These days, Senator Mary Landrieu is busy making demands for billions of dollars of public resources to deal with the colossal mess caused by the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. What was Senator Landrieu doing before this huge oil spill, though? She was busy saying that it couldn’t happen here.

On November 19, 2009, there was a hearing in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The topic of that hearing was “environmental stewardship policies related to offshore energy production”.

Mary Landrieu didn’t actually show up at the hearing until it was almost halfway through. Then, when Landrieu showed up, she didn’t use her assigned time to ask any critical questions of BP’s representative at the hearing: David Rainey, Vice President of offshore drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, Landrieu didn’t ask any questions of any witnesses. She seemed to believe that she already knew everything she needed to know about offshore drilling.

Instead of questioning witnesses from the oil industry, Landrieu gave an angry speech denouncing anyone who would suggest that offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico isn’t safe. Landrieu referred to the recent 74 day oil spill from an offshore drilling rig in the Timor Sea as a minor event that shouldn’t be cause for hesitation in expanding offshore drilling up and down the coasts of the United States. She vastly understated the size of the Timor Sea oil spill, and then stated that the Timor Sea oil spill could never happen in the Gulf of Mexico:

“It wouldn’t even be allowed in this country, because it doesn’t stand up to our strict environmental rules… The rig that blew didn’t meet our standards, but if it had slipped through, and we had allowed it to drill, the oil it spilled would have filled a third of the reflecting pool. So, Mr. Chairman, I think one of the ways forward is for people to start telling the truth about what happens onshore and off, and the risk associated with oil and gas production domestically are far outweighed by the benefits… You do a great disservice, you and your organizations.”

Senator Landrieu hasn’t seemed to think it’s important to revisit these remarks in light of the revelations about the very loose nature of American environmental regulation of offshore drilling. When it’s time for for her to run for re-election again, however, Louisiana voters may find such a reminiscence to be of great interest.