behind the trusted travel pre-check program is, let's leave the shoes on, the belts on, leave the light jacket on to exme diet those that we've done more prescreening of. that's the whole idea behind the pre-check program. and, as we get more and more people into that, it will address those issues. it will help alleviate the wait times at the regular check points because we can streamline those others. again, it doesn't happen overnight, to the chairman's point. i wish i could say, yes, it's all going to be done tomorrow, but we are moving very deliberately and as fast as we can while maintaining the best possible security to achieve those goals that you outline. >> thank you. i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. chair recognizes mr. richmond for any additional questions he may have. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i try to pick up a little bit where mr. turner left off, and that is, besides for

pre-check, which has expedited significantly for people who have signed up and people who travel all the time. but what should we expect or look for for the regular traveler who is not signed up? and i thought that shoes on would be something that would have been achieved by now. what can we look for in the near future for the general traveling public to help them through the process? >> thank you, congressman. we are working both internally andreceived some propos proposals, how do we expand that known population, using commonly available data, that, again, if people are willing to share that, how can a private company take that data, assimilate, assess it, based on our criteria of risk and provide that information to us, outside the elite frequent flyers or global entry program. i had a meeting on that yesterday. i think there's very good

opportunities. it's not an overnight fix, but i think it will give us an opportunity to greatly expand the base, as well as, for example, the members of the military that i mentioned, as we expand beyond reagan airport and seattle, where they are now, as more and more people in the intelligence community come on. the whole idea is to build that known population as broadly and as quickly as we can while maintaining the best possible security. so, for the every day common traveler, or the every day traveler, somebody from new orleans, says, okay, i travel a couple of times a year, they could sign up with global entry, give them the access at the 15 airports, 35 by the end of the year, but we are exploring ways that through a private/public partnership, we can do that. so, we do actually get the data. i don't want people's personal information, but if a private company does that, in partnership with the

individuals, and then they can provide that information to us, then we can make a risk-based judgment, based on the p prescreening to expedite them at the check point. >> to the chairman's point -- i think he's far more aggressive than i am, but i would indicate support that i do think we can -- any entity can run a little bit leaner and smarter to reduce cost, and at some point, you get to the point where you can't do more with less. i don't think we're at that point with tsa, so, to the extent that we can operate leaner, more e officially, i think that should be the goal. my question to you would be, is there anything that you have that we could help you with to make -- to make it easier for you to operate more efficiently or leaner? >> well, i appreciate that, congressman. i think simply the public

recognition, as members of the committee do, that we are -- the broader we can expand this then population, the more quickly we can do that, the more efficiently we can operate. getting back to the chairman's question, as we expand that population, i see savings in the future. i just don't know what those are and, so, the support of the committee is critically important in terms of moving forward with the whole risk-based security initiative. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> chair recognizes my friend and colleague from illinois, mr. walsh, for any questions he may have. >> thank you, mr. chairman, thank you, mr. pistole. i apologize for being tardy. let me start with a broad, general question. if -- if tsa does suffer from sort of a bad public relations reputation these days, and much of that is endemic to what they do, if you were to be critical, though, what constructive

criticism would you lay at the feet of tsa itself and/or the folks that work with tsa, in contributing to that poor public perception? >> we talked a little bit about that, i think it is the anecdotes that drooi a live a l that negative impression, and rightfully so. so, if we have treated somebody unprofessionally, then shame on us, because we have not done the job that we are expected to do. so, that's clearly on us. and that's why we're doing all this new training, retraining, professionalizing of the work force. those things that will enable us to move to the next level. so, i think the criticism is accurate. i think -- i think it's, again, driven by anneck dolts so, we don't hear from the 99% people traveling every day who had a positive experience or least

neutral, which is the vast majority. we do hear the other ones. and just one example, so, a few weeks ago, last month, there was some issue about secretary kissinger, you know, receiving negative screening experience. well, he hadn't complained about it but it was some person who saw him and reported it. well, so, he put it something, press release saying, look, the men and women of tsa were very professional, i go through this because of my health condition and they treated me with respect and courtesy. he sent me a personal letter with that same information. so, it -- so why was that picked up and criticized -- i think it's just the environment that we're in. >> do you measure that at all? measure -- >> we measure complaints and so, as mentioned a little while ago, thus far this year, out of the -- i think it's 525,000 calls to our call center, and that's not every complaint. some people are so frustrated

they don't want to call, they don't know who to call. sometimes we get complaints on some of the privatized airports. they call us to complain what the company -- so, we have to refer it to them. so, out of the half million, it's either 6% or 7% of those are actual complaints versus asking for information or clarification of things, so, and that's -- and then last year, fy-11 was, again, three quarter million calls and it was either 6% or 7%, i'm not sure which number is which. >> a couple of specifics. does tsa have any plans to allow pang passengers in the future to carry anything to protect themselves? pocket knives? >> we've looked at the prohibits item list and i think there are opportunities for us -- there is strong concern from some that if we allow knives on airplanes, we know how the box cutters were

used on 9/11, to kill flight attendants and perhaps passenger as a way of intimidating people to get into the cockpit. so, there are views on both sides. but yes, we have looked at that. and we have made some minor m modifications along the way. i don't know what's been announced, but there have been minor modificatiomodifications. what we have looking for is have folks look at what can cause catastrophic damage to the airplane. that's what i want our folks focusing on. you can find other things, okay, yeah, that's good but that's not going to bring down an aircraft. that's where we are evolving to. i think in the future here, we'll have updates in that regard. >> great. thank you. thank you mr. chairman. thank you. >> thank you. and, you know, following up on that, you're right, we need to

be focused on the real risk threat, which is explosives and not only a pair of scissors, grooming scissors or fingernail clippers and stuff. i hope you will visit that with a broad perspective. i want to go back to one of the other questions that was asked, about henry kissinger, i mean, he's one of the most recognized people on the planet. donald rumsfeld, we had an issue a couple of years ago where he was going through and patted down. i think the thing thatting a a aggravates the public about that is, if we are truly moving to a threat or risk-based perspective of how we do this job, why are we patting down donald rumsfeld? i mean, a supervisor should have had the discretion to say, i don't think we have to worry about him. i think that's why it winds up on tv. there's not the degree of professionalism that we want. and, you know, i am concerned

about the fact that apparently schumervisor s don't have more discretion. i would like to see the department get much more aggressive about finding the money out of hide, my preference is by downsizing to put more supervisors through training, so, they have a lot more professionalism and more discretion. >> i agree completely with you on that. we need to empower or front line people, particularly the supervisors. that's why we started with our first two classes for supervisors, knowing they are critical to driving the change we are trying to make at tsa. to empower them. currently, the federal security directors do have that discretion. but they are obviously not at each check point 24 hours a day. so, what we are trying to do is push that discretion down, with the right people, to make sure there's good judgment, there's good common sense being used in those situations. i agree with you on that. >> what kind of timeline do you

see being -- >> for the -- >> training of the supervisors? >> we're doing this out of hide. i can't do this, so i'm going to do this, so, right now, we have trained 50 supervisors and we have classes, i think we have eight or nine more classes scheduled for the rest of this year, so that would cover several hundred more -- >> how of how many? >> ah -- i want to say 33,000 some, i don't know the exact number, so, yeah, again, without specific funding for it -- so, talk about funding, if there was funding for this and congress, american people said, we need to train tsa supervisors and others more, then obviously i could expedite it very quickly. >> right. right. i do want to go back to the issue a little while ago about

termination. sheila jackson lee in her opening statement, we need to run people off that aren't doing their job. i completely agree with her on that. not just because it gets bad apples out of the system who need to find something else to do, but it sends a message to the other workers that we take this stuff serious and we expect them to do their jobs or go somewhere else to go to work. so, i do hope that y'all will be more aggressive in that area. i know when the gao reports, they found they aud dilted screening system and they found failures, more often than not, the failures were attributed to human error, some because they weren't trained well enough, some because they were sorry. very seldom have i found and instance, where they had that failure, they were fired. instead, they we. >> reporter: moved from that position and given more training. and then sent back. you just need to fire some of those folks. it would get everybody else's attention, i think. >> i agree with you, chairman,

in terms of the accountability. i think if you look, what we've done, particularly in the last year since we stood up to the office of professional responsibility, with security officers, for example, in honolulu, charlotte or most recently, in flt meyooi ft. mye give them due process but we hold them accountable. >> i hope so, because the american public is paying for that. they are standing in the lines and they are seeing this and i really think it would help that image problem that the department's got. >> i agree. >> if you put a -- i'm bumping your step. were you going to -- i thought you asked for my attention. >> i'm sorry. >> i'm sorry. the -- mr. thompson talked to you a few minutes ago, this access to you by business

leaders. one of the concerns i've had been is procurement problems in the department, and not just in your department, the entire department of hhs. tell me, why was the business round table used to decide who got to come and talk to you? >> the -- >> this was at the recent -- tsa system's integration -- >> yes, the meeting on monday. >> yeah, mr. thompson was talking about it -- >> right. so, there were members of this round take who were organized because they have either existing contracts or they're looking for what the way forward is. but it wasn't limited to that. it was also open to, i believe it was 25 or 50, i don't recall, other businesses who were allowed to participate. so, they didn't have to be -- you didn't have to be a member of a roundtable, to participate in that, if that's your question. >> i think what's frous traiting to me about it, it was open only

to a limited universe and, you know, one of the things that we've been trying to urge the department to do is broaden the number of private sector people you bring in for dialogue. so, they have a better feel for what your challenges are and then maybe some ideas about how to meet those challenges. >> right. >> and as i've talked with your personnel who deal with procurement, they have indicated they are going to try to broaden that net. this was just inconsistent with that. i different note if you were aware -- >> again, to that point, there were the core group but it was not limited to that group. again, i have to get the numbers, i think there was another 50% of that group, that it was open to anybody who wished to come, with space limitations. i think they had to indicate an interest, i don't know if anybody who was interested in coming, whether there was a space limitation, but it was a full house. i sposke to the group, i took questions. so, if there was a small business, somebody who wants to

do business, it was completely open to anybody who wanted to ask a question. >> great. mr. richmond, do you have anymore questions? >> i was just going to join you in the question about the bad actors, the inefficient people, incompetent people, the need to fire them, which is the same message and the same thing we talked about when we found the private security company in detroit who had the agent who found the bag outside and brought it into lost and found and our questions at the same time, one, why do we still have that private con tack or the, and two, he still has the employee. so, we just need -- i think one thing that helps is when people know that you won't tolerate incompetence, laziness or whatever the matter, it improves your image. but more importantly, it makes our citizens safer which is the goal. so, i would join in that and even being a supporter of tsa,

traveling a lot and, you know, even as someone who probably wouldn't fit the mold of getting the light security check, i'm neither young nor older and, you know, so -- i don't have a problem with tsa and i think there's some areas you can improve. i don't think you need to be the greeter at walmart, but at the same time, i don't think you need to be the overbearing security guard who does not use common sense in how they deal with people. and, mr. chairman, i would just suggest that, you know, as distinguished and notable as donald rumsfeld and henry kissinger is, i would still bet that beyonce and britney spears are more easily recognized than them, so -- >> let's hope so. >> we -- but -- we just have to make sure that common sense does play into the decision-making.

with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> that's exactly my point. there are certain people that are just so well-known that you just have to use common sense because if you start patting them down, people are going to say, they're patting down beyonce. i mean, she's not going to blow a plane up. so -- say what? oh, off the record. yeah, i know where you're going. i want to offer a couple more examples of where i think you can get money out of hide. we had a hearing in here a couple of weeks ago on, what -- the ground security -- >> surface inspectors. over 400 of them. and we had five different industry folks in here who were saying, we have no idea what they're all doing, you know? there used to be 80 something of them and they all felt like they could still get by with that 80, we don't know why there's 400.

that's one area i think that i'd like to see you visit. and that's been a very rapid ramp-up of personnel. another is, in the airports where we do have private contractors, we are very heavy on tsa personnel supersizing those private contractors. for example, in san francisco, we have 88 federal employees under the fsd supervising the contractor there, but they only have 44 managers that they are supersizing. it's pretty hard to understand why you have two people supersizing one person. i mean, those things that i think are just examples of how -- there's potential to go in there and do some thinning, which would help pay for this professional training that you and i both agree. i do hope that you'll take from this hearing the overriding theme that i've had, and that is, i want to see y'all get lieber and smarter on a much more rapid pace. >> thank you, mr. chairman. if i may just comment on the san

francisco example, so that, i think 88 number, that -- it's actually -- i believe it's less than 20 who are than 20 who are actually overseeing the private company so that 88, if that's the right number, is actually the entire office that deals with all other issues, not just -- so, for example, would have counsel from the offices of general counsel, have surface inspectors, things that are not related to that airport security. >> and that makes sense, but even if it's 20 for 40 people? i mean, they literally could get by with two or three people supervising those 40 managers. >> well, i don't agree with that. but that would be a different contract. it would turn them loose and say okay, you have free reign. but there's a median in there. >> do you have any questions? well, thank you, again, mr.

pistole for being here. this hearing is now adjourned. the annual radio television congressional correspondence dinner is tomorrow night. house speaker john boehner and comedian wayne brady are the featured speakers. live coverage starts tomorrow night at 9:00 eastern on c-span. >> mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. >> sunday night at 9:00 eastern and pacific on american history tv, mark the 25th anniversary of president ronald reagan's 1987 speech from the brandenburg gate in west germany. also this weekend on c-span 3, our series "the contenders," 14 key political figures who ran for president and lost but

changed political history this sunday at 7:30, james blaine, american history tv this weekend on c-span 3. the senate environment and public works subcommittee on clear air and nuclear safety convened a hearing on nuclear waste management today to review recommendations of the president's commission on america's nuclear future. the 15-member commission was created in 2010 to review federal policies managing nuclear fuel. this is just over two hours. >> hearing come to order this morning. welcome one and all. general, professor peterson, ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate the efforts of all of our witnesses to be here today. if you'll pass on our very best to congressman hamilton who is

one of my heroes and mentors from my time in the house. i appreciate that and hope he's doing well. with today's hearing is really one of several that we hope to hold on the work of the blue ribbon commission on america's nuclear future as our committee starts to deliberate on how we move forward on what i think, i think what we all believe is a very important issue of nuclear waste disposal in this country. and really in the world. specifically today, we'll be focussing on the consent based recommendations made by the commission. senators will have five minutes for their opening statements and we'll recognize the first panel of witnesses, two members of the blue ribbon commission. so general scocroft, you'll have five minutes. if you're over that, that's okay, but not too far over that. following the first panel's statements we'll have one round

of questions. and somewhere during this, we'll probably start some votes. i think we have one vote today at 10:30. so we'll deal with that and then start right back up. maybe if we're lucky, we'll be able to continue in session. i'd like to try that. our second panel of witnesses will come forward. another round of questions. so that's sort of the game plan. we'll see how it works out. across this country, y'all know we have 104 currently operating nuclear plant reactors providing this nation with clean, reliable power, they provide roughly 20% of the electricity to the people of this country. unlike a fossil fuel power plants, these nuclear power plants do not emit sulfur dioxide, all of which harm our health and our environment. currently our nuclear reactors

are storing their spent nuclear fuel on-site in a safe and reliable manner. i've been told that the technology we have to store spent nuclear fuel called dry cast storage can be safe for another 50 to as many as 100 years, perhaps even longer. however, our nuclear reactors were not designed to keep their spent fuel on-site forever. and as our reactors age and are decommissioned, we must find an alternate resting place for our nuclear spent fuel. unfortunately, our country has been on a path to finding a place for nuclear spent fuel for decades. it was over 30 years ago when the congress realized the importance of finding a permanent solution for disposal of our spent fuel and high-level waste and the response, congress passed the nuclear waste policy act of 1982, moving this country forward toward deep mine nuclear

waste repositories. after years of study and debate, we find ourselves 30 years later in what's really a dead end. we have no functioning nuclear waste repository and none in the foreseeable future. i applaud president obama for realizing that we need to forge a new pathway to dealing with our nuclear waste by forming this blue ribbon committee which is represented here today. i want to thank the general, the congressman hamilton, the other commissioners for what i'm told is good work on this effort. reaching out literally to thousands of americans to folks all over the world and searching for the best way to move forward on this front, commission recommendation, a recommendation provide us, i think with an excellent road map to enable us to not just to find a new path, but go in the right direction.

but before we start running full speed ahead, i believe we need to make sure that we fully learn from our past mistakes and not repeat those missteps. if not, our country may well find ourselves 30 years from now in another dead end situation. i believe that one of the biggest mistakes we've made is that we were unable to get consent from all parties on the location of disposal. somehow we've learned to really space across the country to compete with one another for the siting of prisons in their states as opposed to other states but haven't learned how to get communities to compete for our disposal sites for spent fuel. some of my colleagues have heard me discuss in the past, a state siting is not an easy thing to do, fairly dense populations, but there are a number of states across the country who have

figured out part of the economic development plan would be a host, fill prisons and host prisoners from other states. you know, if we can sort of get states to do that, we ought to be able to let them figure out how -- who would like to do what they're doing over in france in providing good-paying jobs, high-tech facilities for spent fuel. well, that's why i believe out of all the commission's recommendations, a consent-based siting is most important and that's why we're hosting a hearing on this important issue. as a former two-term governor, i know senator alexander as a former two-term governor knows this, as well, so do our other colleagues, but any consent-based approach must include a meaningful partnership between federal, local, and state leaders, and we also have to have open communications. only with open communications

we'll be able to reestablish the public trust and confidence that are needed to solve our nuclear waste disposal issues once and for all. closing, i'm looking forward to today's discussion, especially interested as we learn from our mistakes and what we can do different as we examine how consent based siting might work here in the usa. with that, let me turn to my partner in crime, senator. >> i'd like to join you in welcoming all the witnesses who have agreed to be here to testify, including the two blue-ribbon commissioners. i want to welcome general scocroft of the blue ribbon commission. thank you for your service to our country and agreeing to testify today. thank you, both. mr. chairman, the issue of storage of nuclear waste is vital to maintaining and expanding affordable nuclear power in the united states. all of us here know that