first 120 days, where the ec, already permitted projects for you could get out the door, which tended to be resurfacing. ..

that's one of the areas of wanted to bring up because about november of last year i handed you a letter in regard to the ability to people to race officials refuted the conservation pool and haven't heard anything. there's been some kind of a delay headquarters, york headquarters, being able to allow the county to move forward with that. it would allow for probably 1100 acre-feet to be retained in the group for replenishment for the basin. i have a copy of it and will give it to you. but i certainly would want to make sure that that moves forward so that that can be done. it would save a lot of water and given california's drought situation. some think you very much for that. and i won't belabor it.

i know you work great with us in this area. to mr. peck on the gsa, the areas in my district that have been working with gsa includes the norwalk tank farm which is an area that is contaminated. it would be nice to have the government release that contamination site and continue to clean it up but be able to have some of that money be able to be in the pocket of the gsa and the government for use in other areas, and i don't want to follow-up on that right now, but i would like to maybe speak to you on that. and mr. porcari, tikrit supervision as part of the t.i.g.e.r. grants as you know are going straight to my district as even mr. chairman

team did a national significance, a court order of national significance, there are 54 going through my district which bring in all of the 40, 50% of the nation's goods to the rest of the country. those are project ready to go. they've already done most of the work, yet we have very limited funds to be able to get that now. the railroads need to be forstchen hopefully we will be the to put into effect laws that require them to put more funding into the participation of the separation is because they've benefited getting the goods on time delivered to the rest of the nation. those are some of the things that i have in mind. the high-speed rail, i love it and by sorry ms. brown, a great job. california is getting a lot of the funding for that, and like ms. richardson was stating it is

going through, and yet there is very few -- i had to force the issue with the high-speed rail authority to sit with the locals especially in my area because a lot of it goes through my area to deal to determine whether are they talking eminent domain? have they purchased right of ways, which they have not. they talk to the locals about the ability to go through the communities. the cities are saying no you're not. so while they may have plans, they are going to run into legal objections from the communities they planned to go through. and i certainly have some concerns and some issues i want to sit and discuss with somebody and bring the people who are actually going to be affected to the table so that there is at least an understanding on what -- if they want to go through, fine. i need mass transit. i don't need high-speed rail in my area. i need to move the mouse is. there's 12 million people in the l.a. county alone that need to go to work and we'll have bus transit and as you know, you have one accident and you have a tie up.

so those are mostly comments i wanted to give it to be sure we look at. i just recently heard the cost of going from san francisco to l.a. was deemed to be 55. it's now gone to 105 and this is just how would i say speculation from -- because it's not built yet. i just want to ensure and also i need the dialogue on the right of the issues. we have someone come to the district can't talk to the communities involved. they have done it and will move with a high-speed rail authority but we have no idea where they are moving forward, because as ms. richardson was just stating it goes from -- it doesn't go through our districts in many areas. comments very quickly. do any of you requested from

your contractors information about how many jobs have been created within? because we -- i hear it in my district people say we've gotten jobs developed out of the stimulus money but yet i have no idea where those jobs are coming from. and if he would request your contractors to report to you how many parts of the developed the would be helpful because we keep hearing there's no job development. we have 10,000 severin is coming home starting in march. 10,000 a month through the united states. are you making provisions for them to be hired first because right now the highest population is women veterans. i take exception to that. they've served this country and need to be put to work so they can be able to get into society. another one would be the projections of the projects because everybody wants to be able to bid on projects.

have you determined if there is any excess money left over from projects donner to be able to put into new projects because they are going to use it. i'm hearing this from some of my water projects on the subcommittee and those are things i think this subcommittee would like to know if you are what can we do to alert some of the that have high and in planning or that have a greater need to be able to move projects forward that already online that can move forward i wouldn't say 30 days of already but at least 60, and a six month period and with that i've gone over my time. thank you for your indulgence and i would like to hear some answers if anybody is willing to comment. >> i would love to. starting with where you ended money left over from the low bids on projects have experienced that in the recovery project across-the-board and the

states, transit authorities and aviation eligible projects have been able to recycle the money and put out additional projects. one of sable real originally thought we would do about 300 airport improvement projects, we of donner 360 because the good bids. the money is going right back out for additional projects. i believe my colleagues would do the same and that's true across-the-board. i would be very happy to convene a meeting with high-speed rail authority on the issues you brought up. i would point out i've been pushing applicants on high-speed rail very hard in this case the california high speed rail authority to the act together in the sense of working with all of the stakeholders working as regions, not as specific areas, not working as one state with across state boundaries the successful applicants are the ones actually doing a good job of that. you're point is well taken. i will be happy to set that up

and finally if i may on the call to crossing project and what shows more than anything else is how dire the needs are for those improvements and for those not familiar this is a freight real improvement where the two major class one real roads intersect and when you have 40% of the nation's import coming through that one very small pipeline it is a critically needed improvement. the crossing as you mentioned are also critically needed and it illustrates more than anything else how far behind we are in our infrastructure. >> congresswoman, if i might, we do track the jobs. we do it on her work hours and we do that consistently and then that is reflected on our website and i would like to make the comment also that amtrak has been longing for so long to have capital funds that if we have the ability to move it, if the bids come in under its danilo we're putting it to good use or

the to can be assured of that and we will be happy to talk further on that. thank you. >> if i might address your concern about the turning warriors. we're using $3 million of the narrow money to train returning veterans in what is called the veterans project. we are treating them to have skills to do digitization and other skills to help in our archaeological cataloging so we have one of those ongoing projects now in augusta georgia, won in st. louis and no one in d.c. and we are hoping this kind of project can get more and we are looking to the next year's budget to get more money from that. >> finally by might on the contract job reporting, we are by the white house recovery act office required to have our contractors tell how many jobs they are creating. as i said before the rules under which they do that are stringent and very conservative, and really the have to have actually

been paid for a job before they can report so when they hire people in anticipation of payment they are of reporting those jobs yet and that may be why your hearings, i think i have a job because of the stimulus program or the recovery act and we are not reporting it. >> mr. chair i would like to have this committee report on some of those figures that the administration has but we may not have them at our disposal. >> we have included in the 40 day report all of the information that comes to us directly comes to this committee directly from the state dot and other participating federal agencies and if there's any additional information they have through the course of this hearing be distributed to all members. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

i know was. it didn't get a chance to introduce. you are the former mayor of mccaul which is in my district and i want to see for the record they couldn't have picked a better person to do this and i worked with you and the predecessor on amtrak and importance of fully funding it in your right it is nice to be able to see we are starting to actively invest in the passenger rail and strong proponent of that. i may want to ask the panel for help i don't know if you can do this for me mr. chairman, but we -- i appreciate the high-speed rail that was announced for illinois and the governor as you know of the state $45 million into the quad cities to the chicago passenger rail and that came through i think they are incredibly great to put people back to work. we are short about $45 million on the deep end where they want to put the depot and i don't

know if there is who i should talk to so i guess i'm asking you for assistance or maybe you could have to eckert you need to talk to talk to because this is, by the recall going to put 800 people to work and it's ready to go. will be huge. we are going to build a new campus. people are going to come from chicago. they go to western illinois now so any help that i can work with the staff on i would generally love that but let me just say i think you've done a wonderful job putting people back to work is great. so i guess it's more of a replete to get help but i just want to ask you mr. porcari views it as $30 billion using in the senate bill. the chairman came to my district and we had young people i think you're a member with t-shirts on on the highway and its u.s. 34 and we have in the district's turtle highways. but here young people came to meet with the chairmen and had

these shirts. this is a highway that has a curve that goes from high school and eventually come its way to happen, there's no question is, it will the win. if we don't get it fixed what we are going to have as i think you know mr. chairman what we are talking about here you will have the school getting it rammed into while these kids are in school. what is the 38 billion in the process of planning for the funds and can illinois two? five to the dangers and my fear is if we don't get moving quickly we are going to read about something in the paper, and again, you know, i want to be very proactive on this and i don't exactly know how to do it so any help i can get again would be great. >> congressman, first i need to apologize. the version of the jobs bill that was passed yesterday as a surface transportation extension until the end of the calendar year. it does not have any longer additional funding. but it does bring is consistency

and capability. so the existing formula funding for every state through the surface transportation bill would be extended through the end of this year. i need to also caveat that by reminding the committee that the highway trust fund will need a cash infusion sometime this late spring to continue to be viable. so if you are speaking to the larger need that is out there that we are currently struggling to fund. >> i worked hard to get on this committee and the reason i did is because as i said earlier, i believe investing in infrastructure is particularly in a recession but we have got, you know, 20 years ago the president of iron workers said x number of percentage of bridges were in dire need and so far i think only a handful of those and 20 years have only been touched and this chairman has

worked tirelessly to get a multi year highway bill reauthorization bill and i am not going to -- i know he won't put anything we can do and i would hope you would let the president know this is a huge for the american people because we cannot peace the of this. you simply cannot piecemeal and when you take a look at the money spent by the government on some things people find a little bit testy, $750 billion for banks, and yet we are having a very tough time finding the illinois lottery trust fund in getting the multi year highway bill, the kind of money that chairman carper would love to have so we can expand amtrak, those are all the things i think if we are going to get the economy moving again that is how we are going to do it. a little bit here and a little bit there i think really doesn't get to where we need to go. and congressman, i don't know if he's still here but here again if we are going to take these rail car sallai have an mt

factory, former maytag plant that was sourced out to mexico nafta. we would love to make them there so if anybody is interested in a wonderful facility -- aren't you glad and even here today. but these cars and these kind of things need to be made here and we are going to insist. i will be lifted if i find out we take the taxpayers' money and we send it to other countries to manufacture stuff when we are sitting here in illinois and 11.1 and the gentleman from florida talked about the unemployment rate there. so anything we can do to do that. to give one final example of this, mr. chairman, on the chicago thing to repay 800 jobs are going to be created. i just got to conclude by saying everybody's gone over their time limit i must be living in a different time warp because i hear people talking about how the stimulus isn't anybody to worker safety job or done anything. for those people, either on the wrong planet or i don't know where they are getting their figures because quite frankly,

we are seeing a number of things, a number of good things come and if the chairman has his way and i hope he will with the surface transportation bill, we can get this country back moving together, and we can actually start repairing bridges. my fear is i don't want to see a repeat of what happened in minneapolis. but sometimes people say to me that's the congress reacts, it has to be horrible before anything gets done. so whatever you can encourage the administration to do, and i would be happy to -- i'm sorry i went over and on a grand jury little bit -- but whenever you can do to get the message and move this, i will work with anybody here. >> congressmen, those are great point. if i can just address one because i know we are out of time. on a high-speed rail, the american manufacturing company is critical. secretary lahood called together the existing and potential manufacturers basically to tell them that the buy america act is the floor, not the ceiling. that we expect more of them in this, and we have coming out of that we have commitments from 30

manufacturers all different parts of the supply chain the. they're going to locate or expand an air ticket to get business as a part of high-speed rail. it's the kind of a bully pulpit raising the expectations i think we can do up front and that we are very focused on. >> mr. chairman i know we are late but i would like to respond. thank you for the kind words. the project that you're speaking of, congressman, is an example of what we are seeing around the country in certain areas and by sorry that [inaudible] is not here but the development it's come in and around the stations whether it be in l.a. or mean or california or florida or wherever, the transit oriented development is a given and it's starting to happen with rail. the of result that is happening is waiting for the two major projects to happen one is a university expansion and the

other is expansion of passenger rail and those jobs may not get equated as we are reporting that it is happening out around the country and we fully support that and are working very hard with the folks in the quad cities and on into iowa i might add and we will follow-up with your staff on the depot situation in any projects that might be available. >> thank you. >> miss edwards. >> thank you, mr. chairman and all of you for your patience. i have a couple areas of inquiry because i agree with mr. herron with so many on this committee. infrastructure we have long-term major infrastructure needs, water and sewer, transportation. there's not a dime that would be spent on infrastructure that wouldn't pay off jobs right now

in true economic growth for the future so it seems like a no-brainer. i don't even know why we are wrestling with what we need to do here but we are we. but i do have some concerns looking at the buy america provisions and particularly mr. hooks, i wonder if you can respond. i know that the epa issued 25 regional leaders. there was a nationwide waiver that was announced for june and an updated in august and i wonder if you can tell me what that means in terms of dollars gone and jobs for the waivers issued because i'd concerned we have gaps in by america that we do need to close and i wonder if any of you have comments particularly mr. peck about how we could strengthen by america with respect to services. i look at things like high-speed

rail for example, you know, where some of the design services and stuff could easily be taken off shore because this kind of where a lot of the work as, and so i don't want to make these major investments and then both on the surface and the goods see american taxpayers' dollars that are not used to buy america and built america. so i want comments on that. >> let me respond to the buy america question that you asked. we have issued 43 project specific waivers at this point in time and four national leaders, a waiver for the components of the various pieces of equipment that's necessary to be purchased. in my opinion i think that is a fairly small number, 43 projects approximately 4200 -- >> what does that mean in terms of dollar amounts and jobs?

>> dollars of notes and jobs i don't have an algorithm that would give me that specific figure. we would have to do more research and supply that for you at a later point in time. i can assure you the conversations we've been having with the recipients and states our primary of ejected has been to purchase our products here in america. but in some instances due to the historical purchases of equipment for the entities that want to replace equipment that have previously purchased foreign manufactured goods and those instances we have a few waivers for the replacement parts and things in that nature. with every request they are specifically investigated to ensure there are no american manufacturers that can produce the same piece of equipment. in the event we do have a manufacturer that comes forward we need the information known across the country and not even

the there's other entity or waste management district if you will also wanted to purchase the piece of equipment to make sure they are aware of what the potential capabilities are of these american companies. >> mr. peck. >> of the building site of gsa, the major services that we try to acquire, building maintenance service cleaning services and even architectural engineering services, they are an abundance of american suppliers and contractors to do it, and so i have to say in our recovery act work on a am not aware of any instance in which we've had to go somewhere else. there are -- there are opportunities but for one reason or another great architects and other countries but we have great architects here and that is who we have been hiring to do the work. as i said before, my concern is something that i think the

recovery act will allow us to overcome is there are some aspects of sustainable design and development in which right now we have to accuse foreign components and their, too, as i said we are having active conversations with american suppliers and talking about how can we ordered enough from them to get them to onshore their production. >> part of the challenge is we wanted them to know that it is a long-term investment. there is no incentive for them to bring work back on shore if they don't know that we have a long-term commitment. before my time runs out, it's probably already run out but mr. chairman, if he would indulge me for just a moment -- >> your timing is not run out. >> thank you. i want to get to a class and about the disadvantaged business participation because i've had this inquiry, and i know others on the committee have as well,

and i know that we have a 10% aspirational goal, but i don't see is a state-by-state, what are states really doing? how do you keep track of that, deputy secretary porcari income and what is it -- and it concerns me that we also -- and with mr. cummings said the chairman's help come allocated additional bonding authority but only five applications, $50,000 out of 20 million, what are we doing to make sure people even know that authority is available to disadvantaged businesses can take advantage of the bonding authority and then again how are we meeting the 10% aspirational gold because those are huge companies that have come out of my district and within the state. >> i think those are excellent questions, and we have heard some of the same questions. one of the advantages of using

the existing mechanisms and relationships and policies with the states in their recovery act is that the states and grant recipients know what they have to do including with disadvantaged business enterprises. and they should have in place established programs to promote and get into the goal and beyond. it's clear that we have a lot of work to do on this. it is clear that some states have done a better job than others. i will tell you it is particularly frustrating that the bonding assistance program, which we are very appreciative of because it tackled one of the very specific barriers to entry that minority and disadvantaged businesses have which is securing bonding is a you can bid on a job that we are very frustrated it hasn't been used more than it has. we've been working with the small business administration.

we have a partnership with one of the largest owned banks to promote this. brandt kneal, who was the director of the small and disadvantaged businesses, has literally been around the country promoting this and pushing our partners to do better. >> i have to tell you i was with a group of business is just a few weeks ago. they had no idea that it even existed so i don't know what it is that the department is doing additionally to reach out and encourage states to do the same. i don't know if it is possible but we do need a specific report on minority business disadvantaged business participation and where states are in terms of meeting those goals by category i want to know how many women owned businesses and african-american owned businesses and latino businesses are really contributing to getting to the ten per cent which should be a floor and not

a ceiling. >> if i may suggest a place to start is we could sit down with you and make sure we are getting the information to get there that you would like on this. this is again something we haven't been successful at is we would like to have been. we are looking for ways to improve the process and would appreciate suggestions and input. we talked to a number of minority contracting associations and professional groups and others as part of this but it's clear that we need to do more. >> i look forward to working with you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> on that point i want to underscore that early in this process last year i convened a meeting of the building trades, the presidents of all the building trade unions and the will try caucus and the members of the asia pacific bachus, the

black caucus participated. we had a very frank exchange with the presence of the trades about outreach, about inclusiveness, bringing a minority trainee into the program. the building trades, going back to the allegis where the guilds were the skill was handed down from father to son from generation to generation. we need to break that chain and a change things and i designated ms. napolitano to coordinate for the caucus for the follow-up to those meetings to the presence of the building trades all committed to initiate new programs to recruit from the minority communities to bring people into their journeymen and apprenticeship programs in the the same needs to be done with the minority contracting

community and you're point is well taken about the need to outreach to the code outreach and notify about the existence of the bonding provisions in minneapolis just last week mr. allyson represents minneapolis, and i met with minority contractors in minneapolis. a good many were aware of the bonding but they also didn't have a way of accessing the funding. they didn't know how to go about eight. there were also concerns that the outreach is very successful for the women owned contacting firm but not black or hispanic owned contracting firms and so i have discussed with ms. napolitano about a follow-up meeting that we would have with the department with the associated general contractors with the building trades and we will set up a time to convene

and have a roundtable discussion about these issues and have a full agenda which we will develop. ms. brown? i yield to the gentleman. >> thank you. i want to address a major discussion in the black caucus have and i invited you to come and speak with the caucus on this issue because there's a lot of concern that let's say all of what we are discussing, all of this stimulus i look at it like my grandmother is sweet potato pie we all contribute when we voted for the stimulus in fact was all democratic votes not one republican but it's important minorities and women get a slice of light sweet potato pie. it is a good reason for not want to know and so it is broader than just two or three people. we want to know how those programs are working and whether or not because part of the problem you have these big contracts if you don't take them

down the minorities and females cannot participate because they cannot just bond, but you know, it's just the big guys get of the dollar's and that is a part of the problem and that has been a part of the problem and basically is throughout the federal government not just with transportation even so we've had some success minimum but all through government part of the problem is that minorities and females don't get opportunity to participate because of the size of some of the projects, general service in particular. that is one of the really good systems in other words people than doing business with general surface for years and so it's hard to break in and so the question is what can we do to let people know and part of it is the workshops you have, some of the aldrich going into the community and letting them know that these opportunities are available and how to apply.

i've had several of those and i would encourage other members to do the same thing. >> we are going to follow-up and have lessons learned in this arena as well. >> practice i guess we should call with -- sprick -- established a practice is as we go into the authorization for the six year surface transportation bill. mr. porcari, they're has been much misrepresentation or misinformation about the pace of implementation of the stimulus program and a good deal of it on talk radio and television reporting and newspaper print reporting comes under the rubric i would say of misunderstanding

of terms and in fact this misinformation to the general public. so let's have a discussion now about the terms. allocate, obligate, outplay. these are budgetary terms. i said at the outset of this hearing that the jobs precede the reporting. the jobs are on the site. contractors have ordered their material with which to do the project. they've brought their workers back or paul waide deily kaput then on the job site. they perform work than the contractor builds the state on the highway project or aviation product builds the airport authority and the state pays and then vouchers the federal

government so the jobs are out there long before they stoutly takes place but i want you to explain for the public understanding allocate complicate, elderly. >> thank you, mr. chairman because this is probably the single biggest misconception in the whole recovery act and what we should all carry out is exactly what he said which is when the materials are ordered, when the jobs are created and when the layoffs are related and the obligation in the elderly in particular have been a source of confusion. we have obligation for transportation projects is when those things happen. the arm materials are ordered to and the work happens. because we work on a reimbursable basis of the three terms the one we should care about the least is actually out late because that is the end of

the process. again i seen this from both sides starting the recovery act delivering projects and the state dot and i can tell you what obligation actually means. it means you can talk to the state contractors' associations and tell them these are the bid packages that will be on the street in fact we put them on the street conditionally on the act being passed so the moment the bill was signed you can actually award projects. that is when people are hired. the reimburse process, what it does is protect federal taxpayers. i use the analogy before if you are buying a car you don't pay the manufacturer to build it. they build the car and employed people to build the car. you buy the finished product after you test driven. that is how the project's work after it is completed for our smaller and midsized projects we reimburse the states the same day or within 24 hours. for larger projects that are

more expensive and of higher expenses, we do that on a milestone basis something about having a house built. you don't and, if you are smart at least and a builder the cost up front. to make progress payments based on the work that is actually done and that's our transportation projects work. so the color of the money as it were, who's putting the money up front shouldn't matter because the states, the transit authorities in some cases are actually fronting the money getting the work underway and we the people when it's built right, when we have a project can be proud of when we have that investment the federal government with the recovery dollars is reimbursing so the owsley which is the actual federal expenditure is the least important of those three terms. the obligation which is why we are saying yet that is a good project usenet the buy america act and you have all of your

permits in hand and are truly shovel ready that's when the clock starts and when people are employed and the materials are ordered and the economic stimulus is actually there. >> mr. chairman on that point there was a question asked earlier about how many inspectors. when you use the inspectors to go and verify whether or not the project has been completed specified according to what we are buying; is that correct? >> that's correct the projects are inspected. >> the question was how many of these jobs were in spec terse? you need inspectors to certify that the work has been done. >> we absolutely do. the shortest duration of the project of transportation projects think about a resurfacing project even those are 15 years life. our bridge projects might be 60 or 70. you want to make sure you get the product you paid for that's why we have a reimbursable

process so we are not using our federal taxpayer dollars until we have a product we are all proud of and you need inspectors obviously to make sure we get our money's worth. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> that question about the inspectors was asked of me earlier. we actually do have inspectors we just were not using -- we were using stimulus dollars to hire inspectors. we are visiting each state twice a year plus some headquarters personnel are visiting each state to ensure that the money that has been appropriated for the stimulus that projects are being in fact spent on stimulus projects as they were intended. is the mix of the point is we have $32.2 billion obligation on the highway and transit, 94% of the $34 billion that was approved. that translates to 12,414

projects approved. we have 1,202,052 out to bid, that's $26.4 billion or 77% through the end of december. that number is higher now because we are into february. so the point is those who didn't agree with stimulus can use any number they want but they can't -- they are not entitled to their own numbers. these are real numbers. the obligation -- first the d.o.t. allocated to each state the told the state this is your formula allocation. now you are approved to proceed to obligate the funds that is to commit projects to these dollars and then the next stage is advertised for project specific bids correct? >> correct.

>> then they come in and are evaluated and awarded it win the award is made in the work can start and i think we have an extraordinary track record. very successful track record on the surface transportation program and transit and in aviation. the faa moved out and airport authorities committed over 400 projects in a short period of time. they have a different contracting authority than highway departments. they can take bids and hold the contractor to that for up to the year many authorities have told me. it may be different with certain ones but most of them can do that is that correct? >> that is correct and i will tell you contractors were so desperate for work many of them

held their bids even longer than they were required to and that is an illustration of the good value we've got and i previously mentioned we felt the federal aviation administration would be able to do 300 airport improvement projects. the bids came in so aggressively and low we did 360, and working within the statutory process the states had the teed themselves up and in some states word aggressive about for example putting projects out to bid even before the stimulus bill was signed subject to federal appropriation so that it was essentially a conditional a word so that those projects would start that much sooner. the reimbursement process served well in protecting our federal tax payer dollars. it hasn't been impediment to getting the work done and people hired which after all is the

goal. >> i can say from personal experience the aviation side works so well airport authority justice outside my district of the territory -- donley colcord goes up to the shore, the lake is in my district but the talent isn't but they think they are and they invited me to groundbreaking carried by the time i got there it was ridden cutting. the budget was completed that is success, putting people to work. >> that's truly success and there's countless stories like that throughout america. there were projects under way within 24 hours under construction within 24 hours of the president signing the bill. i know that because we did the first one in the country. >> maryland, silver spring 24 hours after signing. i know i carry my report card with me. you can't read it out there but i have added my breast pocket

everywhere i go, my monthly of dated report card on stimulus projects under the jurisdiction of this committee. now mr. porcari, among the criticisms are those who can't find anything else to do say these are just short term projects. it is in the d.o.t. that made the selections were federal highway that made the selections, it is the state dot and for years, this is my 36 year and before that i was the staff director of this committee and administrative assistant for my predecessor and also chairman of this committee. state after state said we have all this portfolio of repair projects and engineering terms. if we only had the money would duties. well now have the money and have been doing them. you can't have it both ways, you can't complain they are short

term projects the deinze the roads need fixing. you've got to do both at the same time and we should have had a longer term projects. because the program has been such an undeniable success 980,000 jobs nationwide and i cited the numbers earlier of the unemployment compensation checks, taxes being paid by those that work and the payroll for those on the job so now the critics find something else to carp about. they should have been longer term projects. we will have time to do that in the six your authorization bill. >> it is true, but we have long-term projects also in the recovery act. i like industry three stage rocket, where the first projects out the door for things like resurfacing that can be done through quickly. those has a 15 year life. the next series of projects, and one illustration would be the call to the tunnel project in the san francisco bay area which is under way as the second wave

for second stage 3 that is an improvement there will be there 60 years from now easily. >> and the inner dispersal luke in tulsa. i went to ms. fallin's district to tulsa, oklahoma city, secretary of transportation gary ridley for oklahoma said they 76 million-dollar project. it is a 66 or so while around the city of tulsa. it hasn't needed major repairs for years, they haven't had the money to do it. the project entails 44 bridge readings and huge work on resurfacing the existing road way and creating shoulder space for safety purposes. we went out on the job site and i asked how long did it take to design this? he said we planned 18 months design and engineering that after the hearing in october of

2008 and this committee room he said i went back to my staff and said that kennedy is serious we are going to have a stimulus program we'd better get ready and in four months the did the design and engineering for the 18 month design plan and he said i told my engineers you take your design work to church with you on sunday because if i need to talk to you i will and they did and he did so the of people on the job site. there were contractors telling me see that equipment? it was in mothballs two months ago and now they are working. i went up to the contractors. there during a continuous pour badgers kebir year on one of the bridge segments, 44 bridges, and they said we are so glad to be working, we are so delighted to have our job. it's working. so you will get back to us and

we will call you for a meeting with the caucus to discuss mr. hooks's lessons learned. epa was off to a slow start and we were on to that the hearings ago because you had internal difficulties interpreting the buy america. are those issues now fully resolved? >> i believe so. >> what lessons for the future? what advice do you gift for other of your brother and sister agencies here and for us as we move forward? >> one of the things we learned from this process is closer working relationship with stakeholders quite honestly. when faced with new provisions whether they were by american or davis-bacon we sat down with contractors and stakeholders and conducted numerous webinar and visited the states and cities are new provisions to this

particular group of people or entities building waste water management treating facilities. how are we going to work our way through this. it's a mass education program and i think in terms of lessons learned we develop a closer relationship as a result and i think we were able to work through many of the difficult issues of the troubled community. i think we were expecting a lot more by american weavers in all honesty to date we've had just a handful. work is proceeding. people are going to work and we are purchasing products by and large from american factories. >> i think the state agency has learned a great deal and has learned to be more nimble and respond more quickly. understandably the state revolving loan fund for the 12 years of the previous management of the congress wasn't authorized. >> one of the other things the

states have learned as well is typically it took two years from the times of appropriation to the times they had to have the work under the contract. they did in one year so we all learned how to expedite the process. evin internals to the epa we've learned things on how to the chief administrative efficiencies we will incorporate not only to finish out administering the recovery fungus but we will put in as a permanent fixture in terms of the way we do business of the agency. >> i looked up the list for the state of minnesota, the state public facilities authority managed by jeff freeman and terrie coleman and have been doing it for 25 years, career professionals. they rent every project 13263 in the waste water treatment of reena and small communities, 1500 or 500 population and they've been waiting for years. the systems are failing, septic

systems are failing or they had 100-year-old sioux worse grown fruit tree fruits and they are getting the funds for the project. they were able to leverage the loan money and a grant money to get their tickets 73 billion-dollar program and a 502 million-dollar program out of it. >> i think the additional 50% substation that we provided these opportunities have not had an opportunity to participate in this program are engaged as you said. >> you have done combined overflow and said 6% of the projects are cso. do you have one or two examples of those? >> unfortunately i don't. >> provide the was for the record. >> i will do that. estimate for the waste water collection systems i know in my

home town in minnesota, the waste water treatment systems ilana goldman. i worked on and when i was in college. pushing a pretty mixed wheelbarrow up the ramp to pull it into the forms for the retaining facility. like my hip, osteoarthritis. i had a new one, the same thing with that system, it's got osteoarthritis and needs to be replaced. there's lots of those all over the country, and this recovery act, this stimulus program gives the opportunity to do that rehabilitating and expanding existing inadequate capacities. do you have some examples of the long a source planned projects, i call that the new or the next

frontier of the clean water program. >> one of the requirements of the recovery act, the goal was 20% of the waste water money spent on what they refer to as the greenup project research. these are projects that basically capture water on site. just a few months ago i had an opportunity to participate in a rubber breaking ceremony not far from here in ed winstrol maryland right next to hyattsville we're a community and received some waste water moneys, where they are instituting bio retention gardens and putting planting trees, capturing the water on the site. i think the community is also going to be instituting a rain barrels so there's a variety of practices being used historical used across the country now being expanded. i feel that we are originally thought we might have trouble trying to identify 20% for the

project reserve. it turns out we were oversubscribed, probably closer to 29% across the country in terms of these types of projects, green infrastructure, water efficiency are also included in the 20% as well but we are highly pleased with the corrine infrastructure projects that have been developed. >> those are encouraging, and i'm glad that the epa has encouraged the states to move and pushed them to move in the direction. it's not entirely your decision to make but you can enter digit and have done and ms. jackson deserves credit, had been a streator jackson for her leadership in that arena. of course we need to reauthorize the program as i said earlier for 12 years of the previous majority of congress it wasn't done. for eight years the bush administration never submitted a proposal to congress to reauthorize the program and we've done more in one year of stimulus than has been done in

several years of this program but we have passed and the 110th congress and again in the first session of this congress from this committee and the house the reauthorization state revolving loan fund and the need to act on it and i hope that you and ms. jackson will insist on that with the president and the omb with the senate leadership, get them going. let them move something over there. they haven't passed much. [inaudible] i don't want to get you in trouble with the other body. >> thank you. >> i will take them on. superfund. how many superfund sites to get grain to be dealt with? >> in the entire inventory? >> yes. >> i'm not sure. we will have to get that figure. >> something like 400 or 500

projects need to be addressed. i compliment the epa for putting $600 million or committing the $600 million to be allocated for the superfund and you have undertaken work on 35 projects. do you have examples of success stories? >> we are up to 30 projects as of this point. i think the project, one of the projects i used in my testimony was in minnesota as a matter of fact -- >> you did, i'm sorry. >> we removed our senate from approximately 500 homes just in the state of minnesota, reducing that threat. >> that's helpful. and in our next hearing which will probably be another four or five weeks we will have an update on the progress. mr. peck, you told us that the

gsa is aborted twice the amount of contract in the last six months as the gsa does in an entire year. that is a great achievement. how did you go about doing these projects differently from those in the regular year by year gsa program? >> a couple of things. we set up a dedicated office in the national headquarters to supervise the projects. we created -- we have the 11 regions and there are service delivery mechanisms and in each of the regions we created a recovery act executive, and those people worked as a team starting to figure out how they could make things move faster. we put in some special tracking systems and have to say getting the funding to upgrade our information technology and tracking things helped and then i have to say there is one of

the thing i am fond of saying. we discovered some of our review process these internally could be collapsed and there's a lot of -- because we have lots of rules we have to go by contracting rules, structural rules, mechanical standards that we follow that are designed, the reviewers review and in this case when we were looking at the new green technology what would reach dee dee to be reviewed by the national office as well and there was starting to be a lot of back-and-forth and about nov we decided some of these things were taking too long and we institute a system life term to speed dating. we told our regional officers they could come to washington, told our national people's that they had a couple of hours in which they were going to work through their differences on the reviews and come up with something we could put on the street. one other lesson learned since you asked -- to other lessons learned i would like to note. ms. brown talked about the

design build and other ways which we can accelerate funding. one of the reasons we haven't done that sometimes in the custis constraints on funding will get the money to design a project, and in that project often sits on the shelf and only years later sometimes do we get the money to construct it. by the time you get to construction almost inevitably something has happened to make the design somewhat obsolete the meter requirements have changed or worse, or better in some ways. technology has improved, so you're not wait to build a building with five-year-old technology, and you go back and redo the design. that's one reason we haven't been able to use some of the compressed process he's protected of full funding for a lot of our products has made us move forward. ..

and you were able to do while the designer ones. but in other cases reeducate all designs of the show and then one of the line. we discovered as we had to update the design to get them from 35% to 65%. one of the things i think we know in the economy as their least ups and downs. and to the extent that we could have a group of projects ready to go when the economy turns down so we can get the advantage of the softer construction

markets, we'd all be better off. i can't say that we can put off if he reveals it got to go fix it no matter when it happens. but some of the projects were doing, for example, replacing windows in a building, that could happen this year or it could happen in some cases five years from now and we could get the advantage of better bids. so there's a lesson for the government as a whole about having some capital requirements held off for a point at which we can get better bids. we'll get a better price and will be able to stimulate the industry. >> those are good lessons learned, good practices. maybe we can incorporate some of that in future gsa legislation. did you have any big challenges, typically gsa has a plethora of challenges when bids are awarded. >> we have had some protest, as they're called, we had one i have to say that we were -- two

that i could cite, in which we have protest we were able to sit down with contract your and get the protest with john. and i think that's also a reflection of the climate. there was a real reason for people to say, you know, i got to let this work go forward in my community. remember, contractors have a lot of subcontractors were anxious to get to work your general contractor that gives us a protest right now isn't going to be very popular with a lot of the subcontractors. >> i think us generally, too, there very few challenges in the federal highway program. none that i'm aware of. i can expect there are only a few. you reference the being federal center in indianapolis, where they plan to install 4500 alert panel. are those similar to the ones that were in held on the department of energy roof?

>> i'm not familiar with those. but i can tell you -- >> it's a very new technology. the actors a new way -- >> eye of a strip of it in my office. >> the bob dole courthouse in kansas city, kansas, just get these photovoltaic membranes really, that's you lay flat on a group circuit neared the photovoltaic technology is really moving ahead and that's another way in which we think we can help make the market in the industry. you can now put them flat on a roof in the appropriate place and you can also start to put photovoltaic panels on façades that get a lot of sun on vertical façades. and they are in places where you don't actually need transparency in the class or you could put them on her therapist. we can actually get some energy generation that way. and that the beam center, we are going to -- we have a photovoltaic lathers that were going to usher the results

against what were expecting. one of things were seen as we want to tell the american building industry which needs to go green outside the government, too. how well these things are working. what's the best climate in which was also to intensive system and which of the different technologies are giving us the biggest energy reduction, bang for the buck. >> i think this is a very important initiative to not only did our speaker insist on a green provision in each the committee contributions for the stimulus, but i started it here in this committee in 1977. we be hearing in which we took testimony -- i was at chair the subcommittee, but it was a subcommittee of buildings and grounds and tina brown cherry happened to be out of town that day. i was the only one left. the first chairman members don't get the chair, at least in those

days. in the sheet metal workers union and gsa had combined to do a study, a two-volume study of converting several civilian office days to a photovoltaic. the cost of photovoltaic energy generated by photovoltaic in 1977 was a dollar 75 compared to 7 cents a to the investor owned utilities. but they estimated that with a multiyear investment of $175 million a year for three years on the generate enough production in the earth to reduce the cost down to something approaching 10 cents or 12 cents or lower and further over a period of years. government would be the consumer, private sector of the producer. i thought it was a terrific idea. so i took their proposal, drafted a bill, introduced it.

senator humphrey did the same thing over the senate. we got it passed. jimmy carter signed it into law, but the $175 million for the first year in his subsequent budget and then lost the election. president reagan's abolish the whole alternative energy program. $960 million, proof, just without the window. dirtier leaders, i'm chairman now. we're going to do this thing. and we did it again. i dredged out my old know. my testimony before the committee was still in the committee files, including my own typewritten testimony in my unread might undermine. and we passed the bill and then we did it with the department of energy building. and now we put it into the stimulus. and i'll buy it has to happen all across america. we've got to do this year to >> mr. chairman, we also put the green earth on a building 37 years ago.

really we were moving in a great direction and it stopped. we are relearning the lesson and we have -- we are going to be able to report to. we have photovoltaic in amazing numbers all over the country. foer also other technologies in which america is some behind. we have geothermal, chilled beams that saves energy. >> this is another arena where the united states to do basic research, develop the technology, provided the resources and then didn't invest. other countries take her ideas, invest in them and then we wind up buying solar panels from abroad. that's not right. we need to do this at home in the stimulus has given us -- as gsa completed the survey of photovoltaic panel ready

facilities? this was in the bill passed two years ago. >> yes, sir. i forget the number. all provided for the record, that of our limited scope products of which there are 100 some, a large number of the photovoltaics. >> well, i want to see that survey completed in those materials submitted to the committee. and final question for you is, what is the status of the public building fund? >> well, there's a short-term and long-term answer appeared the short term answer is that in this year, we are, you know, the founders will collect about a $.3 billion in revenue. $5 billion we denote the turnaround and give to private sector landlords from home release base, about 52% of our inventory by square footage is now in leased space. the fund is still does produce a a net income. but as you know, that net income

only that we used to do capital up rates on our buildings. in the short answer in the long term is that we are not producing enough net income in the federal building fund to meet the capital expenditure -- a capital improvement means we have in our own inventory. >> all right. that's a subject we'll deal with in another hearing. mr. porcari, i understand you have a 130 caught commitment and you may be excused here to >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> not the rest. [laughter] ms. darcy, the court also got off to a late start, but you're catching a period and before i get to those, this is not a stimulus project, but the second block it in sault ste. marie was authorized in the 2007 water resources development act, veto,

congress overrode the veto, enormous bipartisan support, urgent need for the second block at this zoo. work has started. what is the status of that work? because it was a new start, it was not eligible for stimulus spending. >> correct. in the current benefit to cost ratio for those who like is not in keeping with at least the one to one ratio that we budget for. >> well, that benefit ratio is an old one i know. i've got the documents. and it does not reflect the new work that is underway in my district with the width of united. bettis will soon be coming online, producing foundry and minimill and electric art furnace capable product that will be moving through the seo.

in s. are steel, is under construction now, that building a steel mill on the with saudi range and will be exporting files. the only way that project is economically viable is that we can rail the slab to the superior report and put them on board ship for moving into laurel lake steel mills or in some cases for export abroad. so there is that benefit of cost ratio is drawn. it needs to -- the project needs to move forward and will have to have a more extensive conversation about that. >> we will, sir. >> you are undertaking in the inspection of 820 levees across the country. what's the status of that inspection work and what will be

the intended benefits to safety -- to flood protection -- to navigation? >> as we know, where expecting 820 levees. the outcome of that we hope it's going to be able to determine which of those levees are in a position or are providing the level of safety in which they were originally designed for the level of safety that is anticipated by those being protected by the levy. we hope that with this money we've accelerated that levy, which was authorized in the 2007 bill, the entire levy program. >> well, we would like to have periodic reports on the progress being made in the showing of the geographic distribution of those levees so we can -- so all members can understand what work is being done and how it affects

their districts or states. you also said that she was awarded $1.2 billion to small business. what determination do you use for small business? >> we use -- the >> the sba. >> and we've been really successful with the aero money in a small business of element. nearly 74% of our contracts -- >> at me some examples of small businesses in the corps of engineer work. >> well, an example would eat at a reservoir, for example, if we were going to be doing multiple things at a reservoir, whether it's a stretch of, whether it's bank stabilization or some kind of upgrade. a small-business contractor who does let say riprap, would possibly be qualified as a small business. we have almost nearly 20% of

those small-business owners are women-owned businesses. between 15% and 20% are disadvantaged businesses. so we've been icing pretty lucky -- and because of the size and scope of some of our projects. our contracts are huge. they're not multimillion dollar contracts here they are small and they go to smaller projects as well. we've got some cap objects which are smaller restoration projects, which would've won themselves really well to smaller businesses. >> was a limitation or was it a benefit for the corps of engineers at the authorizing language took off limits new starts? >> well, it has we have a backlog of projects -- >> you have such huge backlog. >> it was a benefit. it was. especially because of all the deferred maintenance we've had to encounter.

>> used on huge backlog of things that need to be done. mr. fernandes, i love pda. i was present at its creation. >> pda lets you, mr. chairman. >> i was present on its creation in 1965. i still have my green pen. one that used to sign it into law and a photo of him handing it to me. it's mounted in my office. you're welcome to come and inspect. i think eda does a superb job. and you have moved up quickly and vigorously to implement the meager funds that were over scraps from the table, in my view. with a much more robust figure for eda when the recovery bill left our committee, but by the time it got to the floor of the conference of the senate and all

of their hands and it can't take on narrow down. but you've got a two for one with eda. provide the funds to do the industrial park and then you get the business it comes into located. you're the construction jobs, then you have the long-term private sector jobs in that facility. do you have some examples for us of such success stories? >> well, you know, in some cases, mr. chairman, i'd say it's even more a two for one. for example, as part of the recovery act, we funded a number of incubators throughout the country. in those instances, not only do you have the benefit of the media construction jobs come of it than you have multiple businesses created by growing create jobs, graduate from those facilities and continue to become an engine of growth. so i believe in my testimony we

referenced 37 million investments in business incubation. one specific example i can give you is in my home state, for the record, these decisions were made before i was confirmed. but in anderson, indiana, there's the city called the flagship center, which was originally funded by eda, i believe in 2003. and as part of the recovery act, we funded an expansion of the facility. and that's a good example where in the original funding of the project, a company called brite automotive was started within that incubator. now that is expanded and become a very strong force in helping the community recover from the

downturn of the auto industry. and there's a number of projects like act, whether multipliers go well beyond just a short-term job creation. >> well, those are great success stories. and i was fascinated with the brite automotive. i was not aware of that company until i saw this reference in an earlier eda report. you also put funding into regional innovation centers and trade promotion. explain -- you do have an example in alaska, construction of an expansion to an existing doc. but how is that going to promote trade? >> well, it's going to expand their capacity for exports. they have a facility there with the additional expansion about an eight-acre site. they'll have more capacity to

move product. >> and an green jobs, you make a reference to leave certified facility in new mexico. explain a little more about what this project will do. >> sure i can do that. the facility they are in new mexico that's been built as part of the recovery act investment in solar -- that operation does a lot of small-business micro-lending and other kinds of technical assistance. so they'll continue to do work in that field as part of the ability to do more in this building. it's their headquarters facility for the organization.

>> u.s. success stories within success stories of funds through eda went out very quickly because those local development agencies, the edr, your edr economic representatives are out on the ground with the communities, guiding them, helping them get their projects ready. so they had this nine, had the engineering, they're ready to go, does he get the funding work. and then you have the following one success story that the facilities him of the businesses in the enterprises that come in to those projects. so i want to -- you know, this is our opportunity to tell the good things that are happening with the recovery act and i want to complete the record. so provided further details on that. >> sure and mr. chairman is a noted in the testimony earlier, the committee has a full listing

of over 60 projects, with the project description and the benefit of the individual projects as well. and i think there's a treasure trove of success stories that go on. and because they think other panelists have mentioned earlier that there is the reporting on recovery act of job creation is incredibly conservative. and so, i think it's fair to say that you'll see the larger benefits from these projects in terms of job creation on what's going to be reported. for example, in montana, we funded a revolving loan fund that is part of the timber industry and its a response to some of the changes that i've been going on and they developed their own cluster as a response to changes in their marketplace. under the reporting requirement,

we report that one job was created. well, you know, the eda put in $2.7 million. that was matched by the state of montana. 100% of those 492% of those funds have been dispersed to the supplier network et cetera that are part of that cluster. and i think it's fair to us or them have more than one job is accounted for as part of those for almost $500 million investments. at the way the recovery act reporting is construct it, in other words, one job created as part of the administration of that fun. >> it's an underreporting. the reason i'm probing as there is a story behind the story. and other states can learn from that experience. i think that's a remarkable -- i noted this particularly because we have a similar problem in

minnesota, the timber and wood products industry. when housing market died, contractors don't need oriented strand word. they don't eat particleboard. they don't need dimensional lumber and they're not building homes. and so to companies in my district just went out at business altogether. and several in canada as well. those osb -- those company caring os be chunking companies through my district to the south and southwest, that dried up as well. but if you have an idea here of capital for businesses to the technical assistance for borrowers and intermediaries as you describe it, to develop loan packages or other assistance for

companies, there are longer-term jobs that are going to result from this. >> absolutely. and if i could, mr. chairman, so much of the discussion today has focused on infrastructure, appropriately. and the infrastructure that's been described has been focused primarily on transportation. and somewhat we might consider more traditional infrastructure. but in terms of economic development administration and the work we're trying to do to drive innovation and business creation, we like to include in our definition of infrastructure certainly incubators, business facilities that can help start a anthony's, proof of concept labs, where we can accelerate the commercialization of research coming out of our universities are out of our federal labs. there is an infrastructure that is essential to the innovation

economy, that we certainly play a role in and hope to continue to play an even larger role in at the eda. and i include him on infrastructure a critical issue that we have to address today and that is access to capital. particularly when you look at the deployment of early-stage funding for seed capital, there's a huge, you know, lack of availability of funds. and when we look at how those funds typically get dispersed across the country, there's a tremendous, you know, magnet that drives a lot of the innovation to the area flight osten or maybe the west coast silicon valley. as i travel around the country, there are pockets all over america where you have tremendous innovation. you have strong entrepreneurs, but you have an incredibly difficult time pulling those

funders to bring that early-stage capital into the heartland or into other parts of the country. so we think there's an opportunity with eda through our revolving loan funds and some of our other intermediary agencies that we support to help address the critical infrastructure need, if you will, to be able to spread the kind of sustainable innovation-based economic development that i know we all want. >> thank you for that answer him for the work on this very important aspect of job creation and sustainability. mr. rice that. is that how you pronounce it? >> mr. chairman, if transfixed. the mauk was the origin of your name? >> slovic. the last time i was here we have a conversation about that, sir.

>> i didn't remember that. >> the pronunciation in the united states hasn't changed since that time. >> that's too bad. but i'm not happy with the coast guard. i'm happy with a lot of things the coast guard does. they don't remarkable job of responding to haiti, the seventh district was on the spot they had a cotter. the two cutters underway and immediately saw her later that day en route to haiti. they set up the first air traffic control support for the airport after the tower was decommissioned by the earthquake the coast guard to the extraordinary work. but, the coast guard has not

broken ground on any one of the shore facilities he told us we needed. why? >> well, sir, indeed we have started to work on a number of the projects. but in both of the tuesday indio bay, the facilities out there have begun to work. the other projects, as indicated in my oral statement, they were depending on a particular context strategy that i believe that mr. peck addressed in terms of protest on the significant to a protest which we had to scrap that strategy and move to individual solicitation and words. >> so you did undertake the bidding process and there were protests to the big awards? is that withholding these up? >> well, in the case of a couple or five of the short projects, yes, sir, we had intended to use what they call a national

multi-award construction contract, a longer-term regionalized type contract activity that would allow us to issue task orders, you know, with a certain set of contract hers participating in only those particular contract vehicles. each of those five were protested to the gao, in december upheld a protest. fortunately, we have dirty begun to pursue separately in anticipation of that protest being upheld and we have since gone out and now we've solicited i think for two of the five projects that were originally supposed to be done in that particular venue. >> is there something in the contract and procedure that the coast guard followed that can be changed for the future to avoid this type of situation? >> mr. chairman, possibly there is. i don't recall all the specifics of the nature of the protested

self. maybe at another time we can talk with the staff on that, sir. >> well, also of the $98 million for the acquisition construction and improvements account, $10 million was designated for the high endurance cutter engineering changes. is this work underway on that now? i have no previous to this hearing had no accounting for that work. >> yes, sir. a number of those contracts for those she prepared to laois and begun. i believe four of the seven contracts have begun. some of the work has not yet begun. >> was the reason for the delay? what is the problem there? >> an example, sir, maybe we were replacing refrigeration systems on eight of the cutters in the manufacture, when they

came on board to begin installation, recognize that there had to be some additional work prepared on board the vessel, which delayed some of the work. had to go back, we describe, make sure that the engineering and technical aspects of the work could be done with their unit, which was subsequently overcome in the work was gone. as indicated, for example, hamilton, which you may have aware of was what those cutters are seen in haiti, how'd that work done on it, but it was deferred or delayed until some of those technical issues could be dealt with aboard the ship. >> well, you know, this is -- this stimulus program puts people to work quickly on projects that were needed in case the coast guard shortsighted facilities, vessel work that needed to be done. and it's surprising that the

contracting was not properly or carefully thought through. contractors weren't engaged appropriately. now there's some lessons learned for the future? >> i think as the others have stated, there's always lessons to learn this. partners one of the lessons we learned in just terms of bringing the right people together regularly to have the conversation. for example, i meet every monday morning at 830 clock with the entire team including the legislative folks, the technical folks to talk through these particular issues so we can add top of it. i think in terms of the procurement process, we have learned maybe to be of little more nimble, a little more responsive to the opportunities. oftentimes, as you probably are aware, some of the colors of money as i put it, were used to using multiyear monies while this is multiyear money, it wasn't as fun as some of the improvement projects that we

undertake with multiyear money. so we've learned to be a little more responsive to that. >> well, you know, that's instructive and important to know. we have passed legislation to change to the house, hasn't passed the senate yet to change the contracting procedures for the coast guard and those longer-term projects. and i think that legislation will deal with the problem encountered in the deep water program. but, i'm very strongly advocating a follow one stimulus to the current program. and we've passed legislation through the house, i hope the senate acts on it, but to be credible we have to be able to show that the government agencies are putting the funds to work as intended in creating the jobs i've expected. so when your weekly review, preset with your associate.

>> i will do that, sir. thank you. >> mr. carper, you said the 45% of amtrak contracts awarded to small businesses. >> yes, sir, mr. chair. >> or the small businesses and what is the type of work that they're doing? >> well, i can't get into a great deal of detail, but i can give you an example. they range from maybe 1000-dollar contract in the tampa train station. and many of them are in our stations around the country that would lend itself very well to small businesses. i can get you much more detail on that, mr. chairman in the future. but i also think that other contracts are being led into this construction season, there's going to be lots of opportunity for small businesses as subcontractors on some of our large contracts, mr. chairman.

>> well, we give you credit for a great deal of trackwork, of ties that are -- that are being -- 80,000 contract -- concretize are going to be replacing wooden ties. sixty amtrak fleet cars, 21 super liners, 15 locomotives. i give you all that credit at the outset of the hearing. what is the status of that work? >> well, it's ongoing. we turned a believe 15 cars out with 20 and the q. and were very confident that we'll have our 80 cars in the locomotives out by 2011. as i stated in my remarks, this is ten trains sets that we can put on the system. some of our trains on the northeast corridor and some of

our corridors were turning people away. so this will be very good input to very good use. >> where is that rehabilitation work being done? >> is being done in our facility right at the way here and bear, delaware and also in beech grove, indiana. >> okay. well, the work ahead of amtrak is enormous. you've been underfunded for at least eight previous years. there are two years of the previous administration when the congress was presented with a bankruptcy budget for amtrak. whether bush omb said it's our intention to put amtrak out of business, break it up, so it's part. congress said no. by very strong majorities, bipartisan votes, we restored amtrak's funding, but only as i

sat at the time, enough to keep amtrak's nose above water. well, now we have an amtrak authorization bill passed in 2008. we have the $8 billion in high-speed rail funds, presidents have put into advocate for the stimulus. really foliar authorization in five plus billion dollars and i expect will sustain that for as long as this administration is in office. and now you can begin getting your rolling stock in good shape and track in good shape, switches that need replacement and cat marries in the northeast corridor i need to be replaced. those are at least 100 years old. and the restoration of your passenger cars as well as locomotives. so, you know, tell the folks

that this is. this is their moment to shine. to show what we said just give amtrak the money and they'll be able to rehabilitate the cars, but the track in good shape, but the locomotives out in these passengers and keep the system on time. this is your opportunity to do it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we're also on track to show our stations in the state of good repair and to adhere to the american disabilities act and the next five years. as you mentioned, yes, our noses above the water line and were coming out and it's an exciting time for amtrak good i think one of the most telling things that i've seen coming out in the lessons learned and looking forward is putting together a fleet plan that really gives some teeth towards planning towards a future. and if we talk about job creation in the establishment of a domestic railcar industry

would be very difficult to do with us and good planning on our part. this is aside from anything that might happen with high-speed rail. this is just our own fleet of existing cars, they range from the age of 60 years old, 60 years old to 20 years old. and i think it's a testament that you've been here and watched it over the years and frankly decades that our staff has been able to keep these cars operating in a revenue service for that long. but with the good work of good stuff and some of who were sitting behind me, there's a team being put together that pass responded to the challenges or to the opportunities. we've seen value of being transparent with congress and the fra and are great partners with fra and d.o.t. and our stakeholders. reaching out to vendors ahead of

time to ensure more minority contractors of contracts and to more closely monitors projects and cost so reprogramming can be done in a timely manner. so you know, i know you're seen great changes that amtrak. but from the board standpoint, one of the things that i've seen in my short tenure as two years is the importance of stability and quality personnel at amtrak and that's what we have today. and ceo, joe boardman, and some of the folks sitting behind me in the team he is put together is absolutely critical for amtrak to move forward and to be what this body and frankly the american public wants out of amtrak is a rocksolid and also a visionary organization. and we have that now. and to be able to sustain that is one of the things that amtrak truly needs. we look forward to being a

partner in the economic development component of restimulated the american economy. not only in railcar manufacturing and we are doing our part and not by putting the fleet plan the manufacturers plan to see what over the next ten, 12, 14 years or 30 or 40 years actually is going to be needed, just to replace the existing fleet and to take a modest assumption of two or 3% growth each year. to give you an example, over the next 14 years, we are going to need and as a conservative estimate, about $11 billion to start replacing the existing fleet. i might also add that we are also seeing and tracking the job numbers and investment that

doesn't show what perhaps on anyone tally sheet. and that's the investment that can come in around quality passenger rail around train station in downtown city centers. my congressman mention that tonight give you countless other examples of that around the country. good examples of infrastructure and transportation infrastructure runner station will be good investments in downtown. being a former mayor of a community, you know, i understand the value of not having to extend new sewer lines and new water lines and build new highways or new roads and take a good quality farmland when you can do infield investments commercial retail and residential in the downtown areas. and what is the way to simulate that is the passenger rail. and we think again your support is and for the many, many years

you've been supporting. i look for to working with you in the future. >> thank you for a response and for your enthusiasm. i enjoy hearing it. america is on the threshold of the passenger rail renaissance. because of the bill we passed in 2008, because of the funding president obama have committed in high-speed rail initiative, the eight ilion dollars. because of the funding that the president has committed to the annual amtrak program, to make the investments for the short term in long-term and i want the word to go out to all amtrak employees that there's a new era that there's a faithfulness, dedication, there's years of work against incredible odds have paid off. and now, amtrak love an

opportunity to show what it can do to move people by passenger rail at speeds faster than the highway to take people in our society. and with greater numbers of people more efficiently. and the numbers that you've cited are very sobering, a huge backlog of investment needs. but that's true in all of our infrastructure. it's true in every one of the categories represented at the witness table here today. we have underinvested in the underpinnings of our economy. and it was adam smith to well over 200 years ago said that if the public sector does its job well, then the other will be able to do what it does best. in the public sector is providing the transportation

needs, the water system support, the aviation requirements, the planning for economic development long-term. and then the private sector, relying upon that and relying on those foundations, will be able to invest for the long term. so for each of the agencies represented here, thank you for the work you've done. thank you for keeping faith with the recovery act, with the stimulus spending to congress and the president have provided. keep it going. take the lessons learned. apply them for the future. not only for the stimulus, but for the standard regular programs. and we will revisit this issue in another four or five weeks. i'll just close with one phase of recovery.

last august, i went to visit a project, i 35, southern tier of my district between north branch and russian city. granted, i'm sorry, knife river. knife river construction was doing 28 lane miles, four lanes, seven miles. i went to the gravel pit where they were classifying aggregate and gravel and sand that had been shut down three months earlier or two months earlier and now is reopened. workers are on the job site. went to the highway project at golf. in a format called over one of the tracks. you've seen them come the big l.a. dumpers on construction she

engine off, jumped out and tommy and threw her arms around me and dad and joyce fisk, thank you for my job. two months ago, my husband and i had finished dinner. we sent her two boys off to bed and then we just let that each other across the table and said, where do we go from here. our health insurance ended december 31. our unemployment comp ran out three months ago. we have two months savings for our mortgage and are we going to be able to send the boys to summer camp? and then we just cried and hugged each other. in the next morning, the phone rang and knife river called and said we won the bid on either the five. report to work on monday. and now fight and get my 1200

hours in and my husband works for the same company, then our health insurance will be reinstated. we are paying the mortgage, we're paying taxes and the boys went to summer camp. that's the human face of recovery. very joyce fisk's all over america in every state who are looking to buy some counting on us to help make their lives better, to move these projects through, moved to funding a log, to put people to work, to reestablish their self-worth and their identity in the society and in our economy. all of us have jobs. they're a couple million out there who don't. who are counting on us to deliver. you started that process, done it well, lessons to be learned. we'll go forward from here.

thank you for your contribution. committee is adjourned. sound

>> james fallows has written an article for the current issue of the "atlantic monthly" comparing u.s. and chinese economies. he talked about the article on tuesday's "washington journal." this is 40 minutes. >> host: james fallows is here to talk if about the article he wrote for the recent addition of the atlantic about how america can rise again. tell us about where the idea for this article came from. guess how the idea was either living for three years doing the reporting for the atlantic and the one thing you naturally think about is how does the u.s. look for better and for worse yet and so when i came back and turn many years assignment but that i do a systematic look at whether the u.s. was finally going to hell. i'm trying to ask historians and

technologists and other people about that question in a non-joking way. >> host: with the title, how america can rise again, based on your three years in china, did it appear from your perspective or from the perspective of the chinese that america had gone underneath or that china had risen above the united states? >> guest: i think all those things and some others too. in china there is actually a sense of accomplishment. over the last 30 years, most people's lives have gotten better in most ways. they had a year and half ago the beijing olympics were at a time of great triumph for the country. there are many ways for it is filling it out even though it's a very poor country and most people have a very simple life impaired to the western world. because of the financial crisis over the last two years now, and many other obvious problems, there's been this wonder of is the u.s. simultaneous with china's ascent? is there also phenomena of america losing its way? this has been a long-term question of japan.

japan was very much feeling its oats and i think while there's not real triumph as in china, the sense that they've taken over such a poor country, there's this question of whether america still has all the fit is that it sat through the centuries. >> host: and regarding different aspects of american fitness. in the article, you write to the final year he spent in china in which the collapse of the u.s. financial system was blamed for half the bad eggs happening in that country, get used to hearing sentences that begin with, quote, with u.s. power on the wane or in a post-american world. tell us a little bit more about that. >> guest: i think there's a couple of different factors here. we'll know certain the shock value of the toyota brake problem. shocking just because toyota has symbolized excellence in manufacturing and quality control for a long time. similarly, the financial and the u.s. about the sect in china. whatever else they liked or didn't like about the u.s., they thought that american financiers

knew what they were doing. desoto cup all these episodes of malfeasance and problems in the american financial system was shocking in its own dissent. number two, since the chinese have so much money sunk in u.s. markets, they thought was happening to others hard-earned savings. and number three, the u.s. market has been very, very important as an engine of jobs for the chinese people. so in southern china, for example, while the flow manufactured goods are made, you need millions and millions and millions of people who i've been laid back and sent back to their home provinces because of decline in the u.s. naturally there was a sense by g. come is the u.s. in some broader way, losing its path. and i think to an excessive degree among a lot of specific base intellectual's there was this idea of the post-american world and the u.s. was on the way down. i tried to rebut that in my article, but it's a strongly have been there. >> host: did the chinese he dealt with, did they see themselves primarily in the comparison between the united states and china? do they see themselves or do

they make that comparison primarily on a financial or economic? or does it expand to other areas? >> guest: it's an interesting contrast of the late 1980's when i was living in japan and then as you would be too young to recall, but some viewers may recall that was a sense of japanese triumphalism and economic and otherwise, where it became a cliché, the japanese products were well made, american are poorly made. the americans couldn't keep up, et cetera, et cetera. the reservoir head-to-head sense of japan good, america failing in these days. in the chinese case, i think even though china will be a greater power in japan sunday, because it is ten times as many people, et cetera in a greater historical role. there was less of a head to head competition with japan than in the u.s. simply because china is still so poor. it's still the case often forgotten in the u.s. and most people in china are peasants. most people live on the farm. most people have lied since a couple hundred dollars a year cash income.

so i think that there is more a sense of china finding its way in the world than necessarily of american retreat or collapse. but the american retreat or cause doctor came in there, too because of the financial issues. >> host: were talking with james fallows at the "atlantic monthly" in his most recent addition. you combine its online as well as in hard copy. the title of the article, how america can rise again. if you want to get involved in the conversation. (202)737-0001. emma kratz (202)737-0002. an independent zero under 202 -- by first call comes from john albuquerque new mexico. >> caller: thanks for having me. how america can rise again to me says that we have slipped and fallen. and to tie this in, i don't need to do this, we've lost a lot of our manufacturing capability.

how can america rise again without trade restriction? our president, i do want to go real broad with the question, seems to be moving toward ready restriction on china and other cuban rights regulators. we've got all the problems with the lead in children's stories. there's some reasons that we should enforce some sort of trade restriction on other companies to protect our market. protectionism is not a pretty word and that's how america is going to rise again. i'll hang up and listen to off the air. thank you. >> guest: thanks. and i would address this in two ways. one is as i try to lay up in my article, the real future of america, as an economic our dealing with china, other countries and maybe a view doesn't involve head-to-head manufacturing competition with china. i can illustrate it by holding up his pen. i seem to factor factor in china where conflict are made and you have a young woman from china snapping in the little metal tip

on the stand and doing things that could be simply done by machines in the united states or because of the huge definite labor costs there is not a way the u.s. is going to be compete with any kind of trade policy with people making $100 a month of its factories. we have been able to do it very successfully design higher-end products. our universities, our rules of mine never taught around the world are discussing is the source of brands you know, this computer was made in china, but the brand is an american one. also the product comes to the u.s. so i try to argue how keeping the high-end part of the american economy is the real secret to have an opportunity for children. on the other hand, i do think that if your trade policy is a realistic and necessary one. it is true that china is having a number of my chinese provisions of part of the economic stimulus program. the value of the kurds if something will need to address it so i think that we need to have a realistic trade policy, which does recognize that their abuses around the world at the same time, fema had to hit

manufacturing to china simply competition we can be involved in. >> host: hall in san jose, california. good morning and welcome to the program. >> caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. my question also hits and two to manufacturing in china. and also it also dovetails into the global warming issue. and so my question would basically be, in terms of global warming, where would someone want a product or maybe even a service produced, would you want that product or service produced in a country that has tighter laws and stricter regulations in terms of enforcement or you might actually have to pay the workers a little bit more? ..

grit and not everybody will be able to go to college, and not everybody will be able to be in the upper echelon of innovation andç design. those people are getting left behind and left out. i'm curious to know what you would think with regard to that. guest:xd those are all great questions, and i try to address each of those in this article and what i'd been writing about china over the last three years. let me lay out quickly what are the interconnected strands and what you or mention it when we think of environmental issues, there are related issues of pollution and global environmental standards. there is a subsidy for these being located in china, and people are getting lung cancer and lead poisoning making these for the u.s. market. there is a struggle within a chat right now to address -- with in china right now to address that.

something that is made in china or the u.s., it goes through the same atmosphere of the world. i argue at length that and that's why i argue that length of the u.s. and china simply must work together on environmental issues or there's no hope for any of us because the same air and water around the world. you mention the human rights issue and that is another important one to touch on. the u.s. as an important role for individual liberties and china and having guarantees on autonomy for chinese people in general. there's a surprisingly strong labor movement union and china which is pushing back and some of these abuses. you're final point out yes, not all americans are going to be designing computers to read what all americans are going to be lawyers or whenever a that is certainly true. i think if china did not exist, if india did not exist to the rear pressure in the u.s. economy polarizing by education

and income and all the rest of those are very important things for us to assassination. they are not fundamentally caused or driven by china, they are driven by technology and the rest and we need to address them. >> host: it says today's fierceombid wrolh of equine. what happens when china has all the jobs and money with domestic concerns about the price society of haves and have-nots that have lost its collective court. >> guest: i was being obviously somewhat a raw the saying china has all the jobs and money because they are struggling in many ways but i try to argue in this article there are some real problems we have that again if china didn't exist we would have these problems. the problem of income distribution in the u.s. which is more and more to the high end of the list the middle educational opportunities. when i was a kid in california in the 50's and 1960's, the public schools where everybody went. there were good public schools, public universities.

there's less of the transmission bill but again that's not china's issue that's our issue. >> host: next up is pennsylvania. bill on the line for republicans. go ahead. >> caller: thank you, c-span. i have two questions. my first is when they were speaking to the chinese students they laughed at him. why do you think they laughed at him and how is that relevant to the title of your paper? and also, the last slack we had with china over google and allowing the united states to take the full access their what are your comments? >> guest: those are good and important issues. actually wind timothy geithner was giving a speech that a big university in beijing and he had an offhand comment about how investments in the u.s. dollar were the safest possible investment and even before it was translated there was laughter going through the audience because most elite

chinese university students are at least trained in english if they are not comfortable so they could understand his remarks in english and this was the time the u.s. stock market appeared to be in freefall and audiences in the u.s. might have laughed at that kind of assertion, too. so it was a sali -- a half nervous have mocking laughter of whether this $2 trillion they have in assets was saved so that was the lack round. on the google case this was important as a related case there is of course the famous greek fire wall which chinese authorities used to control access in china. it's not a perfectly air tight operation. you can relatively easily get around it if you want. when i was living there i paid $40 a year for service that gets you around it but most chinese people don't bother to be that so for most people they are kept within the confines of the authorized chinese government operation. google knew that and decided for five years ago it was worth

operating in china to bring more information to the chinese people than they would otherwise have. the reason for the announcement a month or two ago was the discovery that the operations had been hacked into to the degree they hadn't known before so this is something still being unraveled but there is a fundamental difference in the internet philosophy between the chinese government and u.s. government. >> host: george and laughing at indiana on our line for democrats. go ahead, please. >> caller: good morning, mr. fallows. >> guest: good morning. >> caller: i want to ask a couple questions and i ask that you allow me to ask in its entirety because i think it's a great importance to the american people. one is the budget of america, the total budget from one fiscal year to the end of the fiscal year is about 3 trillion. i want to dovetail and piggyback on the question and comment from an earlier caller. what was the practical and logical reason for the roosevelt and rockefeller in 1913, december 22nd, to allow the

federal reserve it privatize organization to take of the monetary system and the wealth of american people? second of all i would like to say how can a family like the child exist relatively unknown to the american people when the estimated worth is between 100 to $400 trillion -- >> host: george, it sounds like we are going off the rails. what does this have to do with china? >> caller: what i'm saying is i believe that there has been a pressing shift of elite power in the world, and known to the american people that have preferred china. and right now i don't believe the wealth of america was simply a game or one. i believe all the times it was transferred. >> guest: im -- i would be surprised if there's any family on earth where the net worth of 100 to $400 trillion which would be many times the national

income. so on the federal reserve i'm not -- i don't propose -- i'm not equipped to get into federal reserve for this. i think in the modern era economics it's been important to have central banks that could rescue the world economy from depression. so the best we will take off line for some other point. >> host: next up is negative it's still maryland rollin on the line for independent. go ahead. >> caller: i have two questions. number one, is the principal of investment a cornerstone to an advanced economy? number two, banks were lending to the home buyers as an investment strategy home buyers also were thinking of it as an investment strategy to buy their homes and as long as they would pay their mortgages they will be in a win-win situation. [inaudible] other parts of the world by u.s. investors including china. >> guest: thank you. on the question of is in prison

and a cornerstone of the world economy, yes it is one of the cornerstones along with innovation and continuous destruction and consumption -- have a broad distribution of wealth and all the rest it certainly is. on the my best understanding of the question about investment housing is the u.s. come part of the reason for the crash was an unsustainable asset bubble and housing over the past decade and past couple of decades that is now unraveling. the u.s. has over interested in housing compared to the rest of the world and compared to other areas where we should probably be investing more in our physical infrastructure. i taught in my article how the physical infrastructure, roads, the systems consumer systems, salles phones, electric grid are under what they should be. sulfone service between the u.s. and china is incredible. in china i can be in decline and a cell phone signal driving from my house. the cell phone signal is out in d.c.. but we need to invest more.

>> host: you talked about introducing a senior chinese official in beijing who spoke of the record and noted since the time of nixon, democratic presidents had been more troublesome for china to deal with than republicans. but, he said, quote, we view this, meaning the possibility of president obama's election, as a test of whether americans -- america can change course. it is a remarkable strength of your country. >> guest: this was really interesting to me because, surprisingly given that tiny to be cut china is lit by the communist party but the tavis historical presence saying by the chairman now always the with republicans, they are more predictable. so the chinese felt they could deal more easily with president nixon and president reagan and bush etc. so in the u.s. election i was in china. number one, they wish the george w. bush could stay in office for a third term. if they couldn't have that they would prefer john mccain. if they could have him they would prefer hillary clinton because they knew her and was

familiar, and then they were very uneasy about barack obama partly because he was democrat, partly because the racial attitudes and china are fairly openly anti-black and in a startling way so there was the center of america he liked and on white president. there was also among the elite level of the leadership to the u.s. in the sense that america was able to remake its politics the way it was difficult for other countries, that agree or disagree with politics of this administration or predecessor the fact of making such change was impressive and that is the man that i was -- the on naim officials i was interviewing that is the point he was getting across. >> host: has there been a shift in the intuit in the years president obama has been in office? >> guest: i think there was. china was lead in much of the world there was a lot of enthusiasm for the obama candidacy. there were few exceptions not so much in albania where they were very popular in poland and israel and china.

i think after his election there was obama enthusiasm in china. i think right now it's a difficult stage in the u.s.-chinese relations so there is some distance but i think they came are out to viewing him as a legitimate leader if he will. >> host: next up for gin fallows is out of pontiac illinois. >> caller: i would like to ask a question concerning pollution in china, and i would like to decide the issue in two ways. one is traditional pollution and the other would be greenhouse gases. my impression of china right or wrong is of the factory workers going to work in a small traditional pollution, and i'm wondering is china addressing their pollution problems on either side of the coin is it the traditional pollution or greenhouse gases, and if they are not, is there a possibility

of civil unrest, is this something that bothers the people? >> guest: those are very good questions and to answer the first one -- to answer them all in one big ball the other is widespread recognition in china this is a huge issue for the country perhaps the major threat they face in their own development and challenge depots for the world as a whole. on the one hand i think most people in china don't recognize how polluted things are. that the daily pollution levels in beijing were often at a level that hadn't been seen in the united states for decades upon decades and i think there's not a living awareness day-by-day among average chinese people how great a burden is put on the other hand there is awareness of birth defects, epidemics, cancer epidemics and the central government is well aware of this and i described levels going on within china to try to deal with

traditional pollution of of sorts you mentioned a up also the greenhouse issues. the greenhouse issues are less present day by day to the populace of course they don't lead to birth defects and the rest but they are getting more attention in the news media. i think that as an issue between china and the u.s. working on both of these issues is of great potential value. the u.s. has technology that can be applied and the chinese are trying to rapidly to develop new green energy technologies and pollution control the this is an area to work together. i think the central government would agree that if not addressed the traditional pollution in particular could be of civil unrest because it is a widespread phenomenon of the country's noticed there is press commentary about it and it's a real challenge for the country. >> host: bill on the line for democrats out of fort wayne indianan you are on with jim fallows. >> caller: hi, you touched earlier on [inaudible] in china. we don't hear much about that.

we talk about tax cuts for small businesses being beneficial and i sure it is welcome but more than anything businesses need customers, people that can walk through that door and afford to buy whatever good and a service they provide. right now i think stepping back the picture ought to be looked at as though i were standard of living continued against their standard of living could we tailor our trade agreements to encourage them to allow the trade unions to have the people that make those goods over their sharing the wealth or they can become not only more competitive with us but us competitive with them but then also be customers to export because right now there's a lot over there but they can't afford to buy whatever [inaudible] >> guest: yes i think the basic idea in the previous hour we were discussing how henry ford needed to pay workers so they could buy the cars there's a version of that which

naturally will come to china and has to come to china. on the one hand if you ask people the question they see what are you talking about. every single year the last 30 years the standard of living for most people has gone up and the problem of the government has been trying to control a level of the sense if it doesn't get into inflationary bubble and all the rest but you will see cars -- china is the biggest market for cars in the world, where people lee had bicycles 25 years ago now the streets are choked with cars and so you do see continuing consumer levels coming up. on the other hand, the reason the value of the chinese currency, the r&d is the forefront of discussion is that is the way which the government has been artificially me during down the level of demand in china. i won't go through the whole discussion of essentially by keeping the value of currency relatively low the government has meant if all the wealth produced in china, so far only

half is consumed by the chinese people, the rest is saved and loaned to us and other people, so if the value of the currency goes up somewhat that in effect gives the chinese public more purchasing value of the world's goods. they can buy more for us, they can buy more from the rest of the world, so i think i would agree with you that the main plot line of china's integration with the world's economy over the next decade will be allowing china's people to enjoy more of the fruits of their own wealth and then to buy more from themselves from us. >> host: eurith there's no reason for america to feel depressed about the national a burgeons of china, india and others as world power is that because eventually we are going to catch up to them or they are going to start slowing down a little bit? >> guest: if we are talking about reasons that might slow china down we can have it and our discussion of the things they would be worried about if they were thinking about the future of their economy. the point i was making there is there are shifts in a world

power which or zero some as they say where if you win on a loose and i think for example the competition between germany and england before world war i was of that nature as germany grew stronger it was a threat to england probably the rise of japan in such surveys that destabilizing impact i think the rise of china needs not necessarily be that for the united states. it could become that if things go wrong on both sides but there are ways in which these are complementary nation's and the insurgents need not necessarily threaten us or what is in difficulty. >> host: veldt is on the line for independence out of peoria, illinois. >> caller: eat it morning. the subject matter should be a great tidal test of how canada could rise again it should be more like the commercial with all in and we can't get up. the reality is i know that mr. fallows has an optimistic view and i agree with some of his things but the fact is i've had time to study this and i

retired and not in financial distress but i do see what is going on and when you look at the history of this country we had a manufacturing base and we hear that a lot when we've lost that, and we have and you hear people say we need to bring it back the possibility of that happening in my estimation is so remote because it would cause a restriction of the corporate world it won't happen in my lifetime and probably not my daughter's life time so my point being that people should get used to poverty because that is always going to be for a lot of folks and that is unfortunate because i wish i could say something better than that but little finger this winter happened since anxious to see the caller said not everyone is going to go to college and that is absolutely true who is going to be of their blue-collar trying to make a living. i will take the answer of the phone. thank you. >> guest: interestingly we think of talking about china so far this program only able but of my article was about china.

it is more about the fundamentals of what is in impressively strong about america when you've been outside for a while and the particular area weakened. i in that were giving short handed the the ability to create new economic opportunities in the u.s. really is impressive compared to other countries. the point at the university system that everybody's going to go to them, the point about the universities which are dominant in the world is that it's where so many new businesses and industries come from, somebody entirely new so we have that advantage. we have the advantage of having invented talent from around the world coming here and creating more wealth than would have been able to create and other countries and in the park to the particular problem we have is the nature of our governing structures the way we can address public problems publicly and that is a different public debate to talk to get into but one of the figure at the manufacturing base if we were having this discussion 80 years ago we would have said our

agricultural work force we are not going to be the ticket back the jobs on the farms and that is true so many of the farming jobs there will be are fewer than one-tenth as many as we had two generations ago but we are wealthier as a country because the sense of new opportunities and industries we've been able to create it is the engine of creation to create the higher in the jobs the fund for people who don't go to college to try to discuss in here. >> host: we are talking with jim fallows, and our next call comes from milk and on the line for the republicans in washington, d.c.. >> caller: yes, hello? >> host: yes, go ahead. >> caller: my comment and what i'm looking at and how can america of rise and i was listening to the comments that were made about china and china being anti-black and if we look at the history, and i've studied history and have looked at the government from high school rise

goes beyond just economics and china because if we look at anti-black, the comments even made by pat robertson we are looking at, also with health care but i've been following everything that is happening and our congress and with our democrats who are falling away and looking at is that there is no concern about this country from point america and i want to speak frankly because billions of democrats when we look at the democrats who have defected to the they are like sleeper cells, they are no different than terrorists who all of a sudden it's about obama. obama was put into office by the american people and when we look at the auto trade in life in the automobile business for some time, used to be a dealer in virginia and when i look at when

cars were made back in the 70's what we looked at was the greed of our country when we look at enron in today's time but if we look back in the 70's and 80's during that time an american cars will be made to last about five years when the warranty without cars broke down -- >> host: we are going to leave it there. thanks for your call. >> guest: i think there are structural problems in the united states, of course. through my entire career traveling around the world i try to address these three the point i would make it is more evident from outside the united states than most of us may take for granted is the strength we have in being in an arena for people of all backgrounds and all nationalities to come and make their fortune here to the benefit of all. it is a remarkable thing that we have a president who is not simply white but the son of an immigrant, an african professor who is here as our president is something which could not happen anyplace else and i think is

part of the again regardless of political party or political policies the chances for renewal is greater here. >> host: the article how america can rise again, it's author jim fallows the call comes from bakersfield californian on the line for democrats. >> caller: i agree with the last call. like in the 50's and 60's and part of the 70's you grew up in those years like i did. >> guest: i grew up not far from bakersfield, too. >> caller: honesty means a lot in this country and that is what we got away from. we got a long way from honesty, and when we did that hurt this country, and agreed. if people would have stuck with

that we would admit it but they won't. it's we've got to make the dollar right now. >> guest: i certainly agree about the shift in business focus towards short-term quarterly profits. it's interesting i talk in the article about the jeremiah tradition in american politics thinking things have fallen. it's worth remembering by the early 1626 couple of years after the first chart at the massachusetts colony already there were sermon's how we were not as good as we used to be or as honest as we used to be this is part of our political and traditional about falling short of the past and using that as a way to rouse ourselves to better effort. >> host: madison virginia jim longline for independence. >> caller: good morning. i used to live in fresno and made trips to bakersfield quite a few times. i wanted to talk about the americans rise again, and it all

stems from this globalist banking cartel who is trying to lead the finance of america away so they can go and kill a federal government. i would like you to address that because i've been following the federal reserve board and who funded communism like smith who helped set the federal reserve and i know these acres are intent on taking the power base metal class out of america and their money supply and this is how they intend to build their world government to consolidation of power and resources. could you address that, please? >> guest: yes, i'm aware of this line of argument, and i would have -- i would distinguish these points. i would say of the one hand i would use the excess of the financial situation -- the financial system over the last ten or 15 years having been

largely pernicious for the american employment base and there is clearly a distinction between financial well-being and broad economic well-being and we have seen that during the crash of the last year-and-a-half and hope those imbalances will be redressed and stronger reforms that have yet been proposed. there is a larger argument and this is intentional that there is a plot to aphis to reach the middle class and set up a secret government. i basically don't believe that is so and i know as many people watching now will disagree but i would say to me by experience and life is conspiracy's usually don't exist and usually the explanation for things is mistake or misunderstanding or incompetence or whatever so that is my view. you probably don't agree that that is how i see it. >> host: next up, gary from westchester virginia of the line for republicans. good morning. >> caller: good morning. am i ready to go? >> host: yes, good morning.

>> caller: i have a problem with the free trade agreement especially with communist china. once we are not in manufacturing nation we will be unable to defend ourselves if the war comes to the shores again. our government sold us out for the private gain for their friends and relatives, i.e. close [inaudible] control over minimum wages. and china is no friend of ours. many businesses sold out to them. even though labor is cheaper there, the presence here do not drop accordingly. it is probably too late to save the country from the takeover from without or with an. the sellout by the elected officials. it's time that we rid ourselves of every standing politician and limiting the terms to to either consecutively or spread out. >> host: we are going to leave it there. >> guest: i agree on the one point and then maybe to where i

don't. i agree that trade agreements have to be crafted so as to defend the interest we care about not just on everything but automatically work out because these are different economic systems around the world. on term limits as a california citizen as we discussed several previous calls i think i would argue term limits have been destructive to california's ability to govern itself as any institutional memory in the legislature people have to go away. on the other point, mentioning that the prices don't go down in the u.s. actually in the interaction with china last 30 years you can agree or disagree about certain aspects but the price of consumer goods in the u.s. notably at wal-mart type of stores has been pushed down by the fact these global sources of supply so you can think of still a bad bargain over all but there has been a reduction in consumer prices notably places like wal-mart. >> host: next up is hazel for democrats out of south carolina

hazel? >> caller: good morning. hello. >> host: go ahead, ma'am. >> caller: hello? >> host: can you hear me? >> caller: i can hear you, yes. >> host: go ahead and ask your question, please. >> caller: i have a comment and then a question. people that live oliver this country need to go back to school. they are afraid to go back to school. some have worked in factories most their lives and they are afraid to go back and have a career. so i sure that a lot of these colleges will help them to go back to school. that is the only way we are going to rise up. >> guest: i simply say i agree, good point. >> host: next up, kansas. phill for the line for republicans.

>> caller: good morning. my wife and i live in a small kansas town and over the past eight or nine years we toasted international students from china, another from vietnam, one from the republic of moldova and one from south korea and we live in a small university town one of the observations i seen is we have students come and visit with us and we have dinner and parties and what not. the international students seem to have a grasp on the opportunity given to them and they are ready to compete. they are fired up. they understand their place in the world is contingent upon their willingness and ability to compete in a global market and from what i see too often of the american students is the sense of entitlement that because i'm an american the world is going to step out of my way.

>> host: i'm sorry to cut you off but we are getting ready for a hearing and i have to make time for mr. fallows's last words or thoughts. >> guest: i would agree and there is a selection by us here you are saying the chinese are students who needed to the u.s. and the americans in china would have similar motivation. i agree with your planned it's important for americans to understand the whole both benefits and challenges of this exciting w and prepare themselves accordingly. >> host: jim fallows author of how america can rise again you can find it in hard copy or online at theatlantic.com. thank you for being on the program. >> guest: my pleasure. thank you.

today the ceo of intel announced that his company would be joining with 24 danger capital firms to invest

$3.5 billion in u.s. based tech companies the next two years. this program will target companies in computing, biotech and environmental technology. the announcement came in the speech of the brookings institution. this is 50 minutes. >> good morning. i am of vice president of studies of the brookings institution and i'd like to welcome you to this evening and on rebuilding the foundations of american growth. the last year and half have been challenging times for everyone, the united states has suffered through its biggest economic recession since the great depression of that recession officially is over. we continue to have high unemployment and they're remains considerable public anxiety about the future. along with these issues the united states faces serious long-term challenges in terms of its overall competitiveness.

we have difficulty training and recruiting the next generation of scientists and engineers. we need to maintain excellence and innovation that is propelled the nation's past economic growth and we need public policies that enhance our long-term competitiveness. to help develop a better understanding of these important issues, we are pleased to welcome mr. paul otellini, president and ceo of the intel corporation. a company that of course needs no introduction but that doesn't mean i'm not going to provide one. it has the ninth most valuable brand in the world. it makes microchips that power more than 80% of the world's personal computers as well as thousands of other electronic devices during its four year history the company has been guided by america's leading business negative including the company's co-founder robert always and andy grove. today's speaker is the latest in this longline of outstanding leaders. paul of san francisco received

his undergraduate degree at the university of san francisco and his an m.b.a. from the university of california berkeley. he joined intel in 1974 as an analyst in the company's finance department. he rose rapidly through the ranks to become the head of the personal computer division and then global sales and marketing organization. in 2005 he became the company's fifth ceo and since that time he has provided strong and dynamic leadership and he has focused the company's efforts to innovate and grow beyond the personal computer. he led the company in the becoming cost competitive in new markets and developing products for mobile devices and adding driving intel's growth. in his remarks today paul will share his faults, need to create a culture of investment in the united states. he's interested in education innovation and creation of businesses and industries. he will be discussing what we

need to do to help the nation maintain a globally competitive economy. please join me in welcoming mr. paul otellini to the brookings institution. [applause] >> thank you. good morning. with the introduction like that you can go on for as long as you like. i want to begin by thanking darryl and brookings institution for hosting us here today. it was a year ago this week i came to washington announced that my company would make a 7 billion-dollar investment in our u.s.-based manufacturing plants specifically targeting to produce wafers with the 32 technologies, the most sadistic to the technology that we have never invented. you will recall of course when i made that announcement the u.s. economy was facing one of the greatest crises in history. i call it the worst economy i've

seen in my 35 years at intel. yet i believe our investment was good for proof the company had country. a way to increase commitment to innovation and future competitiveness. as it turned out, america and the bottle avoided the worst case economic scenarios but we are not out of the woods and i concerned we are not taking all the right steps as a nation to ensure our economy is on a long-term trajectory of growth and leadership. the united states now faces a world with much tougher competitors. many of them are accelerating their investment in the future faster than we are. the implications of this era of competitiveness is my topic today. so this morning i would like to provide an update on the investment of the announced last year and then share some thoughts on what else both business and government should be doing in fact must be doing

to create globally competitive economies. let me start with the investment we made in the state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities where we produced the leading microprocessors. we now have two factories in oregon producing 32 chips and factories in arizona and new mexico will be in production later this year. these factories are making a tiny electronic systems and it on a silicon chip roughly the size of your fingernail. to give a sense how far this technology has progressed i think it is worth comparing the microprocessors to the first ones we produced in 1971. the earliest ones contained about 2,300 transistors. the ones we are producing today routinely include more than a billion transistors. as a result they are far more capable, and will faster computers, the most advanced consumer electronic devices

sophisticated imaging for medical care, the brains inside the next generation of robotics and thousands and thousands of other applications and they do all of this while consuming fared less energy than their predecessors. we believe these are the most dynamic platform for innovation but our company has ever produced. how were investment in the u.s. factories start producing these ships wasn't a onetime jester. intel invests money all over the world. 75% of sales after all but 75% of the manufacturing and r&d spending continues to be concentrated inside the united states where we attract the most talented scientists and engineers from round the world. just last year we invested more than $5 billion on research and development in areas of sampras exploration of new materials to create even small where

transistors to products we believe will transform the way health care is delivered to future technologies that involve altman to reality in computing the response to human gestures. these are long-term investments for us. much of what we worked on today will not drive meaningful business results for five or ten years. but in a competitive innovative industry this is what you must do. but there's no guarantee the u.s. will receive all of its investment in the future. we need to address the fact that the government policies can create disincentives to investing in america and the trend here are worrisome. what is true for companies is also true for countries. global competitiveness requires continually making investments for the future. investment in the things that make innovation possible. even if they don't yield results immediately.

unfortunately long-term investments in education, research, digital technology and human capital have been steadily declining in the united states. so too has the commitment to policies that made such an entrepreneurial power house for more than a century. this is the bitter truth but we don't hear enough about. at one time the united states could boast about the best students in math, science and engineering. our research centers were without the year. no country was more attractive for the startup capital or global investors. we have seen a generation ahead and around the world in information technology. that simply is no longer the case. over the past decade our competitors have to focus on the very things that made america's innovative economy the strongest in the world. as i travel around the world

what i hear and see from business government leaders, students and employees is very instructive. other countries focused on investing and innovation, creating national policies to build digital infrastructure and to have moved quickly to embrace sustainable energy. we are seeing this not just in india and china but in finland, korea, japan, the netherlands and many other places. all of this activity on their part is making them far more potent competitors than the next phase of the global economy. last fall in a very insightful article about american innovation stevan pointed out that a recent study ranked the u.s. sixth among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness. not great but not bad yet the same study also measured with a call of rate of change and

innovation capacity over the last decade. in effect how much countries were doing to make themselves more innovative for the future. the study relied on 16 different metrics in human capital, i.t. infrastructure, economic performance and so on. on this scale of the u.s. was ranked dead last out of the same 40 nations. the news may sound shocking but it shouldn't be. when you take a hard look at the things that make any country competitive it becomes clear that we are slipping. consider the credit we give to the businesses that invest in r&d. they were once the most generous in the world. today companies find their investments more valued and rewarded by many other countries. or think about our ability to win the global war for talent. our immigration policies seem deliberately designed to prevent us from attracting the best minds in the world. american companies are given a

tiny a lot of visas for foreign-born engineers and scientists. last year the quota of the visas for those with advanced degrees was completely filled by april. with such policies are we surprised more and more top performing students return to their home countries after studying in our graduate schools? then there are the taxes. at a time countries in europe and asia are clamoring to offer companies like intel significant tax benefits to build factories the national tax incentives for companies to invest here in the u.s. are few. the combined state and federal corporate tax is the second highest in the world. economists at the oecd tells us it is precisely these statutory corporate rates at punished the most dynamic and innovative firms. last, we have significant uncertainty relative to the future cost the businesses may

incur in the areas of health care and energy costs. on all of these issues there may be legitimate policy differences but as the nation we must have a clear in during strategy to promote innovation, investment and startup companies, a set of policies that let american businesses confidently invest in the future, raise capital, takes risks and feel assured that we are training the talent to lead to the next generation of industries. that offer all is what the rest of the world is doing. over the next three years for example, china, india and south korea will invest three times the amount we do and clean energy technologies. taiwan has made itself into an i.t. john and because of sound long-term planning. after the asian financial crisis of the 1990's taiwan used the opportunity to invest in i.t. just as korea and japan were cutting back their spending.

today the country is the undisputed center for the design and innovation exporting the computers it builds to the rest of the world. then there is india. this country has put in place an aggressive program working with several companies including intel to enable half a billion internet users and 100 million broadband connections by 2012, two years from now. meanwhile the country that invented the internet, that's us, has been slow to develop our own national broadband strategies. the countries of europe, asia, latin america and before long the middle east are going to be competing with us and every sphere of the economy and the years ahead. if you want to stay and remain a vibrant growth economy we have to commit to a strategy the tribe's economic growth in the future. let me be clear. after the financial crisis short

term measures were a necessary part of economic policy. the stimulus package passed by congress last year for its simple undoubtedly steer the economy away from much more serious problems. my biggest concern though is it so much of the spending is targeted to occur in 2011 and 2012 well after most people believe the crisis will have passed. other countries most notably china managed to put stimulus funds to work much faster and are benefiting from that today. but stimulus spending is not a substitute for forward-looking investments that helped create the underpinnings of economic growth. perhaps the most important is education. an area if international test scores continually tell us we are failing to the competitive but it doesn't have to remain like that. this is an area of particular interest to me. our business after all depends on a pipeline of highly skilled

people to help us discovered subsequent generations of innovation. i'm very proud to tell you over the last decade intel invested nearly $1 billion of education and around the world especially in the areas of math and science education. our goal has been to create the innovation capacity for the future by preparing teachers to integrate technology into the classrooms and the learning process these. over intel teach program has already trained more than 7 million teachers worldwide and more than 350,000 in the united states. the result is an proved critical thinking, research and problem-solving skills students need to succeed in the jobs of the future. we see this as a vital interest in the next innovators, thinkers, scientists, bill terse and alterman nurse. this is an area where the u.s. must succeed. growth in the mass media, and

tens of science jobs outpace overall job growth by 3-1. think about this according to the one source americas gdp would grow by more than one-third of u.s. students became globally competitive in math and science. any strategy for future competitiveness house to address this issue. president obama has made this a top focus for his administration. we see this as the responsibility of not just government but every business that depends on highly skilled employees. by the way if you want to be inspired by what america's young people have to offer, please join here in d.c. on march 16th to celebrate the best and brightest as 40 of america's top young scientists displayed their projects and five for more than $1 million in scholarships at the intel scholarship talent search. this is one way that we saw a light on what is possible to

inspire others to achieve. i talked a lot about how government can partner with business and how it can establish the strongest incentives for investment. let me also make clear there are things businesses must do. in fact ought to do regardless what the government achieves. today i want to talk about to specific initiatives i hope will raise the bar for all companies that want to make a difference and invest in the future. the first is to create jobs immediately for college students. especially majors and engineering and computer science. this is an indispensable resource for the united states and in the current climate there hasn't been enough hiring momentum for these people. over the last several weeks of spoken with the ceos of several leading companies about making sure we put this resource to work and today i'm pleased to

announce that adobe systems, autodesk, broad,, cisco, dell, ebay come iain see, e.g., google, h-p, liberty mutual, martelle, microsoft and yahoo! have committed to join in increasing their college graduate hiring in the united states this year. most will join in at least doubling our college graduate hiring leading to a total of over 10,500 new jobs from just these few 17 companies i mentioned. and these jobs represent an annual payroll including benefits of over $1 billion a year. collectively this is a bit of america's next generation of innovators. we cannot afford to let future scientists and engineers sit idle after graduation. the second announcement i would like to make looks even further

into the future. i'm pleased to announce the inception of the invest in america alliance. a group of leading companies committing to steer investments into technologies that will draft economic growth and job creation in the united states. the members of this alliance have committed to invest $3.5 billion in promisingly technology, information technology and biotechnology. companies over approximately the next two years. as part of the alliance until capital will participate with its own 200 million-dollar cut in. intel worked with 24 leading a venture-capital firms to join with their own commitment in support of this alliance including advanced technology ventures this bridge scale partners, d.c. m., draper fisher, fly wheel, a good energy

of institutional venture partners, investcorp technology partners in menlo, david, new enterprise associates, north bridge venture partners, a quest partners, rose and sons, store managers, thomas off partners, update parkhurst, u.s. venture partners and walden international. those are the leading venture capital firms in the world coming together committing $3.5 billion to the u.s. investment. i believe that together to the startup capital will prove to be very rewarding investment for both the companies to contribute and the competitiveness of the united states and since venture companies in the u.s. accounted for more than 12 million jobs or 11% of total private sector and placement these will help drive

job growth in the u.s. now and in the future. i would like to conclude on an optimistic note a year ago we were focused on avoiding economic calamity. today we need to start focusing on the future. the future is going to be more demanding, more competitive and frankly more disruptive to american business but those conditions as anyone who ever worked in silicon valley knows can be exactly the right environment for new thinking and breakthrough innovations. that is why fostering such -- fostering such an environment ought to be the essential characteristic of our economic policy and the plans of every competitive business. i hope my thoughts today to help create a common ground between business and government, a shared vision that allows us to start focusing on the future, not just a crisis of the day.

all of my life i believe america's best years are still ahead. if we focus, invest and work hard, that believe will hold true. thank you. [applause] >> first of all thank you very much for those comments. the two new initiatives announced today creating 10,500 jobs this terrific in the state of the country's high unemployment and then also investing in america, the

alliance you're creating certainly is a new venture and that the very end of your talk you mentioned the importance of focusing on the future and that we need to create an environment for new thinking. and i was reminded last february you gave a speech at the washington, d.c. economics club and you said you felt the economic crisis represented an opportunity for institutions to look at themselves and think about how to reshape the things and how to be given a different way. okay. now it is a year later. how would you assess the job the institutions are to be both in terms of business institutions as well as political, have a reason to the challenge? are they making the types of changes that you thought were necessary a year ago? >> with a few exceptions, no. i think you've seen some companies make big bets on the future and trying to change directions. i will point out, shot out ge is

a notable but simple, gigantic old company, 100-year-old company trying to change itself and its retooling itself while it can. most companies, most people don't change until they have to. intel had the ability to change in 2006, 2007 and 2008 because we felt the business of the teacher would be better than the business of the past so going into the recession we were already restructured. we had the luxury going through the recession mostly intact. i think other companies had to make pretty drastic changes, cutbacks and so forth and i don't think they've come out yet rethinking where they want to be or where their businesses will be with a few exceptions. i could extend that to the banks. it's not clear there's anything different today than there was five years ago that these institutions are necessary today to the society and economy than they've ever been.

>> in terms of political institutions you had several appointed comments comparing the united states to other countries kind of investing the funds more rapidly. how would you rate the job the contras and president have done? [laughter] >> that is going to get us in trouble. >> pretty poor. i think it has been a series of endless compromise and debates and at a time action is needed. i was in europe last week and i met with the finance minister and for many years france was a place you didn't think about as a place you would do investments. the 35 hour week and social welfare state and those things, they've changed and they changed the last few years. principally under sarkozy but chst