challenges does it present to be so much more tied to your customers' home? >> well, we invented -- well, invested in a company that they with an -- i'll see a lean-to. but you drive it in and it's got solar panels above it and you plug your car in and you're home free. could that happen -- >> carport? >> yeah, carport, i'm sorry. good technical term, i like that. and so i mean, is that a solution? we do a lot of inductive -- you know, like with your cell phone. you can put it on a pad. we invested in a company like that. you'll see that in our models coming out, where you take your cell phone and you don't have to plug it in and worry about the jack and all this. convenience. you'll see that in the cars in the upcoming years. someone said why don't we get a size of your garage floor and then you think of old fido walking across there and --

[ laughter ] i mean, you've got to worry about all this stuff. so yeah, we're thinking about everything. because for example, if natural gas is the solution, and i have natural gas in my home. why not just fuel your car at home? well, i can tell you, that wouldn't go down well with exxon and the boys because all of a sudden they have another form of the distribution. but we're thinking like that because, you know, what's one company's solution is another bad nice. -- bad news. but there may be alternate plants for distribution in the coming decades. i don't know. but i can tell you, you would have to get the -- to pressurize natural gas from residential feed into the car, you'd have to picked the pressure up to get it in there. and so there are a lot of practical problems that need to be solved or addressed. but we're looking at everything and everything is on the table. whether it's relay cars, we'll

look at anything that people say, well, why would gm do that? well, i think bill ford's right. it's going to happen -- we can't control the universe. we're a country. we have to react to reality. we want to predict the future so we can be proactive. so i don't know if it's going to be electric and infused into the architecture of a home or if it's going to be natural gas. i don't think anybody is going to be putting nuclear reactors on cars any time soon. but if they did, we'd start thinking about it. >> do you have a charging volt charging station in your garage? >> yes, i do and i love it. i'll tell you, i have now driven probably -- i had one of the first volts and what we call a captured test fleet. i drove it for 2,500 miles and i put one eighth tank of gas in it. and one man drove it 13,000 and

he has the initial gas he got when he bought the car. so on your volt it tells you how much you've gotten. i mean, with the volt i bought about a month ago, i have now used a tenth of a gallon of gas. and so, you know, you're averaging 90 to 100 miles equivalent on these cars. i think that's good news. if we can get this battery density up instead of going 40 miles you'll maybe go 240 miles. but the thing that's great about the electric range vehicle, i mean, it's this huge step forward in innovation and creativity and ingenuity, but you can drive it from here to florida and back. it is not an urban car. it's a car with all the wonderful adjectives and a high degree of utility. you don't have to restrict our thinking or have range anxiety. drop a purple pill in the thing and it will work really well.

>> mr. ackerson, i'm a vietnam era veteran and i understand you served off the coast of vietnam. i was wondering if you can say a few words for the naval officers off iran and how can gm rally this nation to adjust to the much higher gasoline prices? >> well, thank you for your service. i was in the navy for five years. i did not serve in vietnam. i was in the sixth fleet which was in europe. we faced off against then the soviet union. you know, i think that's beyond my pay grade. i have -- i have unlike a lot of people in this country today, i believe in our political leadership. that they'll come to the right decision. and i actually think it's a

benefit to have served in the military because i think those are the folks are the ones of the last to want to go to war and i would -- i would think seriously, deeply and hard about committing our young men and women to combat. whether it's iran or vietnam or iraq. and that's the citizen in me. i want to restrict my commentary to my role as the ceo of general motors. but i hold these young men and women in the highest regard. it breaks your heart when you hear that -- well, they give so much to us. and we're a big sponsor of everything to do with veterans. we have 3,000 veterans and we made a choice if someone goes. like back in the day as they say, i say to my children, when one of our employees goes away,

we still pay them the say. if they were getting paid $3,000 a month, their benefits will continue. we want them to feel like their families are protected. and we in conjunction with the uaw we give to wounded warriors. we have a veterans affinity group within the company that's very active. they do food baskets and send stuff. we're very active in cell phones for soldiers. everywhere in the country. and we support the wounded -- in fact, in the navy game, every army/navy game which i happen to go to all the time it's very important that we meet with the wounded veterans. so -- but i share your concern and pray for peace. >> we'll have to end it there. thanks to dan ackerson, chairman

and ceo of general motors for his comments today. thank you all for coming today. next on c-span 3 look at the role of super pacs in this year's presidential election. then more about this year's campaign with a discussion on the negativity in political ads. after that, education secretary arnie duncan on racial disparities and how schools punish misbehaving students. later, transportation secretary administrator john pistol taking questions at the national press club. c-span's 2012 local content vehicle cities tour takes our book tv and american history tv programming on the road. the first weekend of each month. march featured shreveport, louisiana, with book tv at the noll memorial library.

>> mr. noll was born here, lived here most of his life and he started to accumulate books when he was a teenager and continued into his 80s. he accumulated over 200,000 volumes. if we have a gem in the collection it is probably going to be this one. it's one of the books we're most proud of. it's in the original binding from 1699. and it was once owned by a very famous scientist. you can see he's written his o so i. newton. much anymore because it's starting to flake away on the title page. >> we look at the civil war medicine. >> pioneer medicine a long stretch from what it is today. and you consider that, the things that we take for granted today when we go to the doctor, things like the instruments being as germ free as possible or the doctor has washed his

hands before he decides to work on us. we use the term loosely for doctors when we're talking early medicine. a lot of the doctors in our region were self-taught. or they had worked under somebody else who had been self-taught and they were getting ready to retire. so they would learn as they went. >> ourie from little rock, arkansas. on c-span 2 and 3. on tomorrow morning's washington journal, a look at the future of the u.s. military and diplomatic roles in afghanistan. after the killing of 16 civilians over the weekend. a u.s. soldier is in custody. our guest is michael hirsch of the national journal. then timl lynch of the cato institute debate the merit of hate crime laws. and then the report on the loan

guarantee program. ahead of secretary chu's testimony about the program and lopes to the now bankrupt solyndra. we'll hear from frank rest coe. 7:00 a.m. every morning on c-span. one year ago the fukushima nuclear power plant in japan melted down an after earthquake and tsunami hit japan. you can see the hearing live thursday here on c-span 3 at 10:00 a.m. the center for responsive politics reports super pacs have raised $130 million this election cycle. a super pac supporting mitt romney has raised the most money followed by american crossroads. further down the list are those

backing newt gingrich and president obama. the common cause today hosted a discussion on the role of super pacs in this year's election. good morning. everyone ready? good morning, my name is bill deblasio, i'm the new york city advocate, and also a member of the new york city retirement system boards. $40 billion pension fund and i'm wearing a green tie. why? in honor of st. patrick's day and as a statement on the corrosive impact of money in our political system. and that is what is bringing us all here today. this unpress departmented -- unprecedented coalition of organizations that for decades have fought to protect our

democracy, our electoral process, to fight for transparency. and make sure the people's role in government and politics actually mattered. well, let me just tell you who here's here today. common cause, public citizen, the coalition for accountability in political spending, seiu, move on, u.s. action, campaign for america's future. leadership conference on civil rights. national people's action, progress now. every child matters. healthcare for america now. occupy wall street. the whole gamut of organizations that are trying to make sure our democracy is really here for all of us. simply put, a lot of us are happy to be involved in local and state government. who run pension funds that total by the way $1.5 trillion. a lot of us around the country got together and formed the coalition for accountability in political spending -- caps. we did this in response to the citizens united two years ago.

the reason was that we thought our democracy was threatened. we thought that pension funds, local and state government had to play a role in responding to the possibility that money would flood our political system and warp it once and for all. the organizations here every single one of them have been responding as well. every single one of them hassed a a powerful response. now we're combining forces because it's that become of a serious of a challenge to our democracy. the bottom line today, and you're going to hear from a number of the organizations, the bottom line is we're saying to corporate america, enough is enough. we are not going to stand for our democratic system being overwhelmed by money. we are not going to stand for corporate america donating to super pacs. we'll challenge the donations and challenge efforts to hide donations through c-4s and c-6s. we'll challenge the wealthy individuals who are flooding our e ny tools to do it. you saw two years ago when

target unwisely -- target corporation unwisely chose to use the opportunity afforded by it by citizens united. you saw the extraordinary response around the country. you saw target realize it could no longer follow that path and back away. what happened to target was can bring to bear against companies that decide they're going to go against the pe and involve themselves unduly in the political process. i'll finish with this point. the public view of this matter boundaries and all regions of the country, you see a redeeply, deeply concerned that money is already too prominent in our political system and they fear its growing influence. they fear what that means in terms of policies.

the people of this country want us to act and need us to act. we will use every tool, whether it's up to boycott, whether it's shareholder actions, whether it's work from pension funds, to direct corporate america to change its ways. legal action, you name it it's on the table. today we make that clear to the world and that we'll be acting together to achieve the change we need. thank you. >> i'm bob edgar and, bill, i didn't get the memo to wear the green tie. but i have a little green ribbon. good morning, everybody. i'm president of common cause. a former member of congress. and i'm here representing people all across the country who are frustrated with how much money is being plowed into our political elections. common cause is joining the other groups that you see some represented behind me to push

back against the excessive corporate influence in our democracy. we believe our democracy belongs to the people. not the big money, and not the big corporations. thanks to citizens united, corporations may now spend their profits without limit to influence election. they can give unlimited funds to super pacs and other independent expenditure groups. worse, they can do it secretly by funneling money through their third party groups, and this is the money that cannot be traced. if corporations pay for the election of their leaders, our leaders will serve them over ordinary people. that's the problem with citizens united. it allows corporations to drown out the voices of regular people. that's why we're here today. no corporate money.

no secret money. common cause is calling on corporations to refrain from all political giving including money in super pacs. c-4 organizations. and c-6 trade associations like the chamber of commerce. this fall, common cause urged the nation's top 700 corporations to pledge to refrain from political giving this election season. we are working to give that request teeth through the shareholder resolution process. common cause also recently teamed up with trillium asset management, a boston-based investment official and the green century fund to file shareholder resolutions at bank of american, 3-m and target on behalf of their shareholders, asking these corporations to

refrain from political giving. each of these resolutions will go to the vote this spring. we plan to organization press conferences and rallies at each of these shareholder meetings. we plan to let corporations know that there will be a great cost in playing politics. we plan to join our colleagues here at many other shareholder meetings this spring to make our concerns about corporate political spending known. we are also pushing the security and exchange council to require publicly traded companies to disclose their political spending. in our common cause offices all across the country, we're going to work to pass state laws requiring corporations to disclose all political giving and to require shareholder approval of political spending. the american public has had much. we the people will not stand idly by while the country's major corporations use their

massive wealth to buy our democracy. we will do all we can to expose the corporate spending that threatens to drown out voter voices. the key bottom line, we believe in a nation that's of and by and for the people. not of and by and for the wealthy and large corporations. thank you. >> good morning. i'm ethan rome. we are here today because we are not going to let the big corporations buy our democracy to destroy america's middle class, and make excessive profits at the expense of the rest of us without creating jobs and prosperity for all americans. and they don't just want to buy our elections. they want to buy our government. they want to buy our government

and its elected officials and use them to shape this country into a playground for corporate profiteers to exploit without lits the idea -- the very idea that money is speech and that corporations are people is a grotesque distortion of our democracy. when corporations are people, and their money is speech, it means that the dollars of wall street, big oil and the insurance companies drown out the voices of ordinary americans. the result of unlimited corporate dollars in our politics means that voters are becoming disenfranchised in the greatest democracy in our world. the fact that so much of this spending is taking place behind closed doors with secret contributions is especially outrageous. when you buy a bag of groceries, for example, you have no idea if the money is going to pollute the environment. help insurance companies

undermine our healthcare or help banks exploit unsuspecting citizens. this is a profound perversion of our democracy. and it silences actual voters. in the case of healthcare, for example, we have seen health premium dollars support a candi. that would end legislation, that would end the ability of insurance companies to jack up our rates and deny our care as they please. through their trade group america's health insurance plans, in 2009, insurance companies secretlyt $86 million chamber of commerce for attack ads against health reform. today, we are announcing that american united will pay a $25,000 reward to the first person who comes forward with documentation indicating that a public corporation has made a

secret donation out of corporate funds to an entity working to impact the outcome of an election. it's very simple. we are serious about the business of exposing corporations for trying to secretly steal our democracy and own our government for the wealthy few. if corporations want to use corporate dollars to influence elections, we will expose them. they will do so at their own risk. we will track them down. if ceos think they can keep corporate donations to politics a secret, they're wrong. just ask rush limbaugh. what happens. just ask rush what happens when you do something that violates the values of the majority of the people in this country. you lose your brand, you lose your advertising dollars, you lose everything you set out to

do and that's what we are about the business of doing, with any corporation. that makes secret contributions of corporate dollars to politics. the groups represented in our coalition behind me and the list that's been read all have different programs that will inflict economic damage on offending companies. you can ask target, you can ask wal-mart, ask rush limbaugh, there's damage that will from inflicting damage on america's voters. the 1% and the republican politicians they own are chipping away at the middle class. one of the greatest inventions we have ever had in this country besides political freedom. and led by billionaires like the coke brothers, the wall street banks, big oil and extremists on the right. they're all working to undermine

our political democracy as well. people want to reclaim america be the unrecognizable play ground and property of the super rich and the big corporations that see our country as natural resources game. we can only put a stop to the unbridled corporate greed and grotesque income equality that's occurring if average americans still have a voice at the ballot box. there's why we're telling america's corporations today to keep their money out of our politics. thank you. >> good morning, i'm robert weisman, i'm the president of public citizen. 22 individuals contribute -- and corporations, 22 individuals and corporations contributed half of the money that went to super pacs through the end of 2011.

this concentration of influence and power on behalf of the super wealthy and corporate america is a direct result of the citizens united decision. even worse, it's just a preview of something much worse that's about to come unless the corporations are stopped. we're very pleased today to join this coalition of organizations to announce we intend to do that. we intend to stop corporations from taking over control of our country, of our democracy and the way we live. through the corporate reform coalition, public citizen is involved with many of the groups here in working on behalf of re demand corporations not spend money on elections or at least disclose what they're spending. we're supporting efforts at the sec and the states to win new rules that would require companies to disclose what they're spending on political elections. and we are committed with our

colleagues here to hold to account any company that is found to be funneling its money through trade generations or independent organizations that enable it to conceal from the public what it's doing. and we know that corporations value secrecy when it comes to political spending. for many ceos it's secrecy or no go. they won't spend the money because they know the reputational harm that will come from being associated with disclosure. that's why so many of us are pushing for laws and rules for internal disclosure. until we get to the point where disclosure is mandated and the companies are restricted by their own sense of market sha share -- their own sense of market share consequence, we are going to hold them to account. so today's message to ceos is

this. if you think you can run money through independent organizations secretly in the 2012 election, you are wrong. you will be found out. you will be held to account. and you, not our democracy, you will pay the price. thank you very much. >> good morning. i'm kate coyne-mccoy. i'm the executive director of the national coalition for accountability in political spending or caps. founded by bill deblasio, to fight the outrageous consequences of citizens united. caps' members come from all regions of the country. that are elected -- they are ler elected to office and represent nearly $1 trillion in pension fund assets. we are thrilled to be part of

this coalition today and promise to take aggressive action. tank it to shareholders, to the s.e.c., to the fec, to the streets. secret spending has to stop. it's bad for our democracy. so i say to corporate america today, we're everywhere. and we're watching. you've been served. >> morning. i'm jordan -- i'm from the new bottom line. there's an unprecedented amount of alignment forming right now amongst community organizations. the labor movement. the environmental justice community. the civil rights community. and others who are agreeing and who are coming to the realization that a just economy, that serves the american people, is under attack by irresponsible and amoral corporations. so we are mounting sustained campaigns across the country. against those corporations to hold them accountable.

and we're going to be mobilizing thousands of people this spring at their shareholder meetings and in the lead-up to the meetings and we're naming and shaming those corporations who are attacking our american way of life. after that, we're going to name and shame politicians who are putting the interests of corporate -- of irresponsible corporations ahead of the interests of the 99%. that's what we're here to do. >> hi, i'm aaron black, i'm with occupy wall street. this is a systemic problem and simply talking about it isn't going to make it go away. we're a movement that thrives under direct action and frankly, this issue is one of the main reasons why we even exist.