Washington, DC--Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY-17) voted for better methods and technologies for oil spill cleanup, and safer drilling technologies to help prevent spills from occurring.    The Oil Pollution Research and Development Program Reauthorization Act, and the Safer Oil and Natural Gas Drilling Technology Act, will give emergency responders new tools and methods for responding to oil spills, and launch an aggressive Research and Development (R&D) effort to prevent future disasters through better blowout preventers and other accident prevention technologies.

“Democrats in the House are taking bold action to respond to the oil spill in the Gulf and hold BP accountable for the mess it created.  But, cleaning up this mess is just the beginning of the solution.  We must also keep accidents like this from happening again, and make sure we are prepared if they do,”said Rep. Engel.

Rep. Engel is a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  At a recent hearing in that committee, Rep. Engel confronted BP CEO Tony Hayward telling him that “I, like everyone else here, and everyone else in America, are totally disgusted.  I think you are stalling, you are insulting our intelligence and I really resent it.” 

Rep. Engel is also greatly concerned with the safety of the Gulf workers, as he remembers all of the health problems which afflicted Ground Zero workers in New York.  He has signed on to  http://bpmakesmesick.com/ - a website designed to increase awareness for the Gulf workers, to make sure they do not fall victim to diseases while working in a toxic environment.

The two bills make safety and accident prevention a key priority in deepwater drilling, and boost the technology we need to clean up oil spills.

“Emergency Responders are using the same tools today they were using to clean up from the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.  Those tools were inadequate then, and they are inadequate now.  We must be better prepared to protect our environment from the dangers of any future oil spill,”said Rep. Engel.

The second bill will shift much of the focus of deepwater drilling R&D from technologies to increase production to technologies for accident prevention, worker safety and protecting the environment. It will help develop an aggressive program to develop safer drilling technologies and practices to prevent accidents like the BP disaster from happening again.

The Democrat-led Congress is taking action to reduce our reliance on oil, and to create a clean energy economy for the future. The American Clean Energy and Security Act, passed by the House, will create clean energy jobs in America, protect consumers, reduce pollution, and help free the nation from dependency on foreign oil. Congress has made historic job-creating investments in a clean energy future, creating more than 700,000 clean energy jobs, nearly doubling our renewable electricity, and saving consumers up to $98 a year.

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