GOP message at oil hearing: Drill safer, not less

Republican senators used the first hearing into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to warn against pulling back on offshore drilling, even as they emphasized the need for greater safeguards.

While steering clear of the GOP’s “drill, baby, drill” refrain from 2008, lawmakers nonetheless stressed that the U.S. reliance on oil will continue.

“We all agree that we need to steadily minimize the percentage of oil in our overall energy mix, but under anyone's most optimistic scenario, our nation will need a lot of oil for a long time to come,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the top Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

“For the sake of our nation's economy, for the sake of our national security, and this incident notwithstanding, for the sake of the world's environment, we need to safely produce the maximum amount of that energy at home,” she added.

She said the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig “will teach us here today and for many years to come about how America can strengthen our standards for producing the energy we need without compromising our economy or energy security.”

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said that “blocking future offshore exploration only means we will import more from foreign countries.”

Democrat Mary Landrieu (La.), a strong oil-and-gas industry ally, had a similar message. She said that pulling back on U.S. development would “export some of these problems to countries less equipped and less inclined to prevent this kind of catastrophic disaster.”

The first portion of the hearing focused on increased technical safeguards that may be needed to ensure that blowout prevention devices function proplerly.

Later the lawmakers will hear from executives from BP America Inc., Transocean Ltd.  and Halliburton. BP had leased the Deepwater Horizon rig from owner-operator Transocean, and Halliburton was a contractor on the drilling project.