[Pages H3831-H3833]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

HONORING WORKERS WHO PERISHED IN DEEPWATER HORIZON ACCIDENT

Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the
resolution (H. Res. 1347) honoring the workers who perished on the
Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico off the
coast of Louisiana, extending condolences to their families, and
recognizing the valiant efforts of emergency response workers at the
disaster site.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The text of the resolution is as follows:

H. Res. 1347

Whereas 11 workers tragically died on the Deepwater Horizon
offshore oil platform following an explosion on April 20,
2010;
Whereas the Nation is greatly indebted to offshore workers
for the strenuous work they perform to provide the energy
that drives our Nation every day;
Whereas the Nation has long recognized the importance of
safety protections for offshore workers who labor in
difficult and uncertain conditions;
Whereas these men were loving husbands, sons and brothers;
Whereas these workers should be remembered for their valor
and contribution to our communities;
Whereas Coast Guard and local rescue crews worked
tirelessly night and day in courageous rescue and recovery
missions;
Whereas the families of the lost workers have endured a
great loss; and
Whereas residents of the Gulf Coast and the Nation came
together to support these families: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) recognizes the untimely and tragic loss of the 11
workers from the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas
who died on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform in
the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana;
(2) extends the deepest condolences of the Nation to the
families of these men;
(3) recognizes all employees on the Deepwater Horizon for
their hard work and sacrifice;
(4) commends the rescue crews for their valiant efforts to
rescue these workers and others on the platform; and
(5) honors the many volunteers who provided support and
comfort for the families of these people during this
difficult time.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Speier) and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Cao) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from California.

General Leave

Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from California?
There was no objection.
Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I present H. Res. 1347 for
consideration. This resolution honors the 11 workers who perished on
the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform following an explosion on
April 20 of this year. We mourn their loss and extend our prayers and
condolences to their families.
H. Res. 1347 was introduced by our colleague, the gentleman from
Louisiana, Representative Charlie Melancon, on May 11, 2010. The
measure was reported to the Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform, which waived consideration of the measure to expedite its
consideration on the floor today. The resolution has the support of
over 50 Members of the House.
Mr. Speaker, the deaths of the 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon
offshore oil platform last month were a tragic reminder of the severe
hazards that offshore workers face every day. As we mourn the loss of
these men, let us take a moment to reaffirm our commitment to the
safety of our offshore oil workers and all Americans who perform such
dangerous and necessary work every day. Let us also take a moment to
commend our Coast Guard and the local rescue crews for their tireless
efforts responding to this catastrophe. Their jobs are also incredibly
difficult and dangerous, and we thank them for their hard work.
Mr. Speaker, the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the ongoing crisis
of the oil spill it produced will have significant political and policy
ramifications. We will debate those here on the House floor, but that
is not what we are here to do today. As we are joined today by the
family of one of the victims of the explosion, let us put aside all
differences and offer our united, heartfelt, and profound sympathies to
the families and friends of these 11 workers.
I would now like to place into the Congressional Record the names of
these hardworking Americans who lost their lives in this tragedy: Dale
Burkeen, Donald Clark, Roy Wyatt Kemp, Jason Anderson, Stephen Curtis,
Gordon Jones, Karl Kleppinger, Blair Manuel, Dewey Revette, Shane
Roshto, and Adam Weise.
I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting this measure. I
thank the gentleman from Louisiana for introducing it, and I also thank
the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Congressman Towns of New York, as well as the ranking member,
Representative Issa of California, for their support.

[From Times Online, Apr. 30, 2010]

The Missing Men of Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig

(By Joanna Sugden)

Eleven men were missing presumed dead after the Deepwater
Horizon oil rig exploded last week.
Dale Burkeen, 37 was a crane operator on the platform and
was trained to lower crew members to boats in an emergency.
He had returned to the rig from Neshoba, near Philadelphia,
about a week before the explosion. He and wife, Rhonda, have
two children, Aryn, 14 and Timothy, 6.
Donald Clark, 49 of Newellton, Louisiana, was expected to
leave the rig the day after the explosion for a three-week
break. He was an assistant driller.
Roy Wyatt Kemp, 27, has two children, Kaylee, 3, and 3-
month-old Maddison, with his wife, Courtney.
He loved fishing and the outdoors and attended a Baptist
church in Jonesville, Louisiana, where a memorial service for
him will be held today.
Jason Anderson, was a father of two from Bay City, Texas.
Stephen Curtis was an assistant driller on the rig from
Georgetown, Louisiana.
Gordon Jones, 28, of Louisiana, was expecting to become a
father to a second son with his wife, Michelle.
Karl Kleppinger, 38, of Natchez, Mississippi was a Desert
Storm veteran who spent more than ten years working on oil
rigs. He was a floorman who made about $75,000 a year working
off the Louisiana coast.
Blair Manuel, 56, resident of Gonzales, Louisiana, was a
chemical engineer on the rig.
Dewey Revette, 48, from State Line, Mississippi, was a
father who had worked for the company as an oil driller for
29 years.
Shane Roshto, 22, was from Franklin County, Mississippi.
His family were named on law suits filed by Louisiana's
fisheries industry, accusing BP and Transocean, the rig
operator, of negligence.
Adam Weise, 24, of Yorktown, Texas, came straight from high
school work on the rig in 2005. He loved to hunt and fish and
play football. He was the youngest of four children.

[[Page H3832]]

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[From the Houston Chronicle, May 24, 2010]

Relatives Remember the 11 Lost in Oil Rig Blast

(By Dane Schiller)

Yorktown.--The hand-scrawled note on the cover of the steno
pad is as simple as it is startling.
``April 20, 2010 . . . Start of Hell,'' wrote Texas mother
Arleen Weise.
At ``6:00 AM'' the next morning, Weise noted, she got word
of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, the massive oil
rig where her youngest son, Adam, was working in the Gulf of
Mexico when he was killed.
``I knew in my heart,'' she said of her son's fate as she
stood beside his jumbo-size pickup parked outside his home in
this tiny town near Victoria. didn't say it to anyone; I just
knew.''
With the pad, she has kept a record of people she has
spoken with since that first phone call: Coast Guard officers
discussing the search for her son. Oil company officials
talking about benefits. A preacher framing a eulogy.
Craftsmen chiseling a black marble headstone.
The notepad will travel with her today as she and the
families of all 11 workers killed in the accident gather for
the first time for a memorial service to be held behind
closed doors at a convention center in Jackson, Miss.
Twenty-one of Adam Weise's closest friends and family will
be flown on a charter flight paid for by Transocean, the
company for which he worked.
He was one of two Texans killed.
The other was Jason Anderson of Midfield, who left behind a
wife and two young children.
Anderson's funeral was held Saturday at a packed church in
Bay City. One of his spare blue safety helmets and an XXL
work shirt, complete with an embroidery of the drilling rig
on the right breast pocket, were on a stage filled with
flowers.
On one side of the church, where Anderson married his wife,
Shelley, sat his family; on the other, fellow rig workers.
``We definitely do not understand why Jason is gone and the
other 10 members of his rig,'' said Pastor Clyde Grier. ``We
cannot let the things we don't understand dismiss what we
do.''
He spoke of the burly man who played high school football,
loved to hunt and was known for his Texas two-step.
Anderson, like Weise, knew of the dangers of working on a
rig. But along with the physically demanding work and sweat
came paychecks that could easily surpass $50,000 annually.

Left to wonder

Arleen Weise said she doesn't know what to expect today,
whether other families will be angry and confrontational or
comforting. She does understand, though, that none of them
will ever know what happened in those final moments, no
matter what her steno notepad says.
She knows her son was in the pump room. A surviving co-
worker told her so.
And she knows how many rescue flights were flown and miles
covered before the search was abandoned. There were 28
flights covering 6,600 nautical miles, she said.
She has imagined her 24-year-old son--the youngest of
four--plunging into the nighttime sea and flailing to untie
his heavy work boots and slip out of his jumpsuit.
She decided that the explosion was so massive he never even
knew what hit him.
It is comforting--no pain, no suffering,'' she said. ``He's
on the bottom of the Gulf with the Deepwater Horizon.''
She and three other women--Adam's girlfriend, sister and
grandmother--agreed to talk with the Houston Chronicle in
hopes that more people will know not just how Adam died but
also how he lived.
Adam's older sister, Gwendolyn Weise, said that somewhere
deep she still holds a glimmer of hope he'll be found.
``I just can't get over not having anything . . . him, by
himself,'' she said.
Adam Weise loved playing football for the Yorktown
Wildcats, but he wasn't the best of students in high school.
He worked on a ranch and then headed for the oil fields. He
didn't like the filth but could handle the details in a world
where even a dropped wrench could tumble for a mile through
pipeline.
He made enough not only for his truck, which was nicknamed
``Big Nasty,'' but the neat two-bedroom home he shared with a
cat. A red Transocean jumpsuit still hangs beside camouflage
shirts and jackets for hunting.
When he was back on land at home, he was a prankster.
His mother said he once used a bullhorn to make her think
the police had surrounded the beauty shop where she worked.
``This is the police,'' she recalls hearing over the
bullhorn. ``Arleen Weise, come out with your hands up.'' She
fell for it.
Remembering him makes her laugh as well as cry. She said
she has had so much to do since his death that only now are
some things really taking hold.
``These last few days it has hit me that my son is never
coming back to me. I'm not holding it together,'' she said.
``Now, I keep seeming to be more of a mess.''

`Well from hell'

Adam Weise and his friend Caleb Holloway, of Liberty, were
nearing the end of their last shift and at the end of their
three-week rotation before heading home when a supervisor
needed one of them to go to the pump room.
Weise took the job and told Holloway he'd see him later.
Holloway survived.
If Weise had made it, he never would have been able to live
with the guilt over those who died, his family said. ``We'd
have never had our Adam back,'' said his grandmother, Nelda
Winslette.
Added his mother: ``There is not enough counseling in the
world to have brought him back.''
His girlfriend, Cindy Shelton, said he had been calling her
before and after every shift--unusual for him. She says he
was frustrated with problems on the project.
``Everything that could go wrong was going wrong,'' she
said. ``Every time he'd call me, he'd say, `This is a well
from hell.' ''

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CAO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 1347. This
resolution honors the workers who perished on the Deepwater Horizon
offshore oil platform off the coast of Louisiana and extends our
sincerest condolences to those families. It also recognizes the valiant
efforts of emergency response workers and volunteers at the disaster
site.
I commend my colleague and friend, Congressman Melancon, for bringing
this important piece of legislation before the House, and I extend my
appreciation to him and to the rest of our colleagues in the Louisiana
congressional delegation for working together to address this disaster.
Mr. Speaker, I have come to the House floor a number of times since
April 20 speaking of the ongoing impact of this tragedy on the gulf
coast. Today, though, I wish to focus this body's entire attention on
those whose lives were lost on that day and those who continue to
respond to the crisis.
As I listen to my colleagues speak in support of this resolution, my
heart is heavy. As with their families and friends, I mourn the loss of
those who died aboard the oil platform. On that tragic day, the 11
men--Jason, Aaron, Donald, Stephen, Roy, Karl, Gordon, Blair, Dewey,
Shane, and Adam--were on the rig doing what they knew best. The demands
of working the rigs, as anyone who lives along the gulf coast knows,
are great. It is physically demanding work, and it takes loved ones
away from their families for long stretches at a time.
Our coastline is a working coastline because we are blessed with an
abundance of natural resources in the Gulf of Mexico. From fishermen to
those working the rigs, each day you can find thousands on the waters
laboring to produce these resources and to contribute to the industry
and economy of this Nation.
On April 20, the 11 men were working to provide the energy that has
driven this Nation for centuries and that continues to be a force in
the economy of my home State of Louisiana. This is dangerous work, and
it is our responsibility to ensure that safety precautions are taken
and that procedures are strictly followed.
The explosion is being investigated by various parties, including
congressional committees, and it is our responsibility to ensure the
findings are swiftly addressed with new policies to strengthen safety
procedures for those working in dangerous and uncertain conditions. You
have my word this will be done.
In times of tragedy, this Nation has come together as one, and this
is especially the case for those along the gulf coast. I wish to
recognize the extraordinary work of the thousands of volunteers and
emergency personnel, from the Red Cross to the U.S. Coast Guard, whose
unhesitating response to the call of need thus represents the
compassion and dedication of this great Nation.
To the families of the 11 who perished, I realize that nothing my
colleagues nor I here today can say will return your sons, husbands,
and brothers to you, but it is my hope that the gratitude and respect
we express on behalf of the citizens of this great Nation will provide
some comfort to you while you grieve your loss.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support House
Resolution 1347.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman, a great leader, from Louisiana (Mr. Melancon),.
Mr. MELANCON. Thank you, Representative Speier. Thank you all very
much.

[[Page H3833]]

I rise today with a heavy heart to remember the 11 men that died on
the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon. Those men and thousands of them
like them, women included, travel out to offshore rigs every day to
work hard and provide opportunities for the rest of us to make a
living.
As the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico continues to grow, we see
shorelines, fisheries, and other economies threatened. This
unprecedented event has the entire gulf coast and country watching to
see how soon we can end this.
Setting aside the present crisis for a moment, I am proud to stand
with Members of this Congress to remember those men who represent a
very human face to this tragedy.
I would also like to take a moment to recognize the families of those
11 people. Those men were doing what so many other men and women do in
Louisiana every day. They were working to provide a better life for
their families while braving difficult and sometimes dangerous
conditions to provide domestic energy needed to drive our Nation and
our economy. Our thoughts are with these families, and I pray that
their grief is not forgotten by the rest of us.
And we should also recognize the courageous work of the emergency
responders who fought the blaze and saved lives that night. The loss of
those 11 workers is a high cost to their families, and so I ask
everyone to please remember the personal side to this tragedy as we
move forward. Please keep them in your thoughts and, particularly, keep
them in your prayers.
Mr. CAO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague
and friend from Louisiana (Mr. Alexander).
Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
All along the gulf coast, there are many communities hundreds of
miles from the edge of the water, communities that are filled with
families that, for generation after generation, have produced the
workers that are required to produce gas and oil in the gulf region.
Some of those workers leave home for periods of 7 days, 14 days,
perhaps 21 days before coming home. Sadly, some never return home.
Families can't be prepared for losing those loved ones, and for that,
our hearts and prayers go out in this resolution.
Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my
time.
Mr. CAO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my distinguished colleague
from the State of Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).
Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from New Orleans for
yielding.
This is a sad time for those of us from south Louisiana. It's a sad
time especially as we look at what's happening every day as more oil
gushes into our marshland, our valuable, fragile ecosystem. But if
there is anything that eclipses the sadness we're experiencing on the
coast, it's the loss of those 11 lives, the 11 brave men who died on
that Horizon rig, and the families that they left behind. So many of
those young men left behind young children and wives who now have to
cope with the loss and somehow find a way to move on.
So our prayers go out to those who lost their lives, and their
families who are continuing to experience the tragedy that we're all so
sorry for experiencing on the gulf coast. So it's a sad time for all of
us on the gulf coast, but we want to give a special pause for those who
lost their lives and the young children and spouses that they leave
behind.
Mr. CAO. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to join me in
supporting H. Res. 1347, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Speier) that the House suspend the
rules and agree to the resolution, H. Res. 1347.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be
postponed.

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