Senate Proceeding on Jun 24th, 2010 :: 8:17:45 to 8:33:50
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8:17:31 to 8:17:51( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: want to s pensacola beach yesterday. it's hit us full force. this white is the natural, sugary white sand of the northwest florida beaches.

8:17:45 to 8:33:50( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Bill Nelson

8:17:52 to 8:18:12( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: you can see as far as the eye can see down the beach it's covered with this black tar-like sludge. this was yesterday. more rolled in last night.

8:18:13 to 8:18:34( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: there have been attempts to get out and scoop this up. this, as you can see, is not the tar balls, the little quarter-sized or dime-sized tar balls that have hit the beaches before. no.

8:18:35 to 8:18:56( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: what this is showing is when you have 60,000 barrels a day gushing in to the gulf of mexico now for more than two months and that very likely it will continue to gush for the rest of

8:18:57 to 8:19:17( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: the summer, that's another 2 1/2 months. it shows you what is the potential that is being portended. another picture here from yesterday, this is where the pier is. here's the gulf. here are the waves cach crashing in. this is far over this sugary

8:19:18 to 8:19:42( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: white sand that you can see how much oil has collected. in the middle of the day, when the sun is beating down, it stays almost fluid like this. as the sun goes down and it cools, this will start to become

8:19:43 to 8:20:03( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: a more viscous consistency. and you can imagine, do you think, as much as we want the people to come and enjoy our beaches -- and this is the height of the season in the world's most beautiful beache beaches -- is this going to be an incentive for them to come? and you can imagine the lost

8:20:04 to 8:20:26( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: income from the hotels, the restaurants, and all the ancillary businesses. and so, madam president, this is a saddening reality but it is a glimpse of what is yet to become with that much oil out there in

8:20:27 to 8:20:47( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: the gulf of mexico. now, let me just give you a couple of iterations. you know, they have said by putting this top hat that is like a funnel to siphon off a lot of it until they can finally kill the well, they're saying it's going to be thend of august, first part of september

8:20:48 to 8:21:09( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: before they can get down to the bottom, the 18,000 feet below the seabed, intercept the well pipe and then put cement down in it to kill the until that point, they're trying to siphon it off at the well

8:21:10 to 8:21:30( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: head, which is where the blowout preventer failed. remember, they went in with one of those big shears and they clamped off the pipe called the riser pipe and they put this kind of funnel over it called a top hat and they're siphoning off. and they said they have been able to siphon off 25,000

8:21:31 to 8:21:51( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: barrels a day. well, that's very goodxcept 60,000 barrels a day a gushing. so as much as they can continue

8:21:52 to 8:22:13( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: to siphon that off, maybe -- certainly not half but at least some is being siphoned off and taken up to a tanker on the surface 5,000 feet above the seabed. but, you know, check the weather channel. there's a tropical wave that is

8:22:14 to 8:22:35( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: now developing in the south caribbean. if you look at the weather -- the national weather service projection of where is it going to go, it's going to intensify, it's going to become a tropical depression. then it's going to likely become

8:22:36 to 8:22:58( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: a tropical storm, and who knows, it may be a hurricane. and its projected path is to go right up in the gulf of mexico toward this damaged well. all right. what happens? the ships can't stay out there

8:22:59 to 8:23:19( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: if a hurricane is coming. they have to go in and find safe port, and so some five days before the arrival of the hurricane, the ships would have to decouple, stop the siphoning

8:23:20 to 8:23:40( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: off of the 25,000 barrels, and, therefore, the entire 60,000 barrels a day would be gushing. well, for how five days before the hurricane and another five days after the hurricane passes before they can get back out there, preposition

8:23:41 to 8:24:02( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: their ships, reattach the top hat. we're talking about a total of ten days with no siphoning that 60,000 barrels a day or 600,000 barrels have gushed into the

8:24:03 to 8:24:24( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: gulf. that's three times the amount of oil that was exxon valdez just in that ten-day period. so of course what i am asking is the united states navy preposition shs so that we

8:24:25 to 8:24:48( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: could have a surge of ships to come to the site after a hurricane has passed so that that extra 600,000 barrels of oil that had gushed in whenhey had to shut down would be in addition to the skimmers. no let me tell you about the skimmers.

8:24:49 to 8:25:11( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: you still today, there is not a sufficient command-and-control structure, as much as this senator has continued to ask the incident command and the unified command, how many ships do you have out there, what kind are there, and where are their positions, you still cannot get a straight answer today.

8:25:12 to 8:25:33( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: and wh madam president, is that the united states navy has a series of smaller boats that are skimmers in port. that's pursuant to the law. where you have a port under the clean water act and under the oil spill act and all of those

8:25:34 to 8:25:54( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: existing laws, you have to have the capability if there's a spill in port to it up. and the navy has some 45 vessels that can do that. out of those, only six have been deployed to the gulf.

8:25:55 to 8:26:15( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: these are boats that basically 30 feet long. you can't use them out in the gulf but you can sure use them in the bays when the oil goes through the pass or the inlet into the bays, you can have those additional smaller boats that skim up the oil before it

8:26:16 to 8:26:38( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: gets into the wetlands. and out of those 40 boats, the navy has identified another 27. would you believe, madam president, that up to two days ago, they still had not approved getting those 27 boats that the navy has identified

8:26:39 to 8:27:01( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: that they can put on trailers and bring to the gulf coast to preposition them in those bays to protect the estuaries? this senator had to call the head of the e.p.a., lisa

8:27:02 to 8:27:22( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: jackson, and fortunately on that very afternoon, she had approved the e.p.a. signing off with a waiver to allow those boats to leave those ports to get to the place of where the big oil spill is. it's only been going on for over two months now, but at least that approval is there. but as of this afternoon -- and

8:27:23 to 8:27:45( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: that was two days ago. as of this afternoon, this senator cannot get an answer, are those boats on trailers and on their way? let me give you a example. all along this beautiful beach there are several passes.

8:27:46 to 8:28:06( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: others call them inlets. the state line, the p alabama-florida state line is perdido pass. that goes into perdido bay. that is shared with alabama and florida. further to the east is pensacola pass. that goes into pensacola bay.

8:28:07 to 8:28:27( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: the cradle of naval aviation at pensacola naval air station. it's right there bay. that's where two and a half weeks ago in a fish and wildlife boat in pensacola bay that orange mousse that looked so awful was flowing in and flowing

8:28:28 to 8:28:50( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: rightoward downtown pensacola. and we gave the longitude and latitude position and i think somebody got it before it got to downtown. that's where these smaller boats can help and need to be prepositioned. go further east. now we have an interesting, different kind of pass.

8:28:51 to 8:29:13( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: it's called destin pass. it is the only inlet going into a huge bay that borders eglin air force base called alcoholic

8:29:14 to 8:29:35( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: tchoktachoktahatchee. this pass, like pensacola bay, is shallow. but because it's shallow, the incoming tide rushes through. you can imagine the force of that current gets to that point, it's going to carry it into the bay. it's all the more reason of why

8:29:36 to 8:29:57( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: we need the small navy boats in the bay to skim it up before it gets into the wetlands. because all the booming that we have done -- and i was just there monday inspecting the booming -- when that tide comes rushing in, a lot of those booms are not going to hold it.

8:29:58 to 8:30:18( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: they've even got sophisticated systems that we're trying toet since it's a shallow pass put on the bottom, a pipe that shoots air up and, therefore, would get oil suspended below the surface, shoot it to the surface so you could collect it with the booms if the booms will hold in that

8:30:19 to 8:30:41( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: onrushing high tide. go further to the east. it's the pass going into panama city, st. andrew andrews bay, again, a deepwater pass. similar situation. we need the skimmers in there. and then gourther to the east to a place where my grandfather

8:30:42 to 8:31:03( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: came on a boat, my great-great-grandfather, 181 years ago when my family came to florida in 182 to port st. joe, inside a natural bay that is created because of the arm of a cape called cape san blast.

8:31:04 to 8:31:25( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: from the tip of that cape to the mainland is only about a mile and half. it's hard to boom that, and there again is why we need additional skimmers in that bay. if the skimmers out in the gulf can't get it all and we're with

8:31:26 to 8:31:48( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: so much oil in the gulf, that's going to be a chore. then at least we've got a fighting chance of getting it in the bay. madam president, it is with a heavy heart that i show you a picture from yesterday in pensacola beach like this.

8:31:49 to 8:32:10( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: but it is a fact, and this isn't the only time. we're going to be faced with this for months, indeed, probably for years. and it's not only going to be the gulf coast, because when this oil shifts to the south and gets in a current called the

8:32:11 to 8:32:32( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: loop current, that'll carry it south to the florida keys, which becomes the gulf strearnlings which will take it up the east coast of not only florida but the eastern seaboard of the united states.

8:32:33 to 8:32:53( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: and, therefore, i rember after hurricane andrew, that valiant emergency operation center director that said, when there was no federal resources coming in, she said, where is the cavalry?

8:32:54 to 8:33:14( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: i'm asking now, where's the cavalry? and the cavalry are all these extra skimmers for the bays and the cavalry is the extra surge capacity of additional skimming when a hurricane comes through and all that extra oil is gushed

8:33:15 to 8:33:23( Edit History Discussion )

Bill Nelson: out. i'm asking for the cavalry. mr. president, i yield the