Congress Slams Big Oil Executives: 'The Free Ride Stops Today'

House Democrats wasted no time Tuesday in accusing five of the largest oil companies in the country of being completely unprepared to respond to a spill like the one tarring hundreds of square miles of the Gulf of Mexico.

During a congressional hearing, Democrats also called for new regulation of oil and gas drilling and comprehensive climate change legislation to wean Americans off of foreign oil, and to seek the resignation of Lamar McKay, the chief executive of BP America. Republicans accused Democrats of using the gulf disaster to pass unrelated pet projects and asked why the hearing before the energy and environment subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was being held at all.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the chairman of the subcommittee, opened the hearing with a detailed account of an investigation into the drilling safety plans of BP America, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips.

The investigation found that the same outside consultants had written nearly identical safety plans for all five companies, all of which predicted they could handle a spill of more than 200,000 barrels of oil per day, well over the 40,000 barrels that BP is struggling to contain now.

The plans also showed that all five companies would use the same contractor to remove oil after a spill; that they would use the same controversial dispersant to remove oil from the water's surface, and that the dispersant for all of the companies is stored in the same Mississippi town.

Markey also noted that three of the plans listed a phone number for the same long-dead expert, and four laid out plans to limit damage to walruses affected by a spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Walruses are most often found near the Arctic Circle.

"It is time to expect more from the oil industry and that needs to start today," Markey said, adding later, "The free ride stops today."

Markey also berated McKay, the BP America chief executive, for early estimates that the amount of oil flowing from the spill was 1,000 barrels per day, a fraction of the 40,000 barrels that the federal government now says is spilling into the gulf.

"You low-balled the number," the congressman said to McKay. "Are you ready to apologize to the American people for getting that number so wrong, for being so incompetent and deceptive?"

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McKay denied that the original 1,000 barrel estimate came from BP, and said that it was a number from the unified command in the gulf area, which is led by the federal government.

Although he refused to apologize for the inaccurate estimate, he did tell the congressman, "We are sorry for everything the Gulf Coast is going through."

Like other Democrats, Markey called on Congress to pass several bills to ensure there is unlimited liability for spills by oil companies; to enact wide-ranging safety reforms for deep water drilling; to charge oil companies to drill on public land (all five are drilling or exploring in some portion of the gulf for free); and to move America to what Markey called "a safer, clean energy future so that we don't have to rely as much on oil to power our cars and our economy."

In response to a question from Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), McKay refused to commit to putting any money into an escrow account to pay for damages to individuals and businesses affected by the gulf oil spill.

"I cannot comment on whether there will be a fund set aside," McKay said. "I can't comment yes or no."

Throughout the hearing, the oil executives described the BP disaster as an event that never should have happened. All of them except for McKay said the reports they've read about the disaster showed that BP had not done everything necessary to prevent the blowout.

Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil's chief executive, said, "We would not have drilled the well the way they did."

John Watson, Chevron's chief executive, agreed. "It's not a well we would have drilled," he said.

But the Democrats' real focus was not on Chevron or ExxonMobil, but on BP and McKay.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said BP should not be allowed to decide for itself which claims it will pay in the gulf. "I don't understand why on any level going forward you all should be in charge of anything," he said.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Calif.) nearly begged for a better claims process. "We are dying in the gulf," she said.

As mad as the Democrats were, it was a Republican who called for the ouster of McKay.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) noted that Markey had asked the chief executive to apologize. "I'm not asking for you to apologize. I'm asking you to resign," he said.

Stearns' fellow Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao, whose Louisiana district lies directly in the path of the oil slick, took his colleague's suggestion one step further in suggesting a way McKay could make the situation right.

"Mr. Stearns asked Mr. McKay to resign," Cao said. "Well, in the Asian culture we do things differently. During the samurai days, we just give you a knife and ask to you commit harakiri."