Mr. Gerica Goes To Washington ... But Never Gets Chance To Testify On Gulf Oil Spill - NOLA.com

[WillyT]

Mr. Gerica goes to Washington ... but never gets chance to testify on Gulf oil spill
By Jonathan Tilove
May 19, 2010, 8:41PM

<snip>

For a week and day, Capitol Hill has been consumed with marathon hearings into the cause and consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as House and Senate committees have grilled oil and drilling company executives, Cabinet secretaries, undersecretaries and department heads, Coast Guard officers and a passel of Ph.D.s in the environmental sciences.

Each hearing begins with often windy opening statements from the members of the particular committees, followed by questioning of the various witnesses by the members of Congress who, as often as not, invoke the mythic figure of the Gulf Coast fisherman as the ultimate victim of the unfolding disaster and most deserving of empathy and advocacy.

On Wednesday, however, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee spent so much time expounding on the plight of the fisher that it missed the chance to hear from the genuine article.



Pete Gerica, a shrimper, crabber and fin fisherman from eastern New Orleans, was scheduled to appear on the third of three panels at the hearing, which convened at 10 a.m., beginning with a group of what has become, in every sense of the word, the "usual suspects": Lamar McKay, president and chief executive officer of BP, the responsible party for the spill, and Steven Newman, president and CEO of Transocean, the contractor that owned and operated the drilling rig that burned and ultimately sank when the well blew April 20, killing 11 workers.

By 5 p.m. Wednesday, as the committee remained deep in its questioning of a second panel replete with the heads of the EPA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Minerals Management Service, and a Coast Guard commander and assistant commander, Gerica had to cut bait, as it were, for the airport to head back to New Orleans. Two hours later, at 7 p.m., Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., the chairman of the committee, gaveled the hearing to a close, nine hours after he gaveled it open.

Gerica said he flew into Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night, so he would be rested and ready for his first appearance before a congressional committee.

"I wanted to be right on time for 11 o'clock," he said. That was when the committee staff said he should be ready to testify. "That didn't work out," he said with a chuckle.

<snip>

More: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/mr_gerica_goes_to_washington_b.html

:banghead:

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Is it any wonder that no one has any trust or confidence in Congress???

[WillyT]

2. Apparently... They STILL Don't Get It !!!

:shrug:

:hi: