BP CEO Tony Hayward is testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation. The meeting is chaired by Bart Stupak (D-MI). It is expected that the meeting will be interrupted throughout the morning for a series of House votes. You can watch the testimony live on CSPAN 3. You can find part one of the liveblog here.

12:15 – the committee has resumed after breaking for several House votes.

12:22 – Bart Stupak (D-MI) do you believe the government should allow companies with terrible records to continue to drill on public land?Hayward dances around the question without answering.

12:26 – Micheal Burgess (R-TX): I will not be apologizing to you. (Wow that is quick even his fellow committee members seem to be throwing Barton under the bus after his apology to Hayward.)

Is there any other well in the Gulf of Mexico that have the same design. Hayward says there are.

Hayward’s only briefing about the well before the explosion was when they told them they made a discovery. (Great exchange) Hawyard: with respect we drill hundreds of wells a year Burgess: Yeah that is what scares me.

12:34 – Henry Waxman (D-CA) Do BP make a fundamental misjudgment in the well design? Hayward keeps repeating “I wasn’t involved in that decision/discussion.”

Hayward tries to make the case it was an engineering decision but Waxman cites internal documents and claims that it makes it appear that it was an economic decision to use a less safe design.

This will be the standard go to line of the day from Hayward “I’m not prepared to make conclusions until the investigations are complete.”

12:44 – John Sullivan(R-OK): There is mounting evidence that BP has one of the worst safety records in the country. Hayward claims they acknowledge in 2006 they had serious issue and went about change that and the company’s culture. (The number of safety violations compared to BP is shocking) BP had hundreds of safety violations while competitors numbers were in the single digits.

Sullivan: other companies have not had your problems, I venture to say this would not happen if a different oil company was in charge of this well.

12:50 – John Dingell (D-MI) is building the case that the disaster was caused by the decision to cut corners to save time and money. He is going point by point asking how much each of these decision would have cost BP in time and money.

Hayward can’t answer if the decisions were made to save money because he was not there.

12:55 – There was a bit of a back and forward between Stupak and Burgress about getting MMS officials before the committee.

12:56 – The committee is on recess so that members can go to the floor to vote.