this was hosted by the consumer or protection working group created to investigate financial crimes and consumer-related fraud. from georgetown university, this is about 35 minutes. >> good morning. my name is reilly dolan, i'm an assistant director for financial practices in the federal trade commission, and the next panel is going to discuss several schemes that target consumers in financial distress including debt relief schemes, phantom debt schemes and some online payday lending schemes. in many ways, there is no real common thread between all of these schemes other than they do target consumers who are under financial distress, for a small subset of consumers they could run across all three of these issues. very briefly, my background and then i'm going to introduce each of the panelists, discuss what they are going to be discussing and give their bios, and then we

will jump right into the panel discussion. i've been with the federal trade commission for over 20 years. i have done telemarketing fraud litigation, i have in the last 12 years before supervising federal court litigation dealing with all sorts of different types of scams including mortgage relief scams, debt relief scams, payday lending issues as well as many other issues that deal with consumers who are in financial distress. first, we're going to have jeff ehrlich discuss debt relief scams. any consumer who is facing mounting, unsecured debt is looking for ways to lower that debt or try and settle that debt, there are a number of schemes out there that try to take advantage of these financially-distressed consumers, and jeff is going to talk about at least some of those types of schemes, and then i will, after that, ask a couple qs and as to pull out some of the other variations of that

scheme. jeff currently is at the cfpb, the consumer financial protection bureau. he joined in july 2011. he is the assistant litigation deputy for failed litigation in the cfpb's enforcement shop. before joining the cfpb, jeff was a trial attorney at the u.s. department of justice i where he defended the u.s. in tort litigation with including suits seeking to hold the government liable for losses resulting from hurricane katrina as well as bernie madoff's ponzi scheme. before that he was an assistant county attorney for miami-dade county, an associate here in washington, d.c., and he clerked for the honorable james lawrence king in the southern district of florida. after jeff lashawn johnson, an attorney at the federal trade commission, is going to discuss consumer protection issues surrounding online payday lenders. i'd like to point out that there is no national usury cap for

payday loans, so what lashawn is going to be focusing on not ab issue that a lot of states are concerned about regarding usury caps, but instead some of the consumer protection issues focusing on how the loans are marketed, whether the terms and conditions of the loans or whether the loans will automatically roll over are being clearly and prominently disclosed to consumers who are interested in taking out a payday loan. lashawn johnson is an attorney with the federal trade commission's division of financial practices. she works on a broad range of consumer credit and financial service issues including challenging unfair, deceptive acts or practices by online payday lenders, and most recently she has focused on issues related to the lending and collection processes affiliated with native american tribes. prior to joining the ftc in 2003, lashawn was a litigation associate with the washington,

d.c. law firm of hogue and lavell. she reached her ba from harvard and graduated from the university of berkeley school of law. finally, we will turn to katie worthman, another attorney at the federal trade commission, who will discuss what we have coined phantom debt collectors. these scams in some cases seem based overseas. for instance, in india. consumers aggressively assert they owe them for a payday loan. in fact, in most cases there is no real debt or, certainly, these collectors have no ability to collect on whatever payday loan a consumer may have taken out. and so, in fact, these are really no more than shakedowns. katie also is an attorney with the ftc's division of financial practices. she has worked on cases involving debt collection, unfair and deceptive conduct under the ftc act and fair lending laws. she came to the ftc first in 2006 after working at the law

firm of wilmer heal and clerking in the eastern district of pennsylvania. jeff, i would like to first turn it over to you to talk about debt relief scams, and i think specifically you wanted to talk about the case of the cfpb that was recently brought. >> yeah, thank you, reilly. the case that i want to talk about is one of the first that the bureau brought in federal court late last year. it was against a company called payday loan debt solution, and the name somewhat implies. this was a company that purported to help consumers settle their payday loan debts that they could no longer afford to make payments on. and i'll talk about this case because some of the characteristics that were present many this case -- in this case are common and are present in many debt relief schemes. and although there are different varieties and there are different levels of wrongdoing

involved, you know, some are outright scams where these companies prey on people, they take money never with an intent to provide any debt relief services, and then there are others where companies do things that harm and injure consumers although they may not rise to the level of fraud or scam. but they cause potential harm to consumers, and so we identified this company as one that was injuring consumers primarily through an advance fee arrangement that it had. and, again, this is a common practice even after the pcs amendments to the telemarketing sales rule in 2010 that banned advance fees in debt relief. even that we still see instances where companies are charging these advance fees.

and often consumers are unaware that they're being charged advance fees. and part of that is a result of the way these companies do business. the model is frequently like this: there's an internet presence, some sort of advertisement, so someone might go to the internet and having problems making payments on their payday loans, they might just type in payday loan debt, and a company like this pops up. the consumer would call the company, and that begins the relationship. and i want to say a word about these victims, pause it's something that we've heard earlier today. these are people who are conscientious and who are bothered by the fact that they can't make payments on their debts. you know, there are people who have debts who don't care, and, you know, probably don't try to take any action themselves to solve the problem. but the people who are most, i

guess, vulnerable are people who actually care about this. and then you also see a lot of the same things we heard earlier about victims of these types of arrangements are ashamed. their ashamed that they racked up a debt they can't afford to pay, and they're ashamed again if they've fallen victim to an unlawful act or practice. but, so these people who really take to heart the fact that they can't make these payments are looking for solutions and, unfortunately, sometimes they find debt relief service providers who to not comply with the law. so the first thing that these debt relief service providers often do is they tell the consumers to stop paying their creditors. often they'll tell consumers that they want the debt to ripen so that the creditor is more amenable to settling the debt or reducing the debt.

so, of course, when consumers stop making payments on their debts whether it's payday loan debt or unsecured credit card debt, there are consequences to that, and often these consumers find themselves hounded by their creditors. sometimes their debts are turned over to collectors, and they are subjected to harassment in the context of collecting that debt. and often consumers can't stand that anymore. so they try to drop out of a program that they have entered into. which would be fine if the companies they were dealing with were complying with the ftc's rule, because the rule bans advance fees, was meant to alter the relationship between the companies and these consumers so that the risk of not completing a program would fall on the company, not the consumer. of -- a consumer should be able

to enter into these arrangements and drop out at any time and receive a refund of all the money that they've contributed to their debt relief program and walk away unharmed. when a company charges an advance fee, it alters that risk, so now the risk is on the consumer to complete the program. and when the consumer cannot complete the program, they lose money that they paid in the form of fees to the debt service provider. and, of course, that upsets the whole incentive. the, if companies are abiding by the advance fee ban, they have incentives only to enroll consumers who will complete the program. because they only be paid when the consumer's debts are resolved. if they are committed to take advance fees or they do take advance fees, their incentive is to enroll consumers who will not complete the program.

because once they collect the fees that they're due under the arrangement, they would rather not perform any work. and so once they've collected their fee and there's nothing more to get from the consumer, the incentive is for them to have a consumer drop out of the program. and so you find that where these advance fees are present, you have often situations where consumers are enrolled in programs that they have no hope of completing. that's particularly true with respect to credit card debt. often the debt relief programs that consumer ors enroll in take three years or four years to complete, and consumers may or may not be told that when they enroll in these programs, but if they enroll in a program that takes four years to complete and every month they're sending money to a debt relief company or to a payment processer that is acting as an intermediary

between the consumer and the debt relief company, if they can't complete the program and they're being charged advance fee, they're going to be harmed. and that was the case that we found with payday loan debt solution. it was a company that had been charging advance fees. hundreds of the consumers that it was dealing with had had no debt relief services provided whatsoever, and yet they had paid thousands of dollars in fees and in some cases. so we were able to obtain restitution for those consumers. so as i said, advance fees are not the only unlawful act, and the ftc has done a very good job with this in brunging enforcement -- in bringing enforcement actions against debt relief providers that are flat out fraud, i think, where they're not spending to do any work for consumers -- intending to do any work for consumers.

they're taking very large sums of money especially from consumers who have very high credit card debts, and that's a very common scheme or unlawful that you see in this area. but this model of signing up consumers for programs that they largely often can't afford and that sometimes provide no benefit to them is also still a very big problem even after the amendments to the rule. >> jeff, one of the things that i've learned while working at the ftc is that often times a successful scam will take a kernel of truth and expand on it. and the kernel of truth here is there are credit card companies that will negotiate down a debt, correct? >> there are some, yes. >> so how can consumer when they're hearing this and they've heard, you know, on the radio or seen on internet, they've heard

this does happen, how are they going to be able to recognize a company that is legitimately offering what they really can do versus somebody who may be further along the fraud spectrum as you were discussing? >> well, the first thing that a consumer can do is contact his or her own creditor, right? i mean, you can call your own credit card company and explain that you're having problems making payments, and you can attempt yourself to obtain a payment plan or some arrangement that will allow you to resolve your debt or at least make progress towards resolving your debt without retaining the services of a debt relief service provider. but beyond that there are obvious, you know, there are red flags that i think if consumers were aware of, they might be able to avoid these unscrupulous debt relief service providers. namely, the advance fee. anytime a debt relief service provider tells a consumer that

you have to pay a fee up front, that should be a red flag because that's unlawful under the tsr and ought to be a clue to consumers to stay away from that company. .. to learn whether there are complaints about particular companies. the payday do let solutions we talked about we partnered with

states. we've brought their low claims, asserting violation of state laws. often they were state licensing laws. these were countries that were doing business with consumers interest states but had no license to do business in those states. and with respect to a couple of states, they were filing state substantive laws. so consumers can also check with their states. if a debt relief service provider makes a guarantee, a type of relief they can get or someone says i will be able to reduce your debt by 30%, 40% or 60%, they can't make guarantees like that. because as pointed out some creditors will deal with debt relief service providers, others will not. some will not compromise the amount. so, anytime someone who is

guaranteeing a specific result, that should be a red flag. >> thanks. we could spend another hour on debt relief scams, but we have a lot to cover so i want to move on to lashawn johnson who is going to talk about online payday lending and some of the consumer protection issues with regard to how these are being marketed and kind of what happens after a consumer has taken out an online payday loan. >> what happens when consumers can't repay their debt, i'm going to go back to talk about the process, what happens when consumers take out of payday loan online. typically it seems as if it's great, we all shop online. these particular individuals will go online and search for payday loans. they will get all list of different entities. and so sitting of the house or wherever they are with a laptop, they can just put in their information and tell them how much money they want to loan,

have loaned to them, and it can be like a day or two you will have that money automatically deposited to your account. so from that point of view, life is great. however, the nightmare begins to the point when they actually accept that loan. the ftc has brought a number of cases that target the practices of lending practice and the debt collection. typically what happens once the consumer gets the loan, they learn the terms they weren't aware of or they get to the point where they can pay the loan, they will use data collection processes that totally violate the law. so in 2010, the ftc brought a case for deceptive practices and also for the direct collection n activities. and basically what loin -- low point was doing was moving federal government forms that actually the federal agencies

produce to guard consumers without a court order. so they would use these forms and send it out to consumers employers and tell them that the consumer code that and based on the debt collection act, they could garnish the wages. unfortunately, smaller companies were not necessarily a where. they were official looking documents. they may have on you their debt, they may have garnished the wages. there were, in fact, larger companies who should know and did not. the harm had been done. he had the consumer here, the reason this took out the payday loan was they couldn't make, in teams of their own incom into to now they're further in the hole because this particular entity has now decided to garnish their wages. low point was the first case we brought. the wage garnishment was not actually valid. they basically used wage assignment cost to comply with federal law. so we went after them for

federal violations. and so after that case of one point, we brought another case in 2011 against city financial for similar practice. however, the caveat with a definition was this particular payday lender decided to associate itself with someone who was a tribal member. the owner, the defendant, belong to a national tribe, but the corporate entities that he actually used to offer payday loans were incorporated by the state. so new york state entities. although he hadn't raised this on the federal government, the state action argued that the state can go after him because he's entitled to tribal sovereign immunity. if you can figure that one out, let me know. so what happened here is, unlike relying on the debt collection improvement act, lowest point, this particular and he said that tribal law authorizes us to garnish consumer wages who, of course, don't live on the reservation, don't even live in

the state where the company is operating, lives in another state based upon tribal law. of course, that wasn't necessary to swear brought an action against him. they were also requiring consumers for an electronic signature when they signed up for the loan to sign-up for preauthorized payment. so in order to get a loan you have to psyche you permission to go do my banking account and take these charges account. that violates credit on some of the green to take the automatic withdrawal. the other thing that they were doing, long point, is the decided that there were some particular employers that were in these garnishing cases were suing the defendant -- the consumers in tribal court. so the ftc amended our complaint, bringing a complaint to stop the. significantly the tribal court, they don't have jurisdiction over these particular consumers because they had never been to the reservation. they basically transacted at the

business over the phone. that particular case is still pending. it's at the summary judgment stage. i would like to say that long point actually got summary judgment on that. so the last case we brought was in 2012, and that is against a indie service. as i said, these cases start to evolve, they are actually allegedly owned by indices unfair -- based on american tribes. what they were doing is they're never disclosing to the consumer how much they were going to have to pay back, payment terms. so basically what happens is the consumer takes out a loan, and tell them that's going to be the amount of the loan plus some unspecified fee. they're going to take that amount on a certain day, say whenever the consumers gets the next paycheck. so what happens when a time

passes, instead of taking the full amount, the consumer thinks they will pay back, they are extending the credit with the consumer is never paying off the principal. they're basically just paying the interest. so the load become substantially more expensive for the consumer than it initially was when they thought they signed up. another thing that they're doing in terms of their debt collection is that they have been threatening consumers to sue them for the go after them criminally if they didn't pay their debt. and interestingly, after we brought that account they said oh, it's not as. that's something the debt collector which my colleague, katie, will talk about. so the things we want consumers to be aware of is, the wage garnishment is an issue. the consumer wages should not be garnish unless there is a court order. if you're looking to take out a loan, you should be able, the particular entity should tell you sort of clearly what those terms will be so you have a full

expectation of what's going on. and they shouldn't be able to disclose your debt to a third party, to an employee or someone else to make you collect that data. even though you taken out a loan, you got into a tight spot, consumers still have rights. we want to be able to protect these rights as they relate to federal law. >> so, two questions. one, what happens if the consumer receives the garnishment notice from one of these indian tribes? what should they be doing? >> the first step, the consumer can go to talk to the poor and try to talk to them about the fact that it's not a court order. it's basically one person saying -- one private employer saying, your employee owes me a debt, pay. and if that ultimate doesn't resolve your issue, then you may have to get a lawyer. this will make this process very expensive, to sort of protect your rights. that is one option they can do.

of course, we want to know about it so that the ftc know. to our complete systems we can be aware of what different entities are doing and we will detract them spend and you can file it with the ftc, calling toll-free 1-877-ftc-help. >> thanks are helping. >> i know this number off the top of my head. or you can go online to www.ftc.gov. and there's an online complaint form where you can fill out the information. what are some of the other red flags that consumers should be looking at, especially on the front end for deciding if they want to take out an online payday loan? >> i will admit most of these loans are totally unreasonable but he should be able to tell from whatever information they did on the website, i, to money does it cost you, and how you going to repay that? if you can't figure that out from reading it, that's probably a red flag. there something hidden there is

not clear to you in terms of what's going to happen. as mentioned before, the roller issue, you're never going to be paying the principal. you're just paying the interest and fees and you will carry that debt over and over. another thing is if you see the word wage assignment in your loan agreement or the fact that entities representing, fla with the native american tribes or are owned by american tribes, that certain limits what state action committee on your behalf. also ideally, if you can take out these loans, you want to be able to do -- a very simple sort of internet. you'll be amazed at how many complaints are out there or you simply call the ftc or your estate attorney general's office or the attorney general's office where the agile entity is located, and you will learn if there are complaints. such as be proactive on the front and and it will save a lot of harm in the end. >> now i would like to use the segue, to move onto katie will

talk about some of the phantom debt collectors. in many cases but not always are trying to collect on alleged payday loans. >> yes, so finally, phantom debt collectors are scam artists really that are either individuals of companies that content consumers in order to collect money that the consumers either do not owe or that the scam artists have no authority at how much to collect. there are two cases the ftc brought last year that really illustrate the cried -- the quite egregious practices they're engaging in i an order o pretty much steal money from consumers, not already in dire financial straits. one of those cases was ftc versus american credit crunches. in this situation it was consumers who had either previously taken a payday loans or had either just applied for payday loans, or even just

acquired -- inquired about payday loans. they were contacted by callers who would sometimes have foreign accents, sometimes claimed to be law enforcement officials who are going to come with a warrant and arrest them and taken to jail because they owed us money. and the less people paid they would be arrested and put in jail. one consumer in particular was even threatened, the wife was even called. she was told that there was a warrant out for the husband, that they knew where he worked. that there were on their way to pick him up at work and arrest them. and unless they paid money, then he would be arrested and in jail forever. they also alleged lawsuits saying, using abusive language. it's very egregious. the one thing, perhaps previously are behind on debt. they could've taken out a payday loan before they have paid off but they are confused. they don't really know, and when they have a collar that continues to harass them every day, every night, and threatens

to arrest them, they think well maybe, if i just hate it will go away. but the consumers have paid between two to 300, and some up to thousands of dollars to settle these debts. and began these consumers are already in financial distress. they don't have money that's laying around to pay. adult of these are debts that perhaps if there is outstanding debt, that consumers could pay, it's not being paid to legitimate creditors. one of the things, the complaint we brought, alleged representation. they were falsely electing the debt. also violation of the ftc. also latch in october the federal court entered a settlement agreement and a settlement injunction against american credit crunches and $5.4 million judgment. the agreement also include a ban against debt collections for this particular entity. the one thing is, they might be fly-by-night but also may be

very large operations. another case the ftc brought is an example of this. in this case the ftc charged the defendant actually involve more than 2.7 million calls to over 600,000 phone numbers. and that in less than two years, that the defendant fraudulently collected more than $5.2 million. money these consumers did not know and were threatened and harassed into paying. this also sometimes involve criminal behavior, and the ceo of the company was actually charged with 21 counts, criminal counts of wire and mail fraud in this particular debt collection scam. and one thing, even though some of these complaints that have been brought involved people who have applied for payday loans or who have inquired about payday loans, it doesn't necessary involve always payday loans.

sometimes there's old credit card debt the people are being harassed about, other type of debt, calling saying that they've been in charge, check fraud. it's definitely really this is a shake down scam that is involving people who are in our economic times have suffered some setbacks financially. and one thing, pretty consistent is that they are persistent, these scammers, but they also do have some consistent methods. and consumers can be on the look out for them and know exactly if there's something fishy about what's happening. one of the things, like a collar could be fake debt collector if they are seeking a pen on a debt that you don't will remember or recognize. it is hard because often you might have, the credit could be free flowing or you might have debt from a long time ago that you think you might not owe or may have owed, but if you really

don't recognize the dead, that's a very big red flag. if they refuse to give an address or phone number or the mailing address of the tv sounds fake. they their e-mail -- they very well may give you a fake mailing address but if it sounds like a fishy call, then that's another red flag. if they ask you some personal or financial banking information, don't give it. sometimes they have it, which is also disconcerting. if a collar college up in has your social security number and also your bank account information, it makes them seem more legitimate, but if they're asking you for that information, don't give it. if they start to use really high pressure tactics, scare you into paying such as threatened arrest, saying they will get you far, that's a red flag. and what should you do though if you're a consumer and you actually think that the person on the phone is a fake debt collector? one thing you should do is collect all the information they are willing to give you an been

reported to the ftc, at the toll-free number of 877-ftc-he 877-ftc-help. what phone number they're giving you, call back to make any payment, what their names are, what the names they're using for their country, with the mailing address is. any type of information they're willing to give you, or if you have caller id, a number that they're calling from. anything that you can get will be helpful if you want to file a claim. tell the college that you refuse to discuss any debt until you get a written validation of this. the notice has to include the amount of debt, the name of the creditors you know and your rights under the act. if the caller says we're not going to send that to you, that's a red flag this is not a legitimate debt collector. you can stop speaking with the caller. if you have an address, send a letter with a return receipt that you keep a copy of, and tell them that you're discontinuing any communication

with that collar and they have to, the debt collector, stop and less they call you to tell you their filing a lawsuit, or that they will no longer contact you again. contact the creditor to see if it's legitimate, that this is a debt collector working with the credit. and also can forward the call to the ftc. spent how are they getting this information? you said sometimes they have an awful lot of information on you. >> well, that's a very good question and that's something we're actually very interested in finding out more of. we have, we think that there could be some, some people that are trading in people's personal information. but we are interested in finding out more where, who these phantom debt collectors are and where they're getting their leads from a. >> you had said that in some cases the callers had foreign

accents. what if the caller doesn't have a foreign accent, does that mean it is a legitimate debt? >> no. there are more and more of the santa debt collector scans that are popping up everywhere. it is definitely a growing cottage industry, and even if a caller does not have a foreign accent -- the two cases we brought, the call centers were located abroad. however, even if they don't have, it's a widespread call center located everywhere. >> are these scams just calling consumers, or are they calling parents or siblings -- >> we are leaving this now to go live to the american public transportation association annual legislative conference in washington, d.c. this daylong event will address the need for funding and policies that support u.s. public transportation and rail systems. in a moment the opening session

on what's ahead for transit. other panel discussion will focus on such issues as how to pay for highways and mass transit, and an outlook on passenger, rail and rail safety legislation. you can see the afternoon sessions live on c-span3. transportation secretary ray lahood will provide keynote remarks in the afternoon session at the conference. >> [inaudible conversations]

>> ladies and gentlemen, our program is beginning. please welcome flora castillo to the podium. [applause] >> buenos dias. and welcome to our nation's capital and to apta's 2013 legislative conference. i am delighted to see so many friends in this room. i hope you caught some of the slideshow as you came in this room. we are so proud of the men and women of public transportation. the people who keep america moving. as i often say, it is all about our people. did you attend the great breakfast this morning? i did.

[applause] and i have to tell you that the insights, the candid insights that steve latourette, former member of the council shared with us, is precisely the kind of insights that gets is prepared and makes us more effective advocates to ensure that our industry will be stronger tomorrow, and for years to come. so i want to thank him again for coming in and sharing those insights with us. [applause] our industry is also strengthened when the private and public sectors convenes in common purpose with one voice, like this conference. to get started this morning, we will hear first from our session

sponsored. then we'll hear from public transit biggest champion, our president and ceo, michael melaniphy. lacey is a vice president. she is responsible for building relationships with government agencies, so she is the right person in the right room at the right time. so please help me welcome her to the podium. [applause] >> well, good morning, everyone. before anything else, i wanted to thank you for apta, the floor and michael and everyone else for graciously having us here as well as the organizing committee. we frequently put conferences on ourselves for user agencies can and we know what a big event it is. so everyone, a round of applause to the organizing committee. [applause]

>> and before i let you know a little bit about our company, we do have a small and very short video that we would like to show. so if we can get started. ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ [applause] >> well, thank you very much. as you saw innovative we are a technology provider, and this conference is very important to us because as a technology provider we do develop the technology based on transit agency needs, but also based on

industry needs. and initiatives such as map-21 reauthorization, veterans initiatives, and saa, health and human services coordination is front and center in our minds as we develop technologies. and it's interesting because our goal as a company is very, very simple. we really do strive to reduce operational costs, improve efficiencies. and with the struggles with many agencies have today with increased ridership and really attracting choice writers and coordinating with other agencies with strapped budgets, it's important to look at technology as a way to streamline those processes. and i think the best way to showcase how technology can help transit agencies is really through what the agencies are doing themselves. i did want to share a couple of quick tidbits, if you will, of some of the successes that agencies have had.

rhode island public transit authority, a great agency. they were able to coordinate with the department of health and human services and by using our technology throughout optimization as well as mapping, and also transferring capable riders for the demand response side, they were able to save $3 million. another great example, small urban transit system in georgia. they had a 300% increase in seniors. 30% increase in riders, and they were able to achieve 95% on-time performance for fixed routes, and also expand services in neighboring facilities at the warner robins air force base with no additional staff overhead. and the last example, which i think is really great, considering all the struggles we

had this past year in the northeast is coast regional transit authority and gulfport, mississippi. and they have been able to credibly apply our technology for emergency management purposes, and really transport seniors and disabled citizens for safety during hurricane isaac. so those are quick examples of flexible technologies, and how they can be applied in the industry. again, i know that with a number of great speakers right behind me so i will not keep you anymore, but i do want to thank you again for having us here. it's such a great and vibrant community, and we are thrilled to be part of it. thank you again. [applause] >> thank you for your support. and at this time please help me welcome michael melaniphy to the podium.

[applause] >> i agree. please wake up. [laughter] good morning, everyone. how are we doing? what a great day to be in d.c., and it's great of our administrators here. peter rogoff, show stopper, thank you very much. give them a hand. [applause] >> thank you for sitting through the boring part with me. we know you all want to hear them talk it through put. welcome to the coverage in washington, d.c. it is a thrill and aunt have all of you here today. only in this town could have a sequestration, a snow quest ration and a filibuster all in one week. you've got to love this town. it's fantastic. this afternoon we're thrilled will be having with us probably his very last address to us, ray

lahood. it's been a great honor to work with him over his turn. is done an outstanding -- we are thrilled to have him with us here this afternoon, how the administration with us this morning. river great, great program here during this conference. so with that said, let's talk about what a record-breaking time we have been having here in public transportation. why is a record-breaking? because of the hard work that you'll have done out there. you have had record ridership on your transit systems. if you look at your door come your whole to run this one, picked up the "usa today" can use on page three right there, public transportation hits 10-point for billion trips in 2012. [applause] we are in so many -- this is the second highest ridership numbers since 1957. we beat last year year's numberd we beat despite the fact that

superstorm sandy was a hurricane and a snow storm that followed, wiped out 74 million trips that would've otherwise occurred. we hav had the second highest ridership in second transportation. you all are doing a phenomenal job. that ridership increase, these big loads of people you see on your platforms and your buses, trains, all of the country under passenger ferries, it's been incredible. we have seen ridership all over the country. we've seen in every mode as well. heavy rail is at 1.4%. light rail up 4.5%. commuter rail was up 25%. bus was up 1.2%. our services are a 4.5%. you can see from this map we saw ridership increases all of the country, east to west, cities large and small. ridership was incurring in record numbers all over this country. for those reporting, 16 agencies

all time high record ridership numbers. there was a sea change going on, ladies and gentlemen, people are claiming to ride public transportation. we look at the result of that is not just the people that are getting on our trains and buses, that are showing up in record numbers. it's the ladies and gentlemen and of our country that are going to our polls and the communities. they were 62 local transit tax initiatives in this nation less you. 49 of those past. nearly 80% passage rate. at a time when we hear that can't raise taxes, people won't support increases and invest in our infrastructure. nearly 80% of the communities that were asked, will you vote for public transportation, they said yes. and that is an outstanding -- absolutely give that a round of applause. [applause] that 80% passage rate is the highest rate we've seen since

apta and the center for transportation tracking these numbers back in 2000. people trust you. they believe in what you are doing. they know when they invest their dollars in public transportation you will do the right things, you will put good service out there, you'll make their communities a better place to live. and it is truly outstanding. it is the hard work you are doing each and every day. as we talk about what's going on here in d.c., these are the messages you have to share. you have to talk about the dynamics that are making our industry so great. talk about the fact of the federal dollars that are coming right now cannot meet the needs and expectations of our riders, can't meet the needs of capacity constraints, we have to continue to invest in our systems. we've got to work through these backlog. we can't invest in the public transportation that our community needs for the future. we will tell them for every dollar veterans is invested in public transportation, $4 are returned in economic benefit. and that for the federal dollars that come with the public

transportation, that we return 76% of the right into the private sector creating buses and trains and equipment that go through our system. this chart here shows what's happening with sequestration, that we see cuts in fta administration and research and development, in new start, and general fund transfers. we are seeing cuts that are hurting our system at the very time when people are clamoring to have more public transportation but at a time when we're taking 60 months worth of bill regulations and the fta, our friends at the fdr doing those and 27 months and doing it at a time when they have serious constraints on their budget. so we appreciate all the hard work that our federal partners are doing to make our services better and to get the service out on the street in these hard times. share those stories with congress to tell them how important it is we have to invest in our public transportation system. now we've seen record ridership, now is not the time to cut transportation. now is the time to invest in

good public transportation. because public transportation is a key component in a balanced transportation network. it's not just about transit. it's not just about roads or waterways. it's about the system. we are part of an overall transportation system. we have to tell that story together. whether you're using a shared ride by, a bus, a car, train, passenger. them all those things were to get in the system that makes our cities work better, more resilient and it makes our cities more competitive on a national and global basis. and so as we go around and talk to members of congress remember that map 21's expiration is just around the corner. it's time to invite our members to come to your properties. let them drive the bus in the parking lot. if the people out of the way, of course. let them take it can't ride. sequestration happen march 1, dot, the funding runs out at the end of this month on the 27th of march. that's what we've got them with

the discussions with the c.r. that's coming right now. passenger rail policy runs out in only 206 days. surface transportation policy, map 21 runs out in only 571 days. yes in washington we see of course we're tracking from italy 605 days to the next major election. so it's so important we were quicker members in congress, that we tell them about our store that you bring into propers, let them eat an operator, a technician, meet the people in your customer call centers, show them your services. but didn't feel it. let them touch transit. because when you think about the very first day that you stepped on your transit property, think about did you understand what the federal role in the agency was your first day there? i bet you didn't. i know i didn't. so how do you expect members of congress and members of congress who don't live in do this everyday to understand what the role is? show them on a piece of paper and report that shows what the

distributions are in the level of replacement we have to do and a backlog. they are used to sing those reports. they see reports like this every day. 15 minutes another report. on water and health care and police and all these different things. things. if you want to be different if you want to make your message stand up, show them those things. help them understand what the federal role is in your property so that a reason to care, so they understand, so they did and they can be better champion for all of us as we move forward telling our story of public transportation. that's why we're here this week, to allow you to have a story, spread force across capitol hill, the each of you go and tell your local store. we can tell this great story of a 9 billion trips but when you tell the story of how you added night service the people get the jobs and the third shifts inhabit a pretty on point rates in your cities. when you talk about how transit gauger communities and citizens with in it the ability to get to

work because you gave them a pass to work. that's the good stories we have to tell that you can tell on an individual basis up here on capitol hill. before a closer want to recognize and people in this room today that are so important to us. first, is our veterans in the audience, could you please rise and be recognized, and thanks for the great service you done for this country. please, veterans rise. let's all give them a great hand. [applause] thank you for the service to our country that you have done for so very long. we appreciate your efforts. and now for members of my executive committee, board of directors, if you please rise. thank you for your dedication, your leadership. executive committee, board of directors, please rise. let's recognize them. we appreciate all that you do. [applause] and lastly, conferences like this don't come together without a great staff. our government services group

and all the hard-working people at apta for let's give the staff a great big round of applause for all the hard work they have done. [applause] enjoyed the sessions here, have a wonderful time learning from the leaders and experts in our industry. but most importantly give up on the hill and tell our story. thank you for be -- thanks for being here in washington, d.c. it's my pleasure to bring back up on stage, apta's chair, ms. flora castillo. [applause] >> thanthank you, michael, for t great ridership news, and your assessment of our legislative challenges. you've certainly made, fast-track on your 60 months. so congratulations to you. as michael mentioned, we have a unique opportunity to influence the nation's investment in public transportation.

map-21 was a step in the right direction, but we have more to do before it expires in december and 14. we need to ramp up now. i applaud the hard work and stewardship of the authorization task force, which is developing recommendations for our industry. my thanks goes to jeff nelson, general manager of metrolink, and chair of apta's legislative committee for leading this effort, and to be fine find co-chairs that are teaming up with them. julius hernandez, carolyn flour, karl, sharon green. please lend your voice to this effort, because it matters. it matters, as michael said. so please, see either rob or

brian to share your thoughts and get involved. tomorrow, please lend your voice to another critical effort that is speaking directly to members of congress about this, people of public transportation. the people that the industry directly employs, the 400,000 growing men and women across our country who are working in factories, manufacturing plants, in the front offices, as operators, engineers and planners. the people employed in the 1.9 million jobs we indirectly support in every district, every legislative district in this country. the people who take the 10.5 billion, yes ladies and gentlemen, that's billion with a capital b., trips a year on our

buses, our trains and -- as michael shared with us. there is frank in this number because there are people behind this number. every individual in this room has a compelling message about the founding of the transit, to the people in your community. it is time to make public transportation, live in the eyes, in congress. by talking about the lives, the lives, ladies and gentlemen, that we changed each and every day. the lives of a mother in north philadelphia who take two buses to get to her job as a customer call center. the life of an elderly couple who moved to charlotte to take advantage of transit oriented

development to keep their independence when they can no longer drive. a daughter in west texas with a disability who relies on paratransit to get to and from her job. when she would otherwise be housebound. that nurse in cleveland who takes the cleveland help line to get to her job at the hospital. that better than in denver who found a new career -- veteran in denver about a new career as a mechanic. there is no question that public transit enriches lives. for proof, look no further than the devastating impact of superstorm sandy on the northeast, my community. those cities came to a halt when public transportation was forced to shut down.

but now, ladies and gentlemen, we are back. we are back, and so is the northeast. and i'm proud to say that apta was with us every single step of the way, with resources that are second to none. but please, don't take my word for it. just look at the company that apta keeps. apta was named one of the most influential branch in washington by the prestigious magazine, the "national journal." policymakers, the media, our associate agency partners listen, they listen when we talk your they trust what we say. they respect our research. they act on our policies, and they often seek our input. so you should all be very proud

of that. i know i take pride in it. now, it is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you to trusted voices in washington. first, joe sable, administered of the fra, which developed and implements wide ranging national freight and passenger rail policy and programs -- joe szabo. as a board member of new jersey transit, we appreciate joe's direct interest in the northeast corridor commission, and of the nec future effort. the northeast quarter accommodates eight rail transit operators, and the future of the nec is critical to each of us. his entire career, joe has been centered on advocacy and helping communities. and joe, ladies and gentlemen, is also a fifth generation

railroader. so please help me welcome a friend of our industry, joe szabo. [applause] >> well, thank you. and good morning, apta. on behalf of president obama and secretary lahood, it's an honor to join you once again this morning, along with fta administrator peter rogoff. i think you're going to hear me stay on the same theme that we have already established this morning. mike get quite a bit talk about the importance of systems, and talking about the record ridership roads that transit is seen. you know, there's a simple fact that world-class economies do not develop by accident. and their certainly not sustained by resting on our

laurels. world-class economies require world-class transportation, and it requires continuous improvement. so in order to remain the leading global economy, its absolute we must continue to advance our transportation system. and the key words here are transportation system. it's about each mode working in unison with the others to ensure that efficient movement of both people and goods. four years ago, president obama laid out a bold vision for rail in america. and during these four years, the effects of record level private and federal investment in our rail network has been nothing short of game changing. 2012 was one of the greatest years for rail in generations. let's start with safety. it was the safest year in railroad history. amtrak achieved record on time

performance, and record ridership growth. rail continues to be the fastest growing mode of public transit, and we saw in a moral freight traffic surge about 12 million units, which is very close to an industry record. with a vote of the general california assembly the stage is set now for world-class to a 20 hour per i'll passenger rail service which is really to break ground this summer. in the midwest a 110-mile per hour service, the fastest trains outside of the northeast corridor, the service was introduced on both chicago st. louis route and chicago-detroit route and over the next couple of years now a majority of both of those lines will be running at those sustained speed was improved reliability, cutting trip times by close to an hour. that service is going to include the fleet of next-generation high-performance equipment, certified ago when a 25-mile per hour's, that will be manufactured here in america. in order to bring world-class

service to one of the world's most densely populated rail markets, the northeast corridor, we launched the first comprehensive planning effort in rail since the carter administration. and we successfully obligated 100% of our recovery act funded high speed in intercity passenger rail program funding well in advance of our september 30 statutory deadline. of the 11 projects completed last year, the main rail project extension alone, in addition to generating millions of dollars in new commercial and residential development around the brunswick train station, it created and sustained jobs at 53 companies and 20 states. so that was last year, and all this is just simply a warm-up. the $19 billion this administration has invested in rail since 2009 is building, improving, or creating 6000

corridor miles, 40 stations, 75 planning studies, and 30 state rail plans or service development plans. with our high speed in intercity passenger rail program, we've been able to partner with 32 states, and invested 152 projects, but the next two years will be our busiest construction years yet. 52 construction projects in 19 states were $3.6 billion in funding are either complete, under construction, or set to begin. in the pacific northwest, 21 projects are moving forward that will increase roundtrips and cut trip times in a growing rail market connecting portland and seattle. north carolina is already completed three station projects, both on-time and on budget, and is moving forward now with a series of construction projects along the charlotte to raleigh corridor that will improve speed, safety, frequency, and reliability for

both passenger and freight trains. and is part of a larger vision for a southeast rail network that will be connecting in to the northeast corridor. by the end of this year, north carolina and virginia will finish a planning effort to cut 90 minutes off of today's trip time between raleigh and d.c. they take a look around the country, additional planning efforts are moving forward in states like georgia and texas. coming back to the northeast corridor, our planning effort there, called the nec future, is one of the largest multistate transportation projects ever undertaken in the united states. and the end result would be a clear vision for how to optimize the northeast corridor, and a 30 year real -- rail investment plan to guide future investments. but in addition to plan, this administration has invested more than $3 billion, more than any previous administration, in

northeast corridor development projects. these investment are devoted to station to track upgrade, modernizing our system, replacing aging infrastructure, i knew equivalent, and overall, for improvements to speed, frequency, and reliability. this improvement our loan for faster train speeds between philadelphia and new york, and for the untangling, delays causing bottlenecks in queens. and others in delaware, in rhode island. stations are being enhanced in boston, washington, d.c., the bwi airport and in new york with the moynihan station project will expand in station. and major engineering projects are moving forward, including the replacement of new jersey's portal bridge, baltimore's bnp tunnel and the bridge in northern maryland. we've also made unprecedented investments in theater routes

including two projects that have already come in on time and on budget. now, the benefits of all these projects could stand alone. they are already advancing american transportation, but like the u.s. chamber of commerce, the u.s. conference of mayors, the american road and transportation builders, and the american society of civil engineers, just to name a few, just like then, the president recognizes that this isn't enough. and as the president said in his state of the union, and uncle, ask any ceo where they would rather locate and hire, a country with the curating roads and bridges, or one with high-speed rail. and so the president has proposed to programs, the rebuild america partnership, and the fix-it first program that will not only put americans to work, improving infrastructure, but also building new infrastructure.

and while this will create even more high quality construction and manufacturing jobs, most importantly, it will help tackle pivotal growth and mobility challenges. the rebuild america partnership calls for leveraging private sector investment to create jobs of creating infrastructure most critical to our businesses, including transportation. while fix-it first targets our most urgent transportation repairs. additionally, the president continues to call for the creation of a bipartisan national infrastructure bank for long-term development, including long-term rail funding. now, while sensible steps are going to have to be taken to tackle our deficit and budget challenges, a modern transportation network, including rail, is not a luxury, but it's an absolute necessity. today we are like at the challenge of how to move 100 million more people and 4 billion more times afraid over

the next three decades come at all while our highways and airports are stretched close to the limit, and the overreliance -- over reliance on and continues to grow. according to last month, texas transportation institute reports the annual cost of highway congestion alone now cost our economy over $120 billion a year, at a cost of $800 annually to each commuter. close to 3 billion gallons of fuel, enough fuel to fill the new orleans superdome four times, is wasted annually. and for the first time the institute measured traveled reliability, underscoring the need to provide more transportation alternatives. the study found that increasing amounts of time have to be set aside to ensure on-time arrival for high priority freeway trips. and our airports as well are struggling to keep up with

modern demand. currently, about 20% of all flights are delayed. and as a way of confronting high fuel prices and changing demand, airlines are now making significant cutbacks the short haul flights to small and medium-sized cities. and so in the face of these challenges, rails if agencies simply cannot be ignored -- efficiencies. rail can be the most cost effective, least oil reliant, and most environmentally friendly mode to move both people and freight. to railroad tracks can carry as many travelers in our as 16 lanes of highway. and while the cost of building rail favors, compares favorably with roads, rail right-of-way only consumes one-third of the land required i roadways. and the other story can we simply can't ignore the fact

that americans travel habits are evolving. michael touched on it today with the headline. you know, this old common myth that america has too much of a car culture to embrace trains, but according to a recent study by the u.s. frontier group over the last eight years, americans have actually driven less while using passenger rail and public transit in record numbers. amtrak's ridership last year, the record was its ninth in the last 10 years. and part of a close to 50% growth in ridership since. 2000. from 1995-2008, ridership on commuter, light rail and heavy rail shot up 72%. in 2011, americans took 10.4 billion trips on public transportation, the second highest ridership since 1957, and i think he did better this year, michael. i should have updated the speech, but your ridership issue is even higher.

and these travel habits are changing fastest among young people, that he was curt and frontier group study also noted that in a year period starting in 2001, young people reduced their vehicle miles traveled by 23%, while increasing their use of rail and public transit by a whopping 40%. but it's not just about the next generation of aarp, it was touched on this morning and the sly, they made it clear that more and more seniors are seeking communities to make it easier to walk places and use public transportation, intercity passenger rail, rather than driving. allowing them to remain active and independent as they age. compared to the decade prior in 2009, seniors made 320 million more trips by rail and transit. ..

>> with initiatives like our risk reduction and system safety programs which encourage the industry to take a hard look at the risk factors that are precursors to accidents. with all of our passenger rail investments, we'll continue to focus on three key priorities; managing and executing high quality projects, bringing them in on time and on budget, laying the foundation for sustainable long-term passenger rail improvements by helping states

and communities, regions do good planning and forge ahead with incremental improvements and, third, insuring service improvements are tailored to the distinct needs of each market. four years ago we learned that a modern rail network is not just a priority for this administration, it's a priority for the american people. of the $10.1 billion in high-speed and inner city passenger rail funding that was available, we received more than 500 applications from around the country requesting more than seven times of the amount available. and so just like the early stages of the interstate highway system, we're now in the initial phases of what is a multigenerational effort. you know, the interstate started with eight lonely miles in the middle of rural kansas. it took ten administrations, 28 sessions of congress to

complete. but year by year, piece by piece as a nation we got it done. and like the transcontinental railroad a century earlier, the interstate system propelled our economy forward and advanced the mobility needs of its era. and so now we have to answer the call to tackle the transportation challenges of a new century dealing with congestion, fuel utilization, air quality and global warming. as i said at the opening, world-leading economies do not develop by accident, nor do they evolve by resting on one's laurels. and so the case is clear, america cannot afford to sit on the sideline and not develop a comprehensive passenger rail system offering high speed and higher-performing inner city passenger rail and also a more robust freight rail network. and so the next generation's counting on us, and the time for

action is now. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, joe, for those insightful comments. next it is my pleasure to introduce peter rogoff, fda administrator. peter led the transition from safety hoop -- loop to map 21. in fiscal year 2011, fda signed more capital construction agreements for transit projects than in any two of year period in the agency's history. i particularly want to thank peter and the fda for their active role in helping areas devastated by superstorm sandy.

even before sandy ended, peter and his staff began a hands-on involvement in making sure that the impacted agencies receive the assistance they needed during this crisis. and they provided the guidance and continuing support in the aftermath needed to get our systems back in service for the people of our region. new jersey transit and apta applauds peter's leadership and we thank you, peter, once again. ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome peter to the stage. [applause] >> well, good morning. >> good morning. >> and i will welcome you all to washington on behalf of the president and secretary lahood. you know, for each of the last four years we've had lots of opportunities whether it's at the apta rail conference, the apta bus conference, other

opportunities to gather to discuss transit's role in our economy, our recovery and our future economic potential. but this conference is the legislative conference. this is the moment where we gather to focus precisely on whether the actions here in washington are endisabling transit to -- enabling transit to move forward or backward. we focus on whether today's national policies are enabling you to provide quality service to more americans or fewer americans. whether we're enabling you to reduce our consumption in the future of foreign oil or continue the progress by which we are highly dependent on the unstable regimes that provide oil to us all over the country, all over the world. we're focused on whether national policies are enabling you to transport more americans to work or leave more americans sitting at the bus stop. and and we're focusing especially now in the wake of hurricane sandy on whether our

national policies are enabling you to respond and recover from national disasters. seven weeks ago my son and i stood on the west front of the capitol and heard president obama's second inaugural address, and in that address he said the following: no single person can train all the math and science teachers we'll need to equip our children for the future or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. now more than ever we must do these things together as one nation and one people. the key phrase, for me, in this passage is the word "together." this administration cannot achieve these goals without the help of congress. and we cannot achieve these goals without you and your advocacy. last year many of you will remember at the time of the legislative conference public transit was in a battle for its

life. the house of representatives was moving forward with plans to strip public transit out of the highway trust fund entirely, and instead make funding for public transit dependent on some of the most controversial legislative proposals put forward like drilling in the arctic national wildlife refuge. their proposal was breathtakingly destructive and politically cynical, and it prompted my boss, secretary lahood, to say that it was the worst piece of legislation he had seen in over 30 years of public service. i couldn't agree with him, because i had only done at that point 24 years of public service. [laughter] but importantly, together the administration working with you beat back that destructive and cynical proposal. well, today we need your intervention again, because recent congressional actions are again threatening to send us backwards. we have made great progress under the president's leadership

in making transit a priority, but that progress is facing real and present threats in the budget legislation being contemplated by congress. i don't need to remind you that president obama has strengthened public transit and put it high on his agenda. just in the last four years we have built more than 350 miles of new rail and bus rapid transit. as flora castillo pointed out, the fta has signed more funding and grant agreements to build new transit extensions in 2011 and 2012, more than in any two-year period in the fta's history. most importantly, our new starts and small starts program has kept people working. we've created 88,000 local jobs just with the new start program. that's way over and above the many, many more jobs that we created through the recovery act. and we have kept people working through what was the greatest recession since the great depression.

we've devised better and simpler ways of evaluating projects and moving those prompts forward in -- projects forward in a streamlined fashion. we've been about the business of cutting red tape through all of our fta processes, and we've been investing in opportunities to create jobs now when we need them on projects that really improve the quality of life for generations to come. in the sunrail project, a commuter rail project we're partnered in in florida, in orlando, we have 800 people working. we've generated 250 million in related development; medical development, office buildings, retail, housing all in that corridor. houston metro, they're building new light rail. we've got 700 construction jobs right now and about 25 million in related housing developments along the corridor. we've had cities that have lost jobs in a desperate fashion in the recession, and they are

seeing a resurgence think public transit investment, places like allentown, pennsylvania, where we're building the eastern intermodal facility. we'll be breaking ground next month. and in kent, ohio, a $20 million tiger investment by secretary lahood is resulting in $125 million return on investment in a new hotel and conference center, restaurants and other development in the area. so through these tough economic times, transit has been a real engine both in getting people to work, people who use transit for the first time perhaps when they had to get rid of a car payment, and a two-car family turned into a one-car family, or a one-car family turned into a zero-car family, and they're discovering transit works for them, and they're keeping more of their money in their wallet rather than hand it over at the gas pump. it's working. pap-21, the new -- map-21, was

the culmination of many of the administration's highest transit priorities. safety was the most important. it's always the most important at the u.s. department of transportation. as many of you know, the law of the land prohibited the fta from issuing even the most basic, common sense safety standards of any kind since 1964. the administration proposed that that be reversed in 2009, and indeed, map-21 polled our guy -- followed our guy dance, and we now have new safety authority that we will be rolling out in a very level-headed, nonbureaucrattic way by adding value to the safety of your operations without adding a great deal of cost. there were other wins in map-21 that bore out the administration's priorities. i will tell you when the administration a couple years ago first proposed in its budget that fta have its own emergency relief program on a parallel with the federal highway administration's emergency relief program, we could never

have anticipated the worst transit disaster in the history of the united states, namely superstorm sandy. but thank heaven map-21 put that program on the books, because it enabled congress to provide us with $10.9 billion rapidly, and we've already awarded 400 million of that amount and more coming in the weeks to come to aid the bidsiest transit agencies -- busiest transit agencies in the united states respond to that greatest transit disaster in the history of the united states. also we made progress on state of good repair. we've always said that we cannot let our transit agencies deteriorate at a time when demand is rising. we will lose ridership, we will lose our ability to reduce our dependence on foreign oil if the service that we provide cannot be reliable and desirable. so the administration proposed sizable funding increases for a new state of good repair

program. did we get those sizable funding increases? i'm afraid not. but we did get the new program in place to start putting out money in this initiative, and the president, as he has said, as part of his fix-it first initiative in his state of the union address is proposing to put real investment, real game-changing increases in funding that we can put out to not only maintain, but advance the condition of our public transit assets across the country. i do want to say map-21, while it had many of the right policies, did not necessarily have the right funding levels. you know, separate from the issue of funding once we got past that bitter fight over transit's role in the trust fund, there was remarkable unanimity between the house and the senate, democrats, republicans and the obama administration on what the priorities should be. that's why we got a new state of good repair program, that's why

we got a new core capacity program. but we have now been moving forward in implementing much of the map-21 agenda, and i will tell you some of it, some of the headwinds that we are encountering have been frustrating. and the number one headwind that we're encountering is available resources. we did everything that the congress has asked us to do in the terms of simplifying our rules. we are still doing it in new regulations that you'll be seeing coming out in the next several months. we have worked with our partners at the federal highway administration in putting out new categorical exclusions to streamline the environmental process by which transit projects could be advanced. i know it's been a frustration for many of you that investments that are inherently environmentally beneficial because they are transit investments must still go through sometimes a very lengthy environmental approval process. well, working with our partners at the federal highway

administration, with our partner ors at the council on economic quality we are streamlining that process. we are making good progress. we'll be able to put more projects on the streets sooner. the president has what's called the white house dashboard where we have particularly vexing projects that require us to work side by side with other federal agencies to get them through the environmental process. there are a number of transit projects that are on that, on that dashboard like the red line up in baltimore, like the columbia river crossing that will provide interstate light rail service between oregon and washington. these projects are moving that much more quickly through a streamlined process as a result of the president's leadership in making these things happen more quickly. but like i said, our momentum is facing headwinds, and that really has to do with the core issue of resources. we only got a two-year

transportation bill rather than the multiyear funding levels that the president had proposed, and those two years of funding was largely flat. now, coming on top of this we have now, as michael pointed out, faced a sequester. that sequester has taken $656 million out of the federal transit administration, below frozen levels. what's been the impact? well, it's been a 5% cut for my salaries and expenses budget which, essentially, pushes that budget back to where we were in 2009 before we had all the added requirements of implementing map-21 and before we had the additional responsibilities of regulating in the safety area. it means that furloughs are a very real possibility in the future of the federal transit administration which breaks my heart in ways i can't even express here. my employees will be facing furloughs at the very time that they should be putting out

map-21 policy guidance to help you do your job. importantly, our new starts and small starts program has also been cut rather than -- it is, looks like the final funding level this year could be as much as 17% below the levels sought in president obama's budget for this year. well, what does that mean? as we pointed out, we've signed a record number of full funding grant agreements. we've done what congress asked us to doment when secretary lahood was first nominated to be transportation secretary, he passed along to us that the most common thing he heard about transit going through that confirmation process was the development process for new start projects took too long. it was the number one issue that i heard about through my confirmation process. it was the number one transit issue that he heard about through his confirmation process. well, we've done a lot to streamline that process. as we were asked to do.

and as a result, we have been able to advance these projects more quickly. we've been able to get them through the funding pipeline. we've been able to sign full funding grant agreements and put people to work. what are we facing now with the sequester? we're facing a funding level potentially some 17% below what the president asked for to a funding level that will not allow us to honor the commitments that we made in each of these full funding grant agreements for funding 2013. it is very likely that we'll have to have across-the-board cuts against every one of the new start projects currently in construction. what that will mean for those project sponsors will mean higher borrowing costs that will make these things more expensive for the taxpayer. it also means that new full funding grant agreements that could be on the horizon could be end dangered. it's not real clear if this were

to continue sequester after sequester, year after year, that we would be able to advance projects currently in the pipeline. we have been encouraging people to move forward, we've streamlined the process, we are moving them along more quickly just as congress asked us to do. but at this current resource level, the window is rapidly closing. and that will undermine our ability to lower our dependence on foreign oil. it will undermine our ability to serve all of those young people that are taking to transit in increasing numbers. it will undermine our ability to limit, if not minimize congestion in a great many cities where even people who might never use transit benefit from the transit investment by a less congested highway. so, yes, we have new battles upon us, and we need your advocacy. we need you to speak to your representatives. this is the legislative conference, and you come here to washington not just to hear speeches like this one, but to get up and make the case to your

members of congress. and let me politely suggest this: if at the end of this trip folks calculate their hours and realize that they've spent more time sitting in this hotel listening to speeches than they have making the case on capitol hill, then i think they demonstrated the wrong priority. this message needs to be delivered to our partners on the hill. they these to know what these -- they need to know what these funding decisions mean for our ability to really advance a pro-transit agenda. joe szabo talked about president obama's observation in his state of the union about ceos wanting to locate close to infrastructure investments. he pointed out that the president -- as the president did that the ceo of see mans, america, said that if we upgrade the infrastructure even more, they'll bring even more jobs. well, my parallel example of that was in orlando, florida.

i was down there recently providing a $78 million grant as part of their new start project to advance the sunrail commuter rail line. and i was joined by a ceo of the florida hospital corporation, a gentleman named lars homan. and lars pointed out because of our locating a commuter rail start at the heart of his new health village, he will be bringing thousands of new jobs as part of the florida hospital corporation right there to that campus. it will have dream impacts not only on the economic development of downtown orlando, it will have very meaningful impacts on congestion on interstate 4. he knows that he can locate those people at that campus because they will have immediate commuterrer rail access to that campus and not have to put up with interstate 4. one of the things i pointed out there was the inevitability

about what we're doing here with public transit. the only issue is whether federal policies will follow a more seamless and helpful course to deal with our inft bl future or not -- inevitable future or not. one of the things we learned in the last census is that our population as a nation is going to growly 100 million people by 2050, and that population growth is not going to be spread evenly across the country, it's going to be concentrated in many of the areas where populations are concentrating now. we can either have policies in place at the federal level that are going to help us address and plan for that future of 100 million more people, or we can let that population growth overwhelm us. the president has put forward a plan for fixing it first and advancing public transit that is fully paid for. he etch sized that in his -- emphasized that in his state of the union over and over again, it's fully paid for.

so for those of you when you deliver this message to congress on the importance of moving forward with a pro-transit investment agenda, the president has a plan to do that, and it is fully paid for. but importantly, we can only do that with our partners. we need to do this together. we need to do it in partnership not just between fta and apta, but fta, apta and all of our partners in congress. so, please, deliver that message. please spend more time on capitol hill than you do in this hotel. that will make this a successful visit. thanks for having me. [applause] >> joe, would you -- now we're going to open it up to questions from the audience, so there are mics on both sides of the aisle. and i see these two gentlemen are ready for any question you have for them. so let them roll.

>> go ahead. >> hello. yeah, i'm wondering, administrator rogoff, what we can do to help in reauthorization restore the 57% of cuts to bus and bus facility programs. >> well -- is this mic on? can people hear me? no, all right. well, i think the numbers you're using as the cut to bus programs is a little bit of an apple to orange comparison. please understand that what map-21 did was somewhat in line with what the administration proposed, but in other ways very out of line with what the administration proposed. we did propose as the discretionary bus program a program that involved an annual grant competition that many of you participated in the for bus be substituted for a formula

program for the state of good repair of our systems. but what you also heard me say earlier is that the funding level for that state of good repair program was hundreds of millions of dollars less than what the administration proposed. so we proposed to do the consolidation in programs that the congress did. however, congress handed us a funding level far below what we had proposed it at, and as a result people are not seeing, you know, our agenda was to provide them a dependable funding source that they could count on rather than be subject to the vagaries of a grand competition where they work very hard, put in applications, some years they win, some years they don't. we wanted people to have a dependable funding source that they could plan on for pus investments. like -- bus investments. like i said, we got the steady stream of funding, but we got it at a woefully inadequate level compared to what the president

proposed. so you asked what could we do with congress to oppose that? point up the fact that the president has a fix-it first program. in his state of the union message, president obama talked about the unfinished parts of the american jobs act that congress had adopted parts of the american jobs act but not others, and he asked that they adopt the rest. one of the things that was left on the cutting room floor by congress as part of the american jobs act was a sizable infusion of dollars, part of a $50 billion initiative, right into the state of good repair program. and that would have done a great deal for our bus operators across the country. >> chris from the general contractors in the new york. first, let me say that both your presentations were very strong, and i think the audience appreciates that. peter, i just have one quick question. the issue that's plagued us as

we've gotten together over the last couple of days and months and years has been the financial piece. and, um, you teased us when you said that the president's plan going forward is fully paid for. when we go up on the hill, folks are going to ping us on the details of that. give us the best answer you can so that -- because we'd like to make sure that it's fully paid for, and we want a credible response. >> sure. let's see if that one works. does this work? there we go. good. we'll just hand this one back and forth. the president's proposal on the pay for as it was, as it was during his budget last year has been to capture a portion of the savings from the drawdowns in iraq and afghanistan. it is using savings in the general fund and reinvesting a portion of that general fun savings in -- fund savings in

deficit reduction and also investing it in investments right here at home, to rebuild our infrastructure here at home including the funding that he put into the american jobs act. this was not the way congress wanted to go at least last year, but the compelling need for these investments has not gone away. and the compelling need for the jobs that we create both in the construction jobs but also in the secondary and tertiary jobs that we get from investments of this kind has not gone away. so i think that's the best, most direct eczema nation that we can give -- explanation that we can give. >> joe gillettety, and i'm not here to ask you about ptc, and i'm not here to ask you about -- [laughter] or joe. peter, i wanted to share with you that for the first time in my career our legislative ask which we also shared yesterday in the meeting and, again, we

appreciate that you've shown up on vacations to come to our meetings. it included the fact that we wanted to make sure that the funding for both the federal transit administration and the federal railroad administration would remain solid and be increased, because one of the subtle ways of making sure funding doesn't go out, last time you challenged us that we were under a threat that we would lose the funding. we now realize if you lose the funding, it also hampers the efforts to get that funding out there whether it's through loans or grants. so i want you to know that, one, we thank you for what you do and, two, our legislative ask will be that the funding not only comes out for transit, but comes for those agencies that provide oversight and also provide the funding to help us get through. so thank you. >> well, thank you, joe. i mean, i think i'll speak for joe here to my left as well, we'll see -- [laughter] all right, joe. we have been pushing the staff very hard to advance a

streamlined agenda and to make these programs more easily accessible in order to put the investment dollars to work more quickly. i think that's true of fra and fta. it is very disheartening at a time when you are continuing to push folks to do more with less than have furloughs come across the potential scenarios for the future. it really, as you might imagine, you know, we are very blessed. i think this is probably true for both of our agencies, i'll speak for the fta. thank heaven we have staff that are really motivated by the transit mission. they don't necessarily come to work every day just because they're pulling a paycheck, but they believe in what we're doing. because we have not treated those employees well when we have to talk about furloughs at a time when we're pushing them so hard to advance the agenda. >> i will just make one addition

to that, maybe two additions to that. echoing peter's comments, i think one of the most pleasant surprises i've had suns i came to fra four -- since i came to fra four years ago was the quality and dedication of the work force. and these people are absolutely top shelf, and they work hard. they truly do believe in the our mission. and then just going back to a theme that peter carried so well in his speech, you know, it is so important that you continue to make your priorities known to the hill as you're here in town. i thought the most important takeaway that i heard in peter's talk was that calculation of time. and if more of it's been spent in the hotel than on the hill communicating with your elected leaders, that would be a failure. >> the eight lonely miles of interstate highway in kansas

were part of a clear, well-of -- well-defined, national plan to develop a highway system. and one of the things that makes it challenging on the hill when you go to talk about passenger rail is that there isn't really a similar kind of plan. where are we on developing a national rail plan? >> yeah. i think if you -- and maybe i didn't emphasize it strongly enough in my comments, but i talked about the need to strengthen planning by states and by regions. we continue to check off the list all of those components that are part of our national rail planning process. i think there's a mistake or misunderstanding that people think some single magical document's going to come out, and that isn't the case. but what we do have is the checklist of all of those components that are necessary for strong rail planning on a national basis. and for the most part, it's really about giving the tools that states and regions need to

better assess what their transportation needs are and then understand how rail whether we're talking freight rail, inner city passenger rail or even transit fit in to meeting those transportation needs. so we continue to provide our deliverables, and we'll continue checking off that list. >> [inaudible] peter, a question for you. could you give us a brief update on the status of your metro safety standards initiative? >> well, let me talk more generally about our overall effort on the new transit safety authority that we've been given. the most important thing that we are seeking to do, as i said, is to develop some common sense standards that enable transit operators in a scaleable fashion -- and i think this is

important -- we have said throughout that our safety initiative is not going to be a one size fits all approach. that we need to recognize that the safety challenges faced by a small and midsized bus-only operator is very different than a heavy rail operator or a light rail operator. and if we use the safety management system approach that we have been talking about for years now, we will be able to scale the right safety focus for each individual agency, even two identical agencies with the seemingly identical profile will have different safety vulnerabilities. two different operators who are both operating light rail on roughly the same mileage and roughly the same size metropolitan area, one's principal safety vulnerability may be the training challenges of their operators. another might be the signal system. another might be the condition of track. um, another one might be if you're talking about light rail

running through the community the knowledge of the people in the community on how to drive cars around light rail. and each individual system needs to know what their unique vulnerability is and make sure that their resource focuses on it. but like i said, our focus is going to be on trying to add value without adding a great deal of cost. and the federal rules will insure that because our safety rules are going to have to pass cost benefit analysis even to get through the process, and we welcome that. i think importantly one of our nearest-term focuses is we still will be working through the state safety organizations to apply and enforce these new central federal standards. and we all know that we need to do a great deal of work to strengthen those state safety organizations. they are, as a rule with very few exceptions, woefully understaffed, without the expertise that is really needed and in many cases without the

enforcement authority given to them by their state legislatures to have a meaningful impact. so one of the things that we did very early, congress did something different in map-21 than we requested. we wanted to be able to put out federal funds directly at 100% federal funding, um, for the state safety organizations to bring them up to where they need to be. congress imposed an 80/20 cost match on that which means each of the governors will have to come up with a 20% cost match for the grants that i give them. so secretary lahood at my request sent out a letter to all the impacted governors very quickly to say, please, be planning for this because i can't give you the money -- i can't give you $4 unless you give me $1 to help advance this cause. and we are currently working on the mechanism. once we have a full year appropriation which we hope will be soon and we hope will be sufficient, we will get those

dollars out, um, and hope that the governors are ready to partner with us. >> thank you. >> um, i have one last question. my name's tuck dun con, kansas -- duncan, kansas public transportation association. those eight miles are still there. i drive them all the time thank god to president eisenhower from kansas. my question is to the administrator. you have a new starts guidance out. that guidance, according to our folks, probably cuts the small new starts out of the picture. are we misreading that, or was that the intention based on the criteria that such -- which would affect things like we have an ert project in kansas city, kansas, johnson county which are underway, but in the future those types of things for small communities like ours, we have no rail in kansas, might just not qualify. >> i think you are misreading it, in fact. i've had a number of advocates for projects like the rt read

the guidance very differently. but importantly, this isn't something that needs to be left to confusion. it is a very comprehensive document, and what i'd really encourage you to do is come in and meet with our planning and environment people and discuss it. um, right now the biggest threat that i see to the availability of funding for new starts large or small is not our guidance, obviously, it's the funding constraints. if we're going to receive funding, you know, upwards of close to 20% below what we requested, you know, the president asked for increased funding for the new starts program not just because of the pro-transit agenda to reduce consumption of fuel and reduce congestion and provide more transit to more people, but because we really needed that increased funding to accommodate the pipeline that we see out there, a pipeline that we're advancing more quickly. at congress' request and at our request. when we actually don't increase

our funding but, in fact, go south as a result of the sequester, that really spells a troubling picture for new starts large or small going forward. but if you have concerns specifically about the guidance, um, let's put together a meeting with the planning and environment staff because i want to fully understand what you may see as disadvantaging bus rapid transit. we are big advocates for bus rapid transit because you can get a lot of throughput especially when it's done correctly with comparatively little money. if that was a result of our guy dance, we don't think it is, but if you see something in there that you think has that impact, we want to know about it. >> well, thank you, joe and peter, for not only your partnership, your ongoing partnership and your stewardship and your leadership on behalf of our industry. so, ladies and gentlemen, please help me thank -- [applause] joe and peter again. [applause]

this concludes our session, and we'll see you back at 10:30. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the american public transportation association is holding its annual legislative conference today in washington d.c. live coverage of he vent will continue this -- of this event will continue this afternoon with an outlook on passenger rail and rail safety legislation. transportation secretary ray

lahood provides keynote remarks in the afternoon session of the conference. you can see the afternoon sessions live on c-span3. >> this afternoon live on c-span, the czech republic's former president. he's recently ended two terms as president and is currently in washington d.c. mr. claus will speak at the cato institute. c-span will have live coverage at noon eastern. the u.s. senate returns to session today at 2 eastern. senators will begin with general speeches and then turning to judicial nominations at 5 eastern. the house returns tomorrow and will consider this week changes to the welfare to work program and consolidating federal job training programs. we'll have live coverage of the senate, see the house live on c-span. >> we cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real

threats to our security and our economy. that's why earlier today i signed a new executive order that will strengthen our cyber defenses by increasing information sharing and developing standards to protect our national security, our jobs and our privacy. >> guest: there are some things that clearly need to be done with an executive order, but some things can only be done with legislation. so part of my reaction is i wish the president had put as much effort into getting some legislation passed and then come out with the executive order rather than the other way around. >> guest: look, it's been around for a long time, cybersecurity, and we've finished talking about it, we've finished kind of wondering what's going to happen because things are happening every single day that are destroying our intellectual property, which are taking away from our future. and people are very casual about it. newspapers are casual about it, everybody's casual about it. but we're not. and we can't afford to be.

>> a look at the president's recent cybersecurity executive order with senator jay rockefeller and congressman mac thornberry tonight on "the communicators" at 8 eastern on c-span2. >> one of the things that an early american wife was taught to do, she supported her husband's career usually through entertaining. dolly was both socially adept and politically savvy, so she could structure her entertainments in such a way that she could lobby for her husband under the guise of entertaining. she also thought it was very important to create a setting in the white house almost like a stage for the performance of her husband and the conduct of politics and diplomacy. >> first lady dolly madison. we'll follow her journey from a young quaker widow into the woman that history remembers, the wife of the fourth u.s.

president james madison. we'll include your phone calls, facebook comments and tweets on dolly madison tonight at 9 ian on c-span and c-span3, also on c-span radio and c-span.org. >> it's been ten years since the space shuttle columbia explosion killing all seven crew members. a look now at what caused the accident. nasa officials who investigated the explosion recently met to discuss their findings and changes made as a result of testing and safety procedures on future shuttle missions. it's about an hour. >> like to welcome everybody back from their lunch break. thank you very much for convening. i'll try to stay on time here. the next panel is a discussion of, we talked about immediate responses to the accident in the previous panel, and now we're going to cover nasa and the columbia accident investigation

board, the interactions between the board and nasa. and we have two people who are expert in that discussion. one is doug cooke who is a nasa technical adviser to the cape, so nasa person in dealing with technical issues, and then we have dr. john logsdon who is with us from the space policy institute. he was a member of the columbia accident investigation board who came into the board membership after it was formed as it was realized that there are other deeper organizational, institutional issues that needed to be looked at in the course of the investigation. really without further ado, dr. logsdon. >> thanks, scott. i'm not really the best person to describe day-by-day operations of the columbia board because, as scott said, i joined it a month after it started operations and with admiral gateman's permission since most of the work i was doing had to

do with what was going on in washington, i based my investigations here rather than hanging out with the people in houston as they went about their technical work. but i heard enough about what went on, some of it i'll talk about, not all. so what do i push here? okay. there was, in one of the slides this morning, the point made that one of the things that happened after challenger was the development of contingency plans should there be another accident. and those contingency plans were put into effect on february the 1st, 2003, after it was clear that columbia was not coming back. and part of the plan called for a seven-person investigation board where the people were predesignated by their position, not by their identity. with the nasa administrator naming a chair of that board

which he did that day with contacting admiral gayman. the admiral had run the investigation of the terrorist attack on the cole destroyer in yemen and had the experience, therefore, of running a rather elaborate investigation. i think sean o'keefe was navy to the core and probably wouldn't have asked a non-navy person to take over. >> wisely. [laughter] >> the board quickly assembled by the afternoon of february the 2nd, they held their first meeting. there were pictures in scott's video of that fist -- first meeting at barksdale air force base in louisiana and quickly decided that they needed to be near nasa in houston and so moved from louisiana to houston in a couple of days x. then when the investigation was done, the core team moved up here to the

answer building where we did most of the report writing. remarkable experience, intense. the people who did it from day one to the report release on august the 26th, 2003, were working at least six days a week if not seven and certainly more than eight hours a day. first thing the board did was figure out that the way the plan had been set up there was not provision for adequate independence. and so there were three iterations of a revised revision of the charter of the board to guarantee that it could carry out a totally independent investigation with its own budget, its own staff -- not staff from nasa -- maintaining its independent records. this wasn't going to be a faca kind of committee because it was

constant meeting, but from the start with the important exception as admiral gehman noted this morning, information about the crew conditions and the ability to take privileged witness statements on a confidential basis, this was a very public, very open kind of undertaking. and the new charter included the possibility of new members beyond the you eight-person board. -- the now eight-person board. originally, senior people in the shuttle program were involved in the investigation. the board thought that wasn't too good an idea, nasa investigating itself. i should add historically by comparison after the apollo i fire in 1967 jim webb was able to convince president lyndon johnson to let nasa run the

investigation. so very different models of how an investigation should go forward that were at play here. i'm trying to think what's on the next slide. um, in its first few weeks the board decided to go beyond the traditional technical accident investigation. first of all, to look at the nasa as an organization, how it operated, what its culture was, how its communication channels worked or didn't. and then the next step in broadening was to place the accident in the long-term historical context of the shuttle program. that request and the request to not just focus on the accident, but cast it in the broader context of what it said about the future of the u.s. space

program, that kind of input came from outside. again, i should say the white house wanted very little to do with this. admiral gehman met on occasion with white house people, but at the staff level at the executive office they were under orders not to talk to us. they were afraid that somehow the white house, president bush and his associates, would get blamed for the accident. so my meetings with colleagues here had to be at starbucks on the corner, not in the executive office buildings. here's the board, just to remind you who was there. admiral gehman, major general berry, general diehl, dr. jim hallock, ken hess, all of them original members.

scott hubbard, the plan called for naming a senior nasa official to be member of the board, and scott at that point director of aims, got that honor. put honor in quotes. i was asked to join in early march after the decision that the board was going to look at the history and the budgets and the political history of the shuttle program. doug osheroff was added at the same time mainly, i think, because the board needed a nobel prize winner. challenger had had feinman, and we got doug. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. but better to have feinman. osheroff won his nobel in cold temperature physics, and it was pretty clear by then that foam shedding off the external tank was part of the accident chain. sally ride was added at the same

time because she was sally ride, very smart woman, because she had been on the challenger invest, because she still had a lot of good contacts internal to nasa. she was our kind of nasa spy in terms of what was really going on. earlier roger tetrow, a very ace engineer, and a week later sheila widnall, another highly-qualified engineer were added to the board. and then steve turcott, steve wallace were original members. thirteen members. incidentally, not by plan, the same number as the challenger investigation board. this was an elaborate process. this was kind of a marching army. we were embedded as the board and its own staff in a lot of relationships with nasa and its investigation activities, and that's what doug is going to talk about.

doug, were you part of the nasa accident investigation team? >> no. i was, actually, assigned to the board. >> to the board this. >> [inaudible] >> okay. so you were part of us rather than part of them. >> as an adviser. >> right. but, you know, we worked in the parallel with nasa doing a lot of work to understand the accident, as you can get a sense from this block diagram. and the board itself organized, organized itself into four groups. you see the names of the group and the board members assigned to each group. we were allowed to hire our own staff. the two generals in the crowd and the admiral brought along their commanders, their captains, their majors, their lieutenants so that there was a

slightly uniformed look to the people working on the investigation. and some of those people were very good. one of the lead investigators, pat goodman, is here. there were a total of 13 board members and 30 investigators. investigators were kind of senior staff working with the board members on investigations, and at times they become -- became kind of interchangeable. then there was, as admiral gehman mentioned in his comments this morning, an independent analysis team to run our checks on the analyses that nasa had been giving us. so total people connected to caib is probably about 150. a lot of people anyway. i miscounted, by the way, 30 investigators and significant

support staff for administration, public affairs, documentation, photography, government relations, budget travel, report writing. there's been a lot of compliments over the years about the quality of the report itself, and i think from the start there was an attempt to make this a high quality piece of not literature, but writing; clear, well-illustrated, really telling the story. we had a professional writing team to do that. but the first draft of all the chapters were written by the board members and maybe a few of the very senior staff. this was extensive and expensive. this was a $17 million undertaking which is a fair amount of change for a six month effort. we wanted to get it right, and we took every provision to make sure we did. here's the charters of the four teams, just to see the range of

things that were looked at. and this was the team i led, organization and policy, with sally ride and scott hubbard also involved. in a sense, everybody got involved in this one because it -- we came, i think, to the conclusion that the specific technical accident was really embedded in a lot of history and both political and programmatic and organizational history. here was some of the people that were involved in team four. a couple of them will be familiar to you here in washington. on your left dick benecke now with the state department, harry lambright of syracuse, howard --

[inaudible] of american university. dennis jenkins who we brought into team four but admiral gehman quickly procured to be his kind of person that really knew every nut and bolt on the shuttle. dennis had written a very extensive book on the technical development of the shuttle. roger lowney from the air and space museum. dane day who is here or at least -- yes, he is here -- who was a ph.d. graduate by that time from gw now working for the space studies board. and chirac vias who was a master's candidate here at the space policy institute who's probably our most successful graduate. he runs a brew erie in the virgin islands. [laughter] better than being deputy at nasa, i think. to me, out of the whole report this is the single most damning

paragraph, that nasa and, indeed, the country didn't keep its part of the bargain to operate this complicated, fragile system to the maximum of its potential for safety. so we were rather careful not to point fingers at individuals, but we certainly pointed fingers at almost everybody that was involved with the program. and, as i said, we were asked not only to look at the accident, but place the accident in the broader context of our kind of now what. and here are some quotes from the chapter 9 of the report, and you can read them. what's interesting to me is that

almost every one of these could be said of the situation today. so there was an attempt to change things. the bush administration read our report, agreed with these kind of conclusions. president bush set forward a vision for space exploration in january of 2004, but for reasons that we probably don't want to go into here that was not sustained. notice, i didn't want say it wasn't sustainable -- i didn't say it wasn't sustainable. but it was not sustained. and we're in a situation today where there is a continued failure, in my view, of national leadership to set out directions for the u.s. in space. and that's all i have to say in formal remarks. doug? >> yes. >> i'm going to go down here so i can watch you.

>> [inaudible] you may want to help. [laughter] in case i can't do it. there we go. [background sounds] >> [inaudible] >> oh. is that going to work? >> yeah. >> okay. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. i need to get pack out. back out. why don't i go ahead and start while he's fixing my, what i did wrong. so this afternoon i want to give my perspective. it's actually a perspective

that's based on, um, my years at nasa and the programs i worked on and my experience with this. so going back on the shuttle program, i was in the shuttle program from starting in 1973 right after it became a program and worked on it through its development. so i had experience for about 11 years working, actually, leading flight testing and interior dynamics for the shuttle. i worked on enterprise, columbia and challenger flights. we had instrumentation and did flight test work. and then, um, after the challenger accident i was asked to go work in the program office and ended up working in the program office during return to flight activities after challenger. and so that was my early experience. i, i volunteered to work on

this. i remember calling brian o'connor right after i learned about the accident and asked him if he needed any help, and he said, yeah, i want you to be at barksdale as soon as you can get there. so i did. and ended up being there as the team formed and lived through that swire experience. so what i want to talk about are my takeaways or my views based on my memory which may not be completely consistent with everybody's memories, it's been ten years, but i think it's pretty close. i'm going to use charts, actually, most of which came from caib document, some of which i did at the time. but we'll talk about some of the technical aspects and some of the things that stood out in my mind. another aspect of my perspective is that i ended up before i left nasa, as i did leave nasa, i was, a, for exploration at nasa headquarters which included the programs that came out of the caib experience and the

accident. these are the programs that followed to be the next programs in human space flight. so doc preceded me as scott horowitz preceded me as well as a couple others, but i was the last one. and so i had the constellation program, i had then-space launch system at o rye on -- orion and some technology efforts. so that's my experience. so all of this experience then does relate to where we are today, and i'm going to talk just a bit about that. um, i want to play a film, short film. scott showed a little bit of it earlier. this is miraculous. there are a lot of things that were miraculous about entire effort including all the people involved. but this piece of film, as i remember, was found lying on the ground by itself not in a camera, but the film itself.

see if it goes. >> and don't forget about the stuff on page 3-44. >> we're checking out. we've got -- [inaudible] working through the rest of it as well. thanks. >> sounds good. >> columbia, houston. so rick, we'll take another item. 27, please. >> oh, shoot. >> looks good. where did you miss that? >> i went back to -- [inaudible] >> oh, oh, oh. >> thanks for that, houston. [inaudible] >> i didn't know that was a problem, rick. >> it might be some plasma now. >> [inaudible] >> things are not fine right now. >> [inaudible] >> we can see it out the front -- >> i'm sending over that right

now. >> it's kind of dull. >> it'll be obvious when the time comes. >> really i guess i could give you the camera for that front window. >> no, let's don't do that. >> okay. >> go ahead and make sure you check your suit pressure and integrity too. >> all right. >> i'll leave it there. so they're taking a picture and commenting on the plasma out the windows. this was normal plasma, but at this point in time the plasma was actually burning into the wing as they were commenting on it. so the next memory of columbia is the debris from the accident, and that's what we worked with during this period. and, um, it's sobering even today to think about the human tragedy as well as the

aftermath. this is really indicates what can happen when you have a technical problem, when there are things that you don't know about the vehicle that you're flying, when there can can be a lapse in requirements that i'll talk a little bit about, where you don't absolutely have your requirements right. and so you're not expecting problems. but it has to do some with trying to understand a vehicle that is very complicated. and in this case, obviously, a shuttle, we were learning about shuttle to the day it was decommissioned. so this is the kfc hangar floor. you've seen pictures of it previously. as the pieces started to come in from the incredible job that was done by the recovery crew, dave and scott talked about, we saw a briefing in the caib briefing room where aerospace experts

came in who had investigated, basically, every break-up of anything coming in the atmosphere over, ever since they started happening, and they said, well, you only get 10% back as dave alluded to earlier. and it probably broke up about 100,000 feet. that's where everything breaks up. you'll only get 10% back because it's made of aluminum, and aluminum will burn up. well, we ended up getting, as dave said, between 40 and 45% of the vehicle by weight. a lot of that has to do with the fact that it had tile on a lot of the aluminum, and it actually survived because of that. we learned an incredible amount by studying this evidence. early in the process all of the requests for data, all of the, all of the action was happening through the shuttle control board, and so we would go over and sit with the shuttle guys, and is you'd see a picture or two a day of something new they'd found, and everybody would try to solve the accident by that one piece.

and, actually, everything was funneled through the shuttle program at that point in terms of program office. and this really wasn't working. it became a chokepoint, and admiral gehman and the board said we've got to have a different model because we need to have answers faster, and we need to get data faster. so that was arranged on an earlier chart that john showed. frank buzzard had a team that was a team that was set up to interact with the caib and actually answer requests for data, bring in data, new studies that were determined. and so that began to work better. at about the same time, we also realized that just seeing a piece a day and a picture on a screen wasn't going to get us where we needed to go in understanding the debris data. so, um, pat goodman is here somewhere. right back here. he was my partner. of we spent a lot of time at the

cape going through all of the debris trying to understand not just the pieces that were probably in the area where the accident, where the hole occurred, but looking at it in the context of every bit of debris on the vehicle. and so that was of very enlightening in terms of understanding how this all unfolded. so also about the first day we got there, we went and talked to the ntsb guys, and they said, well, we generally wait until we have all the debris back until we start trying to piece it together. and we knew that the shuttle program was wanting to get on with the program, and we said, well, that's not going to work. so we just decided that we're going to spend a lot of time down there and look at the data or debris as it came in. so we spent an incredible amount of time at the cape. and you saw earlier versions of this. it was a miraculous effort to go get all this data, get all the

debris. one important aspect of the debris was they knew where each piece was found. that was incredibly important to understanding the accident itself. so they had coordinates on every piece of debris. and so even though it's a broad footprint, we -- that was incredible information for us. this is the strike as you saw it there, and it was a piece of foam. the other picture shows the ramp that was a piece of foam at the foot of the bipod. the bipod being a structure that attaches the shuttle in the front of the orbiter to the tank. the external tank. and this is a piece of foam on the tank. an incredible amount of work was done to understand its trajectory, because that was important from the sense that, um, we needed to know the

relative velocity. because at that time, at the time of the accident it was thought that the foam couldn't possibly do this kind of damage. and so because it's just a light piece of foam. and yet it, when you calculate the velocity of it, it actually created quite a force that hit the leading edge. and so as time went on, these models got better. they didn't initially necessarily show it hitting panel eight but, in fact, it did hit panel eight. panel eight being on the leading edge of the wing. its reaction -- it's the rcc panel. it's gray. it looks like fiberglass, basically. so it looks tough, but basically we learned over time -- and we didn't know it early on, but it did hit panel eight. oops. did something wrong.

there we go. another piece of data or set of data was, actually, flight data that we had that came back from the flight. and what you're seeing here is, um, you're seeing a departure. you see the dash line where this is rolling moment. so what happened was during the entry you're seeing data where the aerodynamics don't make sense. and so the orbiter starts, starts departing. all the rcs jets and controls are saturated, but it keeps on going, and it shouldn't do that. there's another sts-109 trace that should be kind of what it looks like. so we had various data like this, and so the team, the nasa, the caib with, everybody was interested in trying to make sense out of all the data, and there's an incredible number of studies that were done and tests and all kinds of analysis to

understand how, what happened. so one of the things that we realized early on was you've got to integrate all this stuff. you can't just look at the debris, you have you have to look at the flight data, you have to look at where things fell on the ground and put that together in an integrated view and try to figure out what happened. this is interesting in the fact that this was a ground track that shows where rcc, the pieces of the leading edge hit the ground. and, basically, we had left wing, left wing eroded rcc and right wing. and so the red being left wing. if you put it down into centroids of those areas, a is the middle of the area where the left wing hit. b is the central area where the tail hit the ground and c is where the right wing hit the ground. so from this and looking at the

debris, we determine -- we got a good idea of what, how the vehicle came apart that also helped us understand what was going on here. so this is a debris map. this is -- all these charts pretty much are caib charts. i updated this one based on the latest debris model that we ended up, or the final debris model that we had. it shows where we had pieces of the bottom of the shuttle. and, basically, the shuttle, of course, is flying in nose first. as soon as the left wing departs, we figured, we figured out that, well, if you look at the center of gravity and the center of pressure b -- or, basically, where the outline of the shuttle is, it's going to change directions. and so we saw evidence of this, actually, on the right wing where we saw puddling of the

ceramic on the tiles going sideways which was consistent, and in the direction consistent with the shuttle actually going sideways, left side into the wind, um, after the left wing came off. .. >> and we also had some area where maybe the ergonomics were done by the left will coming down early. and so had and i spent a lot of time as they keep trying to

these possibilities. this one just shows the pieces that we had in front of the we will. we had enough of that at one point in the circle on the right shows some of the hardware on the floor at the cape. and basically we ruled out anything coming in in front of the wheel well. when they said, well, there's a team looking, the wheel came down, that's what caused the aero two, part. we said we have the gear, i think that is tracking holding to do. the frontside still had chrome on it which would not have happened. it would've been burned off. and actually the underside was burned out pretty well, which is the picture on the right. and that would indicate it was your it was what it was supposed to be. so that wasn't, we ruled that it. one of the scenarios that we

thought toward, late in the game, we felt like, well, maybe it's a carrier panel. there's panels that come off with tile on them. the ones on the top have quarter inch balls. the ones on the bottom have to-one quarter-inch bolting them on. and we thought, well, maybe it wasn't the leading edge that have the whole. may be one of those panels got hit and came off. and so we gradually got all of the carrier panels on the other side of the left wing of the last one that came in was panel eight. and so right up to the point we thought maybe it was a carrier panel, but that eliminate that possibility. we also have evidence where there were deposits of slag. is on the inside of panel eight pieces, where, this is molten material that is melting because of the plasma burning inside the

leading edge of the wind. so we have deposits on the inside of the pieces there. we also had the aironet next guy, doing dynamics and a cavity which is basically, was basically unheard of of appetite. you do it over and she. they are doing dynamics in a county with plasma. they basically showed flow that would duplicate the damage that we are seeing here. so we were basically, where we were at this point in time is, we were pretty sure that it was panel eight that had been hit. and, but we couldn't prove it conclusively. and then the record came into which you show me. i remember a picture of it. i couldn't find. i remember a picture that showed it sitting on the ground all by itself, just sitting there. and everybody was very concerned about the condition of the tape. when they opened it up it was

christine. so we get data from that. and basically between the data itself that show changes in pressures and temperatures in the left wing, and the fact that these measurements would go off-line, they would go off-line because the wires were being burned through. and this is a close-up picture of the orbiter behind where these wires were around. and so we know exactly where the wires were, and you could see them going off one by one. and so with that data we could, there is a picture at the bottom of the leading edge. with this information we knew the whole was about that big within an area of about that much. so that mads data was actually the data that cemented our understanding of what happened.

another thing that occurred is that we saw data in mads that showed spikes and heating your well, so there's a picture here. it makes sense that if the plasma is burning through the leading edge of the wing, at some point it exits. and because of the flow on the orbiter, it's going to roll up and hit upon. when you look at the piece we had come it had molten aluminum on a. and exotic mature is out of leading edge. early on we are part of the vertical tail and was always one on one side on the floor. when we learned about, when we figured this part out, we realized, welcome on the side that's on the floor there should be dashed if we were walking by it everyday, and so at this point when we thought about this scenario, we said, well, let's turn it over and see what it looks like. so we turned it over and saw the

left side. it was like the oms pod, so it was molten aluminum and materials out of the left wing as well. so basically this is a diagram that shows the leading edge parts that actually were recovered, and about where the hole was. as has been said, this incredible amount of analysis that went on. all aspects of possibilities of the damage and the scenario and how this all came about was studied, and it included every aspect that anybody could think of. we ruled things out. this is a chart that just shows all these different things that were looked at, that could have caused problems with rcc or the various parts of the shuttle. and they were all ruled out, through study and testing. this is a chart that talks about

some aspects of this that are somewhat troubling. obviously, back at the time, these are all traditions that i came away with. it showed the incredible importance of having enough data from these flights to actually figure out what happened. if you're going to go fly again, you have enough information to know what caused you the failure. there was something else going on in the program at the time, was called, when they have something off nominal, like the it had prior, they have had prior phone releases. it never caused a problem. so they became in family which we've seen this before. the prodigy didn't understand it completely and it didn't come off at the right time or hit the right place becaus to cause thef damage that caused the accident. there was also, i think a general misconception, and to my history on the shuttle pro ram i

never heard this really discussed back in the early days. everybody was concerned about fragility of the tiles, because you can go punch a tile with your finger and poke a hole in it. rcc look top in comparison. so nobody, to my memory, every really talked about it before this accident. and so it was generally thought to be pretty tough stuff. there are also problems with requirements at that time. turns out that the wing, none of the rcc panels, none of the tiles had a requirement to be able to withstand a debris hit of foam or anything else. why is that? because the phone wasn't supposed to come off. and so that requirement was never there. it was difficult for the condition and it was a difference between, and of different projects that were independent of each other to some degree. and also at this point in time,

because of the time had gone by since challenger, the se&i office had dwindled in size and they were not even able to do extensive analysis. there was something called a crater model which was a model, a mathematical model based on calibration with testing that would indicate what kind of damage could be done by a piece of debris. so that was something that was in place. but it was talked about during this period, and the fact of the matter is that it was not meant to predict damage to rcc. there was also schedule pressure. and i'll talk some about that. there were other vulnerabilities that were actually discovered during this intense investigation of other problems that might of been the next accident. and so a lot of this showed what

problems could be out there, and, and actually indicated the degree to which we misunderstood the vehicle we were flying. then there are other possible outcomes. i don't know how probable they were but they were looked at during the caib express. then there's organizational cultural issues that john alluded to. there was a history of foam on foam loss and it was in family basically because it happened, we've never had severe problem. we had damage on tiles at times but they were never see their enough to cause severe problem. there was scheduled pressure during this point in the shuttle program. we had a space station built and we've already had, we have downtime for the program to the other problems. and at the same time we had other problems that grounded the

fleet, the scheduled dates didn't change. so just put more pressure on it. so this was a pressure that was on the program office. this is a chart out of the caib presentation. there were issues during this time of the flight. there were requests -- the engineers knew that the shuttle had been hit. they had the photo data. they asked for ground pictures to be taken to see if there was damage of the shuttle. those were not -- those were not done, or they were denied. and so there were people wanted to find out more during the flight about what damage there might be, but they talked about the crater model. they talked about past experience, in family, that sort of thing. and so these opportunities did not happen. there were other cases, the bolt

catcher. this is a bolt that is a separation bold between external tank and the sops, the solid rocket boosters. there will issues in the category turns out that this piece of hardware was never fully qualified, ever in the program. and it might be the accident. in fact, there was radar data from sts-107 that showed pieces coming off, that big metal pieces coming off at separation. so didn't hit anything on this like that in the future maybe it would. and so these things were found. in fact, on an sts-107 it was found that there were x-rays done other wealth of the dome on this catcher, and it should never have passed inspection. so there are other things that were found. there are other things that are aspects of this flight as well. this is a picture out of the back window on the upper deck coming and, in the area damage

is just out of view, unfortunately. so this was taken during the flight, and it's showing panel 12. panel eight is the one that was hit. there was a study done by the nation's folks at jnc to look at what had been a possibility if it was pursued to go look, doing contingency take a look at the wing. so there were studies done to actually look at this and said yeah, we could have actually done this. they also asked, well, could the crew have stuck stuff in take you from burning through supporter, that sort of thing. so there were a number of observations made by the caib. there were some issues with the independence of fnma, safety and mission assurance, that were called out.

in their independence. so there were some criticisms on the organization and that sort of thing. so given all this, and in memory of it, so what are the concerns for today? and this is not a caib chart. this is my. i pointed out the importance of requirements. do we have the ability to impose requirements? one of the concerns in question is, under the approaches we're taking on programs now, do we have the ability to impose requirements? in particular, and we have the right level of requirements? you can overdo requirements as well. we're good at that as nasa, over specifying things. so you have to find where the fine line is in office. and when i was there, i put a lot of emphasis on common set of human rating requirements. because we're different kind of programs. we have the commercial programs

that actually i didn't mention earlier, those were mine, too, the commercial cargo and crew when i was eight. we had those and we had sos and orion. so where is the fine line that you draw? the same set of requirements to protect people should be as good for one program as they are for another. and so if you can come up with a really good validator set of requirements that are thorough enough and not overdoing it, then why would you have different types of requirements for different programs? a concern that i have and one that may be it will be a follow on session of some sort is with space act agreement. you can't impose requirements. the lawyers tell you can't propose requirements under space act. yet the safety prospect and a program goes on on a daily basis. if you look at shuttle program come if you look at any develop a program you make design -- design decisions of everyday that you go to work.

and the safety people and independent sense are there with you looking at the design decisions and weighing in on whether not it's safe enough. and so the question is, under space act, are we able to impose requirements in a way that will have confidence later that we are safe waxed because we're still going to fly people on them, and so, and the same thing goes for oversight. you can't impose oversight over processes and development in a space act. so now programs have certification effort, or certification contract with the developers say, for the commercial crew. but it comes late in the process. a lot of the design has already happened, so the question is, going back to admiral dyer's comments this morning, are we early enough in the process to have the confidence in the

systems that we are developing. so that's a question. the attention to detail is another aspect of that. the design detail, you can see small commuting see things in these accidents that you didn't expect. and there is incredible amount of detail that's gone into the shuttle program in terms of understanding it and trying to get to save situation. another thing that happens is, as you become successful, and this showed up in the shuttle program before each accident, you become successful, you're knocking flights are, they're going well, it can breed overconfidence, which leads you to other problems that you see crop up in these failures. there are political influences in the shuttle program, the flight dates, scheduled pressure. there's obviously tension, political tension around our programs today. so does have an effect and it

can affect safety. so a question is, i'm not trying to answer it, i'm just asking questions, or pointing out concerns, have we drifted away from that, the things that we learned during the columbia accident and its aftermath? i know that for a fact that immediately following the columbia accident, and following the challenger accident, nasa became stronger. the people involved in the decisions, the people that were involved in it, from whatever standpoint, became stronger and worked probably these lessons. but as time goes by you can drift away from the. they become less relevant, as you work your day-to-day job. so in the end you have to ask yourself those questions, and whether not you are safe. because we know that the consequences for these missteps or misconceptions can be catastrophic. and in the end the people that fly on our missions, fly on our

spacecraft our family members. they our friends, coworkers and they depend, they can't know everything that goes on in the vehicle they are flying. they depend on the operators. they depend on the engineers. they depend on the program managers. they depend on people in washington who are studying policy. they're dependent on all of us for giving them their safely as we can. understanding that it's still high-risk proposition. so that's my comments, and probably don't have much time, but be happy to answer questions questions. >> so we have time for a couple of questions.

>> you talked a little bit about the extensive caib investigation. is there anything that you would change looking back as far as the breath or the depth of the investigation, or do you think that it's a good model if we ever need to do that again? >> from my viewpoint, there was a caib investigation. is also all that jazz work and analysis. it was combined effort and in. a caib had a job to do to review it, but there's a to it, but those are two minutes of my of work done by nasa, and in support of the. and i think it was very thorough in the end, personally. >> and i would add, the caib brought in the best expertise we could find in the country to support our analysis. so we didn't think we were leaving anything unturned.

>> can you talk a little bit about the parallels between the and family issues related to the foam and those related to the blow by on 51l? >> that's farther back in memory for it to go back that far, but there were, there were, there were instances where there was a religion of o rings prior to the challenger accident. i do think it was understood -- erosion of o rings. that cold weather in such a factor. into the investigation had i one of the people understood it that well. but, i mean, there was some of that going on then, too. that's a natural thing in human nature to say oh, we have seen that before. the problem is, when that occurs, we might've seen it

before, but you don't know where you are with respect to the cliff. that's the way we usually call it. youth study things with a certain boundary. you've done analysis. you've done testing. it's qualified to these conditions, and so something happens that goes outside that boundary and said oh, we didn't have a problem, you know, but we never analyzed that. so the next time you allowed to go a little bit farther. where do you fall off the cliff and jeff catastrophic problems? that's the danger in that, in that mindset, i believe. >> one of the people that we consulted with during the investigation, a woman named diane von now at columbia university i think it would written a very detailed look at the challenger accident, and its causes. and it used some sociological literature, talk about being an

academic, she didn't say in family. she said normalization of deviance. basically the same thing. and i remember very vividly at one of our public hearings, dr. ride, sally wrightwood been on the challenger mission and was listening to someone testify saying, i hear echoes of challenger. -- sally ride. there were similarities in the project. spent i just wanted to make, i agree with that were similarities. there was one fundamental difference though between the engineering aspects and the two accidents. so engineers are people, too, and the sociological things are worth pointing out. with challenger, the solid mechanics of the joint behavior as a structure were not understood until well after the accident. it literally rotates -- it rotated differently in a

different direction than the engineers thought when it was designed. so have the joint behaved as it was believed to have behaved, the design would've inadequate. in the case of the foam, i think everybody knew that it's possible if you hit the wing hard enough to break foam and it's a cognitive gap is whether not foam could do that, but there wasn't a fundamental misunderstanding of the physics. it's a question of the level involved, the forces involved. with the challenger solid rocket motor joint there was a funded -- fundamental message that at that work at all, and those are different things spend and my recollection on the foam, i'm not sure that, i do remember there being evidence that the work had been done to understand the velocities and the momentum of the foam before the accident. the foam had come off before but i don't think, i never saw anything that i remember saying that they looked at what it

really took. they just thought this isn't like piece of material, it couldn't possibly get that damage. but even get to the velocities even at that mass, you have the issue. >> in fact on that note, just quickly, i do have a film of the southwest research test, where will they actually -- >> nasa didn't want us to do this. >> so this is -- naturally it shows it right across it, right? so this was a test that was done of actual rcc at southwest research to see at the right velocities, see what the damage could be. from a piece of foam. >> can i make one comment? >> jim duffy with faa. at one time i was project manager of columbia. you mentioned the importance of the requirements, and another tool to the system engineer is

designed references. one of the things we learn on shuttle was that every time we analyzed the abort missions, they size everything. so if you design your system just to the nominal mission, or shuttle that was one, two, three and three b., you miss all the design limits. and so we had to go back and redesign several things get when you finally got around to analyzing the abort missions. so that's another requirement that, i don't know if it's employed well enough today but should be. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> the u.s. senate returns to session today at tpmcafe to senators will begin with a

general speech is turning two judicial nominations. the house returns tomorrow and will consider this week changes to the welfare to work program and consolidating federal job training programs. we will have live coverage of the senate. you can see the house live on c-span. president obama will be traveling to capitol hill this week. he meets tomorrow with senate democrats, with house republicans on wednesday comments and republicans on thursday. on friday, president obama travels to the national laboratory just outside chicago to talk about energy and climate change. the lab is one of the energy department's largest national laboratories for scientific and engineering research. tonight, c-span continues our first ladies of sirius, looking at the influence and image of the nation's first ladies. ..

>> how the debris of both the columbia and challenger shuttles was used by victims' family members as part of their grieving process. this is just over 45 minutes. >> thank you, everybody, for letting me come today. the reason i'm here, i was the chief of the astronaut office when we lost columbia. the, interestingly, two characters at the table, there's a lot out in the room that worked very closely with throughout all this. so although this is, this panel's called technical lessons learned, what i really want to do is kind of offer up the perspective as the chief of the

astronaut office what it was going through columbia and lessons more from the chief astronaut point of view and from the astronaut corps that we learned. i want to pull together an outline. i think we just had a tremendous brief on that, and, jeez, doug cooke, phenomenal. the amount of information you covered in that amount of time was just very, very good. thank you. that was great. now, as chief astronaut, in general through my career my timing's always been good. i kind of think this is one of the exceptions. columbia was one of the first missions i launched as the chief of the astronaut office. the mission before launch 113, actually became the chief when he was on orbit and landed for 113, but i'd never launched a shuttle mission before, before i launched sts-107. so, needless to say, fairly new at the chief perspective. so what i want to kind of cover

today was the leadership opportunities that were presented, the fact communications is essential particularly in something like this, and then given the columbia accident what next? what do we as the astronaut corps think is the right thing to do? and interestingly, you know, and doc is out in the crowd as well, the day we lost columbia i was in florida flying the shuttle training aircraft expecting to see columbia show up, rendezvous on columbia, kind of chase columbia down and gather the wind data. obviously, that didn't happen, so it was a very sobering day. immediately lessons from the previous accident showed up as a positive in the fact that we now had a plan for the families, the spouses. so on columbia i felt that nasa did a really nice job from the

administrator on down of treating the families right, giving them the right support and trying to make this, do everything we could for those families. and that included on the landing gate, because the families now there was a plan that somewhat isolated them and gave them the privacy that they deserved. and that wasn't something that nasa had in order for challenger. so lessons from challenger were, in fact, used. when i got back to houston and immediately got the astronaut office together, we had a meeting, and it was a pretty, obviously, a very emotional meeting because the emotions were kind of all over the map. as humans, we're all different. but what was very clear to me in that meeting was the astronauts that were very experienced, matter of fact, the more experienced, the more outspoken that, hey, the space shuttle maybe is just too risky to ever fly again.

now, keep in mind they're the minority. the majority in my office had never flown the space shuttle, and they were i won't use the word unfazed, but they were, they didn't care that flying the shuttle was risky. they absolutely, you know, when am i going to get my chance to fly it. so the office was spread across both ends of the spectrum. we held meetings, oh, about every three weeks. because at this point i felt it was important as a corps, and there were about a hundred of us, to kind of understand and have a position on what we thought. and it was really a recommendation. because the way it works as the chief of the astronaut corps, you know, once on the caib many cases officially don't have a say, it's more of providing recommendations and in some cases being a cheerleader. so for determining the path forward, i thought it was of

important as a corps that we came to what we thought was the right thing to do. and what became apparent out of all of this if you do the basic math, out of the 113 space shuttle missions we'd flown, we lost two, two shuttles and their crews. so the basic math is your odds of a bad day are 1 in 57. when i flew combat in desert storm, my chances of not coming back, actually, my chances of being killed were 1 in 20,000. so much safer to fly in combat in a fighter on a mission than to climb on a space shuttle. and when you climb on an airliner to see an order of magnitude safer than that. so that started to dawn on us as a corps. so now you start talking about risk versus reward. so, obviously, the risk part is it's risky when you climb on the space shuttle. what's reward? and does the reward justify the risk? and what we worked up to was, absolutely.

we have global commitments on a space station to complete building out space station. however, the other thing that we recognized was when you lose a national asset and seven astronauts, our whole country, our whole nation takes a hit in prestige. and it appears that the further we go along, the less that as americans we're willing to accept that. so if you want a healthy space flight program, you have got to have one that doesn't lose the crew. at least very often. so as we started looking through this, we said, well, you do basic math, how many missions does it take to build out space station? and that answer was around 25. well, your odds of losing a shuttle out of 25, 1 out of 57, hey, we have toeds are -- toeds are we won't lose another shuttle, and we can build out the space station. but also we desperately wanted to be able to leave lower earth

orbit and go to mars. and there's always debate on whether you go to mars via the moon or just go right to mars. if you ask one astronaut, you'll get too opinions. i absolutely believe in going back through the moon. will it take you more time and more expensive to get to mars? yes. i believe, though, your chances of success are such that that is the right way to go. so we said, hey, we need the to replace it. and we need one that can go beyond low earth orbit, and it needs to be safer than the space shuttle. and if you start looking at it, it can be easily an order of mag my tuesday safer particularly with the crew escape system. so as an office we kind of generated a white paper, turned it in kind of up the chain of command, and interestingly that, in fact, was the vision that was rolled out. and i never, i never had the dots connected. i don't know if it was coincidence or if there was input or if it actually had an

influence or not. but the reality is as phenomenal a machine as the space shuttle is -- and i absolutely love the space shuttle -- it was time to move onioned the space shuttle so we could explore deep space. when you talk about leadership, immediately realize communications was one of the most important tools that, or in fact, i had. and so whether it was doc horowitz working with dave king on the recovery and the astronauts out in the field, whether it was talking to sox who was on station, by the way -- and, by the way, i remember the first time i talked to the u.s. astronauts on station, you know, a day or so after we lost columbia, sox and don pettitte. it was actually, you know, their whole attitude was we're here for you. anything we can do, we can do.

leave us on orbit a year. you know, don't worry about us. you know, take care of columbia. and that was pretty much the attitude i saw across the board. same with working with the shuttle program, same with working with the recovery team. interestingly, we were part of the recovery team recovering our own which, in fact, i won't go into anything but other than say it was not pleasant. after the fact some of the medical folks said, you know, that was not smart. if we do this again, we do not want the astronaut corps involved in the recovery particularly when they're recovering part of their astronaut corps themselves. i disagreed with that. we did go through psychological debriefing. for those in the field that did some of the parts that were very unpleasant. but one of the most frustrating things is to be held off or be put on the bench because somebody's worried about your

emotions. so i was very thankful that we got to participate, do our part, do everything we can. in the end, i think it all worked out very well. the ore thing in working -- the other thing in working through this was working with the shuttle program on getting back to flight, returning to flight. from the astronauts' point of view, the one thing that we really cared about was inspection. so if we didn't have repair capability, fine. if we didn't have a safe haven, that's okay. the one really requirement we had was we just want to know if the space shuttle's damaged or not. because i don't think it was alluded to, but the fact is had we known space shuttle columbia was damaged, in fact, atlantis was, coincidentally, at a point of processing where at nasa we

could have physically gotten atlantis the -- into the air in time to rendezvous with columbia. that opens up a whole question of would you have done that? you just lost your last space shuttle, you don't really know why you lost it. would you launch another one? being a military guy, i kind of put it into we send helicopter and rescue missions that are way more dangerous than the ones from which that one pilot got shot down. we send several humans into harm's way to retrieve that one that got shot down. and my guess is i believe that's where we would have wound up with nasa as well. knowing that, hey, there's a lot of risk with launching atlantis, we probably would have gone for it. it would have been a risky mission, no doubt. but the point is if you know the risks, then that's where nasa's always excelled. apollo 13.

so, in fact, from that point on when we flew the space shuttle, we always had 100% inspection so the crew knew the integrity of the thermal protection system. we also had a safe haven so if there was a problem, the crew could stay on the international space station. you would lose the orbiter, but you would rescue the crew. with that, my 15 minutes are up. and by the way, i'm trying to give time for questions at the end, but he's -- here's a quote which basically says, you know, it's in our dna to explore. and, matter of fact, a week ago when inspiration mars was rolled out, one of the questions at the end was a really tough one. what kind of inspiration will the mission be if you kill the crew? and i think the guy trying to answer it was having a little bit of trouble, and somebody

tapped rogers on the shoulder, the widow of the commander of the challenger mission. and she went to the mic and said, hey, look, you know, it's risky, we know that. matter of fact, i'm not going to do june justice. but basically she said i inspiration doesn't die. right? so the inspiration, the need in our dna to continue to explore will always be there. and that's why this is so important, so we make sure we learn those lessons because we absolutely learn much more from our failures than our successes. so with that, sox is up. [background sounds]

>> as mentioned, i was on orbit when the sts-107 accident occurred. the experience there, of course, shaped my perception of what happened and my ideas of what i think are important lessons from the experience. so i thought i'd tell you a little bit about that. we launched in november with the crew of sts-113, jim, don, mike and john harrington and me. i'd just like to put a shuttle slide in any speech i give because it's such a cool thing. it's important for us to remember that. part of the rewards of these glorious launches and what the people do, and it's what cower ris us through the -- carries us through the difficult times. but we made it up to orbit. and one of the first things we had to do was make sure that our suits would fit and that our

seat liners would work in the soyuz spacecraft that was already docked up there. that was our back-up plan. it's funny, this was the first in a new series of soyuz, and nasa and the space station program, shuttle program and the russians had sort of bent over backwards to figure out how to keep my crew from flying on that vehicle. in the russian program's history, they often have their problems early in their vehicle design cycles rather than later. and so they wanted an experienced russian crew to fly in that soyuz tma-1. although we were supposed to launch on a soyuz, that changed midway on our training flow, and we went to a prime shuttle launch. , and we were supposed to fly home on a shuttle as well, sts-114. in fact, sts-114 has probably the most crew patch versions of any crew that's been in

existence because of all the different changes that happened through the program. well, so when we did this particular thing, they call it checking out your soyuz, we figured that the most important thing that would come out of it would be this picture right here. and it is a really good picture, you've got to admit. those suits make you look good. they're good colors, and if you've god blue eyes, they make them stand out. [laughter] so this is one of my favorite pictures. but we really never thought that we'd ever get in the vehicle, let alone come home with it. and then in february, um, on a, you know, middle of the week before the accident we had a chance to talk with the sts-107 crew. they set that up for, you know, pr purposes, you know, crew to crew. but it was also a chance to just talk with our friends. you know, we hadn't spent a lot of time with them because we were on opposite sides of the hallway when we were in training, but we would run into them in the bathroom

occasionally between training sessions and chat. and i remember, you know, talking with the folks, and we started off talking about the science parts of our mission, and then laurel came on and said, hey, let's talk about our kids. enough of this science stuff. and i remember talking with e land ramon, you know, his kids and my kids were going to the same school, and i said, hey, well, you know, if you see my kids, give them a hug because you're going to get back before me. and as it turned out, it was the other way around. the emotional part of that, of course, was difficult for us as a crew. but we had a couple more months that we needed to stay on orbit. we needed to do our work. and the program spent that time regrouping. initially, they told us, hey, you know, you could be coming home on time. that's always the first answer for any program manager, don't give up the original plan. we don't want to spanish to the back-up plan -- switch to the

back-up plan yet. and i remember us shaking our heads thinking these guys are deluding themselves. but they really didn't have any other choice. they weren't ready to tell us what the back-up plan was. during that period they actually did discuss leaving us on orbit a year which we were, as mentioned, we were kind of all for that. it gave us more time to learn about the environment. and at some point they analyzed logistics for station and realized that it was going to be difficult to sustain more than two crew members at a time while they were there. while the shuttles were down. because they needed the extra supplies. so at that point, um, a bunch of crews after ours got rejuggled, and they went from three-person crews, some flying on shuttles, some flying on soyuzes to two-person crews. and around the may time frame ed lou and uri came up in this

particular soyuz to relieve my crew, and we were supposed to fly home in the soyuz that we were never intended to fly on. for those of you who don't know the soyuz very well, i like to whenever i have a picture up here explain a little bit about it. it's a very simple vehicle. it's kind of a great example of how spending more money doesn't always make a vehicle safer. this vehicle is smaller, carries less crew, it's much less capable in what it can do performance wise than a space shuttle, but it's got a great amount of redundancy and a great amount of capability to handle failures. even though it's very, very simple and it doesn't land on a runway. the part of the soyuz that's closest to the space station is the ball-shaped end. that's sort of a habitation module where there's a bathroom up there and a place to prepare food or store food anyway and a place to change clothes.

the bell-shaped model in the middle is the descent module that the crew comes home in when it separates from the rest of the vehicle, and the bottom end are the solar arrays, the propulsion systems. so uri and ed in the green suits came up to replace nikolai, don and me. we got in the soyuz, um, and started on our way home. we're in the middle of, you know, back-up option number one thinking that, okay, everything's going to go great from this point on. the intended entry profile is what's called a controlled lifting descent. it's what a shuttle does, what jim and i in apollo did where, basically, you roll your vehicle around to control just how fast you fall into the atmosphere so that you hit the thickest part of the atmosphere at just the right time to minimize the loads on the vehicle. but it also allows you to more closely control your landing touchdown point. well, not before, too long

already entering the atmosphere, we had a change in the displays on our screen, and we were in back-up mode number two. the control system had, um, experienced a design feature, and we entered what was called a ballistic mode. ballistic mode is a higher entry level descent, a higher g level, and the vehicle would get up to eight or nine gs on the entry, and you just go into a steady roll. come in, it's not really controlling the entry point anymore, it's just trying to control roll rate. but one of the things that the soyuz does really well, the downside for the crew is now you land 300 miles away from where everybody's waiting for you. so our russian partners long ago had cut support at the ballistic entry landing site out of their program to save money, and there was nobody there to meet us when we landed. not only that, when we were talking with the rescue forces who were still a few hundred miles away, you know, when we

were up high coming in under the parachute, we were able to talk to them. they said, hey, we see you guys, and we said, well, how close are you to the ground? they said, well, we lost you, we can't tell you anymore. so we thought, hey, maybe there was of a force at the recovery site. even more entertaining than that, um, because they had talked to us, we didn't tell them that we had a ballistic entry and were 300 miles short of the normal landing site. we also didn't know that they didn't have tracking. that, again, had been cut out of the program a long time ago. [laughter] so the russians didn't know we were 300 miles away. so we ended up landing, and then because we thought they were probably close, we promptly inhilted our best communication antennas, so we couldn't talk to anybody, and nobody knew where we were. it got quiet, we sat there for 20 or 30 minutes waiting for somebody to come up and open the hatch and, you know, nobody came. and at this point i thought, you know, people have been wondering forever if long duration crew

members can really climb out of a capsule. let's give it a shot. [laughter] and so we climbed out. and as you can see here, it wasn't completely pretty, but we did get out of the vehicle. and then we started to realize that this was starting the to sound probably to the people back there in the control center a lot like what happened on columbia. here's a crew not too far from touchdown, and we lose radio contact, and we don't know where they are. so -- >> so, sox, let me interrupt here. it was another nightmare coming true. i was in russia, in moscow in the control center standing next to a guy that turned whiter than this table cloth here. his name's sean o'keefe, but the nasa administrator. you could just see him going, wow. i'm two in a row for not getting crews back. and so it was extremely tense time for everybody on the heels of columbia. finish. >> with so nikolai and i were

talking, and i said, you know, we really ought to try to contact somebody, you know, we didn't have a cell phone. now crews have a satellite phone so they can call as soon as they get out of the vehicle. so i climbed back into the soyuz and started pulling out the rescue equipment, and nikolai promptly started shooting off all the flares, went through most of the russian supply. they had to go out with a new procurement to buy rescue flares for the soyuz. [laughter] and we made contact with the search airplane. the fixed-wing search airplane, their plan if they don't make contact with the crew is to start working to the short part of the cycle figuring a ballistic entry is the most likely scenario. and they started working their way to us, and about two hours after we landed, we were able to talk with the rescue airplane and tell them everything was fine. shortly after that they kind of flew by, and about three hours after that the helicopters with these guys came and grabbed us

and brought us back to star city. so, you know, in a period of three or four months, you know, we've got a back-up crew member. don pettitte replaced a prime crew member. we've done a back-up option eva, we've exercised our back-up crew return mode, and we've used a back-up option on the entry control mode so you can see one of my lessons learned is back-ups are good. [laughter] back-up options help reduce risk. when you're not sure what's going on or even when you think you are sure and the consequences are high if you've made an error, having a back-up option can help you through that system, that process, that problem. well, um, after i got back i had six months of rehab. came to headquarters for about four months which is a lot harder than a ballistic entry working in washington was a lot tougher -- [laughter] than any of that training,

anything. i really, um, i empathize with the folks that work here and the difficulties that they go through every day. and it was good for me to experience that. but it was also great to get back with the shuttle team who, by this time, were about a year into dealing with sts-107. my job was as the director of flight crew operations. in that position i was responsible for all the flight ops at jsc, and my job was to represent the crew in some of the program and senior leadership forums, represent the crew point of viewment -- view. and the thing i remember from those early meetings coming back a year later was just how much emotion was in the meetings. i mean, people, you could see people were full of -- they were having personal problems dealing with the issues, and they were

also having personal problems with other people who they might have held accountable. and it would come out in arguments and hot-tempered exchanges at meetings. and every meeting would take twice or three times as long as it needed to take. and i'm not faulting anybody. i mean, i had plenty of emotional baggage coming back from space station. that's what humans have to deal with. but it's in the times like these that leaders really need to understand that it's more than just the it it technical things they're working with, they also need to understand how to work with their people. and i thought that bill parsons did a great job of that and rom shepherding the astronaut office through this time, getting them into a mental state where they were ready to get back onto the shuttle did fantastic work. one of the things that we had to do as part of one of the boards i was on, the mission management team, was to go through some

special training. and wayne hale gets blamed for this all the time. i don't know if it was really his idea, but he's the one whose name usually gets used. and at the time i wasn't very happy about it, okay? i was a very busy guy. i was just trying to cope every day, and i wasn't sure that this training was really helping me much. and i was thumbing through one of the books one day, and i got to this diagram. i don't know if you guys can see it really well, but, basically, it's from a book by a guy named james reason who's one of these experts that studies how organizations fail. and he's done really great work, and it's a really simple picture of how an organization oscillates back and forth in its vulnerability to accidents, you know, from protecting itself to producing or getting things out the door. and the thing that caught me first was that there were three little explosion things here, and i kept thinking apollo 1, challenger, columbia.

it's got nothing to do with the diagram, but that's what hit me first, that there were three of them. and i thought this is part of the oscillation that's been going on inside our organization here. so even though i didn't like the training and wasn't happy about it, it was probably really good for me, all right? for one thing, when you're close to one of those big, flashy explosion things, the catastrophic side, you're usually really busy, and you don't have time for training. you don't want to learn about this kind of stuff. but if you want any of this knowledge to benefit you, if you want to benefit from the experiences of people before you, you have to be exposed to it, and sometimes you have the to make people go off and get that training. so i found it to be really useful, and i thought was a great representation of some of what was going on at nasa. is the real usefulness of a tool is how can you use it going forward. well, if you're aware of this, you might look for some of the

signs of which side of toeslation you're on. one thing that's important to realize is when you get to one of these inflection points where you've gone to where you've built up your defenses quite a bit and then you turn around and start tearing down your defenses, you'll usually hear it in an organization. oh, we're too safe, we're too conservative, we're not doing enough, all right? you're going to hear that when you're making that corner, all right? when you get down there to the bottom, people are often kind of numb, they've been cutting for a long time, you may see some bitterness, you may even get complacency because people just, um, get tired of getting beat on. so your normal safety bulldog, you tell them, no, i'm not going to do that, and instead of fighting it he goes, okay, cut me again, right? and then the accident happens. so lesson three, training good.