Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here.
Those were very comprehensive and enlightening observations. Sometimes, Mr. Chairman, one would like to have the public in the room when these presentations are being made, because I think they would give the public more confidence that the regulatory tools and the outreach to the international community that has been described are being developed to make sure we have the absolute best practice in place.
Having said that, as a layperson I'm not very aware of the actual mechanics of containment, relief wells, and the engineering and technical responses. I appreciate very much the overview with respect to management processes, accountability, and closing the accountability loop.
Mr. Ruelokke, with respect to response plans, you acknowledge that the offshore Arctic and drilling in the north involve a climate and a set of circumstances that are different from those in the gulf in terms of post-event occurrences.
As part of your testimony, you talked about containment. You almost made it appear as though containment and the research that is going into containment is as necessary as, and perhaps more necessary than, the drilling of relief wells as an emergency precaution. At least that was my inference.
Could you expand on that a little, please?