Congressional candidates talk Gulf oil spill
April's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico captured our attention and outrage this year.
The Daily Herald asked the candidates running for Illinois' 10th Congressional District seat about the disaster and how they would have handled the situation. The answers from Republican Robert Dold and Democrat Dan Seals follow.
The responses have only been edited for spelling and grammar.
Q. Should there be more or less government oversight with oil drilling? What are your ideas for improving the United States' response to the BP oil spill? What would you have done differently if you were in Congress at the time?
Dold: There should be better, rather than more, oversight. The problem was that federal regulators were not strictly enforcing current regulations. If I had been in Congress at the time of the spill, I would have demanded more leadership from the White House for a better-coordinated response effort. During the nation's worst environmental disaster, it took President Obama nearly two full months to talk directly to the President of BP. I support the effort by the private sector to create a new rapid response unit to better respond to any future incidents.
Seals: As we have learned from the Gulf oil disaster, regulation and oversight are critical to protecting the American public from abusive and dangerous practices by big oil companies. While there were plenty of warning signs that regulators should have spotted, there appears to have also been clearly risky and dangerous operating procedures onboard the Deepwater Horizon rig that led to its explosion and sinking. The ongoing investigation into the BP spill will hopefully yield new ways in which we can improve the oversight of practices aboard oil rigs to prevent such a tragedy from ever occurring again. But at this juncture, it seems clear that we should make sure that we have enough people and resources to actually enforce the laws that are currently on the books. If that takes too long to achieve, then we might also increase the penalties of such a violation to encourage oil companies and rigs to better police themselves.
We must have a comprehensive and effective offshore oil spill response plan that can be implemented should another spill occur. We must be ready to promptly provide the resources and regulatory flexibility necessary to help get disasters like the BP catastrophe under control quickly. I will work to ensure that federal disaster management plans are ready to protect the American people, be it from a hurricane like Katrina or a disaster like the BP spill.
I called for swift action on the BP spill and to hold BP accountable for their actions. Not one dollar of American taxpayer money should go to pay for BP's mess. I do not own BP stock and refuse to allow BP to profit while American taxpayers subsidize BP's negligence. I will continue to fight to ensure that BP is held accountable for the cleanup.