in hard copy if you have to be in the big apple. next up is austin, texas, on our line for democrats. caller: i want to make a comment about what the last caller said about giving money to foreign countries. helping out foreign countries goes way back to our early history. that is a non-issue. we went into iraq. we need to clean it up before we leave. but besides that, i hear callers giving barack obama and congress flak about what is going on with the economy. there are great things that are going on. you can look at the list of products that are going on online.

the state legislature has been tracking on what is going on and what they will spend on. host: thank you very much. we have to move on. we had people buying those a could not afford them. now we are starting to repossess them by the thousands.

these things will take a while. we are seeing signs of recovery a little bit. we will never get back to the way things were before. we just need to keep things in mind. we always blame congress. but i think we need to look back at ourselves. host: i think you to all of the callers and writers who got in touch with us today. we want to talk about what will be on washington journal to mark. we begin with michael sscheu er, and andrew selee talking about the trade summit going on

and then a discussion on the significance of president nixon's resignation, 35 years ago tomorrow with john mashek. then on monday, on the washington journal, patrick hill bride of the u.s. chamber of commerce as well as keith epstein of business week and rep brad sherman, alexandra cousteau will be our guest on monday's edition of washington journal. i want to thank you for watching today, we will see you again tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern time.

from the young american foundation news conference, a discussion on college reading material. we will be live starting at 11:00 a.m. eastern. chief justice john roberts will swear in the judge so the mayor -- such a majo sotomayor sotoma .

welcome to the national conservative students conference and hosted by the young american foundation. young american foundation is an organization to educate students on the principles of limited government, a strong national defense. we also hosts a campus lecture series for which you can have such speakers as newt gingrich, and ann coulter.

dr. lee edwards is a fellow of the conservative thought and heritage foundation, and chairman of the victims of communism memorial foundation. he is the author of 20 books including biographies of ronald reagan, barry goldwater, histories of the heritage foundation and has worked on the translated into chinese, japanese and french he is a fellow of the institute of politics at the john f. kennedy -- of harvard. dr. edwards has appeared on many tv and radio programs and has had many articles in national

newspapers. his upcoming book is a biography of william f. buckley. he currently resides in virginia with his wife. >> thank you. good morning, ladies and judgment. it is a beautiful day in washington, and a great day to be alive. especially if you are a young c

books made a profound difference in the life of ronald reagan. in mid october of 1965, my wife and i spent a today's traveling with reagan in southern california when he was considering whether to run for governor of that state. at the end of the second day, reagan took us up the steep road to his home in pacific palisades, overlooking los angeles. while he and nancy were in the kitchen, i walked over to the bookcase and there -- in their den and began examining the titles. there were almost without exception works of history, economics, and politics. they included conservative classics.

whitaker chambers, and a book i had never heard of. the law. that wasn't good enough for me, so i began taking up the books from the shelves and looking at them. my wife said don't do that and i said it's ok. they were dog year these books. here i realized, was a personal library of a serious, thoughtful, individual, who add -- had arrived at his conservatism the old-fashioned way, one book at a time. history is full of examples of books and inspired and motivated for good and for evil. without karl marx's manifesto,

he might have remained an obscure theory. without a conservative mind, conservatism might have remained ignorant of its reach and -- of is a rich and intellectual heritage. some post putin kurd modernists argued that new media art like the internet, has rendered books irrelevant. you often hear the dismissive

comment, i don't have time to read a book. as one of u.s. president would say, poppycock. a recent heritage foundation survey revealed that books made a lifelong difference in their thinking and actions. calculus and accident -- economics and one lesson was not part of one woman's college career, but it gave credence to my own view which on campus were seen as unpopular and even radical. economics in one lesson, it was said, served as a guiding light not only through college but throughout my career. every american student should read"one day in the life of --"

this explains why we fought the cold war and why we won it. barry goldwater,"the conscience of a conservative", lay the foundation for all that is good and worthwhile in the conservative movement. and the young american foundation agrees with the assessment to publish the paper back back in 1999. 1990. maybe it's time for another edition. here are a title of a couple of my favorite books. "the roots of american order", the story of five cities athens, rome, jerusalem london and

philadelphia shaped america. "days gone by,"william f. buckley jr.. this is a beautifully written biography. "ethnic america," our foremost black intellectual examine some of the ethnic groups, jewish, irish, african american that make up america and suggest why some have had a greater impact than others. let me be clear about one thing. a book is a book, is a book. not a snippet or a scrap or a fragment. a book contains thousands of words, hundreds of pages which permit the author to develop freely his ideas and his arguments or his characters in a novel. a book does not have to be printed on paper, the success of

audio books prove that. i would also like to talk about the kindle. it is about the size of a book. it weighs less than 1 lb. and it can hold more than 200 books, and offers access to several hundred thousand titles at about $10 a pop. i must confess, i prefer the printed book. there is something tactile and titillating about holding a book in your hands, like holding your wife in your arms. successful reading according to georgetown university professor james shaw, a great reader and writer requires three things, self discipline, a personal

library, and could ice. you also need a good lamp, a comfortable chair, and your favorite nonalcoholic beverage. i realize that self discipline is not a popular virtue of these days in these modern times, but for conservatives self discipline is the ability to read to do this is vital if you want to learn what is really important and apply that knowledge in your lives. the building of a small personal library, perhaps just a dozen or two books will take time. it will be impeded by the fact as a father shop puts it, that we live in an age that is reluctant to accept and hostile to the idea that some things such as books are better than others. conservatives know, that sound

books about the human condition and about the civil social order can arouse a healthy intellectual reaction and preserve order and justice and freedom. as two guides, i don't hesitate to suggest reading the right books, the guide for the intelligent conservatives published by the heritage foundation. one of the best books is"how to read a book," first published in 1940 and updated many times. passive reading isn't possible. you cannot read with our eyes immobilized and our mind asleep.

don't try to understand every word or page of a difficult book the first time through. writing down your reaction will help you remember the faults of the author. i can attest that ronald reagan followed this advice. books, especially of history and philosophy should be read in relation to one another. you cannot properly understand the federalist papers on the issue have also read the declaration of independence in the u.s. constitution. the best books reward you in the two ways. they improve your reading skills, but more importantly, you become wiser about yourself and about the great and enduring truth of human life. what difference can books make?

i like the answer of jeffrey nelson, a former college president, now executive vice president nowisi. books of the right kind are indispensable in the flourishing of order, freedom, justice, and the authentic progress of civilization. let the reading begin. first, let me introduce our panel. harry crocker is a writer and speech author, here in washington d.c.. the author of several best selling historical works including his latest,"the political incorrect guide to the civil war,"which has been

praised for its great scholarship, a great storytelling and great fun. a graduate of vanderbilt university, dr. benjamin wicker, a senior fellow at the discovery institute in seattle, washington. the author of seven well- received books. his most recent is"10 books that screwed up the world. " dr. elizabeth cantor, blogs @ conservative book clubs.com she wrote "the politically incorrect guide to english and american literature."

please welcome harry crocker. from -- an actor from brad said revisited was once askked, what broke he would recommend, he should -- he said you should start with the bible and go from there.

it seems to me fundamental to read the bible. aside from whatever dined nature that may contribute to it, there cannot be a literal -- literate person without having read the bible. personally, i prefer the king and james -- king james. i think it is fundamental to read the bible. i also think the most important subject is history. history is -- it is once said

that western civilization cover christ, you should go to caesar. virtually any historian, also caesar's commentaries, especially if you like action, there is something about the roman world that is very important to understand. when i was growing up in the 1960's and 1970's, one early thing that clung to me was the fear of decline. it was driven by military history, during the vietnam war i had seen the fall of saigon and i know, this could be in it.

for me, when i grew up to be an active participant, michael is to -- mike goal is to --. this book hit me in the face. "the consideration of the greatness of the romans in decline ." this is a very practical book. he should also read "decline and fall of the roman empire.

" churchill allegedly read the whole thing when he was a soldier in india. given is wrong about religion, but right about many things. edmund burke, on the evolution of france. everyone should put this book on their list, but i hope all of you have read it and absorb it. the first time i came to washington and started interacting with my fellow conservatives i thought, i was at a party and it was a celebration of the french revolution party.

i said, you have to be kidding me. i think it was crazy. but a lot of these things played out. the age of chivalry is gone. how many conservatives today have no problem with that? how many of us today -- a great thing about burke is every paragraph is quotable. never more show we behold a generous book of that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, in the spirit of

exalted freedom. who would also support things like that dignified obedience? that subordination of the heart? sometimes in our libertarian celebrations of freedom, we lose fax -- set the facts of freedom. of the monarchy was essential to limited government and charity inevitably. we should think about this too, about what kind of government we should export to the world. burke, very briefly, feared both king shall be extinct in the

minds of men -- that long row of grim and bloody maxims. get rid of these ties between people. he also warns us, and we strip away tradition, we strip away what is most valuable in life. the king is but a man, the queen is but a woman. that is the direction we go and.

it is just fun to read. we have been told that the first liberal is the devil. those of us who are involved in politics, it is convenient to forget about the service, how small of human hearts endure? politics, ideologies is the be all and end all of life. the conservative mind, this is essential reading. if for nothing else, it is all politics.

we americans should start off with the bible and shakespeare. if you guys want to be participants in politics and learn about leadership and a good way to learn about leadership' is to read henry the roman fifth. this play ends on a very downer note. i think that is important to. all political lives and in failure. with this ending he says, could that be the nature of politics and the nature of life? that is true as well. my ninth book -- one thing that

we conservatives forgot about is we neglect to think about what kind of society would we really like to have? i think you should look to fiction, of books that focus on individuals and how they live out most of their lives. a book that was worked for me in this regard is by a tremendously great brave officer, if you ever wanted to find the epitome look here. he rode a trilogy of novels called the complete mermaz of

george --. -- memoreoirs of george --. it is beautifully written. showing a tolerant, well-rounded human being. this shows this young man growing up in rural england, believing what to my mind is a life lived in a truly conservative society, a society where politics is very remote, people have a christian order.

it may be that we need to achieve what we need to achieve through politics. the ultimate goal -- you often hear people say we should get more women in politics. i disagree. it is better that we have volunteers and that we abolish the school boards. my last book, is a book by george orwell. people i've been mentioning -- orwell was a socialist. he looks at these things as wonderful style. if i wanted to teach a young

writer stock, i would say look to orwell. also, he is honest. his painful honesty which makes many of his essays really conservative. and defending conservative values as well. crucially, for me, and all of us who turn to them for a utopian future is the defense of language as it should be. he is one of the first really great authors how the best of does -- talks about how the best of the station thus -- -- the pasteurization bastardation of .

thank you very much. i will give you good books and good evil books. in a way, they are more exciting in the worst sense, they are easier to get into some times than a really good book about good things. as dante recognize, there is always a question about what is the state of our soul. the 10 books that screwed up the world. there are several very good reasons to read great evil books. primarily, you need to understand that evil, the

formation that the generation of society is the result of not accidents or stupidity, but all too often great intelligence gone awry, the deformation of what makes us most human. we need to understand that great, bad, thing as plato and aristotle remind us, can only because by great men. great, evil men write great, evil books. we live in evil times. as i argued in my first 10 books, we need to understand those books that have formed our current culture. we don't want to excuse evil as people do when they get caught by saying, i made a mistake or i did something stupid. it is evil, and we need to understand what deep and profound evil is.

some of the most profound teachers of evil, much pavilion prince is one of the greatest books on evil of all time. he is an influential author, down to the modern day. whenever you discussed the history of england you can understand how far machiavelli went to destroy england. i almost don't have to open a newspaper -- anything i have read, it is the textbook, the heart of modern liberalism especially in its focus on right as opposed to a virtue. hobbs will study, opens up exactly what is going on now. it was published in 1551.

reausseau's second discourse, he gives us the sexual revolution and the sexual destruction of the family. he is also the grandfather of marxism -- marxism. he gives us the american gigolos, the self destroying man. we have all too many of those. charles darwin sense of man is the textbook of modern eugenics. it is the source of the reduction of human beings from being made in the image of god, to being just another animal that should be treated just as

you treat an animal. you want to know what goes on behind our comprehensive health care push, you should read the descent of man. let's get to some good books. great, good, books, are sold changing. they are the things that let you know you have a soul and what it was made for. college is a time that you will have enough leisure, i hope, to study these great books. i will list two to begin with that had the most effect on me. read dante's divine comedy again and again. even the parity so. but read it with the translation and commentary by one of the

great minds. dorothy sayers commentary alone is a classic. it has extraordinary insight into what it means to have the universe ordered by wisdom and love. plato's republic. i cannot say enough about it. i felt like i was wrong and dry after reading it. but you understand there is that the order of your soul is a reflection of the order of the regime in which you live. if you live in a disordered regime, you almost cannot help but have a disk -- a disorder it so. they are reciprocally related. plato provides an astounding analysis of the decline of souls

and regimes together. we are now at the point of extreme democracy, falling into terry -- tierney. read proverbs in our particular regime. we hold prudence or wisdom at a minimum. week affirmed the passions highly. everything is passions-based. we are reintroduced to the kind of wisdom about human things that should define the basis of a reflection, a eight way of life in all politics, if we have to be dragged into it. i agree with dr. crocker, that our imaginations need to be

retrained, they are almost entirely corrupt. our imaginations should be trained by wisdom, not by twittering, and the equivalent of morning cartoons. you need something that deeply trains your imagination in accordance with the wisdom, and i highly recommend shakespeare, because he compels you to slow down. you should feel like you violated a great, the sacred thing. i would read as much jane austen as possible. jane austen needs to be read. what is so wonderful about that is there are marvelous movies down on her novels.

there is nothing wrong with movies. if you watch pride and prejudice or sense and sensibility, you will be trained to love only a great movie. it will form in new aid this taste of what is folder, cheap, and thoughtless. and the vulgar and cheap and thoughtless is what rules us now. on that happy note, i will leave you.

i will not give you a list on books to read, is full of reading lists, it goes through the whole history of literary written in english. instead of urging you to read certain books, what i want to do is try to sell you on the theory of what kind of books to read. essentially, i will make the case that not just even those, but if you want to stay involved in politics, it is crucial that you not spend these formative years of your life reading is essentially political books. even though i am editor of the

conservative book club, there is plenty of time to read about politics later. the books that you ought to be reading now are the classics. books that made it into -- for reasons of quality, because they were books that were superior in a truce and goodness. i am talking about the great works from plato and t.s. el liott, up until the time you were born. you probably heard the story of 1987 a student march across the stanford college campus chanting hey, hey, ho, ho,

western culture has to go. getting rid of these dead, white, males. of course, not all the classics , they began to teach classics differently. here are some examples of shakespeare. 400 years, littery clinics, critics said three things about shakespeare. they said he was universal, he

his not of an age but for all time. they said he mirrored nature, that there was something real about he was able to put in his place --plays. nature was proud of his design. and they also said that he wrote beautiful poetry. well into the second half of the 20 centuries, they were still teaching shakespeare for those reasons, because they wanted to put their students in touch with something that was universally interesting, and it was put in a way that you could not get anywhere else. in the late 20th-century, college professors started teaching shakespeare in a different way. it became an example of what is

oppressive about western society, and in some cases professors make the cases that shakespeare is the causes of western civilization. here are some quotes from the professors. the domestication of women appears to be a major project of the split. here is a mother professor -- here's another professor on midsummer night's dream. so i ask my students, but if shakespeare is partly to blame for the dangers that women have faced and continually faced in premarital sex? it is been argued i explained, that shakespeare continues to play a significant role in the establishment and maintenance of gender roles.

you have been given an and take shakespeare inoculation. this drastic change in college curriculum means that if you are getting a typical education in 2009, your education is dramatically different than americans got for the previous 200 years. it is so different, that i think we need to worry about people being educated today will end up being americans, nothing like the americans we had before. i don't think, my impression is that professors are not really succeeding in converting

students to die-hards marxist -- they are not succeeding in turning a majority of the folks they teach. i am afraid of the real danger in that students are being effectively cut off from the cultural roots. culture is not something you get in the dna. it is learned. and you learned culture in your family a lot of other ways. the formal education has been one crucial part of cultural transmission and and the civilization that we know about. college teachers today are not great enthusiasts on this. some of them want to stop it

from being transmitted. it is not enough for you guys as conservatives to be up in arms about political correctness is on the campuses. thousands of young people are preserving western culture will say that there are no young people still getting the kind of education that earlier americans receive. if you read mostly political and contemporary books, york conservatism will be too shallow. even the classics of the conservative movement can teach us that there are permit things worth defending, but they don't really establish us in those permanent things. if you are always looking to defend western culture, in the

way you are always on the edge of your civilization the way it touches outside, if that's where we are, then our own culture gets to be too much like what gramm greens relationship with the catholic church was like, a member of the foreign legion who fights for a country where he is no longer a citizen. we need to read deeply into this great literature, the kind of education i think you need and i wish your professors would help you more, this is not a purely factual or intellectual education. it is both of those things. it is true if you read the classics you'll come across fascinating information, ideas you will not here in school. this can be a dramatic effect.

the intellectual outlook on the typical english professor, i would characterize their outlook as one of extreme poverty. they are interested in one kind of intellectual idea. in justice. they are not even interested in every kind of injustice. their particular subset of injustice, there is racism flavor, and they pick on people with the wrong sexual orientation. the shame is if somebody with only those interest were looking at shakespeare,, human

imagination and love and marriage, death and jealousy, sin and salvation. all the things that people were interested in before 1980. it is like covers for things that are always going on. if you read those things without those rose colored glasses on, you will encounter all sorts of ideas that are fascinating to the human race. the kind of education, the old- fashioned kind is not just about sending your interesting things to think about for the rest of your life. it is also about committing to principals and making judgments and adopting attitudes. when i argue along these lines i

get the mails from professors who think that they caught me in an obvious faux pas. they see this as an essential part of their literary education. for millennia, this was considered to be the purpose of education. aristotle argued that young man ought to learn poetry, and nothing is more necessary. phillips said he said, no philosophers -- philosopher's pretax can make an honest man. the real education, the kind of civilizes committed show students that admirable character teaches him to one for himself the virtue that he has to embody. this kind of thing about

education embodies. this is how the classics will teach you western civilizations. it offers you the chance to aspire to those things. from socrates you learn a passion for free inquiry. a pursuit of the truth that no -- at every cost. that it really is beautiful to die for your country. some of the principles you learn are chivalry, and huckleberry finn mark twain gives us an american phenomenon, and an educated boy who throws off the taboos and brings a new moral

life on the basis of his new experience. some of all we learn from the classics, you just can't forget and survive. the truth about human nature is that we find it particulate eliminated in shakespeare. we have the courage to defend ourself. we live in an age when our intellectual class was determined to on lane -- on learn western civilization, but the best it insight on human nature. it is up to you to ensure they are not forgotten. given that you all seem to agree, what role do you think

censorship has or should have in the suppression of evil? >> the collection of essays which he makes the case for censorship, in his case i think he is thinking more about -- i don't know. it is obviously a tough question. when i was your age, a college conservative journalist, we have plenty of oppressive censorship.

i think would be opposed to obscenity, i am libertarian on -- censorship is a slippery slope and we should not engage in that. >> it seems much more effective to read, marks or machiavelli then to try to hush them up. >> let me come out with both and make everyone mad. censorship will happen, no matter what you do. will it be principled censorship or on principled censorship?

you cannot help but censored by having someone read something rather than others. censorship is something that is always going on. you can't say you will or will not have it. censorship from the wrong principles, three companies denied me the right to quote from books. i could not ". i did not do anything other than ". the worst thing i could do to albert kinsey was to quote him. the coming of age -- agent samoa-- asian samoa. this will happen.

otherwise you say we should read anything. censorship is a function of judgment. there is no way to get around it. >> good morning. i took a class in --, one of my favorite authors was father benedict rochelle. ..

>> i would like to invite judge sonia sotomayor's mother and her brother to come forward. judge solomon or, are you prepared to take a? >> i am. >> raise your right and repair after me -- by judges of the

summit or do solemnly swear -- >> i just saw those socks and an order to sell elsewhere that i will administer justice without respect to persons >> and equal rights to the poor and the rich >> and to equal right to the poor and the rich and >> and that i will faithfully and impartially >> and that i will faithfully and impartially penn daw >> discharge and performed by >> discharge and perform bach's all the duties incumbent on me >> as a an associate justice of the supreme court of the united states. under the constitution and laws of united states. >> under the constitution and laws of the united states. >> so help me god. >> so help me god. >> congratulations and welcome to the court. [applause]

[applause] [no audio] >> the full senate confirmed judge sonia sotomayor 68-31 as the that was supreme court justice. the next term officially begins monday, october 5. watchless today from the senate floor debate at 7:00 p.m., eastern on america and the courts. coming this fall, enter the home

to america pause highest court, the supreme court. [no audio] >> good morning, everybody. i would like to welcome you to the department of health and human services. i am kathleen sebelius, the secretary of the department of health and human services and be glad to be here with three great leaders of our country, secretary janet napolitano, from the part of a homeland security, education secretary arne duncan, and are on dr. tom freidan, who is the head of the centers for disease control. we have been working together to prepare for the flu season.

from the moment i walked in in april, i spend my first evening in the situation room, being briefed on the evolving flu in late april and that work has not stopped since. today, we are announcing the latest that we are taking to get ready for the flu season this fall. new guidance for schools and dissenters from disease control and prevention that we are releasing today will help schools prepare and respond to the h1n1 flew seasonal strains as kids get ready for school at the upcoming days. parents are out buying backpacks and school supplies and we want you to know that we are taking steps to make sure that children and teachers are safe and secure as to be possible when schools open per the guidelines are almost -- only the most recent product of the obama administration's framework for a response that guides are ever is pretty grim work starts with medical surveillance that means

that we work closely with doctors and public health officials across the country and across the world to identify outbreaks as soon as they happen and share that information. we are also developing an sharing mitigation measures. it is a huge range of strategies to help limit the spread of the flow. we encourage people to wash their hands republic, stay home when they are sick to also advising communities how to respond to outbreaks. the best way to stop the spread is vaccination. our scientists are working hard to have a vaccine ready for consumption by mid-october. they have already prepared a seasonal flu vaccine that should be very -- available very shortly so we recommend that people who are ready and willing to get a seasonal flu vaccine do that quickly so that we can be ready for the h1n1 vaccine by

mid-. mid-october. the national defense of the flu was only does -- only as strong as our weakest link. we have been reaching out to state governments, local governments, public health officials, employers, doctors, teachers, the american people, and certainlywlv with allies and colleagues in the media to try and reach the american people with accurate information and timely information about steps that can be taken. the best place to learn more about all of these efforts and to keep updated on the flu is to visit a website,flu.gov. it is a combined website. we are certainly sharing information and strategies. it is where the briefing will be streams today for americans across the country. before i turn over the podium to my colleagues who will tell you

more about our joint efforts on food preparation and the guidance we are releasing today, i want to point out hubert humphrey, after whom this building is named, made this quote and it is on the wall that greets you as you enter the building. he said that the moral test of the government is how they treat those who are in the dawn of life, our children, and the shadows of life, the sec. that is the driving mission -- the sec. -- the sick. we will do everything possible under the present's direction to keep our children and americans say this fall. we appreciate you being here. i would like to turn it over to secretary napolitano. >> thank you. thank you, secretary.

it is good to be with everybody this morning to talk about our ongoing response to the h1n1 flu pandemic and to talk specifically about guidance for schools. this pandemic is a test of how we will respond to any sort of issue that crosses lines, local, state, trouble, territorial efforts, nonprofit, for-profit, non-government sectors, the government world and the like. but cooperation and collaboration that the president has been leading over the summer as we get ready for the school year has been quite extraordinary. one of the things we recognize after the spring outbreak of the h1n1 flu virus is that schools

must have clear guidance about how to minimize the spread of h1n1 and that that guidance needs to be ready for the opening of the 2009-2010 school year. the decision to close schools is a local one. it is one of the most challenging for any school leader for any community. once you close a school, as we saw last spring, that causes a very significant ripple effect because children need to stay home. we do not want kids going to build a mall or anywhere else. the whole point is to reduce transmission that means parents need to think about their own plans, should their children need to stay home. we saw a big ripple effect it schools should have to close. accordingly, the guidance we are

announcing today, developed by the centers for disease control and prevention, and they are our base. we have said consistently that they are relying on the science for the guidance we are providing. the guidance we are announcing today will give local school officials the tools they need to make informed decisions about how to decrease exposure to the flu while limiting the destruction of the to the learning in school. the guidance is timely. we have 55 million students and 7 million individuals in a 130,000 public schools across the country. this is a significant population. as we know, school-age youth, and we can talk also about college-aged youths, are especially prone to catching this version of the flu.

what we are attempting to do with this guidance is to allow schools to stay open and to inform them to send six students and staff home. specifically, students and staff should be separated and given protective gear such day -- such as a mask until they can leave school. handwashing and coughing etiquette are essential. these simple steps have an enormous affect on the ability to slow down the transmission of the flu. high-risk students and step that seek medical care must seek help immediately if they get symptoms. only schools with high numbers of high risk students or students getting the flu should actually consider closure. this guidance that is being announced today applies to

public and private institutions, covering gates -- grades k-12. we expect to release additional guidance for other institutions in the near term. when we say that, we may not just community colleges and universities but working with employers and the like, what should their guidance be as weak work their way through this fluting pandemic. -- flu pandemic. we will look to the cdc for science advice. the department of homeland security will continue of very robust outreach effort throughout the private sector. last but not least, we keep reminding the american public that this is an evolving situation. everything is not cut in stone. our strength and flexibility will be very important as we work together to reduce the

transmission of this flow. -- flu. as it comes back into the united states, we need to reduce the ripple effect it has. with that, i am happy to introduce my colleague, the secretary of education, arne duncan. >> thank you, secretary and i want to thank all three of you for all your hard work and sense of collaboration. it has been a joy to work and his top project because of the hard work. as we approached the start of the new school year, this is an exciting time, filled with great promise and opportunity. we also know it can be a time of great anxiety. this year, in addition to all the changes inherent in making sure our students succeed, we are faced with a resurgence of the h1n1 flu virus. this has affected many young, seemingly healthy individuals. first and foremost, as a parent of a second grader and

kindergartner and as a former school superintendent, in everything we do to prepare for h1n1 fiscal year, we must put the health and safety of our children first. our team of the department of education has been working closely with the cdc, hhs, and the chest to prepare a bottle guidance for schools. we're putting that out today as a tool kit for k-12. our early childhood guidance and higher education guidance is coming. the bottom line is you will see that we set out to make our guidance ballast, measured, and as clear and concise as possible. most importantly, it reflects the best science available. we hope that no schools will have to close. realistically, some schools will close this fall. if they do, it is incredibly important to all of us that our students continue to learn. educators need to start thinking now about having temporary home

schooling plans in place. they need to use phones and the internet. whether it is for a few students or for an entire school, we plan on releasing guidance for colleges and universities by august 23. the cdc will issue a new version of the k-1212 guidance -- k-12 guidance. based on the knowledge gained last spring, we recognize the potential benefits of preemptively dismissing students from school which are out with by the negative consequences and that no one-size-fits-all situation should be applied. i am confident this guidance will serve as a guidepost for local and state decision makers and help them think for the situations like what to do if you only have a few cases or what to do it the impact is so severe that you must close the school to to prevent the spread of the virus. we absolutely must continue to make prevention our collective

business. students from kindergarten through 12th grade should be encouraged to wash their hands frequently and the early and often to their sleeves, not their hands. schools should have clean and sanitary civilities and the room set aside so that if a child shows up sick, there's a safe place for them to stay until they can be sent home to get well. parents must absolutely be vigilant in identifying signs of the flu. we want parents actively practicing prevention, close monitoring, and common sense. the department of education will provide school districts and states with as much flexibility from federal education program requirements as possible to help them adjust to the many issues resulting from an outbreak of the virus. limit turnabout -- let me now turn it over to itfriedan. -- dr. friedan.

>> thank you very much. i would like to talk about where we stand in terms of the influence of spread in the u.s. and globally. in-flu-enza may be the least predictable of all infectious diseases. that means we need to carefully track what is happening and we need to be flexible. in-flu-enza continues to spread in the united states and globally. the good news is that globally, the pattern we have seen does not differ substantially from what we saw in the united states. that means that we have seen mostly disease among younger people that most people have had mild disease but some people have been severely ill and some people have died, particularly those with underlying medical conditions, pregnant women, and others. flexibility is essential. local decisions are essential. the guidance we are releasing today will help localities and

states make decisions based on the best science that are appropriate for their area. what we anticipate is that the vaccine will be available in october and it looks like it will be a good match with the strain that is circulating. what we don't know is whether when it will return. it is quite possible h1n1 will come back when schools reopen. it is also possible it will not. if it does not, it does not mean we are out of the woods. it means we have time to take additional steps. we will need to continue to prepare throughout the fall and the school year and continue to track what is happening with low in our communities. we also know that in different parts of the country, we saw a hugely different rates of h1n1. some places have a lot of it and some places have very little. when it comes back, we expect it will not be the same everywhere.

that is another reason why local decision making is so very important here. there are also significant challenges that we will face. not only do we have to track how the virus changes but we have to also address the fact that we are dealing with our public health system around the country that has not had the level of investment it should have had in past decades and it currently faces significant fiscal challenges and the health-care system that we have to work closely with that has difficulties with coordination, with information, and focus on prevention. the vaccine will most likely, at least four children, require "doses, separated by about three weeks or more. we will also have seasonal flu vaccines. the vaccine will be available shortly for that. we're providing a series of planning tools were schools. we know from the spring that where there was h1n1, there were

very large explosive outbreak in schools. we also know that in the spring, we had much less information about h1n1 then we have today. we know how it behaves and we know how to control it and what it does and does not do. it is now clear that closure of schools is rarely indicated, even if h1n1 is in the school. there are measures we can take to protect the students and staff and to allow learning to continue. it is a local decision based on local information that balance is a harm of loss of learning, wages, unsupervised children, loss of school support systems and food and other matters with a possible benefit which is less spread of 81 in one for perhaps a temporary time frame. i was health commissioner in new york city throughout the h1n1 outbreak in this past spring. we had a large outbreak in new york city.

we might have had as many as 800,000 cases or more in the city. there were hundreds of schools that had cases, sometimes many cases of h one and one that we did not close. we were able to continue teaching and functioning. there were also more than 50 schools we decided to close for a private reasons. perhaps we would have closed your if we had known then what we know now. there were some children that had special medical needs and had trouble breathing on their own parade in that of a school, when h1n1 was present, we closed it for a brief period of time, probably five calendar days and reopened and things were, and we were able to deal with it. there are a couple of key things that schools can do better simple and straightforward. the first is, keep six kids and step hundred -- keeps the kids

and staff home. -- keep sick kids and step home. wash your hands and separate sick kids and make sure that if there are children or staff who have health problems like diabetes or two are pregnant, if they become sick with fever and cough, they should be rapidly treated so they do not become severely ill. for certain schools, schools will have most of their students with serious medical problems like muscular dystrophy or severe several palsy or web difficulty coughing or clearing their lungs, they may want to close. the

suggest that local schools and public health officials courtney closely to actively screen kids when they walk into the school each day. we would consider asking people who have serious underlying conditions to stay home to protect their sons all -- themselves and others. this is only if we had a more deadly form of the flu. also, increased distances within the school, maybe don't bring kidsmñ together for joint class, maybe have students sit further apart from each other and to consider broader school dismissals to reduce the spread of flow. these are things we would consider if the virus changed to become more deadly. responding to h1n1 is a shared responsibility. there are many parts of the federal government working together and that the state and local levels, when the parents, teachers, students, schools, the business community, and health

care community court made it. that is why we have provided resources, technical sources, funds, to help the poor and some others to begin and extend and expand the court nation process. -- coordination process. they have to prepare for any medical needs that might be present and prepare for vaccination. they have to be ready to pettitte as the virus changes and as we learn more about we will respond with the best possible action, based on the best possible science. to do that, we will track it very intensively. we cannot stop the tide of flew from coming in but we can reduce the number of people who become severely ill from it. we can now answer questions. >> could you please go over the scenarios under which schools may want to consider closing?

>> in the current context, where there is no change, if the clue comes back similar to what was in the spring, we would say that if you have a school where most or all of the kids have a particular medical needs, either they are pregnant or they are medically frail -- that means not medically sick but people -- but kids who may be on ventilators or oxygen or have trouble clearing their long secretions, that would mean you might want to closed at school. there may be localities which have so many cases in one school that they decide that they cannot stay open, that would be another example of why you might close at this time. you might also have a situation where, despite telling parents to keep your kids home and have a beeper, many kids with fever are coming into the school. that was the situation in new york city with a number of schools that we could not insure

that sick kids with fever are staying out while we decided to close some of the schools. one thing that is important and is a change in the current guidance is the number of days that we ask people to stay out. previously, it was a longer time. based on studies of how flu spreads and laboratory stories of -- studies of the flu, we recommend people stay up for 24 hours after their fever is gone. it is more practical and is a shorter timeframe. the period of exclusion is 24 hours after the fever is gone, whether or not you are taking medications for the virus. >> i have two questions -- it schools are to be used as possible vaccination sites, will that be a local decision? will that be a recommendation,

and the federal government? or will that be a combination? how will that happen? did you take into account the financial impact on local school districts for school closures as well as homeschooling, if necessary? >> we have on our website and you confided on flu.gov, locations on flu vaccine clinics. it will be challenging to get lots of kids vaccinated. the vaccine is our strongest defense against the spread of flu and when it is available, we hope that all providers and all venues where to vaccine can be given will be used. that includes wherever possible , school-located vexing clinics. schools need to think now and plan now about how they might get consent forms back from the parents. how will they court may with the

child's medical provider? school-located vaccination clinics, we hope will occur in many areas. it is a local decision but we will provide resources for that. >> in terms of the resources, part of the allocation from the supplemental bill that congress passed, i might point out that response to the flu has been a very bipartisan effort in congress. they are very eager to help make sure that we do everything we can. we are talking about public vaccination program which is a bit different than seasonal flu or the vaccine for children program. we have already pushed out to the states $260 million in resources for this kind of planning. we had a major flew somewhere over 500 officials from state and local and tribal governments

came to n i h with their emergency health personnel, with their educational personal, to look at an updated plan. they are submitting specific plans to the centers for disease control with orders for the vaccine and it where they think the best sites are. that is a local decision. some places, it may be schools and in others, they may new -- they may use the national guard armories. they may use oral centers. there is a whole variety of things. planning is under way right now. we have provided resources to up that -- update that planning. that will be part of the ordering process, to identify where the vaccine should go throughout the state. >> we met yesterday with all the major associations, the teachers' unions, the principals' association, school boards, school nurses, the counselors, and there was a tremendous outpouring of support

for having schools be the location to distribute the vaccine. children at risk -- schools want to be part of the solution. there was the universal support for the idea -- for the idea of that schools should be part of a solution. >> you have a second question? >> when you were developing these guidelines, were financial considerations taken in terms of closing schools? >> we want to be very flexible in terms of average daily attendance. we want schools to make the right decisions for the right reasons. we have the flexibility we need to provide going forward. >> just to amplify that -- it is a balancing act. when you close a school, you have real social cost. you may reduce the flu for a period time but you also increase the number of kids who may be unsupervised.

you may head social stresses in the community. you may reduce the number of health-care workers who are available in the system to provide emergency response and care. there's a definite balancing in the decision of whether or not to close a school. that is why these guidelines provide general information but leave the decision to local level where the information is present. >> i wonder what you would say to parents who might see there are few cases in the schools that their children attend. even though the schools don't need to close, maybe the parents are panicking. what would you say to reassure them that is ok to send your kid to school? >> we think it is ok to send children to school. we think that local health officials and schools will make the right decisions. we think the opportunity to receive a vaccination is important and that is a decision that will be made by parents. that is a huge opportunity to make sure that students are safe.

if there is a handful of cases in school, the goal is to keep the school open, to have a handful of cases and not affect other people and bring them back to school 24 hours after the fever breaks. >> what we are seeing, looks like seasonal flu. we don't know the twists and turns but even though it is a novel strain, you will not be immunized against this new strain without a separate vaccine, it is presenting itself like seasonal flu. we're watching that very closely. we're watching the southern hemisphere which right now is dealing with their winter season seasonal flow and no vaccine. we will learn a lot from watching australia and chile and other countries in the southern hemisphere.

our surveillance teams are on the ground. if parents understand that the vaccine is being prepared the same without seasonal flu vaccine is prepared, the same kind of safety protocol and tests but also that is how it is being presented parents typically would not keep their children home if some classmates or friend came down with the flu. >> two questions -- are the schools level -- legally liable for the decisions they make? if someone could go over how the recommendations have changed for what they were at the end of the last flu season? >> i will take the second question. in terms of how the recommendations have changed -- one change is the spirit of exclusion. it used to be seven days. now, it is 24 hours after the peter goes away. that is based on new information

we have about how the virus spreads in the laboratory and from person to person a second change is providing more information about what schools should consider in the decision of whether or not to close. at the end of the spring and now, the fundamental point is the center it is a local decision. it is more obvious now than before that there are relatively few reasons and rare times when it makes sense to close a school just because the virus is present i can say from my experience, we have hundreds of schools in new york city which had dozens or more code cases which remained open without a problem. we followed the key three steps, keep sick kids out, cover your cough, and wash your hands. the liability question? >> the vaccination program falls

under the planning and preparation act that was put together by congress in 2005. there is no legal liability for any step along the way for the vaccine from the time of manufacturing to the shots in the arm. schools participate as part of a clinic protocol. there is no liability in that instance. in terms of the overall liability, i assume that individuals may bring some legal challenge. what we have seen is that schools are clearly falling the guidance and working with the best information that we have. we continue to say to people that we know this will change. this is a work in progress. we learn more every day. what we are monitoring it closely. we need to expect the unexpected. >> if a school decides not to close and kids get sick, they will not be liable?

>> i am not a lawyer but i will not deal with that. >> i am a lawyer. am i the only lawyer appear? -- up here? these are local decisions made locally i must say -- these decisions need to be based on science and what is on the best public health interest of the students and of the community. that is what we are encouraging. >> many students are heading back to college already. do you expect the recommendations to come out august 23 to be much different or is there anything significant they should know as they are heading back? >> we expect the recognition is to be along those lines and we will get them out by that date.

one thing that is different for colleges is the dorms. there is an important to looking at dorms. we also look at how colleges can get vaccinations done for their student. that is something important for them to think about. in terms of college, they need to look at the balancing factors in terms of education. students can do learning online through the internet and that is a way of reducing exposure, if there is a lot of h1n1. >> we may think there be some practical challenges with isolating sick kids. we hope we can work with colleges and universities and their faculties across the country. in a dorm situation, there are roommates. unlike a great school, you cannot send college students home. their home is often full of other people.

having places set aside so that sick kids could be isolated and recover may be one of the more important features of that kind of living situation. it is really the dorm environment that presents some challenges as. thinking through that before kids get sick, we are very eager to have colleges participate because the guidance is six months - 24 years. if you on the seven or eight year plan, you may be outside the property group. colleges can be important sites to make sure that they make it easy for kids who are there to get vaccinated. >[no audio]

>> all this month, revisit the bears and festivals we covered this year on both tv. the phenomena of facebook with a best-selling author on the success of this social networking site. that is part of cspan to's book tv weekend. book tv, sunday, the future of the american conservative movement with a direct mail fund-raiser. that is this weekend on c-span 2. >> now senate hearing for transit systems, looking at public rail transportation. we will hear from the head of the federal transit administration + localities, including washington, d.c.

this less about one hour, 20 minutes. >> good afternoon, this hearing will now be in order. let me say that we take very seriously our responsibility in this subcommittee over the jurisdiction that we have over transit issues. i have worked hard this congress to show increased federal investment in transit could result in the continued expansion of public transportation options. it can facilitate economic growth, create jobs, improve energy security, lower greenhouse gas emissions, alleviate traffic. today, one of to look at the

best and that is needed to take -- to keep our existing systems for writing. in april, the federal transit administration released an astonishing record. it estimated that at the seven largest transit agencies, there is a $50 billion backlog in projects needed to maintain a state of good repair. to address this backlog over 12 years, the same resort -- the same report estimated that the budget would have to double from $5.4 billion that was spent in 2006 to over $10 billion per year. the report says that if we do not increase our investment in upgrading and maintaining transit systems soon, we will inevitably face a crisis. the april, 2009 report gave us the facts and the figures. i think we can all agree that the real wake-up call about the condition of our nation's transit equipment was a the tragic events of june 22 of this year. on that day, after 5:00 p.m., a

washington metro train plowed into another train that had stopped on the same track. nine people, including the train operator were killed and 80 were injured. our thoughts and prayers are with all of those affected by this terrible accident. one of the most important things that the federal government can do to honor the memories of those who died in this tragic incident is to provide agencies with the resources needed to keep this from happening again. the investigation of the cause of the crash is ongoing. one of the factors the national transportation safety board is looking at closely is the computerized signal and operations system and other aging equipment. we need to make sure that this tragedy is not repeated. i want to be clear that i believe the washington metro system is safe. hopefully, the ntsb will ensure

that this cannot happen again. we need to make sure we are adequately monitoring and providing resources to make the systems are running efficiently and safely. we will hear testimony from the fda and transit agencies around the nation. -- fta but there are areas like you to touch upon. we need more funding for the real modernization program. i believe the committee needs to consider whether we need a temporary funding regime to get through the state of good repair backlog and explore emergency spending authority if situations arise that are particularly urgent or cute. i would like to hear your ideas about funding needs and how best to structure those investments. in addition to the additional funding that may be needed, fta should work with and are -- agencies to improve their current situation. they should develop a program to provide technical assistance to

help these agencies manage and maintain their assets. i also know there is a lot of interest and different views on how to modify the existing fixed guide way formula. i do not want this hearing to become a squabble between transit systems. i would still like to have input on the topic. there are several agencies that wish to participate today. there are some that could not. if you -- the could not be here, i would like them to submit their point of view in writing. i would like all the agencies to be on the same page. we need to develop a system to report the condition of transit assets. we do not want trances systems to be bogged down in red tape and report the condition of every nut and bolt. it appears we need more information and transparency. i look forward to hearing from all of you.

we will start off with our distinguished administrator of the federal transit administration. we have to think together how we can enable these systems to serve our community as safely as possible. if there is any statement that senator a couple wants to make? >> i want to thank you for convening the subcommittee on housing, transportation, and community development and to welcome our witnesses. an essential component of the next surface transportation reauthorization will be increasing the availability of resources for repair, upgrade, and expand a real transit systems. although it is important to repair and modernize our nation's existing real infrastructure, we must also continue to develop in areas

without existing systems to improve the mobility of residents and promote smarter growth. the city of honolulu continues to develop its real system. the local contribution to the project will likely be 70% of the project cost but it will still need significant federal support. i thank the witnesses for appearing today. i look forward to working with the members of the committee and the administration. we want to increase the resources available for transit. thank you for conducting this hearing. >> thank you, senator. we will start with our first panel. we will have two panels. our first is our distinguished the administrator of the federal transit administration peter rogoff. this is his first appearance before the subcommittee. it has been a pleasure to work

with an administrator who understands the senate as well as the national transportation issues so well. we look forward to a long-term relationship and your thoughts today on the critical issue of what is the heart transit possibility to operate in the 21st century. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me say, senator, it is nice to return to the senate and be among old friends. we're pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the good repair of the transportation systems. as far as safety and reliability, it is imperative that we aggressively address and stay on top of their aging condition. deferred may 9 items, it deferred long enough, can and to become critical safety risks. the issue of the condition of our transit infrastructure and the safety of our transit systems are inextricably linked.

the fta role is limited as a matter of federal law. we are prohibited from establishing national safety standards for a large segment of the nation's rail transit systems or any of the nation's bus transit systems. the new administration finds this to be unacceptable and we expect to propose reforms. the secretary has established a committee to identify alternative ways to address a gap in safety oversight. we look forward to proposing reforms to congress soon. with their limited safety authority, know that the fda contita continues to encourage t practices by the industry. it is essential that we regularly remind ourselves that rail transit remains an extraordinarily safe way to travel, far safer than our highways.

two of the transit agency's you will hear from chearta and lamotta, have very few fatalities. each of those fatalities represents a tragedy, the fact is that highway accidents in metropolitan areas of washington and chicago claimed many more lives every month. despite the state record of the interest-rate, the ntsb has been called in to investigate several transit-related accidents. the ntsb investigator a chicago transit authority derailment on the blue line in 2006. that accident resulted from the failure of the track structure that resulted in 152 fatalities -- 152 injuries. this served as one of thousands holding cta rails. it is corroded and deformed. at the time of the accident, you could pull screws out of the rail with your bare hand.

this equipment dated back to the original installation in 1951 and was never replaced until after the accident. the ntsb the report on the accident said that the derailment should serve as a wake-up call to all transit agencies with the equipment and infrastructure is that ages with each passing day. the ntsb finding speaks to the core of our challenge. the infrastructure is aging with each passing day. in fostering safety and maintaining a state of good repair, we cannot limit our focus just to the aging trend to systems or to the age of any single piece of equipment. as heavy relatives to go, the washington metro system is a young agency. many of our new rail systems are using newer technology for which we do not have experience in the field. this is especially true in light rail. washington metro was required to pull out and replace track signals and equipment before the

end of its expected service life. for some systems, the biggest risk factor may be a 56-year-old girl like this one but four other systems the biggest safety risk could be in the programming of a circuit board that could only be two years old. to ensure safety and the state of the repair, we must take a comprehensive safety management approach that identifies, analyzes, and controls all potential risks. we must of systems that demand continuous improvement, we're all employees are held accountable for safety. there's also a vital human factor to say to that cannot be ignored. it important amendments and renewal are deferred, it sends a negative message to employees who must work in those conditions. employees that report critical maintenance needs nc little or no response by management may start to wonder whether they should continue to report. our transit systems are busier than they have ever been before.

we registered a record 10.3 billion transit trips in the united states last year. our transit agencies are working their equipment long and hard to keep up with demand. at that pace of activity, it takes a toll on people and, equipment. these factors point to the need for every transit agency to have a systemic of safety and management program in place. it points up the need for adequate and reliable funding from all levels of government. port transit structure conditions persist despite fta continued support. at the local level, we find that the systems that are adequate financed have dedicated local funding sources that has a predictable revenue stream. that allows for long-term capital investment commitments. new jersey transit has benefited from substantial investment from new jersey's own transportation

trust fund. other agencies are authorized to draw a designated amount from the sales tax or property tax. other agencies have no dedicated funding source. the solution to better and sustained transit infrastructure investment will not be found solely at the federal, state, or local level. the key will be to make it a priority at all levels and insist that industry make their investment in a way that addresses their most critical safety vulnerabilities first. to foster this concept, the fta has made this a priority. in april, 2009, we published a state of good repair study. the study was recorded by senator durbin and other members of this committee and the junior center of illinois, senator obama. that study assessed level of capital investment required to maintain a state of good repair for the nation's seven largest rail systems. those will systems carry 80% of the nation's transit ridership

and rebuild the capitalization need a $50 billion. in order to assist agencies to correct this, the fta will conduct a review of international agency asset management practices. we are also expanding on the study. we will take on a broader universal travis agency. -- transit agency. we will not look at the same standards but try to solve a more vexing problem which is to identify that part of deferred maintenance that is safety- critical. we will be working with industry on trying to better define what safety-critical industry composes. i want to thank you for the opportunity to testify and i am happy to take any questions. >> thank you. let me ask you -- you spoke

about how commuter rail systems are regulated by the federal railroad administration while other systems like light rail are overseen by state safety oversight agencies. should the safety of all will be under the federal railroad administration? should we enhance fta hours? should we keep destructor the same? what are your views? >> secretary lehood has addressed just that. we gave him an update of our work. what is more important as to who does it is that someone does it who has the teeth and authority and the funding and personnel to compel the attention of the transit agencies.

that is the concern we have with the current system. we have a total of 28 of them. the average fte strength, the average personal strength of these agencies is 1.1 fte per agency, per year. >> you mean full time? >> yes, slightly more than one person. if you take california out of the mix which has a 12-person agency, you have less than one person, on average, for the remaining agencies. that tells us that this is being treated as a collateral responsibility where many of the state department's have stood up the bare minimum to comply with the federal regulation that and sso exist. when i testified in the house on this issue, i testified next to a representative of the sso's bad, and they were testifying

about having some teeth to compel attention of the agencies they oversee. we also have a concern about the independence of some of these organizations. some of them rely for their funding on the very transit systems they regulate. this is not a situation we allowing any other area of transportation safety enforcement the federal level. >> when you expect the secretary to issue a report? >> we will work through august on this. we hope to get this out early in the fall as possible. we have had several meetings already and we will have an updated meeting shortly. >> we will look forward to hearing from you. i have a poster here that one "washington post okie cartoonist thinks might be good which is

called a cache for clunkers of reail car program. we put $750 million in the cash in -- in rail modernization, when you were looking at $50 billion, it does not make much of a dent. what is your -- what is your view as to how to meet some of these very significant needs? we want to move people increasingly to transit. we learn, with the spike in guess caucuses, of the -- with the spike in gas prices, of the consequences. most of the systems are effective. we want to make them safer. safety is an integral part of what we need to promote at the end of the day.

as we drive people to the systems that we want them to participate in, to get off the road, to have a high speed, non polluting system which gives them to their opportunities for work or entertainment or even go to a doctor's visit, what ever, at the end of the day, we cannot guarantee that we will have the type of systems we want to attract that ridership and to do all the positive things that flow from that if we are looking at $50 billion in costs. what is your sense of this? should be increased funding for the existing program? as part of that answer, if you can talk to me about two basic arguments about how to reform rail modernization funding. some argue that the only sensible way to divide the funding is by need. others argue that that gives a

perverse incentive for local agencies and agencies should be rewarded for performing well on a net spurted are either of those strategies workable? should we be funding based on objective criteria like the size of the system? how do we meet the challenge that we have of $50 billion of work to be done? how should we go about that? what is the policy decision to be made as we meet the financial challenge, how does that get dispersed? . i think you spoke to one of the solutions in your opening statement. are more resources needed from all levels of government? i think so. we also need to get agencies of doing a better job of targeting the most gullible assets. there are two elements to that. -- targeting the most vulnerable assets. it is important to point out

that certain assets we don't you as safety-critical ashley had a very real impact on ridership. for example, crowded platforms, disabled air-conditioner s, escalators that don't work. they not -- they may not be viewed as a safety-critical, but they can move people out of the transit servants -- move people out of the transit service. you are about 45 times more likely to die from an accident on the highway been in transit. it becomes a safety-critical issue. on the issue of what kind of program should we make, i would say we want to do a link with additional funding to better asset management. that is not to say the best definition will come out of the

beltway, this is something we have been working with our people for some time and plan to continue through round tables and a dialogue. there is a very diverse practice out there among the transit agencies on how best to attacked -- to identify their critical of deferred maintenance and address it. as it relates to the formula, i would make this observation. i would say that the current formula is a bit of a hodgepodge. it is hard to define precisely what the strategic goal of eight is because you have seven different tiers of finding. i think you do want to define what the goal is and then build

a formula around it. as part of that goal, you talked about perverse incentives. you do want to do something about a mandated level of effort on the part of state and local government, because we had examples of certain agencies who fell into more dramatic disrepair due to the absence of attention on the part of state and local government. if you take a snapshot of who is in the worst shape now, you do run the risk of not appropriately rewarding governments that did the right thing. >> thank you very much. senator. >> thank you very much mr. chairman, and welcome. i know you are familiar with honolulu rapid transit project.

let me say that the project has completed its fta compliance analysis study of more than 2.5 years ago, but it has been awaiting approval from fta to interplanetary engineering since then -- to enter preliminary engineering since then. we have been collecting dedicated local tax revenues amounting to more than $300 million to fund its share of the project. before your arrival, honolulu pulse protracted use of getting to pe seems to be similar to challenges that other cities have faced. recognizing that the administration will have recommendations for statutory

changes as a part of reauthorization. this is my question -- are there other actions that you can take in the short term that do not require legislation that could help expedite the project approval process? >> yes, there are, and we have begun to take some. there are three discrete universes' of the changes. one is a change to agency guidance. we just published last week a series of changes that are oriented towards eliminating paperwork burden that has not been in tactful to the process. we hope to do more. -- they have not been impactful to the process. some of these involve

eliminating steps in the process that are duplicative or not necessary. for example, i am not saying we have endorsed any of these proposals, but you pointed out the alternatives analysis that all -- that honolulu went through. there is an alternative process for compliance with nepa. we are figuring out whether we can eliminate a step right there. we are also looking at areas, especially for more experienced transit agencies, that might not need as much technical assistance from the agency in the early stages. maybe they could come in for a funding determination by presenting a whole package later

in the process, rather than having to go through the aape final grant approval process. these are all things we are looking at. this is an area where we hope to come forward with something in the near term. there are many other elements that will have to opine on our ideas. obviously, the level of resources for the program will matter to how many projects we can bring into the system. >> thank you for that. with respect to the administration's proposed 18- month extension of existing highway and transit programs, can you explain how the 18-month extension might impact projects seeking the execution of the full funding grant agreement during the 18-month extension

period? will befda have sufficient authority -- will they have sufficient authority to enter into grant agreements with those projects that will be ready to begin construction during that time? >> what we commonly referred to as contingent commitment authority, it will depend on the duration of the reauthorization. at present, the amount of commitment authority we get is dictated by a three-year snapshot of resources of the program. i understand there is legislation being considered in the senate that might expand that to five years, but the wider the snapshot, the more resources we have. one of the reasons why we did not put forward and 18-month package was to provide stability to the program, not just not

trans itnew starts, but for funding so that the transit agencies can expect what they will receive and what our highway agencies should expect to receive. we will use the authority we have. no, there will be some that will be ready to go to construction that if we receive no additional authority, could be slowed down. >> thank you very much. my time has expired. >> let me ask you one last question. is there a well-accepted definition of what is a good state of repair? is the fta and transit agencies on the same page? >> i don't think it is a matter of the fta being on a different page. there are maybe 12 different pages out there, but the major

transit agencies don't necessarily seek to capture the same definition. some focus just on the age of assets, some focus on the aged and recapitalization, some had a more robust effort to try to capture what their backlog is, some try to get to a state where they show no backlog, some recognize they will always have one and it should be at a certain number of years that they can inshore it. we have been working with our trades and agencies -- a number of years that they can insure it. sometimes the definitions are about the -- there is room for improvement and plenty of opportunity for more dialogue to try to coalesce around a single definition, especially when you think about federal mandates

around it. . we will continue to have that dialogue going forward. >> thank you so much. members of the committee, mr. administrator, we look forward to working with you. with that, let me call up the second panel. it's a very outstanding group of some of the nation's leading local transit agencies. as i call you up, if you start coming up, i'd appreciate it. carol brown, who is the chairwoman of the chicago transit authority. it . -- carol brown represents one of the most active agencies in the

country. it proves helpful as the chicago transit authority meets its challenges and we learn -- we are anxious to learn about how they are utilizing existing funding. john catoe is the general manager of the washington area metro authority. it serves the federal government and has recently suffered from tragedy. the subcommittee appreciate you taking time to appear before us during these challenges -- during these challenging times. we look forward to your testimony. please accept our condolences for the tragedy that happened in june and our willingness to work constructively to help move it forward. richard sarles is the executive director of new jersey transit and has a compelling story to tell about its efforts in repair

efforts. my home state system has efforts to share. we look forward to hearing those. dr. beverly scott, the general manager and chief executive officer of the metropolitan atlanta rapid transit authority and chair of the american public transportation association. she will bring the perspective of an agency that was not in the april 2009 fta study that has substantial needs. we readily recognize the rail modernization needs exceeds those stated in the study. she will be able to give some thoughts as the chair of the american public transportation association. we want to get you all up, we are going to shortly be having votes, so we will along as far

as we can and recess when we are compelled to go to the floor and have three votes which will mean that when we recessed, we will be about half an hour in ás@@@ if you would just put that microphone in front of you. >> thank you, chairman. thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk about chicago's transit system today. we are the second largest transit agency in the country. we carry 1.7 million riders a day, which is 242 miles of track and 154 bus routes throughout

chicago and cook county. we carry 80% of the riders in the reason and we operate the l. sadly that iconic symbol is aging and is in poor health, as is our bus system and our railway system. rails were built between 89 and 1900. the oldest subway was built during world war two. our oldest railcar dates to 1969. it has 1.7 million miles on it and our oldest bus drivers was built in 1907. -- our oldest ourgarage was built and 1907. this is in addition to the fully funded capital plan and it does not include expansion products that total over $4 billion. $6.8 billion is a shortfall needed to bring the system into a set of good repair. if the largest maintenance need is about $4 billion.

this includes rail stations, rail structures, track work, power substations, contact rail and cable. we need $1.2 billion to repair and replace our rail fleet. it travels 225,000 miles today. 20% of our feet -- of our fleet is over 30 years old. the standard useful life is 25 years. our rail stations average age is 24 years. we need to replace the system, and with $1.2 billion, we could replace two-thirds of the fleet. we are very thankful for the federal rail modernization funds levers seat. we have are against those funds to reduce our 15 minute per mile slow zones on our blue line 27%. we completed the repair work in 2008 just as rider ship had

increased by 5% due to a sudden spike in gas prices. at the same time, vehicle miles traveled on the road test client. the good news is even after gas prices were cut in half this fall, if the people who had switched from driving to transit continue to ride the trains and buses rather than return to driving. had we not fixed these loans, those people made to transit would have be -- what have become frustrated with the unreliable service and quickly returned to commuting in their cars. the whole point of my being here is to stress the importance of maintaining the nation's transit system. like my counterparts, i believe the help the transit system will help to alleviate congestion on the nation's road and a sustained investment is critical to our nation's well-being. that is why i am so pleased that 12 members of the senate, including the chairman and other centers asked for the report on the rail modernization needs. the share of the state of good repair highlighted in this

report is over $4 billion. that means the rail contract, and railcars have passed their useful life, leading to an increase in slow sons to ensure safety in the system. we are in dire need of modernization. your leadership in redressing this issue will go a long way to fix the problem. fta report provides a blueprint for modernizing the system by refining the modernization program where funds are allocated based on age, type of system, and maintenance needs. realignment of the program will likely lead to an increase in funds for agencies fundscta and new jersey transit and others. thank you for leadership on this issue and i asked you to consider the recommendations as a deliberate the transportation authorization bill in the coming months.

thank you again for the opportunity to testify. i would like to answer any questions you might have. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. i would like to thank you for your leadership on transit issues, especially in regard to legislation dealing with the lease-back arrangements and climate change. sometimes we are called america's transit system or america's subway. metro is the largest public transit provider in the national capital region treat nationally -- capital region. nationally, we are the sixth largest bus station in the united states. we provide service to 1.3 million customers a day and provide trips to hundreds of millions of riders each year. those who reside within the washington metropolitan area, as

well as visitors from all of the nine states and across the world. metro is now beginning to feel its age. to use a comparison that any house honor would relate to, our crowded house is now 33 years old. our need to go far beyond the spring cleaning and a fresh coat of paint. we have a wet basement, rusty pipes, cracked tiles, old electrical wiring, and the equivalent of a 1976 model car in a 100 year old garage. our capital needs over the next 10 years totaled more than $11.4 billion. these needs include replacing our oldest railcars, including those involved in the tragic accident from june 22. we need money to replace leaking tunnels and crumbling platforms,

upgrading our tracks and associated infrastructure, to this escalators and elevators, and replace about 100 buses each year. replacing old bus utilities is also a need. especially the ones that are over 100 years old. we need to update critical software. we also need power and control system upgrades, additional railcars to run longer trains and reduce overcrowding. as you stated in your comments, metro experienced a tragic accident on june 22. two red line cars collided outside of our metro rail station. i and all rail employees are terribly saddened by the loss of life and injuries that occurred that day. while the national transportation safety board has not yet determined their cause of this accident, it has

refocused attention on the state of rail infrastructure around the country. there is clearly ample demand for many transit systems for additional federal support to sustain the safety and reliability of their system. the work we have done to keep transit systems in a state of good repair might not be exciting at times to hear about. but without it, service and safety will suffer. there will be more delays due to failing infrastructure. that means lost time for customers and lost productivity for the region and the nation. the funding provided by the federal government is critical to our ability to keep our systems running safely and reliably. if we do not receive sufficient funding now, service as well as safety will decline. i want to raise an additional

issue before i conclude. as more people are riding public transit, metro is already reaching capacity on many parts of the system. as i have stated on several occasions, with this region and nation witnessed on inauguration day, january 20, where 1.5 million people crowded into the system will become a daily event in the very near future. we need to make investments to expand the capacity of the system to accommodate the rider ship growth such as purchasing addition railcars and making the upgrades in power and in its facilities to accommodate them. as the subcommittee considers ways to meet the infrastructure needs of the transit system, i encourage you to develop a source of funding at the federal level for this project to expand capacity on existing systems so that we may meet future writer

should demands. in conclusion, i appreciate the interest in the state of america's have derail infrastructure. we had metro parking -- are committed to do whatever it takes to make sure the system is as safe as can be and provide the best possible service now and in the future. thank you. >> thank you very much. mr. sarles. >> new jersey transit is the nation's largest statewide public transportation system, providing nearly 900,000 weekday trips on to under thousand buses, [unintelligible] and commuter rail lines. we also operate under its trains daily on the amtrak northeast corridor. i would like to thank you for providing the opportunity to testify today on the criticality of providing [unintelligible] for mature public agencies. the program was created by congress to provide funding to establish transit agencies and

improving existing systems, including improving existing in the structure and other things. in short, the rail modernization program was created to modernize and director of all mature transit agencies across the country to a state of repair. when it comes to a state of good repair, new jersey transit is a success story. we inherited in the structure and equipment from predecessor bus companies and railroads like the pennsylvania and erie lackawanna, dating back to the early part of the 20th-century. unfortunately, public transportation under private ownership throughout much of the mid 20th-century suffered from significant disinvestment and lack of maidens. from its investment -- from its in segment -- from its inception, we have focused on restoring the equipment and facilities to a state of good repair. it has taken three decades to bring new jersey transit to a

state of good repair and we will need to continue to concentrate efforts in this regard to maintain infrastructure and equipment. in fcal year 09 alone, we spent two-thirds on repairing capital maintenance. during the '90s, we expensive and -- significant resources on the connectivity of the system, including midtown direct service to montclair and the construction of the frank lautenberg stations to secaucus. new jersey transit expanded the light rail systems in the 1990's. the hudson bird and light rail lines. had this -- as is public -- as those projects were completed, we emphasize the word in a set of good repair. that effort has reduced -- has produced tangible results. new jersey transit is in the middle of the largest rolling stock upgrade, providing the relocation of 41 pieces of equipment. we invested over $100 million in

four critical mobile bridges, replaced by ducks, replaced wooden ties with concrete ties, and completed a automated upgrade. we declared in may of this year, the new jersey capital transit programs have forced the state of good repair to the system. continuing this success will require renewed enhancement of federal funding and adequate funding for reaching a been to prevent premature degradation of equipment and infrastructure. how did we get here? it started with the bipartisan support 30 years ago and was recently, our focus on the state of the repair was reinvigorated by the governor, directing the authorization of the state transit trust fund and a jersey transit produced an annual investment in the state legislature. that strategy promotes a set of good repair as a top party followed by core capacity improvements and expansion of

the reach of our system. new jersey has consistently provided funding for the trust fund, the new jersey transit capital expenditures. the governor has allocated more than 40% of new jersey's transportation capital funds to new jersey transit. these funds are matched 141 by [unintelligible] from the federal government. -- these funds are funds1 for 1 federal funds. what to do to maintain good repair? i urge this committee and kong -- and congress to increase funding for public transportation through the rail modernization formula and the urbanization formula. as aging systems expand to meet demand, i would caution there are things congress should carefully consider. any kind program that distributes money in a way disproportionately decreasing funding to transit agencies in states of the repairs is

problematic. i would suggest and the -- [unintelligible] another situation congress is @@@@@@@ @ @ @ n)@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by making it a top priority and evaluating the infrastructure of equipment. i have concerns about proposals that suggest all the changes in infrastructure should be collected on a federal level, put into a data base where an alggrhythm would indicate the repairs. i appreciate this committee

giving valuable times and resources to repair the state's transit agency. thank you for the opportunity to present testimony regarding the state of good repair and rail transit modernization needs. as we begin, i would like to also thank you for your extra night leadership on the issue which continues to haunt a number of transit systems like my own. just a few facts and perspectives about our transit rail modernization needs. candidly, the big ugly and the room, the state of good repair. we're the ninth largest in the united states and one of the future one transit stations designated by the degree of common security. we were created in the 1970's and funded locally by 1% sales tax. today, that sales tax generates over $300 million, down

significantly over the last 18 months. annually, we invest over 50% of that local sales tax generated in the capital. every day, we carry more than half a million passengers. we carry more people in our region on monday then reside in this it -- on one day than reside in the city of atlanta. we have had much welcome federal participation. this year, we celebrate 30 years of transit rail service in the atlanta region. our rail system includes 48 miles of double track, 38 stations, 330 real cars, 104 miles of mainline track, three railyards, 20 miles of yard track, 109 elevators, thousands of cameras, call boxes, vital really switches, and just to give you a sense of the magnitude of the operation trade the best but admittedly incomplete information protect

at -- projects instead of good repair requirement of about $5.2 billion over the next 20 years to preserve the existing system. today, the share of real modernization is on annual basis at of about $37 million. in a nutshell, we are representative of an important and growing slice of transit systems in the country. all, like us, or modern -- were modern, but are aging and just beginning second generation plants to the system. in a matter of speaking, we are the baby boomers of the transit industry. 20-35 years old, no more than new kid on the block, but just all too often, it seems like we looked up one day and suddenly we were middle-aged. largely operating in high-growth areas of the country like the atlanta region with continuing demand for rapid service

expansion while we don't expect the same explosive growth we experienced in the '80s and '90s, another 3 million people are projected to come into the atlantic region by 2015. you find staggering concentrations of physical infrastructure rehabilitation and replacement needs coupled with a devastating turnover of experienced personnel at all levels resulting from retirements that are understandably very -- but understandably clustered. finally, not a fully appreciate organizational steps -- organizational shift from being a building organization to operating organization. having been in the industry for 30 years, this requires a very different skill set, competency, and organizational focus. in closing, i would like to stress the point that the challenges confronting us in addressing the issue of state of good or fair are industry-wide. virtually every community and transit operating is -- operator

is [unintelligible] i applaud the serious focus in this area and strongly support the expansion of the april 2009 state of good repair report to conduct an industry assessment of state of good repair beyond the seven largest systems included in this report. it is my belief that investment coupled with real programmatic restraint, a level playing field, outcomes based, meaningful reforms metrics, strong federal oversight, in- depth technical assistance and serious incentive for local investment are key elements to the prescription needed to help us move forward. i believe that ultimately there must be consequences for those systems and communities that are not truly [unintelligible] of the federal investment. our industry is so behind in the state of good repair and class asset management and large measure, that's attributed to

under investment. many transit system managers really don't know what they don't know, or more importantly, should know about the state of the repair in their system. while it is not right, human nature being what it is, all too often they melees sets and overtime and when you continuously defer projects and don't have the funding 80 two -- funding needed to replace in the structure. before you know, it becomes ok to be ok. then after another seven, 10, 20 years, it becomes ok to simply get out the door without an obvious safety defect problem. for an industry clearly depending on big things that move, moving safely and efficiently with precision, is a glide path to mediocrity when our core servicing system expectation and standards [unintelligible] this is the real challenge that faces our industry and

communities we serve in our nation. if we continue to neglect the real and systemic issue of state of good repair. at the end of the day, what is the overall transit vision and expectation? and national transit system of first choice or one of last resort? thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts. >> thank you very much for these very honest reflections. we will start a round of questioning with the distinguished ranking member of the full committee, senator shelby. we appreciate and being with us. i appreciate mr. catoe and dr. scott, you're mentioning our testimony about the legislation -- i know how important that is. i hope our colleagues from virginia, maryland, and georgia would join us in the process of

cosponsoring legislation that would help us move along. i do know how consequential it will be if we don't get some relief therefore transit agencies across the country. mr. catoe, i know the investigation is still going on and i don't expect you to comment about what the results will be. we will wait for results, but have you as an agency from that experience learned anything in the context of what we're talking about here that is of value to the committee and would be of value to other agencies? >> let me tell you some of the steps we have put into place. the mattress system, as i mentioned, is over 35 years old. prior to the accident, we were running various tests on our system once a month. since the accident, we run test

twice a day and based on the recommendations from the national transportation safety board, we are in the process of developing a real-time detection system. that will take time to develop, but it is under way. the other aspect of looking at the system and what we have learned, something we knew and had planned for, the need to replace cars once they exceeded certain life expectancy. the issue the ntsb discussed with us which did not cause the accident, but has an impact on the amount of impact it can be done as the crash were thinness for vehicles -- crash worthiness for vehicles -- we have talked about that today. in addition to those actions from the investigation, it is to

look at the sibling systems and computer backup for that. to make sure the systems you are using are up-to-date and you are using the best possible technology. that requires an enormous amount of investment and capital dollars. >> let me ask you -- your testimony highlights that even a successful agency, without adequately funding -- without adequate funding, performance can suffer. i think the chicago transit authority has effectively used some of the recovery act funding to deal with some of those challenges if i'm not mistaken. but if you don't get a significant increase in rail modernization in the next six years, what is the system look like? >> we have a $6.8 billion need. if we do not get a significant investment, because must always

be safe and make sure the writers are safe, we would need a smaller system. as prior ship increases, that would not be the case. so we would not operate our system, whether bus or rail, our system is smaller and does not carry the number of writers it does today. -- number of riders it does today. >> so you have to reduce services? >> we would reduce services and take buses off the street. we are heavy rail and bus and the investment we need in the rail modernization, we need to put save us a quick and on the street to reduce the number of routes -- that would reduce the number of routes we serve and would reduce either the frequency or had way of the trains as they continue to age and we can replace them, we would have to increase the headways on the rail system because we would have to operate your trains. >> mr. sarles, in much of your

testimony, you have a caveat and i would like to dwell on that caveat. you allude to the fact you are worried about too much federal oversight of how agencies keep themselves in a state of good repair. my question to you is do you oppose any requirement to report the state of repair information? where are the bounds? i know you all want money from the federal government, appropriately so. but it seems to me we have responsibilities for safety, so what is the right balance? >> we're happy to provide all the information we have on the condition of our system. what concerns me is when i hear discussions of decision of rhythms which means that you take the informations and -- decision algorithms, which means you take the decision and animation and spits out the most important priorities.

that type of decision making needs to be made by the transit authority, in our case at least, by the engineers and maintenance and operating people know the system best and can decide where we go first in terms of spending money and providing an formation, where -- in terms of providing information, we're happy to provide it. >> i am not a bigot algorithm guy. we depend on them to hope for -- i am not a big algorithm died. my personal view is there is a need for the fta to have a sense of what a state of good repair is and what the inflation is to make informed policy decisions and allocations as well. to some extent we can get together and work with the added a trader -- work with the administrator, is very important. >> and we will work with them.

>> senator shelby. >> i was not here when the administrator was here, but i have a number of questions i would like to submit for the record. to all the panelists -- have we added to the overall problem by allowing systems to continue to expand and grow without regard to their ability to maintain what they have? i know is a mixed bag, but if you don't grow, he can finish the system. i know that. but at the same time, maintenance and safety is so important, is it not? >> i would like to note that even the aging systems continue to grow because of demand for ridership. the more people we can move to

public transportation, the better. i think growth is good and we need continued investment in the system as well. there is not a public transportation system in the world that is not subsidized by the government. i think the investment needs to be increased so we can encourage people out of their cars for a cleaner, safer environment and @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and we are senior citizens on our last breath, but for the middle-aged systems, it is important, as well. >> well, whatever systems we operate, they have to be operating safely, have they not? they are moving people. with as much speed as we can put together? >> absolutely, senator.

if i could respond a little bit, in my testimony i did talk about the balance, that sometimes it's not as pretty to come to a repair of a rail line but it is absolutely critical that that occurs. so there needs to be a balance of the state of good repairs and maintenance of an existing system, but as we have observed around the country and specifically here in washington, d.c., our system assumed that it would carry 300,000 to 400,000 people. it now carries in excess of 800,000 on a daily basis, and on some cases, such as the inauguration, 1.5 million. so there has to be a balance of safety and a state of good repair, and also the money when necessary to expand capacity. that's what i support and that's part of the position that this group is taking in this testimony. all of that, too, relates to safety.

a state of good repair means that you have a safe system. >> any other panelists? >> i would just echo those comments. it is really an issue of balance. there is no question -- a balance and additional funding. we've got another -- i'm just preaching to the choir. another 150 million people that will be in the u.s. over the next 40 years. so we have to wind up doing expansion, but at the same time we cannot let that go at the risk of not running safe systems. i think the challenge that faces us, we have to significantly increase the funding on both ends of the spectrum, both for a state of good repair, as well as for expansion, and then ultimately, i would not say with -- i would call it more of a velvet hammer. we have gotten ourselves into this quagmire. i think we need an immediate infusion that is focused on the state of good repair. i understand we got what we got and then ultimately, federal

funding decisions in terms of expansion to the least being able to show a modicum in terms of which got in terms of satisfactory use of that investment. i would be supportive of that. but we are in the mess we are now, candidly, putting a hammer down and saying there will not be any growth until we wind up taking place of that would be shortsighted on all our parts. >> i just want to go back to a little bit of what i said earlier. our first priority has been a state of good repair. we took a system that was totally disinvestment in part of the last century and created one that is in a state of good repair. we always look to spend money first on a state of the repair. but when we look at capacity expansion, one that we are required to do is demonstrate to the fta that not only could we take care of the capacity

expansion, but that we have the money to maintain a state of the repair for the existing system. >> is the primary problem lack of funds? the lack of planning? all that? >> thank you. the first thing is a lack of sufficient funds. there is funding, but the needs are grading -- the needs are greater than the amount of funding. if you look at the historical perspective and we talk about balance, we could probably look back and say maybe we did not have the proper balance of expansion and maintenance of the system. overtime, the amount of dollars for maintenance crew at a higher rate than -- grew at a higher rate than what had been allocated under the federal program. from planning perspective, that needs to be part of the knicks

going forward whenever there is appropriations for a new start that we need to build in the formula, what it cost to maintain the system over the next decade or century. >> i would just add that in the case of cpa, our funding problems are also operational. as we try to straddle the operational funding shortfall, we tend to use capital dollars for preventative meighen's which exacerbates our capital needs. -- preventative measures which exacerbates our capital needs. >> your ridership is 800,000? >> it averages slightly under 769,000. we have had the 25 highest --

>> how much money does that bring in per year? >> roughly about four hundred billion dollars. we recover about 80% of the operating costs. >> so you recover 80% through the cash flow. >> through the fares. operating costs, not capital costs. >> is that basically what the others do more or less? >> i think it is the second- highest in the country. >> i am at a 20% recovery and with rail, about 35%. >> new jersey, overall we are between 45% and 50%. buses are a little bit lower. >> we are roughly 50% this year. [unintelligible] >> is my understanding federal

transit administration does not currently defined state of the repair. do you believe there should be a uniform definition for a state of good repair and should be specific measures and requirements tied to such a definition? is that right? the state of good repair is not defined? >> i don't mind responding. i think there are various definitions in the industry for state of good repair. what we need to do, working with the federal transit administration, is to ensure we have the same definition and the same measurements in place to ensure the systems are there. the answer to your question is i support a common definition and

common standard of measurement throughout the industry to determine status of the repair. >> part of the problem has definitely been under investment. the other issue is that we are all over the map in terms of structure on state of the repair. what that means, having the appropriate for nation and tools, there is rigor required in that area. i join with my colleague, i don't want to wind up seeing something that becomes a cookie cutter that spits out numbers and all the sudden -- but some discipline is required. >> thank you. thank you for holding the hearings. >> i want to follow up with a couple of last questions before we start this series of votes. we have been fortunate that we got all this testimony before the votes start.

senator shelby raises a good question. correct me if i'm wrong, but should not be considering one we are extending service as opposed to capacity to maintain in good condition the existing service we have? that is a challenge to agencies. if there is a demand for greater service and you not meet the demand, there is the flip side of a consequence to that. obviously, ridership goes somewhere else and the farebox goes down. that has a consequential effect. is that a fair assessment? >> if you don't provide it quality service and enhance capacity, the writer should will drop. -- v. ridership will drop. as i commented, i support the

concept of if you are going to build a system you have planned for the made into the system, [unintelligible] there are provisions set aside to do that. that's one of the issues from the process of looking at the reauthorization of the authorization bill. how is an expert? >> if you get 80% back of your operating costs in your case, which means used to live a 20% shortfall, what you get on your capital costs? >> from the fare box recovery standpoint, there is a zero on capital. that's local level as the federal government. >> the bottom line is that even one of the most highly efficient operations -- operating systems as a 20% shortfall in its operating budget. it's that thing in terms of its

ridership as relates to capital needs. this is a fundamental reality of mass-transit system. our colleagues in congress have to understand that, as one of the fundamental issues in whether or not you want and effective mass transit system. my other point is that, in my view, as someone who previously, before coming to the senate, represented a congressional district that was right across from midtown manhattan. on that fateful day, september 11, came to a very hard way of understanding that in a post- september 11orld, having multiple modes of transportation is critical for national security. on that particular day, when the

train stopped, when the bridges were closed, when the tunnel for closed, having another form of transportation, in that case was faeries, bringing people out of downtown manhattan to get treatment in new jersey. while that is different than the type of transit we're talking about now, it highlighted the importance of a post-september 11 world where multiple modes of transportation, in addition to getting to a place for job and economic opportunity, in addition to improving the quality of life we have as far as sitting in traffic less time and having more quality time with families. in addition to prove -- in addition to improving the air we breathe where respiratory ailments are still too high in this country, in addition to environmental issues, and the addition to planning it in a way you can create bases around

transportation systems through transit villages, there is a security component to this. when something happens, god forbid, and i hope it never happens again, that is why we work every day to make sure that, but if it were to happen, we need multiple modes of transportation to get people out of the area of incidents into a place of safety. that's another component we lose sight of along the way. with that, thank you to all of you for your testimony. the record is going to remain open for one week to allow senators the chance to ask follow-up questions in writing. for those of you who received questions, we ask you to respond to them as promptly as possible. thank you for the dissipating and helping the committee prepare for the upcoming reauthorization legislation. with that, the hearing is

adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] >> sunday frank rich reflects on

"the new york times," including his look at the internet since 1995. and his column from 9-11. sunday night, "q & a." c-span. >> sunday a look at british politics from the bbc. and questions over military op -- operations in afghanistan. >> president obama used his weekly online address to refute critics of pending health care legislation. the republican address is given this week by bob mcdonald, a candidate for virginia governor. he talked about the economy, job creation, and the federal energy bill. >> on friday we received better news than we expected about the state of our economy. we learned that we lost 247,000 jobs in july, some 200,000 fewer jobs than we lost in june, and far fewer than the nearly

700,000 a month than we were losing at the beginning of the year. of course, this is little comfort to anyone who saw their job disappear in july and to the millions of americans who are looking for work, and i will not rest until anyone who is looking for work can find a job. still, this month's job numbers are implying that we have begun to put the brakes on this recession, and that the worst may be behind us. but we must do more than rescue our economy from that immediate crisis. we must rebuild it stronger than before. we must lay a new foundation for future growth and prosperity. and a key pillar of a new foundation is health insurance reform. reform that we are now closer to achieving than ever before. there are still details to be hammered out. there are still differences to be reconciled. but we are moving toward a broad consensus on reform. four committees in congress have produced legislation, an unprecedented level of agreement on a difficult and complex challenge.

in addition to the ongoing work in congress, providers have agreed to bring down costs. drug companies have agreed to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors. the aarp supports reform because of the better care it will offer to seniors. and the american nurses association and the american medical association which represents millions of nurses and doctors that know our health care system best all support reform as well. as we draw close to finalizing and passing real health reform, the defenders of the status quo and political point scorers in washington are going fiercer in their opposition. in recent days and weeks, some have been using misleading information to defeat what they know is the best chance of reform we have ever had. that's why it is important, especially now, that senators and representatives head home and meet with their constituents, for you the people

they represent. this isn't about putting government in charge of your health insurance, it's about putting you in charge of your health insurance. under the reforms we seek, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. and while reform is obviously essential for the 46 million americans who don't have health insurance, it will also provide more stability and security for the hundreds of americans -- thousands of americans who do not. we will make sure those who have insurance are treated fairly.

we will have exams so we can avoid chronic illnesses. we will stop avoiding coverage. i will never forget watching my own mother as she fought cancer in her final days wondering whether her insurance company would claim her illness was a preexisting condition. that's why under these reforms insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage because of a previous illness or injury. insurance companies will no longer be able to drop or water down coverage for someone who has become seriously ill. your health insurance ought to be there for you when it counts and reform will make sure it is. with reform, insurance companies will also have to limit how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses and it will stop insurance companies from placing ash trarey caps on

the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. no one in america should go broke because of an illness. in the end, the debate of health care boils down to a choice between two approaches. the first is almost guaranteed to double health care costs over the next decade, leave millions more americans without insurance, leave those with insurance vulnerable to ash trarey denials ever -- abitrary denials of coverage. that's the health care approach we have now. we can choose that or we can choose another one. one that will provide quality affordable insurance to every american and bring down rising costs that are swamping families, businesses, and our budgets. that's the health care system we can bring about with reform. there are those who are focused on the so-called politics of health care that are trying to exploit the differences for

political gain. that's to be expected. that's washington. let's never forget, this isn't about politics. this is about people's lives. this is about people's businesses. this is about america's future. that's what's at stake. that's why health insurance reform is so important. that's why we have to get this done and why we will get this done by the end of this year. >> hi. i'm bob mcdonald from virginia. times are -- i'm bob mcdonnell from virginia. times are tough in our state as well as yours. here in virginia we face unemployment rates at a 25-year high. as i travel throughout our state, i listen to our people who are concerned about the jobs they have, worried about finding the jobs they need, and concerned about what jobs will be available for their children in the years ahead.

as a father of five, i share those concerns. that's why we want government of all levels to support small business and entrepreneurship. we believe you create those new jobs by keeping taxes and litigation low -- taxes low and litigation at a minimum. it encourages more freedom and more opportunity. right now virginiaians are particularly worried about cap and trade legislation in washington. this legislation would amount to a huge new national energy tax. if implemented, electricity rates would sky rocket and jobs would be lost. two weeks ago, i was in covington in western virginia. i visited an international packaging company. it's the largest employer in the area providing 1,500 good jobs. they told me cap and trade, if passed, would threaten those

jobs. mark george, the president of the facility, told me this -- i feel the next governor of virginia and every representative we have should care about keeping those good jobs in virginia. i agree. we must do everything we can to keep and grow jobs in virginia and in every state in our country. that's why we strongly oppose cap and trade -- a job-killing energy tax that would put american companies at a tremendous disadvantage with employers in other countries. it is the wrong approach for a nation struggling in this economy. that's why we fought against card-check legislation that's being pushed by big legislation and democrats in congress. that's why we're encouraging more americans to get the coverage they need not through nationalizing a system with a government-run plan but by supporting free-market incentives to make coverage more acceptable and affordable and

ensuring that americans can keep their individual private policies. government must be more efficient and more accountable, which is why we are calling to an end to the new government which is going to leave our kirn in debt. new ideas can be tried and new innovations can be unleashed. in virginia i'm calling for an environmently friendly off-shore drilling. selling state-run liquor stores to put more cash into transportation. and expanding access to virginia colleges for our students. i believe the president is right with more calls for charter schools and more call for greater pay for students and teachers. that's the bipartisan reform that will help all our children get the education they need to get those good jobs for tomorrow. together we will use innovation and free market to bring more

jobs and opportunities to virginia and plerk. have a great weekend! >> a conversation now on the resignation of florida senator mel martinez and other issues related to the senate including the health care rally from today's "washington journal." it is about 30 minutes. on >>manu rajoo, is here to talk about all kinds of things that happened in the senate this week. let's start off with an item you wrote about yesterday, the sergeant at arms tells the senators to be aware of their tempers going into some of these town hall meetings. tell us about that. guest: they are responding to these news reports of the town hall meetings getting quite disrupted. the sergeant at arms, n that the senate is on recess for one month, they have been going around their states and talking about the controversial issues like health care.

there is concern that the town hall meetings could become quite violent. the sergeant at arms put out an e-mail warning all senate staff, urging them to be very cautious, saying that if people -- if tempers start flaring, to call law enforcement and calm things them. they are quite nervous about something turning into an ugly situation in the next couple of weeks. host: unusual that this warning would come from the sergeant at arms as opposed to the senate majority leader or the senate majority leader? guest: it shows there's a law enforcement concern. thursday in missouri, the congressman was back home and six people were arrested at a town hall event. there have been other situations. in another situation, someone brought in a fake tombstone to a

town hall meeting. a congressman from north carolina said he got a death threat. these are serious concerns. people are very passionate about these issues. both sides are questioning the motivations behind some of these attacks and outbursts. at the very least, it could cause concerns with senators. host: there is a story this morning house in new york politicians are trying to avoid this situation. they talk about representative steve israel, a democrat from long island, who held an event thursday night but made the event invitation-only. another representative did not send out and invitation until the evening before. another result from the syracuse area had to move an event near rochester outdoors after 500 people showed up at a facility

that only holds 100. now that the senate will get involved and the senators will be out there, do you see it is getting more creative in how they will try to avoid these confrontations? guest: i think so. if something were to happen in terms of a big outburst, it would generate a lot more news, especially a higher-profile center. -- senate floor. i think you'll see many protect -- senator. i think you'll see more protests and creative ways to avoid the situation. host: with regard to health care -- you wrote on august 6, on thursday, that senator reid is downplaying talks of reconciliation. he is trying to downplay any talk of using fast-track budget rules to force the health care bill through the senate but he is leaving open the option of reconciliation out there just in

case. explain. guest: this is a big deal in congress in terms of how to get legislation it use the budget reconciliation process, essentially, you could kill a filibuster in the senate. you could pass by a simple majority and you do not need 60 votes. you don't even need moderate democrats. democrats are leaving the option on the table and the white house was very clear that this is an option that if they don't get republican or a moderate democratic support, they could pass this sprawling piece of legislation for the budget process for the reason they can do that is the added language in the budget resolution that passed earlier this spring that allowed them to do this. they say this is not their preferred method. they want to do this in a bipartisan way. the finance committee is continuing negotiations. max baucus, the chairman of the

committee, has a september 15 deadline to produce a bipartisan deal for the question is, what happens if they don't get that deal? @@@@@@" -- citrus heights, california.

randy online for republicans. caller: good morning, great job as usual. my comment this morning -- i am reading from paul krug in today in my local newspaper and i heard from bill mahr last night that the only reason that americans are angry right now that these well-pressed white americans that showed that these meetings are angry is because they are racist. that seems to be the default position for this administration. if someone does not agree with the policies, they are obviously racist. people have legitimate concerns about this. they are spending way too much money, they don't know how they will pay for anything that they already promised. now, they want to expand the process.

-- to expand the promises. people are frustrated right now. democrats ignore that at their peril. thank you, cspan. guest: i think the caller represents, generally, what republicans in washington have been talking about in that this is not necessarily manufactured out rich as the white house is suggesting. this is not an astroturf campaign. this is organic. this is something that is the result of major issues that congress is dealing with. the democrats point to things and conservative web sites that are direct directing their followers to certain town hall bounce. they are pointed to comments made by conservative talk-show hosts. i am not sure if everything they are seeing is manufactured.

some of it may be but the truth is probably somewhere in the middle between both of these sites that are arguing about these events. host: peggy noonan writes about it and says that the leftist spear and the liberal commentary it say that the town hall meetings were not authentic. they say the insurance companies sponsored these events. she says you cannot lead people to leave their homes and go to these meetings with a congressman unless they are engaged to the point passion. what tends to educate people the most is the idea of loss, loss of money, carter and loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work and a great, sweeping away of those ideals. guest: it is an interesting point. congress usually acts or does not act based on the way of what they are hearing from back home.

it will be interesting to see how lawmakers, when they come back in the fall, whether they are skittish about doing something about health care or they are eager to embrace this major challenge. it will be interesting to see the elkridge that some of these members will bring back -- it will be interesting to see the outrage of these numbers will bring back. caller: good morning. i lived in monroe county and they talked about the trouble at a town hall meeting here. we don't even have a republican party here. it is average people who want to know what is going on. they are tired of the politics. as for the first gentleman from california, by african-american wife tells me i am crazy about once a week. have a good day. host: have you been to any of

these meetings in monroe county? caller: i had a nasty part by pests so i cannot drive right now. -- i had a nasty heart bypass, so i cannot drive right now. host: what do your friend said? caller: there are two ladies that live together next door and they are about as little as a guest. they are concerned about what is going on. there is no information coming out. host: thank you for your call. is there a possibility that the true information about what it is that congress is trying to do and the information that is in the bill is not going to get out because of the yelling and screaming? guest: that is the concern among democrats. senators that i talked to, leading up to the recess, were saying that they were losing on the message board because we are not talking about what is in the bill.

it is the bill that passed the senate health committee and the energy and commerce committee. they're concerned about talking about no prohibition on pre- existing conditions and reducing costs, things they want to talk about in the bill. they are worried that the washington focus is on the process and the politics but not as much on the policy. they thought that august could be a time where they could sell policy. august so far is turning into who can screamed aloud as. there is concern about not getting the message out host: host: dorothy in flint township, michigan. caller: good morning, gentlemen. all over the news, they are reporting that concerned senior

citizens are going out one questions answered and the representatives cannot enter them. people are frustrated. what they are not reporting on is the rest that are taking place for the only breasts that have been taking place are ciu members beating of average citizens out there. they are harassing people. the senior citizens and the concerned citizens who want information, like the gentleman said, there are so many bills out there and nobody knows what is in them. they cannot enter questions. they are going around everywhere. host: have you been to a town hall meeting? caller: i went to one tea party on the fourth of july. there was only about 75 people there. i got a ticket on the way. host: who was sponsoring the tea party gathering and how did you

find out about it? caller: i don't know who sponsored it. i went on the internet and was trying to find out if there was one in my area. i had to drive about 50 miles to get there. when i got there, i was surprised that there was not that many people. i have been scrolling the internet -- i am a stay at home mom because my daughter has ask workers syndrome. -- aspergers syndrome. i am informed person and i see a bunch of frustrated, angry people like nancy pelosi calling them astroturf. they are?÷s not carrying swasti. they are concerned citizens. you have the eugenics people on the obama team who won all the people and who can contribute to society. guest: as i was alluding to

earlier, some of the concerns that are being raised are legitimate. there are people who are genuinely frustrated and nervous and concerned about what congress is doing. this is a massive, massive undertaking, this health care overhaul. we're not even talking about climate change or restructuring the economy. they also are talking about a major financial regulatory overhaul. we have major issues that most members of congress and most people who follow what is happening have not seen these in their time on capitol hill. there is a scope that people are dealing with. back home, there are legitimate concerns. there is no doubt about it. in washington, it turns into whether these concerns are

legitimate for voters or this is something the republican party is pushing. i think there are definite people who have legitimate concerns. the truth is probably somewhere in the middle between what the democrats are saying and what exactly happened. host: the senate confirmed judge soto sonya might or -- judge sonia sotomayor. you'll be able to watch it on c- span. what does this bode say about the breakdown in the senate between republicans and democrats and how much work will be able to get done a long bipartisan lines, especially in regard to seating judges? there will be more judges on various levels that have to go through the senate and get their confirmatio done to the senate. > guest: even though none republican support this nomination, it shows that

judicial nominations are no longer about qualifications. this started years ago and some people say it started during the robert bork hearings. he was rejected in the 1980's. this goes all the way to samuel alito, when he was confirmed in 2006. people see it getting progressively worse, that it is not just about qualifications anymore. you don't just look at the resume and see if they are neutral or biters of law. it is more than that. this nomination clearly showed that. republicans were opposed and conceded that she was a well- qualified judge. you had people like warrenorrinh and he has voted for every nominee he as face. chuck grassley has voted for every nominee, as well. this is the first one that people went up against.

they canallers the qualifications were good but they said was more than qualifications. host: when president barack obama was a senator, he voted against the confirmation of judge s. -- justice samuel alito. he voted against justice roberts, as well. is this being seen as payback? guest: to some extent, yes. no republican said they voted against her because he voted against them. when republicans were articulating their opposition, they were saying that the obama standard for voting against nominees was wrong. they said he looked beyond qualifications. he looked at everything from empathy and the republicans tried to tear that down. the truck used tear down his

reasons for opposing them. people on the other side would say that they are criticizing him which is the same thing. next time there is a supreme court nominee, especially one that will change the ideological balance, you will see very partisan battle. it will be difficult to see another 90 votes for other justice. host: jerry, from atlanta, georgia, you were on c-span. -- you are on c-span. turn down your television, would you? caller: here is what i like to say -- if you look at what is going on, this is north against south. they want to split the country.

if you look at these rallies, this has a racial undertone to it. they are still bringing in these foreign car companies and giving them tax breaks and getting kickbacks. the southern states have no union. the small businesses in the south don't want health care insurance because they hire illegals. when you look a construction jobs, they don't want health care because they do not provide for them. they are like slaves again. the north and the self is totally different. that are white caucasian people. if you look at these rallies, --

guest: one of the concerns articulate by republican leaders in washington, mitch mcconnell is worried about the party becoming a regional party. there are no more members from the northeast, the new england states in the house. you have olympia snowe and susan collins as the lone remaining senators from the northeast. you have won the bet is retiring at the end of next year. -- you have one that is retiring at the end of next year. there is legitimate concern in washington among party leaders that the party is becoming more regionalized and they need to expand their base. i think that is a debate that is going on with the party. host: next up is plainview, n.y., on our line for republicans.

caller: i had several comments to make. host: go ahead. caller: i listen to you most weekends when i can. i get up at 6:00 a.m. i have been following the health-care debate, mostly. you mentioned before that we cannot have a debate. most of the new channels that i watch, there are no facts and figures regarding what the bills are. we generally herar platitudes ad general information about what will be changed but where are the facts and figures? anxiety is created when people fear an unpleasant event that they cannot control. one of the reasons they have this anxiety is because they do not know what is coming.

they fear the future. if the democrats or republicans want to alleviate the fears, they should really come out with the facts and figures of with the bills are. host: have you had a chance to read the bill, yourself? caller: i try to go on line. it is very complex, over 1000 pages. i would like to see it distilled so that we can get to the ker nels of what is actually there. i do not see any evaluation because i do not see the facts, even when you go on the internet. guest: i think that is a concern that democrats have when they are trying to sell this package. they are trying to speak about specific provisions in the bill. you read the bill and you will

not learn much because it is a complex piece of legislation. they will have to have interpreted as to the why and how from how medicare is being reimbursed to help and wellness and things like health insurance companies would operate with a potential public option, the so- called government option for insurance. you have many various aspects and the problem the democrats have and why they are losing support is because they have not been able to communicate effectively with the american people what is in this legislation which they say will cover most americans. host: this story was in "the miami herald." it is talking about senator mel martinez to cut his term short

by 17 months. they said it was an unfulfilled career for a cuban american senator. what do you make of senator martinez' decision to leave office early? guest: that is a complete surprise. his friends and allies were surprised. he was going to resign and of next year. there were rumors that he would resign early and he squashed those rumors. he is a very well-liked guy. he is not a combat a person. he is not a partisan, through our. -- bomb-forward. it -- thrower.

unlike other politicians who resigned amid scandal, it appears there's nothing there. it appears this is a guy wants to legitimately go home, so far. he says he wants to work in the private sector and he seems tired of the ways of washington. it was a surprise but on the political level, this is a loss for democrats. he is say gettable vote on many issues like immigration reform. democrats want to push that belong this year and he would have been a good ally. he is gone. you will see a more conservative replacement for him and someone democrats may not be able to count on. host: our last call comes from manchester, new england, on airline for independence. caller: i want to clarify some things about the manufactured anchored crass. i have never done anything like

go to a protest. i started going to the steep parties on the fourth of july. the reason you are seeing the numbers grow and become bigger and bigger is not only because of the health care legislation. all these massive bills, thousands of pages long, that are passed with almost no debate, no time for us to see what is in a in direct controversial to what was promised about transparency and a new era of knowing what we're doing in advance, i see politicians admit on tv that they cannot read or understand it because of its complexity. lawyers were writing these bills and they say they need lawyers ill. when i watch the news people stand here and tell me that all right and the member of a hired mob and i have been called up by the republican party, they only wish they could of done something like this. i have never been contacted by any organized group.

this is an organic movement. when people spend their and lie to me about what i know is going on, how can i trust them when they tell me that it will save money when the congressional budget office says it will not? they say will cover everybody. they say it will let me keep my health care. common sense tells you that that will not be the end result when the government ends up providing all the health care which the man who wrote the bill in the beginning says. jacob hacker wrote this and he says that in time, we will all be swallowed up in this government plan. when people lie to us. , will don't trust them. host: are there any town hall meetings planned in your area? caller: know, my congressmen are afraid. they do not want to meet his face to face. they wanted to a telephone think

so we cannot judge their facial expressions. yes, people are getting angry. that does not mean it is fake. it means it is real. by the way, about the caller that says this is racial, the only person that i have seen that has been attacked is a black man who was attacked by fdiu and he says they were black. i am getting tired of the race card, i am getting tired of the media. i don't care. host: thank you for your call. guest: there is a lot of passion out there. i think that is what people are hearing back home pierr. z6xit points to the article you pointed out earlier we're talking about members looking for creative ways to avoid these confrontations. many members are concerned about these town hall meetings become a youtube sensation.

they are doing conference calls instead of confronting people face to face. there is concern about them becoming the next sensation on youtube where is played over and over and cable news. there are lot of legitimate concerns out there in terms of what these bills do and what they mean for individuals. host: one last question before you go. members will be off for four weeks and a comeback the first week in september. what will be the first order of business in both chambers? guest: democrats in the senate are looking at a tourism bill. that is one of the first things that is on the docket. the intense focus will be on the senate finance committee in terms of it produced -- yet producing their version of the health care legislation. they will get back in september

and september 15 is when they are supposed to produce a deal. there's a lot of work happen between now and then to come to an agreement between three democrats on the panel and three republicans on the panel. they are looking for ways to pay for this legislation. there will be a lot of attention on that becauause that will hava this week on the floor, discussions on where to house prisoners at guantanamo.

something happened yet that affected my state directly, and that was the statement by the administration or leak from the administration that they are considering moving guantanamo bay detainees to my state associated with fort leffen worth. -- leavnworth. we had a crowd of people that came out after very short notice. virtually unanimous in their opinions, not everybody, but close to everybody opposed this idea for a multiple set of reasons. moving guantanamo bay detainees to fort leavenworth area will not work to start. it will significantly hurt the educational and international mission of the fort and on top of that, it's totally unnecessary. i would really hope that the administration would start and rethink this idea on i hope the administration would rethink this issue of moving the quant guantanamo bay detainees. i think it is a great idea we

replicate the guantanamo -- not a great idea to move the guantanamo bay detainees. they are being humanely treated. i read a report a few months ago. they are being treated well. if they are not, let's work on fixing guantanamo bay rather than moving detainees to the united states. if there are problems, let's fix them, rather than say, we're going to change the name of the place, and we're going to move the detainees from guantanamo to leavenworth ux -- and you're not going to change the opinions of the united states one iota. the move would delay trials of detainees by having to pled a replica of what we already have at guantanamo bay only somewhere else. it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars that we don't have when we already have an $11 trillion debt and it is growing at a rate of $2 trillion a year.

why would we spent hundreds of trillions trillions of dollars doing something that's not going to change opinion replicating a system we already have that slows the process down? this doesn't make any sense. on top of that, what's being considered leaveworth, won't work. fort leavenworth is one of the smallest army bases we have. it is eight square miles. it is part of an urban area of kansas city. it has on its borders a river and a train that goes through about every 25 minutes. it is not the secure facility that you would need to have for threes detainees. we don't have any setbacks like we have in a number of other filts. and it has one of the highest population densities per square mile or square foot of any of our military bases because it hands the -- houses the command and general staff of the

military. if i could just point that out to my colleagues. and i hope some of them come and attend and address the command and general staff college. on a regular basis we get students from around the world at that facility. generally some 90 countries at any one point in time have students at the command and general staff college. of these 90 countries that are there that send students for their army training for their military, half of those students will become general flag officers before their career is done. a number of them will become leaders -- civilian leaders in their own countries as well. you get the cream of the crop from around the world, they come here, they also meet with our military leaders and this is the training center they have, the command general staff college at fort leavenworth. that's the primary command is that training and the integration of our u.s. army forces and forces of army forces from around the world that is

critically important when you go to places like pakistan or afghanistan or you are working with the jordanians or egyptians, just to name a few. they send leaders from all these countries, future flag officers to fort leavenworth to be trained. we have already heard in canvasing students from jordan, egypt, and pakistan that they will pull their students if detainees are moved there. they don't want their future military leaders at the same place that the detainees are being held in the united states. and they have already stated that to us. so you are going to hurt the core mission of fort leavenworth in a facility that doesn't have setbacks to safely handle this. for no gain. i would point out, i talked to the commanding general at fort

leaveworth. that's how i got the news of it. my wife was on the internet and she was on msnbc's web site and she said oh, they are thinking of moving guantanamo bay detainees to either leavenworth or michigan. that doesn't set well with me that that's the way i learned of this. then i called the commanding general and he said he learned of it pretty late as well, and has difficulties. although he's a military man. he'll salute and take orders and do what he's directed to do. but he is not -- he needs to be asked wh and brought in to testify about what his opinion would be about this. i talked to the governor in kansas last night about this. i talked to the governor, democrat governor has issued a statement opposed to this move to fort leavenworth. the congresswoman from the area was there opposed to this move. the mayor of leavenworth was there, opposed to this move. we have voted in this body

virtually unanimously, as close to unanimous a vote that you have to work with local officials before the gitmo detainees can be moved anywhere in the united states. well, the local officials are uniformly opposed to this, and we wake up, and it is in the morning papers and no one has been consulted about it. now, i want to say that the detainees in my estimation deserve appropriate humane treatment. they deserve to be treated under our international obstacle gages, and if they are not -- obligations, and if they are not getting that, it needs to be changed, and it needs to be changed at guantanamo bay. i would hope we would have international investigations tell us what is not being met that we are required to do that is not being done. i have not seen any credible international reports that say that there are things that we are not doing that we should do at guantanamo bay. there is a gray category that's

involved here. we have enemy combatants that don't represent a foreign country, and that's a big part of our problem. there is also a very tough area here, and that is -- and i saw this when i was at guantanamo bay. a number of the detainees are continuing the fight today. while in prison, at git mow, they continue the fight. -- while in prison, at gitmo they continue the fight. so whoever gets these will have to prepare to have the war on terror happening near them and happening in the prison facility. that's not everybody, but some of them continue to fight in prison, and that's going to be a difficult situation for whoever it is to handle. on top of that, a number of our folks at leavenworth, and the town is proud of their ability to handle certain prisoners. their concern is not so much keeping the detainees in, because you can staff up for

that, but it is keeping out people that would seek to get in or make a statement in and around that area. plus, they would have to scale up their facilities. we have a medium security bureau of prison facility, it is not maximum. we have a dominated medium security disciplinary district there, and we have space for 25 maximum security prisoners. only 25. and you have to move out all the current military personnel that's been convicted in military personnel that's being held in the military districts. we are not situated to handle this, it would cost a huge amount of money to do it, and it would not be safe to do it at leavenworth. it is a bad idea to do this there. i would really ask the president to come to leavenworth and look at the facility and examine it himself. the attorney general to come and examine it and see what they

come up with after examining and looking at the facility. we don't have the facility to handle this there. i would ask the administration to listen to the american people. the american people don't want these people moved to the united states. they don't want to hurry up artificial timelines set for moving detainees to the united states, and they feel like the president should be listening to them and not european leaders or someone else around the world that just doesn't like the guantanamo bay facility and it's got a bad name. so you listen to the american people on this. i would ask that he talk to members of the congress that may be impacted by this and ask our opinion and look at what is being placed here. this is being rushed. it is on an artificial timeline. it doesn't need to happen.

it is replicating the facility we already have. it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to do it. this is a bad idea chasing a bad idea with an artificial timeline. i would ask the president not do that. we are going to be fighting here, my colleague and i from kansas, for this facility being moved from kansas representing our constituents who do not want these detainees moved to kansas. we will fight it every step of the way. >> the full senate confirmed judge sonia sotomayor as the newest supreme court justice. the next term officially begins monday october 5. today on c-span, watch highlights from the senate floor debate at 7:00 eastern on "america & the courts." and in fall, watch "the supreme court." >> now the senate discusses

credit ratings. we'll hear about the obama administration's plan. christopher dodd chairs the committee. this portion lasts about an hour and 20 minutes. >> the title of our proposal is examining proposals to handle credit rating issues. let me make a few commence in terms of senator shelby and ask jack reed if he wants to make a quick opening. he's done a tremendous amount of work on this, as has senator shelby, by the way. they sought interest in the subject matter so we made it a full committee hearing. i should just point out, my colleagues, beginning in march of 2006 under the leadership of senator shelby, we had a hearing

in march on this subject matter. in september of 2007 when i became chairman on the rating agencies, we had a hearing on the rating agencies on april 22 of 2008. we had hearings on march 10 and march 26 that were broader hearings but spent a lot of time on the rating agency subject matter. so this will be the sixth hearing that focused a lot on rating agencies. and this will be our last hearing before the coming back in september. i want to ask -- thank not only our colleagues, but our staff. we have had 15 hearings on this subject matter alone in the last four weeks. i know that's exhausting for staff. they worked very hard for these things. and members, i know with all the

other work we have and all the other discussions, but it has been tremendously worth while and virtually all of these have been for us to determine what the best course is for us to follow while we define the modernization of financial regulations. so it has been tremendously worthwhile. i want to thank the administration as well as well as the private sector and acedemia who have come forward and literally dozens of others who have shared thoughts and ideas. we will now begin that process of trying to take those ideas and incorporate them into sound legislative proposals. senator shelby and i are determined to have this be an inclusive process for all our colleagues who are interested and are invited to be at that table as we come out with a proposal that we all can embrace. there will be points of disagreement, i'm sure, but as i listen to this, i think we'll be

in agreement on more things than disagreement. i ask for the consent for the list of our hearings over the last 2009 be included in the record for those who may want to see it. and on the subject matter before us today, let me just say that this hearing on rating agencies, others may have different views on all of this, but there are two areas -- we all know sharing culpability, but i think there are two areas. one is, of course, the failure to regulate these brokers who are out marpgting products that they knew were -- marketing products that they knew would create problems. there was no way people could meet these payments. yet we're luring people into it, and of course, covering themselves financially, but

knowing full well this would create a bubble that would come back to haunt us. the second is the rating agencies. this is, to me, stunning in a way that agencies that hold themselves out -- in fact, i was looking, sharing with senator she will by here, this is not the witnesses before us today, but a major rating agency. this is the web site this morning. this is not the web site of four years ago. the top of the web site, name of the agency, independent credit ratings, indices risk evaluation. awe author at a timive and -- authoratative and credible. all they were doing is being paid by the people they were rating. never bothered due diligence to determine whether or not these products were as credit-worthy as they were claiming to be. and yet, still to this day, suggesting somehow that they are independent, conducting risk

evaluation. quite the opposite. this is an area where i think there are a lot of shared views on what we need to be doing. i was asked just this morning to pull up this web site and once again find that all that's been said, despite six hearings on the subject matter -- and none of us have yet the simple clear answer on how we move in a different direction, but clearly the present situation cannot last. so i -- this is an area which will clearly be a part of our legislation. and one that is deserving of some real attention in the coming days. but again, i thank my colleagues for their work on this subject matter. and they ought to be -- these companies need to be providing interest research and depth credit analysis on the web sites, which is not with us today. so let me turn to nor shelby.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. the nature of today's credit rating suggests decades of missteps rather than market preferences. over the years the government granted special regulatory status to a small number of rating agencies and protected those firms from potential competitors. beginning in 1975, the securities and exchange commission began embedding in our s.r.o. ratings into certain key regulations. once credit ratings acquired regulatory status, they crept into state regulations and private investment guidelines. the staff of the s.e.c. controlled access to the prize quote "nationally recognized sta activity cal rating organization -- statistical rating organization" or s.r.o. for a

timeline. the s.e.c. did little to oversee this agency. nevertheless, ratings from an nrsro became an excuse for some investors to stop doing their own due diligence. widespread over reliance on rating suggests that the updated ratings could ripple through the markets. by encouraging reliance on a small number of agencies, bureaucrats at the s.e.c. exposed many to economic risk. our current financial crisis, which was caused in part by the credit rating agency's failure to appreciate the risk associated with complex structured products demonstrates how big that stemic risk was. the troubles caused by the s.e.c.'s flawed regime did not come as a surprise. several years ago when i was chairman of this committee we acted to