>> thanks for introducing us. welcome, everybody. this session is called back to life, humanizing medical mysteries. the authors are molly caldwell and rebecca salute. i want to remind you that following this session they will

sign their books between tenth, and eleventh street. have been involved for many years and ten years ago by was taking an author to the airport and mentioned by was a scientist and the author was a history rider and he said who are your favorite science writers and i'm struck dumbfounded and i said carl sagan, i really didn't -- nothing came to me. the truth was i wasn't gripped by science and writing at that time. but since then, writers like mali and rebecca have not called got my attention but the attention of the world and this is in large part because they're so skilled at bringing difficult and complex subject to a life. if i were back in that car today i would have molly caldwell coming off of my tongue. it is an honor to introduce them to you. molly is a master of arts degree

in nonfiction and science writing at johns hopkins university who spent several years working for national geographic and her writing has been in newsweek and u.s. aid today among others. molly also served as a disease professor in nonfiction at the university of memphis. and forgotten epidemics remain one of medicine's greatest mysteries. second book--her first is american plagues, the untold story of yellow favor, the epidemic that shaped our history. rebecca is a science writer who has written over 200 articles that have been in the new york times, discover and many others. she spent eight years on the board of directors of the national book critics her circles. she has a bs in biological

science and creative nonfiction. henry and that is her first book and has become a new york times best-seller. i wanted to kind of get started with what resonated with me so much, science writing is so gripping now. in large part that is because writers like you use narratives to pull the reader in. i wonder if you could talk about a roll of narrative as a means for communicating science. >> can everybody hear in the back? thank you. wonderful. i have had the same reaction. i'm constantly being asked to my favorite science writers are and i have a few answers i give. narrative science writing is pretty rare. i have to say how cool it is that you have to treat the women talking about it.

[applause] the one thing that is more rare than narrative science writing is women narrative science writing. it is great we are here to talk about this. i think in some ways it is everything in the kind of writing that we do. science is something that affects everybody's life. is so important for the general public to understand science and to see the way science interact with daily life and it is important for scientists to learn the stories of the people behind the science that they are doing and to think of science in a narrative way. a lot of people don't. what you get in science writing is the facts and those facts are often intimidating to the general public. one thing i hear over and over again from people when you hear about my book is, tactically it is the story of the first human cells are grown in culture and when you say that to people they go you wrote a book about cells?

but it is not. it is a story about a family and what happens -- about ethics in science and the use of people in research without their consent. it is about class and race and so many things and science is that. science does not exist in a vacuum and i hear over and over again from readers to send me e-mails saying i hit science. last time i took a science class was in middle school and avoided the rest of my educational career. i almost didn't read your book because there were cells on the cover but then i did and i couldn't put it down and i got to the end and realize accidentally learned a lot about cells. i don't exactly remember when i'd did it. that is the highest compliment i could get. it is like giving the medicine when it tastes really good. i think is really important to

use these stories to put the science in and telling human stories about science and let them learn about science and a way that isn't here is the science part you are learning now. take out your highlighters and get the text books so narrative let you do that. it lets people go through science because they want to see what happens next. >> i agree. i am proud to be one of the women sitting on the panel today. i had very little interest in science at school. i was not drawn to it because it is so impersonal. my first real interest was in college. i went to a liberal arts school and english riding major. i was forced to take a science course and so i took the chemistry of aids. it was the first time i had seen -- learned science applied to a particular disease. to a virus. from that point on i was hooked. i loved it. i do think science can be

intimidating. is very impersonal and a lot of ways so as a science writer your dog is to make the impersonal personal. illness is one of the universal things we all have in common. it connects us all and transcends time periods. my books take place in different time periods. whether 1870s or 1920s. we can still understand and relate with epidemics. also a future lesson as well. the role of narrative in science as you said, it is absolutely important to get the story across and i like the point you made that it is important that the doctors and researchers understand the personal stories of the patients because especially with my second book, that is about being a really important element of the book. this was an epidemic that spans 20 research the years with

long-term effects and the doctors develop long-term relationships with the patients. they exchanged letters and christmas cards and visited one another and vacation homes. that was interesting for me because i don't think we have relationships like that today. that was part of bringing the impersonal story to life. >> we blurred the lines between science writing and medical writing. i wonder if we want to address that a little bit. what do you see as the goals and responsibilities of medical riding compared to science writing or in general? >> responsibility is getting the information correct. the fact. i always try to have experts whether it be microbiology or epidemiology read parts of the book or the old look and make sure i am translating it correctly. i try to take the scientific information and make it more readable and bridge that gap.

i want to make sure it is done correctly. >> accuracy and the writing is important but in science writing is so easy to make a little tiny mistake and state something as definitive instead of possibly definitive. there are a lot of subtleties. for me, i thought a lot about my responsibility and my role as a writer. a lot of what i read about our places where every day life in science intersects. often that can get messy sometimes so i write about this story, my book is so much about cells taken from this woman without her knowledge in the 50s and went on to become one of the most important things that happened to madison. she never knew about it and died very young and her family lived in poverty. to this day they can't afford to go to the doctor because they don't have enough money yet

their mother's cells contributed to all medicine out there. there is not a person here who didn't benefit medically in some way from these cells. the scientists were white and the -- there are a lot of loaded issues in this book. i come at science writing as a scientist. i became a writer later. for me one of the big responsibilities is asking tough questions. one of the things that is true about science writing is it is cheerleading. there are not a lot of journalists who has a lot of tough questions. a lot of headlines are about this science advance and that is not usually in a much later that people start asking questions about things that happened long ago. is important to ask the questions about ethics and how science is impacting people's lives and also not demonize science. this was important to me, the people behind the science

showing human beings behind scientists and sometimes very well intentioned scientists accidentally have negative affect on people. it was important to present these issues but not scare people away from the science. in my case so much of the story is about african-americans who have a history of being afraid to go to the doctor because there is a long history of research. i don't want to make that problem worse. you have to think about the responsibility in any science. science scares people whether you talk about nanotechnology, little molecule you can see being created a use for things, we don't know what is going on with them. we are cloning. it is easy to sensationalize scientists and scare people. i think a lot about that when i write. how to well-balanced these things? i am asking tough questions but

making it clear the science is good and i don't want to scare people from going to the doctor. that is a big personal responsibility. people often say i went to the doctor. i'm supposed to go next week. should i be worried? we spend a lot of time talking about no, you should not be worried. you should go to the doctor. read the forms they said you. i spent a lot of time translating that for people. >> the deck about demonizing is a great one. that is something i had to deal with, human experimentation. you look at that and think how can you experiment on humans with or without their consent? as a writer my responsibility is to recreate what was like in those epidemics that would make people so desperate when you are losing tens of your population. doctors would in fact that patients, knowingly or

unknowingly. looking at it from a different perspective in history. there's a lot of responsibility there cannot demonize. >> context is everything. putting people in the mindset of this is what it was like in the 1910s 1850s and why people were doing what they were doing and here's how it was different from today. when people pick up a book and start reading about some research that was done on people without consent they are reading it from today's perspective that you can get in trouble when you look at the far past or even the near past for the eyes of what we know today. context is important. >> one thing we all share is ellis and that is another thing. but another thing, collateral damage is the effect on our families. both of you write about those affecting your books and not wonder if you can talk about it? collateral damage to families.

>> my second book deals with the sleeping sickness epidemic from the 1920s. it was a very personal story for me. it is known as the forgotten epidemic. i could not find one book on the subject when i began researching it. my grandmother had been a survivor. she was living in dallas, texas. she came down with a case of sleeping sickness and slept for 180 days. she was never able to finish school. she had a slow recovery. she had a relatively normal life, but i knew all my childhood something was not quite right. any time asked the family about it she said she had been that way since the sleeping epidemic. that made me want to cover this and even more so when i realized nothing had been written on this and surprisingly as much as it has been forgotten, when i talk

in my interviews i am often contacted by people who say my great-grandmother had that or my great grandparents. we always wondered there are a lot of elements involved in this disease. people wary that it was genetic and now they know that it is related to this or the epidemic percolating at the time. it was sternly a personal story for me that inspired me to write it. >> that is one of the things. science is personal for everybody. affect everyone's live. that is something you don't think about. it is personal for the scientists. and this is how it is personal for you. it is interesting, my book is about many things.

it is about the effect that losing a mother, on the family. they dealt with so many things. and five kids, the youngest kid, the oldest was 16. and read the story and connect on that level. people almost lost a parent, the most emotional e-mails, my mother or father or great-grandmother or someone important my life got cancer when i was young or recently and they are still here. a didn't go through that.

they were used to develop a drug. that is an incredible personal connection. a lot of what brings us to our stories is some sort of personal connection. i learned about these cells when i was 16 in a basic biology class. the story that is in the book my teacher said what most biology teachers say which is there are these incredible cells that have been around since 1951 even though the woman they came from god. she never knew they were taken but they became incredibly important. i became completely obsessed with these cells. it took me however long it is, a decade to write this book. a lot of the reason i latched

onto the story, my father was very sick and he had gotten a viral infection that caused severe brain damage. he went from being my marathon running dad to being this guy who couldn't get off the couch. he had lost a lot of his money. he couldn't drive. one of my jobs as a teenager was drive dad to the hospital for a drug infusion and sit while he got treated. i was in a big room with lots of other patients who were being treated. i did my homework there and hung out in this room. a lot of fear comes with that. they didn't know if it was going to help or hurt. we really hoped this would help fix him and bring him back and there was a lot of disappointment that it didn't help. i was wrestling with a range of the motion that come with research subjects or family member of a research subject

when i heard about these cells which is why my first question was what did they think of it? going to something that felt similar to what her family -- what i imagine her family went through. john mcphee, incredible narrative, he has written a zillion books. they have a very personal connection and that is true for all science writers. i often tell students if they go back to earlier and think what you have been obsess with your whole life related to science and where are the stories? >> you talked about this a little bit but there are mysteries surrounding both of your topics.

nobody knows why and rihanna cells grow the way they do and no one knows what caused encephalitis of the delmack encephalitis to this day, how frustrating is it to write a book review can't give the answers? >> it literally means selling your brain that makes use leave the. what caused that remains a mystery. one of the physicians i interviewed in writing this was a pediatric neurologist. he has seen 25 cases among kids. it is a horrible experience for children. it is a disease of the brain that alters their mind. some of these kids become extremely obsessive compulsive. some become violently ill. many are institutionalized. also for the physicians, they

are still working on it today. they can't answer why this occurred. it is not a contagious disease. like the 1918 flow, what about the cases today? will we see this come back. this is connected to the flu. are we likely to see another sleeping sickness epidemic? some physicians are doing research to make that connection between the flu and sleeping sickness. i go on line. doctors are trying to connect sleeping sickness with stress. they overreact to infection and sleeping sickness results. for me is interesting to keep watching. i didn't know how it was going to an end.

i came to see if it was going in. >> that is one of those things about nonfiction. i could have kept researching this story forever. the family is still alive and doing things. at some point you have to say the story is over and we will see about a follow-up. there are so many things you can't answer and in a lot of ways and rihanna herself who died in 1951 didn't read or write so there were no letters, i had to recreate a person from other people's memories and little documentation and that was one of the most challenging and frustrating experiences of answering the question of who she was. there's also the mystery that no one can explain why her cells grew and no other cells had. that is just the fact.

i often talk in front of groups of scientists and that will come up and we say why don't we know that? we know everything else. there is now a group of scientists trying to get me a better answer to that question but it is not so frustrating to me. it is frustrating for readers sometimes. i get people to say one thing i didn't get from your book that you didn't explain clearly was y. the cells grow. that is because no one knows. i said no one knows but that part of a book, people wanted me to have figured out by the end. no one knows. the other big thing is there are a lot of unanswered questions. one of my goals was to not advocate for one position or one stance on this very large issue of who should be using biological material or profiting off of them, should you be told your tissues are used in research?

most people in the united states, how do we deal with getting consent for research without inhibiting science? we end with a lot of big questions. i often get people who stand up at my events and say what do we do? how do we fix it? scientists say what should our consent forms say? this is not my job actually. i feel my job as a journalist is to put this out there and say this is why this story is important and hear the issues that are real and present today. so starting a conversation is important. to meet the lack of answers is part of the story. if there were answers that would mean all the issues had been solved and they haven't been. there's a tendency to want to tie that up and meet these ends and make it seem there is a nice end. >> you write in such narrative form we get a little diluted to thinking it is a story.

it is reality. i want to talk about the structure of your books a little bit. one of the things you both have talked about that you covered so many things. there is ethical, historical, medical, personal stories. how did you come up the structured to wrap those things up? those many difficult topics? >> pounding by head against the wall for year. there are three separate narratives that are rated together. you jump around in time and between these stories and some were toward the end they all come together in one story. it took me so long to come up with the structure of the book, what took be the longest in writing the book, i knew that if i told the story chronologically one of the things their writers have to do, it is one of the things that make narrative.

i hard on my students about structural time. anyone who has been in class with me, structure structure structure. it is the thing that makes or breaks the narrative. a new if i started the story and told the chronologically, she was born in 19 -- why should we care? we would be going along and two thirds of the way for her family would take over and be the main characters and i was here and it wouldn't really work. all so that structure and chronology allows you to empathize certain things about the story. i felt like it was really important to learn the story of what happened to her family. at the same time you were learning the story of amazing things that happen with these cells. so you sort of flip-flop back and forth. in one chapter, this is so great and the next half, this happened to the family and that amazing science created hard effect.

the weight of the story is heavier when you know what happened to the family. so figuring out how to do that was a lot of index cards on big walls and moving around and i would stare at them for hours and move one card and said back down. for me, there aren't a lot of -- there are some models that you can read to look at this, but i read a lot of fiction. i collected -- went to the local bookseller, independent bookseller, little tiny store in west virginia where i would go to right and told her what i was trying to do and said will you find me any novel you can find set in multiple time periods, greatest chronology and have lots of characters? she would find these books and i read them all and i would take little fingers from each book. fried green tomatoes was a very useful to me. and movies. lot of movies are structured like that.

we don't think about it but so many movies jump around in time and do that sort of thing. i started watching any movie i could find that was structured in the same way. i was watching hurricane about resler hurricane carter. it is very annoying to everyone because i kept saying that is my book. i actually storyboarded it and map of the structure of the movie by playing and pausing. to look at how they did that. one thing i got was it is jerry fast. part of what wasn't working about my structure was it had the long chapters and another long chapter and i realize they have to jump around quickly to keep people moving or you lose them. narrative has a lot to learn from these other areas. >> i find that to be one of the creative aspects of science writing.

you have to apply a lot of creativity to make it interesting and readable. so structure will make or break a story like that. when i was writing my first book the american play about yellow fever i was sitting down to tackle a 100 year time frame with an ensemble cast and make a character who is an insect. trying to make that readable and personal was a challenge. i would write things out and focus on the people. with my second book it was completely different problem. this is a huge spectrum of a disease with everything from people with mild symptoms who recovered to those who became violently in sane and institutionalized. how do you find one character or two that can represent that spectrum? so i divided the book into case studies.

their eight case studies book ended by my grandmother's story and each case study deals with the part of the book where you going to the person, try to recreate your life as you photograph whatever you can and recreate what that patient experienced and woven throughout the case study, those same doctors who are treating these patientss and working with them. that was organizing a lot of very different material. and a creative enough atmosphere would make people read it. >> that is something those riders underestimate. i never tackled a large project like this. by the time i got to the point that it was time to matching the been riding of, i had this mound of material and eventually had to stop the process and go back and catalog everything i had and

start over again with my research material so make it so you could find the things you wanted to organize. one things, what suggestions do you have riders just starting out? organize everything, label, and come up with color coding system is because when you sit down to put that structure into place not only are you trying to organize on page but with raw material all over your office. >> i will ask you each the one question i have been dying to ask. your case studies are so fascinating but maybe things is not the one that most people got but jumped at me, the story of bruce. i will read a couple lines from the book. the doctor on this case was frederick killme. he quietly pulls the girl here and says there's nothing else to be done. he reported every test. there were simply no answers.

this followed from reach deeper and deeper into her own world like a wave disappearing due in beneath the surface of water. he apologized and told the parents she would never recover. when he looked at the sleeping girl, this girl is frozen, can't move but still hears the doctor say she is never going to recover. i was so struck. this was the case -- was there when you found the most moving? does one come back more than any other? >> that was one of the most moving. one of the first cases in new york in 1980 and they are realizing this is spreading around the world rapidly. up until that point they did not realize these sleeping patients were trapped in their bodies and

aware of everything happening around them. this is one of the first cases. he had no idea she could hear anything so when he turned around and saw the tears it is such a humanizing moment. and humbling for the doctor. at that point they realized this much work for the patients than they ever imagined and the family members. hers was one of the most touching cases from the book. a girl who went insane enough that her own teeth and eyes, that is what most people bring up and have questions about. the only thing that made that tolerable was the doctor said the pain mechanism in her brain had been damaged. she felt no pain. the compulsive behavior that drew her to do this, in that case that was the only thing that i could get my mind around

was writing about her, that i could sit down, it is like something you couldn't even imagine. that gets the most attention. but for me, the most humanizing moment in that was probably my favorite. >> this is one of those things that is difficult about narrative writing, when you have a story really emotional or really painful. you live it when you are recreating it on the page. this is true for fiction writers too but there's something about this actually happened. the chapter about the decline of henry adams and her death, never experienced anything more traumatizing than writing that because i had to live that moment over and over again to really get into her head and body and imagine what it felt like and talked to another writer who wrote about difficult stuff. a lot of writers talk about it.

the impact that has, the need to embody your material when your material is traumatizing. war reporters deal with this all the time. they get a post-traumatic stress disorder after reliving the experience they wrote about. there is something cathartic about having it on the page and moving on. the other difficult things that i would have to go laydown to recover. >> your characters in the book becomes so real. they are real people you completely visualize and imagine. when we brought up the responsibility of writing that is a huge responsibility. writing about real people. you want to represent them, to know that if they came back today and read this they would say this is similar to what was happening. that is a daunting prospect. >> especially when they are still alive. they sent a box of 30 manuscripts to any scientist

still alive before it went to press. that was a very long week. the scene from your book i want to talk to you about takes place a few days after her daughter debra sees her mother's sells for the first time with christopher -- sorry. and researcher at johns hopkins. when he projected herself on the monitor a few days later debra said they are beautiful. she was right. beautiful and other worldly. growing green and moving like water. small and is the real. looking like heavenly bodies might look. they could even flits through the air. i remember reading that. no way did she do this. you made something scientific slightly spiritual. i feel like that is a big risk. did you realize it was a risk and were you nervous about

including that? >> context of where that happens is the day before deborah stout saw her mother's cells was a very incredible experience for her and various other things happened that were traumatizing and she was spiraling into a dangerous place. i was talking to her cousin who is a pastor and he was holding the bottle in front of me and explaining to me why the family believed she was chosen as an angel and brought to life in these cells and as a scientist coming they this sells ourselves with a nucleus and rebozos and sells structures. is she'll live in these cells? for her family she very much is and continues to be and her soul is in there. this is part of the theme, reading sections of the bible to me things like if the lord will

grant immortal life to his believers and you never know what form people will come back in when they are chosen. she was brought back to do good in the world. this was on moment where it was very clear to me that it was much easier and clearer to think of these cells in spiritual terms than scientific terms particularly for the family. when you put biblical explanations next to the scientific explanation it is no contest. was much clearer and easier to relate to. i came to the point where the scientist in me was able to open up and understand where that came from. i was jealous. people often ask did they convert you? the answer is no. i came into this without any religious background and not a person who practices religion but i got a completely different and more nuanced understanding

of the role faith plays in people's lives and how important and healthy it can be. that is not something i often think about. i also saw the ways people talk about science versus religion and to be a lot of the book is about moments that science and religion can actually work together and lead to deeper understanding of things. hy thought was important to include it. i was never nervous about that but scientists often stand up and ask questions like did you ever strain out the family on her spirit is in there thing or do they still think she is in there? my answer is can you prove she is not? that is part of the story, that whether you or anybody is alive in their cells depends on how you define life, how you define spirit and soul and what your dna means to you, your dna is in there. it is a sort of existential question that nobody can answer.

you can save her family is wrong. a lot of scientists have said it is helpful to read that and held them connect to patients they always felt were far away from them in terms of understanding science. >> given that back and forth between science and religion that was fascinating. that neurologist you mentioned in the 1920s wrote the definitive book on evolution, one of the greatest -- since darwin. he called the brain the mechanism of salvation. to me it was fascinating to sees that at that time period, he much more had to gather this idea of science through spirituality. >> this is a question everyone wants to know. how do you right? what is your writing style? >> i have always been drawn to creative writing. [talking over each other]

>> definitely on the laptop. i find internet to be a huge source of information and research that makes my job embodies year. i have two small kids. i don't have the ability to do research for weeks at a time. that has been a great thing for me. people ask how do you not get writer's block? i don't have time for writer's block. i have four hours of quiet to sit down and write. i don't slow down at all but are also had a professor in college who gave me one of the greatest pieces of advice. there is no such thing as writers balk, just a lack of research. i spend half my time going back and forth to the library. that gives the story its texture. >> i was going to say the same thing about writer's block. it doesn't exist. you just don't have enough material yet. you don't know your story.

my writing process has a lot of writers, i struggled for a long time with figuring out went to right. i find the internet useful and incredibly distracting. i tend to -- i can sit down and write until i have my material to work with so i do my research. i take a lot of notes and i do brain dumps after i research a few things i am writing about supply get in on paper but i don't sit down with my writing until late in the game after the research is done and i have digested it. at that point have to unplug. i spent a lot of time in coffee shops. when i go somewhere to write you feel like an idiot if you have gone there to write and you don't write. i would struggle. i had a teacher in grand school who would always say 8 to be a writer you have to write every day.

wake up at 5:00 in the morning and right for four five hours and you really bother me when you say that. that is not my style. than he actually is a good friend and came to visit me and said -- what about 5:00 in the morning and i heard a rustling around and i will try this 5:00 in the morning thing. i wrote more than morning and i have written -- i hate you for this. i started waking up at 5:00 in the morning every day, rolling out of bed into my car and going to a nearby coffee shop where i would write and to like goodness it anymore and then do as long as i could. usually about 5:00 until 10:00 or 11:00 and that creative jews is gone and then the e-mail and online thing that whenever other work i have to do but i only do that when i'm writing mode. am not a morning person. i go back and forth. i have to have it be at a time when nothing else is going on

but also a great merit of nonfiction writer once said she does the same thing and a lot of it is because it tricked her brain. she is not really awake yet. she starts writing it eventually wakes up and she is writing. i might as well keep going. i definitely -- there is something to that. my brain has not kick in that early in the morning and it is easier to be creative. >> i would like to open it up to the audience for questions. there is a microphone. if you wouldn't mind coming. thank you. >> it might not be on. is that on? in the back. there you go. we will repeat your question.

[inaudible] >> can i stop you? we are going to run all of time. his question was the book was framed as it was a mortal sin

that scientists didn't get consent and the family didn't get money and actually it is not. my -- consent didn't exist. it was standard practice. i make it clear in the book that was standard practice. [inaudible] >> question is, is this a really -- seems to meet the same structure that keeps you from getting health care has no problem getting consent, the price of everything goes up a little bit and it turns into the story turns into a question of monetizing everything. if i am an organ donor should i insist i be paid for my organs? >> this offer comes up. a lot of their story, people made money off of these cells. where is our cut?

these cells led to so much important medicine, why can't we go to the doctor? the question of what you monetize and who should profit off of biological materials is a big one and the discussion we are having as a culture is not just a question of should patients profit but should researchers profit and who is profiting and how do you deal with that and tell people people are profiting. there are a lot of big questions and it is the commercial of science in a bidding war moving science forward and i honestly think a lot of it in terms of other people who are very concerned about this. a lot comes down to the debate about health care. the lack of ability to go to the doctor has nothing to do with those cells. it highlights this irony that sometimes people behind the -- can't get access to care. that is part of this discussion. should you commercialize science? the idea has always been

everyone benefits from science, we owe it to do things like that. not everyone benefits. off in these samples are turned into products that go back to people that not everyone can afford. science is depending on people, should not everyone have access to that? that is part of the health-care debate. the story is about so much more than money. it is about privacy and the fact that people want to stay with their bodies. money is the center focus because it is so -- >> if any of your books by going to be made into films. >> are any of us going to be made into films and the answer is yes. it is being made into an hbo money being produced by oprah.

we are in the process of doing that right now. >> i agree narrative science writing makes it come alive. it is a great way to do it but i often wondered how you deal with the accuracy of the dialogue? you weren't there, there were no reporters running. how do you deal with it? >> those are lines that get blurred allotted narrative nonfiction writing. where do you draw the line? i am a purist about it. if it is in quotes it came directly from them, usually in that same dialect. i don't ever paraphrase for them. i take it as it is. it comes from their personal material like diaries and letters. >> this is pretty frustrating for narrative nonfiction writers because people read narrative material and assume you were not

there, you had to have made some of the up. you can reconstruct it accurately. this is why it took ten years to write the book. every narrative detail is verifiable right down to it was raining, the room looked like this. those things are very easy to recreate. dialogue is more challenging. there is stuff that appears on paper and in my case medical records, journals and things like that were important. the opening scene of the book where she gets out of her car and walks up to the front counter of a hospital and says i have a knock on why will in, term medical record says patients says found tumor on cervix. she did not walk up to the desk and say i have found a tumor on my cervix because that was not who she was. i interviewed all of her living relative is, everyone from that time and have them tell me the stories of what happened and the way they told the story is she said i got a knock on my womb.

the quotes recreated from interviews are direct quotes from the way they were reconstructed from people who heard them and i talked to her doctors and people and i verified them with as many people as i could. various narrative moments in the story fact that i wasn't there for all had multiple sources. i would not say to them did she walk up to the desk and say i have a knock on my will but tell me what happened and they would come back with the same story and when you hear the same story from five or six people that is as close to accurate as you're going to get when there is no written documentation. i had fact checkers to verify all the information. these were recorded by other people. every detail in a story is like that. if it reads like fiction some of it might be made up. that is unfortunate. >> my question is mostly for molly but i teach economics which is another discipline that

struggle with education. i wonder what insights or advice you have for the educational process in science and you need changes in high school or college teaching? >> couple people who read my book recently said it is a shame more kids aren't reading books like this in their science classes because especially for kids, high-school or college age, the human stories, the connections are what they take away from it. they connect to those people and i say i don't write about disease. i wrote about people who have disease. as far as education goes, kids would learn a lot better if they were given that kind of context that they can put those facts in. >> my book has been really widely -- is being documented in colleges and a lot of universities where all freshmen are required to read the book.

in medical schools kids are required to read the book. i spent a lot of time talking at universities and high schools. that is exactly what the take home point for all these kids really is. this is the first science book -- i had a kid come to me last week and said this is the first book i have ever finished in my life. i hate science and the story really got me to go through it. in my case the book is actually a lot of it is about the importance of education. her family had no access to education and a lot of trauma that happened to them happened because they didn't understand what was going on and no one tried to explain it to them. there's a lot of access to education for the poor and minorities. have seen kids excited about the book and asking important

questions and i realized the the future scientist. they need to get these stories and their siblings often come to my events. i want to read your book but high and 10. so i ami and 10. so i amm 10. so i am writing it for them. >> a woman called from a cathedral and said i came in and one of the medical students asked what i was doing there and we heard the story of yellow fever and doctors gave their lives in the course of medicine and want to come to the place where that happened. one of the most rewarding experiences. the way they practice medicine. [talking over each other] >> i am so sorry. we have two minutes left. i am very sorry. i wonder if you could both in one minutes a what is next for you. >> i signed on for my third

book. it will have an element of science writing with scotland yard, forensic work and scotland yard detective tracking down a group of thing that took place in edwardian london. a lot of early detection and forensic psychological play. >> for me, the story is like the film, they have taken over everything. i am working on a young adult version and a consultant on the film so i will be working on that and so is the family. we will be part of that. i have other ideas i will begin to work on but i am still focusing on this talking at different universities pretty much every day. >> i can't tell you how much fun this has been for me. and three women talking about science, a wonderful morning and wonderful way to kick off the

texas book festival. i hope you will join us in 15 minutes in the book signing tend. thank you. [applause] c-span2

c-span2. >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the public affairs advocacy institute at american university. our next speaker is neil kerwin who is the president of american university. is going to be talking about lobbying and the regular -- the regulatory process which is relevant to our case study. as you well know, he has been head of american university since 1975, and he was the dean school of public affairs dean for eight years, provost for eight years. even president of american university and permanent president of american university since 2005. and it is i believe he is the first, the 14th president, the first president that is a graduate of american university. we are very pleased about that. he is the author of the book

called rulemaking, how government agencies right law and make policy. how many of you have read it? it's on -- all of it or part of it. part of it. okay. [laughter] >> thinking about making it into a movie. i understand. he also founded the center for the study of rulemaking. and you all know that we have four or 5000 bills introduced every two years in the congress, and maybe 300 past your but each year there are probably 25,000 very narrow rules of some very important roles. import rules made eight, 900 import roles of the regulatory agencies and department. and they put specificity on the page bills. bills are outlined, and they are framework, and certainly a lot

of regulations promulgated as a result of health care reform, financial reform, the other bills that have passed. neil is going to talk about very specific thing. he is going to talk about the regulatory process and advocacy within it which is directly applicable. neil, thanks for coming again. [applause] >> i think you should applaud liz for buying and reading part of my book. the choice between buying and reading, i go with -- that's all right. i'm going to defer for the rest of you the opportunity to read the book because i'm not going to get into a lot of technical details this morning about the mechanics of the rulemaking process. those of you -- those of you have taken any kind of

administration course or specifically let's say an administrative law course, then you will have learned at least something about rulemaking. one of the point i want to leave you with today is i don't know of any activity in our public life that has greater impact and less attention that what we are going to talk about this morning. i want to thank jim. is kind of a charity move on jim's case to bring me in to talk about a topic that nobody appears to care about, based on my book sales. although i will say this, interestingly enough, the last time i checked, the book was used more often in business schools than it was in schools of public affairs. this is after me being the dean of ours. the president of the university. now, you would think people in the math department would have the sense to a scientist, but they don't. let me start with kind of a startling point -- well, i can

say without real fear of contradiction because the year is now in its fourth edition. i have a co-author no who is a doctoral student of mine here at au, teaching in the school of public affairs. so this statement appears in the book, and read by a number of people in the field. the fact is rulemaking produces the most important law in america. i know the case that jim has given you to work with, what is potentially an enormous important piece of legislation. and i'm not here to tell you that what congress does is by any means irrelevant. i'm here today what congress does is simply not enough. and if you are in the business of public advocacy. i'm surprised jim hughes the term lobbying. -- jim use of the term lobbying. for reasons of good taste, if

not accuracy. but if you're in the business of public advocacy in this town and you are ill-equipped to deal with rulemaking, you're not as professional as you need to be. in fact, ultimately you will not be very successful. the point being is that congress begins a process, i'll get to that in a minute about how important that process is, but the fact is a law that i live with day in and day out here as chief executive officer of american university, the law that affects the way we handle animals in our psychology lab, the law that affects the way the men and women who work in our boiler plant are protected from hazardous substance, hazardous practices, the carpet that your feet are on, the air you breathe, those requirements are not written by congress.

they are enabled by congress. they are authorized by congress. they are written by agencies of government. when we did, when i did the original research for the book back in the early '90s, because there was really no clue -- political science of rulemaking, of the sort that i was undertaken, i did a survey of organized political interest groups here in washington without having any clue where they would ranked rulemaking as an activity. they ranked 20 years ago as important or more important the lobby as the economy. they ranked it also ahead of making political contributions and doing grassroots route. we have updated that survey. that is not eight or nine years old. the findings are more intense on the rulemaking site. what it means is the professionals who make a living influencing public policy have found rulemaking, they fell

rulemaking a long time ago, the american people and american academic hasn't. so you are joining this morning a very select group of people who will at least leave after the hour having been warned that if you don't do this, the people you represent will suffer. i don't care what your political issue is, everybody in this country has a right to representation. if you are representing interests on the right or interest on the left or interest in the center, and you walk off capitol hill with a piece of legislation, the rockefeller bill or something else, and you to a cocktail party to congratulate yourself, you go back to work on something else, you going to get exactly what you deserve. what you deserve in a situation like that is to have the people that are aware of how continuous this process is, eat your lunch, and the launch of the interest

that you represent. statutes are necessary, they are insufficient. the rulemaking is criticized and you'll hear these criticisms a lot. and many of them are correct, but many of them, like congress, are insufficient to understand how the process works. what does the constitution say about writing law, who writes the law in the united states? article one, section one. listen, you're going to have to learn this because from now on you will be reading it -- did you read the post this morning? all right. [inaudible] you doby books, you don't read papers. what do you read? article one, section one says legislative process will be vested in a congress of the

united states. it doesn't say and the pension benefit guarantee corporation. and the faa, and the environmental protection. it just as congress. and assess congress because the founders were terrified of authoritarian rule. they want to put a law making, which they took as the preeminent power in our constitutional system in the hands of an institution that was closest to you and me. we have direct electoral control over the people who write the law. and if we need in reminded of that, think about what happened to much ago. think about who's coming to town as we speak. think about how different this congress is going to look than the last one. the problem is that we can't function in a 300000000% political and economic system with only the law of contracts. we need more useful law than that. we need the kind of law that tells me what size the cage needs to be to house the rats in

the psychology department. the real rats, the animal type rats, right? okay. i need to know exactly what those guys and women in the boiler room can and can't be exposed to, or else this universe suffers. those standards aren't written by congress. or if they are, they are written very rarely by congress. they are written -- the proper proper is either written by people who were not elected by anybody. and as a consequence we've got to find a way, and we have over the years, to develop a rationalization for allowing unelected people to write the most important law you and i consume on a daily basis. and al qaeda and how that works in a second. they worry that rulemaking is poorly informed, that the people in the agencies don't know what people and the private sector know. or people in the nonprofit

committee know. as a consequence, they write rules that are terrible, or the right rules that on monday delayed by powerful people like you and me who do have information. that the agencies don't have. so we have developed a process over time to deal with that, and i might say the regulatory process by and large is the best informed of our public policy. it is a wash and information in most cases. one of its most difficult tasks, i think, for contemporary america is sorting which information is accurate, which is complete, which is subjective. very slow and obsolete by the time it's enforced. and i've got to take in some cases you've got to plead guilty on this one. when we first did some research on the relationship between passage of time and rulemaking, again back in, the late '90s, we found the average time it took for epa to write a major

regulation was, how long? what would your gasb? you've read a portion of my book. wrong section. right. two years, good guess. double it. back then it took four years and four months to issue a major regulation out of environmental protection agency. i'll also tell you this. when the faa discovers there's a flaw in an airline, in a piece of an engine in an airline, they can issue a rule in 24 hours. but the passage of time in the rule depends almost entirely on how political salient, how politically salient it is that how people like yourselves get involved in the process. and then finally it's inequitable. rule-making favors the rich. it favors the well organized, a sophisticated, and impact when it's done falls disproportionately on smaller

entities. you could say this about any element of our political system, and rulemaking process is no better organize for a ranged today to handle that than any other part of our political system. if you are poorly informed, if you are poorly organized. if you do not have the capacity to present this system what it needs, you are going to either failed or you will simply be irrelevant. fair or not fair, that's simply the way it works. now, why does rulemaking survives? why doesn't congress write specific language in legislation? why doesn't it tell the american people exactly how much nitrous oxide to be emitted from a rubber plant in northern connecticut? >> they are not experts.

like parts per million. >> whatever, right. exactly. they lack the necessary expertise. what is the expertise reside in the american public, usually? in agencies like the environment protection agency. that's one good reason. congress at that level is incompetent. i don't mean that negatively. it's hard to say that they are incompetent. i mean that in the sense that they don't have the full array of talent on the hill, for a whole lot of different reasons. to answer these questions. there's another reason. [inaudible] >> that's right. it's called political will. as a matter of fact, there's a fascinating theory that jim and i have been exposed over the years by both, who argues that if this process didn't exist, congress would have to create it because it enables them to avoid

and shift responsibility to another part of our political system, for the most controversial, the most politically dangerous decisions that reside in public, in the public arena. now, there's a third reason and this one is probably the simplest and easiest to understand. it's the lack of time. jim said, how many, 6000 pieces of legislation. how many get serious attention? obviously less that because only three or 400 get past. >> at this time we will have more. >> this next congress. this last caucus will have more because it's been an extraordinary productive lame-duck session among other things. but average year, since they've been keeping statistics, 6500, 8500 new and proposed rules each time out. jim says some are major, some are minor. he is right about that. but the fact is every rule that

is written the fact in a profound way, somebody in the united states. somebody cares a great deal about it. how many people in your who have read the federal registry but i don't mean cover to cover. i meant occasionally seen it. good. everybody exist exposed to that. every day in the federal reading the product of what we're talking about. and it goes over most of our kids. is not the kind of thing that you recommend to someone for light reading. but in every one of the rules proposal filed by the federal registry contains, somebody's life is going to change. a mechanic working for american airlines is doing something different this morning that he was doing yesterday morning. and that then radiates throughout the system. congress can't possibly spend the amount of time it takes to fashion rules that have three characteristics.

one, absolutely specific. in other words, liz had no option once she reads this document, this piece of legislation, what's she supposed to do? no lack of clarity. rules give you the most specific statement of your rights and obligations you're going to get short of having an enforcement officers show up to tell you what you did wrong. and we all want to avoid that. i mean, this is an aside. every week i meet with our general counsel. and mary's role here primarily, keep this institution in compliance with the law. when i want to know what this institutions options are with regard to, you name it, how we manage the pension program, mary can give you two things to read. she can give me the united states code, which is a compilation of all legislation written on that topic, or she can give me the code of the

federal regulations. and i'm telling you, 100 times out of 100 she's going to give me the code of federal regulations. that gives me the specificity i need, and the extent the specificity exist. so rulemaking is truly been the natural continuation of the legislative process that begins with our electoral, our elected representatives, and ends at the point that they are no longer able to do more with the work. either because of political reasons, tactical reasons, or time reasons. that means the vast amount of detail that we live with is written by the unelected folks. now, the obama administration, you've all lit up through the last several years -- you've all lived through the last several years and, you know, what's occurred already. it really is from a regulatory

point of view a remarkable story. job notice from time to time that people will use the term regulation and rulemaking interchangeable. you can use the term regulation and rule interchangeably. you can't use regulation and rulemaking interchangeable. regulation is a broader process. it includes more things than just rulemaking. but rulemaking is in effect a triggering mechanism for all operating regulatory programs. obama has always done health care, food safety. that's just through congress. and then through his own initiatives, through the management direction he gives his agencies, and you heard jeff talking about this, the fact is the president has a tremendous amount of power today take

domestic policy agenda through his ability to direct agencies to do what he thinks is important, under a law that is already existing. remember what the rockefeller bill really, think about its origin. i'm sure jim and you have been through this already. the fact is epa under existing clean air act authority had begun, has begun to regulate global warming. this morning in the post, if you can find the "washington post," you should read. you should call it up, don't call it up while i'm talking because that would be rude. but today's front-line headline in the "washington post," as a result republicans acknowledgment, the tea party movement, they are going to require every member of congress who introduces a new piece of legislation to read the constitutional authority that he has come or she has, to do it.

snorts thurber gets up and says i'm introducing a bill to reduce global warming. and i'm doing it under the following clause of the united states government. now, that may sound like enormous constraints on the ability of congress to introduce new legislation. the simple fact is, and as a matter that i read a blog about early this morning from a guy who teaches at yale law school. the constitution is a fairly elastic docket. you can find in a general authority do a lot. just like the constitution is for the congress, existing legislation is massive in reach, and scope. so a willful president wanting to do what congress will allow him to do otherwise, can very much uses direct management

authority to accomplish much of his agenda until he is stopped by other means. the president made a lot of promises. obviously and he's working his way through those. either on the hill or in the agency. but remember there are also severe constraints on budget. it means that the rulemaking process is going to be under tremendous stress over the foreseeable future. under these pieces of legislation, and those that will follow, rockefeller, if it passes come is a good example, will be operating under enormous pressure to produce new rules but under enormous scrutiny while we do it. that puts people like you, public advocates, who have resources to bring to bear to the rulemaking process in an exceptionally advantageous position. because as i will point out any minute the one finger community

holds that agencies desperately need is a resource that is always in short supply here in d.c. i will come back to this. now, you know, i've done all a bit of writing over the years are just the management of rulemaking, how agencies are organized and resource to write makes the the the the rulemaking is obscure, you ought to try that as a topic that even fewer people have read that. but in any event the fact that it is a system that is now poised to be enormously important, but also enormously difficult. here are the six players, two of which i will focus on specifically, that really determine how rulemaking operates. first and foremost is congress. think of a legislation, piece of legislation, as the boundaries within which agencies operate when they write rules. sometimes the boundaries can be very narrow and tight, depending on whether it's political and

technical circumstances on the hill were such that congress could be very specific in guiding and agency, or they can be very broad. that best example of a very broad that a user is the clean water act of 1972. 1972 congress said that in two years, this sounds like a civil war to these guys i suppose, but there was a big piece of legislation in the '70s. they said, in two years the environment protection agency will produce regulations that will make every american waterway swim of all, fishable and drinkable. so that is 38 years ago. they did this after a year before -- how many here are from cleveland? the cuyahoga river.

you're too young to remember this, but your mother or father do. 1971, the cuyahoga river ignited. in other words, it caught fire. all right? any chemists in your? anybody had a chemistry course in here? what do they tell you about water? [laughter] in a chemistry course. i mean, among other things. >> water is highly reactive will. >> and what do you do with water -- for example, what are one of the uses of water. what are the uses? there are many uses. we drink it obviously. >> drinking, baking, swimming specular going where i want you to go with this. [laughter] >> one thing to do with what is you put out the fire. okay. so being a political scientist

my first thought was when the cuyahoga river in ignited, that you might've had an underlying issue with pollution in the water. so they thought, congress, in its wisdom, reacting to what was then a series of environmental catastrophes like the oil spill, that we are going to get on this and we're going to get others big time. ended two years the p.a. is not only going to write the law, they will implement. they will enforce the rules and it two years later people like me to go out to the potomac and drink it. that is an exercise, a couple things and come back to, the statement of two years was a political statement. a political statement about urgency. it had nothing to do with the technical aspects of writing rules and then making them a reality. but congress makes these promises a lot, and i tell you,

when you take a look at health care reform and thin red, food safety, and you examined the statutes in detail along with certain characteristics that we will talk about in a second or two will find similarly ambitious, says. we are not to in this country making grand statements about what we can accomplish as a society. by the responsibility of it falls disproportionately on agencies and the people who advise them when they write the regulations. that is congress as well. the interesting thing about congress, we'll come back to this, congress doesn't quit after it right legislation. it is involved in rulemaking. it stays involved in rulemaking. one of the routes you can use ads in bashing as an advocate try to influence an agency is back to the very congress that wrote the legislation in the first place. the second is the president.

the president is an enormously important player in this because he establishes the regulatory program and the regulatory agenda for his administration. if he decides environmental quality is a big deal, it becomes a big deal. if he decides the rules are going to be written on a strict, cost benefit standard, nothing gets written in less you can see net benefit, and nothing will come out of an agency with that characteristic. if on the other hand he decides we're going to produce an enormous body of rules that make up for a decade of laxative rules in protecting the about, protecting workers, protecting the financial security of the american people, then you're going to be seeing signals throughout the government that reignited the rulemaking process. by the way look at a table data. it hasn't happened into a mama administration quite yet. -- the obama administration

quite yet. the third player is the court system but i'm not going to spend anytime with you on that today because once you're in court, again changes. junot the major player. you could be a participant, but you're not really calling the shots. the attorneys are. the core players are agencies and interest groups. by interest groups i mean anybody you represent. any role you are assuming in this course, anybody you work for after you leave your and go to work, and many of you already are on public advocacy. that nexus of agencies and interest groups are what defines rules to a very great extent. they are not by any means the only players, but they are the core participants. much of what else happens in it is a reaction to their activity. and then finally the press and the media.

i will say this. there is a tactical press out there, used to be a newsletter community, now a blog community that does some very good stuff. date invest time and the effort, learn how the process works, to follow in great detail a given rule or regulation. the general media is pathetic. what you see are passing references of stories here and there that say something like, of course nothing is going to happen into the rules get there. and then they don't tell you how the rules get there. they don't even tell you necessary who is writing the rules. they don't tell you that everybody on the hill withtinvvd in health care walked down the street to the department of health and human services, the moment that piece of legislation passed, and begin working as hard there as they're

working on -- in fact, working harder. and in many cases working smarter. because of the currency the rulemaking process is different in much of the current ec on the hill. but by and large, immediate attention in general sense, general newspapers, the general electronic media is not good. now a little bit of nuts and bolts. let's say the rockefellerses who's going to have responsible -- where does most of the attention then shipped after the rockefeller bill passes? based on what you have done so far. [inaudible] >> but what agency will be under -- will be doing most of the work at that point? >> epa? >> and then secondarily energy, maybe a few others.

all right, what will happen at the point at which the legislation is signed, i will tell you this. it's already happening. is that someone in the environmental protection agency is doing an inventory of how many rules have to be written by what time, by whom, and what's the consequence. they then have to sit down and decide okay, how do i get him pass legislation to issued rule. and that roadmap, believe it or not, is almost 70 years old. the roadmap was written in the administrative procedure back in 1946. i won't go into all -- i mean, i've got, when i'm still teaching here i taught a course in policy, depending on how much the class irritated me at that point, i could either do a 30

minute lecture on administrative procedure act, or a four session lecture on the administrative procedure act. trust me, that's painful. after the administrative procedure act was passed in 1946, it became gradually appear to congress that they were giving up immense power every time they passed a piece of legislation. they were turning it from themselves to agencies like epa, or the energy department or the faa. so after running the perceived -- the administrative procedure act, they wrote a whole other slew of legislation designed to constrain agencies when they write rules but and everyone of these pieces of legislation and many that aren't listed here are opportunities for public advocates to insert influence. so you need to see everyone of these pieces of legislation, starting with the administrative procedure act, in effect as your

roadmap also. where do you go to try to influence what a rule or regulation will say? this is a massive body of law today. not only to have legislation that affects the rulemaking process, we have hundreds and hundreds of court decisions over the years that have been handed down when people challenge rules in court. we have executive orders written by the president of the united states that dictate a whole lot of other things about the management of the rulemaking process. we have specific authorizing legislation. let's take the rockefelrockefeller commitment that puts restraints on had epa can write rules in the case of global warming. every bit of it, this massive body of law boils down to three principles. if you can master these three principles than you will master the advocacy process. principle number one is information. agencies are required to inform the public in advance when they

intend to write a rule or regulation. i won't go back through the history of all those. back in the '40s it was really lacks. today it is not. means informed you that they are riding a rule or regulation, something called a notice our proposal of rulemaking. npr and for sure. and it appears in the federal registry. how many people have seen one of these? some of you may have written one. okay. apropos our friends on the hill that are going to have you read the constitution every time you introduce a new piece of legislation, in a notice of proposed rulemaking, the first thing you're going to read of substance is the statute that the agency is using to write the rule. in other words, the statutory authority congress has given to write the rules. sometimes it's a mandate.

you will write the rules. sometimes it's made, you can write the rules. that's number one. so that is to the american people, for most of his death, the first thing we know about a roofing under development, if it's the first thing you know as a public advocate for a set of interests, the first you have read about a rule under development is a notice of proposed rulemaking. the bus has left the station, and you and all the people you represent are under the bus. the fact is as a public advocate you should know before the legislation was never enacted where that rule is going to be written, who's writing it, why the timeframe is, and what they need to do it. but go back, but again, information is one of the key principles. one a is informing the public.

one b. is what type of information is the agency required to assemble in order to write its rules. if you are doing rulemaking on global warming, if you're doing a piece of legislation on global warming, what would you tell, what would you advise as a member of congress, or as congress, how would you direct the environment protection agency, what kind of information should epa collect when you try to rule on global warming? remember, you're the congress, your writing the law. [inaudible] >> co2 emissions with the -- would be a good place to start. costs and benefits. >> climate patterns and how they are changing. >> right. costs and benefits, i think abby just give us the broadest possible definition that should cover all those things. but the fact is everything

congress tells an agency to use a particular kind of information, it's empowering a particular kind of interest. inadvertently or admirably. because information is not universally owned and it's not universally shared. as you will see him in a becomes absolutely crucial. so principle number one is information. principle number two is your invitation. principle number two is an outgrowth of the paradox that i mentioned at the outset of the lecture. you've got people running the most important law in america unelected. what are we going to do about that? well, for love our history congress and the president and the courts just attended it wasn't happening. they said that rulemaking was a really lawmaking. it was something else. well, back in the '30s they finally acknowledged that,

rulemaking is lawmaking and by the late it's not constitutional. we are two pieces, two supreme court cases that declared pieces of the new deal unconstitutional because they overly delegated vast power and authority to agencies to do what? right reg. what you are for my with from your political science and history books is the court packing plan. the court packing plan was a direct linear relationship to these two decisions that the court made mocking down the new deal having to do with its rulemaking. since that time the court has found a way to justify rulemaking as a constitutional adjustment. and the way they have done it is by accepting the fact that no, the members, the people writing the rules are not elected, but the american people have, certainly the administrative

procedure act, the opportunity to participate directly in the writing. so every time an agency writes a rule, and in its notice of proposed rulemaking it contains information on how you can participate in the development of a reg. i'm not going to say that that is an empty invitation because it's real. but kind of like information, at first you are thinking about participating in rulemaking is when you read it in the federal register. you are way behind the rule -- curve. because people like you as public with advocates have been with the agency, likely for months if not years, on the content of that rule before it hits the street in the federal registry. now, i have to tell you that there was an attorney here who specializes in administrative law. he or she would tell you instantly you've got to tell them about export a content. but if i tell you about ex parte contact last entry, -- you alas

into a coma. it limits the amount of interaction between agency and outside interests while google is under development. but a point of fact, it happens all the time and just simply has to be properly documented. but one thing you have to assume as a public advocate is that everything you supplied to an agency of writing the regulation is going to go public. it's going to be put in a public docket. it will be a viable to both your friends and your enemies to read. the final concept after participation is accountability. after the agency is finish writing the rule, it can be held accountable in three ways. wind, you can sue them if you don't like the results. i will talk a little bit about those laws after the fact.

that is a desperation move in most cases because agencies don't lose lawsuits all that often. not at least in the way we are talking about. but it happens. the second is through the white house. if jeff weinberger talked about the office of information and regulatory affairs a little bit, okay, i will come back to that in a second, the office of information of military affairs, if it's a rule that paying attention to, isn't have been of enormous potential for you and your interest. because it is the white house that ultimately gives the greenlight to a new rule both at the proposal and at the final stage. and then finally the congress, you can always look back to congress and viable talk about how you do that in a bit, but if you