Today, at a Judiciary Hearing on Gulf Coast liability issues, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Judiciary Committee, reiterated his call for BP to stop using toxic dispersants in its Gulf Coast cleanup efforts. He warned that the cleanup itself – and not only the oil spill – could now create disastrous environmental and health problems for both marine and human life. During his questioning of BP executives, BP refused to accept liability for damages caused by dispersants.

“We are conducting an uncontrolled experiment with all the marine and human life in the Gulf Coast Region,” said Nadler. “An uncontrolled experiment that could result in thousands and thousands of people getting sick or dying as a result of the cleanup, not of the original disaster.”

Nadler’s questions of BP executives during today’s hearing can be viewed HERE.

Nadler’s opening statement at the hearing can be viewed HERE and follows below:

“I just want to make one observation, which I will be going into in the questions. And that is with respect to the use of chemical dispersants.

“We are treating chemicals with chemicals which don’t actually remove or clean up the oil. They simply shift them to another part of the ecosystem while increasing the toxins in the Gulf – harming marine life, contaminating the water column and threatening human life. And there is no scientific evidence that dispersants can be effective in an oil spill of this magnitude.

“But these chemicals make it harder to track how much oil is there and where it’s going, and thus to determine liability. They are good for public relations but nobody can guarantee they are safe. Already we are hearing of people getting sick because of the use of these chemicals. In fact, there is already anecdotal evidence of people getting sick from a mixture of oil and toxic dispersants.

“We are basically air dropping this toxic stuff all over the Gulf. It reminds me of Agent Orange and I am greatly concerned that, during this cleanup, we are conducting an uncontrolled experiment with all the marine and human life in the Gulf Coast Region. An uncontrolled experiment that could result in thousands and thousands of people getting sick or dying as a result of the cleanup, not of the original disaster.

“And I will be going into questions on that during the question period, and I hope that we can prevent a repetition of some of the disasters that we have had before. This disaster is unprecedented in scope as it is and I fear we are just going to make it worse. Thank you.”