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Release: Connolly Votes to Grant Subpoena Power to Bi-Partisan Commission to Investigate BP Oil Spill in the Gulf

Congressman Gerry Connolly voted in the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday to pass legislation granting subpoena power to the bi-partisan commission tasked with investigating the BP oil spill, providing recommendations on preventing and mitigating future spills resulting from offshore oil drilling. Read more.

Congressman Gerry Connolly voted in the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday to pass legislation granting subpoena power to the bi-partisan commission tasked with investigating the BP oil spill, providing recommendations on preventing and mitigating future spills resulting from offshore oil drilling.

The bipartisan commission, which was established by Executive Order and based on legislation introduced in the House in early May, will investigate the causes of BP’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and report back to the Administration with its recommendations.  

The President lacks the authority to give the commission subpoena power through an Executive Order, so congressional action is necessary to give the commission this essential investigatory tool, Connolly said.  Congress has previously granted subpoena power to commissions investigating national crises, including the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the Three Mile Island Commission, which looked into the 1979 incident at the Pennsylvania nuclear power plant.

 “Subpoena power will ensure that the commission cannot be stonewalled by BP or any other parties involved.  It is critical that the bi-partisan commission be given the necessary powers to ensure that BP and others involved in the spill cannot hide from this investigation,” Connolly said.

Companion legislation to the House-passed bill (H.R. 5481) is pending in the Senate.

Connolly has also introduced legislation in the House to repeal Bush-era loopholes that allowed BP to begin oil exploration on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf without any analysis of the potential environmental impacts.  Connolly’s bill will mandate a full environmental review of every aspect of all offshore drilling activity off the U.S. coast.

“Northern Virginia’s Rail to Dulles project, a public project, had to go through an extensive and thorough two-year environmental review, yet a privately-owned oil rig in the Gulf was exempted from the same process, even though, as we have seen, the environmental consequences were catastrophic to the economy and fragile ecosystem of the Gulf states,” Connolly said.

“The BP oil spill in the Gulf was preventable,” Connolly said.  “Unfortunately, between 2003 and 2007 the Minerals Management Service under the previous administration ‘categorically excluded’ the Deepwater Horizon rig from environmental impact statements and assessments required under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 on the premise that it could never leak more than 4,600 barrels of oil into the Gulf.”

Connolly’s bill - the Oil Pollution Environmental Review Act, H.R. 5506 – would repeal legislation passed in 2005 by a previous Congress that relaxed regulations and required the Secretary of the Interior to approve oil and gas exploration plans on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) within 30 days of their submission to the federal government.  It would also mandate that all exploration plans, development production plans, and lease sales on the OCS be subject to detailed and thorough environmental analysis.

“Never again will Big Oil have the ability to circumvent strict environmental reviews, under my bill,” Connolly said.  “We have seen the consequences of lax regulation in the form of somewhere between 20 million and 70 million barrels of oil spilling into the Gulf, closing America’s largest fishery, jeopardizing tourism, and wreaking havoc with the region’s entire economy.”

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