BP CEO Tony Hayward Going To Capitol Hill: Exec To Say He’s ‘Devastated’ By Oil Spill (VIDEO), © The Huffington Post, June 17, 2010, by Associated Press, excerpt quoted verbatim:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chastened by heavy criticism from lawmakers, a grim-faced BP chief executive Tony Hayward insisted Thursday he was “devastated with this accident” in the Gulf of Mexico and denied shunning probing questions from Congress on the nation’s worst oil spill.

“I’m not stonewalling,” Hayward told a House investigations subcommittee, responding to repeated suggestions that he was dodging questions.

Hayward said he was “deeply sorry” for the spill gushing now for more than eight weeks. “I understand the seriousness of the situation, the frustrations and fears that continue to be voiced,” he said.

Even before he began testifying, Hayward had to endure more than an hour of mostly unrelenting criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike.

“We are not small people, but we wish to get our lives back,” Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., the subcommittee chairman, told Hayward, throwing back at the oil giant comments made the day before by BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg – about how BP sympathized with the “small people” of the Gulf – and Hayward’s earlier remark that he wanted his “life back.”

Later, Hayward appeared unflappable during a tense exchange with Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the full House Energy and Commerce Committee. Speaking slowly and calmly in his clipped British accent, he sought to deflect accusations – based on internal BP documents obtained by congressional investigators – that BP chose a particular well design that was riskier but cheaper by $7 million to $10 million.

Hayward repeatedly said that he didn’t make those design choices as CEO. “I wasn’t involved in any of the decision-making,” Hayward told Waxman, adding that it was clear there were discussions of the subject among the well’s engineering team.
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“What’s clear to me,” Waxman interrupted, “is that you don’t want to answer our questions.”

“You’re not taking responsibility,” the congressman added. “You’re kicking the can down the road and acting like you have nothing to do with … this company. I find that irresponsible.”

Waxman told the BP executive that in his committee’s review of 30,000 items, there was “not a single e-mail or document that you paid even the slightest attention to the dangers at this well.”

A day after BP agreed to pay for a $20 billion victims’ compensation fund, Hayward said under oath to lawmakers that “I feel a great deal of responsibility” for the April explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that triggered the giant spill.

“The fire and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon never should have happened and I’m deeply sorry that it did,” Hayward said. And, while “we need to know what went wrong” Hayward also said that it was still “too early to say what caused the incident. There is still extensive work to do.”

As he began to testify, a protester disrupted the hearing and had to be forcibly removed from the room by Capitol police. The woman was identified as Diane Wilson, 61, a fisherman from Seadrift, Texas, near the Gulf Coast. Her hands stained black, she shouted to Hayward from the back of the room: “You need to be charged with a crime.” She was grabbed by Capitol police and taken from the room.

While most of the opening statements by members contained harsh criticisms of BP, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, turned the tables and accused the White House of conducting a “$20 billion shakedown” by requiring BP to establish the fund to compensate those hurt by the spill.

“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House” on Wednesday, said Barton, who has received at least $100,470 in political contributions from oil and gas interests since the beginning of 2009, the second-highest amount among all the committee members.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs responded: “What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction.”

Stupak, the subcommittee chairman, noted that over the past five years, 26 had died and 700 were injured in BP accidents – including the Gulf spill, a pipeline spill in Alaska and a refinery explosion in Texas. He asked Hayward whether the government should ban drilling by companies with such “poor safety records?”

Read the full article, here.

See Joe Barton, BP Apologist, In ’04: Offshore Drilling So Safe, A Gum Wrapper Won’t Even Fall Off Platform, The Huffington Post, June 17, 2010, by Sam Stein, excerpt quoted verbatim:

With Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex) stealing the spotlight from the debate over oil spill liability by offering an apology to BP CEO Tony Hayward for the administration’s push for a $20 billion escrow fund, a Democrat on the Hill sends over a 2004 remark from the Texas Republican touting the safety and virtues of offshore drilling

“Offshore drilling and production platforms are so technologically advanced that one platform on the surface of the water can handle production from several different wells several miles apart, house a myriad of technologically advanced computer systems, employ scores of personnel, generate electricity, enable people to face and conquer the adversities of living in the middle of the ocean, and do so 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; all without so much as losing a gum wrapper over the side of the platform. It is truly amazing,” Barton said, at an opening for a Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing on April 29, 2004.

See 400 Gulf Offshore Drilling Leases Approved By Government AFTER Oil Spill, The Huffington Post, June 17, 2010, by Mother Jones.