see some real straws that are breaking people's backs and it's really a challenge. >> let me ask you, i think we heard a lot after the spill that people were afraid to eat gulf coast seafood. why did that happen? and is that persisting? >> people were brave to eat the seafood because we saw all these pictures in the media of oiled seafood and it just imparted fifth on seafood and oil not good for me and it might be toxic and we do know certain fractions within oil can contain carcinogens and what we tried to do was try to allay the fears of the consumer and that included the processor and the chef. and i have to say the national marine fishery service. they invited people within the

state to come over on the nmf training to come over for screening for any sort of oil contamination. excuse me, that would have been indicative by the polyaromatic carbons and we know we can smell those at very low levels and we have an excellent low threshold for aeroba detection in our noses. in fact, this technology dates back to the early '60s in japan where japanese researchers tried to equate, if i hold -- if i have an oil spill and i take what i think is that concentration and put it in a tank, put fish in there and allow them to swim and then take out in certain periods how quickly does it pick up that occasion of petra chemical compounds and by the same token future in water and see how

quickly that has dissipated. and it was actually shown that they can detect -- the expert sniffer can detect down to .5 parts per million. what does that mean to you? one part per million is about a gallon in a drop of water. that's how sensitive our olfactory organs are. >> are people back to eating gulf seafood or where do they stand? >> there's some concern. we did a lot of training with the harvester open waters and that was also working with fda and noaa to indicate to the processors, must guarantee that the seafood is harvested from open waters and they can do that easily by tickets where the fishermen document the area harvest and then we actually train the processors so they can see you really can smell -- we are officially tainted the seafood and they can smell it

but people are gradually coming back but there is still concern and it was a very large national media effort -- it created a perception and we know that perception is one of the hardest things to change. >> yeah, although also we have short memories, too. so did you want to say something? >> in addition to what lucina mentioned about the sniff test, we also did extensive chemical testing on seafood. and we've had chemical tests for the compounds in the hydrocarbons that have been mentioned that are of potential concern because their carcinogenic but during the spill we developed a new test for the dispersants so throughout the process we were doing both the sniff test as well as the chemical test and i just think that's useful information but i can tell you when i go back to the gulf still, people ask and there's a lot of concern whether it's safe or not.

despite extensive testing i think there are lingering concerns about the safety and i think you put your, you know, finger on it and that is the images that we all saw day after day after day have made people suspicious. >> let me ask you, you obviously have been passionate about oceans for many years, long before the spill happened. how did -- how did -- did the spill sort of help you focus a different way of being an ocean advocate or activist or whatever? >> i think we should first reassure you that the guy who plays sam malone is going to talk about fish. they all have buttons up here that they can push if i say something wrong. and it will go off so you're in safe hands. i started off as an activist in california fighting with a group called no oil, inc., in pacific palisades. they were trying to stop okay dental petroleum from digging 60 oil wells right along the beach.

that's kind of how i started in this. what was hard for me even before the spill was the conversation of let's let the moratorium that was in place for 25 years and let's open up our coast to offshore oil drilling, our most sensitive areas and i know this is a hard conversation to have when so many people in louisiana depend on oil and everybody -- a lot of people work for it. but nevertheless, from my activist point of view, offshore oil drilling is way too risky for us to be doing. and the rewards are way too little. so for me, it was more of a reminder of that. i also like, you know, just kind of weigh in that -- i'm listening and being surprised by what i hear tonight. and not because i doubt it. i didn't know it.

and perception is a huge part of it. i'm almost going, really, really, seriously? you want to think of oil and fishing and you don't want to go there and i know prince william sound still suffers from perception. i want to say that i'm so happy that this is true and i will be up there eating, you know, a great deal of -- actors, we eat free anything. [laughter] >> i will be happily eating the seafood but i would like it to be an endorsement oh, it's okay to go back to business as usual because oil does not hurt the ecosystem and it won't harm it and it's okay to keep drilling for oil in more and more dangerous places. that's my one -- sorry. [applause] >> jane, how did our contestant do? >> i'm not pestering ted at all.

[laughter] >> i did just want to add that we would be remiss if we didn't say that there are very real concerns about the long-term impacts of the oil on the gulf, and i think dr. boesch said that, i think i emphasized it. but i think what we're saying are two things. one the seafood that we're getting from the gulf now is not contaminated by oil and dispersants. you don't have to worry about that. but at the same time, we still don't know the full impact of the spill on the animals and on the ecosystem of the gulf and we won't know that for some time. and even those little tiny droplets of oil that were in the water while the oil was spilling, those very, very small droplets can be very toxic to a

fish egg, or a fish larva, the juvenile stages and there is very real concern that there is impacts that we won't be seeing for a number of years. it's very hard to actually quantify, document, see, you know, a fish egg that was dead. and one of the legacies of the exxon valdez spill was new knowledge about the impact of oil on development of fish larvae and we know they are very sensitive to a oil spill and i'm putting down a marker and flagging that there are concerns of long-term impacts that we won't know for a while and that's part of the natural resource damage process to evaluate that and to track it. not just say everything is fine now 'cause it looks okay 'cause there's a lot we don't know. >> let's remember, in prince william sound after exxon valdez there were fish populations that looked just fine for a couple of years and then crashed. so you don't want to call the all-clear too soon. >> right. and so there's a difference

between fish that you might be catching to eat who can process hydrocarbons, they metabolize it and so they don't -- the hydrocarbons don't build up in their bodies. so that fish that was swimming in the gulf, even if it encountered oil can be perfectly safe to eat now but that's not necessarily true of the very young vulnerable stages that the larvae or the eggs were and it's important to know where in the lifecycle is where the impact is. >> you have to understand how large the gulf is compared to prince william sound. the gulf of mexico has 640 quadrillion gallons of water from it and that's from dr. lubchenco's group. 640 quadrillion gallons of water. and there's parts that come out of gulf of mexico and parts of

canada and there's many rivers that feed the gulf. it depends on how big the spill was. if you believe the maximum would be 208 million in terms of the large ecosystem. i'm not saying this isn't a challenge and it wasn't a challenge and it was responded to very well. what i'm saying is you have to think of it in a bigger picture type of a presentation. also, what type of oil was it? when you talk about exxon valdez, you're talking about a very heavy, heavy crude oil that was already partially refined in a ship that was ready to move forward. you're talking raw coming out of the bottom sweet louisiana crude. in the gulf of mexico we have drilled 40,000 offshore wells. and we leak not from oil

activity, just natural seepage, 50 to 100 million gallons of oil a year into the natural environment. we have bacteria as dr. boesch indicated that eat that up annually. i was raised in southern california but with a name like voisin, most people don't know that. but i would go to the beach in southern california and i would get tar balls on my feet because there's oil of that coast as well and there's a lot of leakage there and i've gotten them in the atlantic as well. >> yeah. yes. absolutely. the numbers mean a lot. but it's also true that the natural seeps are fairly low rate and there's a natural ecosystem around them that kind of deals with it so clearly the biologists i've talked to said this was a big hit all at once and it depends on how it sorts out. >> i agree with you. >> let me say to don, i imagine people not only care whether their safe as we all do but whether it's sustainable. and what is the overall health of seafood from the gulf. and i wonder in answering that question if you could remind us

this is not the only insult that has ever happened to the gulf of mexico. >> that's exactly right, richard. we have talked thus far about the effect of the seafood we catch and enjoy and its safety. and the product that we're now seeing. but those species, those populations, those fisheries, the men and women who fish them, are -- actually have a set of long-term problems that they are trying to grapple with. we overfished those resources and we're trying to use the best science to manage that, and manage many of those fisheries stocks in a more sustainable way. noaa has had to play a large role of that in terms of the federal territory. in addition to that, some of the fishery methods was used to fisheries that caused all sort of unfortunate side effects.

there's by-catch when they historically towed shrimp trawls when they transported fish sometimes the species you're targeting have captured and wasted. it's also -- they also can capture things like sea turtles that get trapped in that. we're in the process of trying to find a better way of doing that. there's been a lot of effort and a lot of progress that's been made on efforts to avoid capture of sea turtles but there's still some mortalities on sea turtles. there's still more work to be done. in terms of the rapid dynamic changes of that environment that have been unleashed by humans. the biggest of all, of course, that's affected everything is climate change. and it's going to put us on a path of much more rapid sea level rise in the low-lying gulf areas that's going to be a major challenge going forward. >> you're already losing a great deal of land.

>> too. >> but in addition to that, we have massive over the 20th -- as we enter the 20th century massive amounts of wetland loss along the coast. mainly the mississippi delta as a result of our management, this risk of the oil. the very oil and gas industry that we talked about. slice and dice that coastal area and it accelerated the rapidity of the loss of those wetlands. in addition, i think many people have heard about the dead zone in the gulf which is the result of high activity industrial agriculture in the midwest. as a lot of those fertilizer that come off the gulf and only since the 70s have caused this massive dead zone the size of -- well, i think it may be new jersey size or larger this year because of this flood effect. those effects are occurring year after year, every year. they're not an event like an oil

spill. and so they have enormous consequences to the resources that we're talking about as well as the vitality of that system. so the hope is that with the attention brought about by the spill as well as potentially some resources, our commission calls for a dedication of 80% of the recoveries of fines under the clean water act, water quality evaluations as a result of the release of hollywood it could be many billions of dollars being dedicated towards comprehensive restoration of the gulf. >> not just mopping up oil but really looking at the marshes and everything. >> long-term problems, beating the dead zone, restoring those wetlands. and that -- with that, of course, is tied to vitality to the various fisheries that we're talking about. and so what's going on right now is that the president has charged administrator lisa jackson, working with dr. lubchenco and other leaders in the administration to come up

with a plan by which we could use these resources to do comprehensive -- working with the states to do comprehensive restoration. so if there's a silver lining from this black cloud of this oil spill, hopefully it will draw attention to this and we can move forward. it is not, however, a led pipe cinch that this will happen because we have lots of different opinions about what to do with that money. fights among the state about how much their share would be and so on. it would be a tragedy if we let that go away and have that -- have that resource not be available to take advantage and move forward with dealing with some of the long-term problems. >> ted, is that something that activists are dealing with? and is that something you're pressing for or where do you work in this universe of trying to see changes in the way we deal with our oceans? >> wow! i'm certainly not an expert on the gulf by any means.

but i start -- or i, you know, i start -- the activist starts from our fisheries around the world are in serious trouble. we may manage our fisheries relatively well in this country. we don't oversubsidize our boats but worldwide, 30% of the world's fisheries have collapsed. 70% according to the u.n. are the fully overfished. 9 out of the 10 -- 90% of the big fish that was around when i was growing up in the '50s are gone, you know, there's this much less shark, this tuna, all the big fish gone, marlin -- not gone but 90% of them are gone. >> so what do you do about that? >> what? >> what do you do about that? >> you start managing about that? >> what do i do about that? >> what citizen who cares do about that? >> i've gone to rooms and ballrooms and yack.

i'm not on the diving. i'm talking that it's wrong. what i see after writing this book -- writing -- being part of this book is that my job is to create international ocean activists because these problems are so huge and they're international that people need to know that they -- yes, they need to take steps and learn how to make sure you're not buying farm salmon from chile because you end up killing 3 pounds of farm fish and we feel good up here eating salmon anytime you want. you need to educate yourself as a consumer but you also need to take attention on an international level and you can do that through different organizations. clearly, i'm here to sing praises of oceania. but you need to do that. it's so out of sight out of mind. 1% of all the money raised in this country goes to marine issues. of all environmental -- i'm sorry, all environmental money

raised 1% goes to the marine issues. we just do not think of the oceans as thinking other than something we can put as much we want to as much and take out as much as we want. so it's really about my job, i think, is to go around and educate and expect people to stand up and go, no, no, no. this is wrong. >> and patrick, you're there with a more hands on approach. don mentioned the turtles getting caught in trip nets. when turtles wash up people pay attention. >> awareness -- [inaudible] >> i'll put it that way. i think the shrimp fishery that i'm participating in has a good story to tell when it comes to turtles in the gulf. big time management actions started, i guess -- the foundation of being poor in the mid-'80s and we started looking

at this at the ranch in rancho nuevo. and when we finally got over the hump and got compliance issues out of the way, we were able to drag our feet and pull -- >> ted -- >> a turtle excluded device. >> what does that do? >> it basically -- in each of the nets that we pull offshore, as you come down into the fishing circle, into the bag where the catch is collected, just prior to that we have an angled grid that's designed to discharge not only teds but amazing that the basically of the ted design that we're using today was created in georgia and on the east coast on the shrimp fishery to exclude jelly balls. it was basically called a cannonball shooter. it had high productivity rates. a shrimp catch over there but they couldn't participate in it because they would fill up nets

with jellyfish in literally minutes. but like i say, we got over the hurdles and got, you know, fast majority of fishermen where they could pull this device and pull it. i really had great compliance members by 1990, '89 and when you start looking at the beaches in rancho nuevo, we went from a straight line to where you really didn't see a dip/fall or anything else. after 2000/2001 which coincides with the 10-year sexual maturity rate we started to see an uptick, it's linear and today other than last year we saw a dip, i guess -- the year before last we were looking at 21,000 nests that were at rancho nuevo. last year 13,000 and rancho nuevo we picked up quite a few in vera cruz and this year through may 25th we're looking

at 11,000 what's expected to be a banner year and off the texas coast which is not a traditional home or beaches, we're looking at record numbers this year. >> and are fishermen still complying with that? that's an inevitable -- >> fishermen are complying well. i know with the increase in strandings that are happening on the beach, noaa has redoubled their efforts through the southeast region and they're going out, recreating fishermen and whatnot, they have compliance with ted angles and those are things that can change over time, the trawl, and it's not an intentional error on the part of the fishermen, but one thing that you have to realize as well, you know, if you're in a conservation world or marine biologist will tell you as you have an increase in the number

of stock of a particular animal you may have interactions with, as that overall recovery happens, you're going to have more interactions with them and we will have, sadly, strandings because of it. i mean, you know, as a species comes back it will be something that happens. >> jane, did you want to add something to that? >> well, you know, i think of the seven species of sea turtles around the world, five of them live in the gulf and they're all endangered. and what patrick has said about the very concerted efforts to address the problems that we're causing endangerment especially of kemps ridley, were until last year were very, very successful. they were beginning to bear fruit and that's the combination of the turtle excluder devices

on the turtle nets but on the beaches and it's comanaged with mexico. last year, they took a very, very serious hit especially the one to two years old which were very abundant in the gulf at the time the spill happened. they were just coming from deeper areas into more shallow areas. and there were -- i don't know the exact numbers. i don't have them in my head but on the order of around 500 kemps ridleys were found stranded and. one additional good news story is that there was a very concerted effort to go out and rescue oil turtles. many fishermen participated in that. many local communities, many environmental activists all joined forces, went out and rescued turtles, brought them back into a quarry and in other holding facilities throughout the gulf.

they have been rehand, almost all of them have been released into the gulf and that's about 400 were saved. but this year we are seeing a very large number of turtles, especially kemps ridleys that are stranded and remain very concerned about the causes of that. we at noaa are working very closely with the fishing industry to try to understand exactly what's causing this. and we will remain concerned because this is an endangered population. so we will continue to work actively to try to address the causes of those mortalities. >> we do have a microphone here and i think -- i'm not sure there's one on the other aisle but i'm going to open this up for questions as well so you would like to ask a question, any -- to anyone, please come to a microphone and i will recognize you. i just ask that you introduce

yourself and ask a succinct question as opposed to making a statement. thank you. >> okay, my name is jeff zippen. as you might guess looking at me i'm a friend of seafood. [laughter] >> and would like to see it sustained. we've been talking about the effects of this spill, but one of the things that this group has not addressed so far is what has been done to make sure it doesn't happen again? and i know the minerals management which regulates oil and gas drilling has been divided up in three different units. is that the answer to protecting the gulf from this happening again? >> don, you want to take that? >> yeah. yes. that's a very good question because i think another part of this issue is to make sure we do everything we can to make sure this doesn't happen again. as much as ted might like to have offshore oil drilling, the fact is that our nation is

dependent on it at this time. and if we -- if we're looking at our future of moving towards renewable energy, this is going to take some time. and we have limited new production opportunities on land and another is beholden to other nations to import oil. we have to sustain or actually grow our domestic oil production. you heard the president make some announcements about that. and a good part of that is going to be from the gulf of mexico. so the question is, if we're going to do that, let's do it safely. our commission -- this was the central thrust of what our commission addressed. the secretary of interior has put in new regulations that are required now to permit and operate deep water drilling, 15 or so new permits have been issued under that new standard. they have reorganized. our commission recommends it going a bit farther than what they've been able to do thus far. some of that takes legislation.

there's legislation that was proposed at the end of the last congress, of course, now it has gotten into a very different environment. and so it seems to be we have a discussion in this town of either drill baby drill or get out of my way or not. and i think there is -- there is a reasonable middle ground. that is if we're going to need this resource, then we're going to need to find it in deep water 'cause that's where it is. we've learned a lot from this. we have new capabilities. we should hold the companies to high standards. they need to operate with under those standards. we need a better capacity within our government to monitor those activities. all these kind of commonsense solutions are what we needed. >> if you can let us know what your views are. >> michael mccarte, chairman of the mccause tribe.

i made some commissions to the chairman at the hearing and one of the questions i would have in the natural resources damage assessment are we going to look at the effects of dispersant use on fish larvae? and i have another one, will this oil spill have any effect on ocean acidification or is that separate from emissions and crude oil? >> yeah. let me explain ocean acidification is that the oceans are actually getting more acidic as a result of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere so the obvious connection is the more oil we burn, the more carbon dioxide goes in the atmosphere but in terms of the spill itself, lucina, did you want to -- >> i can issue the disbettepera issues, of all the oil spilled we're talking about 198 million gallons and dispersant we're talking 1.9 million. so 1-100th of the amount of oil was used as a dispersant.

with that said, the dispersant was -- the active agent is sodium dioxide that's a food-approved ingredient. a short half life so it dissipated fairly rapidly and it's also been shown if it is taking up in the flesh. and the food and drug administration lab in alabama did some very nice work with this where they showed various species and amounts of co-rex at 100 times of the amount on the spill and seafood could take it up but they ridded themselves of it very rapidly at that 100 times use. >> so how much was the sefood was actually screened for this

as well, making chemical screens -- i know that noaa does surveys of seafood. you keep continuing to go out there and catch fish, and check them out and so on. is that -- >> the test that we developed during the spill were to test for this compound that she was speaking of and so all of the seafood -- so seafood was tested for that? and it is free from those dispersants. michael's question is is the natural damage resource process looking at effects of dispersants on larvae -- micah, isn't that what you said? >> yeah. >> and i think the answer is that the natural resource damage assessment process is a very comprehensive process. it's looking at damage from anything, including the efforts to minimize the impact of the spill. so it looks at everything that

can possibly be quantified with the idea of evaluating the impact of the spill on natural resources and the public's access to those resources. .. >> yes, it will be part of that. >> just speaking, putting on my reporter hat for a minute. i've been trying to ask, what has happened? how bad is the damage in the

gulf? sorry, that's part of the natural resources, it's part of the process. it's a legal process, they are not at liberty to say. not having full information on what's going on in the gulf as it goes through the process. we are assured that, you know, they are doing this to make the best case as you say against the responsible parties. ultimately, we will hear what the results are. but it's a bit of a frustrating time to sort of, you know, call up and say what's happening with such and such seafood? sorry, that's part of the process. call back again in 2015 and we'll -- anyway. [laughter] >> richard, i totally share that frustration. i think you understand, and i think everybody here understands, it's not a nana nana we're not going to tell you. it's building the best possible case. if you tip your hand, then you risk undermining your case. and everybody wants the

responsible parties to be held accountable. this is the way to do it. >> thanks. we'll take another question. >> my name is rachel lee. thank you for being here. my question coming -- primarily for the industry owner operator, as well as the federal perspective. i know an effective response and recovery in the gulf relies on industry working closely with the government. i wonder if there was any best practices or lessons learned that came out of deepwater horizon and recovery that could be shared as well as the owner/operator perspective. >> that's probably for don. >> this is the oil industry? >> both the industry -- >> oil industry or seafood industry? >> seafood industry. >> okay. mike, do you want to -- >> i think there's been, as i said earlier in a comment, the best cooperative response from the government at the federal, state, local level with the seafood community.

we dealt with -- normally we deal with about three or four closures in the year based more on fecal pollution. during the period last year, we had 38 communities. the seafood supported them in the their closures and more in the reopenings. we supported them in their closures. and the states in their closures. there's been a great cooperative effort between noaa, the states, and other federal agencies, and the industry to have accomplished making sure we are not only providing safe product to the public, but also that we're going to have sustainable, which i believe we do have, seafood for the long term. we're spending our energies and dollars in doing the research, hand in hand with noaa, and the state and academia. >> patrick, do you have a comment on that? >> i do think that one thing that came out of this is the

realization by oil companies and the government that the fishing industry itself could be used as an affective response tool in situations like this. you saw the vessel of opportunity the program work. and very effective for what it did. and i think it -- going forward it puts an asset in place that many didn't realize they had in front of them. and at very little cost. we are in industry, doing our thing, and various fisheries and at a moments notice can basically be called upon to act as a potential safeguard between, you know, the shoreline and, you know, the problem off shore. pretty good lightbulb going off in that. >> i'm just curious to what extent the seafood industry and the oil industry and how that relationship has changed. the seafood industry people says we got to get the oil industry out of the gulf. i mean obviously they are woven

in terms of the economy of the gulf coast. you know, so how do you handle your relationship with people in the oil? >> well, you know, they are us. half of my family which immigrated from france and ireland in the 1700s is in the oil and gas business. half of us in the seafood business. i could they couldn't make it in the harder of the two businesses. but they are who we are. and the real tragedy of this was the 11 lives that were lost and the 17 people that were injured. i can't imagine who those 100 or so people had to go through evacuating a fire in the middle of the night on an oil rig. so they are who we are. we work hand in glove for a long time. they harvest the resource below the ocean floor, we harvest the resource above the ocean floor. there have been challenges and times with conflicts. overall, we work through the convicts. we are a user of what they harvest, they are a user of what

we harvest. we want it to be done correct. i think don and the commission did an excellent job in preparing a -- that would be able to improve the safety of offshore oil and gas. the oil and gas community came out a great response to put $1 billion into a response program. as patrick said, i think one the most exciting things he said, when they started using the vessel opportunity, they were out there because they hired a bunch of contractors at first. they outpaced the contractors 20-1. they were protecting who they are. their livelihoods, and long-time abilities to be able to be successful. i'm seventh generation. my sons in wisconsin with -- in business with me. i have grandsons that i hope will be the ninth generation from france to be able to accomplish and continue to apply the season of south louisiana.

>> thanks. question. >> yes, my name is sharon hayes. i work in the federal government here in washington, d.c., and i don't have a very articulate question. it's actually more of a plea. i'm not a scientist. and i want to try to put a human face on this. i moved down to the gulf coast, the mississippi gulf most right after katrina and helped out with the recovery. and if anyone down there has done a significant amount of time on the gulf coast, you know how close to the edge people live. and today i was talking to a friend of mine who directs the national program down there. and he was mentioning that there's just a lot of money flowing around. and it's nice that bp wants to do the right thing, and make people whole after the oil spill. but i'm very concerned about the

wetlands and the restoration and i was going to make a plea that you all use whatever power that you have to make sure that the money goes to the right people and the right places. soothe with can get the restoration that we need. none the money was actually coming to the people who were doing the restoration right now. i know their reasons for that. it takes a long time. i know personally having worked in government. but that's just a request that i have. and i wondered if you had any thoughts about that. >> thanks for that comment. >> thank you for that very heartfelt comment and plea. i think you are absolutely right. the restoration will be really key. a few weeks ago, noaa and the other federal trustees and the state trustees all of whom oversee this natural resource damage assessment process

announced bp had agreed to set aside $1 billion for early restoration projects. restoration that will be part of the resource damage process. and it is early restoration because we don't -- we don't have to wait for the hole natural resource damage assessment process to come to conclusion. everybody wants to start doing some restoration now. and so this down payment from bp of the $1 billion allows that to get under way. there will be -- there's a public process for listing ideas about the best restoration projects. we've held ten open sessions in the gulf and additional one here in washington. and those ideas about what to restore and where are being folded into the process that we'll play out over the next couple of years in terms of the allocation of the funds. i think there's a lot of interest in getting on with the

restoration starting with the projects that everybody thinks would be important and that money will be allocated to each of the states in part and to the two federal trustees for projects not only along the coast, but also in the open ocean. so there is now a formal process for funneling money into the early restoration. and i echo your hope that it will go to the right things and the right people. >> i think of the exxon valdez spill and cleanup. people were anxious. they were steam cleaning the rocks and killing organisms. they looked busy. so your point is well taken that you want to make sure you are doing something that doesn't just look good, but makes sense. more questions? >> yeah, thanks richard. my name is dawn martin. i want to thank you for being here. this is a terrific conversation. i know you are all busy doing

good stuff. i have good news/bad news question. clearly the bad news was the spill in the gulf. no one wanted that to happen. the good news is some of the stuff we're hearing tonight. and so i have a question about human nature and i wonder if you can just reflect on your experiences about communicating around some of these issues. clearly when we have a crisis it's so easy to get the word out that there's an oil spill. that's there's some fishery that's closed, some explosions somewhere. when we have some good news stories to tell about things are not as bad as you might think they are. it seems it's really hard to get through the surface and be able to talk about those things. it's interesting when you look at neuroscience and social marketing and human behaviors because we all say -- all of us here, we want good news. we want to hear the good news. when we try to communicate and get that out, it's always one the biggest challenges.

so just your reaction, thoughts, advise would be much appreciated. >> thank you for that question. we had a lot of people come down to the gulf coast that we're sincerely concerned. and they would buy shrimp when possible. they would -- how many of you have ever cleaned a shrimp, the whole form. this is remarkable. we would have people come down buy shrimp in the round, whole off of the boat. they would say i took the head off and it had the black streak of oil running down -- [laughter] [laughter] >> that is the track. when they feel the vein, it needs to be removed. it's sandy and gritty if it isn't removed properly. >> now you are not talking about

the intellectual capacity of americans, are you? >> is that something you knew? another fact from the oil spill. i talked about testing. that is a rapid method for screening. then after the sniff testing, if it passed that, then the seafood went to the lab and passed where seven trained people would melt that under controlled conditions, freshen their nose, or pallet, and if it passed faye out of seven, it was subdivided and -- >> i'm sorry to interpret, that's a little off of the topic. they smelled it and tasted, then it went for the formal testing. of the formal testing of the levels of the polyaromatic

hydrocarbon they have shown to be one hundredth of a thousands of the concern. now take it to the fda came out two weeks ago and said we did the calculations. you have to eat 60 pounds of gulf shrimp a day for five years to approach the level of concern. we're trying to get americans to eat two seafood meals a week. >> do you think we should be eating 60 pounds a day of shrimp. let me know where you want me to ship it. [laughter] [applause] >> what about the question? i know this is something that you guys have all thought about. how do you -- when you have bad -- how do you communication when things have changed? how do you convince people things have changed? what do you do? >> that is an excellent question. if you could just one second, i

want to thank the lady that said she came down after katrina. that was a real challenge. thank you for coming to help. it was much appreciated. that is a great challenge. how -- in this situation how many of you are around when the tylenol scare occurred in the 1970s. you probably remember it. it was a small isolated incident. but it changed food, drug, marketing forever. and today i can still think about the tylenol scare. you were branded last year by seeing oil gushing out of a pipe at 5,000 feet below the surface for 80 some odd days and then you heard about it for a shorter period of time. how do we change that? we can't go back and do earned media which is basically the evening news. you have to remember during valdez, you had the evening news and you had the newspaper. and that's about it. morning, evening, and newspaper. today you got the internet, 24/7

cnn, the branding was more complete this time. what we're going to have to do, bh -- bp has contributed a lot. we have to see what synapses are connected in the consumers mind. we'll never forget about the tylenol scare. we'll have to convince them through the other federal agencies, work that she does at the universities that what they saw isn't what is happening in seafood. that black streak on the bottom of the -- back of a shrimp is not oil. it's not going to be easy. we're going to have to do paid media, tip dancing to stand up in front of everyone and say it 100 times. >> ted, did you want to saying? >> hi, don. we worked together for many years. i think part of the problem is

we have gone -- we have just come out of an era where science really -- science really wasn't on the throne. science wasn't leading the way. you had people who's self-interest is full. every industry, you know, they want it their way. so science automobile of the sudden started to get down played and you have -- you lost trust, you know, that people would say something and it would be true. and if we let science lead the way again, so that we can all go, okay, you know, the activist is saying yada yada, but science the people who were there and really letting science lead the way are saying this. i think we will rebuild trust and then you can start. people will allow the positive message to come through. now we're so conditioned to go

-- i don't really know, you know, if that's true. so anyway, i'm so grateful for what you do. and how you are restoring faith in science again. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> we have time for one more short question. short question. and then i promise to get you out of here on time. the hour is nearing. warm up your wine glass fingers. last question. >> hi, my name is lily donahue. i went to school down north. all of my friends from new orleans said it was bad and they were affected by it. knew people including their dads shrimp catcherman and fisherman. they said it was really affected. i'm sitting up here and slightly confused as to if it was that bad why you sitting up there saying it's okay. i mean a million here and a million there from bp -- i don't

understand how that's going to help as much as people say it is. i mean, you know, i think we have a few million that we need to get in order to fix the damage that was done. also what are all of the industries doing to make sure this doesn't happen again? you know, we have the psa announcements, i mean, what really is going on to make sure this doesn't happen again not only the environmentalist, but the fisherman stand point. >> first of all, about the impact. i think we talked a little bit about the environmental impact and specifically we were focusing most of our attention on the impact on seafood. so i understand that we didn't comprehensive with all of the affects. the thing that impressed us and the oil spill commission about how devastating the spill was to the communities in the region, the economy, the tourism industry, seafood industry, and it was remarkable about how it

affected the -- what the experts called the cycle social effects. there were people who were just anxious about things and it translated to child abuse and translated to crimes. it was coming on the heels of the hurricanes. we shouldn't understand the ecological impact. this was a devastating, devastating event. we should take every step, we meaning citizens, the industry, that it doesn't happen again. our recommendations try to point the direction in that. not only for the cover, but for the industry. so, for example, we recommend that the industry established a safety institute. much like the nuclear industry did after three mile island. where they stand up experts and self-police. they actually hold each other's

high standards. we see no reason why they should -- we shouldn't expect that of this industry. >> thank you very much. we do have -- >> yes. food and wine awaiting us. let's have a little -- [applause] [applause] >> and if you haven't, let me give a quick note. if you look on your bag if you haven't already. you'll find -- i guess everyone has already figured it out. go out the doors, run for the food. there are -- ted danson will be going up to the dinosaur hall to sign books in the dinosaur hall. other cookbooks and some of the chefs are available for purchase. and will be signed as well. anyway. have fun. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> agriculture secretary tom vilsack is heading to paris next week to attend the g20 agriculture meeting. today he'll talk about global food security and what he hopes to accomplish at next week's meeting. you can see live coverage at 1 eastern on c-span. house oversight holds a hearing this afternoon about drug subpoenas and gun trafficking in mexico. live coverage at 1 eastern. congress comes in today at 2 eastern. the senate will spend the afternoon on general speeches turning to judicial nominations tomorrow. the house continues work on 2012 spends on construction and the veterans department. the house is live on c-span, senate here on c-span2.

>> next a conversation on presidential campaigns and the politics involved in planning debates with politico chief columnist roger simon and mike mccurry now on the debates commission. the event is hosted by the washington center for knips and academic seminars and attended by political science professors from around the country. this is about an hour. >> the washington center sponsors this event as you know and roger in this room we have some professors from around the country. i'm going to have them introduce themselves, what we're trying to do is, in fact, the program is called road to the white house sponsored by the washington center. and what we're trying to do is become better teachers. and what we've been learning this week in washington, d.c. with a variety of guests is how to make things more relevant, interest our students, and so forth. if you could help us with that,

we would appreciate that. let me have our participating and our fellows introduce themselves. michael please. >> michael rodriguez, political science. >> thank you. >> craig gifford, i teach leadership at the university of florida. >> kevin, i teach at the university of pennsylvania. >> william lankin, i teach in glendale, arizona at the community college. >> john karen smith, professor of communications studies and the state university. >> heather tom -- thomly son, i teach political science. >> i teach political science at the college of the redwoods in northern california. >> i'm gene with the washington

center. >> nice to meet you all. >> you do online journalism in politico? >> i do. >> you are also on twitter and facebook? >> i do. okay. good. >> i'm at -- at politicoroger on twitter and facebook you can find me if you look hard enough by typing in roger simon. there's also another roger l. simon who's a conservative. don't get confused between us. >> we've been reading and seeing a lot about twitter, facebook recently. what part of online media going to play in the upcoming campaign. >> well, a large part. i think there's a lot of confusion about both twitter and facebook. i've only been on for a week. i'm new. but bill keller, a man i respect enormously, the outgoing editor of the "new york times" did a famous attack on twitter a

couple of weeks ago. i really thought twitter was basically, you know, teenagers in the back of study hall, twittering messages to each other. it's got to be 140 characters or less. that encourages talking without thinking and how would you really have. of a conversation. it really turns out to be in my experience very unlike that. although i think teenagers spend a lot of time texting from their cell phones. i think twitter attracts somewhat older audience, you can find obviously a range of people. but the people that i sign up for and the people who follow me tend to be fairly serious about politics. some of them so serious about politics that i can't understand them. but there are a lot of

statistical sights at 538.com. i'm sure some of you know it. they spend their time just analyzing and talking about presidential elections, outcomes in states in the past, what demographic changes will mean in order to -- that might affect the outcome in 2012. and those are just a whole punch of people exchanging ideas. and actually, i find the 140 character limit a way of sharpening your thinking and expressing yourself in short bursts. facebook tends to be kind of different. where you can write technically as many as you want. i used to put of links to my columns. if you want to read my column at politico.com today follow this

link. it puts up the link in the headline and a little picture. it makes it easier for people to access longer bits of information. and facebook has a lot of family stuff with people trading pictures of their kids. it tends to be, i think, a little bit more family oriented. both are very useful and both as we have found in places like egypt during the arab spring and the uprising a way to organize twitter, a way to organize people very quickly. : has made some

difference, but still the basics of being able to express yourself and being able to be understood are still very much necessary even on a social media. >> we professors in here are trying to get ready for our classes in the fall and teach -- discuss with our students the latest technology, the latest information. and roger simon is going to help us to understand a little bit of what happens behind the scenes in elections. questions from our participants, please. >> i know nobody likes to have

the first question. >> kevin is ready. go ahead, please. >> we've heard from some political operatives, folks at the dnc and others about the demographic shift that has taken place in the american electorate over the last few cycles. taking a look at the landscapes of 2008 and 2012, are there any particular dynamics that you would spend special attention on as we follow the election in our classrooms? >> there's two interesting dynamics. but as i'm sure you teach your students, one should view all of this information with a little bit of skepticism. not that the demographic shifts aren't real, but they may not turn out to be quite the political force that the numbers suggest. one, in the most written about

and talked about is the large increase in hispanic populations in key states. texas, florida, arizona, new mexico and colorado. campaigns, i think, we all know aren't really 50-state battles because some states are so dead-bang winners for republicans and some are such dead-bang winners for democrats that the campaign spent their time and money in many fewer states. they don't like to say that because it's insulting to people to say, well, we're not going to campaign in your state because why, if you're a democrat spend a lot of time in new york and california except to raise money you go there for that. because we're going to win california and new york. and for republicans, why spend a lot of time in a certain of

those funny square western states because we know we're going to win. we know we're going to win those states. it gets down to a few key battleground states. and you can pick any number. the campaigns like to say it's 20. but it's not really 20. it gets down to 12 and then pretty soon it gets down to 8 and by election day, it's 4 to 6. and that's where the money is poured into and that's where the candidate goes. and these are usually either classic swing states, florida, ohio with a lot of electoral votes. as you know, you got to get -- the game is to get to 270. or they are states that you have to lock down where suddenly you're in trouble. unexpectedly, president obama won indiana last time. the last time indiana has --

sorry, gone democratic i don't know in what cycle but in a lot of cycles. quite frankly, though, he won't say so, he won't spend a lot of time and money there this time because he simply doesn't expect to win it. there haven't been huge demographic shifts in indiana. he was probably lucky to win it last time and he probably won't win it this time and it probably won't make a huge difference in the electoral vote count. states like florida, which are very large, and contain very mixed populations in the north in the panhandle tends to be republican. in the south around the miami-dade area tends to be democratic. along the famous i-4 corridor that stretches from tampa and

orlando and beyond. [laughter] >> it goes to the ocean somewhere. but that's where the population centers are. you can find all sorts of differing demographics. the reason i say be cautious about demographic shifts -- and in texas, the democrats are hoping that texas finally becomes -- i'm talking about only in the presidential race. finally becomes a blue state, a democratic state because of a growing hispanic vote. i'm going to back up here a little bit. in 2000, massey dowd, who's now a democratic pollster who's recently taken a job at abc, so maybe he's neutral now but started out as a republican pollster for the bush campaign.

his polling -- he's very good. his polling showed george bush beating al gore by a comfortable 4 to 6 points. as we know, al gore won a popular 4,000 votes and only lost the election by a 5-4 vote of the supreme court, vote which has endlessly been analyzed for its political implications but anyway. matthew dowd wants to know why the republican party got such a shock in the popular vote. and he reexamined his poll figures, and he found that the republicans had way undercounted the impact of minority voters, both african-american voters and hispanic voters.

and dowd wrote a famous memo which quickly leaked to the press. it's in my book, my last book. and it said, if you look at the growing amount -- growing numbers of hispanics and african-american voters in america in key states, if the republican party does not do genuine outreach to these voters, we will continuously lose presidential elections and cease to become a national party. now, some people took that memo seriously. some did not. but even those -- and matthew dowd said, a real chance is with hispanic voters for this reason. as hispanic voters become wealthier and move out of the

cities to the suburbs, their voting pattern changes from democrat to republican. and this is our chance to reach upscale and midscale hispanic voters. black voters on the other hand, african-american voters, as they move up the demographic scale, sociodemographic scale, socioeconomic scale tend to retain their voting patterns and tend to keep voting demographic no matter where they live. this isn't true 100%, of course, but it's a general pattern that the republican party does not speak to their interests and their goals. and they see their goals and interests being fulfilled by the democratic party. the trouble with republicans in reaching out to hispanic voters is the issue of immigration.

the republican -- there are very few national figures in the republican party. i don't want to say none. huckabee tends to be more moderate although he's not running this year, he says, maybe. he tends to be more moderate than the other national republicans. there are not any who favor a road to citizenship for those illegal workers, nondocumented workers, all the phrases are politically charged. republicans tend to say illegal aliens. democrats tend to say undocumented workers. in either case it's the same thing. there are -- there may be as many as 12 million of them in the united states. republicans tend not to favor any path to citizenship. democrats do, although democrats have learned that it's such an

unpopular issue even with some democrats, that they all fall back on the notion of let's have a secure border first and then we'll have a road to citizenship. that i hope you teach your students is just more political buzz words and baloney. it is virtually impossible to secure our border with mexico. nobody talks about securing our border with canada by the way. it is virtually impossible to secure our border with mexico, number 1. and number 2, it wouldn't make any difference or it wouldn't make a significant difference. most illegal aliens are not -- or undocumented workers, are not people who slip across the border from mexico. there are people who get visas to stay here, to study, to

teach, to become nurses, to be tourists legally and they simply never go back. that is the bulk of illegal aliens in america. and, in fact, the immigration people don't search for these people. if you get in trouble for something else, you will be found probably to be here illegal and you may be deported, but if you come here on a legal advisory and you overstay your stay, 120 is usual and more if you're here for purposes of teaching or being a student, if you just stay you probably can stay here for a very long time. so building a 20-foot fence, electrified along the american-mexico border isn't

going to solve that problem. secondly, and i won't overtalk about this, for every 20-foot fence there's a 21-foot ladder. and it simply is an illusion that we can make this border nonporous. people who come here illegally from mexico and from china, by the way, is the second greatest number of people who sneak into this country illegally or overstay their visas. they do not wake up one morning in el paso and say, let's wade across the rio grande today. getting across the border from mexico is a major well organized expensive criminal enterprise.

it is funded -- and it's expensive for people to hire guides, coyotes to guide them across the border. these are the people who did the elaborate tunnels. these are the people who study the pattern of the border patrol and know where they are at every minute and these are the people who get you across. and these are the people who provide you with false identities. the problem of having a biometric card, which guarantees you are who you say you are is that such cards can never guarantee that. it's like college kids getting phony driver's licenses to drink, something that's been going on since i'm sure we were all students. that's supposed to be a secure

method of identifying people. if a college kid can do it, a major criminal enterprise can do it. the most expensive way but the best way is to steal a legitimate identity so that even though your picture is on that identity card when you present it to go to work, your identity is not real and when that picture is checked, it merely says that you are that name on that card. it does not check the identity. social security turns out a huge percentage of both false negatives usually. i think in the 20 or 25% range, which means 20% to 25% of people applying for jobs will be denied a job falsely for the wrong

reasons. you need a system which gets that error rate down to virtually nothing. there is no such system. and there won't be until everyone in the united states has an identity card, even those here legally born here. something that i don't think is politically possible 'cause i think most americans would resist it. and since you don't know and you can't know who was in the country legally, then you can't really know who was in the country illegally. you can get it down to a better check than we have now, but you simply are not going to get it down to a foolproof system. so the idea, one, of a secure border and, two, of a positive biometric check is political

pandering. i think it is impossible to achieve or at least possible to achieve with the money we're going to throw at it, it would really drive illegal immigration or undocumented workers is the job market in america. bill clinton, people forget, with the help of rahm emanuel, people forget, was very tough on illegal immigration. spent more than any previous president on the border patrol. spent millions and millions on border patrol agents, more cars, more helicopters, more night scopes. the whole -- the whole magila, and during his term, illegal immigration increased, not decreased. why? because there were a lot of jobs in america.

and if there are jobs, american companies will hire illegal immigrants. excuse me. as i think you know, american agriculture would collapse without illegal workers, undocumented workers. this as labor unions who have changed their minds on this issue. labor unions, especially the sort of old industry labor unions, steel, auto, coal, opposed illegal immigration, opposed pathways for citizenship for illegal aliens because they saw it as taking the jobs of their union members. new unions, workers unions, asked me, restaurant unions,

people where a lot of hispanics end up working, agriculture unions, they said, hey, these people are our members, number 1. and number 2, they're getting ripped off. since a lot of them are afraid to join unions 'cause they're not citizens, they're being exploited by large agricultural concerns who are paying them next to nothing and giving them -- having them live under bad conditions. the famous edward r. murrow harvest of shame, which was a documentary on how illegals lived, which is not how many decades old now, was on this problem. the problem hasn't changed. if you're a large agriculture concern in california, arizona,

texas, florida, you need -- and other states where agriculture is important to a lot of states like illinois and others, you need those workers. so unions have shifted. unions give a lot of monies to parties. parties have changed somewhat. so that is an important dynamic to watch. how unions have changed, how the flow of money has changed. and whether either party can sell what they know is not true, a secured border as a prerequisite for a road to citizenship. >> what would help us to -- come to some other participants in a moment. you've covered a number of campaigns since what year? >> i'm ashamed to admit, 1976.

i'm ashamed to admit it. i'm embarrassed to admit it >> go to us in turning points in each of the campaigns you have covered starting with '76. >> oh, my! >> and then '80 and so forth. campaigns especially in their last stages often changes in big dramatic moments. and the public opinion is early expressed back in 1976, 1980, 1984, dramatic moments in what the public watches makes a difference. so it's now become stage sets as we now know. back in the day, a little before 1976, 1960, back in the day, the

election of delegates by primaries or caucuses has become a growing force in american politics. back in the truman election, up until the kennedy election, delegates were selected by basically smoke-filled rooms, by political bosses. and these smoke-filled rooms were often filled with newspaper publishers who took a very active role, colonel mccormic in illinois was almost as powerful as mayor daley. >> william randolph hearst in california was certainly more powerful than many of the leading state figures in that

state. and these men -- there were hardly ever any women, there were a few, would meet literally in smoke-filled rooms where they smoked cigars and cigarettes, and they would decide where their state delegates would go. sometimes they were divided. sometimes they voted 100%. but what it meant was -- and there were a combination of states controlled by the parties and states that were not. states that had systems where delegates that were elected by open vote or a combination. iowa is still a highly complicated combination, though, the press concentrates on who wins the iowa caucuses. in fact, no national delegates are elected by the first set of iowa caucuses, which when i covered it, would attract a few 100 reporters, now attracts

thousands of reporters. when i was on the jimmy carter plane, which was a very small plane, there were only five reporters. me, johnny apple -- i'm going to remember -- i'm going to forget the rest. a guy from the "boston globe" and, oh, a famous columnist whose name i shouldn't forget because he was a friend of mine. he was called the prince of darkness and worked -- >> bob novack. >> bob novack. i'm embarrassed to say i had a momentary blankout. he was so nice to them because i was a young reporter from the "chicago sun-times" and bob was a famous member of the "chicago sun-times" washington bureau. and there were only five of us, those four that i mentioned and the fifth i forget.

and in those days, you traveled in small planes with the candidate. you talked to them one-on-one every day. you were very close to him. we flew two or three stops with him. the small planes, carter, his aide, a pilot, copi, and press planes and the third and fourth stop we got to ottumwa, iowa, and i believe it was novack who said, no, it was johnny apple who said, you know, i've seen enough of this guy. there are a lot of other candidates to cover.

i want to rent a plane and go back to des moines. any of you are welcome to come with me. the entire press corps decided to fly back with johnny apple, leaving jimmy carter who would end up winning iowa with no press corps, whatsoever, except for the local coverage that he would get. the local coverage was not unimportant but it lasted with no national press and i've never seen that happen again but johnny apple, to his credit would write a very famous story on the front page of the "new york times". those who were traveling with this guy, and he has something. and he could go all the way. and what jimmy carter was known for in the early days was for being an unknown -- out of work southern governor, as he put it, but having a very iron-willed

discipline. he campaigned from very early to very late. he answered every question. and i learned from him how effective it was as a candidate to say you don't know something rather than try to fake an answer, something that sarah palin and others should learn. jimmy carter, as well versed as he was in national politics, would sometimes say, you know, i just don't know the answer to that, but i'm going to get you an answer. and if you will give my staff person your name and address and telephone number, there were no email addresses in those days, i will get you an answer in 24 hours. and jimmy carter would get them an answer in 24 hours and he would often be the person on the

telephone. but even if you weren't the person with the question and you heard that answer, it was so different from other politicians that it impressed you. i don't hear it very much. and i remember george w. bush being asked a question about -- he was running in his first campaign at a town meeting that he had to do. it was the primaries because every event that john mccain had was a town meeting because john mccain didn't like to make speeches and, in fact, was lousy at speeches. what he liked to do is go out and tell about 7 minutes of jokes and then take about 20 minutes of questions.

and then go to the next stop. but it became embarrassing because bush would have only set speech before friendly audiences, ticketed audiences, so his staff, his campaign chairman could control the audiences. but a woman got up in the crowd and she asked him a question about federal funding for children's breakfast at school. a lot of poor children didn't have breakfast. and federal funding was limited in those days and a lot of social scientists and others determined that kids who didn't have -- went to school without breakfast and spent the day hungry till lunch, 'cause sometimes they didn't have lunch from home, not surprisingly did poorer in school than kids who came to school with breakfast or had breakfast at school.

now, it's almost universal that children can get breakfast at school. it wasn't then. and but she said, you know, i don't know anything about it. this woman said, you're governor of texas and you don't know anything about this program? you get several millions dollars for that program. bush had no answer and he stopped doing town meetings. so it doesn't always work if you say you don't know. when you're a governor, senator, whatever, you have one big problem, which is that you have a record to defend. if you're in the legislature, especially you have a million votes or a couple thousand anyway to defend, which is why so few members of the house and senate ever get elected. i think no one in american history, you people might know

this better than i, has ever been elected directly from the house to the presidency. former congress people have become president but no one has gone directly from the house to the presidency. and we have only had, with the election of barack obama, i believe, three senators who have gone directly from the senate to the presidency. why so few? since they have to know stuff? well, because they have to defend stuff, too. and they have large targets on their backs they're opponents tend to use because as you know, a lot of no votes and a lot of yes votes in the house and senate are procedural and you're voting for it not because you're oppose to it because it's a certain procedure where your

vote really isn't for or against it, but an opponent can use it against you. or it's because your leadership has asked you or told you to make that vote even though it's not going to go over well in your district. you have to do it and it becomes a problem at election time. not a huge problem, 96, 97% of all incumbents get re-elected in the house especially, not surprisingly, and this is something that i'm sure your students either know or should study, because house districts have become so gerrymandered and this decade it's a tenth year and each district will be made more democrat or more republican

because the parties don't want contentious districts because it cos costs them money. they want to have their seats safe. and so it becomes almost impossible to lose your seat. not everywhere. but most places. but where you can be in trouble and this has changed the nature of the congress and the answers are much too long but interrupt me if you want me to stop. >> i've got a couple of questions. >> oh, i'll bring this to a close. when you hear that congress is so contentious today and people don't get along and where are the moderates of yesteryear who are willing to vote? there's no moderate wing to the republican party anymore. there's no more jacob javitses

there are no more nelson rockefellers to reach out to democrats, why aren't there such figures? and why aren't there such figures especially in the house? it is because the only way you lose your seat is in primaries. because primaries can't be gerrymandered. it doesn't matter how democratic or how republican your district is. you're running against only members of your own party in most states. some states allow open primaries. so this means if you're a democrat, you have to be worried about someone out-democrating you to the left. if you're a republican, you have to worry about someone out-republicaning you to the right. so it makes you want to go further to the left and further

to the right in the election years which really every year if you're in the house and two years if you're a member in the senate. really you have six technically but you run after about two years. and it forces you into positions that you don't want to be in. and quite frankly, to put it -- pressing it a little further perhaps than it deserves, it causes you to cast fewer votes for what you may really believe in and for what really may be best for the country and cast more votes that are straight party votes. >> let me get all the questions out and then see what we have to respond to. >> i'll try to answer more shortly. >> john, go ahead. >> they say one of the great animas of democratic virtues is media and we talked to several politicians this week that have said media especially the press

have failed us. that a politician will make a serious speech. it'll be reduced to a series of sound bites. there'll be a voiceover for about 20 seconds of something really important on television and other media are filled with ranting and no bipartisanship. granted, it's easy to demonize such activity but i thought i would ask you what you thought of it. are media the great animas to democrats? >> i don't think they are the great enemies to your statement as to what politicians have told you. but i still think that -- not to overstate it, that the media still services democracy to a far greater extent than it diminishes it. and most reporters -- the great

mistake that i think politicians make and people, too, ordinary human beings, too, is that most reporters have an agenda. i think most politicians, as well as selected officials, even those who are not crazy against the press, would say, now, come on, you have an agenda. you just don't want to admit it. and press secretaries will openly say that to you. you remember the press. you're liberal. you remember mostly liberal you believe but there's a conservative press, too, if you're a liberal democrat. we can't get a fair shake. it is my experience, overwhelmingly, and it is difficult to speak now on what the press is because everyone with either a keypad or a laptop is a member of the press, but speaking of the mainstream media or now what they call the oldstream media, my overwhelming

impression over the years is that most reporters simply do not have an agenda. they do try to report honestly. they recognize the human limits of trying to be fair. i used -- i always used serving on a jury as an example. i served on three juries, not willingly, but i've been called and done my duty as a citizen. and served on three juries. and in each case the judge has said, now, i don't expect you to put your all your knowledge and beliefs and what you've learned by watching tv and reading the newspaper out of your mind. i don't expect you to wipe that clear. you're a human being. i just expect you to put it aside for the purposes of this trial. especially if the client is well-known. if a well-known person goes on trial, it's impossible to say, i

don't know anything about this politician. i don't know anything about oj simpson. i don't know anything about so-and-so. but i'm going to put it aside to do my job as a juror. and you got to find 12 people who are willing to do that. as reporters, you might say, i have personal views on abortion. i have personal views on civil rights. i have personal views on the environment. but in conducting interviews, i'm going to put that aside. and i'm going to conduct the interview fairly. i think reporters -- i'm not talking about columnists who are paid to have opinions. but reporters should report without fear or favor. a famous line -- i don't know who first said it, but i think it's a good guideline. now, why do i say the complaints of some -- of much of what you say is justified. it's because the sound bite has

shrunk. there have been careful studies done to when it was an incredible -- for the purpose of debates anyway. when league of women voters ran debates, and this was up to the early '60s, or maybe the mid-'60s, debate answers were incredibly long. the candidate each had 10 minutes to answer. well, now if you go to any debate, it's 90 seconds. a long debate answer would be 2 minutes. often it's 60 seconds. well, that's ridiculous. you can't really answer a serious question in 60 seconds. the excuse, if it's in the primary and there are nine people on the stage, which there will be for the republicans, is we can't have a tv show if everybody gets 10 minutes to

answer every question, it's going to be four hours. nobody is going to watch it. tv has shrunk not only to sound bites on the nightly news for the same reason. we can't have good programming. what they mean is entertainment. and i don't want to knock the nightly news. they are serious about what they do. but they recognize the limitations of what they think, and they do studies what the attention span is of their viewership. the sound bites on tv has shrunk from 4.5 minutes to whatever it is today, 1.30. 1.30 is a long time, not for a sound bite but for the reporter's whole they got 1.30 to follow why gingrich's entire staff quit last night. and if you've ever been interviewed by tv, local or national, you know, you may talk

for 20 minutes and then you turn in and you call all your relatives and friends and say i'm going to be on channel kb4, news 4 tonight and you all watch and you're on for a sentence -- i recently did that for the today show. i even forget and it was recent so i should remember -- oh, it must have been some scandal. whatever the scandal of the week was. and i got to talk for 20 minutes and exactly one sentence got on the air. i'm not complaining "the today show." i would love to come on it anytime but that's what happens. that's the nature of it. if you're a serious politician, or even an unserious one, it drives you crazy. but let's be fair. politicians have become masters of the sound bite. and they hire professional

consultants who are paid to shape their message to 40 seconds or less. and they know how to get that sound bite on tv. they're masters of the press release. they're masters to schmoozing reporters. especially local reporters from their district or their state. and they know how to get their spin on their story. and we as the press corps spend a lot of time trying to break through the spin, trying to look behind the curtain and see who's really pulling the levers. and so it's a dynamic. it's not all all that the politicians are liars and trying to sell the public on something false. and it's not all that the press is uncaring, has its own agenda and doesn't care what the politicians are saying.

it's simply a dynamic between the two. it has shifted over the years. >> we only have five minutes left. >> oh, my gosh. >> let me go to joe and then ryan and get to michael. let's get all the questions out and then we'll do the best we can. >> i'm going to give you sound bite answers. >> okay, quickly. how do you measure the meager literacy skills of the people? >> how do i -- >> meager literacy skills of the people, vis-a-vis, the evolutions of programs because for you to make accurate and objective analysis, you need to be familiar with the media policy, the content on legitimacy. and number 2, message, for message to be effective, it needs to be grounded on the experiences and the consensus of the target audience. now, how do you identify those shared values to find out what

is on the hearts and minds of the borders and how do these all have on the -- >> let me get all the questions. >> i'm writing them down. go ahead, joe, please. >> thank you, my question was inspired by your last answer apparently and newt gingrich who last his staff because he chose to go to greece instead of new hampshire and he said i can do this and make myself visible through speeches, debates and online and i'm just wondering -- you said 35 years ago jimmy carter who famously stayed in people's homes and campaigned even without the press was elected. gingrich may have some issues that never would have been an issue there but can you see -- can technology, can social media, et cetera, ever replace the on the ground politicking especially with regard to the nomination? >> you gave a rather long and nuanced view of immigration and

somewhere about halfway through i started staring at my cell phone i was going to put that in 140 characters and twitter what you were saying. [laughter] >> so i guess the question then is, does new media is going to make we'll have any substantive discussion in a presidential campaign and what is the role of the media to try to make that happen and what's the role of the people to try to make that informed? >> yes, michael, please. >> along the public crop of candidates that have been announced, who has that something special that john apple saw in jimmy carter back in 1976? do you think it will matter this time around? >> here's what we have. >> easy questions. >> we have media literacy, the effect of social media and joe was referring to gingrich and president carter. and then we had the question the effect of new media in the

election and anything special that you'll see on the republican side, so if you can handle those, please. >> sure. as to the political grounding or literacy of one's audience, it's a very interesting question. i now work -- and for the first time in my life, have worked for a political website aptly called politico.com. we do a newspaper on the hill, too, but that's only about 50,000. it's a limited publication. so really for the first time in my life, i have not had to overly worry about the political literacy of my audience because there is a certain presumption that if you're going to a political-only website, you might have a certain degree of political literacy. however, i must say since i spend -- i have spent most of my

decades writing for a general audience, the "baltimore sun," the "chicago sun-times," "u.s. news and world report," i am conscious of the fact that the phrases to go too deep into the weeds, that in a discussion among you political scientists, i can go as deep into the weeds as you know, and you can go deeper into the weeds than i do, you get down into the roots without worrying about it. but it is a constant concern. basically, i try to keep in mind that even though it's a political audience, it is a general political audience. and part of everything i write is not just opinion, but i try to make it education in that here is why i am taking this position. this has happened and this has happened. and maybe this has happened in

the past. i don't think this is going to happen in the future. and i find it's easy when you -- and i am not like this, but some reporters have an enormously retentative mind. you noticed this morning that i have not but some reporters can remember every outcome of every race in every congressional district. michael barone is such a person. he was our google at u.s. news before there was google. not michael but others who know the outcome of every race and what has happened in the past sometimes become prisoners of that and i got to shorten my answers. if you always judged what's going to happen in the future by what has happened in the past, you never would have predicted barack obama was going to become president because black people don't become presidents. so as much as you have to educate the public of the past, you also have to educate them to

the fact that the future is not a prisoner of the past. you should not be a prisoner of the past. things can change. >> oh, one minute left. social media or republicans -- >> i find a lot of social media dealing with complex subjects will direct people to blogs or to links of blogs where you can speak at length. and what are now called reported blogs, not just the old stereotype in the early days of blogging of, you know, a kid in his t-shirt in a basement just saying what i -- you know, what i think about everything, what i had for breakfast, what i had for this. there's some of that on twitter but you can follow on twitter people saying more on this subject, too. but if you're twittering this, please include@politicalroger.

[laughter] >> but that also directs people to my column on politico which is considerably longer than 140 characters. >> anything special on -- >> oh, i got 10 seconds. >> on the republican candidates who has that something special that john apple saw? >> i don't know if anyone stands out now. to me there was famously at one time a call in 1992, the seven dwarves. there were seven democrats running. nobody stood out. bill clinton proved himself an effective campaigner. and he wasn't a dwarf for very long because there are eight perhaps nine republicans. we can't use the seven dwarves. i'll tell you who the democrats are worried about. they're worried about john huntsman. john huntsman to some extent is a democrat's idea of what a republican should be. [laughter] >> if i would tell you one

republican to keep an eye on, it would be john huntsman. >> we want to thank you for being with us. >> my pleasure. >> the washington center has provided us with the greatest bag of all times. we will not give ours up so we're giving you one. >> that's very kind. [applause] >> i have a question for you and if it goes off-camera, that's fine because it's not an important question. [laughter] >> how do you become a political scientist? is it only when you get a ph.d. or when you're a teacher or what makes -- and this is not disparaging in any way. i just always wondered. what makes a political scientist someone who can say, i'm a political scientist? >> we're going to have to leave that to stand 'cause we have some other guests coming in a moment. >> okay. >> but on the way out, if anyone wants to communicate with mr. simon about that, please do. >> or you can twitter me. [laughter] >> thank you. [applause]

>> let's take a five-minute break and set up for the next one. >> 140 characters -- [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> seven republican presidential candidates debate tonight in new

hampshire. this morning, "washington journal" talked to a reporter who is going to be following that debate. his comments are about 5 minutes and it will take us up to live coverage of the u.s. senate at 2:00 eastern. >> host: seven contenders for the republican field for president of the united states will meet for a debate that's sponsored by cnn here to talk about it james holeman of the politico. he serves as their national political reporter. mr. holeman, you may have seen the papers already but "usa today" takes a look at the debate in saying that mitt romney has an edge going into it. would you conclude the same thing? >> guest: absolutely pedro, great to be with you. mitt romney is the front runner in the race right now. he may be a weak front runner. he may be nominally strong. but this is really an opportunity for him tonight to cement his status as the gop front runner. there's really three big headlines that could come out of

the debate. six other people on the stage pile on romney? the six people on stage steer clear of attacking him? or one particular candidate signs for attacking romney. so this is really the first debate he's participated in this cycle. it's in the state where he's the strongest. everyone will be watching how he beheat wavaves and in the last n he was a big punching bag. how he does tonight will confirm his status as a solid front runner and test his skills as a communicator. he's tried hard to stay above the fray. he's tried hard on focusing about the economy and if he gets attacked tonight, we're all watching very carefully to see how he responds. my colleagues, alex burns and maggie hauberman are writing a piece to look at romney to say there's a fine line of being

confident and on message and arrogant and becoming disengaged. >> host: if you're a betting man, then who's the candidate likely to take mr. romney to task? >> guest: tim pawlenty said he was not going to throw the first punch but yesterday on fox news sunday he linked president obama's health care law with romney's health care. he called it obamiromney care. and the other likely who is coming out swinging is rick santorum. the former pennsylvania senator looking to get traction in the polls, just announced his who's punches. it's also possible one of the two tea party candidates michele bachmann and herman cain could attack him for health care.

and also a newt gingrich who lost his staff but he needs to get attention for gingrich wants to look serious. he wants to not make it look like he's desperate to survive so that might actually force him to pull back a little bit and try to introduce himself to voters on a positive note instead of one criticizing romneying. >> you talked about the weaknesses or some of the status of his campaign going into it. what does he have to solidify tonight? >> guest: that he is able to connect with voters. that he's not just a well-funded juggernaut. his big challenge is going to be today on-message and that message is the economy. that's all he's talking about. we -- romney is rolling out an ad today criticizing president obama for calling the economic recovery, the setbacks, the higher unemployment, a speed pump, a -- bump, a bump in the

road. he needs to identify as closely to that message. that he is the candidate to fix the weak economy. and to just continually come back to that. >> host: what's mr. romney's ground game in new hampshire compared to the other candidates that are going to participate tonight? >> guest: by far the strongest. remember this is a state romney invested heavily in 2008. he has actually basically been moving there for a couple of years now. he owns a big vacation home in wolf boro and spends a lot of time there. >> he's leading like heavily in the polls in new hampshire compared to the other early primary states. and he has some of the best talent in the state. he has the favor of john sununu, and his campaign leadership team in new hampshire is very similar to the one he had in 2008. and this is a state that in pretty well politically and he's been signing up a lot of the big

names. >> host: and so -- before we leave you, you made out some of the themes. what's the other story that you're looking for, maybe the one that maybe would be too obvious for people watching it tonight. what should they be looking out for tonight other than the obvious? >> guest: absolutely. can michele bachmann look presidential? this is a minnesota congresswoman. a lot of people say she could win the iowa caucuses. she's popular with the tea party. she's very good at throwing red meat to the conservative base. she's not an official candidate yet but what we won't know about bachman is how she will come off to an official audience that's broader than her conservative support. we remember her awkward support to the union that was aired on cnn earlier this year. she's going to have to prove that she's substantive. that she's not just running to, you know, win a popularity contest. that she's running to be president in the united states

and so we'll be watching how she handles that balance very closely tonight. >> host: james hohmann, thanks for your time today. >> guest: thank you. >> in the senate today, lawmakers are about to convene for general speeches until about 6:00 pm. tomorrow the senate will consider judicial nominations for district judges in new jersey. they'll also vote to limit debate on senator coburn's plan to repeal ethanol-related tax provisions. live coverage of the senate always here on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal lord god, the center of our joy. your word says you bless those who do not walk in the counsel of the ungodly.

you also say that those who delight in your word day and night are like fruitful trees planted by streams of water. today let your word guide those who serve here on capitol hill. infuse our senators and their staffs with your presence, power and peace. lord, make your power available to them hour by hour so that they will have the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual stamina to complete the duties of this day. and, lord, in the midst of the

business of this day, allow them to experience your peace that passes all understanding. we pray in your gracious name. amen. the presiding officer: join me in reciting the pledge. of al legiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c., june 13, 2011. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing

rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable richard blumenthal, a senator from the state of connecticut, to perform the duties of the chair. signed daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will be in a period of morning business until 6:00 p.m. with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mr. heller: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: i would also ask unanimous consent that i be allowed to enter flew a colloquy with -- into a colloquy with senator johanns. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: mr. president, tomorrow the senate will vote on a cloture motion that deals with an amendment that would do away with a tax provision that was enacted many years back by congress, but was extended just this last december. in fact, there were a whole series of tax extenders that were passed by the congress in

december of last year, but this particular one, the volumetric ethanol excise tax credit was also extended, until the year 2011. december 31 of this year is when it would expire. the amendment we'll be voting on tomorrow, or at least the cloture motion we'll be voting on is with regard to an amendment that would eliminate that and end it now. there are a number of problems associated with that approach, mr. president, i think one of which is there is this issue of economic certainty. we have lots of people across this country who have made investments. we have lots of jobs that are impacted by the, this industry. and in fact, if you look at there are 204 plants, ethanol plants in america today spread across 29 states. and on the order of about 500,000 jobs, all of which i might add are american jobs. you've got 500,000 american jobs

impacted by this industry. the ironic thing too, mr. president, is coming on the heels of an announcement last week that venezuela, libya, and iran will block owe p*e peck from produce -- opec from producing more oil to relieve gasoline prices, we continue to be held more and more hostage every single day by our addiction to foreign oil. in fact, we send $1 billion a day outside of the united states to purchase foreign oil. a billion dollars every single day to purchase foreign oil. the ethanol industry which now represents about 10% of the fuel mix in this country displaces displaces $445 million barrels of oil every single year. that is the equivalent of of $34 billion that we don't send overseas. $445 million barrels of oil displaced every single year,

year, $34 billion that we don't have to spend purchasing foreign oil. and so this is an issue that has a direct bearing, mr. president, on the issue of energy independence, the issue of continuing this -- what i think is a very dangerous dependence upon foreign sources of energy, foreign oil, and has a direct bearing as well on the price that consumers in this country pay at the pump. clearly, if you took 10% of the fuel mix in this country out of production or out of that mix, you would put an additional pressure on the price that currently is being paid by consumers. in fact, there is a study done by iowa state university that said in 2010, if you took away the contribution that ethanol makes to the fuel mix in this country today, you would see gasoline prices increase by 89 cents per gallon. well, when you're already facing facing $4 gasoline prices in this country, which i think is

having a profound impact op our our -- on our economy and particularly on consumers who day in and day out are having to deal with these high prices, it seems ironic that we would be looking at legislation, at policy that would further drive up the costs of gasoline in this country. we ought to be looking at ways we can reduce it. this clearly would have the opposite effect. i think we talked about a few weeks ago, there was a proposal to put additional taxes on oil and gas or at least to change some tax policy with regard to oil and gas which many of us argued would add to the cost of gasoline in this country, that essentially if you would in effect be raising taxes on gasoline in this country. well, this proposal would have the same effect. it would increase the cost of energy in this country and obviously impact many of the jobs to which i just alluded. and it would also break faith, mr. president, with the commitment that was made by this congress last december when we extended the v-tec, the

volumetric ethanol excise tax credit for another year. we have lots of folks who have made investments. we have people across this country whose livelihoods and jobs depend upon this, and i think it makes sense when we do, when we put policy in place and we say it's going to be in place for a certain period of time that that be honored. now, having said that, i have been working closely with my colleague from nebraska and others of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, republicans and democrats, on a proposal that would reform the vtec and move us in a direction that puts us on a pathway or a trajectory into the future that will take greater advantage of this contribution that's being made by biofuels to our country's energy innocence and also phase out the vtec tax credit. but does it in a way that

doesn't impact and disrupt as this would. if you say you're going to end this today and you have lots of people who have made investment decisions based on current policy, you would change that policy immediately and abruptly. that is not the right way, the correct way to go about this. there is a better way. that's what my colleague from nebraska and i have been working on, and i hope that our colleagues here in the senate will vote against this attempt tomorrow to end this abruptly and to disrupt this market and do i think tremendous harm to an industry that is contributing in a significant way to america's move toward energy independence and is helping to keep gas prices lower than they would otherwise be were it not for the 10% contribution that ethanol makes year in and year out to our energy in this country. and so there are lots of reasons why we think it's a bad idea to move forward with the amendment that will be offered tomorrow and the cloture motion that would get on that amendment, and

i hope that my colleagues will defeat that cloture motion so that we can work on a more responsible, reasonable way that phases out the veetc and -- in a responsible way that would allow those who have made investments to be able to plan accordingly. so i would simply say, mr. president, as we get into that debate tomorrow that this is an issue which has ramifications for our economy because of the price of fuel and the impact that ethanol has on the price of fuel in this country. it has an impact on our -- the old issue of energy independence and whether we're going to continue to be held hostage and over a barrel by oil that we have to import from other places around the world, and of course it has implications as well for the -- just the jobs that are created here at home, american jobs that could very well be lost if we move down a path that in my view would be very harmful to this industry and its ability to create jobs. and so i would -- i have my

colleague from nebraska here as well this afternoon, mr. president, and i would welcome his thoughts on this subject and would like to enter into a dialogue with him about the impact that this industry has on his state of nebraska, and not just the impact on nebraska or south dakota but the impact it has on this country by creating jobs here in this country, by lessening the dependence that we have on foreign sources of energy and by keeping gas prices at a more reasonable level than we otherwise would see were it not for the contribution that ethanol makes to our fuel mix. and so i'm going to yield to the senator from nebraska for his observations about this subject. mr. johanns: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mr. johanns: i want to start out today and thank my colleague from south dakota. he has been a very reasoned voice on this issue, and he's brought forward some ideas that i believe are the right approach to dealing with ethanol,

absolutely the right approach. you know, if you think about it, about 50% of our oil is now mortgage -- imported from another part of the world, but a more dramatic piece of that is that oftentimes the importation of that oil comes from parts of the world that do not share our philosophy, do not share our view of the world, are not deks and do everything they can to in effect fight against what we believe in. so not only are we dependent on foreign oil, we are dependent on a source of foreign oil that oftentimes is contrary to the values and beliefs of american citizens. now, one of these days i think we're going to learn the lesson of that dependence and we're

going to alter our course. we're going to do a whole host of things that make sense, more drilling, more exploration, more nuclear power plants, as senator lamar alexander has advocated for, and just everything on the list. it's all a piece of the puzzle. well, a piece of that puzzle is also renewable fuels. it could be biodiesel, it could be ethanol, it could be sialosic ethanol which i championed when i was secretary of agriculture. but again i think it's going to be a whole host of things. now, ten years ago or 20 years ago, if i were on the senate floor making those statements, many would have looked at me and said well, mike, that's just a pipe dream, but as the senator from south dakota points out, 10% of our fuel in the united

states is now ethanol, 10%. it did displace 445 million barrels of oil last year. there is just nothing else going on out there that has had that kind of impact. and we can report today that that $34 billion was kept in the u.s. economy. we often hear about this massive transfer of wealth that is occurring by us sending our hard-earned dollars to other parts of the world, again, parts of the world that don't share our values. well, in this case, with this product, we kept $34 billion here. and at least one study indicates that the average family saved saved $800 a year because of this, and our gas prices are about 89 cents lower per gallon than they otherwise would have been. so those are real savings to

people or howt there trying to figure out how to pay for filling up the tank. well, many years ago when i was governor of nebraska, we took a long, hard look at our state and we wanted to know how we might best diversify our economy. well, some of the things we did worked. i'm very pleased to report that our unemployment rate during this time never got over 5%. today, it's about 4.2%. i'm also pleased to tell you that we balanced the budget and we don't borrow money to do it. but one of the things that we did is we said look, ethanol is a piece of this puzzle in nebraska, and so we actually created state programs to try to encourage the construction of ethanol plants. i would tell you at the time when i was governor, i thought

maybe two plants would be built. well, the marketplace responded and we built a number of plants. today, nebraska is the second largest producer of ethanol. we have 24 plants in the state. those 24 plants produce two billion gallons per year. $4 billion worth of capital investment. it directly employs 300 nebraskans in high quality jobs. but it also does some great things for our livestock sector because our cattle industry, they buy the distiller grains. they have real value if you're feeding cattle, which we do a lot of in our state. well, we have recognized in nebraska and i think across the country that it's time to move to the next step when it comes to ethanol production. that's why i was pleased to sign

onto senator grassley's bill when he abused it. i was also pleased to work with senator thune who has provided such excellent leadership in this area. and basically, what this plan does is it says let's take a thoughtful, measured approach. let's not jeopardize someone's situation and cause them to pay higher fuel prices at the pump because we did something in a rash and hasty sort of way. it also helps to pay off some of the deficit. we're literally saying okay, if we're going to make some changes, we'll make a contribution to deficit reduction. well, let me just wrap up my comments and say senator thune's approach is the right approach. it is an approach that says look, we're not going to take this industry which has become

such an important part of our energy strategy and walk it off the cliff and just see how it hands. instead, what we're going to do is we're going to take a measured approach, we're going to build the infrastructure necessary, we're going to add some money to reduce the deficit, and we're not going to jeopardize somebody's price at the pump. it's already expensive enough. so i'm very pleased to support that approach. my hope is that our colleagues will listen to this approach, get behind it and support it because it is the right approach, it is the right approach for nebraska but it is the right approach for the country. with that, i thank the senator from south dakota for his help on this, and i yield the floor to him. mr. thune: mr. president, if i might just say to the senator

from nebraska -- and i -- i'm wondering if perhaps in his discussions with farmers and ranchers in his state, i'm sure the issue that he alluded to which i think is important, one comes out, but i'm wondering if other people around the country realize that when you take -- when you make a gallon of ethanol, you take a -- a kernel of corn, which is a remarkable thing that we have gotten to where the technology enables us to do this. you produce 2.7 gallons of ethanol from a bushel of corn. so almost three gallons of ethanol from a bushel of corn, which goes into as i said earlier in this country, now represents about 10% of all the fuel that we use in this country. with you i -- but i wonder if a lot of people realize that one of the byproducts of that, as the senator from nebraska has mentioned, is something called dry distiller's grain. that d.d.g., as we refer to it, is something that is used then to feed livestock. now, a lot of people think that there is this whole corn --

debate about food versus fuel, but i don't think most americans maybe realize that only about 12% of our corn crop in this country actually ends up in foods. they are either consumed directly like corn chips or indirectly in the form of high fructose corn syrup, but a third of the grain that goes into ethanol production comes out as dry distiller's grains, these d.d.g.'s. and each bushel of corn used in the ethanol-producing process, 18 pounds of d.d.g.'s and 18 pound of carbon dioxide. if you took, let's say for example, 5 billion bushels of corn used for ethanol production in a year, the feed product equivalent of about 1.7 billion bushels of corn is returned to the livestock food chain as an ethanol by-product. so you take about a third of all the grain that's put into the process to make ethanol, and that comes back in the form of

something that we feed to livestock, and something that has been a great source of protein for livestock producers in this country. i don't think most americans perhaps even realize that you're not just talking about the fuel component of this. you're not just talking about that liquid that we use to blend with petroleum products and get ethanol in this country, but that there's also this other by-product, which is really essential in -- for livestock producers in this country to feed their livestock. and i'm wondering if in your conversations i assume with your farmers and ranchers that they're of course very familiar with this, but that the average person around this country really understands that. mr. johanns: you know it is an excellent point. when i was secretary of agriculture, this whole debate started about food versus fuel, and there was almost like -- there was this impression that you took that bushel of corn,

you somehow burned it up to create ethanol, and that's all you got out of it. and then there was this big debate about whether that was really worth it. but, as the senator from south dakota points out, a whole different process is occurring, and so in our state it's not just the dry distiller grains. because to dry them down takes some energy. but we have the cattle yards in close proximity to the ethanol plants, and so they buy the wet mash -- is what we call it -- they ship it over, they feed it immediately, and it is a wonderful product to feed to cattlings to feed out cattle. you know, if you think about the approach that the senator from south dakota has come up with, it hits on all cylinders. it does reform the ethanol tax credit. and again i believe the industry has come to the conclusion that that is a thoughtful, reasonable

step. number two, it invests in the blender pumps. one of the challenges i had for a long time, a flex-fuel vehicle. and, you know, i'm in a state that it's the second-largest producer of ethanol, and yet i could not g.i. get the e-85 unless we really went out and searched for it. well, what if you were at a pump where i can literally pull up to it and dial it up to e-85 and put that in my vehicle? so it invests in the blender pumps, it extends the small producer in cellulosic tax credits. here is what i would say. the next generation is not going to be just corn-based ethanol. that will be a part of the picture, but i believe we will see the day -- and we are already seeing the day -- where you will have a sell loss sick product -- cellulosic product

converted into ethanol. and then finally, $1 billion is added to deficit reduction. where the ethanol industry is say, look, we agree we need to do our share. we agree tweendz straiter on this process of phasing this out. and so i just think the senator from south dakota has hit all the right points. it does not take this industry and drop it off a cliff. it's a thoughtful, measured approach to dealing with this issue. and, again, i thank the senator for his leadership, and i yield to the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: rchldz $and i would just say in closing -- and thank you -- thanks to the snr from nebraska in general. hay has he has a great wealth of experience, not only having grown up son a family farm but representing his state as a mayor, as a governor, and then representing our nation as the secretary of agriculture. and i recall working with you when you were secretary of agriculture on a lot of these issues. and one of the things a that

strikes me about where we are today relative to where we were then is that the prosperity that's returned to the agricultural sector in our economy, to rural america, you can't say has been -- that the biofuels industry has been solely responsible for that. but certainly a contributing factor. and we've seen growth in the economy in the midwest and again the thing i would point out about this -- which is so important for people to realize -- is that these are american jobs. i mean, this is our homegrown industry. you know, we're either going to get fuel here in the united states, or we're going to buy it from some foreign country. and that's what we've been doing and that's what we continue to do to the tune of $1 billion every single day. so to the degree that we can promote domestic energy production in this country and add to the supply in this country, which is what biofuels does, it is a good thing for the american consumer and obviously a good thing for america's economy and america's -- the dangerous dependence that i

think we rent's currently have on foreign energy. so the proposal of which you are a cosponsor, which you and i have worked together on, that we will file as a bill today, will present an alternative to the approach that will be advanced or they will attempt to advance tomorrow, which is to just right now in a very disruptive way, abruptly end something that we just voted on in december to put in place understand that we got people who have made investments in and that has a tremendous impact on jobs in this cufnlt the approach that you and i are advocating are is a reasonable approach, it is forward-looking in the stheans it promotes the next generation of biofuels, advanced biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, in the same way that you mentioned gets to us where we have more choices to american consumers when they come into a filling station by investing in some of the pumps that are out there, and giving people -- consumers more choices. and then finally as you said, also puts money toward the debt,

toward deficit reduction and phases out the tax credit that is available today to ethanol producers in this cufnlt it is a reasonable, i think, responsible, and as you said measured way of dealing with this, not the wear that is being proposed -- not the way that is being proposed by the vote that we're going to have tomorrow. so i hope that our colleagues will join and work in a destructive way to continue to grow this industry do it in a way that creates jobs for americans, and lessens our dependence upon foreign energy. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. kyl: mr. president, i am going to talk about the basic underlying bill that we're debating now, not the amendment that my colleagues have just been talking about, the economic development bill. and as a way of framing the discussion about this bill, cite some statistics that i think will help us understand the nature of the problem that our country faces right now and why,

in ply opinion, this particular legislation does not solve that problem. according to official statistics, the unemployment rate in the united states has risen from 6.8% when president obama was elected in november of 2008, to 9.1% in may of 2011. between the end of 2008 and the year 2010, america experienced a net job loss in the nonfarm sector of almost 7 million jocks. -- of almost 7 million jobs. so just since the end of 2008 through 2010, 7 million job loss. in that same time, the unemployment rate peaked at 10.1% -- that was in october of 2009t averaged -9d.3% during 200 9, 9.6% during 2010, the

five-monthage of for 2011 is 9.1%, right where we are right now. we're not making progress. in short, since president obama's stimulus was enacted, unemployment has averaged more than 9% a year, and that's up from 6.8% bhe took office. -- when he took office. this is not progress. the may unemployment figures show that the u.s. economy added only 54,000 jobs, far fewer than the 150,000 that are needed just to keep pace with population growth. let alone to help dig us out of the recession. so we only had about a third of the jobs created that we need just to stay even. we're getting deeper in the hole. in fact, the number of unemployed total now almost 14 million americans, and the long-term unemployed increased to 6.2 million. real growth in our economy, the

g.d.p. growth from the end of the recession and mid-2009, has been only about half as strong as tbas during each of the previous -- as it was during each of the previous regs i recs since world war 2-6r789 we're not recovering as fast as we recovered from the earlier recessions. on the tv program "meet the press" this weekend, the host david gregory asked the chair of the democratic national committee, representative debbie wasserman shuttle schulz, why sd american trust the democrats? she answer ised, because we were able to under president obama's leadership turn this economy around. the economy is not turned around. the unemployment statistics i just cited demonstrate thaits getting worse. most observers recognize that the steps that the president

took to try to revive the economy have not worked. i think it's time that we admit that our massive debt and deficit, which were exacerbated by 29009 stimulus spend bill, have hurt our economy. it's made things worse. now, republicans are not recommending reddictions in government spending just for the sake of austerity. we're pushing for the government to get its fiscal house in order so the job create letters have the doffed begin hiring and expanding their operations. right now uncertain of their future tax liability, worried about the general fiscal path of this country, and the increasing regulatory burdens imposed upon them, job creator creators are e on the sidelines. weendle to cut government spending it-- --we woulit-- weengdz to cut

government spending. we need to realize that the government does not create privelgt jobs. -- private-sector jobs. what we can do here in washington is to create the environment where the private sector is free to grow and create jobs. now, this bill that we're talking about right now, the economic development bill, it's the economic development re vitalization act of 2011, is touted as being a job creator. the bill is not a jobsz bill. calling it that doesn't make it soavment the bill has 21 sections. many of these provisions would have zero effect on facilitating the creation of american jobs. for example, moving the jurisdiction -- let me get this exactly right here. moving section 16 -- section 16 moves the state of montana from the denver office to the seattle office. that doesn't create any jobs.

most of the provisions provisioe bill don't have anything to do with creating jobs. there are only four that mildly could be called reelgt to job creation. the central component is a reauthorization of the bill's a spending and it would reauthorize it at $500 million a year. half a billion a year. remember that almost half of that has to be borrowed. we don't have the money to spend a half a billion dollar a year. so we'll have to go out and borrow the money from someone in order to be able to spend it. given the fiscal constraints facing our nation today, we can't afford that. and ironically, even the white house is not shy about admitting the fact that this bill, this e.d.a. bill, is too expensive. spheskly, the president's budget -- specifically, the president h. president's intelgpresident'0

billion. the bill would authorize spend levels higher than those requested by the president's budget. and the administration believes that the need for smart investments that help america win the future must be balanced with the need to control spending and reduce the deficit. end of quote. this is one thing on which i agree with the administration. this bill would spend too much money. hope hopefully we'll get a chance to vote on amendments, including one by the rank republican on the committee, mr. inhofe mpletd the rest of the bill includes provisions as i noted that are of little importance i section 11 for example creates a $5 million per-grant program related to renewable energy and brownfield sites. section if we

want to create u.s. jobs, we should develop more of our own resources. i mentioned another meaningless provision just moving one state from the jurisdiction of the denver to the seattle office. again, these are things that are not going to produce jobs in our country. so it seems to me, mr. president, that rather than spending time on bills like this e.d.a. bill, which won't actually create jobs, we should actually be focusing on the big cliff we're heading for and begin preparing for the debt ceiling debate. this is where we can insist on a very large down payment of reduced spending, reform entitlements and put a straitjacket on future congressional budgets, all of which will give businesses and markets greater certainty about our fiscal future. as a start, we should have a third debate and a vote on a

constitutional balanced budget amendment which would get us on the right path to a sound fiscal future. in the long run, the only way for our economy to create jobs is for the government to spend, borrow, and tax less. thus, freeing america's enterprises to do what they do best. mr. president, i suggest that we not wait any longer. it's time to begin this debate. let's have a vote on the constitutional amendment to find ways to reduce spending and ensure that we don't increase taxes and create the climate in which america's businesses can get back to work and put their fellow americans back to work. mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum

the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i ask that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: i want to address the issue of patent reform, a bill that the senate

has already passed, and we passed by an overwhelming margin. it is my understanding that the house of representatives is expecting to pass a patent reform bill that the house wants, and in the process the house wants the senate to agree very soon thereafter and do it without a formal conference. i want my colleagues to understand why i hope that the house-passed bill will contain a provision that was not in our senate bill but passed unanimously out of the house judiciary committee. the house committee report recognized that the -- quote -- "need to modernize our patent laws has found expression in the courts."

but that -- and quote den -- "the courts are constrained in their decisions by the texts of statutes at issue." that's from our -- that's from the house committee report. the house judiciary committee amendment that passed unanimously resulted from a recent federal court case that had its genesis in the difficulty that the f.d.a., the food and drug administration and the patent office face when deciding how to calculate hatch-waxman deadlines. hatch-waxman law was a compromise between drug patent holders and generic manufacturers. under the waxman-hatch law, once a patent holder obtains a market approval, the mandate has 60 days -- the patent holder has 60 days to request the patent

office to restore the patent terms time lost because of the f.d.a.'s long deliberating process eating up valuable patent rights. the citation for the case that i'm talking about is 731 federal supplement second 470. the court case found -- quote - "the f.d.a. treats submission to the f.d.a. received after its normal business hours differently than it creates communications from the agency after normal hours." when notice of f.d.a. approval is sent after normal business hours, the combination of the

patent trade office's calendar day interpretation and its new counting method effectively deprives applicant of a portion of the 60-day filing period that congress expressly granted them and applicant could lose a substantial portion, if not all, of its time for filing a patent trademark extension application as a result of the mistakes that's beyond its control, an interpretation that imposes such drastic consequences when the government errors could not be what congress intended. that's the end of the judge's statement on why he ruled as he did in this particular case. congress did not intend those drastic consequences that

happens as a result of a difference between whether or not you are making an application to or an application from an agency. in other words, there shouldn't be any difference. congress did not intend the consequences that can come from such a different application of the law. so the court clarified the law so when f.d.a. sends a notice of approval after normal business hours, the 60-day period requesting patent restoration begins the next business day. the house judiciary committee takes a court decision where common sense dictates to protect all patent holders against losing patent extension as a

result of confused counting calculations. so i want to quote ranking member conyers of the house judiciary committee who sponsored the amendment and the committee chairman smith who supported mr. conyers. ranking member john conyers stated during markup, the amendment is needed to -- and i quote him -- "remove what amounts to a trap and would clarify the term business day, and so our attempt here is to make the congressional effort at patent reform more clear and more efficient." chairman lamar smith also advocated passage of this amendment during markup in the house judiciary committee, and i would quote him -- "i will recognize myself in support of the amendment. now the gentleman's amendment -- meaning the conyers amendment --

clarifies the counting rules that are imposed on patent holders who must submit documents to the agency within statutory time limits. it has been established that the patent and trademark office has inconsistently applied these rules, which is not fair to various patent holders. the gentleman's amendment tracks the recent court case -- and that's a court case i have already cited. i want to start that sentence over. "the gentleman's amendment tracks the recent court case decided in favor of a patent holder that originally applied for an extension ten years ago. my understanding is that there are not scoring problems with this provision, and i support it." that's what chairman lamar smith of the house judiciary committee said. now, this is a commonsense amendment. it improves our patent system

fairness through certainty and clarity, and i hope that -- that the house will leave that in their bill when it sends it over here to the senate. my interest in this amendment is because i opposed it two or three years ago when it was first brought up. because of the court decision, i'm convinced the different application of the 60-day rule is very, very unfair. as ranking member of the senate judiciary committee, i want the house judiciary committee to know that several republican and democrat senators have asked me to support the conyers legislation, the conyers language as well. i yield the floor. and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the

a senator: mr. president? mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from arkansas. mr. boozman: thank you, mr. president. the latest unemployment numbers represent that more than 7.7% of arkansans are unemployed. this is higher than when the so-called stimulus passed that president obama and senate majority leader reid promised would produce jobs for the hardworking americans. although this rate is below the national average, the numbers show that out-of-work arkansans continue to struggle to find gainful employment. what's more alarming is that the president and the majority here in the senate are resisting real

change and insisting on more of the same borrow, spend, and tax policies that have given us record unemployment and a sluggish economy. in november, americans gave a clear sign that job creation needs to be a priority. unfortunately, the senate majority and president obama have failed to prove this at the top of the agenda. time and time again, the senate and our president add to the uncertainty that is stifling job creation. commonsense legislation that would create the conditions for job growth is not brought to the floor. it's not because the senate has more pressing issues. there's no excuse as to why this chamber avoids voting on legislative and policy items that will provide real relief for the unemployed, such as the stalled free trade agreements. as news reports have pointed out over the past several weeks, the

business in this body is progressing at an historically slow pace. as "the washington post" reported last week, quorum calls are take up about a third of its time since january, according to the c-span statistics. americans are tierdz of the games -- tired of the games. they need jobs and it is our duty to help. linda from mountain home, arkansas, recently wrote to me asking the same-sex marriage thing that millions of -- the same thing that millions of americans want to know: where are the jobs? she continued her e-mail asking what legislation that republicans introduce that will stimulate the economy and create jobs. i want to thank linda for her letter and let her know that my colleagues and i are on the side of the american worker and that it is evident by the legislation we've offered. these practical free-market ideas will put americans back to work and like the millions of

americans that are looking for a job, we're anxious to vote on them and approve these measures. in february, we introduced the reins act of women a proud cosponsor. too often federal agencies overstep their boundaries and enact expensive mandates that strangle investment and job creation without congressional approval. this commonsense legislation provides a check and balance between congress and the executive branch and allows business to focus on growth instead of how to comply with burdensome regulation. this starts with making changes to unfunded mandates by the environmental protection agency, unnecessary and burdensome regulation imposed on our businesses costs money and costs jobs. the e.p.a. has put a target on america's industrial, manufacturing, and agricultural

job creators. clean air, clean water and conservation are all very important, but the heavy-handed regulations coming from this e.p.a. have little or nothing to do with clean air or clean water. we're witness apings federal -- we're witnessing a federal bureaucratic power grab. these regulations are making food more expensive, energy more expensive and gasoline more expensive. and they're driving jobs out of our country. our competitors are taking our jobs and emitting far more pollution into our atmosphere and oceans than we would here in the united states. again, it's all pain and no gain p. as the administration works to drive up the cost of energy, they seem to forget that a prosperous country is a dhawn can invest in conservation and protect the environment. the president still wants to blame his predecessor for our

sluggish economy and lack of jobs. the blame game won't help the president politically and it won't help turn our economy back around. it is true president obama inherited a weak economy, but he made it worse. before president obama took office, the federal government was carrying out many policies that distorted the market and contributed to the meltdown. in 2008 we were spending too much money and running severe deficits. now our deficit is three times as big. sadly, president obama has made each of our economic problems worse. i believe it is important to provide american businesses are an equal opportunity to compete and succeed while opening up new markets for american products. i strongly believe that when presented with a level playing field, american businesses and workers can outperform any in the world in terms of quality and value.

with three pending trade agreements on the table waitin g for approval, we are wasting precious time and resources at ow disposal to open foreign markets to u.s. patriot prods. the lack of action on colombia, panama and south korea is concerning. i believe we need to move forward as quickly as possible to ratify these policies. american companies and their workers are losing market share and are being denied valuable business opportunities. that's why one of the first pieces of legislation i cosponsored as a member of the senate was senate resolution 20, legislation that urges this chamber to consider and approve the pending free trade agreements with these countries. on multiple occasions president obama expressed support for the implementation of all of these trade agreements in order to reduce our nation's deficit and

create american jobs for american workers. so far there's still a failure to act on any of these agreements. americans deserve legislation that will promote job growth, but one of president obama legislative cornerstones, health care reform, actually cost jobs. we were told that obama care would create 4 million jobs but reality tells a different story. according to the congressional budget office, there will be 750,000 fewer jobs. this legislation is bad for business. that's why swreeted to eliminate the -- that's why we voted to eliminate the onerous 1099 reporting requirements included in the flawed legislation. i will continue to fight for full repeal of this law as we seek meaningful health care reform that provides quality, affordable access for all citizens based on free market principles. the simple truth is that there are 14 million americans out of work, and millions more who are

being forced into retirement or just gave up looking for a job. these 14 million americans are calling for our help, yel yet te majority and the administration continue to ignore their pleas. mr. president, we have a plan that is ready to move and the practical free market ideas it is based upon will put americans back to work. so linda in the mountain home and millions of americans looking for a job that were working to change the direction of our country, the direction that it's head and be a job creator. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the

mr. sessions: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, i had the opportunity this morning to catch cnbc, a program

involving -- that had mr. jack welch, former c.e.o. of g.e., on, and i thought he made a number of valuable points. he is a very, very -- he's very, very worried about our economy. he believes that we are facing serious troubles and we need to take action to do something about it. but as a corporate leader of great renown, one of the more respected corporate leaders, i guess, in america at this time, and he evidenced a real frustration at the lack of leadership this administration is showing with regard to our financial crisis. and he said a number of things. one of them was classic leadership, classic thought by a

manager, a man who's managed a very large corporation worldwide with many, many, many moving parts, and he said that you have to have a strategy. and we have no strategy. and i think that's correct. that's -- i don't believe the american people sense that this country is able to articulate a serious strategy to confront the difficulties with which we are dealing now. and he said, you should basically -- and it's, i guess, c.e.o. language, good manager language -- he said that everything needs to go through a screen, and in his opinion the screen should be what our strategy is, and our strategy should be in general, as i recall his words, to create an economy that's productive, innovative, and growing --

creating jobs, creating wealth, creating prosperity. and everything ought for judged by that. one of the points he mentioned was drilling for oil and gas in america. so we've got all kinds of government agencies out here, all kinds of regulations in a permatorium, blocking of the giving of permits, that is substantially reduced -- that has substantially reduced the ability of this nation to produce oil and gas at home, a critical factor if we're going to be competitive and economically prosperous. we need to quit buying so much abroad, sending that wealth abroad, and keep it home. so he just threw that out as one of the things that would never get through a stream, would it? because instead of helping this country be more prosperous, create jobs, growth, it does just the opposite. yet in the midst of this massive

governmentent entity that we have, we've these contradictory actions going on, and as a result we're muddling along at a very unhealthy rate. and the american people are worried about it. last week completed the sixth consecutive week that the stock market fell. oh, we were told, you know, in january when things were making some progress that everything was just doing great. we are creating a lot of jobs. we're creating jobs and the market was going along better. but it's not moving very well, and if you read the financial pages, the people who spend their life dealing with the economy and the threats that we face are uneasy about our future. just read those articles. the round table of worldwide economic experts in barron's

over the weekend just came out. it was very troubling to me. many of them have very serious concerns about the future. would we have a double dip? some seem to say "yes." and the president -- the presiding officer on the budget committee, senator coons, knows the numbers we're dealing with and the testimony we've had that indicates that mr. bowles, former chief of staff to president clinton, and alan simpson in their fiscal commission report said that we are facing the most predictable crisis in our history and that it could cause an economic -- economic difficulties for us soon. mr. bowles said two years, give or take. not our grandchildren, but soon. this is why the experts are --

so we've got a problem. i don't believe we have in the white house any call to the kind of action necessary to alter the debt trajectory we are on, which is unsustainable. i don't think the american people fully understand, but they understand enough to punish the congress in this last election. i'm afraid they're going to punish us again because no congress can defend itself from the criticism that you have provided members of -- presided members of congress over a government that is borrowing 40 cents of every dollar you spend, that spends $3,700,000,000,000 and takes in only $2,200,000,000,000. and we just borrow the rest. and we're on a path that doesn't alter that.

the president's budget, the most irresponsible ever submitted, made our debt path worse rather than better. so i'm worried about it. so the majority leader announces that, well, it would be foolish to have a budget. senator reid said it would be foolish to have a budget. at a time when we've never had a greater fiscal threat to the integrity of our economic system than we have today? let me repeat that. we are never -- we have never been in a position in which the economy could do as much harm to our nation as it can today. we're heading to the wall at warp speed. it is a dangerous circumstance. and we can get off this path. and we've got to do some things

that are not very pleasant but not impossible that are being done by mayors and county commissioners and governors all over america, and countries around the world. the british made some very substantial cuts, far more than we've ever -- we're discussing in their overall spending prament. and some people have pushed back. they say you're cutting too much. you know that debate will happen here in we cut spending here. the international monetary fund, no bastion of conservative or economic thought, say no, u.k., no brits. stay the course. don't weaken now. you set a good, tough path for containing spending and reducing spending, and you've got plans that if you stay the course will be more successful than giving them up.

and quitting on some pressure that you might be under today. so how do you get there? how do we get to the point where we deal with these issues? harvard economist alberto alasina drawing from his and other research on large fiscal adjustments across multiple nations, said this -- quote -- "spending cuts are far more effective than tax increases in stabilizing the debt and avoiding economic downturns. in fact, in several episodes, spending cuts adopted to reduce deficits have been associated with government expansions rather than recessions." close quote. goldman sachs has also done a

study that indicates that. and we have empirical evidence of countries that have taken firm steps to get their financial house in order, have found that maybe almost to their surprise, they have had economic growth quicker than many have rejected. the -- so where are we today? apparently we're not going to have any kind of regular budget process in the senate, to my great disappointment. i believe senator conrad, the chairman of the budget committee -- i'm the ranking republican on that committee -- was prepared to have hearings, but the democratic leadership has decided not to. democrats can't call on a budget committee meeting. only the chairman and the leadership can do those types of things. they decided not to. under the budget act, we should

have hearings by april 1 of this year, and the law that we have mandates the passage and movement of a budget in congress, says it should be passed by april 15. we're not -- now getting close to july 4, and we've had no real public discussion, no national debate as part of a marking up of a budget about the challenges this nation faces. we had, well, first we had the gang of six. and they have been meeting in secret, and i don't know who is advising them. i don't think the average american people in their struggling who maybe have lost their jobs or haven't seen their pay increased or seen their overtime eliminated, many of those people were in the room. but they are working, they are good people.

i have been anxious for a month or so to hear something from them. maybe it would be a good deal. maybe it would be something to get us moving. i don't know. i had my doubts about it and expressed that, but i expressed my support to see what they could produce. maybe it would be worthwhile. i'm withholding judgment. so now we're not hearing from them, although they apparently have enough work product, maybe even a plan that they met with ten other senators, i understand to, discuss what they're planning on and let anybody else in on the deal. but now we say don't worry about the gang of six. if that doesn't work, we've got the vice president. president obama has asked him to have meetings with a very small group of senate and house leaders. and they're going to write us a budget. and there are some good people meeting in that. i don't have any doubt about it. weeks have gone by.

we had a week recess, and apparently it was over two weeks and they didn't even meet. the president is traveling around the world making speeches, raising money. and this country has not had a budget in 775 days. this senate has not passed a budget in 775 days. and the budget act requires us to pass a budget. it can't be filibustered. it can be passed with a simple majority. if it's going to be a partisan effort -- sometimes they are, just purely a partisan vote -- there are 53 democratic senators here who ought to be able to pass a budget. we have passed budgets when republicans had a one-vote majority. sometimes you can get a bipartisan agreement on a budget. that's the best thing.

sometimes it's just done with a simple majority. so we had the potential to do that. but, oh, no. so now weeks are going by, and we're waiting on meetings in the white house. nobody knows what's particularly happening there. it's supposed to be secret. normally a budget is brought up. it's brought before the budget committee. the chairman lays down the chairman posts mark -- chairman's mark. everybody gets to offer complete substitutes, gets to offer their whole budget or technical amendments or significant amendments to that budget, and they get voted on. and the matter is discussed. and the american people can get a copy of the chairman's mark and the amendments offered by the other members of the committee. and this is how you do business in a democracy, last i heard.

and then we're accountable; right? how much did you think we ought to raise taxes on the 0 american people? how much did you think you're going to cut spending? were you going to dare to make any change in medicare? i'll not vote for you if you make any change in medicare. you've got to do something about these entitlements. you didn't do anything about the medicare entitlements? you're going to let them go broke. those are the kinds of good discussions you would be having. the american people could see it, and then it comes to the floor of the senate, and likewise it has an expedited process but a real opportunity to have amendments, even hundreds of amendments to offer to the budget act. and you then have something at least the american people will know what's in it. at least they'll know what their representatives voted for or

against. but i think this idea of doing it in some other order, not the regular order, is an unhealthy process, and i hope that we can do better. so i would just conclude, mr. president, by saying it's 775 days. i don't believe we've fulfilled our responsibility. we obviously have not fulfilled our statutory responsibility under the budget act which says we should have a budget by april 15. it also says we should have commenced hearings april 1. well, it's tough business, you know, standing before the american people and actually, in this crisis we're in, proposing the kind of severe actions that are going to be necessary to put our country on the right path. not the path to decline, not the path to debt crisis, but the

path to prosperity. it's going to take some efforts. it's going to be painful in some ways. we're not moving in that direction at all. but what about the house of representatives? they passed a budget. they passed a bold budget, a budget that goes ten years and then even further. and it laid out a plan that was historic. it confronted the growth in entitlements which are threatening the viability of those programs. it dealt with economic growth. it dealt with reducing spending which has surged in the last several years. indeed, in the last two cycles we've increased non-defense discretionary spending 25%. people act like you can't -- if you cut spending we're going to sink into the ocean. well, that could be eliminated and we would be no worse off

than we were just three years ago. so the house did their duty, and what happened? a democratic leader over here, instead of producing his budget, he calls up the house budget and toepts talk about how horrible -- he wants to talk about how horrible it is and voted on it. it got quite a number of votes for it in the senate, certainly not enough to pass, but it got a lot of votes. so i offered the president's budget, the one he submitted a couple of months ago that i call the most irresponsible budget ever to be presented to this nation. and i stand by that. we are in a systemic crisis. it's got to be confronted with serious decision-making, and that budget came nowhere close to it. so i offered that. it failed 97-0.

not one member of this senate, republican or democrat, voted for that budget. so i just think this is irresponsible. 775 days gone, we didn't have a budget last year. we didn't pass a single appropriations bill last year. everything was cobbled together in this monumental c.r. that you heard about, continuing resolution. totally ineffective as a method to govern in this country and to spend money. congress ought to do its 13 appropriations bills promptly every year. first they should have a budget that tells all the committees how much money they've got to spend. then they should pass their 13 appropriations bills. each one should be brought up subject to amendment and be voted on.

so we've been in this very irresponsible circumstance. my request is to our colleagues that are working either in the white house with the vice president and whatever they're doing over there, the gang of six or five or whatever, whatever they're doing. how about getting busy? how about let's seeing some numbers so we can go to work. i don't think it's going to be well received by members of the senate to have plopped down in our lap on the eve of some important matter such as the debt ceiling a budget proposal that nobody's had a chance to study, and the american people don't know what's in it. i thought that was one of the things we learned in the last election. i thought we learned that the american people want

transparency. they want accountability. they want to know what their representatives are doing. and they want to see them in the light of day, not the dark of night, doing their work. i think that's reasonable. that's the way our congress was set up to work. that's what i'd like to see. so i think it's time for these meetings to start getting over with. i think it's time for us to start seeing some numbers. what are they going to do? wait for the last possible day to raise the debt ceiling and then waltz in here with some sort of agreement and we're all supposed to rubber stamp in a state of panic? pro appreciate that. i don't think the american people will -- i don't appreciate that. i don't think the american people will. it's not good government. if they've got a plan, let's see what it is. let's start having some public discussion and vote on it. i think that's the right way to go about our business. i'm very concerned that we've gotten away from the regular

order. i believe we've gotten away from the understanding of our august responsibility to pass a budget, to decide openly and publicly how much we think we can spend, how much we're going to tax, how much debt we're going to have. we ought to do that publicly and openly. and i believe that would be healthy for our republic and help the american people to understand just how deep a hole we are in. it's far deeper than most of us realize. i've looked at the numbers. they are very grim indeed, and we need to get started sooner rather than later. i thank the president and would yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that proceedings under the call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i'm pleased to join with senators coburn and feinstein in offering an amendment to repeal the ethanol excise tax credit and the ethanol import tariff.

these policies are fiscally irresponsible, environmentally unwise and economically indefensible. historically, mr. president, our government has helped a product compete in one of three ways. either we subsidize it, we protect it from competition or we require its use. right now, ethanol may be the only product receiving all three forms of support. the ethanol tax break is extraordinarily expensive. the government accountability office has found that the tax credit costs american taxpayers a staggering $6 billion annually. this is quite a sum to prop up a

fuel that is causing land conversion for corn production, commodity and food prices to rise and is barely putting a dent into our nation's defendens on foreign oil. with our amendment which has an effective date of july 1, we have the opportunity to immediately save american taxpayers nearly $3 billion in just the six months remaining in this fiscal year. mr. president, the 2007 energy independence and security act requires the production of at least $36 billion of biofuels in

2022, up from the original 2005 energy policy act which required required 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. collectively, the first generation biofuels industry will receive tens of billions in unnecessary subsidies through the year 2022. if the current subsidy were allowed to continue for five years, the federal treasury would pay oil companies at least least $31 billion to use 69 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol that the federal renewable fuels standard already requires them to use. we simply cannot afford to pay the oil industry for technology

the law. the data overwhelmingly demonstrate that the costs of the current ethanol subsidies and tariffs far outweigh their benefits. the center for agricultural and rural development at iowa state university estimated that a one-year extension of the ethanol subsidy and tariff would lead to only 427 additional direct domestic jobs at a cost of almost $6 billion. that's roughly $14 million of taxpayer money per job. while expanding our composite to generate alternative domestic fuel sources is an important step toward becoming less

dependent on foreign oil, i have serious concerns about the effects of increased ethanol use. there are other alternative sources of energy that make far more sense. the energy, agricultural and automotive sectors are already strug technology adapt to the existing ethanol mandates. i'm disappointed that the environmental protection agency has issued a partial waiver for the use of e-15, a blend of gasoline containing 15% ethanol. many residents in my state have already experienced difficulties using gasoline blended with 10% ethanol, finding that it causes

problems in older cars, snowmobiles, boats, lawnmowers and off the road vehicles. the e.p.a.'s e-15 waiver fails to adequately protect against misfueling and will add unnecessary confusion at the gas pump for consumers. we simply cannot place so many engines in jeopardy. these first generation biofuel mandates also present environmental concerns, as they could result in energy efficiency losses and increased emissions of air pollutants because the mechanical failures can jeopardize the effectiveness of a mission control devices and

systems installed on engines. in addition, mr. chairman -- mr. president, over recent years, we have seen food and feed prices increase as crops have been diverted to first generation biofuel production. i think of it this way. we should be raising crops for food, not for fuel. senate homeland security committee chairman joe lieberman and i held a series of hearings in 2008 that examined the impact of corn-based ethanol on food prices, and we found that it certainly had had a negative impact. for one thing, crops that had been grown to support other grains were being diverted to

produce corn. that land was being switched to corn production, but that corn was no longer available for constructs that use corn for food but instead was being diverted to the construction of ethanol. the bottom line, mr. president, is that we can no longer ignore the cost of this policy to our nation and its taxpayers, particularly given our current fiscal crisis. at a time when we're projecting a deficit of this year alone of of $1.5 trillion, why in the world are we spending $6 billion subsidizing ethanol? subsidizing the blending of corn-based ethanol into gasoline is simply fiscally indefensible.

i urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the coburn-feinstein amendment to repeal the ethanol excise tax credit and to eliminate the ethanol import tariff. thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. rockefeller: mr. president, in 1964, president johnson envisioned an america that -- quote -- "rests on abundance and liberty for all." it was against l.b.j.'s back drop of the great society that we reignited a commission of community. a little spillover of the 1960's and our flight to the moon and all of that. but the nation somehow came together and we sensed that we

were a community that we had a mutual obligation to each other. and that is at the very least, i think, characteristics. american people. f more then than now. programs like advice tarks peace corps, social security, medicaid were born in those years, 1961 through 1964. sadly, nearly 50 years after l.b.j.'s war on poverty, we have witnessed vicious attempts to roll back government programs designed to give low-income americans a hand up in life. i don't mean just low-income americans but disabled americans, very poor senior americans who quayleify for both medicare and comid, such as their -- such a difficult journey they have. what we want to do is not to give people a hand up but simply to be a safety net.

that's what he said this country owed its people. that's true about defense and that's true about social policy. we have responsibility, all of us, to $that, to make sure nobody is utterly left out. there's no question that we must reduce our deficit, and i have a whole series of ways that that can be done in abundance. but we should not do so on the backs of working families still struggling under the weight of this recession. oh, yes we're in a recession. so that everything that was true about people that were having a hard time before is a lot truer now. and yet bill after bill proposed by republicans seeks to do just exactly that. the house republican h.r.1 was a direct tac on america's working families. and the successful education, job training and community development programs designed to combat poverty.

and the republican budget proposal for next year goes even further. it attacks medicare and medicaid. the health programs that over 100 million american people rely on, some more than others, but all have to have that as a safety net. at a critical moment in our economic recovery, republicans are more focused on settling old scores, evidently, from health care reform and the bitterness of that fight than they are on creating jobs or protecting people. mr. president, the republican plan for getting our deficit under control amounts to an upside down government. instead of helping those who depend on government programs to support their families, the republican plan would guarantee that millionaires, billionaires and large corporations continue

to receive trillions of dollars under the new budget in government subsidies, subsidies that will grow exponentially over time and substantially increase our benefit. they will do very, very well indeed were we to make the tragic mistake of accepting that. so republicans are not for a fair or balanced approach to deficit reduction, and it is a great mystery to meevment it is a kwan driveway me. it can be -- you can say it is theological or whatever. you can make up all kinds of n.s.a. nasty political views of it. but nevertheless, that's what it is. what they are there for is a government that only exists to support big business and wealthy americans, kind of a perpetual tarp for their friends. well, i reject that notion, and the american people do, too. in my estimation there is no government program that more fully embodies or nation's

tradition of community than medicaid. our sense of mutual obligation. some people are born wealthy, some people are born very poor, some people are born inbetween. some are born wealthy and become poor. some people are born poor and become wealthy. but while they are down, they have a safety net and it is called medicaid. you don't hear people talking about it very much, particularly frankly somewhat disappointingly from my side of the aisle. after almost 50 years, medicaid is still a lifesaving part of what we do as a government, what we're meant to do as a government. medicaid is simply too important to millions of people. nationally, there were 68 million people enrolled in medicaid in 2010, 68 million

children, seniors, people with disabilities, pregnant women, these are families who are living on the edge and barely making it. they now have a safety net, more efficient than any private insurance program in existence. they have that. in west virginia there are over 402,000 people enrolled in 2008. 150 of those aged and disabled and 191,000 children -- children. so almost 50 years ago, medicaid is still a lifesaving part of our nation's health care system. in west virginia, medicaid covers 40% of all births in the united states of america, medicaid pays for -- i'm sorry -- in west virtual a 50% of all

births -- in west virginia, 50% of all births are covered by medicaid. that tells you something. in our country 40% of all births are taken care of by medicaid. that says a lot. 62% of long-term care is medicaid. and along with that, the children's helt health insurance program. there are a lot of people who fought really hard over a number of years to get the children's health insurance program that would ensure more -- insure more children who were not at that point eligible. well, they're still getting it, but the house wants to get rid that have program altogether. that's 34% of the children in our country. medicaid provides an essential lifeline to families during economic times when people lose jobs that have been provided

them that have health insurance. medicaid is the health care program that helps states during crises, not just people but states including obviously september 11 attack, hurricane katrina, the recent floods and tornadoes in the south and midwest -- all being helped by medicaid. medicaid is part of the fabric of our great nation and to be clear at this point, i need to say that the house bill that was passed by the house and who voted for it and who didn't is obviously very much on record would devastate medicaid and government in general oust discretionary spending -- out of discretionary spending. anyway, people who are covered by medicaid do matter.

they are people. they are families. they have their needs, their wants, their ambitions, their dreams, their sadnesses, their depressions, whatever. darren hale from princeton, west virginia,, wrote meevment "i am disabled. i am a disabled west virginian whose family lee lie relies on medicaid on the one hand medicare." a you don'a dual-eligible, not o survive simply on one or the other. "i hope and pray that these health care programs won't be ended or totally changed. please do not support republican changes to these programs as a way of cutting costs to the taxpayer. the poor of west virginia and elsewhere should not and cannot bear the burden of the deficit reduction that republicans wan want." we need to think very seriously, mr. president, about our priorities.

that's what this conversation really leads me to. let's say i'm a 10-year-old boy and i'll being brought up in west virginia. my means are meager, and i step out into a road and am hit by a car. i don't die, but perhaps my spine is fractured probably, several legs broken, and i am condemned to a life in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. now, that child is not protected by private enterprise system. that child, unless it is an unusual child from a fairly wealthy family, is -- who then can provide insurance but they will spend themselves down with that insurance being so incredibly important that they will eventually qualify for medicaid. you know, when you are hit by a car, that's not something that you plan on.

it is not something that you fail to do because you didn't have a work ethic or whatever the common wisdom would be about that. it's just something that happened. but the fact remains, your health care is cut. your life is changed. and it grows more miserable because you have nothing in the way of a safety net if the republican budget is passed, if we get too aggressive about cutting medicaid. mr. president, i'm troubled that members of congress and senior advocates have rightfully rallied in staunch defense. you can find wonderful groups here in washington who rise up in ainger when people talk about -- in anger when people talk about cutting medicaid. they're for medicaid. they we in it does. they know what it was intended to do, they know twha it does and they know what difference it makes. but aside from an occasional editorial or story, there has been an unsettling silence about medicaid.

even from members of my own party. this is despite the fact that the five main arguments made in support of medicare, which seem to have a rebirth recently, are also true of medicare -- medicaid. one, the public strongly supports medicaid. just as they do medicare. 60% of the people jose that they would -- 60% of the people say that they would prefer to keep medicaid just as it is now. that surprises me. i would have thought the figure would be lower. two, medicaid also creates jobs, unlike tax cuts for oil companies and rich people, et cetera. every $1 million in federal medicaid spending results in 17.1 new jobs. sound borg, maybe it is. but not to the people who get those jobs. that's hospitals, nursing homes, community health centers and doctors' offices because that's

what medicaid covers. four, a medicaid block grant or a spending cap, which is proposed by some. the cap is proposed by some to get away from the word block grant. but the effect is the same. they would both reduce medicaid benefits and increase cost-sharing for seniors -- for all of the recipients on medicaid from day one. understand that clearly. i would say that to my colleagues. much has been said about a medicare voucher system -- medicare voucher s but capping medicaid spending would be just as bad for the 5.5 million seniors and 11 million individuals with disabilities enrolled in medicaid. five, instead of reducing the deficit, the savings achieved by