Pelosi wants spill bill by August recess

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told committee chairmen on Tuesday that she
wants Congress to finish a legislative response to the Gulf oil spill
before lawmakers leave for the August recess.

The Speaker convened a meeting of nine committee chiefs to coordinate the House’s efforts to address the oil gusher that has consumed the nation’s attention for weeks and threatens to ravage the ecology and economy of the Gulf Coast.

{mosads}Among the measures discussed were proposals to overhaul regulation of the oil industry and dramatically raise or eliminate the current cap on damages that oil companies must pay. In the weeks since the oil spill began, House Democrats have convened hearings and released a bevy of legislative proposals relating to compensation, industry oversight and cleanup responsibility for the disaster.

Participants in the meeting said that House leaders may try to bundle several measures into one bill, but that no firm decision had been made.

“The Speaker said she does not plan to leave here for August vacation without this having been completed,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) told The Hill.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) also instructed the chairmen to finish work on their respective proposals by July 4 so they can be taken up on the House floor after that weeklong recess.

In remarks to reporters following the closed-door meeting, Pelosi put in a plug for using the spill to tackle the nation’s energy policy.

“I don’t know what further evidence anyone would need that we need a new energy policy in our country as we go forward,” Pelosi said. “Instead of digging deeper into the core of the earth, we should be looking to the sun, the wind and the soil for renewables and alternatives to that.”

The House passed a broad energy and climate bill last year. The measure languished in the Senate for months, but Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he plans to move an energy bill this summer.

Lawmakers castigated BP for its response to the spill and insisted that one way or another, the oil giant would be held accountable for the damage. The Democrats largely steered clear of criticizing the Obama administration for its handling of the crisis, although Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) suggested the government had trusted BP for too long.

“I’m sure the president is as angry as we all are, as we’ve waited all this time for BP to get its act together, thinking they’re the ones who know what they’re doing,” said Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. “I have a real question in my mind if they know what they’re doing at all.”

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, repeated accusations that BP had been “deliberately low-balling the size of the spill” to reduce its financial liability.

“BP is either lying or they’re grossly incompetent,” Markey said. “Right from the very beginning, I believe, their interest was in their own liability rather than in the livability of the Gulf.”

Those misrepresentations, he said, had a direct impact on the subsequent, inadequate response to the spill.

While acknowledging that its initial estimates on the amount of leaking oil were low, BP has denied a deliberate cover-up and pledged to meet its obligations to Gulf residents and the government.

The Democrats said Tuesday they wanted to reform government oversight of offshore oil drilling, including an overhaul of the much-maligned Minerals Management Service, the federal agency in charge of regulating the industry. A top priority is ending the process of self-certification that lawmakers say has allowed companies to begin operations without proper preparation. “We shouldn’t let any oil company start drilling unless they have a plan that will work,” Waxman said.

Lawmakers also called for changing liability requirements, both in raising or eliminating the current $75 million cap on payout of damages, as well as revisiting laws governing liability for deaths at sea.

While most of the direct costs for the spill will be covered by the existing Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, the Democrats said they would make sure any outlays by the federal government are paid back by BP. “We are concerned, certainly, about the loss of life and the danger to the people in the region, but we’re also concerned about the impact on the U.S. taxpayer,” Pelosi said.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, said after the meeting: “Whether the federal government has to advance the money or not, at the end of the day BP is going to foot the liability.”

More than $200 million in initial aid is included in a war funding bill now advancing through Congress, but more authorizations may be needed, lawmakers said.