Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley, a Democrat from Waterloo, will take part in another hearing on the Gulf Oil spill disaster today. British Petroleum C.E.O. Tony Hayward will testify before the House subcommittee on oversight and investigations. Braley is the vice chair of the subcommittee and says he will be interested in hearing from Hayward after talking with two of the widows of the workers killed in the oil platform explosion.
Braley says he will ask Hayward directly about the issues the widows raised. “What is it you are going to do, to accept responsibility, to promptly clean up this disaster, to allow us to begin the things that we have always done, which is production of oil, commercial fishing, tourism in this region. What are you going to do to restore that as quickly as possible so our husbands did not die in vain? That’s the question I’m gonna be asking,” Braley said.
Braley says the president’s national address on the disaster did not cover much new ground, and he would have liked to see the president outline a clear strategy. “Look I know that this is an incredibly difficult task,” Braley says, “President Obama himself is not capable of solving this himself because that is not what he is trained to do. But I think he has to outline a clear vision of what he is doing to make sure that B-P, Trans Ocean and Haliburton are exhausting all potential solutions.”
Braley recently toured the area and says in talking with the Coast Guard commander, it is apparent the only way the oil is going to stop completely is with the drilling of the relief wells. Braley says when you look at the diagrams and the incredible depth they have to go through with the drilling equipment, it is an incredibly difficult job, and that’s why it is taking so long.