Senators yesterday urged federal agencies involved in analyzing the natural resources damages caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to complete their research as soon as possible.

The sooner the natural resources damage assessment, known as NRDA, is completed, the sooner BP PLC -- the owner of the Macondo well that exploded on April 20 last year -- will be required to pay out potentially billions of dollars toward environmental restoration projects, several members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee noted.

"We need to speed up the process," Sen. David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana -- one of the affected states -- said during the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee oversight hearing.

Another Republican senator from a Gulf Coast state, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, expressed similar sentiments.

"We don't want this to take too long," he said.

NRDA is the legal process whereby the various parties involved -- in this case federal agencies, affected states and BP -- figure out the ecological damage caused by an environmental disaster.

On the government side, each affected state is represented by a trustee, as are three federal departments: Interior, Defense and Commerce.

Scientists are still in the midst of gathering data that will be used to determine how much BP and other companies involved in the disaster will pay as part of the restoration process (Greenwire, April 20). Ultimately, if BP does not reach an agreement with the government trustees, the outcome would be decided via litigation.

So far, BP has already pledged $1 billion upfront to pay for emergency restoration projects, but Vitter said that is not enough.

In an effort to speed up the process, Vitter has introduced legislation, S. 662, that would require a special panel of scientists to come up with a dollar amount for the total natural resources damage.

BP would then immediately be required to pay up to 30 percent of that amount. The bill currently has two co-sponsors in the Senate, while a House version, H.R. 1228, has the support of three members.

The bill has the backing of Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. Its chairman, Garret Graves, who previously worked for Vitter, testified that the bill would put taxpayers "in the driving seat" in the negotiations with BP.

Although sympathetic to the task facing the federal agencies in charge of the NRDA process, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the subcommittee chairman, also appeared concerned about how quickly the assessment will be completed.

He noted that the $1 billion handed over by BP was "a pretty small amount" and said it would be "an encouraging sign" if more funding could be provided.

Cardin asked witnesses from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, both agencies involved in the process, how soon it would be before that occurred.

"That's unknown at this time," said Cynthia Dohner, the Southwest regional director for FWS.

Senators also pressed the witnesses on what has been uncovered so far.

Tony Penn, deputy chief of the assessment and restoration division at NOAA, reported that more than 36,000 water, tissue, sediment, soil, tarball and oil samples have been taken and 90 oceanic cruises conducted.

Overall, more than 21,300 laboratory analyses based on the samples have been carried out, he said. Most of them have already been validated "through a rigorous quality assurance process," Penn added.

BP was not invited to testify at the hearing.

As for whether the company would be prepared to contribute more than the $1 billion it has already given, a spokesman said it would be "premature to talk about adding more money to this fund" because the NRDA trustees have not yet proposed any specific projects.