dealing with serious issues like mandatory safety standards for infant and toddler products. and using our new authorities to address hazards like drawstrings. and we're all very, very proud of the great work that our staff is doing especially in the ports and out in the field. so in many cases it's not the what, it's the how. and i am very concerned that we are falling short on the how, whether it's on big items or things with smaller significance. as i mentioned in my written statement, i have major concerns about how we develop the testing and certification rule, how we have defined chirp's products -- children's products, how we have justified dropping the lead content limitses from 300 parts per million to 100 parts per

million. that's 99.99% lead-free. i have concern about how our limited resources are being used. did we really need to spend almost $2 million on consultants to tell us how to rewrite our strategic objectives in our mission statement? will we know how we are going to be spending our funds come the on the -- october 1st beginning of the fiscal year if we have yet to establish our priorities in an operating plan? but more importantly than resources, it's how rules are being proposed, considered and promulgated. if staff strongly suggests the commissioners not move forward with finalizing the testing rule, but rather seek public input as directed by congress and the majority ignores that and puts a rush on the rule, how can we say that that's

thoughtful and measured decision making? when commissioners, um, decry the use of cost benefit analysis and say, well, the regulatory flexibility act is all we need because that focuses the impact on the impact on small businesses, yet consistently turns around and disregards the information that is in the regulatory flexibility act because it doesn't lead to a desired regulatory result? when a claim is made that section 6b is ultra restrictive and inhibits to the point of of virtual prohibition releasing information to the public in a timely way, yet the agency in the past year three times has released inaccurate and misleading information contrary to 6b that almost jeopardized a major recall in one case and caused the agency to do a public retraction in another?

we can all agree that each commissioner here today has strong, a strong commitment to safety and that differences of opinion as to regulatory issues should not be viewed as a lack of -- [inaudible] and believe me, i'm not looking for trouble for my colleagues. but i am very troubled about how we approach issues. interestingly, i note that one of my colleagues with whom i often disagree in the statement says, quote, the necessary but delicate balance of new safety requirements with new burdens. i agree it's necessary. i agree it's delicate. i think that the agency's actions over the past tw years in particular -- two years in particular fall quite wide of the mark and have created a great imbalance between safety and new burdens. and as a result, american consumers are overpaying for

safety. we cannot close our eyes to the harm that we are causing many businesses that produce perfectly safe products and pretend that that harm does not exist. i think we feed to work harder -- we need to work harder to find the balance that is missing. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner. and, again, a welcome to our former colleague. it's great to have you here. commissioner northup, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, i'm delighted to be here. and as the commissioner that is rotating off the commission at the end of october, this'll probably be my last opportunity to share with this committee some of my observations is and concerns as we go forward. i appreciate the remarks of my other three, of the other three commissioners that preceded me. i agree with commissioner nord who talked about many of the accomplishments that we have done, the durable goods

standards, the mandatory standards. our work at the borders and import, all of those are claims that i think all of us are very supportive of. but i am going to specifically talk about several examples of the impact of what this committee has done and share it with the committee so that they can judge whether or not that is what they anticipated when they passed the cpsia and as they have funded this commission. the, dropping from 300 parts per million to 100 parts per million was done last year, august 1st it took effect. that meant we reduced from 99.97% lead-free to 99.99% lead-free. our staff found -- and i'm taking this right out of their proposed package -- that it contributed minimally to the overall lead exposure of children. that's the benefit of it.

conversely, the commission's economists concluded that mandating the lower lead limit would have significant adverse economic impacts including the use of more expensive low-lead materials, costly reengineering products to user lower-lead materials to increased testing costs, increased consumer prices, reduction in the type and quality of chirp's products available to -- children's products available to consumers, businesses exiting the children's market and manufacturers going out of business. there's no question that these effects have been felt. we, unfortunately, the businesses that have left the market, that have gone out of business are no longer here to testify to you and to provide information to you because they have left the market. what did this do? this created an enormous new hidden tax on consumers and parents. many, many manufacturers have shared with us the bells and whistles they took out of their products, the lack of choices, the fewer models that they

offer, the cost increases that they have had to pass on to consumers for something that has almost no measurable benefit to a child. that is the kind of decision that has concerned me throughout my process. the sort of out-of-context rulemaking that we do. i know as members of congress can that as you pass legislation you consider what's good for consumers at the same time you consider the unemployment rate, the cost of of living, all the other global impacts that you have that you bear on your shoulders. but when you're at the commission, no one has to think about any of those other things. in the name of safety, this commission has taken actions that far overreach any necessary protection to consumers. probably the biggest decision that we made that i have found so discouraging and i think it's

important to share with you is our reversal in unblockable drains. the virginia graham-baker act required that we protect children, protect the public from deaths in pools where it's called evisceration where a blockable drain can trap a child or an adult so that they cannot become free, and they're e eviscerated. after you passed this law, you gave us a great deal of choice. we could have back-up systems or any other technology that we thought was equal to that. in the meantime, american inventers came up with several inventions of the ability to change a blockable drain to an unblockable drain. and the commission found that that met the requirement. after a year and at great cost to many pools that adopted this new technology, the commission reversed itself because one

commissioner changed their vote. and it meant that that unblockable drain cover no longer satisfied the law. and so not only -- now, everyone has to have a back-up system, a vacuum alert which is the primary system they use is not dependable. it goes off when it shouldn't, it doesn't go off when it's supposed to as it didn't in tennessee just last month, it is not available to private pools, it is much more expensive. we were, we were overwhelmed with the number of letters that came in to us and told us that this was a less safe direction to take. and yet we proceeded down that direction at great cost to the public. we estimate over 1100 pools have closed. not our agency, but the association that oversees pools. we know that many states have said they simply can't bring pools into compliance.

and here there was a much less costly, much more available technology that could have been available to pools but was reversed by our commission. i can certainly answer more questions about this if there's more time. in the end, though, this commission has made many decisions, many rules completely disregarding the cost, the lack of choice going to give consumers, the inability of small companies to comply with these regulations. all in the name of children's safety despite the fact that our staff has told us many of these will not increase safety for children. >> thank you, commissioner and, again, i thank you all very much for your testimony and your hard work and dedication to these issues and now recognize myself for five minutes for questioning. and would like to direct my first question to commissioner tenenbaum. it might be a little bit outside

of the ordinary question you get can, but something that i've been looking at and you all came screaming to mind is the problem with bath salts. in recent months the news has been overflowing with reports on the health implications of designer drugs that are sold and labeled as bath salts. the cdc has reports on file that date back to 2010 showing numerous instances of people being hospitalized and even dieing from these substances. despite the fact that the dea has banned some ip greed cents, online pharmacies and small mini mart-type stores continue to sell them. they are labeled bath salts, and they clearly say on them not for human consumption, and it's an attempt to avoid the dea ban. despite that fact, there's no legitimate purpose as a bath salt. does the cpsc have any jurisdiction to regulate the sale of products like legitimate bath salts? >> thank you, madam chairman.

um, that may fall under the category of cosmetics under the food and drug administration, but i would like to check with our, um, legal staff when i return to the commission and get you an answer for that. but it might be a cosmetic, and as such would not be under our jurisdiction. >> has this ever risen to the level of your interest? have you seen it out there and seen the stories? >> i've seen the stories, but i don't believe our staff has investigated it. because it might not fall under our jurisdiction. >> could you possibly take a look and see if -- >> certainly will. >> -- these are seriously dangerous substances that are out there, and i would hope that, commissioner adler as well, we take a look at that and see how we can throw the kitchen sink -- >> and we also could meet with the fda to talk about how jointly we could address the hazard, so we will follow up on that for you. >> i appreciate that very much. i did send you a letter,

commissioner tenenbaum, about the thought of launching a facebook fan page. can you tell us what the status of the commission's plans are, and did you happen to send a letter back to me on -- >> no. first of all, all the commissioners have voiced support for the concept of having social media and using social media to educate the public on risks such as soft bedding, carbon monoxide, drowning, furniture tipovers. there is an issue, however, on whether or not facebook would violate section 6b of the cpsa which requires us that if we obtain information on a manufacturer that we cannot give that information out publicly without obtaining the consent of the manufacturer. so the issue is can someone, if we had a facebook and a person posted something about a manufacturer as a comment, would that mean we obtained information, and as such would we have to scrub all that information and ascertain its

accuracy before it is posted. that would be too, that would be too much -- that would require too much resources from the commission. so we have not made a decision. our general counsel's office is continuing to work on all the issues, and we will provide you with that, um, memorandum when or if we decide to go forward with facebook. >> so to clarify, the general counsel just has not to pined on that matter at all? >> she and her staff have worked hard on that. it is not completed. other offices in the commission, other commissioners had raised other legal issues that required more legal research, so they have not finished that memorandum. >> thank you. commissioner northup? >> madam chair, i think it would mislead, misrepresent the position of at least myself and maybe commissioner nord that we are all in support of opening a facebook page. while we acknowledge that we can understand the benefit, i at least -- and i think commissioner nord -- believe it absolutely would violate the

overarching rules in our commission and 6b is not exactly as the chairman described it. that sort of misrepresents the requirements. but i would also point out to you that in the database that you all suspended the 6b requirements for the database. and when we wrote that rule, it is now under attack in the courts. someone has filed suit against us that they have not, that we have violated the laws. if we lose that case, it would almost certainly say that any putting up of facebook would violate the protections of 6b. and i might say it will, if we lose that case, we could possibly undo millions of dollars of work we have done on this and have to rewrite the rule, something that i claimed all the way through the process. >> thank you very much. at this point i'll recognize mr. butterfield for five minutes. >> i thank the chairman and also thank the gentlelady from

illinois for sitting in the chair for me this morning. i thank her very much. in march 2011 i wrote a letter to chairman upton and to the chairman of this subcommittee asking that the subcommittee hold a hearing concerning questions about the level of protection of new and used football helmets provide athletes of all ages. in particular, concerns had been raised around this time about what kind of injuries can be prevented with the football helmet and whether used helmets continue to provide protection against the injuries they are designed to guard existence. so far this subcommittee hasn't acted to look further into these issues. i understand the cpsc has been engaged on these issues since they first drew scrutiny and you plan to become more engaged with a new initiative with the nfl and others. so i'm going to ask chairman tenenbaum can you, please, discuss all aspects of of the work the cpsc is doing in this area, the status of that work

and where you plan or might like to see these efforts go. >> thank you. i'd be happy to talk about our work with the nfl. like you, we -- i am very concerned with the brain injuries in football and sports, especially those that affect young people, high school and college athletes. because of these injuries have such devastating consequence, this issue has been a priority for me. and our efforts have a short, medium and long-term focus. in the short term, we would like to have a partnership with the ncaa and the nfl and the cdc, major manufacturers in the voluntary standards to see what kind of reconditioning steps that we can take. all manufacturers with the exception of one are agreed to -- have agreed to put a label on the new helmet which said the date that the helmet was manufactured and give a date that it should be reconditioned. optimally within ten years.

we also have worked with the nfl, and we'll be making announcements this weekend ford the -- in order to drive a culture change and educate in terms of how to avoid head injuries when playing football. the nfl has four communities where they will give helmets to schools where economically-disadvantaged youth play. so these new helmets will help tremendously as well. >> thank you for your work in that area. is there anything we can or should do legislatively to support what you're doing? >> well, we have the research on helmets is not complete in terms of we have not found that there is a helmet that will prevent concussions. so we hope to monitor that, and we hope this committee will stay interested in that and work with us on it. >> thank you. >> that was, ultimately -- >> thank you. mr. adler, is there anything you can add to this conversation about helmets? >> what i want to add is my personal thanks and companiation to the chair for taking this on

as a personal task and for dedicating a very valuable staff person to go round the country and work on in this. i think what you've heard from the results that she's discussed are really wonderful results. i think she deserves almost total credit for doing that, and i think it's an important endeavor, and i hope it continues. >> when i met with her a few months ago, she told me it's one of her priorities. >> well, it is. and i think she and her staff have done an excellent job. >> yes. all right. one of the biggest victories for those of us who believe in government transparency was the creation through cpsia of the publicly-available consumer product safety information database. this database launched in march of last year a at www.saferproducts.gov. there consumers can both file safety complaints about consumer products and view complaints by other consumers that have met the standards for inclusion in the database. before congress mandated creation of this database, the

american public had almost no access to information provided by consumers to the cpsc about injuries from the products they use. let me ask the chairman or mr. adler, can you, please, discuss some of the statistics and trends you're seeing related to the database like how many complaints are being filed and what type, etc. >> we receive on average 600 per month. in total we've received a little over -- almost 9600 reports of harm posted on the saferproducts.gov a as of july 27th this year. over a thousand of these reports have been assigned to follow up by our investigators resulting in 875 completed investigations to date. there were some on the commission who said this would be a place where trial lawyers would try to assault the database. we have found that 97% of all reports of consumers who own the product, who have had experience personally with the product, the three top category have been kitchen appliance, 33%, nursery

equipment or supplies is about 8% and toys is about 5%. when you amended the cpsa to public law 1112-28, you asked us to require the serial number. we found that the model of the serial number now, 88% are filling that portion in. 88% is nonblank. >> right. >> so we have used it to recall two products, and we think that it's being generally well accepted. >> thank you. i believe my time has expired. i thank you, and i thank all the commissioners for the service that you render to our country. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. butterfield. the chair recognizes mr. guthrie for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chairman, for the recognition, and thank you for my colleague here from kentucky here with us today. her sister was one of our great olympians in 1984, so talking about swimming pools and athletes today, how proud she

made kentucky and america. there's another louisvilleian who hit the walkoff home run for houston to beat the braves, and somebody said about him, said when he was like 6 he was out hitting the ball every day, and they said he lived the moment of a lifetime, but he spent a lifetime getting to that moment. is so you know how hard our olympic athletes are working to get there. it's always great to praise your sister. in the shelby county in my district there's a table saw manufacturer, and i'm not going to ask a question, i just want to bring up. and can they're concerned are you going down, the commission's looking at table saw technology. and nobody's saying that what, the technology you're looking at is not safer. the concern is it's pat tented and the expense of it. so just making sure that there's some as we look at new standards, there's opportunities for other types of technologies and things to move forward that creates the same kind of safety standards. so just want to bring that

forward. want to talk to commissioner northup on the president issued executive orders on regulations, and he's talked how regulation's strangling the economy in a lot of ways and putting forth opportunities to move forward, and i think there were two executive orders. i guess my question -- i could tell you what they are, but i think you guys are aware of them. if not, i can go through, but i just want to know what the cpsc has done to implement the executive orders of the president while reviewing regulations. >> well, we're considering a package right now although it's been a couple of months it's been sort of dangling out there without agreement. let me just say the president and mr. cass sunstein have both written extensively about it. they have said their primary purpose, and i have a quote right here, is to assist on pragmatic, evidence-based, cost effective rules. they specifically talked about looking at major rules, rules that affected a significant portion of the economy. they also talked about doing

cost benefit analysis. you have seen both in the previous testimony of the chair in the senate and now commissioner adler today the sort of resistance to cost benefit analysis, that the benefit has to justify the cost. and this has been something we've publicly debated. i think that in the name of safety you can just about adopt the most expensive -- as we have seen -- new standards that drive businesses out of business. so i believe we ought to do some cost benefit analysis on the rules that we look at. the second thing is we need to look at major rules, and this year, for example, we've talked about two retrospect i ones. one is -- retrospective ones. one is the testing of toy caps. toy caps, that old standard has

long been out of date. nobody uses it. it was absolutely a nothing regulation. nobody was using it, it's been overcome by the 963 toy standards, new testing standards. to say we used retrospective review to bring the toy cap standard into modern times is to ignore, in my opinion, the intention of the executive orders and the spirit of them. and so as we talk about what our plan is going forward, i think if we could agree that we're going to look at major rules, rules that have a significant economic impact as the president and mr. sunstein have talked about in their articles and, secondly, agree that we will do some cost benefit analysis. and the conclusion of cost benefit is that the men fit will be in -- benefit will be in in proportion to the cost. right now you will hear some of

the commissioners talk about, well, isn't that enough? we have blown through rule after rule where it is clear that the analysis of the economic impact does not justify the new safety. it didn't matter. with flex analysis, all you have to do is the analysis. you don't have to create a finding that it's justified. >> well, thanks. i'm about out of time, and i just want to say as we look at the review process and your commission all over, instead of just making the number of regs we were looking at, what's actually hurting the economy? there's a cement plant that's in my district, actually, and that's threatened by some regulations coming forward. so we can look at numbers of regs to look at and what makes big impact. >> of course, i agree. >> thank you. ms. schakowsky, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you. you know, i'm looking at your testimony, commissioner nord -- no, i guess it was northup, and

you have in there the feverish regulatory pace. you know, we passed the cpsia four years ago. um, and this idea that somehow we're in a feverish regulatory pace, um, and it was in mr. adler's testimony that in the 31 years that, since the cpsc was saddled with unique requirements -- i think you're talking about the emphasis on cost benefit analysis -- there were nine consumer product safety rules over roughly one every three and a half years. and so in the last four years i'm happy to say there's ten safety rules, um, that came out. and, you know, i mean, i've worked with kids in danger on this crib stuff for a very long time and the play yards for a very long time.

i don't think that most consumers would think this is about a feverish regulatory pace of finally getting this done. so i want the -- i want to ask you, chairman tenenbaum, how would the old way have impacted your ability to improve the safety of durable infant and toddler goods? would you have been able to promulgate the crib rule as quickly as you did or the play yard rule? and what impact would that have had on the safety of our children which ought to be, it seems to me, the chief focus of the, of the hearing today. >> thank you, congresswoman schakowsky. finish we would not have been able to promulgate the industry equipment rules on the schedule that congress mandated that we promulgate them. we are required under the cpsa to put forth two with rules every six months on durable

nursery equipment. since the cpsc -- cpsia passed, we have written 43 rules, all of which were required by the law. we have not gone off afield and permitted, created rules. we did all of the rules that were required of us under the cpsia. so had we not been able to work with the standards committee and industry to write the standard for the crib and then adopt it as our rule, it would have taken years to do cost benefit analysis. i am not against cost benefit analysis. i think sometimes it's justified. but when you're looking at trying to have rules that protect the safety of children and infants as this congress, as congress passed on the cpsa, having the administrative procedures act helped us expedite the process. and we worked hand in glove with industry. industry helped write these rules. >> thank you.

>> uh-huh. >> where well, i -- >> may i respond? >> actually, i have a question for mr. adler on a totally different subject. >> okay. >> and i just want to get it in because i have -- i'm cochair of a seniors task force of the democratic caucus. and you briefly mentioned about older americans and a particular vulnerability, and i'm just wondering if you could explain that a little further. >> yes. one of the things that the congress has been particularly sensitive to is vulnerable populations. and as it turns out, the vulnerable population we've been dedicating our anticipation and resources to over the years -- properly so -- has been infants. but as part of this growing, almost exploding demographic, i have been very concerned about the impact of dangerous impacts on the senior population. if you look at the injury patterns for seniors, they almost always exceed the population at large. it's not as though -- and falls

are a huge part of it, and fires are another huge part. there are or a number of products that we could probably take some measures to help the elderly with, and i'll give you one quick example. the commission just wrote a section 104 rule for infant bed rails. as it turns out, the elderly suffer death at a much greater rate from bed rails than infants do, and it may well be that the fix for adult bed rails is not too different from infant bed rails. in other words, there are many, many projects that we ought to be addressing themselves to. the cdc just came up with a national plan for dealing with childhood injuries, and i have called for a national plan with cdc for adult injuries as well. it's a very, very important issue, and i hope to convince my colleagues to pay more attention to it. and i thank you for asking. ..

having to grandchildren one of just turn four and when it just turned three, you can compare this to toys like hungry hungry hippo, which comes with all these marbles. it's been on the market for 30 years. there's fishing well that also comes with marbles. then -- been a marker for

longtime. these are toys that we play with. so what i'm having a hard time doing is understanding how you can come down against buckyballs and bucky cubes when it is clearly noted that that is for 14, children age 14 and above. and hungry hungry hippo and fishing well over children that are three and above. so doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me ask you what you are doing. so i would wonder why speak with i appreciate that question. it certainly is timely. i want to explain to you by we cannot comment on domestic we did not ban rare earth magnets can which is what buckyballs in the categories that they are. we referred the matter to an administrative law judge. that administrative -- >> i'm going to stop you right there if i may please. you made the decision, you made

the decision to go ahead with the recall, didn't you? >> no, we did not. we made the decision to referred the matter to an administrative law judge. that judge will make the determination whether or not, to deal with the product spent what caused you to make that decision? we as members of congress have a right to ask that question. >> we will be the appellate body is the administrative law judge -- >> let's talk about -- [talking over each other] spent i can get into the mayors. we will be the appellate judges, so to speak. to let me say that with a well documented record as being alarmed by the sirius of hazards to children the difference between rare earth magnets and marbles is that marbles do not cling together in the intestine their children have had large number of children have had invasive surgery to remove these balls once they're in their intestines because they clamp, causing a huge blockage.

and they are clearly labeled not for children. >> so let me ask you this. what about sparklers? we just had july 4. so why don't you outlaw sparklers? >> we do set limits on sparklers in terms of the heat they can generate. and so we do, you know, half speed but you have injuries. you don't turn it over to -- what about, we've just built a playhouse for the grandsons. my husband engineered this great thing. in all sorts of power tools out there and they had their little black & decker place at the what about power tools? >> there are a number of hazards in the marketplace. that is why the consumer product safety commission exist. >> what about alcoholic beverages? there's always, you know, you -- >> there certainly are. >> you've got these alcohol poisoning cases and things of that nature, so let me go back to this administrative law judge.

so, cpsc does not have an administrative law judge, correct? >> no. we referred this to an administered law judge for a hearing, and that judge will determine whether or not the product -- >> where is that judge going to come from? >> that judge would be right here in washington, d.c. probably. >> okay. >> or it might be in maryland. >> so when this case is filed, the lawyers who tried the case have to be separated from those who advise the commission, correct? >> that's correct. >> now, the lawyers all work together in the general counsel, how would you ensure appropriate separation from these two groups of lawyers? >> our office of legal council have set up a wall and we're all abiding by that. >> okay. a physical wall? >> no. awol within the legal context. so you've got communication. >> okay. and the director of compliance recently left that position and

is now working with the office of general counsel also is that correct? >> i can't comment on what, that is correct but i can't comment on his involvement. >> okay. and who is now the acting director of compliance? >> mark schaum, but he has recused himself and is not involved in this. >> is he a lawyers? >> no, he is acting director. >> no, lawyer, it's supposed to be a lawyer. cpsia requires that a lawyer be a direct of compliance. spent we do anything transition to i believe that 90 days. >> so you 90 days to make that right. spent well, we have 90 days or to fill the position with a nonlawyer. >> okay. now -- >> but it could be more. >> all right. now, the commission authorizes the filing of the complaint against buckyballs last month, red? >> yes, it was a bipartisan

decision. >> and it was signed by the executive director? >> yes. >> is he a political appointee? >> yes yes. >> all right. we have other questions. i'm out of time. you've been generous. thank you spent i think that generally. the chair recognizes mr. kensinger for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chair. ms. nord, if i have some time at the end i will let you respond and my colleagues from illinois. i would think the commission for being a. i to touch on a topic that has the potential to impact several manufacturing bishop as commissions are where, i was a important component range from wire conference for in an automobile to the chronic hazard advisory panels reveals could set a precedent for the use of the product outside of children's toys and the want to ensure the science that is used is transparent, properly peer-reviewed and publicly available. chairman tenenbaum, omb has described a review as one of the

important procedures used to ensure the quality of published information, meets the standard of scientific and technical community. to ensure the scientific integrity of the document, the draft report should be released for public comment before it goes to the review, stakeholder participation should be encouraged, and the pew reviewer should be provided with all the dad and studies provided. can you assure us that the peer-reviewed of the ch ap is a draft report will be conducted in accordance with current omb guidelines for peer review of highly influence scientific assessment with particular parents to the -- i think you should probably be a fairly quick cancer. >> the chronic hazard advisory panel is continuing its work. we keep an arms length relationship with that panel because they operate independent. i would like to talk to our office of legal council to see other perceived interests of the peer review and write a letter

and get back with you. >> i would love to hear back because i think obviously to have that as an open and transfer process for something so big and so important is very essential. will stay on top of that, and i appreciate you responding to the. do you believe that the c.h.a.p. should review all relevant data including the most recent best available peer-reviewed scientific studies, in your personal -- >> i certainly didn't spend what procedures have you put in place to ensure that the c.h.a.p. and the commission are weighing all relevant data in the best available science? >> well again, the chronic hazard advisory panel was mandated under cpsia and agreed it to look at the three that were temporally banned and others if they so find that others should be in the report. we are waiting that report. the commissioners do not interact with the chap because there has to be an independent audit but we have our staff has been there to make sure they follow appropriate procedures. but if you have questions, if you just submit them to us we will write you and keep you the full detail on how the chavez

operating. >> you comply with omb peer review process and everything like that, right? >> the peer review process was better to the office of general counsel, and they were advising the c.h.a.p. on how to proceed with the. >> can you assure me before the commission issues its final rules under section 108 that you will publish a proposed rule for comment first? >> i will have to get back to you. that's a procedure that we will follow. we will receive the report and then, but we will answer your questions fully on the procedure. >> but prior to that will be your concerns with publishing a proposal for comment? >> well, i want to first make sure that the c.h.a.p. operates independently, and that it has no undue influence by any other commissioners, and that makes its best scientific findings. and then we will also in the spirit of transparency, which we operate as the commission, we

will follow what the advice is of counsel on how to proceed. >> we look forward to -- >> and certainly answer your question, in written form. >> ms. nord? >> thank you. and responded to the question about a regulatory pace, compared to what we were doing before, i just would like to draw the committee's attention to the information in commissioner adler's statement about all the accomplishments of the agency from 1972, two to 30 years following, and how big an impact this agency has made. so i don't think that we were acting at a snails pace. with respect to the christiana, first of all i support the crib standard, although state. initiate when i was acting chairman that got this thing going but what i'm concerned about is the manner in which we implemented the standard. and i think it flows directly

from the fact that we didn't do the hard work up front your just to give you a flavor of this, the staff came up with an effective date. the staff and their flux announces that they didn't anticipate that retailers, small retailers would be impacted. the retailers had worked out a deal with manufacturers for retrofit kit. we did not even approve the use of that retrofit kit until about a month before the rule goes into effect. another group comes in and says oh, we can't meet the effective date, can we have longer time? we give them to use. another group comes in, two weeks before the effective date and says we can't make this date. we give them another year. it was just a very sloppy rollout of a rule, and that is of concern. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. kinsey do. mr. sarbanes is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you. thank you, madam chair.

thank you, chairman tenenbaum, and commissioners for being with us this morning. there's a staggering number of products obviously that we import and certain categories of percentages is equally staggering when you think of it. apparently, as understand, 99% of toys, 96% of apparel, 95% of fireworks, 70% of electrical products sold in the u.s. are manufactured someplace else. so the task, the charge, the responsibly of the commission to kind of keep its eyes open as these imports are coming in, to make sure the standards would like to see are being applied, obviously that's an important part of what the commission does. and you have taken, you've taken steps i know to improve that, that oversight and monitoring. in fact, as result of the cpsa come and increase authorization levels or the consumer

protection safety commission, i think you have not increased the number of employees that are posted at u.s. ports of entry to do this kind of oversight and monitoring that is gone from zero which, of course, was completely ineffectual and now 20, the u.s. has more than 300 ports of entry. so the question is if you've got, as understand, police posted at only about 15 of them, how is this going? from what i've heard you have made great strides in the oversight, but i would be interested, chairman tenenbaum, and your perspective on the effort and as having the kind of coverage you now have, producing a kind of deterrent effect with respect to the other ports of entry so that you know that the things coming in meet the standards. what other things can we do on that front? >> well, thank you, congressman. you're right, we have 20 members

of our ports surveillance team, and we have over 300 ports of entry. that is why it's very important we have the methodology to target distinctly products that we think are violent coming into the ports, and also that we have a very strong relationship with customs and border patrol. cbp allowed us to be the first agency to have a memorandum of agreement. we now have live streaming data through their seatac office, or the center. so that we know when shipments are coming into the port and water in those containers before they reached the port. with the pilot project that we've implemented, risk analysis methodology, we are able to then look at repeat offenders, also products that are highly suspect or are those that we monitor closely, like electronics and fireworks, and we are able to

with pretty great accuracy target those shipments before they are even into port, and then interdict them and not let them be unloaded. >> your experience, if you got something at one of the 15 ports that your monitoring, i guess what i'm hearing is your thing in a position to be alerted to those kinds of imports coming into many other ports of entry? >> we are. we know repeat offenders but would also know the company that does have a record with us. we're hoping to establish, and was already created this importer self-assessment product safety program with cbp we know those that are consistently in compliance, and we don't hold those shipments up and we can let them go through and unload quickly. but those would have suspect cargo or cargo that is

repeatedly and noncompliance at repeat -- or repeat offender somewhere able to target them. the most sought products our children's product of the largest categories are led, contain -- flammability and small parts which pose a choking hazard. so we are able to, with cbp, the highly effective. >> and over time, again, i don't understand your methodology because i haven't studied it, but with the ports of entry that you're covering with your personnel, would you rotate that? or the ones that have been chosen, ones that you want to continue to monitor always because of the nature of them? how does that work? >> well, with 20 people we also rely on our field investigators. so we have 90 field investigators in 38 states. if we know shipment is coming

in, we can move those investigators to that poor, to work with cbp and the person already stationed there. so we can move people around. >> think i spent i think it's widthat'swhy it's so important t this data before the port, the ships into the port with live streaming data that c-tech provides is the we know the contents of the container before it reaches us. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. the chair recognizes mr. mondale for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chairman. i will talk about the database a little bit. i still contend that it is happy hunting ground for the point of smart. in direct contrast to what ms. tenenbaum said, she said i think safe products.gov has gained wide approval and acceptance. i know there's a lawsuit but they agree with that statement that it is gained wide approval and acceptance of? >> i go, i've heard a number of

concerns expressed that indicate that there is not wide approval acceptance out there. with respect to plaintiff's using the database. when this thing rolled out, and i was given a briefing on it by a consultant, the consultant into the database and very randomly old of a record. the consumer was listed as a law firm. and so that have since entry to me, and just two weeks ago i asked our staff if they had any idea of how many of those so-called consumers were actually law firms, and they said they had no way of knowing that they assumed quite a few. when the chairman says 97% of the users of the database, submitters are consumers, you should understand the consumer is defined so broadly to meet any living person, and you don't

have to have a relationship with the product or any interaction with the product in order to file a complaint as a consumer. >> i appreciate that. there's a lawsuit filed by -- have courts yet ruled on whether the agency has misinterpreted the law? i survey think it did, but has the court ruled? >> don't have that information yet, but as i said earlier, when we wrote the rule i wrote extensively at that time that i thought that we were writing the rule in a way that we would be vulnerable to a lawsuit your the claims made in the lawsuit were litigated publicly and claims they made with the very ones we made in our argument that i think will stand. i mean, i think, i agree with them. if we do lose that it would mean that our rules will have to be rewritten. it means our software will have to be redesigned.

it means that could be vulnerable to a class-action lawsuit, other people that feel that it's been arbitrary and capricious, the idea what i wrote extensively about. and so, this is why, you know, paying attention to the law and not rushing to regulate and glossing over facts is important. another fact that's important not to gloss over is when you take 88% of the items have something in the model or serial number, you should know that in many cases it's not the model or serial number. and we know that. it's important that we give that information honestly to you. it might say yellow highchair. and so of course if that information is good for consumers, bad information is really harmful to consumers. >> i appreciate you clarifying some of the responses. yes or no, it's a federal court rules against us epsa, with the

agency pledged to communicate down the database? >> yes, ma'am. by certain well. yes or no, it's a federal court rules against cpsa in the lawsuit with the agency pledge to me take down the database? [inaudible] >> thank you. in a lawsuit under seal and we cannot talk about. >> i understand. so your answer is no. when we passed h.r. 2715 last to give the cpsc victory to take steps to reduce cost, effort ago because of third party taxing, very concerned to us, why is the agency not anything about that get? >> we have done something. in fact, under this public law 1228 we were required within 60 days to go out for comment, and we did. we went out for comment. we received comments and the staff is running of the report which we will receive any day now. so we have done that in terms of rule review, the executive order asked us to look at any rule

that had an impact of $100 million annually on the economy. that is one of the rules that we're going to look at in terms of rule review. so we have followed what congress passed. and regarding the model numbers for the database, 73% have a numeric value. the 73% have that model. >> is it active? >> yes, i assume it is if it's in the as active. it doesn't say yellow highchair. it gives the model number. >> i hope you'll encourage the commission to do more under the authority to reduce the cost of third party tax evade are there other things? >> i submitted a whole list of 40 items to the staff here but i think to take away for you all should be that third party testing is really, really expensive. so let's use that for the riskiest items. let's have the most aggressive testing for the riskier items, and let these off of things that

have less risk or from where we know there is higher compliance. we can't adjust that under the statute as it exists now. >> excuse me, i hate to cut you off butcher time has expired and we are trying to get in as many members with questions before we have a series of votes on the floor. so just to let members know, my hope is we can get everybody through, and so if we try to stick to under the gavel even though that was great to the chair recognizes mr. mckinley for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chairman. i think it's always broad looking at the consumer product safety, not always sure what that incorporates. it's a consumer product safety. do those little compact lightbulbs, do they fit under your purview? spent are you talking about

button batteries or the life of? >> the compact fluorescents you know, see a piece. >> yes. >> they have mercury in them, and we know that the typical household with three of those is equivalent of a ton of coal. being introduced inside your house. same amount of mercury and a ton of coal is in 30 lightbulbs. i just wonder how come are people actually following the rules bucks they're taking in and of a bag and taking into a special disposal? of how many of them are throwing in a trashcan when they go to the landfill? >> i don't have that data but i share your concern. commissioner adler, give anything to add? >> no. of than to say those definitely our our jurisdiction to our jurisdiction is incredibly broad, as the chairman noted spent i don't know where going with because i don't think anyone is adhering to the guidelines, and the fact that we

had such a -- the mercury poisoning from burning coal but we just put 30 labels and our house the bring in as much mercury as -- i'm just -- i hope you'll take a more serious about the direction, but let me add a couple other things if i could. the lead in chinese marbles, i understand that not too long ago there were some lead, lead was detected in some children's marbles, and those marbles were rejected, appropriately. but that the united states manufacturers he would never had marbles detected are not going through some very draconian testing to see that they stay in compliance, but they've never not not been in compliance. so they're being punished because of what china was doing. >> welcome the law was passed by congress requires all children's products to under go third party testing to make sure that the

lead content is below 100 parts per million, and that was sent by a statute as well. so domestic and import -- >> you determine the frequency of testing to make sure? surely you're not going to test every marvel. >> no. you have to test a sample initially. you pull a sample and test the. test that the together material change in the manufacturing -- >> who does that test? here's a manufacture that has never had a violation, but they maybe once a quarter, they have someone come in and do some testing, but now we are up to less than once a month they're coming in and costing 3000 sometimes for everyone of the series of tests. and they've done nothing wrong. there's been no grounds for this other than the fact that china was trying to, once again like they did with drywall, now they've done it with marble, that is cause this company to

spend thousands of dollars. is that reasonable? >> under the law that congress pass all children's products must be third party tested initially. if there's a material change and periodically. that's the law. >> let me go to the next, is the indoor air quality. with indoor air quality a product safety, the fact that we have carpet for high resins, cleaning agents, other things? we seem to be so concerned with that, and rightly so, the health of our children and adults. and we put them in an indoor air quality as 90% of the time for standing in doors, and they are exposed to all these elements, and then we say that they get asthma when they go outside. they get asthma when they go near coal-fired power after they get asthma but they spend 90% of their time in home. uus..

in our agency. >> with the gentleman you are recognized. >> thank you very much, madame chair and distinguished members

of the commission, think you for your service to the nation. i'm interested in how we can explore ways to increase efficiency and decrease cost, reduce red tape burdens without compromising safety. the commissioner nord, thank you for the suggestions that you have made regarding this, particularly for small manufacturers. can you speak, commissioner nord to the timeframe we might implement the changes you have suggested considering the fact that commissioner northrop may be leaving the commission? >> yes. so sorry to see commissioner northrop leave because she has made such a contribution -- >> i certainly agree with that. >> when we were considering the testing and certification of rule that was put out for comment had a volume of

exemption from testing and that that was removed from what came out in front of the agency for a vote. i offered an amendment to put that back in, that amendment failed 3-to. at that point we had another commissioner. and so, certainly a low-volume exemption would certainly be a way to get at this. i've been talking with a number of people deutsch said we have just stopped doing low-volume manufacturing because we can't afford the testing costs to the i was in southern california talking to a clothing manufacturer. they were very explicit about it. there are a number of things we can do to help companies that are struggling with how to comply with this rule. it is a very broad, overly broad in my view, rule that imposes costs without real benefits.

so i hope that the agency will reconsider its decision. >> thank you, and i would urge the agency to do so, and i would be happy to work with all members of the commission on this issue because i think it's important moving forward. on recreational vehicles off highway vehicles, would you please comment to commissioner nord or commissioner more trouble on the fact that if the cftc is going to have a pass fail test to the viability of these vehicles, this might cause some challenges. shouldn't a test that is sent to pass or fail a vehicle be repeated so one can be assured that the same result is achieved? >> of course any test that we would mandate regardless of the product has got to be repeatable. you cannot put in place a testing method that nobody can predict the results.

so, of course we must have repeatable tests. >> commissioner northrop come to you have an opinion on that as well clacks >> i have not participated in the atv because i have a conflict of interest with my husband's company. >> thank you. madame chair, i will see the minetti and a half i have left to my colleagues. >> we thank you very much to recognize mr. harbert for five minutes. >> thank you, madam share and each of the commissioners, thank you for your time, your service. chairman tannin mom asked to review questions. i was certainly pleased to read your op-ed in the hill last week where you indicated that you are taking a more collaborative approach with of the window covering industry regarding cord safety. i'm fervor please use them the time visiting manufacturing facilities to better understand the difficulties that eliminating chords for all products.

can you tell me without revealing any proprietary information about these visits and what you've learned? >> it was my pleasure to travel across the united states and meet with the three major manufacturers house was the major retailers of window coverings. i have expressed concerns about strangulation hazards with children and publicly and the window covering manufacturers association and other stakeholders are in the process of rewriting a voluntary standard which we will have in september. but what i have learned is there is concern from the industry but the strangulation hazard. there are many new technologies we have removed completely. however, the industry also is willing to work with us however they don't want to see a standard that completely does away with the cords. they can make the cord where it's not accessible to children

and there's all kind of technologies they share with us, but they don't want to eliminate having a cord entirely. however, i'm optimistic meeting with retailers and with the association that everyone wants to do a massive education campaign so that if you are buying shades and you have children in the home, then you would go cordless or have no shades. you could have shutters or draperies but you remove the hazard if there are children in the home. i am encouraged by my conversations. >> how are you proposing that we move forward? >> in september we received a statement they will have voted on it and we will continue to work with them to see how we can more and more eliminate the hazard. we also want to work with major retailers said that they can train employees to the point of sale so that the kiosks are online at have baby registries can also bring to the attention of people that if you have a child in the home coming you need to go cordless. but see if we can't address some

of the fatalities and reduce the number of fatalities by an educational program that was robust. >> certainly a big supporter of cooperation between government and industry, particularly when it comes to some of these safety issues and how best to achieve the safest product possible. you also discussed in the op-ed your efforts to better educate the consumer. with this in mind, can you tell me about your plans for the rest of this year and next with the window coverings if the council to educate new parents about potential hazards to children associated with window coverings. >> we are in the process of working with major retailers and also associations to draft that plan. so that is an process, congressman. but we are committed to it. i am personally committed because i think we can reduce the number they fatalities with a robust education program in collaboration with the industries. >> all right.

as the commission plan and utilizing any of its funds towards its education effort? >> well, we have limited funds and like the pull safety campaign where congress gave us a direct appropriation, we don't have one for this. but it would be a great help to us to have one. but life in working with industry and with the retailers, we can accomplish a lot with that extra funding. >> promoting education and raising awareness some of the best tools that you have in your arsenal? >> no question about it and that is how the social media fits in as well as working with people so that we can all have a strong education campaign on any hazard. >> thank you and i yield back, madame chair. >> thank you. the chair recognizes mr. olson for five minutes. >> thank you. boats have been called now so my comments will be brief, but i want to thank the witness. thanks for coming in for your expertise. chairwoman tannin bob, thanks and outside the big port of

houston bicycle here. good to see you again. as my nameplate says, i'm from texas. as you all know, texas loves the outdoors to go to being on the country rivers and fishing on the lakes, to go out and do some hunting. to catch the bite and the stars in the texas sky these are with rovs. the concern is the federal government may be threatening life in my home state. my question is for you come commissioner tannenbaum. and questions from my colleague from new jersey about the past failed stability tests. i understand that cpsc sadowski test based on the methodology. the reason being, however, they reveal that it has conducted no

repeat ability tests in its method of what your results. do you agree to be appropriate to base a mandatory pastore phill standard on the sample size of a single test, one test? >> what we promised this by saying i need to get back to you one of the staff is talking to. other recreational this highway vehicle association and manufacturers. one of the things that has been brought to our attention as the number of deaths and injuries in seven years between 2003 to 2010. we had 165 deaths and 329 serious injuries from rovas and 70% involved lateral stability turnover. so we are looking in working with industry to develop a stronger lateral stability test. we had issues of occupant protection. i do hope that if the industry will work with us to develop a

standard. my staff met with the representative on july 19th, and we are saying that we need to up graded the standard to prevent the turnovers and we can go to a mandatory standard but it's always better if we can agree with industry and come up with a strong voluntary system. >> i have to cut you off. running out of time here. commissioner martin, any questions on that? >> the stability has been just a really perplexing problem not only with rov but with atv we have been struggling with her years. if we put forth the standard that addresses the lateral stability we have to make sure we get it right and make sure we solve the problems and make sure that we have a test that works and is repeatable and i think that's what we are working for. i fully agree with my chairman when he says that it's best to

work cooperatively with the industry to come up with something in a voluntary mode and i hope that we can do that. >> are we allowing the representatives to exert the testing? >> collaborative lead means that we share information. they have shared their stability test with us and i don't know that they came in and shared it with us. the staff had some issues with it. we need to be very open and collaborative in sharing these tests and also realize that the industry should realize and say yes we have a lot of little turnover and we want to address it voluntarily. >> user to them. >> thank the gentleman very much. as you all have heard the votes are called we are down to the wire. so to begin by asking unanimous consent a letter from the national association of manufacturers be included in the

record of the hearing that has been previously shared with democrats. without objection, so ordered. and again, i would like to thank all the commissioners for your time today. i think you have shed a lot of light on the consumer product safety issues. i know our committee looks for an ongoing productive dialogue so i would like to thank my colleagues especially mr. butterfield and ms. schakowsky working together to pass h.r. 2715 last year. we announced a very good bill that saved a lot of american jobs while providing important protections for u.s. consumers to be called out a win win and around here. so i will be asking letters for the record -- excuse me, questions for you to submit back to us specifically i had won all queued up for you. i will last you in writing if you could submit and return simply to give conclusions and writing about your service and thank you for your service as you leave the commission. we are going to ask a big softball question for you. all you want is to return to how would you improve the world of

consumer product safety so we look forward to that in writing. i remind members they have ten business days to submit questions for the record and i ask those witnesses to please respond to any questions that you received. i wish you all a very wonderful august and safe travels. the hearing is now adjourned. [inaudible conversations] life now to the floor of the u.s. senate. the senate planned adjournment starting this week. the house of representatives field yesterday to approve the adjournment resolution so that means both the house and the senate have convened in

pro-forma sessions every three days during the august break. c, the senator from the state of delaware, to perform the duties of the chair. signed, daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 11:00 stands adjourned until 11:00

we did not begin. there was only a native american region and later a county in another state. but we began in 1778 in virginia.

over the next hour and a half we will show you speeches from some of the politicians considered first we will hear from senator marco rubio who over the weekend spoke at a las vegas elementary school. ♪ ♪

♪ thank you. thank you. thank you. you will tell me if they make funny faces behind my back, right? all right. thank you for having me. i'm glad to be back. sorry it's so warm to the always love coming here in the winter. [laughter] i went to school here from third grade to fifth grade but here's the good news. the good news is the office is an open today's of the press can't check my record. [laughter] but i won the marbles champion shipwright out there in that

front lawn. so that, right there, will number one was my third, my fourth grade class. >> [inaudible] >> you did? good. don't tell any secrets. well, i was the champion of marbles. and then right outside on the other side was my fifth grade class and right in here we did our assemblies and i think they still do that. in fact i remember being in this room the day the hostages came home from iran. remember the whole yellow ribbon? we had a really good president that way by the way, his name was ronald reagan. [cheers and applause] and that's what we are working on getting back, a really good president in the white house. that's what this election is about. so thank you for the chance being here today. i see members of my family here. in fact i have more family in las vegas than i do in miami. [cheers and applause] they have more kids, too. but anyway, we are doing our

part. my wife is here today somewhere. she's never been -- where is she? where is my wife? she's here somewhere. there she is. jeanette is here. see, i told you i went to elementary school. she had doubts. [laughter] thank you. i'm honored to be here today on behalf of mitt romney but also the wonderful candidates running up and down the ballot and i want to make a point of that right now because one of the reasons we have these agencies to encourage people to get involved and engaged. i know it's warm so i want to give of time, just to tell you what's at stake. this election is important and it matters. i want to tell you why it matters and encourage you to get involved. it begins by understanding who we are and why we are different. for much of history, like 18th-century coming and even longer, almost everyone on earth was poor. not just a little poor, a lot poorer. every country, every society in the world was basically a

handful of really rich people and everybody else that worked for them if they could get it. people starved, people were hungry, people suffered. was the era of the haves and have-nots. that's what the world was like for almost all of history. that began to change about two centuries ago. the reason why it began to change is because of this please call america. [cheers and applause] founded on a powerful principal of coming in here was the principle that it was founded on: that every single salmon being on the earth -- didn't matter who you were, where your parents were, where you were born, what you did or didn't do for a living, every person has rights given to them not by the government but from god. [cheers and applause] and that chief among those rights was the right to life committee of liberty and to the pursuit of happiness.

what is happiness? that's what they were asking. what is happiness in people's lives? happiness is the ability to do you want for a living. the opportunity to raise your children. it's the opportunity to have enough money to buy the things you like. our political rights get all the press. the right to say whatever you want, the right to express your opinion, the right to go to any church you want to, but our economic liberties are just as important. and our economic liberties are real because it says that you should have the freedom to pursue happiness. economic happiness largely is the ability to earn your accomplishments. to earn them by opening up the business so that you can feel a sense of accomplishment of building something. because, yes, if you build a business, you built the business. [cheers and applause] keep clapping so i can drink some water while you do that.

that's enough. thank you. i appreciate it. this is always the point where if you are here to heckle me if you could wait five minutes because that gives me the moment to get my water. the opportunity to own and build a business, the opportunity to work somewhere and get paid to do something you love for a living that is economic happiness and the happiness i know well because it's the story of so many in my family and that's the opportunity to work somewhere that pays you enough money so you can provide a living for your family and a better future for your children. why is that possible? and what kind of system are those things possible? it's possible in the system where the economy isn't run by government. and yet, and this idea has worked so well for 200 years. the result is the freest and most prosperous nation the earth has ever known. and yet despite its success, despite this extraordinary success of the free enterprise, there's always been voices in america that don't believe in

it. now usually is economists or professors or people that have too much time on their hands. [laughter] but, probably for the first time in my lifetime, it also happens to be the president of the united states. who not only doesn't believe in the free enterprise system but he doesn't understand it. he doesn't believe in a free enterprise system is by making someone else poor. the only way you can succeed is by making other people suffer. he believes if you are successful but building a business, it isn't because you were successful, it's because you got lucky and you owe it to the government and everybody else so you need to share your success. [booing] he doesn't believe in the free enterprise system and he doesn't understand. and that's why this election is

more than just a campaign between two men. it is a choice between two very different visions of the world. two very different views of what the world of government should be in our lives and in our country. that's what this election is about. mitt romney believes in the free enterprise system because he has seen that. it's not just mitt romney crites dean heller, all of our candidates. running for congress, he was here today. right. he believes that. his opponent does not. dean heller believes that. his opponents do not. colonel peck believes that, his opponents do not. [applause] even in local office i bet you'll find people believe in the free enterprise system. it's more than just leaving it. the know what works. they know how it functions. the understand how prosperity is created and straightforward. here is how prosperity is created triet someone makes money. the use that money to start a

new business for growth in business. as a result they make more money for themselves or they hire people to work for them who now make money. these people in turn turnaround and make the money they've made and spend it thereby helping other people start businesses and provide for their families and the cycle goes on and on. that's how prosperity works. [applause] so you ask what's the role of government in all of that? the government has a role to play. i will tell you what it is. number one, to write rules. rules of the conduct. what's legal and what's not legal so that everyone is getting involved in economic competition understands what the rules of the game are. government's job is to provide for infrastructure. that means the roads and the national security at the state level it means education. it means to provide for the national security as is outlined a second ago. you can't grow economically for

being invaded. you can't grow economically if your enemies are attacking you. that's the role of government, the proper role of government. any time it does anything beyond that and provide a safety net but as a way of life, but as a way of helping those that cannot help themselves and as a way of helping those that are trying but have fallen so they can get back on their feet and try again. [applause] what happens? what happens when people decide we want government to do more than that? even if it is all intention. here's what happens. the rules become unpredictable, and fact they become crazy. government starts changing the rules depending on what they think is the right thing. it becomes rule of men, not allow small. people get scared to invest in countries like that. degette start debate the scared to start a business and in a country have no idea what the rules will be tomorrow and no one asks them with the rules should be either. those kind of governments been

taxes have to go up. let me tell you the problem. of course we have to have taxes. they can't be zero. we have to pay for the things government does but what happens when taxes get too high? the first thing is people think we may not be able to keep that much money so maybe we just won't open of business. we just want to grow it. here's what's worse. government gets its money from somewhere and usually it's out of the hands of the private sector. every dollar that goes to the government is a dollar that is not available to start a business or to grow one. by the ways -- [applause] it also means less money people have in their pockets to spend. i don't know of any community in the country that should understand this better than this one and i will tell you why. because this community depends heavily on tourism. but tourism doesn't happen unless people have money in their pockets. every dollar you take out of their pocket in the new tax is a

ball where they cannot stand here. now there are some dollars you will have to pay because government there are certain things government has to d but if you go to her, as this president wants to go, to fund a big government experience, that is money they can't stand here. and that hurts everyone. and that's hurting you right now. that's what mitt romney understands. that's what this election is about. it's a choice between the two very dramatically different views of the role of government in america. and by the way, the role of america in the world. it's consequential. it matters. that's what you're working for. you're not just working to get rid of somebody. you're working to replace somebody like mitt romney, who understands what's made us prosperous in the past and understands what will make us prospers in the future as well. [applause] i will close by reminding you that you know who will see these

in the free enterprise system? i do. and i will tell you why. coming here today, driving even into the old neighborhood i am reminded why i believe in it so much. in 1956 my parents came to this country in search of a life where they would have the liberty to pursue their happiness. 25 years later after that come in search of that same quest they cannot hear out west. where my dad worked as a bartender and my mom as a maid. my parents never made that much money. they didn't make enough to save for their retirement much less our college fund, yet they made just enough to buy us a home, not a big one but a secure one. one where we were encouraged to dream come and we knew that if we worked hard, the dreams that have been impossible for them would be possible for us. those dreams play here today. across the two decades and a half i come back to the place

those dreams took flight and i am reminded of the special obligation those like me have for the rest of us that have those dreams now. now is not the time to abandon the american medical. now is not the time for us to go back to the ways of the old world. now was not the time for us to become like those countries that people come here to get away from. now was not the time to embrace the policies that trapped generations of people in poverty from which they could not escape. now is the time for us to remember why the american medical worked and why we are different and yes, why we are better than the rest of the world. [applause] don't ever be afraid to say that. the reason why we are better than the rest of the world is because we are the rest of the

world. america is not a race. america is not a religion. america is people from all over the world who came here to build in this new land a life that was in possible of their own and that is why here in this country the poor, the tired, the masses can come the people who in their own country could not even succeed rejected by their own society came here and built america. the single greatest nation in the history of all mankind. [cheering] that is our common heritage and those of us that have lived it just a generation ago have a special obligation to defend its because even as i stand here before you today, just in walking distance from this very

place, there are people that have the jobs my parents once had. there are people that live the lives once led. within walking distance of this very place, there are people that walk the steps we once walked. and they deserve the same america that my parents and our grandparents gave to us. that is the chance that we have in this election. [applause] i've got to tell you why do a lot of speeches, but very few of them have made me as nervous as this one. because -- [inaudible] [cheering] [cheering]

that was not the kind of heckling i was expecting but think you for the water. i appreciate it. [laughter] >> we love you! >> i love you, too. thanks for having me back. supreme court? geez. what elementary did you go to, sir? [laughter] so much of what i know to be true about the world i learned here in the streets just around this great place. and i understand now more than ever how special this country is and it's something we should never apologize for. [applause] it didn't become that we by accident, buy luck or by chance. it became that way because people chose the route. they chose to believe in the

port of the individual. they chose to believe what a free people in pursuit of happiness could do together. they chose to believe in a country where it was in the government or your leaders to give you your rights. the job to protect the rights that god has given you. [applause] those ideas made this country but in so doing they also change the world because no matter where you live on this planet, there's someone just like you that was able to accomplish your what they never would have accomplished in their nation and it reminds you of how truly important the american merkel is not just for us but for all of the world. two decades ago the american medical live in my house. the lives of a bartender and a maid who made the mission of their life to give us the chance to do everything they could not.

that merkel finds itself and other houses today. and whether in this new century in this country, in this community a bartender and made can open doors for their children that have been closed to them it's the issue of this selection and it's what we decide. we must either embrace of the things that made us great or become just like everybody else. and i know that in the depths of our hard no matter how scared we all because the times are tough and when times are tough and you are getting paid less and working harder and your house is worth less than it was and your kids can't find a job even though they did everything you asked of them when times are tough and people are worried, those are the times those that ask us to advance the greatness rear their heads and they tell us the only way we can have a better future is to abandon our liberties and freedoms and give them the power to distribute our income and run our economy. [booing]

but they've never done but try every time we tried it as more poor. every country that ever tried it made them poor, not more prosperous. now is not the time to go backward. for the dark days of human history when what you're going to be in life is decided by who your parents were and if they knew we and how connected they were. member's time to embrace the things that made us different and better and special and that is what november has given us a chance to do and that is what you are working for to read up and down the ballot, across the state and country and race after race the truces between people that believe in the things that have made us different and those that ask you to apply policies that will make us just like everybody else. you will decide those elections and your willingness to work and needed difference and i promise you i will do my part if you will do yours. thank you. [applause]

campaigned in pennsylvania on monday. >> when the president pushes health care bill through not a single republican vote to remember. he said if you'll pass this health care law it's going to be great and i will keep your current health care. he said it's going to be cheaper. you know what they said? he said the average cost for a family in america is going to be $2,500 less for health care premiums if you push this through to a guess what we learned last week from the congressional budget office nonpartisan group in the congress? its $2,500 but its $2,500 more. it's higher by $2,500 more. exactly the amount he said it would be cut.

you probably feel thought in your family budget, don't you? again, i just talked to a bunch of small business owners who told me one reason they can't create jobs is because health care costs keep going up and it's harder and harder for them to be able to provide health care for their employees. they're looking at part time, over time, ways to be able to bring people along that they can't because of health care so this hasn't made it easier it's made it harder for our lives, our businesses and our budget. it's a trillion dollars of cost to the federal budget. so, folks, when the president says look at my economic record, i hope people will look at. and they will find out it didn't work. it's really no wonder. the president is all of touch. you recall when he said the private sector is doing just fine? i just had to small business owners ask if they were happy with the government build their business. [laughter]

i almost was out of the room when i said that. it's a joke. it's a joke. just kidding. but look, the president said the private sector is doing just fine. but then what else did he say? do you remember that speech? he also said all we need to do is take your hard-earned tax dollars, send them to washington, d.c., have washington, d.c. take a cut out of it, borrow a bunch more from places like china, and then send it back to the states so that the commonwealth can create more public sector jobs here in pennsylvania. that's the solution to our economic problem. does that make sense to you? >> no. >> i don't think it makes sense to many americans. the government doesn't create jobs, it's the private sector that creates jobs. if the government created jobs we would have been doing fine under the stimulus because it created more and more public sector spending and more and more jobs. it didn't work. it's not how it works in our country. we created the greatest economy on the earth, a beacon of hope

of opportunity to the rest of the world and we did it through hard work. we did it through the kind of small business owners i just met with to i love this one woman i met with. she said my husband and i started a little music business with two employees to read we are struggling, but my husband jokes with me. he says it's great being a small business owner because you can choose which 16 hours to work today. laughter echoes of the president says you know what? if you have a business you did and build it someone else did. that speech was about a government building it and that speech was about the fact those small businesses who think they built it should be paying more taxes because after all, the government really build it. now, that didn't make a lot of sense to the folks i was just talking to. it doesn't make sense to me. when the president said that, she didn't build that business.

somebody else did. i thought about all the small business owners i know in my hometown of cincinnati across ohio. i thought about my dad. my dad was like some of the small business folks i met with. he took a risk. when he was 40 years of he was a salesman for a big company and said i'm going to give it up and start my own business. he borrowed money from my mom's and. that's pretty risky. [laughter] because he couldn't get it from the bank. he had no record of starting a business that he believed in himself, she believed in the community come he believed in his workers and he believed in america, he believed his dream could be accomplished. he hired five people. he hired my mom as a bookkeeper. they lost money the first year. the second year. they lost money the third year. my uncle began to wonder. [laughter] but they persevered. and she created a nice little business. and he did get through hard work, sweat, working seven days a week, mortgaging the house. this is what's happening all

over america, to create opportunity. and yet the president is telling those people you didn't do it? we should be doing just the opposite in government. we should be holding those people love. we should be telling them they are the backbone of the economy. that we respect them. that we love what they do for the country. [applause] if you look at every recession we've had in thi country, there's always a recovery coming out of it. we are now living through the weakest recovery since the great depression. think about that. if you look at it closely coming you will find out it actually wasn't a big business is the lead us out of recessions. it tends to be the small businesses. the guy with a woman willing to take a risk. this administration is the and just the opposite direction. they are telling those folks if you work hard, you're not going to get every word you deserve. in fact, we are going to raise

your taxes. the increase your health care costs. we are going to increase the regulatory burden that you face. i've got to tell you i've got a lot of stories here when i met with these small business owners. some of them are here today about the regulatory burden. every single one of them has a story the government is making it harder, not easier to create jobs. we need to turn that around, don't we, folks? let's give small businesses a break. [applause] would talk about epa. we talked about osha and regulations reformer to make ends meet and the reasons that it's harder here in lancaster county and across the country to create an opportunity of the jobs we need to be civil to lift people will come to be able to give them that dignity and self-respect because of the government. not that the government is helping, but the regulation can make it harder. that's the reality. the unpredictability, the uncertainty in the economy today, the regulations, the higher taxes.

the president saying he wants to raise them even higher. let me tell you why i'm ultimately optimistic. we have been here before. america did gaucherie great depression. we went through a couple of great world war. it's a tough time as a country. we always come out on top because of the hard work and ingenuity of the american people. we trust the people, folks, not the government to get us out of this. that is the difference in this election and what the campaign is going to be about and we can do it again. [applause] we have a candidate on the republican side who gets it. after all, she's from the private sector. he's the guy that took a rest and started a business and created a bunch of jobs, not just a couple dozen jobs, a couple hundred jobs for a couple thousand jobs, he created over

100,000 jobs in his businesses. he knows how to create jobs and he knows what the role of the government is. he knows what it takes. [applause] i think we need people like them in government. do you agree with me? [applause] the people say can he lead in washington? absolutely he can because he's a business person because that's what you did in business to make tough decisions and find solutions to problems. we are desperate for leadership right now he's doing a terrific job in the united states senate. he's working on the budget, the and thomas reforms, growing economy but he will tell you we don't have leadership right now and in the executive branch with no leadership, things don't get done we need to reform our tax code and the regulatory relief we talked about earlier. we need national resources in the country to create jobs.

[applause] we need to get away from our dangerous dependency on foreign oil and we can do that with leadership. we knew somebody willing to step up and say we've got to take on this deficit because it is immoral for future generations to create opportunities each day. mitt romney is that man. he is that leader. he will do that. [applause] he is the experience, background and the public policy plan to actually change america in a positive way by showing the leadership we so desperately need. during the election in 2008, barack obama went around pennsylvania and ohio, both states he won. and she had a really address a message. he would go like this, put his hands together and say we need to bring america together. we saw a big problem. i would ask you if you would talk to the folks that voted for

president obama and even forget about what we talked about earlier, the fact that promise has not been kept. the fact that the economic record has been a failure and say to them to you think he's brought the country together or do you think that he is divided our country? do you think the class warfare and the notion that you're going to divide the country between democrats, republicans, conservatives, liberals across the country? no, it doesn't. we need a president that understands not just how to create private sector jobs and get the regulatory burden of business and is committed to tax reform and to doing their debt and deficit understands the need for us to create our own resources right here in president really has the record and the experience and the public policy plans to bring peop together and solve the problems and you look at mitt romney's background. he goes to the olympics and what does he do? he turns it around. it's not about ego or partisanship but it's about

bringing people together to solve the problems. the private sector which talked about his success. the governor of massachusetts. they don't call that taxachusetts. he cuts taxes 19 times, working with them he starts off with a budget deficit of $3 billion, terms of around into a surplus on a rainy day fund of $2 billion that's the kind of leadership we want, someone that brings people together and solve problems. [applause] i have a feeling pennsylvania is going to be in the right column this year starting in the lancaster county. i have a feeling about it. and it's going to be because in 2008 we made a mistake. america gave the ball to barack obama because he promised he was going to turn things around. he promised he was going to bring people together to solve problems. we gave him the ball and he

fumbled treated some time to give that ultimate from me to take the country to meet the promise of america. we can do it. our destiny can still be great. it can be the americans' interest we need more leadership. ladies and gentlemen, thank you for helping me. she's in the position to lead our country. thank you. god bless you. [applause] former minnesota governor tim pawlenty was on the campaign trail for mitt romney over the weekend. he spoke with parents on a north carolina ice skating rink. >> how are you doing? thanks for taking the time to be here. appreciate it. thanks for coming. how are you?

>> good. thanks for being part of this. appreciate it. you have kids out there? hockey players? it's nice to meet you. >> well it's an honor to the year. thanks for taking time out of your busy weekend. i know it's a beautiful summer day and you could be off in different places with your time and family and civic and other commitments were interests you have, but we appreciate you being part of the roundtable today. the point of this is i'm here on behalf of the romney for president campaign to meet first panel of people that have concerns and ideas about how we can get america on a better

track and a better put forward. so these are valuable discussions. it's less of an opportunity for me to talk and more of an opportunity for you to talk and share with your concerns and ideas or observations are about the economy or other issues and we can just engage in a little dialogue but maybe i will just start with a few very brief comments and then just ask each of you to go around the table and introduce yourself and if you're comfortable sharing a little bit about your background in the than any ideas or concerns that you have for the country for north carolina that i can take and report back to the governor and his team as he tries to advance his message and this election and get the country moving again. from the governor's standpoint and from the canteen standpoint, one of the main issues we have to address is getting this economy moving again. governor romney has a tremendous background in the private sector. spent most of his life not in washington, d.c., but in the private sector involved in

trying to start businesses, grow businesses, get investments, get jobs moving in the companies that he was involved with. but also something that i think has a feel the strong commitment to getting the private sector moving on just the government sector moving. we have seen under president obama a bigot commitment to the kind of government centered approaches. we need to get the private economy moving and the respect and encourage the private enterprise. and governor mitt romney cited and i couldn't agree more president obama had his chance and it's not really working, not based on political record but based on the numbers. we have the 40 consecutive months of over 8% unemployment in the country. it's one of the longest streets of that level of a later than planned in the nation's history. i know it's even higher in north carolina so it makes it even more challenging and difficult for people north carolina. we have the lowest rate of business formations in nearly 30 years in the country which obviously contributes to the fact that the economy isn't

growing. the numbers cannot yesterday, again, another anemic set of numbers showing almost no growth in the economy. we have people that are 23 million of our fellow citizens, fellow americans and are either out of work, looking for work or have given up looking for work. 23 million adel americans. so it is chairman john and these are not -- it's not just about statistics and numbers people or maybe you are in this position yourself, having lost a job or being underemployed or have a loved one or somebody that is a neighbor or friend who can't find a job or is in a difficult economic circumstances. for me my background as i grew up in a meat packing town my dad for a big chunk of his life as a truck driver. my mom much of her life was a homemaker and windows meatpacking plants showed up in my home town, the job loss and economic location i saw as a young boy with this means to a neighborhood to a community and

families. my mom died when i was in tenth grade. my dad lost his job for a while not long after that. succumb the early chapter of my life i experienced and solve some of this first hand. those are the kind of worries i feed people have and as you talk to people you hear what are your hopes and dreams and people were most focused on am i going to have a job in my going to be a will to take care of my family coming in my going to be able to go to college and pay for it from the am i going to be able to pay my mortgage coming to pay my health insurance premiums and we need actual results in policies that work. that isn't what's happening under president obama. he gives great teleprompter speeches but those words don't put gas in our gas tank. they don't pay the mortgage. speeches don't, you know, pay the college tuition bills. his speeches don't pay the health insurance premiums. so, americans who are hurting and more in need need more than speeches, they need results, so that's what we are trying to

articulate is a country that governor mitt romney has a better way, president obama had his chance. it didn't work and now we need somebody that is committed and know how to get the economy moving again. let's go round the table and maybe you would be bold to start to refine its intimidating with the cameras here but if you could speak loudly or maybe somebody would turn the microphone your way. if you're not comfortable sharing, but if you are comfortable, go ahead trees that i'm a native of raleigh north carolina and went to the school of chapel hill. i've been involved in the financial services for over 20 years. i'm a financial budweiser currently. one of my biggest concerns, have three children, eight, ten and 12, one of my biggest concerns this area of the country has had a lot of job creation the past 15 years due to the housing market and that employed a lot of people and created a ripple effect and people need a mortgage, to appraise the house

come to the loan documentation. it just relief rippled out and created a lot of jobs among the commerce and i feel like we need a new catalyst for the economy the next 15 years and we only ones that appear to be viable and the energy industry and we need a plan for the next ten years on exploration and all the things that can spawn off of that and revel in the economy to get a lot of people back to work we can start to work on some of the harder issues but i think that we need to have a really good catalyst for the next ten to 15 years and job creation around energy exploration. >> it's a really great point. i am to be briefed on these, but the difference between president obama and governor romney and energy is pretty striking and president obama has put basically a moratorium on the drilling respects including offshore drilling in the country. he vetoed or shut down the expansion to the keystone

pipeline have been hostile towards certain forms of energy. governor romney says look what's to all of the above. let's get every piece of american energy that we can and bring it to the market and we have a massive really exciting opportunity we are willing to go after and one of those is by way of example we have tremendous amounts of shale oil and gas that even just three or five for ten years ago people didn't understand how much of it we had. >> there's new drilling techniques we didn't have or didn't understand a decade ago but is enough for example natural gas to hire the entire base load needs of the country by many experts or more not to mention what we give natural gas is example on vehicles and fleet vehicles and the likes of a one example of many if you have the obama administration and in many ways trying to discourage stifel slowdown or the process and to

criticize it and the supporters. so that's one example. i couldn't agree with you more. we can get america to be -- we have the capability to do one of the world's leading producers of energy again and be a low-cost provider of energy and a new investment, new jobs, more people working and by the way the input costs for factories and businesses and energy is going to be lower and will stimulate the economy like you suggested. ..

i dose-e-doe socialism can work in other countries, and so i'm not sure how we things that that could -- so i just kind of frustrated watching this whole process because romney is very obviously knows how to do it. he obvious he knows how to be successful, and create jobs by the private sector, and i don't think taking away democracy and moving toward socialism is the answer. so i've been frustrated because there's been so many ridiculous attacks on romney everyday on the news, and i would just love to see in kind of back a little bit. >> he is every day. but those are great points, and directionally we move -- we need to move towards private economy. every president, i'm sure everybody for the comments recently who stood up and said if you have a business, you didn't build a. and he said something else that is equally troubling. he said somebody else did.

i had and acquainted runs all little small business where i live now and he said i put a second mortgage at my house to start my business. i work 80 hours a week. obviously, there's other factors, but i'm the main one who built this business, and he was really not only offended but troubled and really insulted by the president's comments. i think you got small business owners all over the country thing waiting to come you got the president of the united states sang i didn't build my business, if i took at a low, to get a second march on my house, took a big risk, a dream. and now he is saying somebody else did that. it doesn't compute. it's really out of sync with how entrepreneurs and small business leaders think about it. >> and i think the unemployment being so high and staying so high under him is an indication that his approach doesn't work, and his philosophy behind the

approach. >> thank you. appreciate it here cower you? >> i'm nancy. i was born and raised in ohio, and -- >> what part? >> the akron area. so we move down here 15 years ago. we both graduated from ohio state expected to come for a job or for family? >> transfer. now i'm a stay-at-home mom although i have a part-time job. we have two kids, 15 and 13, and i think my biggest concern about things right now and for our kids is just getting government out of our lives. it's like every aspect of our lives i think has government control in some manner, education, like it just, i think we just need to shrink it, government and show which hopefully the budget will shrink, have less.

>> i mean, nancy, there's about 6 million business in the country, about 5.9 million fewer. so most of the backbone of the time to small and medium-sized businesses. if you talk to people to start and run those businesses and to say what's rating you, why aren't you growing, why aren't you adding more jobs, they all say it a little differently but they basically say the same thing if you listen carefully. the taxes are too high and it's too expensive. some say the regulations are too difficult, complex, slow, burdensome. other say health care costs are too high. others say the permitting is too slow and the like. but they all say basically the same thing, that the burdens of government on their business is discouraging them, starting to price them out of the market where they don't feel like they can take a more risk or deploy more capital or invest in their businesses more. that's fundamentally i think what's happening in the economy. some of our democrat friends, including president obama said

we are for jobs, too. you can't be pro-jobs and antibusiness because that's like being pro-egg and anti-chicken. it doesn't work. spent i think his comments about like the government being responsible for these businesses, it's almost bragging like the government is -- you know what i mean, he's bragging about what i don't like. >> thank you for sharing that. >> she is my wife by the way. we are on the same page. i'm bob meyer. i'm in the construction industry, and -- >> commercial or residential? >> commercial. we been fighting the last three years just to stay where we are. had to let some folks go. and it's because of this overregulation. and big government. it doesn't work and it tries minutes. her brother-in-law said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over trying to expect a different result. and it's the same result. government doesn't learn that if you give them more money, the

most inefficient institution on earth. they don't stand anything wisely. so getting them out of our lives, giving us more of our freedoms back is one of my biggest concerns. >> thank you for that. >> my name is julie, and i'm the mom every nine year old. in addition to being imam, i am an instructor at an education department at a local university. and my professional field is in special education advocate for people with disability. and that's a look to the future of for my son at the people for which i advocate, i'm so concerned about the affordable care act. and i know we need to repeal it. that would be a very good start. but i would also like to see us replace it with a good plan. so, if president romney is

creating this plan for health care reform, what would it look like and how would it value human life differently? >> i can give you some of the elements of what he's thinking about, and if you have some ideas or observations that you think would be helpful, shiny and. so, i think everybody knows governor romney is opposed to the affordable care act otherwise than as obamnicare in some circles. but obviously it takes government in our view, fit into health care that is a level that is intrusive, begins to represent a more inefficient government centric model instead of an individual or consumer or market oriented model. for some the things governor romney wants to do in his health care reform in terms of recounting obamnicare advertising are blessing on easter for several medical malpractice reform so that we don't of doctors, and many of them acknowledged that they do a lot of things because they're afraid of getting sued even though it may not be as necessary or as important medically as it could be so that

real medical malpractice reform would matter. number two, let's try to save our entire programs by reforming them. he has a proposal on how you reform to protect medicare and medicaid and give them a pathway to financial solvency rather than in solvency and part of that includes pushing the medicare program in a block grant with recent increases for medical or inflation, back to the states. he also is talk i think very wisely about trying to get consumers empowered in the market place because right now if you go to a doctor or hospital or clinic am oftentimes alicia really motivated come you don't know really what the service costs, with the quality measures are around it and how that might compare to other options to the clinic down the street, the hospital across town or the other options that you might have in the marketplace. to try to get good information in consumers hands about price and quality and effectiveness, and then get financial incentives to use the system wisely in the hands of the consumer. right now, i don't know about you but i go to the doctor, i

get this thing in the middle called it this is not a bill. my eyes go right to the $20 or whatever i/o. i don't eat anything that explains it beyond that. so the bill goes to some third party. so he's talked about let's, people need financial help, let's provide the best of our ability, but to the most extent possible let's put him in the drivers you rather than the government tell them what their options are indicating the scope and limits of the kind of services they might need or want. so it's more of a consumer oriented model than a centralized government model. but do you have some suggestions? >> i was thinking that in turn is going to address the issue of the valley of life, because nobody's going to value a child's life more than the parents. the parent should be making the decisions about the care and treatment, and ultimately what we're going to do for this. this really precious individual. it is just the thought of the government making that decision.

you can see a individual as someone who is -- unable to contribute. it's just a concern, but the parents, put it in their hands. >> special needs child, the government has programs, local, state and federal level, sometimes wheezer log -- is there a lot of input from perseus saved i appreciate the help, this thing but not that thing, lots of paper or lots of red tape, whatever assistance you're going to give me, just give it to me and let me decide how i can best use it to take care of my child as a parent. i think you spend it pretty well, or use it pretty well. >> my name is christine. i have three children, two of them are here, 17, 15 and 10. i'm at home with them now, and i guess the thing that is really

stressing especially in the last few months is that democratic party, this is the party of tolerance, seems to be really quite the opposite. and it's gotten to the point during a very fast food of time and i can't even really remember when it was, but when it comes to our first amendment, you know, freedom of speech, i actually felt not threatened isn't the right word but intimidated to say i'm christian and i believe in traditional marriage. even just recently with the whole chick-fil-a -- >> just had lunch there down the street. waffle fries. >> i was disappointed that we didn't have any, you know, leadership on the republican side to step forward. we had to wait days or finally

michael bloomberg of all people, to step forward and say, you know, time out, you know. we don't give business licenses based on someone's political or religious views. and i just thought really, they had to wait three days? and i'm saying thank you michael bloomberg? i mean -- >> soda pop. >> exactly. it was just, i was just really wishing that somebody in the republican party was going to step forward. and there just seems to be this real lack of leadership. and i'm just hopeful and praying that governor romney does win the election, that you know, that we will be allowed to have civil debate and disagree with each other without feeling threatened or penalized. i just feel like it's gotten to the point. >> great, really profoundly, profound observation.

you probably all know what she's referring to, but, you know, as one example of this intimidation, you know, you're the person who is in full at chick-fil-a was a political view on traditional marriage, and then you have government officials around the country, including in chicago, i think in boston and some other places saying pretty explicitly we are going to deny you a land use permit based on your political view. so now you have the police power of government intimidating and threatening people, based on their free speech rights and their religious views. i mean, it's chilling. it's done. it is jaw-dropping. and so i think strong people who see this need to stand up and say, no, we don't do that in the united states. we can have civil disagreements about our views versus another view, but we don't use the power

of government to try to intimidate and she'll and retaliate against people for exercising their free speech right. that's outrageous. and thank you for bringing it up. good news is that the chick flick down the street in north carolina didn't look like business was being impacted by this. so it's really an important point, and i embrace it. thank you. >> i'm from clayton, north carolina, and for the past two years my family has been on a movement that the government really needs to be on come at us getting our household out of debt. we have thankfully embraced an incredible system and gotten to where the things, or the things that we need are what we pay for, the things we want to have to wait. i mean, is just ridiculous that the government is, what is a,

about $4 billion a day that we go in more debt? is just insane that the government has to spend so much money, and i'm thinking not about myself, about my children, my grandchildren and what this country is going to be like in 20, 30 years if we continue to stand at the rate that we're going now. and expect 10% of the people to pay for it. it's insane. there's really got to be something put in place, be it a balanced budget a minute or something has got to go into place to where we can at least get back to being financial and fiscally responsible. >> the good news is governor romney is a good track record on getting budgets and businesses and other things in order and in shape so the federal government needs it badly. the when he was governor of massachusetts he balance every budget when he was there. he inherited a budget and left

the state and a positive financial position. to give you some quick math in rough terms, for every dollar the federal government spends, they don't have approaching 40 cents a. so there's different numbers to throw round but when you think about that, what for every dollar you spend in your house you didn't have 40 cents of it? i mean, it is reckless, it's irresponsible, it's unsustainable. president obama has made it worse. and by the way, when he came into office he made a bunch of promises and he broke almost all of them. one of them is he said he was going to cut the deficit in half in his first term, the budget deficit in half in his first trip to he didn't cut it, he tripled at or near so. it's a great point. you can set aside the rhetoric of one side or the other and just look at it from the perspective of an eighth grade math. the math doesn't work anymore. this may be the last election we had a chance to get this thing turned around, short of an implosion, of a dramatic nature.

and so we've got to get governor romney ended because the current president can't, won't, doesn't understand. is incapable of getting this budget under control. do you want to grab that one? >> hi. my name is john. we've lived here for about seven years. >> where did you come from? >> jersey. just couldn't take the taxes. one of the concerns i'm pursuing right now is i'm going to go back to small business. i'm looking to open a small business. by vastly put it on hold because i'm so concerned about how obama's tax, his tax plan is going to enter with my business and health care plan is going to any fear with the business. he said he is open for small business and senate and is in that. i can tell you that isn't the absolute and after looking and trying to get things done, it's not what they tell you it is. it's very difficult to actually try to do this.

so i don't think he is pro-business, obviously. we need somebody who is going to be pro-business. >> are you waiting, are you still working on a? >> it's all kind of employees. it's just pulling the trigger. i'm so concerned -- [talking over each other] and then get all these regulatory issues are a major factor for me. and less those change, i'll be bogged down so much for that they won't be able to grow. >> excellent. nancy? >> no, just the other thing. we have two kids, twins, 14 year-old boys, and they are going to go to high school next you. you worry about what's going to happen to them, you know, they go to college. are they going to be jobs? how much taxes they have to pay. all this trillions of dollars we're in debt, what's going to be put on them? that they have to handle. when they get jobs and things like that. so it worries me, things like

that. >> i have two children, one in college and one high school. and as all parents, you tell them certain things that we all learned and believe in like if you work hard, study hard, try to do your best in school, play by the rules, you, there's going to be some opportunities for you if you do all that. sometimes i worry about whether its president obama gets reelected whether that will ring true. we have almost half of the high school and college graduates now can't find work or are dramatically underemployed. and so we make these promises to our children about the american dream. we want to protect it and make sure it remains open, but when you have half of high school college graduates who can't find work, or are underemployed out as a parent, i don't know but you but sometimes make you feel like we've got to find a way to keep that promise to our kids. and right now it's not true for a lot of them. >> when i worked for 30 years,

it's like you make money, you want to move forward and get promoted. but he makes you feel like you were evil for making money. does that make sense? i'm proud of what i've accomplished, but now according to obama, we are evil. because we give our kids a good life. >> you explained it well. there's a limit how much people can be kicked in the shins before they say, i'm discouraged and maybe it's not worth it. >> maybe just retire. >> we don't want that. we want people to enjoy their retirement but we don't want entrepreneurs to say, through their hands up in the air and say it's too hard, i'm not going to do it, it's not worth the risk. >> my name is rob. we've been here for about 15 years. we came down from northern virginia for lower cost of living. i'm a software engineer, have been so for 25 years. i have two daughters.

so i'm concerned about jobs. i'm concerned about debt. but there's something more fundamental that has concerned the last month or two and that is the expansive powers of the executive branch that seems to be growing and growing and growing. i was always learn to teach my daughters about checks and balances, and they are in place so that one person or one branch of government does have too much power. but when i see an executive branch that is picking and choosing which laws to enforce, beat any of the things, can't get into details, but any of the areas, how does that sustained over time? i can imagine a system where the next president can commit and and decide they want to enforce a different set of laws. that's chaos to me. what is the sustainability powers that are going to the executive branch? and even look at budget.

we've had this huge thing this budget given to the executive branch and say dole and as you seem to. the executive branch is not representative. so how do we get back into the powers of executive branch? >> something in it heard recently, repealing or changing some welfare reform. so we did welfare reform in the 1990s by most accounts, some really good success, really good progress on emphasizing work on getting people to look for, train for work and the like. and he's dramatically relaxed the standards not going back by the constant passing appropriate checks and balances but by issuing a directive. i think the answer to question is a couple of things. when congress passes laws when he got members of of congress who don't just outsource the details to the bureaucracy, tell your members of congress that you expect them to pass laws that say what they mean and mean what they say and don't leave that much latitude for the bureaucracy to philly. we should have a president who respects checks and balances and tries to exercise their

executive authority within the law and within reason. and then three, it doesn't overstepping in that regard and there's always the court system which is the third check and balance. but i share your concern. if you have too much done in a single branch of government, it starts to erode and checks and causes of the three parties, or the three institutional -- good point. it would help if they wrote them in more detail. i mean, what happens is the members of congress to want to get into details of all this stuff so they say department of xyz go to abc generally, and we will check back later. well, they've got a lot of time on their hands in washington, d.c. they can do a little more detailed work than that. yes. >> my name is debbie. i've been a homeschool mom for the last 10 years and i work for a start up right now is bring a free market solution to health care and portability. so i'm excited to be part of

the. my concern is somewhat and not the economy and jobs are being run on top of the more fundamental limited government and ic argument reaching into his instead and as it does have the constitutional authority to do so and to get involved and. and the name of solving problems or in the name of making things better, the mortgage industry or the college education, the cost of college education or health care. and so i guess as i look down the road again looking at this from the future, looking at my kids and their kids, what does that overreach mean fo for the freedoms and opportunities? and what cost is that thing at the feet because of that overreach? >> history is often a very good guide to how things might work out, and when you see countries that have taken their government either on spending are overreaching in other ways, history shows what happens. and to europe right now, parts of europe, you see governments that overspent, spent in matters

that were sustainable, have government intervention and involvement in the market to such a degree that it becomes stifling and discouraging for private enterprise and industrial test and all the things you need to have an entrepreneurial economy to grow. where we're headed if we don't get this thing back on track, and the good news is the american people are pretty wise but if you ask them right now is the country on the right track, it had in the right direction the majority say no. and so the wisdom of the american people shines through it for can now make sure that we do our work and help governor ronnie get his message out and presented to the people. it's there, i think your conclusion that governor romney will have a better vision, and that the president doesn't have the country on the right church and all we have to close the sale. >> how are we doing on time? where's our timekeepers? anybody? >> they are out skating. >> i'm going to go skating in a few minutes but did anybody bring your skates?

you did? all right. i checked my luggage the sole purpose of bring a pair of skates with me. how did the canes do this year? not so good? well, it's up and down. >> although the wild -- >> they had a tough year, too. panthers looking all right? who's going to stand out as the up-and-comer? >> cam newton. again. spent we are worried about. we had adrian peterson of minnesota p. kind of lou out his knee so we're kind of keeping an eye out on how he is doing. jumping back to the economy, you've got an abnormally high unemployment rate, over 9%. that's hard. i'm sure you've seen or heard or felt the effects of that, but

got to get the country moving, that will help north carolina as well. spent one of the things that was really encouraging was when romney just a couple of months when he came out and said on day one i am going to do this, i'm going to do this. i think people want to hear more of that. i mean, it's enough for me -- [inaudible] for some people who are afraid of any change want to know specifically, you know, what is, what his plan is. is he going to repeal some of these executive orders that obama just sits down and, i mean, obama has all but admitted he can't work with anybody from a different party which would be great if you were 18. but -- if he were a king. in our country where we have a two-part system for them to build to just sit down and write a few executive orders and not

be challenged, you know, would a president romney, what would he do on day one? >> that's a great question and that the risk of having anybody's eyes glaze over the details i'll give you some details. i know it's not just about words it's all about specific action item. so here are some of them. number one on the tax reform tax side, scott is giving me the wrapup signed. >> i'm sorry. >> scott, i was just teasing. i'm teasing. on the issue of what we're going to attacks from, cut the corporate rate from 35% down to 25%, give the business tax rate consistent with the tax rates for businesses and the rest of the developed world and not have to be one of the top to which it is now. cut income tax rates for small businesses and individuals 20% across the border as you know most small businesses pay their taxes on the proceeds from the small business on the individual returns because they are

pass-through entities. they are partnerships or limited liability corporations or the like, subchapter s. corporations. three, let's make sure that we have an american energy policy that's aggressive and goes after this huge mess an opportune web in america and energy including shell oil, shell gas and that means we've got a ton, north dakota, ohio, pennsylvania, lots of other places. after it aggressively and have a regulatory framework that protects consumer safety, but picks up the tempo and the ability to go get that reserve. and it would transform to your point i think the economy. three, repeal obamnicare but replace along the lines that we talked about earlier, and also repeal and replace those executive orders on other topics, or as many of them as appropriate. and we also need to do a number of other things. we've got a situation involving the current president that is pretty unfair with respect to the relationship between unions and business.

he stack -- we did when people are political operatives were politically biased, and so you saw for example, when bowling wanted to build a new facility, a private company in south carolina, he had the, tried to interfere and tell a private business that they couldn't expand their business within the united states at a different location. another example of government, government overreach. then we have a whole series of regulatory things we need to do that regulations are thick, slow, expensive, heavy, confusing, contradictory. the whole system needs to be, the tempo news to be picked up and modernize. it needs to be web-enabled. and needs to be something that favors and encourages investment and job growth and business startups, not discourage that makes it more difficult. i know that's a quick spin through but doubters -- those are some of the items we need to get done. we are getting the hook here, so if you want to go skating i would love to see you out there, but thank you so much for taking

time out of your weekend. really appreciate it, and thank you for your hospitality of your lovely state. thank you. appreciate it. [applause] >> [inaudible conversations] >> c-span to continues bringing speeches from potential running mates for republican president and mitt romney. wisconsin congressman paul ryan spoke at the romney campaign rally in waukesha, wisconsin, this past sunday. >> i want to read a quote to you. i would like to read a quote if i could. tell me if you know who this saying is from. you've got a business, didn't

build it, somebody else made it happen. do you know where that came from? that's july 13. remember spread the wealth around, people like to claim the guns and religion, every now and then president drops his bail. is not supported by this ideology and he really us know what he thinks. it is that kind of thinking that leads to the kind of government we are getting. it is that kind of thinking that is behind the idea of a government driven economy, striving for a government centered society. it's no wonder we have the worst economic recovery since world war ii. i mean, it's no wonder we have the biggest deficit and the bigots government since world war ii. it's no wonder where the worst jobs in two years.

highest rate in a generation. do you know what? it doesn't have to be this way because help is on its way. [applause] we have in the man that we've nominated to be our standard bearer in mitt romney is a man who understands the idea of america. our rights, they don't come from government. they come from nature and god. just look at the declaration of independence. we are build on rich savings, investment and working hard, take a risk, taking care of your family, caring for each other and our community, the american idea of an opportunity. that's the made the american system, limited government, risk making, communities often, free

enterprise, greatest system ever designed in the world. [applause] our country is so special, it has done so many things for so many people pick is under duress. we see it was on the path we are on a nation in debt, despair and in decline. we see a few to our children have a lower living standard than the ones we got seven that great legacy of leaving the next generation better off but it doesn't have to be that way. all we have to do is take those great principles that built this country and made it so great, apply to the problems today and save america. that's what mitt romney is about. he understands what it takes to create jobs, to grow businesses to get the economy growing. the man in the white house. i rest my case. here's the deal.

we've had a lot in wisconsin to we've had a lot thrown at us. we've had lots of elections here in wisconsin, don't we? but do you know what? d. know what? we are winning these elections in wisconsin, aren't we? come on. we are winning these. last summer they try to take back our state legislature. they fail. then they try to take our supreme court. they fail. and they try to recall our courageous governor and a failed. [applause] on june 5 we saved wisconsin. on november the sixth, wisconsin save america. [applause] they've already conceded this state is up for grabs. we know what to do. we know how to do it. we just done a. we've got to do it again, and the reason we're doing this in wisconsin is because we have men and women of -- going to office

democracy. [inaudible] go and fix these problems once and for all. there is no person who better and bodies that idea than a man from oshkosh, the guy standing behind me. [applause] the three of us are just three guys from kenosha, jane and oshkosh. we have seen what our state is capable of and we know we can turn it around. and if we turn it around, then we can get this meant a majority. with heavy president of the united states so if you work together on getting it back on track and then we can have more people of courage and conviction like the man behind the ear ladies and gentlemen, i am so proud to be working with this man, i am so proud of the man we have in the united states senate. [applause] we have one more ahead of us.

so don't forget that. please join me in welcoming this man, our man from oshkosh, our senator, senator rod johnson of. [inaudible] >> thank you. thank you. what paul said is important. [inaudible] i'm just a guy from oshkosh. that's what we need in this country. we need individuals who love america, who understand it. its future hangs in the balance. [inaudible] you are the future. your kids are the future. the fact that we are -- this burden of debt our children and grandchildren has got to stop.

you are the people are going to stop it. i love seeing the old faces, people we see time and time again. [inaudible] do you know what i love more? i'm seeing a lot more new faces and that is what is crucial. [applause] [inaudible] belief that. florida, a couple thousand votes, think what you need to do. dvd talk to your friends, your family, your neighbors, every vote counts. you have more power than you can possibly imagine. now is the time to put that power into place. now is the time to exercise that power. because we do have a phenomenal candidate, somebody like paul

said, who understands what made america great, unlike the current occupants in the white house. paul had a couple of quotes. i've got a couple more. remember, the private sector is doing fine. his policies are working. i don't think -- and here's the most telling quote. five days before his election, he said in five days will fundamentally change the united states of america. now, we don't need to fundamentally change this nation. we have a phenomenal nation. the greatest nation in history of mankind. what we need to do is fix the. the way we fix it is we need to make sure president obama is a one-term president. [applause] and i know you're going to go out and work in make sure that

mitt romney is the next president of the united states. [applause] dead out there. god bless america. [applause] >> south dakota senator john thune spoke of volunteers at the mitt romney campaign office in springfield, virginia, last friday. he has been mentioned as potential vice presidential running mate for mr. romney. >> thank you very much. thank you. thank you, thanks for running, and you're going to win. you will win because of the work of a lot of these folks here. so thanks for the chance to be with you. it's been pointed out already, but the reason that i am here today is because virginia is ground zero in this presidential campaign, and all these other

campaigns up and down the ballot this year. it's going to be critical that we get the photos. everything that you do here, every phone call that you can which i know is tedious hard work, monotonous work sometimes, we'll get us one step closer to making sure that mitt romney is the next president of the united states. [applause] and it can't, it can't happen soon enough. you've all heard it discussed, but pete was talking about this. you know, when you got 1.5 is an economic growth, which is what they just told us this point was the last quarter growth, very, very sluggish economic growth, over 40 months now of unemployment above 8%, 23 million americans either unemployed or underemployed, you've got since this president took office, fuel prices have nearly doubled, health insurance costs have gone up by 23%, college tuition costs have gone up by 25%, the number of people and food stamps has gone up by 44%, and the federal debt has gone up by 49% in the three and

half years this president has been in office. we cannot change the direction of this country soon enough. and, unfortunately, what this president is doing, as was mentioned by pete, you know, he hasn't met with his jobs council in 191 days. you would think with the state of the economy and the state of unemployment in this country that the president would be focused like a laser on getting the economy growing and putting people in this country back to work. but he is now doing a 191 days that he hasn't met with his jobs council about the economy has held 119 fundraisers and found time to play 10 rounds of golf. so he definitely has his priorities straight, but his priorities are a lot more about the election this fall than they are about the economy and the jobs of hard-working americans. so we need to change direction for this country, and the only way we're going to do that is to elect somebody at the

residential level who knows how to lead this country, knows how to fix the economy, knows how to put americans back to work. i endorsed mitt romney very early back last fall before the iowa caucuses and campaigned with him across i want because i believe profoundly that he has the skill set, the experience and the know-how to turn this country around, get back on the right track, get the economy going and expanding, putting americans back to work. the reason i know that is because he is a record doing it. he took distressed companies when it was a private businessman, turned them around, create jobs. in doing that he took a state in massachusetts when he was covered up swimming in red ink and turned it around and left it with a surplus and reduce taxes, and to think and got the unemployment rate down, more people back to work to get to the olympics and turned that around. he has a record of taking tough, tough situations and turning them around. we are in a tough situation and it's going to take presidential leadership. you can't do big things in washington, d.c. and less you've got presidential leadership.

and i'm one of 535 members of congress, and even though there's some people in congress who have some good ideas about how to fix things, you have to have a leader in the white house was willing to roll up his sleeves and go to work and leave the american people and united states congress on a pathway to get this country back on the right track. i am very excited about this election. it is a critical election. the consequences could not be greater. the stakes could not be higher and that's why we need every single person doing everything they possibly can between now and november to make sure we turn out all of our votes on election day. and as pete mentioned, as pat mentioned, i guess it was, i've had a couple of close elections. i lost the first 1524 votes. that's kind of burned into my memory. iran a very hard-hitting close senate race and i lost by a narrow margin. i can tell you how make it look them to me after the election loss and said if i don't is going to be close i would have gotten such and such to go. i had people coming tell me i

should've voted. the point is every single vote counts, and the ground game fair, there is no substitute for getting people out on election day, getting our voters out. that's what you are about, is identifying those voters out there, figuring out who they are, making sure the vote on election day. hopefully persuade the undecided voters. people who haven't made up their mind yet and get them to vote the right way in november, but these types of activities, blocking and tackling and executing the small things that campaigns that really make a difference. and so everybody can do their part. not everybody's names going to be on the ballot that everybody can do their part to set a different course and a different direction for the future of this country. one that is built around the fundamental concepts of principle of freedom as opposed to a fundamental principle and concept that this administration is built on, and that's government. this is a choice, a choice in this election between whether we believe in the power of freedom or whether we believe in the power of government.

this president and his ministry and its allies in congress have doubled down on expanding and growing government at the expense of the private economy and every single day that the government gets bigger and we have more pure craft a more regulations, more taxes in washington, d.c., the american people that fewer and fewer freedoms. it's about freedom. that's what this election, that's what's at stake. it hangs in the balance, and we can do our part to tip the balance in favor of freedom. so whether it's pounding in yard signs are making phone calls or walking neighborhoods were contributing to the campaign, whatever you can do, i just want to ask you to work as hard as you can between now and november because this is about the future of this country. there's never been time in our nation's history. pete is exactly what every politician gets up every election you insist this is the most important election ever, and it's all because we think it is because we might be running for something. but if you look out across this country, this is the most important election in a very,

very long time. and i honestly believe that if we don't get it right this time we are on a slippery slope and are heading in a direction that will make us more like a western european social democracy and less like the exceptional distinctive nation that our founders and those people in virginia had in mind when they created this great republic so many years ago. so i'm thankful to be the can't think of what you, you are doing. karen, thank you very service to our great country and all the veterans who are here today. we are very blessed, we are very blessed because of the service and sacrifice of so many americans who every single day put on the uniform and defend our interests here at home and around the world. and that's also at stake, because we have a president i'd think who doesn't understand really how to lead this country, not only what comes to fixing the economy but to maintaining america's place in the world. but we will change that in november when we elect mitt romney as the next president of

the united states, and when we elect george allen to the united states senate, and patrick murphy to the house of representatives. because if we're going to give mitt romney an opportunity to be present me to make sure he is a teeny can work with in congress and that's why getting georgia out getting george allen to deny state senate and give us in a cemetery in the united states senate in electing a fine quality candidate who shares your values and principles like patrick murray to the house of representatives will give us a team that can turn this country around, fix the economy, get people back to work and make america great again. thank you very much. god bless you and may he bless our great country. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> folks come here, when it comes to mitt romney's choice for number two, we have a favorite son in virginia who is really a solid conservative, proven track record, great head of hair. now, if for some reason that romney doesn't select our

favorite son, i don't know, there might be some else that fits that bill as well. thanks for all your work. let's get back at it. thank you. [applause] >> [inaudible conversations] >> tonight at 8 p.m. issued on c-span, five republican governors also mentioned as potential running mates for mitt romney. he spoke about issues facing the states at a forum in aspen, colorado. will hear from chris christie of new jersey, bobby jindal of louisiana, bob mcdonnell of virginia, scott walker of wisconsin, and nikki haley in south carolina. some of the governors join mitt romney for a campaign rally in colorado. that's tonight at 8 p.m. eastern. >> in the weeks ahead the political parties are holding their platform hearings in advance of the summer conventions with democrats voting next week and on their

final platform recommendations in detroit. republican start their platform process at the camp the convention site. c-span's coverage of the party conventions begin august 10 with a reform party in philadelphia followed by live gavel to gavel coverage of the republican national convention beginning monday august 27 from tampa, at the democratic national convention live from charlotte, north carolina, starting monday september 3. >> we did not begin as a city in kentucky. there was only a vague native american region, and later a county in another state called kentucky. but we began in 1778 as virginians. >> join booktv, american history tv and c-span's local content vehicles from louisville, kentucky, saturday at noon eastern literary life with booktv on c-span2.

and sunday at 5 p.m. eastern on american history tv, three weeks at farmington plantation in 1841 would be key in shaping abraham lincoln's views on slavery. to her that plantation today. also, the heyday of the steamboat on the ohio river. the look back on the belle of louisville. once a month see spence local content vehicle explores the history and literary life of cities across america. this weekend from louisville on c-span2 and three. >> at the foot of the bridge i was beaten. i thought i was going to die. i thought i saw death. spent in 1965 a 25 year-old john lewis took part in a voting rights march from selma to montgomery, alabama, on a route that would take them across the bridge. >> we came within huge distance

of state troopers. and a man identified himself as said i am major john clouse of the alabama state troopers. this is an unlawful march and it will not be allowed to continue. and one of the young people walking beside me said, major, give us a moment to kneel and pray. and the major said, troopers advanced. >> a cross that bridge, author and congressman john lewis sunday at eight on c-span's q&a. >> earlier this week across -- a subcommittee held a hearing on the 2009 shooting at the fort hood army base in texas. an official with the fbi said there was poor information sharing with the military and within the fbi. virginia congressman frank wolf chaired this hearing. it's about two hours and 10 minutes.

>> i want is a appreciate the work of judge webster and those that work with judge webster on the commissioner i also want to thank the men and women of the fbi who, over the years can have really done an outstanding job in so many areas, and also the purpose of the hearing is to do what we can to make sure that we prevent this from ever, ever happening again. i'm also disappointed director more cannot be. i think this would've been an appropriate hearing for him to be here. but today's hearing on the final report of the william h. which commission on the fbi, counterterrorism intelligence, and the events at fort hood, texas. i want to welcome to windows, mark giuliana come to his executive assistant for national security. thank you for your appearance today. thank you for service to the country. on november 5, 2009, united states army major nidal hasan entered the fort hood deployment center carrying two pistols. he shouted god is great in

arabic, and opened fire, killing 13 people, and i think as we go the whole hearing, we should remember 13 people were killed, and injuring 42 others. hasan is awaiting military trial for thirteen counts of premeditated murder and thirty-two counts of attempted murder. the webster commission report was issued publicly on july 19. the report includes extensive factual findings on the fbi's counterterrorism authorities, programs and systems, as well as specifics on the fbi investigation of anwar al-awlaki, and the assessment of nidal hasan. the report analyzes the bureau's actions, and includes 18 recommendations for policy, procedural and other actions. after reading the report, i am concerned that there were warning signs, and that with more aggressive investigation, there is a chance that this incident could have been prevented. i am further concerned that the reason for less aggressive investigation may have been political sensitivities in the

washington field office, and maybe even the fbi's own investigating guidelines. an active duty member of the military communicating with a known radicalizer and recruiter should have been taken more seriously than it was. the report shows that the san diego field office believed that at the time, as is shown by their unusual reaction to how the lead was handled by the washington field office. so they believe that at that time. while the commission found that the decision not to interview hasan was flawed, i am concerned that the current fbi guidelines and culture made this the path of least resistance. the webster commission makes no recommendations on changing the fbi's domestic investigations and operations guide, diog, but if these guidelines were indeed followed in this case, and that failed to prevent all these deaths and injuries, it may be worthwhile to question whether the guidelines themselves are a problem. we want to understand what took place and ensure that agents are

empowered to prevent similar attacks in the future. i will also have questions based on the report's findings and recommendations, and what steps have been taken and will be taken to improve counterterrorism assessments and investigations. several of these recommendations have resource implications, which we will want to consider in terms of fy13 appropriations. so i would urge that after this hearing, in the interim, during the month of august the fbi, and the staff of both sides to see as we're putting together the so-called c.r., on what the ramifications are of what they can and cannot come but i think you should have the staff meet with staff on both sides as we work on the. finally, i am concerned that the fbi may not have provided the commission with a full accounting of its prior interactions with awlaki,

including the notable omission of awlaki's return to the u.s. in october 2002 when the fbi dropped an outstanding warrant for his arrest. imagine if that ward had not been dropped. it would not be good if the fbi had not communicated to judge webster the full accounting of awlaki's prior interactions. before i recognize you to present her to dr. mcnutt my colleague, ranking minority member mr. fattah for any comments he would like to make. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for today's hearing the obvious we had an opportunity in a classified session to take in this information, and a chance to process it. but i think for transparency purposes this hearing is very useful. i want to say that none of, i thank the gym for doing this but i think they're important that the congress do appropriate oversight these issues.

however, given, given the issues related to fast and furious and this, i want to make it clear, at least in my view, that none of us, our work should be, in terms of criticizing law enforcement. fellow law enforcement officials are doing an extraordinary job on the very difficult circumstances, and is very easy for us to go back and look at these things, and we should come to see how we can create better policies going forward. but to take people who are risking their lives on behalf of the country and raking them over the coals, i don't think is the right way to go. and end of the chairman, whose father was himself a policeman, has a great appreciation for law enforcement. so i think that the issues here, in terms of what we talked to do

forward are well representative, i believe in the 18 recommendations that the commission has laid out. but as we did looking at the make the case -- the mcveigh case with the oklahoma city bond or with a situation inventor, whether or these horrific incidences, we have to take a look and we have to make a should sure that we're doing everything we can do, but there's very little ability to figure out exactly what an individual is at actually up to come in all circumstances. so, you know, i thank the commission under the webster commission for doing the work that it's done. i think the chairman is correct to say that, you know, obviously we do need to look at how we prioritize leads, and this question between discretionary leads, i know that you have some