the Gulf disaster was that it both opened and reopened such horrific wounds for the fishermen and others who saw their livelihoods compromised by its sudden impact.  These effects were brought first by the oil spill, and later by the administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling, which has cost thousands of jobs and had a chilling effect on our nation’s energy policy.  We have to begin confronting those choices today.

 

“More specifically, we have to decisively recognize the risks and the rewards of offshore energy exploration.  There is simply no better way to take measure of those risks and rewards than by visiting the Gulf of Mexico and witnessing the balance between the many users of the ocean, and their respect for one another.  In my experience, the fishing, tourism, and energy industries are perfectly capable of coexisting – just as they did for many decades before last year’s incident.  The economies of states like Alaska and Louisiana indisputably depend on all three, and the loss of any one will lead to instability and hardship.  Americans require seafood, we love our vacations at the beach, and we depend on oil to live our lives.  It’s a delicate balance – but a coexistence we have to sustain.

 

“So I view our job here, Mr. Chairman, as finding a way to return to a point where our regulators and industry are working to keep all three of these sectors in a secure and sustainable livelihood.  We absolutely need to look at ways to improve our offshore system and make those operations safer.  The uncertainty we’ve had to face over the past year has been staggering, and I hope that today’s hearing will provide some ideas and some clarity as we chart an expeditious path forward.”

 

###