lot of that slack? given the data from other sources and the the older satellites? >> so i'm a geologist, i don't think i'll attempt the same estimate as you will. but that's an important and open question that we will be looking at. i think the prospect is certainly there that other forms of data might be able to substitute and lessen the degradation of forecasts. the afternoon orbit specifically, as almost a piece of real estate, is an important point in terms of sampling the atmosphere at the peak of midday heating. so there's a question of can you get some other sounding data from a different instrument? and then there's the added question of does it give you the same time coverage in terms of the daily cycle of the earth? and how old are the data by the time you get them into your models? all of those would be factors.

>> with the current capabilities then, we would see a significant drop off, if the data gap happened today. is that correct? >> we have run a number of studies to assess that. about a year and a half ago, i think, they were completed. they scatter a little bit, as you would expect. the most notable outcome in that was a simulation without polar orbiting data, without afternoon polar data for the big snowstorm called sno ma ged don. we had the total precipitation. generally, some degradation. >> thank you. my time is expired. >> thank you very much. and we have a few more questions so we'll do a second round. i recognize myself for the five

minutes. dr. sullivan, one of the most troubling findings from the jpss report is that the entire con stelation appears to be at risk. dod has the satellites available for the early morning orbit, but they may not operate as expected because they have been in storage for so long. dod hasn't figured out what it's going to do after. the europeans are experiencing their own financial problems and noaa said they will not supply sensors for the mid-morning orbit. since its inception, the inpost program has always intended on operating satellites in three separate orbits that would ensure no were more than six hours old. noaa is responsible for the afternoon orbit. do you know what the administration as a whole is doing to protect the entire con stelation? >> dr. harris, the administration has convened a

task force to look across all of o the civilian agencies and get a better handle and greater coordination across those assets and their capabilities. i'm not aware of an active group. it may be my ignorance that's looking at the white house levels, specifically at the dwss and noaa constellations. i would say our program managers are active with both air force weather and command in los angeles. so we are interacting closely with them. we have a very long history of collaboration and mutual support with the defense department. i believe both parties recognize and appreciate the other's equities well and try to maintain awareness so we can do what we can do with the resources and latitude available to us to compliment and support each other. >> but does -- do you know how they are going to mitigate the

risk? not noaa's afternoon orbit, but the other orbits, which informs you for your forecasts and m models? >> i know of no specific plan for those mitigations at this time. >> now the gao's testimony said they will have to shed capability to live within the cost cap. options listed include the loss of climate sensors, the loss of ground base reception stations that would degrade time, or the loss of data processing systems at two navy locations. what, if anything, does noaa plan to remove? have you prioritized what will be removed? >> i can assure you we have very clear priorization of the factors that make the greatest contributions to the primary weather forecast mission and the decisions we have made today, any that are driven by

circumstances will be made in accordance of those priorities. having said that, as i believe was pointed out, the options that we have worked on, the reanalysis we have worked on since their first look gives us confidence that the sensors can, in fact, be accommodating inside the life cycle cost cap. we did decide, and we think it's a prudent action, to drop the number of ground stations from the very high number that was contained in the old so-called receptor network and rely more critically on one at each pole. so two stations that see lots of every polar pass, a back up at high latitudes in our own fair bank site. that gives us coverage for all polar orbiting. yes, the initial target of a 30-minute time delay for jpss data has been relaxed to 80.

our current performance, however, is 120, so that's still a substantial improvement over current performance and should make a notable improvement to forecasting. with respect to data centrals, that reflects in part in evolution of ground system structure from very tailored service and each provider towards more common and unifying ground station. we certainly can take on the development of tailored interfaces for noaa satellite data for the air force or navy if they wish. at this point with our budget constraints, we have let those partners know that would be on a reimbursable basis. both for current flight operations and for dwss. i'm not aware of detailed plans from them yet. >> with regards to the gao report, this controversy about whether the cap is -- whether

the shortfall is -- because the gao reports state that noaa valuated the costs would be $11.3 billion after adding the agency's cost of $3.3, the program's life cycle cost estimate total $14.6, which is higher than the $11.9 billion estimate for jpss in 2010. so according to noaa officials, this increase is due to a four-year extension of the program, the addition of unbudgeted items, costs associated with and the program's decision to slow down work on lower priority elements. the gao then states working to establish the president's fy 2013 budget request officials state they agree to fund through 2017, merge funding for the two comply clooi mat sensors, and to cap the jpss life cycle through

2028. because this cap is $1.7 billion below the $14.6 life cycle co s costs, noaa decided to remove selected elements from the satellite program. now what the shortfall below the expected life cycle cost? mr. powner, maybe you can -- what is your finding? >> the gap is $1.7 billion. it's from $14.6, that was the cost when you reconciled the various cost estimates. but the program was capped at $12 pn .9. and i think their approach, as we understand it, there's two primary ways in which they are going to address the gap. one is they found a more efficient way to operate and maintain the satellites, which

dr. sullivan referred to, and then also too there's this savings through this arrangement with the free fliers where the climate sensors are included, but they will fly them outside the program. there's still details in how that tallies up. that's how i made the comments. >> okay. dr. sullivan s that an accurate assessment? >> it is, sir. >> thank you it very much. i recognize for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. powner, one thing that really stuck out about your oral testimony here was the 48% confidence level that nasa will meet the 2015 launch date. is that the biggest threat is not making that launch date? >> yeah. so a couple things. we did some very detailed schedule analysis. there were things we went into

great detail on the sensors. and we had some questions about how the schedules were being managed. ultimately what that all means is it calls into question whether you could hit key milestones. they need to reach the launch date. that coupled with the fact their assessment showed there was a 48% confidence level that they were going to hit the october 2015 date raised questions about whether they will be able to do that. i think, and we're under the impression that if you raised it to 70% confidence level, which is i think what the program ultimately likes to operate under, that does push the launch date into early 2016. i think there's a four or five-month slip there. but those are the questions that, you know, need to be considered going forward. how solid is that october 2015. >> can you be specific on recommendations on how we can reach that october 2015 launch

date or achieve that date? >> one of the things we did do in our report is we had very detail detailed recommendations on how the program can be more rigorous in managing their schedules. so we found not all activities were included in schedules. critical paths weren't identified. that's very important to identify those types of things. those are the recommendations we have. hopefully that will be helpful in achieving that launch date. >> thank you. >> the one thing i would like to add is as david pointed out, clearly, we have listened to and taken seriously the recommendations from gao. we have already implemented a lot of the changes or improvements that he identified with respect to scheduling and reporting. the other thing that i would say is i think the largest risk to that october 2015 launch date is, again, with stability

associated with the funding. again, because where we are today at $615 and needing to go to 803 in the next fiscal year, if we are under continued resolution, it's going to have a negative impact on our ability to maintain the 2015 launch readiness date, in addition to the items that he pointed out. >> that makes sense. it was gratifying to hear about your partnership with noaa on the joint polar satellite. i want to get a good feel for how much benefit has been achieved by that. are the roles for each of your agen agencies and the responsibilities, decision-making authority, governance and program oversight clear? are these clear between your two agencies? >> yes, they are. and i think -- since the separation between the defense and the civilian side for weather satellites, if you look

at the overall performance that we have been able to achieve, first and foremost, with maintaining we would launch on time in the october 2011 time period, we maintained that time period. when you look at the jpps 1, we are currently on track. we share meetings together, key decision points are jointly shared between our agencies. and our programs are fully integrated at a green tech facility. the teams are working extremely well, and it's a very good partnership. >> if i may, i would endorse the comments. there's a 40-yearlong partnership in providing the nation with weather satellites. we came back to that model, in essence, with the unwinding of the program. if i could use the analogy, since jpss moved out of the

dysfunctional household of n-post, we have a new team aboard. in the 13 months i've been around, they have been consistently meeting those marks. we see great value, great productivity in the partnership and great value for the taxpayer in not duplicating acquisition function within noaa when we have an outstanding one. >> one more question, mr. chairman. has there been analysis of the anticipated operational period of the npp satellite? what are we looking at here in te terms of what confidence we have in that continuing performance of that instrument? >> i'll take the beginning of that. again, the npp spacecraft was developed for a five-year life. we have launched it last october. the calibration validation period is going along as

planned. in fact, we're a little ahead of schedule with some of the products that have been received well by the national weather service and implemented that have lead towards additional forecasting capabilities. the checkout across all of the instruments is looking good. the satellite is operating well. again, you know, there are issues that you have the first time you're fly iing a spacecra. this one wasn't to be spralgs initially. but we haven't seen anything out of the ordinary with launching of a new satellite. >> and the ground system is performing well. we're making progress towards adding, again, the redundancy and security robustness we'll need to have in place when jpps 1 comes along to meet the requirements that noaa has. it was remarked, and i forget by whom earlier in the hearing, that none of the the instruments on npp are performing as they

should. i asked mr. watkins to correct me if i misstate anything, but my tracking is that all of them are, in fact, performing at or above speck, with some anomalies, but the technical team jumped on top of those and digging down and understand the root causes and developing corrective actions. >> thank you. my time is up. >> thank you. i want to thank the witnesses for your valuable testimony and the members for the questions. the members may have additional questions for the witnesses and we'll ask you to respond to those in writing. the record will remain open. the witnesses are excused. the hearing is now adjourned. >> dr. harris, if i may just assure you, we will be timely with our responses. >> thank you very much.

both bodies of congress are in session today. the house gavelled in earlier to continue work on transportation and housing in urban development

spending. the chamber has been working on amendments this afternoon. follow the house live on c-span. and the senate has been working on a bill that extends the flood insurance program for five years. you can follow the senate live on c-span 2. sunday award-winning author david pietrusza is our guest. his passion for u.s. presidents and baseball has resulted in a dozen books including "1920", the year of the great

presidents. and "rothsteni." join us live with your calls, e-mails and tweets, sunday at noon eastern on book tv's in-depth on c-span 2. this is the conversation we need to have in this country that nobody is willing to have. what role should the government play in housing finance? >> in reckless endangerment, greten morganson details the sub prime lending collapse and one continuing issue, government subsidized homeownership. >> if you want to subsidize housing in this country and we want to talk about it and the populous agrees it's something we should subsidize, then put it on the balance sheet and make it clear and make it evident and make everybody aware of how much it's costing. but when you deliver it through these third-party enterprises,

fannie mae and fed freddie mac, when you deliver the subz day through a public company with private shareholders and executives who can extract a lot of that subsidy for themselves, that's not a very good way of subsidizing homeownership. the that movie in 2008. >> more with gretchen morganson sunday at 8:00 on c-span's "q&a." earlier today, there was a hearing held and we heard testimony on whether or not such benefits discourage work and hire earnings. this is two hours. >> good morning, everybody. welcome to today's joint review

of how welfare and tax benefits can discourage work. before we begin with our regular session today, with opening statements, i would like to recognize a very special guest who is in washington, d.c. ian duncan smith, secretary of state for work and pensions for the united kingdom. we're appreciative he's joined tus d. the united kingdom is undertaking significant reforms to its tax benefit programs and reduce marginal tax rates. this is an issue that i've cared about for many years. we've been watching closely many of the developments in great britain as these reforms have been undertaken in a bipartisan manner and he's agreed to share with us information about these recent reforms in the uk, which will be useful as we consider the effectiveness of our own program. mr. secretary, we did a little digging through our archives,

and we're not able to find another example of a sitting foreign secretary appearing before the ways and means committee on non-trade matters. so this is a historic occasion. honored to have you join us today and please proceed with your statement. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much indeed. it's a pleasure to be here and rather satisfying in the surroundings. i'm used to doing my answering across the dispatch box and the house of commons being screamed and shouted at. so i'm anticipating that not to happen here necessarily. but if it does i hope i will be able to handle it. what we're trying to do in the uk is much the same as anywhere else, trying to figure out what's been going out with a system that set out to try to help people become independent that traps them now in a form of dependency. we saw spending on welfare

interestingly rise by 40% under the last government at a time prior to the recession, though during a period of growth the economy was growing but we were seeing welfare grow, which seems to be rather peculiar. what we saw here was a growing level of people who didn't work. a very large number were out of the environment of work and that to my mind causes problems. it's not just have to take people off of benefits. the question you have is where do those costs then go? because they don't disappear. by that i mean, for example, even if you don't pay people benefits, you end up with a creative underclass that becomes very expensive in other ways. we saw our policing bill rise by over 50% during the course of the last government.

this is where most of your serious health concerns exist amongst the same underclass. they are the biggest drawer on health care and the most likely group to be recording almost every kind of sickness you can imagine. and last of all, education is deeply disrupted by people from that underclass who themselves have no expectation or anticipation of proceeding. so handling and changing this is not just about reducing the w l welfare bill, but reducing other costs from having a group like this. so we've chosen to look at the entrapment principle. the welfare system you set up, does it free people or trap them? what we believe the system is so complex, with so many different

benefits, and some are gross, some are net. it's almost impossible for the benefit recipient to calculate how much they would have in their pocket after the withdrawals. and in some cases, they're losing up to 95 pence every pound. not much of an incentive and often very difficult to understand they're better off or worse off. they assume hugely that it's not worth the effort, so they don't make the effort. so the system doesn't innoce -- >> a lot of the shift of money

made it worse. it takes them away at one single rate at every hour. so every hour you work, it will come off in our case 65%. that can be adjusted. it's about investing or withdrawing money. so that simplifies your understanding of benefits. it's critical in two regards. one, the marginal reduction rates are dealt by that single flat taper. the other bit, which is the participation tax rate, that is the moment you enter work. that's the critical bit. people that have been out of work generationally, you need to get them across that threshold. number one. after, that keeping them in work is critical, as well. but keep that cliff edge very low indeed. going across is very easy. so that decision economically makes sense.

so you're better off in work always than on benefits. secondly, we have a work program which is derisking government, but making sure it does what we need it to do. so we hand to the voluntary sector, those that have been difficult to get into work. i don't care what they do. it's not my problem. i simply pay them only after they've got somebody in to work. it's a payment by result system. there we pay them six months after somebody has been in work. so they don't receive their money until six months, so they need to keep them in work. easy to get somebody into work, very difficult to hold them in work. only then do they get what i call the work habit. once they got the work habit, they'll satisfy that thereafter. so six months, nine months, a year, even up to 18 months even in the case of the most

disabled. in other words, they need to work with people after they've got them into work. and the lack of risk is basically they get paid only after they do the job and we calculate that by how much we save on benefits and how much we can pay them. it's a straight crossover in money. the third area of our reforms is looking at sickness benefits and disability. we had a massive problem. a huge number of people were trapped on two benefits, particularly one called incapacity benefit. we had some people on these not seen by anybody for up to ten years. if you had a problem, you certainly have a big problem ten years later. so you get worse, not better. so what we've now done is reviewing all of those, moving them on to a new benefit or moving them back to work. the assessment is around about

10,000, 11,000 cases a week. and we're finding something in the order of over a third recessing that were not fit for work and going straight back to work. they'll go to the work program. just a wit more than that are going to the middle bit of this new benefit, which is you'll be able to get to work. the expectation is you'll be available for work. and the third group, about a third is a group that the exp t expectations are that you are genuinely too sick. before, we never had a constant check on them. the other is a disability benefit, which is about your mobility and your care reforming that because it got too wide, mostly through judicial review