strategic economic dialogue with china. i have not had the opportunity to participate in their deliberations over the last 36 hours, and with the very large number of american officials currently in china, i am going to be uncharacteristically reticent and not commentn the situation of the chinese economy. >> [inaudible] i am former director of fial affairs of the imf. i would like to ask you, you mentioned in your statement that you think that it is the

appropriate medium-term objective in -- [unintelligible] could you give me some idea of -- if i interpreted that correctly? and how far are we from the objectives of current policies? give an idea of how much would be required of additional fiscal effort. finally, would you like to venture sort of the time horizon for this? thank you. >> for those of you who did not hear the end -- >> i got it. [laughter] >> the rigor of her question gives you a feeling of what a large number of countries experienced over a very long time span when she was their

mission chief, coming from the international monetary fund to address their fiscal situation. you will understand what i say when i observe that saying the primary balance and getting the debts to its gdp ratio on a sustainable path are essentially the same criteria with the u.s. nominal gdp growth and nominal interest rates are likely to be roughly comparable. obviously in the near term the situation is somewhat more favorable than that if you look at our rate of gdp growth over the longer term, it is less clear. on the kinds of projections that come from the adminisation or

come from the congressional budget office, it depends on just what you're you choose and just how you do the calculation, but i would say roughly that the adjustment -- if you think about the middle of the next decade as the moment when you want to achieve this sustainability criteria, the fiscal adjustment is on the order of 2% of gdp. there would be those who would argue, as the demonstrations budget figures would suggest, that it would be somewhat less than 2% of gdp. others would argue that it would be more. how does one think about 2% of gdp? notice a couple things. first, the2% of gdp is a very

substantially smaller number than the kinds of numbers that are discussed in the context of countries that are having severe crises, such as those in greece or i dare say you think about your imf career in countries at have needed fiscal adjustment, a very large fraction of the required for more than 2% of gdp. second, according to the arithmetic i went through, 2% of gdp is 10 years normal growth in health care costs, which shows why i am putting so much emphasis on health care as important. .

but it is a challenge that we as a countryan achieved. this is not an and soluble or profoundly difficult problem in the way that other public policy problems are involving. this is a problem of finding the

best way to do something that is irresponsible and ultimately important. let me stress again something else i remarked early on, and i used to teach this deastuff, if people only remember that couple of things, one of the things i wanted them to remember is that deficits were exception. they were not an alternative to raising taxes or cutting spending. they were a means for postponing those things. the amounts of them you had to do increased because of the power of compound interest. this is a case with the adjustments are going to take place, and it is advantageous

for the adjustments to take place sooner in the context of economic recovery than later. that does not mean without regard to economic recovery and a way that endangers economic recovery, but it does not mean simply hoping for the best either. yes? >> [inaudible] thank you, larry, for a superb exposion as always. the crisis in europe poses a great risk to global recovery. the question is whether one can really expect a recovery when both of the country's are affected by the markets, but also germany, at the u.k.,

france have announced major fiscal consolation plans. how can you recover in 2010 and to the as and 11 against that background, and does that create a big risk for the global economy? >> i am probably not going to surprise you by choosing to answer your question in relatively general terms. perhaps with less specificity then i would answer if i were not in government. a crucial question for the global economy always i ones wht

one might call that adding up constraint. wanting they know for sure is that on a global basis the level of exports have to equal the level of imports. and that' is not a very distant step from that proposition to the proposition that all countries can enjoy expert-let -- export-led growth. the global pattern has involved the united states injing import-led growth so that others could enjoy export alongside others enjoying an export-led growth. and that growth was enjoyed in asia. europe was in rough balance with a substantial surplus and parts of northern europe offset by a a

substantial deficit in other parts of europe. clear if the united states is to have less import dominance growth, than there has to be adjustments. as your question suggests, it every place in europe is for different reasons moving away from surplus, that compounds the problem. obviously the question has to be addressed so how you find a pattern, which and ticketimplice question of the rate of change for the countries and the behavior of the surplus countries. one of the the things that i suspect -- if i ask people in

this room what happened last year that was economically important, and you guys would allet some set of answers, and then if we tried to ask the question would people write history questions 30 years from now, what happened last year? my guesss that most of you, unless prompted, would not mention the move from a g7 towards the g20 as one othe most important things that happened last year, but i suspect when historians look back at this time after the precise details of this economic fluctuation have been forgotten, the establishment of a global forum that does embody all of the major economies in the world will be remembered as an

important asset of this moment. i think the establishment of the cheag20 as a group will be very much a source of energy for the kind of global econoc monitor train that the imf has sought to do in recent years and will enhance both the quality of the discussion, but more importantly, the impact of the discussion as to how to achieve a balanced global growth in the years ahead. there are many questions that that indicates. yes? >> my name is michelle learner. last week with the senate was debating manager reform you mentioned that if the measure

had been in place before the coapse, before the crash, we could've avoided the crash. and many people have been arguing that one of the key factors in causing this collapse was actually the repeal of glass-steagall, and there was an amendment put forward by maria cantwell that had a tremendous amount of support, but was never actually voted on. i am curious, an then know you were involved in the repeal when it came up, i am curious what is the administtion's position on the reform of the glass-steagall legislation? >> i' have said it, but i beliee this legislation would break the

chain that led to the financial accident in four important way first, the presence of a consumer fincial regulator would have substantially reduced or eliminated and the predatory subprime lending that blew up the housing bubble that was at the center of the crisis. it also would have inhibited the transmission of that global drew a requirement that what was securitized be attained in part and rating agency reform. second, if that first line of dense had not been affected. second, it would have provided

for the comprehensive regulation of systemically important financial institutions. there was no one who accepted as their mandate, making sure that lehman's capital or aig's capital or liquidity was in a satisfactory situation. this legislation changes that. there, even if the bubble has existed, it institutions had gone into serious trouble, central to the transmission of the crisis, what brought us to the point where the government had to put huge sums of money into aig, can work companies like ge worried about it they could borrow money on an overnight basis was the

transmission through the derivatives market. this, as this bill provides, derivatives were -- if , as this bill provides, derivatives were traded with carper. transparency in joint liability, there would not have been the possibility of resolution. the would not have been the possibility of runs of the kind that we saw. the obligations would have been met, and while there might have been failures of an institution, there would not have been the kind of breakdown in the market hat brought us to the brink of systemic collapse. four, if all of those mechanisms had failed, public policy was in a way and was without a tool for

addressing the failure of a non-based financial institution. we had tools in use those tools -- and used those tools with respect to wamu and indimac. there were no tools to enable resolution. leaving no trace but the lehman results of chaos and confusion or massive taxpayer fund in houston. in all four of those ways i believe the bill offers a very strong set of safeguards against the crisis of this kind. with respect to glass-steagall, the bill does provide for important safeguards of what one might think of as a modern

glglass-steagall type. it does not, as you say, repeal the 1998 repeal of glass- steagall, but i would suggest to you that if one looks at the decade after 1998, there were no transactions that took place that would not have been legal under pre-1998 law until the combination of bear stearns in to jpmorgan and of merrill lynch into bank of america, both of which were seen at the time

of having important benefits in terms of crisis resolution. in t approacthat is taken is one of tryingo look debt every part. look at an airline accident. look at whais happening with the oil spill. you look at any catastrophe, and there were always multiple places at which the cattrophe could have been averted. the approach the bill takes is to try as thoughtfully as one can to bring about what all of those places arend fouto fortify each of the crucial junctures. yes? >> i am currently with the center for advanced studies. this the administration has inherited two wards, which are

t a small part of the fiscal picture right now. you mentioned secretary gates has started to think about the way the d.o.t. does business with regards to procurement. if this were your administration, where would the fiscal consideration come in when thinking about future foreign engaments? >> i am going to leave the national security policy to the president and to his national security spokesman, but i think anyone who reads the record of public debate knows that in formulating its policy, both with respect to iraq and afghanistan, the president has en extraordinarily mindful for the need to do what is necessary

for the national security, and at the same time of all of the various costs of which i would argue are associated with the commitment to send soldiers into battle. >> the last question. >> [inaudible] i am wondering how serus we should consider the prospect that the give and budget deficits will increasingly move been away from dollar- denominated assets? >> i have enormous confidence in the basic economic strength of this country. rtainly if you look at the

experience of the last couple of years, whenever thglobal risk assertion has increased, there has been the substantial flow of assets towards the flow of purchasing towards the united states, suggesting we're seen as a source of strength, rather than as a source of weakness. on the other hand, at whatever moments -- if there were ever a moment that turned out not to be the case, that would probably be a moment when we had taken things too far. and we need to be prepared, as i suggested, as part of the strategy for strengthening recovery and increasing confidence to sure that once

recovery comes the nation's finances will be on a sustained and sustainable basis. i will take one more question. >> [inaudible] in your speech youentioned the power of the combined interests. is there any way you could break the magic of the power becaus of my sense is [unintelligible] . it would bar a $1 million to buy a house, for 30 years, by the end of the term you have pai$3 million because of compound interest.

[unintelligible] wants to borrow the money will be liable for your whole life -- once you barrow the money, you wi be liable for your whole life. [unintelligible] is it possible to go back to the symbol interest rates each year to fix it? this would give the working mily and people some -- >> i got it. economists lead to " einstein as

saying the compound interest is the most potent force in the universe. i am rather skeptical of whether einstein lowered himself from the series of relatively to actually say that or not. i nt a lot of compound interest is really a corollary of basic mathematics. i sang one of the things that is actually terribly, terribly important -- i think one of the things that is actually terribly, terribly important in economic policy in many areas of policy is to recognize that there are certain laws, laws of arithmetic, laws of huma behavior that are just there. and that you cannot wish that a

car will go if you put water in the gas tank. you could wish it, but it wil not happen. you could not wish -- let me give an example that does that have real revolutiorelevance hef you finance a budget by printing money in huge quantities that yowi lymphoavoid inflation. it cannot wiyou cannot wish thau barrow the money the size of the debt will not increase. i think one of the important things and making economic policy and the political process is recognizing that while choices about politics and choices about spending versus

taxing, incentives versus fairness really are the proper province of politics and democratic debate. that power of will cannot change laws of arithmetic, and so just as the laws of physics constrain discussion of the construction of bridges and airplanes, certain laws of arithmetic have to constrain economic bates, and the when they don't, you can sometimes have trouble. think you very much. -- thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national

cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> on tomorrow morning's

"washington journal," rep louie gohmert. then, daniel domenech to school administrators association joins us. then, we'll talk about the government's response to the gulf oil spill. >> years from now when you return here, when for you the shadows are no longer, i have no doubt you will have added your name to the book of history. >> memorial day weekend. watch commencements from leaders in the arts, sports, and sciences. and watch last year's speeches on the c-span video library. commencement speeches your way with every program since 1987 available free on line.

>> of the government accountability project of whistle-blower protections is holding a conference to raise support to revise federal whistle-blower protective legislation. the original law was passed in 1989. speakers include former new york police officers and maryland congressman. this is 90 minutes. >> will be having announcements after the speakers at of respect for their busy schedules. with that out of the way, welcome to the fourth annual national florida assembly. whistleblowing is about using freedom of speech to challenge abuses of power that betray the public trust. that means that it is the foundation for a free society. and whether we honor that value is a major impact on every aspect of american life from the safety of our food and water to the health of our economy, to

the defenses against terrorism and other threats from abroad or from our own government. governmt. whistleblowers rates are at a crossroads. we are emerging from a dark ages where since the whistleblower protection act was on paper the major free speech law in 1994 cents that have be whistleblowers have a 3207 track record at the court that h a monopoly on appellate review of their charts. under the bush administration, chaired the administrative board where they get there late in court, they had a one and 45 track record. legislation to restore credible whistleblower protection rights is stalled in a senate called after 10 years of effort and has been stopped there since christmas by one recalcitrant

senator. we still haven't heard the special unsel to investigate retaliation on whistleblowers. but don' be too cynical. the sun is coming up. for somebody who has been out there working, i can see it happening and it's very exciting. last year, the house of representatives unanimously passed the national whistleblower. for the first time in 31 years, the white house is not either opposing whistleblower rights or just paying lip service to them. for the first time since i worked on us in 1979, the white house is working full steam ahead on the front lines to pass a strong whistleblower protection enhancement act as we can get. meanwhile, the obama administration, despite our frustration with the special counsel has appointed

administrative leaders to the agencies that adjudicate government and corporate whistleblower rights that is the strongest lineup, the most impressive lineup in the history of whistleblower in law. and if the senate leaders get the same fighting spirit that the rest of the government seems to be getting in the new leadership, we won't be able to be stopped. we can get over the hmp to get credible rights for government employees. since 2002, we have done it nine times for corporate workers in different laws, getting lost but i'm much stronger than the ones that are brought down in the senate. 382 organizations representing 55 million mericans have called on congressional leaders to live up to the president's campan pledge, best practice free speech rights for all who are paid by the taxpayers enforced through normal access to court.

a primary drop of this assembly is to let congressional leaders know it is time for results. after 10 years, lipservice is that good enough anymore. we want them to fight for passage of the whistleblow protection act. after 10 years,nough is enough. a second goal of this conferce is to take head-on the reason for the senate all that is being offered now, the refusal to give in forcible whistleblower rights to national security professionals in the fbi in the intelligence agencies. our philosophy is that it uses a secrecy enforced by repression are a clear and present danger to national security because they sustainable durability to terrorism created by bureaucratic recount. there's a luncheon panel today's sponsored by the federal law enforcement association will

have five national security professionals from the front lines, from 9/11 to keeping our planes they will tell you what it's like when they try to honor that duty. we've got other goals for this conference. we're going to learn from each other. we'll be having panels and workshops, an overview of the whistle protection act legislation, streetlight in the right side of ten passed recently into media pertaining. will be networking of strategizing and workshops on corporate accountability, medical care whistleblowers and the office of special counsel. we'll be honoring those in our community, who has given exceptional service over the course of their professional lives. will be meeting the new leadership that the administration of software for the merit systems protection board in the administrative review board, controlling all of the administrative law quite the whistleblowers are it will be later this afternoon. will be making our voices heard on the hill tomorrownd having

a closing address by another legend of our community, mr. daniel ellsberg. but arguably, we say the best or least the unsurpasse for first. you don't need an introduction to thank serpico. his whistleblowing is already part of the american culture. after all, you have to make out pacino famous. but he also personifies why we need anti-retiation writes for those in the front line fighting terrorism. frank put his life in the line, literally to successfully challenge government corruption that enabled homegrown terrorism, mafia style. so what does a welcome for frank serpico. [applause]

carbonic >> thank you. i don't know if were going from ridiculous to the sublime as they say, but i've been on the train for seven hours so i packed my lunch and then sort of a vegetaan when i can and so i had this big big black plastic bag in my station and i thought it would change my ticket to see if i could get here faster because the train was late and along this long line and when i get to the ticket office i heard what did i do with my lunch? and meanwhile, there's pictures of german shepherds all over the

place that says bessie is looking out for you. and although loudspeaker, to keep sanity sine packages around suspicious, if you se something say something. and i said my god, there's going to be dog followed with a bag and it's going to say about smling the meat in your. and i get there and there's the vatican and the communists, you know. but nobody sd anything. everybody's texting. before you're on your cell phone, you could at least lok around. so i don't know where security is gone, but when i try to get into the capitol building i had a carrot and they said you can't take them in there. i said what do you mean? are you a staff member? i said no. a staff member can take in but i can't? is that i'm licensed to carry firearms, i'm a retired new york city detectives. thank god some people still use discretion and they didn't take my carried away. [laughter] you know, these are indeed

troubling times that require us to speak up for our principles and i think tom for this opportunity today to speak, to honor whistleblowers the world over past, present and future. time and again no one i tald to people about corruption and the leader of reonse i get is it's human nature and in so doing weustify its existence inconveniently absolve ourselves from any further responsibility. i do nt believe that correction corruption or ineptitude or natural functions of the human spirit. however, i do believe that a slow group of individuals with os and create far greater than the title or office they hold

off and take advantage their position to enrich themselves and exploit the very people they are meant to serve. to put it bluntly, positions of leadership and trust often equate a license to steal or otherwise behave unjustly or immorally. titles themselves do not necessarily assure us that they should have the credibility or the integrity of the older, whether the title be president, ceo, police chief, bishop, justice of the court, et cetera. against all these impressive titles come come at their wrists or has been of improprieties and then some. unfortunately because of the power of the office, those that occupy the positions feel they are immune to scrutiny and osecution, untouchable, too big to fail, too big to go to

jail. some may find this difficult to accept. not wanting to believe that we are vulnerable in the hands of those we trust. but having been on the receiving end of the abuse of power, i am all too familiar with this bitter truth. in the old days, men like willie sutton were called bank robbers are at their pictures hung in a post office for stealing from local banks. today individuals who have fought this with make and millions have their pictures taken in boardrooms. for those of you who may be too young to remember, willie sidon was a notorious bank robbers in the 30's and 40's. i met with the was apprehended. wishing you choose my father shoe shop in brooklyn when i get the news of his arrest announced on the radio. it was said that when asked why he robbed banks, he answered, that's where the money is. what protection to subordinates have when they wish to speak out

against corruption or other injustices in our faith. the average hard-working man or woman is not corrupt. the average citizen is too busy trying to make ends meet. hard-working men and women occupy every site or of industry, government and the military. they are the engineers of the community, but that one of the nation. they know what's going on in their place of employment. when they see correction or an attitude, many feel compelled to speak out. they want to see conditions corrected not only because it is fundamentally wrong, but because the man that hurt them, their families, their communities and their country. that is why we have whistleblowers. and whistleblowers need protection. i know firsthand that being a whistleblower has grave

consequences. for a whistleblower, first and foremost one thing is certain, retaliation. retaliation in one form or another, varying the degree and duration of the whistleblowers ostracized, threatened, blacklisted, sent for psychologil valuation, fired, neutralized. this month alone, there's been a bevy of activity around whistleblowers to mention just a couple, the "new england journal of medicine" released a special report. whistleblowers experiences an provocation against pharmaceutical companies. michael has been ready to part investigative series called silencing the whistleblowers. although financial reform prevents another crash if banks subvert the warning system? it seems that when investigative reporters working within big

rings try to warn their periors of shady practices, the investigators themselves became the target. you can read the full report on that big money.com. and last but not least, the founder of a whistleblower website for keeley had his passport canceled. the reason? it looked worn. the duration of the punishment is limited only by the viciousness of the wrongdoers and their cohorts. in 1986 when warner tried to rebuild israel had nuclear weapons, he was drugged, kidnapped, tortured, thrown into solitary confinement for 11 years spending 18 years in prison and to this day in a civilized society he is forbidden to leave his own country or speak to foreign nationals. many of you know daniel ellsberg's story. his new documentary, the most

dangerous man in america, tells the saga of the pentagon papers, kissinger in the vietnam war. he will be giving tomorrow's closing address. in my case, a number of books have been written, one by the police commissioner himself attempting to distort the facts and undermine my credibility. in response to recent "new york times" prole on me, almost 40 years later a retired new york city police search approach, frank, you are a rat. you turn on us that we will never forget it. i turned on them, not that they turnedn the uniform they wear and th city in the country that they're supposed to serve. some call whistleblowers heroes. others will call them traitors. an expert psychiatrists in the case of u.s. versus anthony rossetto and daniel ellsberg

stated there were people in the course of their lives might have possibly sacrificed principle for the sake of career for the sake of family and have lived with that compromise and they'll have a lot of disdain, even contempt for two men who did it for the sake of principle and took the risk. i am pleased to report that i continue to receive positiv responses from people all over the world with an occasional negative one thrown in for good measure. but what happens to individuals who don't have the resources to fight back? back in the 60's and 70's, even though it wasa difficult time for me, it was fortunate that things unfolded as they did. if there were not for all the attention of the new york city police department was forced to deal with, thanks in part to the excellent reporting of david burnham of "the new york times," things may have turned out

differently. i have received e-mails from people along for a snack, government to military industries, to medical profession and university professors. most of them just want to share their stories for someone who understands what they're going through. one, a highly decorated marine sergeant who said it was hs hero, i told him i was proud of what he did in his life after being bounced from one foster home to another. we became close friends and he confided in me he feared for his life. he came to an untimely death under dubious circumstances. he's buried in arlington. the pressure brought to bear against whistleblowers and the cost of litigation often resulted in loss of their livelihoods, their savngs, their homes and the destruction of their family life. too often, the greatest injustice in the whistleblowers in a manner is that he or she is

being retaliated against. the culprit is being rewarded with even greater positions of power. a moral,ethical society requires transparency and accountability in law enforcement government and industry. we need whistleblowers. if listened to, whistleblowers can save us money. they can say with embarrassment. they can save us catastrophes. they can save lives. in my opinion, anyone denying adequate whistleblowing protection to our nation's noble and faithl watchdogs on duty 24/7 have ulterior motives and are either corrupt themselves or have something to hide. our elected officis need to stop this partisan political squabbling and worked tgether for the overall good of the country as our fouing fathers

have tended. it is my hope that clearer minds will prevail and we can all agree on adequate protection for whistleblowers and get the whistleblowers protection enhancement act out of congress and adopted into law. in closing, i would like to comment on the appellation whistleblower. as you know, i prefer the term lap later only because the term whistleblower has been unjustly negative connotation in phase iv. i like to recognize it as whistling a merry tune as they went about their duty to lead industry rates so people would t stumble mps could not hide in the shadows. remember, anyone can whistle. so to freedom loving people of all ages, eisai whistling merry tune and keep lighting those lamps, for the world would be a far darker place without you. on a lighter note, from time to

time i do community theater. i would like to leave you with a few lines from one of my favorite place, williams arena against time your life. the year is 1939. the shadow of forelimbs over the play. time of your life lives. see goodness everywhere. and when it is found, bringing out of its hiding place and let it be free and under shamed. place and manner and then flashed the ast of the values, for these are the things that hold of and must pass away. discovering all things that is beyond corruption encourage virtue and whatever hard to make them tearing into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and tear of the world's. ignore the obvious part is unworthy of the clear i am the

kindly heart. see the interior of no ma or no man be the superior remember every man is a variation of yourself. no man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. despite evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness. please understand in the time of your lives this. so in that wondrous time, you shall t add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it. thank you. [applause] [applause]

>> hello, i'm danielle brian, the drector of government oversight. among some of the very good things that happen in the very beginning of the obama administration, there's something that happened that we really didn't like it all. and i know the person i need to talk to with a man named dormice and in 19 because it had been reported he was an unusual

person in washington while he was in private practice at zukerman theater he actually found a fabulous organization in washington called crew, a citizen's responsibility and ethics in washington. i called the executive director, melanie. i said how do you reach the sky and the white house? he says here's his number, call him. at that time and in doing this 19 yrs and i never called the ite house. so i plan what is going to say. my name is danielle brian, project on government oversight, this is what i do. so i called his number and i started down the straight. hello my name is danielle. danielle, hey, so excited to hear from you. i'm bigger than the sky nor do they cause any day now he's expecting to hear from. and it turned out about them. it was norms within following what was going on in the ngo community and he said i know why you're calling it we can fight about that if you want, but in addition, you know, we have a tear government reform and i'd like to have you come over tomorrow must talk about within

your mind and what should be an agenda. it was an amazing phoncall to me. so i show up and i said i think the most obvious and important thing for us to start working on his whistleblower protections because they wil be so easy. you know, no problem. this is something first of all that senator obama had an very supportive of an candidate obama had been very supportive of, so there is no question of his commitment and neither were they doing doing this for 10 years now at the white house is here that should be no problem at all. when it comes to political calculations i don't what i'm talking about in that respect. but from that day forward, i can play you without hesitation that in the white house we have never had a person who has been as personally engaged and committed as norm eisen on a daily basis. i'm getting calls sometimeat 11:00 at night for my cab on his way home because he's been working all day to check in on a bill before seven in the morning.

this is someone wh without question is as deeply involved in ts is all of us are at this point. and if there were any other reason to be concerned about getting the urgency of this legislation passed because of all the future with the boulders we after the tech we have another reason to be concerned and it's because the media has reported that he is going to be leaving his position in the white house to be representing the u.s. as the ambassador to the czech republic, so we've got to get this bill passed before we lose our advocate in the white house. so it is my great pleasure to introduce to you norm eisen for a message from the white house. [applause] >> well, it's such a privilege to address the national whistleblower assembly. as you know, the president has

throughout his career, not just in washington, but dating back to his days as a state legislator been dedicated to the cause of whistleblowers. his philosophy and our mantra in this administration. and as i look around the room, there is many of you that i have discussed this with over the course of the past year and a half it to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and has partners in performance. so we have the time to to carry that forward. we of course build on the president -- the president's dedication to this cause, but the most fervent and this and i am, danielle, you really set this up because by way of greeting from the white house i do want to put our efforts on whistleblower protection in context. the president has promised and

has led an extraordinary commitment to reform of the federal overnment processes and really was starting with the focus on the executive branch we have worked very hard since coming into office on improving ethical standards in the executive branch. we have strived to toughen our executive branch lobbying regulation. we have been ery dedicated to the cause of open government, government that is transparent, that is participatory and that is collaborative. all of those efforts informs our hard work with all of you on whistleblower protection, all of those efforts stemmed from a commitment to putting the public interest first. and no place is that ddication

to that interest shown more profoundly th in the efforts of whistleblowers and their advocates. and you should know that your representatives in the whistleblower community cluding the folks who are presenting a conference today as the other organizations that are here in conjunction with gap has been absolutely superb and working with us to promote these interests. it dates back by the way on the part of president obama to an illinois statute. he thought for this and the ill annoy legislature sb 1872, the whistleblower act, fighting for protections even when he was a state senator and he said very clearly i'll quote him, one of his early saturday radio addresses upon taking office was

changing the way we do business in washington, quote means strengthening whistleblower protections for government employees who step forward to report. and whether it's wasteful spending or any other form of misconduct, the president is very committed to that. ..

i know there was some law along the way at various points. really the hallmark of our effort goes a little bit dionne a pure greeting, but i am going to discuss and i know you will hear it in more depth from tom and mike and others, about s. 372, the whistleblower otection and enhancement act of 2009, ed has been reported in the press. the white house bipartisan really outstanding bipartisan leadership in he senate as well as folks working hard on this in the house, but thbipartisan leadership ofthe homeland security, and government oversight committee. government affairs committee.

on both sides of the aisle, they have jned with us and with the advocatesand they make it safe coalition to move this bill unanimously through committee. it is now on the floor of the senate and folks are working very, very hard to move the process to get the bill through the senate, and to take it up in the house. of course both the senate and the house have passed different versions of this bill before. just a couple, just a couple of highlights from the bill. we have of course, like you, want to make clear that really, the scope of protection provided by federal law applies to any disclosures, so we have worked in the bill to, to close the loopholes for disclosures to coworkers, disclosures to what

the courts have said is not a protected disclosure. disclosures outside of the course of normal or within normal, your normal job-- disclosures that are our ready known. we agreed that when congress had any disclosures that meant any disclosures that we have worked very hard. that is one the pillars of the bill, to make sure the scope of disclosures truly is any disclosure. we have expanded the availability of effective channels for disclosures of classified information to congressional committees. we have codified anti-gag, and anti-gag rule so whistleblowers can come forward without being gagged. critically, for the first time, in the senate a unanimous bipartisan committee unanimously

in a bipartisan way embraced a jury trial, and all circuits appeal so that whistleblowers can bring their cases to the federal district court and can go, then go beyond the federal circuit to repeal them and the relevant circuit as an alternative. it is critical to us that we provide intelligence community whistleblowers with our principles of which we are dedicated to provide them with apopriate due process and with an independent executive branch for him to challenge retaliation and a right of appeals to a federal court of appeals and we have done that ia way that attempts to bridge the gap, and again all of this the credit goes to the bipartisan leadership of the commite and to the advocates who have labored for so many many ars.

we have attempted as part of that group to support that, to guarantee those important protections. to the intelligence community and finally we have also addressed the issue of retaliatory security clearance and set up an independent executive branch in the bill that passed the committee nd independent executive branch body, where retaliatory security clearance revocations can be addressed. the bill extends whistleblower protection to approximately 40,000 irport baggage handlers an a tsa employee who previously had none. there is the guarantee for whistleblower protection for scientists and for others to engage in research analysis or handling of technical information so that is important to the science community whistleblowers to be able to

step forward and all of this, to kohl o host and tom devine is a giant step on e road to the promised land. now, we are not there yet. we have been working and continue to work day after day literally on a daily basis with bipartisan leadership in the senate, with the outstanding leaders in the house and of course with the make it safe coalition, with the advocacy groups and with all of you, to make this bill the next step on the road to the present signing a whistleblower protection improvements statute that he can sign into law, and we are not flinching. we are redoubling our effort and very very much looking forward to working with the outstanding

leadership in congress, both in the house in the senate in a partisan way u.s. buffer these protections for so long, with all of you on behalf of the president and the whithouse, thank you you were. keep it up and we look forward to working together with you in the months and the years ahead. thank you. [applause] >> congressman-- is our next speaker but.

[inaudible] there should've been time for when we started the program. that is to introduce you to the organizers of the events from today and omorrow. for the first time in the four years we havhad this assembly, i am not cranky and exhausted at this point in the program and it is becau they have such an effective team doing the work. i would like to start by introducing-- is becky here? rebecca jones, the conference organizer. she is probably outside still taking registrations from people. marissa gentile is a full-time intern who has given up herself completely to organize this conference, and then also my daughter's partner and will

model shana who organized this conference and was supervisor for this year's event. for better or worse we have a lot to tank of those forks for. [applause] i would like to also let fks know that we are going to be having all of our events moving over to their mock house starting at 12:30 toda that is where we will be having a-- in case-- that is where we will be having our lunch and program. we are just very honored today to be able to give some recognition to a couple of members of our community who have made a tremendous

difference throughout the course of their professional lives. jacks that aero, whistleblower from the department of interior from the mine safety adnistration who not only has saved countless lives but is a catalyst for the whistleblower protection through his exrience. we will also be honoring daniel myers, who was a whistleblower lawyer, public employers for environmental responsibility and now is the head of the inspector genel program. he has probably helped more whistleblowers over the last few years. we will be honoring them during the lunchtime panel and the we are going to have some people that we have a whole lot to learn from. these are the people who have been on the frontlines of

national security. i do want to make a correction. deprogram at 12:30 will be in the congressional auditorium here to learn your rights. the national security luncheon is going to be at 2:00. it is sponsored by federal law enforcement organizations and it will be featuring mike german from the fbi, whistleblower from the marines. failure to provide lifesaving equipment to our troops in iraq. robert smith plane, who was fired for presenting the air marshals from canceling coverage during a red alert of hijackers.

the time's person time's person of the year who is a former at the i-9 11 whistleblower. justman radek, who was put under criminal specification because she tried to uphold the rule of law and the john-- denial of rights. george sarris, hose criminal investigation for doing a-- a breakdown and maintenance of our cargo aircraft so it will be chaired by chris from federal law enforcement officers association. has chris made it into the auditorium? if that is not the case, i would like to skip them to do was going to be our cleanup speaker this mning, but is here and available to give us the report. is charity wilson here to introduce?

if not i would like to introduce lisa paola. lisa is the quiet staffer in the senate who has been making things happen for the last couple of years. she does 80% of the work, absorbs 95% of the criticism and gripes, and is the person who is steadfast commitment is the reason that we are on the verge of finally getting a whistleblower protection act passed. she is the staff director for the subcommitteef the homeland security and governmental affairs committee in the senate that is handling the legislation and she is the workhorse for senator daniel akaka who has been the spiritual leader and marathon commitment leader of the senate. solis, thanks.

>> hel everyone, good morng, alow vies my boss would say. senator akaka was sorry he could not make it here, but he asked me to come and give you all an update. thanks tom and everyone else for inviting me here to say a few words about our progress with the whistleblower protection enhancement act. i want to thank you all for organizing this assembly to honor the commitment and the courage of whistleblowers and the need to better protect them. as tom said in his introduction, i worked for senator akaka who is the chairman of the senate federal workforcesubcommittee. he has a longer game than that but i will leave that out. senator akaka's longtime advocate of supporting strengthening the rights and protections fo federal wurtzel blowers. he first introduced abe bill to

improve the whistleblower act in the year 2000 he and his staff and the staffs of many other offices and many of you have spent i think literally thousands of hours working to get this done ever since. this year, last year actually now, february 2009 senator akaka reintroduced with senator voinovich mccaskill grassley and others the whistleblower protection enhancement act which is s. 372. the bill passed out of committee in july of 2009. we work through what we thought were the last lingering concerns with the bill and try to pass it through the senate in december. we have run into additional concerns with new protections we are trying to extend to intelligence community whistleblowe which we are trying to work through. so why does this take so long if we have been working on it for so many years? as you know the bush administration had promised to veto the bill. know we have an administration

that supports whistleblower protections and has been wonderfully and constructively involved in the process. but in some sense it creates a lot more work when the administration is at the table you have listen to their concerns and try to work their administration concerns so we have worked a lot with the administration on how to both address concerns with the bill but also move the senate bill further than it had ever gone before in the hopes of bringing it closer to the house bill and being able to finally get us to one final piece of legislation. other senators also look a little more closely at a pill that hasn't been subject to a veto threat. of a particular this year is we for the first time have included protections for intelligence committee whistleblowers in the senate version. but in the senate, jurisdiction over-- not in the committee that deals with other human capital,

federal human capital issues of that h been challenging to try to work with the intelligence committee and try to come to some understanding of the way to move forward. so like i said we have worked very hard on whistleblower protection this year. i believe we are goi to get it done. i know it is taking a long time to be really honest to go you are probably not going to be 100% saisfied with the legislation. my boss is probay not going to be 100% satisfied that all of you in all of have worked too hard not to enact legislation that would make huge strides forward. i think sometimes we in the senate sort of focus on the intelligence community aspects of the bill and we lose sight of the many really important things the bill would do that are at this point completely noncontroversial, so some of the things the bill would do is clarify the very broad scope of whistleblower protection, close loopholes created by the msp via

the federal circuit, let whistleblowers access to federal district court and jury trials for the first time, suspend federal circuit court of appeals jurisdtion over wpa claims, provide whistleblower protections for tsa employees, clarify disclosing scientific censorship is protected, prohibit nondisclosure agreements that don't have a statement of whistleblower rights, or the enforcement of non-disclosures agreements in violation of whistleblower rights. and create whistleblower ombudsman to help whistleblowers with the process andake various other improvements. there is no disagreement about any of those issues. we are also working to find a way to provide whistleblower's new security clearances denied or revoked a form of review and to allow intelligence community whistleblowers to seek redress for whistleblower retaliation. one of the reasons there is such

wide support for strengthening whistleblower protections is it is not just an issue of protecting the whistleblowers. it is a good government measure. if we fail to protect the whistleblower we also failed to protect the taxpayer, national health and environme or other critical interest. the strong bipartisan support we have worked very closely wh our republican colleague on this bill and the administration so constructively engaged. connecting the strong protections for whistleblowers. with that i again want to applaud each of the whistleblowers in the room as well as the advocates who have worked so hard to protect them. thanks. [applause]

>> congressman van hollen is on his way over, so we are going to skip to the next item in the program while we wait for him to arrive. and that will be a more detailed briefing for everyone on the whistleblower legislation. the differences between the senate and house bills at an opportunity for folks to ask questions and get a good handle on what we are all here to be ghting for. before we start this, i also want to just acknowledge that a couple of times listening to the word gap come up a few times, we are kind of worker bees in a much larger coalition that has made it poible for this

legislation to be on the verge of success and to be exponentially stronger in terms of free speech rights and anything that a single organization could hope to achieve. i want to recognize the work not only of the project on government oversight who have been partners on this from the beginning but also the other cosponsors othis event from the make it safe coalition. that includes the american federation of government employees, the national treasury employees union who you have heard a few times this morning, e project on government oversight, the-- life society which is medical whistleblowers as well as indiduals in law firms such as the employment groups, the truckers and justice center and jim murtagh, kind of a patriarch of medical whistleblowers. all of them at a this event possible and i want to express my appreciation to them.

[applause] while we wait for representative van hollen we are going to swch to the teaching part of this program which will be the next phase of the learning events and we are going to start out with a comparison of the sena and how it's whistleblowers writes on national security issues. those were fbi workers, intelligence community workers and all government employees who are threatened by loss of their security clearances, a job prerequisite. >> good morning. my nameis mike german and i'm

with the american civil liberties union and you may have seen last week the senate intelligence committee put out a rert on the intelligence failures around the attempted christmas day bombing of an airline bound for detroit, and it was very interesting to read it and to see how similar it was to the failures that led, that the 9/11 commission and the congress found of the attacks of 9/11. again it wasn't a failurto collect intelligence. it was a failure of management of intelligence and the failure of oversight. and i think that a key reason for that failure of oversight is that when the whistleblower protection acts were passed, the fbi, cia, nsa and other intelligence agencies were exempted from the protections so that employees of the agencies do not have the right to report

when they see malfeasance or abuse or misconduct that actually a post is-- poses a risk for national security and that is why we feel it is tremendously important to include those agencies within the protections so that we can better enhance our security by allowing those employees to report this abuse. particularly to congress, because of course when it is laid out, the problems in the christmas event, it laid claim that the fbi, cia, nsa and the national counterterrism center that it didn't reflect its own blame that it has helped pass these enhanced protections for national security agencies and intelligence whistleblowers. they bill in the house, h.r. 1507, passed twice already over the years. it is really the gold standard

where we would like to see a national security whistleblowers otected. basically removes the exemption and gives them the same rights that other federal employees would have. as lisa powell said in the senate we were pleased to see in the senate bill, s. 372 for the first time in the history of the senate that they actually included national security whistleblowers within e enhanced protections. the bill treated them a little bit differently. it created an independent award within the executive branch th would adjudicate and investigate these matters. said that whistleblowers would not have the same rights to go out with the idea that that would somehow protect the national security secrets better and that would-- was certainly a hard fought with the administration and i greatly respect the committee for making sure that they could get as much

of as they could out of that process. but, as lisa said we are in a ght down to try to retain as much of those as possible and particularly coming from, as i did the fbi, where there was an internal system that is wholly inadequate. i thought it is very important we make sure that we reviewed that to ensure that there actually is independent investigation and adjudication so that whistleblowers can actually get an adequate opportunity to have their cases adjudicated. the other thing is lisa mentioned is retaining security clearance protection. in the intelligence community of course you can't work without a security clearance so there is a loophole for security clearance, retaliation, that will basically

be the method of retaliation from then on because that is the opportunity that these agencies have to take somethingaway from you. you of course can't work without the security clearance so you would actually lose your job even if you want won on the merits that you were retaliated against. so, those really are the two most important aspects that we need to make sure we keep in the bill so th we have some independence and some opportunity for whistleblowers in the national community to have their day in curt. as we are waiting, i am happy to take questions about it. >> i am following up on mr. serpico's comment. you may have the feeling-- baby

this group could figure out what would be the best word and that will be one of the outcomes of the conference, that we bring all the ideas together, what a whistleblower alternative. >> i don't care what anybody calls me as long as you don't call me late to supper. [laughter] you know, i would think maybe the more important thing for us to work for, you know it is like in this national security argument. it is interesting to me that the intelligence community and the intelligence committee keeps bringing up this ithat giving the national security agency employee rights would put the national security atrisk when it is actually quite the opposite, that if we protect

those people, they can report with now the senate intelligence committee has reported as complete failure. they could have reported those before we had an incident rather than waiting until after. if we have these protections it is actually a national security enhancement and i think that is ue that we have to make sure the public knows that whistleblowers are actually, the public servants doing exactly what they are being paid to do is to serve the public by being truth tellers. >> we are going to take an interruption in mike's recitation because representative chris van hollen has arrived and we will resume after the senator is talk to us. the executive director will be introducing him. >> it is indeed my pleasure to do just that. he is a leading member of the house of representatives, and a great friend of federal employees, of whistleblowers and

and of free speech. you know, apart from being just plain corrupt or being involved in some kind of sex could paid, there really are just two ways you can leave a lasting imprint in congress. won one is by being effective. we will call those the mechanics and the other is by being principled, the idealist. the mechanic makes the wheels turn, but sometimes they are not so concerned about which direction, whether forward or backward, as long as the wheels are turning. the idealist has a vision of a good society, but sometis they lacked the respect and cachet of thr colleagues. and of the leadership, and therefore have a harder time moving the dial, which is why chris van hollen and is so special, because he is both principled and he is effective,

and it is why the whistleblower community, the free-speech community should be thrilled that he is one of our leads, because when, not if, when the senate reports out the whistleblower protection and enhancement act, and it goes for discussion with the house for a final bill, that we are confident that there will be leadership on the house side perhaps for the most effective reforms possible. a graduate of georgetown law, the kennedy school, congressman van hollen is now thessistant to house speaker nancy pelosi and is chair of the democratic congressional campaign committee. despite the extraordinary hours he spends on policy, and i understand he been making

phonecalls to the white house from his hospital bed on behalf of whistleblower reform, and his work nationwide traveling for the pccc, he is revered in his district is an honorable man with substance and i might add he is just a genuinely nice guy. i give you congressman chris van hollen. [applause] >> thank you very much mark, and i have to say i am blessed to have many constituents who are involved in the public policy arena, and none who has been i think more principled in terms of his arguments in bringing important issues to the floor denmark for those of you who have not seen his cable tv show

on local montgomery cable, i urge you to tune in, because it is always a discussion of substance and real policy and not the soundbites you often get in political discourse. i want to thank mark just for not being a local leader in our community but also engaging in this very important battle at the national level so mark thank you very much. thank you very much. to the whole government accountability project and tom devine and all the groups that have come togther, under an umbrella to try and make sure that we pass enhance whistleblower protection legislation, i thank you, i salute you. we are getting there. we are getting there. we are very close and it is sential that you continue to do what you have been doing for the past months and years which is to keep the pressure on, because we all know that as soon

as you lighten up and take your foot off the accelerator they are, and the pressure is off, then we would not be able to continue to move this important effort forward so i want to thank all of the organizations in the make it safe coalition and everybody else who has come together for this very important cause. i'm not going to go into great detail for why we ned to do this. you all understand more than anybody that in order to make sure that we protect taxpayers, they we protect consumers, that we in fact protect the fundamentals of democracy and how their government accountable, we need to me sure the peoplewho come forward to tell the truth or not punish. that should be a very basic tenets tenant of what it means to be a strong democracy and to make sure our democracy works. so, that is why in the enhance whistleblower protection legislation, we have a number of

provisions, number one to ensure that most civilians, certainly title v civilians in the workforce get jury trials, so they have an opportunity to have the facts heard by a jury of their peers. we think that is absolutely essential. and also that we will for the first time make sure that we have protections for those who are in the national security arena. there is no reason, as all of the people in this room understand, to exclude whistleblowers in the national security arena. that truth telling is just as important, sometimes more important but certainly just as important as those who come forward in the nonsecurity area, and it is important for the national security of our country that those individuals be protected when they come forward. so we are very close i believe,

and we have passed this legislation in the house, as you know. we passed it twice. most recently as an amendment to the econom recovery and reinvestment act. we thought that was very appropriate vehicle for it, because in a piece of legislation where we are investing over $750 billion of taxpayer dolla into the economy, we thought we should at the same time allow people who identify waste, fraud or abuse and that process to have full protection, full whistleblower protections. unfortunately that did not survive the conference on that piece of legislation or survive the final passage on that legislation but the good news is that since then the senate committee has acted and we hope the senate will move forward. we are exploring all dferent vehicles for trying to get this passed as soon as possible, including are looking at the

current-- excuse me, the current defense authorization bill is one possibility. we hope that will work. if it doesn't we will keep trying other alternatives as we go. i do also want to say a word about the white house. i understand norm eisen was here earlier and i want to think of the white house and administration for working very closely with the congress on this issue. as all of you know, our previous administrations have been very hostile toward enhancing whistleblowers protection. they have used every trick in the book to try and block this effort and obviously they have been successful in the past that blocking this effort, previous administrations. this administration is taking a very different attitude toward this effort, much more open to it, provided constructive input and i think with their help we will ensure to get something through e house that the

president will sign an somethi that does greatly strengthen whistleblower protections. i want tthank my colleagues in the house would have been working on this as weland a bipartisan effort. bruce braley, henry axman, somebody who has been involved with thi effort for a long period of time as well and as the vote showed, when we brought this up during the house action on the recovery bill, there is subsntial bipartisan majorities for getting this done in the issue is overcoming-- some folks who for whatever reason don't want that sunshine to lighten up what is going on in many federal agencies, whether on the national security side. so they should be a meeting where hopes are high, but there

is also a very clear understanding that we haven't gotten things done yet. we have gotten as far as we have because of your efforts. now we have just got to get the ball over the finish line and if we can do that, we will have used those two things that mark spoke about, meaningful action, to help protect our democracy, and protect the truth tellers and we will have combined that important principle withaction to actually get something done. i do want to take one moment here at the end to thank some folks on my staf who have been very invved in this day in and day out. trapp who is here with us and can cummings who is here as well. i want to thank them. [applause] as all of you know what everything that is going on in the congress these days, everyone of us need somebody who

is really focused on this day in and day out and whis tenacious together with you we are going to be tenacious in terms of getting this done. so, let's make sure th each of you leaves this gathering today committed to going out and making sure we call those key members of the house, key members of the senate, keeping the white house engaged so that we can by the end of this ye though that those who come forward to tell the truth strengthen our democracy, hold our government accountable, receives the full protection of the law. let's get it done. thank you all very much for having me. [applause]

>> thanks very much to congressman van hollen. we are going to go back to teaching the differences between the senate and house versions of the whistleblower protection legislation. i do want to take a break to have a few announcements, so we are well oriented and grounded and focused in order to get the most out of the conference. the first announcement is to apologize to someone that there is no excuse not to have been listed earlier. he is the tax whistleblower of the year in and because of him, his life involves-- a great

irony. he is dominated b the friends of the national whistleblower center and he will be honored this afternoon at the luncheon panel. i also wanfolks to know that as part of your price of admission, you get a fringe benefit r coming today. we are releasing a prepublication of a new corporate whistleblower survival guide called committing the truth, corrate whistleblower survival guide. you can get your disk at the registration desk and there is enough for everyone who has attended to get their own copy. finally, in announcements i want to make sure that we are all squared away for the events after we finish is tutorial and questions and answers. at 11:00 the workshop part of the program begins. air safety workshop, the faa whistleblowers alliance is in room 2305 raeburn house office

building, 2203 raeburn. the project on government oversight will beeading the training workshop and i wish i could determine-- attend this. i know i have a lot to learn on how how to work effectively with the media. they will be in 22 raeburn house building. one that is going to be just fascinating will be in this room, changing corporate behavior. we effectively-- this will be run by corporate responsibility, creation of cyrus marion room and gutman, lawyers who want to do more than make money. they want a lot to be making a difference. they will be discussing their strategies. at the stewart mott house which is right between the supreme court in a the senate office building at 11:00 we will be having two different workshops. the office of special counsel workshop put out by osc watch,

organized by them and the dical whistleblower workshop by several-- international in conjunction with the international association of whistleblowers. those will both be going on at the mott house. we will come back to the congressional auditorium for the know your rights seminar. that is a street law program and the laws that have been passed from 12:321:30. that is enough announcements for now. before return to questions and answers, you have heard a number of officials this morning talk about all of the benefits of the new whistleblower protection act. it is right on the verge of being passed. two different versions of this legislation, the senate version in the house version, and which one gets past and really the showdown in resolving the differences between them are going to make a tremendous

difference in how mny-- are in the new law. about 60% of the provisions are pretty much identical or substantially equivalent and i want to list those for you so youwill know what kind of floor of reform here. of them basically overturned al the case law since 1994 that resolved-- a the track record against whistleblowers in the appellate court that has guided the law and will be back to her high water mark on rights on paper. restoring thgs such as your free-speech rights when when you are-- job duties were speaking with coworkers. a second item in both of the bills is that they both codify what is called the statute after 21 years of being an appropriations rider. it provides remedies with normal to process.

it will provide compensatory damages to whistleblowers if they prevail in their retaliatio defenses, something which inexplicably has never existed before. above what increases the resume classified disclosures to congress. it will give rights to the 40,000 tsa bagge screeners who have been working on an app will doctorate. both give excellent scientific freedom rights to neutralize the sort of censorship that we had against climate change research and research against unsafe pharmaceutical drugs during the last administration. it will ake sure the whistleblowers protection act rights cancel out one of the patriot acts secrecy provisions called critical information, critical infrastructure information, a new form of secrecy that no longer will be able to trump free speech rights under the wpa.

in both bills will strengthen the office of special counsel's ability to seek disciplinary action against bureaucratic bullies and have some accountability for those who engage in retaliation. that is the floor, and it is actually a little bit better than this because all of the provisions that are different. our goal is to expand that so it is looolee here that it needs te in the bill. both bills have that. if you don't get a speedy administrative ruling, but the senate trials only allows it for major disciplinary actions which means if you transfer the bureaucratic siberia or are stripped of all your job duties are exiled from the subject area that you blew the whistle on,

you don't get accs to a jury. also the senate bill gives the government about a 30% head start on the independent justification also known as pre-tax. if you go to court instead of having an administrative hearing. we think those are both unacceptle. the senate will give you access to the circuit court of appeals instead of just the federal circuit, which has been so hostile. but not for this ignificant cases. the federal circuit still keeps the nopoly on bad and that it has created almost all of the obscene precedent that it made this law a bad joke. both bills have rights against retaliatory investigations but the senate will mean to have to wait until there is a further action taken against it. you can't challenge the witchhunt as is the current, so this will be irrelevant for people such as whistleblower who is under cereal investigations

for 30 years, never charged with anything, never disciplinary action but as soon as one was close to the next one would be open. they are always hanging over his head, paralyzing his credibility. bo of the bills will provide protection for it via and intelligence workers and as mike has pointed out however the due process rights are standard in the house and just a very modest advance in the senate bill. finally, one of the issues that i think may be equally significant to everything else in the legislation, the house bill gives best practice, free speech rights to all government contractors. all those who are paid by the taxpayer.

the senate will doesn't have anything for government contractors. that is under the territory of a challenge we have, not just to get this bill passed that to get a bill that is a free speech law, not a c+ or b- free speech rerm. that is sort of an overview of the legislation we are fighting for. mike if you want to come off, it is time to turn the floor over to you folks. we have got about 10 minutes for any questions that people have about this. if we have been unusually self-sufficient, then we will just let you go want to the next portion of the program. if not, we are glad to take your questions now individually as long as anyone has them. as a final announcement while we are all together, i want to

introduce and recognize the work of a researcher in our community, who has uncovered the dark side of the merit systems protection law under the freedom of information act. she putting some sunlight on the hopeless track record of people who seek justice at that board. some of you might want to talk to charlotte here and get access to information. if she is here, could you stand up? i am sure we will be seeing over the course of the day. that is a name for you to be following in our community and research for you to be getting. the second is to let everyone know that another member oour community has started a whistleblower archives roject, to have a library of the living history in our community. and for anyone who is interested

in participating in that project, see me also and we will get you in touch with don. that is it from our and. any questions from folks about the legislation or the program? yes, maam. i think there is a mic here. >> why is the senate taking those positions? if they were here right now what would they say is the reason-- and then in general what has the position been all along not to pass the whistleblower protections? >> thank you. the question is, with why is the senate having so hard a time passing-- been in the house? and, just for reaching the

cameras of people want to use the microphone it would be helpful. we don't thi it is on the part of senate sponsors of the legislation theyre probably as frustrated as we are. the senate is the procedural gauntlet on probably every issue that has been facing our society and we have seen it in the newspapers on financial reform. it is much more difficult to get anything done because of the power of an individual senator to block any progress on a bill. if they put a hault on legislation, it is the same procedure as overcoming a filibuster. you have to get 60 votes to overcome that and perceive. the senate intelligence committee minority staff has been very, very wary of anything

which will increase the rights of intelligence or fbi whistleblowers. we think that they are wrong, but they have a very deep believe that any stronger rights for those employees could threaten national security. they are sincere about it, that is the way they feel and they have the power to enact it. a major goal for this conference is to get a fire under senate leaders so that they will fight this. the second answer to your question, why isn't this happening, is that our champions have not been willing to wool up their sleeves, take off their gloves and fight for this free speech law. they a very frustrated. they are upset. they need to go and demand senate leadership, get floor

time to overcome that and let the legislative process proceed. one of our goals is for all of you, when you are making your voices heard tomorrow, to ask your senator and those who you are talking to to let senator reid no that this is a bill that needs to get done. and if it takes more time to get it done,hen--. yes, sir. >> the question that i have is one of culture. we have seen ith the passage of sarbanes-oxley, we have seen with even the financial oversight that some of our federal institutions supposedly had over wall street, there were stillmeltdown. congress can pass all the laws

that it would like to, and this sounds like an outstanding law, but what god should be given by federal agencies such as opm and it would be to take this law and to begin changing culture at agencies so we don't even have to think about seeking an attorney? >> that is the greatest challenge. maybe this is a good one for mike to answer because he comes from an instution, the fbi where the culture of secrecy is most deeply ingrained. >> you know what is going to require leadership. we wouldn't need this law if the agencies acted in good faith. just as you said, we would need protection and that is part of the problem with the fbi's internal system is that it is sort of builds on this idea that internally there will be an incentive for the whistleblower but there isn't. internally, they are subjected

to the same pressures that the agents were subjected to, trying to kp the of ti's broadband fade secrecy intact and particularly in the intelligence community as we are seeing, that is really thstiffest resistance to the bills moving forward is coming from the intelligence community which includes the intelligence communities because of course they benefit from this culture of secrecy too. so it is a huge challenge but getting in place legal protections as the first step to overcoming that, that culture. >> do i asked the question or do you have something to answer on that o? >> bell, i didn't even hear it. we need better organization here. i hear that the russian media is here.

if anyone they'd once know if i speak russian-- come on up to the microphone. we have time for a few more questions. >> just a quick question. will there be any retroactivity to either of those bills for events that occurred prior to its passage? >> the answer to that is no, there will not be. the law will protect you against whistleblowing that occurred before it was enacted, but you have to challenge of personnel actions after the new rights become law. one tactic goes there that we often recommend is to apply for a new position, and maybe even your old job despite the earlier loss of employment, because applicants are covered just as well as incumbents under the

whistleblower protection act. our next question is from a longtime matriarch of our community. >> thank you tom. my question actually, i have two questions of both of them deal with the judiciary. first, you say that the compensatory damages will be-- what will be the cap for that, the current 300,000-dollar cap has been there for what, 20 years? i was wondering if it would still be 300,000 for compensatory damages. the second question has to do with the practice of the judiciary to issue summary judgments that gives employment cases, the fact that most of the time notwithstanding the evidence, people who are in the employment arena have less than a 3% chance to even get to court because of the practice of summary judgment and will the law address that? >> to start with the first issue, there are caps on the

compensatory damages i believe at this point, and in summary judgment, we think that they are really unprecedented favorable burdens of proof have to get past summary judgment in court, but your questio is, a good cue to a position hidden in the senate legistion which for the first time would give the merit systems protection board the authority to block you from having an administrative hearing on grounds of summary judgment. the one saving grace of the ms vb has always been you at least have a guarantee day an administrative court to get a guaranteed hearing and something that was slipped in at the last minute in the backrooms, that the longer is in the case and it is something we need to be fighting to challenge. .. july 25th so it is a serious

issue for all affiliate's and the office of the account billing. we hope that we are going to have the strength of te whistle-blower protection act to send a message from congress we do want to protect federal workers. again, thank you for the opportunity and i don't know if

mike has any comments, were you, tom, why there has not been an appointment of special counsel. >> 11:00 the web shop. we are going to take two more questions and stay within about five minutes would be prompt for me and then we will go to that. >> with regard the bill also provides protection for security clrance eligibility. as you know the department of justice takes the view the eligibility can be revoked and it's treateds if it were a security clearance to people who don't have security clearance. >> the question is about

eligibility which is a drastic expansion of the due process for civil ervice rights. the obama administration is making a huge step in the right direction on that which expanded to the security clearance at the poll. we are giving advice f how to handle this properly and we want this in the final legislation >> i wanted first to congratute you and your staff. don has been calling me like three or four times so he mus be stuck in traffic. i'm also working with him on the archive project. it's a terrific project i don't want to take up tim, but if you

need it to refer anyone i would be happyto. >> if you want our story to be part of the community history. thank you very much for the openg part of it. it's time to start planning and networking and strategizing we will see if you back here at 12: 30 for the corporate whistle-blower webshop. [applause] >> and governor jindal was joined by cabinet officials and a bipartisan group of u.s. senators today to discuss the gulf of mexico oil spill. that news conference from southern louisiana is next on c-span. after that, we will hear from third thad allen who is

directing the government's operation toss contain the spill. later, marks from lawrence summers, who heads the white house national economic council. on tomorrow morning's "washington journal," a conversation on national security with a texas congressman. after that, a look at how the curent economic situation is affecting school budgets. and later, maryland center ben cardin will talk about the government's response to the gulf oil spill. "washington journal," each morning at 7:00 eastern. louisiana government bobby jindal accused the federal government of moving too slowly to approve a plan aimed at preventing more oil from hitting the shores of louisiana. he joined homeland security security janet naacp --

napolitano and others at this conference. >> good morning, i am janet napolitano, the secretary of homeland security. i am here with six members of the united states senate, my fellow secretary, secretary ken salazar. we came to fly over the site of the spill. we came to see for ourselves what bp has done and not done. >> it is still not solved. now there are things happening and some forward motion in the sense of solving the spill. but in the meantime, we are fighting this oil on the sea.

the goal is to either disperse it, to boom it, to burnett it, to keep it from reaching land fall, to do everything possible that needs to be done to ensure that bp protects this valuable area. if it should happen to reach landfaul, be it beach or marsh, to have the where with all to make sure it is cleaned up. it will not be over until this is cleaned up and the claims are paid. this is the largest incident response to an oil spill in the history of the united states. we have over 22,000 personnel working this spill. literally hundreds of thousands of feet of boom have been laid. there are over a thousand vessels that are on the water to skim, to lay boom, to pick up oil, to do what needs to be done to try to keep the ocean

as free as possible from the oil. in addition, we have formed an independent estimates group with the best scientists available wittin the federal government, with pierre -- pier review by others to estimate how much oil bp has spilled into the gulf of mexico out of the deep horizon spill. that work is ongoing. we continue to hold bp responsible as the responsible party, but we are on them, watching them. we know the value of these lands, of these parishes. we know, for example, grand itle, which has a population living on it. we are heartsick that grand

isle it affected. we are going to make sure that the claims are paid, the oil well is sealed and this area comes back. it has been a very productive session for all of us today. we are glad that we came. for some of us, we have been down -- this is my fourth time down to the area of the spill. secretary salazar has been here repeatedly as well. we are going to stay on this and stay on bp until this gets done and it gets done the right way. with that, let me turn it over to bobby engine dall -- jindal, the governor of louisiana. he has a few words, and he will be followed by the secretary of the interior, ken salazar. >> i want to thank our secretaries and the senators for coming to louisiana again. we had some good, direct and frank talks. offer the past weeks i have visited each of the different parishes and cities and efficiency. we need to protect our coast.

unfortunately, our visits have now also included on the ground assessments of the damage caused by this oil spoil. for anyone who has seen the damage or seen the impact of this oil first hand, you know what we have been saying is true. this oil threatens not only threatest our coast and wes lands, it fundamentally threatens our way of life in louisiana. i went out on a boat yesterday, and we saw islands covered in oil where our brown pelicans nest. the brown pelican is obviously our state bird. it was only several months ago removed from the endangered speak cease list. the oil may kill off mush of the marshaland. a few days ago we took a boat

out and saw thick black and brown oil covering much of the marsha -- marsh. we need more boom, skimmers and jack-up barges that are in short sly. every day this oil sits and waits for clean up is one more day our marsh dice. boom and workers sat for days waiting for orders to be dan: ed. yesterday we met again with coastal parrish leaders just like we did when we formed our own plans. we have to take matters into our own hands if we are going to win this fight to protect our coast. we discussed strategies to fill the void. let's be clear. our goal is not just to clean up this oil once it hits our marshes. our top goal must be to keep this oil out of our wetlands, out of our marshes and this

fragile ecosystem. it would be consult to clean up. that means we, the state, we have to do everything we can to stop this oil before it cox into our marsh. we have initiated a number of strategies including tiger dams, baskets, sandbag drops, fresh water diversions, and our dredging plan. i had the chance to talk to the secretary and the president about that yet again today. working with parrish leaders, we came up with new additional strategies for response efforts. we developed a strategy to have better situational awareness of the oil's movement on our coast and waters. wildlife and fisheries have divided the coast into sections, and they will be patrolling the sections continuously. their efforts will be supported by the national guard and parrish officials. well communicate our findings to bp and the government on a daily basis.

we will also report these findings publicly so the media and public can be held updated and make sure bp is held accountable. we have asked the ghost card to focus efforts to have guerrier command and control. we ask for the coast guard to forward dan: troops so they can work closely with officials and see the impact on the problem so they can respond quickly. we need decision-makers from the cost guard on the ground. we have been frustrated from responses that are too late. we don't need to wait 24 or 46 hours. bp is the responsible party, but we need the federal government to make sure they are held accountable and responsible. our responses are going to determine the future of our state.

we have identified equipment and personnel available from parishes that will help us take our own proactive measures to keep oil out of our marshes. we plan to use the national guard to close gaps. we have identified 40 cuts and prioritized. we are going to work to expedite fill-in efforts with the state and parishes. the national guard has asked for additional helicopters from other states. on may 2 we requested a large amount of resources our parishes would need under a worst case response to this oil spill. the next day we announced detailed plans. we needed five million feet of hard boom and five jack up barges. we have received a told of 815,000 feet of hard boom, not

even a million feet. 135,000 3 -- 13,30 sits and ways to be deployed. in the last 24 hours we have received only 5,000 feet of hard boom. we need more materials. i will close by saying we continue to wait a decision on our dredging sand boom plan. we have made the modifications suggested by the day. we have answered every question the same day. we have shown them questions of the boom holding the oil back. we know this strategy works. that is why we have taken matters into our other owned hands yet while we wait for approval for the larger dredging plate. just under 70 miles of our coast has been hit by oil. that is more than the sea shoreline of maryland and delaware confined combined. we only have two options in

front of us. we can either fight this oil 15-20 miles away on barrier islands where it will do much less damage to our ecosystem. every day we don't fight it on a barrier oakland. 30% of the nation's oil and gas comes off this coast. 30% of the nation's fisheries. what is at stake here is our way of life. this is is not about keeping oil off a rocky land or beach. this is a way of life for our people and state. we need to get this plan approved as quickly as possible. another day this is not approved is another day the choice is made for us, and we forced to fight it further and further inland. as governor of louisiana, i would rather fight this oil on a barrier island than to fight

it inside our coast. thank you very much. >> from day one, president obama has made it very clear that the united states of america will not rest. we will not rest for one minute until this problem gets resolved. that is why secretary that pal tauno is here. i have been here four times to louisiana, and we will not rest until this job gets done. it is always important to know that with us today is the leadership of the united states senate. we think about the assistant majority leader, dick durbin is here because the eyes of the united states state are on louisiana and what is happening here on the gulf coast today. i want to make it very clear. under the law, bp is the responsible party. bp is charged with capping their leaking oil way and paying for the response and for the recovery without

limitation. they will be held accountable. we will keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done. as i said yesterday, we will make sure that all of their responsibilities are fulfilled to the people of the gulf coast and to the united states government. when the admiral as commander of this situation is not satisfied with the actions of bp, he will call bp and push them to take every appropriate step. he will order them to take the appropriate steps. i also have made it clear that we are not standing on the sidelines and letting bp do a bp wants to do. the federal government has mounted the largest response to fight this oil in all of the history of this country. we have deployed more than a thousand vessels. 20,000 plus people are out there working day and night. we have burned oil off the surface. we have skimmed it, dispersed

it on the surface and undersea. we have deployed miles and miles of boom and are working to clean up the shorelines. we are working to get independent numbers from the best scientists in the world that will tell the united states how much of this bp oil has already spilled out into the gulf of mexico. the administration has done everything we can possible to make sure that we push bp to stop the spill and to contain the impact. we have always been very clear that there are areas where bp and the private sector are the ones who must continue to lead the efforts with government oversight such as the deployment of private sector technology 5,000 feet below the surface to kill the well. bp with the help of scientists are the ones who must get that problem solved, and we have the oversight to make author shah

is done. the fact of the matter is had is a bp mess. it is a horrible mess. it is a massive environmental mess. the accountability here will hold them accountable civilly and in whatever way is necessary, and we will not rest until the job is done. that is why we are spending the amount of time that we are spending on this matter. we are resolute and confident as we move forward that better days are ahead. but in the meantime as we go through this very, very difficult time period, our job collectively under the president's direction is to not rest a single day, but to keep pushing with everything that we have to make sure that the very best is done under these very difficult circumstances. with that it is my honor to introduce the assistant majority leader, united states senator dick durbin from illinois. >> thank you, secretary

salazar. i want to thank secretary napolitanoo as well. thank you for our other senators who are hosting us here. we put this trip together on short notice. i contacted my colleagues last last week and said we would like to come and see what is going on first hand in the gulf of mexico. the turn out was amazing. we ended up not only with those you see from the state of louisiana, but in addition we have senator jeff bingaman, who is the chairman of the energy committee, senator lazy mccows can i from alaska, and senator white house of rhode island. the reason we came here is to see first hand what has happened. after seeing it and listening in that hall to the men and women whose lives have been affected, that i have come away with a new feeling about bp.

bp in my mind no longer stands for british terrell yum. it stands for beyond patience. people have been waiting for 34 days for british petroleum to cap this well and stop this damage that is happening across the gulf of mexico. there are options and alternatives we have heard, but what we have heard from this administration is that telling bp excuses don't count. stop the damage. when i listen to the oystermen, fishermen. some of them were emotional. they were talking about their ways of lives, their families, businesses they have had for generations that are at stake here and now. now i've seep something like this before. 21 years ago i went up to see the exxon valdez spill. those scenes were

heartbreaking. that changed the way that that sound works today. she can tell you, it is different. and the people who live there face a different life because of it. that is what is wrong with this situation. we never should have been where we are today, and now this administration will continue to put the pressure on bp to do what's right, to clean up this mess and pay for every dollar of it. not the taxpayers of america, but british petroleum. they are the ones who have to foot the ball for their mistake, their accident and the damage they have caused. it is moya -- my honor to introduce senator from louisiana, mary landrieu. >> senator durbin is going to be a strong a.l. lie as we fight for just -- justice and fairness. secretary salazar has been an extraordinary leader, and secretary nepal taun --

napolitano. they are putting forth all the assets of the federal government to tackle this problem. secretary salazar recognizes, as he said, that bp is responsible. but i recognize that the federal government isn't in charge of this situation, and he is pressing bp at every level with every scientist at his disposal and every engineer available to him and to the secretary to get this well shut at the earliest possible convenience or the earliest possible date. and they are doing that. i hope it could be done today. if not, in the next few days. secondly, we need all to do a better job of processing these claims. there were emotional pleas here.

i have heard them before. i have been on the phone with hundreds of louisiana annals and people from around the gulf coast. if you made $50,000 last year, and you can't work this year, bp is going to write you a check for $50,000. if your business made $1 million last year, and you can't make that $1 million this year, bp is going to make your business whole. there is no question in my mind or the minds of these senators or leaders up here who will pay this bill to individuals, to businesses, to parishes, to the state and to the federal government resources that have been spent to date. so i wanted to just clear that up, because there is still some uncertainty. we are working the details of that out, but those bills will be paid in full. and finally, i just want to say that i could not expect more from secretary salazar, who is running this department, to

have a balance of prosecuting, and that is a good word, prosecuting this incident, but preparing the right way for the future for our state, for the gulf coast and for the nation that needs to mine these resources safely. so as we clean up this mess and handle it before us, he also has his eye on the future and how we manage the fishery industry, the oil and gas industries and all the industries that call this working coast home in a way that protects us and the nation. i thank him for that balance and thank secretary napolitano for her leadership, too and call on senator vitter from louisiana. >> thank you very much, mary. i want to thank the governor for his great leadership. i want to thank the two cabinet secretaries and our senate colleagues for beale here. we very much appreciate it. i agree with all of the statements that have been made about bp, but i've spent my

time today with these federal government officials focusing on what i think millions of louisiana people feel and know is the greatest inadequacy of the federal response, and that is our inability so far to get a timely positive response to this crucial emergency dredging barrier island plan. that has been going on andling wishing, unfortunately, for more than two weeks. baug -- and languishing for two weeks. because of that i wrote president obama a clear and respectful letter. we said mr. president, we appreciated you coming to louisiana and the clear commitment you made to act in a timely manner and do whatever it takes. but that commitment is now being broken because we cannot get, so far, a timely clear answer from the corpas of engineers and others on this

emergency barrier island dredging plan. we need more boom deployment, but we need that land boom immediately to block oil from our marsh. i am asking the president respectfully again. we need that immediate positive answer. i will be following up again with admiral allen today, again with the leadership of the corps and the state until we get that positive response, thank you. >> i am per -- per saided that this is the nation's problem, not just louisiana's problem. the nation is pulling together

to solve it. i am confident has the solving of this problem as his top priority. he has delegated these two senths to get that job done, and they are working night and day to get it done. we are anxious to help in the u.s. senate. i'm glad to be here to learn about it and continue with the effort to come to the aid of the gulf region and of louisiana. thank you. >> senator murkowski. >> we had an opportunity to fly over the spill area before we came here. i looked down at the ocean with great sadness, because your ocean, as warm and lovely as it is, looks just like my ocean up north, except my ocean is a little bit colder. but we experienced a similar tragedy just a little over 20 years ago, and it is a devastation that lives with you

forever. and so to listen this afternoon to your fishermen, to your shrimpers, to your charter boatmen, to your oystermen, and to hear their fears and concerns, unfortunately it is like deja vu all over again for those of us from alaska. if there's one thing that we learned from the tragedy of the exxon valdez, it is not to repeat the mistakes from history. it is not to treat the playoffs in that case, the fishermen and their families, who waited decades for compensation from exxon. we want to work together to make sure that this claims process works fairly and efficiently and in a manner as is promised. we need to make sure that those who are accountability, bp, are held accountable to the fullest extent. but it is going to take a

commitment to make sure that the people of louisiana and the fishermen and their families are not treated in a similar manner as we saw played out some 20 years ago. so know that we are committed to working with you so that the mistakes that were made in alaska are not repeated here in the gulf coast. >> thank you. we are here to represent the senate, particularly the energy committee and the environment committee, which will have a lot to do with overseeing this and making sure that the restoration continues effectively and that an incident like this does not happen again. we are here from a variety of states, including the largest coastal state in america and the smallest coastal state in america, in solidarity with the coastal economy and way of life

of this part of louisiana and the gulf. many of us are here because we know first hand what a relentless and formidable advocate for louisiana mary landrieu is in our caucus, and we want to make sure we don't get in trouble with her, because she is a powerful advocate for louisiana. looking forward, we want to make sure that the work continues. i think we have all been impressed by the unprecedented nature of the involvement of the administration in getting this done. more people, more boats, more action than before. but also the continuing need for further action and to bring this home to a point where the people of louisiana can say the water is clear, the leak is capped, and we are made whole. so thank you all very much. >> thank you.

well said, and we are happy to take questions. i just want to reiterate one more time bp is the responsible party. we are going to make sure that bp does what is necessary. if we need to put more supervisors from the coast guard in the field to get it done, we have already said yes, we are going to do that. the boom is an issue. we are dealing with that. senator vitter mentioned the issue about a special kind of dredging and boom at the barrier islands, as admiral allen, who is the commander, has already said, that is on an expedited review process. looking at that, looking at whether there are some options that would be as effective or even more effective and less environmentally sensitive. but hopefully have some response, direct response, on that within the next few days. we move forward, and we all

understand, and have from the first day, the urgency, the uniqueness of this situation, and the importance of holding bp responsible. let's take a few questions. do you want to lead that? >> you express some optimism about the procedure. how confident are you that it can work? >> secretary salazar was in houston yesterday. i will let him answer. let me just say this. we hope it works, but we don't want to hope unrealistically. our work in terms of preparation, clean up, booming, skim can't, manpower continues unabated until they get this well capped. if it happens this week, all the better. if not, we keep moving with the same or greater levels of intensity. ken was there. >> we are always hopeful that

this thing is going to get stopped because until you stop the source of the pollution, disdifficult to contain the problem. what the president has dredgetted is that the highest level of the federal government -- has directed is that the highest level of the federal government be involved in the oversight. we are joined in houston by the directors and other personnel of all the of the federal laboratories in the u.s. geology -- geological survey to stop the pollution from pouring into the guff. >> secretary napolitano what, do you say to people of this state and the other three states. they hear you say the pressure is on bp, but the bottom line is still the bottom line. the governor behind you is show showing you where oil is

washing up on the beach. people don't see light at the end of the tunnel. what would you say to those people? >> i would say thirty-some-odd days in. i think frustration, anger, disappointment, i understand all of those things. but those feelings will need to be channeled in a way that recognizes that we are doing everything and will do everything we need to do to get bp to stop this leak, to clean this ocean and to pay these claims. [inaudible question] >> we can say that bp is going to apply another method this week. they have some other things they are looking at behind that, and the best engineers in the world are overseeing that. we can say that the coast guard is on bp. there are more than a thousand vessels on the sea right now dealing with this spill. we can say that over a million

feet of boom have been deployed to the gulf coast and more is on its way. we can say that we are talking directly with governors, with parrish presidents and others who say look we know we have things in the 17 stages areas. let's make sure we get the stuff where it needs to be where it can serve its highest and best use. we are working the problem. >> one situation is with the issuance of permits. what is the situation allowing for additional permits for drilling in the gulf. bp has said it wants to continue using something that the e.p.a. doesn't want to t to use. >> the president has been clear. we have a plan in place. until we make another announcement that the president will make in the future, we are bringing things to a halt until

we can learn some of the lessons put in, safety measures in place and decide how we are going to move forward. this president is thoughtful and wants to make sure we are getting it right, and we are getting it right. the lessons from this will be learned. with respect to the dispersant issue i will say the whole team heard from the e.p.a. administrator, lisa jackson, who has been involved in the use of dispersants. it is a tipping dialogue, and the choice of using them is it is better to use the zper ants than to have the oil make landfall. >> to what extent is the federal government taking ownership of solving the problem? >> are you talking about more

in particular to the barrier islands? >> solve the problem. >> let me talk about the barrier island and talk about the overall role of the federal government. we need multiple lines of defense. the best example i can give you is it took the louisiana national guard four days to fill in a 785-foot game on emer's island. they used black hawk helicopters and graders. they are filling in a total of five gaps around there. and you can see the products of their work. they are not completely done. we will provide you with the picture. if you go by air or ground, you can see where they have filled in that cut. you have the land bridge, hard boom, absorb ant booms, behind that the hard boom and wetlands. you had the oil sat rice the

booms and be stopped by the land bridge. all that is left beyond that land bridge is open wetlands. that is the situation along louisiana's coast. i will focus your attention on three areas. you look at bay sound, close to grand isle, and pelican bay. when you look, you will see the fragments of island that used to ring louisiana's coast. it would be much better for us to restore those island and fight this oakland from those -- for this oil from those islands. we have been asking the u.s. army corps of engineers to issue a permit. they have asked a set of questions. we have moderate fight the site of the source for the sand. we are asking for an emergency permit because the environmental damage that is being done by not building

those sand booms is happening today. it is in south pass, north pass, they are reporting the oil in the bay. so there is damage by not acting. so on the boom, on the sand boom operations, we are doing everything we can as a state. in the meantime we are using tiger dams, baskets, air drops. we are doing everything we can to identify the 40 games we have identified. we can fill in 10 to 300-foot gaps. for larger gaps, we need the barges. we need that approval as quickly as possible. we have preprepositioned dredges. we have meters to test the sapped 0 so we can move as quickly as possible. from the day we get approval of the permit. you you would see things being built. we are proposing to start in the most sensitive questions.

we had a frank conversation with secretary napolitano and the president. we pointed out to things though make this response more robust. we want to see more coast guard officials with decision-making authority deployed in these bay areas so that requests don't have to go to bp subcontractors, or different areas to be approved. we don't have 24-48 hours. this oil is moving too quickly. the second request we made was for additional boom and skimmers. if you look at one a parrish on friday, we saw the oil coming in the bay while hard booms are sitting in the dock and skimmers on trailers. on saturday in grand isle, the mayor come deared resources that weren't being used. yesterday we went to cat island where the pelicans were being

oiled. the president of the parish asked for booms, and he was denied. he put out his own, but it wasn't enough. we need that permit approved, we need additional resources. i am glad the secretary has agreed to deploy additional coast guard officers with decision-making authority. we don't have to wait for decisions by bp subcontractors. >> last question right there. >> a two-part question. what does it say about the federal response to this oil leak that you have the governor of louisiana now saying that it will take local situation awareness, state situational awareness to identify those pockets of oil that are coming ashore because it is obviously not being done. secondly, there were reports this weekend that the coast guard did not do its normally overflights because of a problem with its fuel budget. >> second napolitano will answer your question in more

detail. it was when secretary napolitano were here and i was here that we basically got the national guard unleashed to do what the national guard is doing, not only here but in other states. whenever any matter has been raised to our level, they have been there. it is not just the national guard that is out there. i have visited national wildlife refuges and other places where i have seen wildlife services and others out there doing everything they can. this is a massive effort, and no resource is being spared. secretary napolitano will ask the specific questions on the coast guard. >> the answer is no, there has been no fuel budget issue for the coast guard. overflights were not canceled because of a fuel budget. one thing i would emphasize to the people of louisiana and anybody impacted by the spill as to what is happening on the ocean here and land is that

every federal resource that can be deployed is being deployed. we mentioned the national guard. when i was here the first friday after the skill, the governor asked for title 32 authority for the national guard. what does that mean? the federal government is paying for that guard to be out there. as any governor will tell you, and i am a former governor, that is a great resource to have and that is how the national guard is being deployed. over 17,000 have been approved for the gulf of mexico region alone. as the oil moves, and i think this is important. which is to say over the 30 days plus of this spill, the oil hasn't been static, and the issue has not been static. the oil hasn't just been one big pond of oil moving in one direction. it has broken into pieces and it has gone to different places. wind, current all affect where the oil goes. so the fight has been to get bp to seal this well. the fight has been to be able,

weather permitting to burn, skim and disperse as much oil as possible. then boom is deployed and put in the ocean as the oil begins to move to a particular landfall so that all parts of the coast can be taken into account by the national incident commander. that is a commandant of the coast guard, who was one of the lead responders to katrina. now, with respect to louisiana, the governor and i have agreed that what we need here -- >> the wind and current is moving the oil in this direction. we want to make sure that ghost guard is on the ground making sure that bp and its subcontractors and contractors are doing what they need to do as quickly as possible. that is and will happen. with respect to the overflight issue as i began my answer

with, i have admiral landry. she is shaking her head no. there is no fuel budget issue. there will be no fuel budget issue. the only issue is going to making sure that british petroleum pays the taxpayers of the united states back for what we are now having to expend. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> now from the white house, a briefly with the coast guard commandant on the government's response to the gulf coast oil spill. this briefing is just over an hour. >> he would normally be in louisiana were it not for today. his vice commandant is retiring. tomorrow he is leaving the command of the coast guard. but the president and the secretary of homeland security have asked him to delay his retirement and continue to serve as the national incident commander for the spill in the gulf. let me turn this over to

admiral allen. >> thank you for the opportunity to talk with you here today. i thought i might start out by giving you background on the command and control system on how oil spills work. let me premise, i would much rather be down in louisiana and the gulf of mexico dealing with this problem down there because i know it is of concern to everybody. as somebody who has worked on water all of his life, nothing is more troubling than oil on the water. >> the oil pollution act of 1990 mandated a par time by which the party of the spill will be held accountable. it created a fund to fund operations. it is premised on the country being divided up into areas for the purpose of developing contingency plans. those are the coast guard

commanders responsible for that area. they get together with the state and local shareholders, and they develop plans to have for the area. there is one for every single part of the coast of the united states. when they have to activate a response, the commander who is designated the on scene coordinator cord with the state and local government and directs the responsible people. if the spill was inlapped, the e.p.a. would be the coordinator. this framework is called the national contingency plan, and it is how we have prosecuted oil spilts since the accident of 1990. that is how we have been prosecuting this case since the explosion of this oil rig. we are staging equipment that was against the scenario, we

would have a worst case spill. we started actually mobilizing equipment, salvaged and everything right after the event happened on the 21st of april. the command and control structure down there is the commanding officer of the coast guard in new orleans. we have elevated that to mary lapped rue. we have a single command in the gulf. the commander is mary landry. she is supervising subsections, one is in new orleans, and mobile covering mississippi, alabama and the western part of florida. there is another command some st. petersburg and around key west. these all report to the area command in louisiana. at a hire level we have what we

call a regional response team. those are federal place that have responsibilities for spills response. it will be department of interior, e.p.a., coast guard and inch were oa. and they look at resource requirements. if you had a decision on where to put boom between mississippi, alabama and louisiana. they would coordinate it. if something gets large enough where it is a national issue, it would come up to the national response team, and the national response team is the same players except in washington and the inner agency. offense, the coast guard is on the nearble team. we co-chair it with e.p.a. noa, commerce, d.o.i. and so forth. so there is a way to bring up resource or policy issues that cannot be resolved at the lowest level and work up the chain. there is an are -- is also an allowance that if it becomes

complicated, and it is complicated in this case, that the president has the option of declaring something called a spill of national significance. this is contained in the national contingency plan and they have the option to designate a national incident commander, and the president designated me. this is not a policy. this is contained in the code of federal regulations. when you hear us talk about responsible party or the federal on scene coordinator. we are actually talking about legal definitions that are derived in the national oil pollution act of 1990. there are clear definitions. we would be glad to go through and answer questions related to the pill response, especially as it relates to bp's role as responsible party. would you like me to add anything else? >> that is a good intro. >> thank you for being here,

admiral. let me start on that point about who is in charge and the second salazar said yesterday, if we find bp is not doing what they are supposed to be doing, we will push them out of the way appropriately. what more could be done? >> i would say that is more of a metaphor. we need to make sure they execute their responsibility as responsible party. what we do is if something -- if bp is applying resources and there is an operation being conducted, and we want them to do it another way, we issue an adjustment and they comply. they are the responsible party, but we have the authority to direct. >> so their role is still to be in charge of this operation, and the federal government's role is to be in charge of oversight, and that is not going to change? >> i differentiate in charge. they are responsible for the clean up. how that is affected, we are

accountable from the federal government's side to make sure they do it. the law requires them to play a certain role, pay for it and so forth. particularly with trying to deal with a leak 5,000 feet down, bp or the private sector are the only ones that have the means to deal with that. there has to be a way where private industry can address the problem with proper oversight. >> to this point though, whether the government can do more, can it push bp out of the way if it feels like that company is not doing the job? what is your response to that? >> well, to push bp out of the way would raise the question, replace them with what? >> do you think this government right now is doing the best it can? >> i have been involved with the technical decisions made with respect to the leak, and they are pressing ahead. they are exhausting every technical means possible to

deal with that leak. >> is there a solution? >> there are a number of solutions, and they are doing them in sequence based on risk. the ultimate solution would be to drill a relief well to take the pressure on and cap it. that would be sometime in august. we don't want to wait that long. the top kill shot is scheduled for wednesday to forth mud into the blow out. there is a series of events. they aring trying the least risky ones and moving on down. we have to try every men's we can to stop this leak. >> admiral you said before, and you mentioned now mr. hayward, that you trust him. other administration officials don't seem to share that trust. is there a difference between your view and others in the administration about bp and its crep?

>> there may be differences in how we characterize our interaction with them. this problem is going to be solved by the private sector working with the federal government. if you don't have the ability to call and speak frankly, you can characterize that as trust, being responsible or whatever you want, and that has to be present for this to be successful. it is my responsibility to create those relationships and make sure they are maintained. i judge personally my communications with anyone, he says he understands it and follows up. >> in response to ben's question, if bp were to stand out of the way, it raises the question of who would step in. another one from bp said it would be within the government's area to step in if it wanted to. what does that mean in could the government step in? does it have the capacity to do so? >> i'm not sure what that means. to work down there now, you need remotely operated

vehicles. you need equipment and speaker tees that is not generally with the federal government in terms of come teans or capacity. i am sure there is a way to get it, but relationship with bp is the way to move forward. >> maybe this is a question for someone else. but if the e.p.a. says to bp we don't want you using this dispercent ant, we think it is too toxic, and bp says we don't care, we are going to do what we want to do anyway, then what avenue does the federal government have to challenge that? >> if you want to do the first part i will do the second. >> you go ahead. >> if we want bp to do something, even if it appears they do not want to do it, they are issued an order that has the effect of law. >> but they are not doing it, right? >> there is a series of meaning that started last night. lisa jackson is in the area,

and there will be a press conference later today around 4:30 or 4:45 gulf of mexico time. they are trying to under if there are alternatives available, how rapidly they can be made available. there are a number of issues that have to be work through. but there is a way to stop them if that is where this discussion ends. >> the governor of louisiana, bobbie jindal said on may 2 he requested three million feet of and sash ant -- absorb ant boom and others. and he says so far he has only gotten 800,000 feet. he also says they are still waiting to hear about their requests. he seems frustrated that the federal government seems not to