went there. i think we owe these people an apology. i believe we need to help them with a problem. he referred to basically a mosquito repellent, and i personally have never used. i have had no medical problems. on the case of agent orange, i have seen people literally soaked in it. that comment. you said we owe them an apology. the good big is our group said we're not talking about -- teh good thing is our group said we're not talking about pointing fingers. we said let's do what is in our best interests and values. we do not need to fight the

vietnam war over again. we can now say we look to the future and have good relationships with a wonderful citizens jury of vietnam that has become great trading partners and allies. we have to realize how seriously they say it. you said the notion that there is still dioxin there. one point i would like to make disappears. it does not degrade. it is not one of those chemicals that if you just wait a year or so it will dissolve and go away. we need to continue as part of the plan. this is a very detailed plan of step-by-step three phases, clean up, testing, how you would test the soil, how you would test the fichicken to see how you get rid of the dioxin.

host: next phone call is of knoxville, tennessee. the republican line. caller: hello. i wanted to tell mr. isaacson how much i enjoyed when c-span plays that aspen institute programs. i have something very serious that i think it is very important. they have lieutenant general honory during petrina. during this interview he senaid the president should declare he said to take every idea, pul.

throw everything we have at it. i was hoping that the president would say something last night. i was very disappointed. host: you have an interesting perspective. you are from new orleans. he served as vice chair of the louisiana recovery board. go ahead and give us your thoughts. guest: i agree. we were slow off the mark at throwing every resource to contain the oil spill. i think other then thethe obvious things, there are big issues we should be facing. one is how do we restore our coastal areas, coastal wetlands and barrier islands. if you have restoreddwetlands and good barrier islands, it

helps you when a tropical storm comes. these are the things that are affected by the oil spill. i grew up in louisiana, and people say you do not need the royalties from offshore oil. whereas if you to oil drilling onshore, the states get the royalty. it does affect us in louisiana, mississippi, alabama, texas whether it is being drilled offshore. we have to find a way to use the oil revenue to restore the wetlands and coastal land. not too bahard to do. let the silt from the river replenished. rebuild the barrier islands. we have heard the president said that. i am trying to look forward and not point fingers back at bp. asked how we clean up the mess

and make things a little bit better. to me, that would be focused on coastland and wetland restoration. let the corps of engineers rebuild the wetlands, and that will protect us on oil spills, and hurricanes. secondly, i do think this nation has to cut its dependence on fossil fuels connacht's carbon-based fuels. i think there should be a tax on carbon. i think we should put a tax and oil and gas and the burning of coal so that we do a little bit less of it. and just rebate the money to the people so you are not pocketing the money, but say we need to put a tax on carbon so that we move away from oil and coal and other things that

contribute to global warning -- warming or contribute to the loss of the wetlands when there is an oil spill. >host: douglas brinkley writes an opinion piece echoing what mr. isaacson has been saying about redoing the army corps of engineers layout for the wetlands and the mississippi river. guest: doug brinkley is great. he is a great scholar. his piece lays it out perfectly. many others have been working on it. let's flesh it out. let the water from the mississippi still go down there. let's do all we can to go down there. people in this town have a lot

more courage and common sense and sometimes given credit for. -- than sometimes given credit for. their cost are external to what the consumer pays. in other words, the cost of oil is a little bit more than we really pay for it. it involves the military endeavors to protect oil to the carbon that gets spewed into the atmosphere to the oil spill. so let's put a tax. make it simple. do not get a huge government program. just put a tax on the use of oil. if we do not want to -- we could use it to reduce the federal deficit or rebate it back to

citizens. abut let's do something sensible and clear but not get too complicated. let's just say we want to reduce the independendependence on the. hos-- il. host: the president announced the secretary of the navy will look at a plan to restore the gulf. you served on the louisiana recovery board. what was that role? how was it different from what the president has set up? guest: this was set up to administer the federal money that was going for hurricane katrina. there is a sense that a federal money is often wasteful and abused. and they tried to put together a panel that had the authority to watch how the money was meant.

that went to louisiana for hurricane katrina of being involved in corruption or fraud or anything else. all that was accounted for. that is sometimes unusual in a government program. we made it pretty clear that you had to prove title, approve the damage, whatever. we may neverde sure no money was wasted. you never read an article about fraud or corruption with the federal money that went down after the floods in new orleans. that is totally different on what the government is being asked to do by the president to

help the coast lines. host: let me go back to the louisiana recovery board because the president also said he will ask bp to set up this account to pay out claims. he said a third party will be managing this type of account. do you think that is a good idea? does the government want you to serve on it? guest: i think they have a good group that is looking at this. i am sure they will find a master. i think ken feinberg did it for the victim's family fund. that is a good way to do it, which is not just have it be helter-skelter who gets the money. having someone really smart managing the money, someone like they did after 9/11 for the victims' families. host: let's go back to phone calls.

caller: this is charles kelley. i would like to thank mr. isaacson for his independence and candid remarks on not trying to point the finger on one toxic chemicals. there was much more than just agent orange spraying. we will never know exactly what caused what and what combination of what. i do not know whether it was hit group that presented that report to congress a couple of months ago. guest: that foundation has been working with us quite a bit. there are lots of good reports on this. caller: there was a report presented to congress not too long ago that pointed out several of the issues that we have been getting congress to cover for the vietnam veterans as well. i appreciate that. it backed up what we have been

saying for 35 years. host: let's go to travis of on the independent line. you are on the air. caller: mr. isaacson, i feel like you are kind of a pork program trying to get the money away to south vietnam. if you want to raise the money on a private issue, that is fine, but asking the government for it, that is another pork -- guest: let me try to explain we think it is both a public and private thing. it was the u.s. military that left agent orange and the dioxin residues. i think the military feels rightly, and show that they care about cleaning it up. they want to have it done as

part of our broader context for everyone. also, a broader context where you do not have to say we are responsible for every birth defect that has happened in vietnam over the past 35 years. that is what this report tries to do, to say of course the military has been great. they understand that there is a role to clean this up. i do not think we're giving away a poor ppogram. i think you make a mess, you tried to work with other people as they clean it up rather than point fingers about it. -- i do not think we're giving away a pork program. $30 million per year is real money, but not undoable. we have seen the ford foundation putting in 13 million already.

all lot of private citizens are helping as well. host: for more information go to aspeninstitute.org. thank you for being here. we're going to take a short break. when we come back, we will open up the phone lines. we will be right back. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> this weekend on "book tv" kai bird.

and on afterwards, vietnam veteran karl marlantes. buying the entire weekend schedule at booktv.org. join us on twitter. host: we are back with open phones this morning. we have 15 minutes. phone number as will be on your screen. above the gulf oil spill. this morning "the daily news"has the breakdown by numbers.

81% is the percentage of americans that bank bp is doing a poor or very poor job of cleaning up this bill. 59% of americans think that bp should pay people hurt by this bill even if they go out of business. 51% oppose it more offshore drilling. 2,000 miles is the estimated number covered by the oil slick. 1.6 billion is the economic activity paris because of the oil spill. caller: thank you for taking my call. my call is on campaign finance. i have been looking at health care costs at 17% of gdp in the

u.s., and in the past eight years health-care profits went up 128%. an identical bottle from canada cost half as much there. and if we had harsh penalties for illegal workers, it was all but stopped illegal immigration. bp put our shores at risk. they dumped cheap oil on the asian market a few years ago to jump the price. host: let's hear from jesse on the indeppndent line. caller: good morning.

and i had a comment. about what mr. isaacson said. we do not need to point the finger, we need to worry about solving the problem. host: nashville, tenn. jeremy on the independent line. caller: obama said he with clean up global warming. why doesn't he allow the dutch to bring down skimmers and the boomers in the maine. this guy is using this catastrophe like rahm emanuel said, never let a good crisis go to waste and the american people along the gulf coasts are suffering from its. barack obama is an idiot. he is incompetent. everyone that is out of work because they voted him into office deserves what they get.

host: this is an article in "the washington post." you can see that a congressman there. according to other newspapers, they are reporting that these lawmakers are saying they did nothing wrong. host: richard on the democratic line. and caller:two things on the oil spill. one is, why don't they get of big enough pipe? the other thing is i think they could use of liquid nitrogen and go down into the hole and freeze it down there and poured concrete on top of it. host: bill from mobile, alabama.

caller: mike, obama speech. like most people, i was pretty disappointed. -- my comment is on obama's speech. every dollar the government gets, they taking from other industries. therefore, it is an insufficient way to create anything new. the one thing he could do, which of course he is not doing, which to be some sort of cap on the amount the trial lawyers will get. if you had $100,000 loss but ppl agrees to pay, your lawyer will get 35,000 or more. the court system will get another 5000. you end up getting 60,000 out of your $100,000 loss. congress can pass a cap on disasters that says that trial

lawyers cannot get more than 20 percent of the first telthousand $10,000 dollars. and that is where they could help us. host: president obama meeting with tony hayward today. he will ask bp to set up a fund immediately to help pay at claims. newspapers are reporting this morning on whether the president has the authority to make bp set this up. caller: good morning. and first of all, when obama stopped the drilling i went to the c-span website, and i came

along a memorandum that he sent on march 31 to ken salazar. it was a withdrawal of leasing for any wheel a oil or dassgas development. but i saw an interview that the president was still talking about more drilling to get the prices down. if he was still calling for more drilling, but knew he had signed an executive order on march 31, two weeks before i, i hope somebody investigate that. it is a little strange that he would keep calling for more drilling and he has already signed an executive order. you can see it on the white house website.

just to let people know the price of gas in cleveland has gone up 22 cents since he stopped drilling. i hate to see by the end of summer what we will be paying. and if they just put more money into natural gas energy -- they have been subsidizing the wind and solar energy for years. host: general petraeus was on capitol hill testifying about the progress made in afghanistan. he is back up there today. on c-span3 we will cover the house senate negotiations on financial regulations, and we will join that in progress. that starts around 11:00. plano, texas. liz on the democrats' line. good morning. and caller: good morning. i was thinking for every person

out there working on a raiig, wouldn't it be nice if they were working on a wind farm? maybe doing work inland of the gulf. getting the science and technology education that provides that technology. we built the transcontinental railroad, why can't we have more efficient magnetically operated infrastructure? all of these things are possible. host: let's hear from gary in eureka, california. caller: just a comment about the miscalculation coming out of the callgulf.

if that was fuel going into your gas tanks, they would know exactly how much it is and how much it costs. it is upsetting they keep adding more and more to the daily amount that is leaking into the floor of the ocean. host: as much as 60,000 oil perils may be slowing. and-- barrels may be flowing. to be on the republican line. -- judy on the republican line. and caller: to clean up oil and use something else besides oil, it would take forever. we still have to keep it in process. and another thing is i with like

to see a list, if at all possible, of what oil actually produces. i know there are lots of things that we need oil for. i would like to see a list of what we need oil for. host: doug on the democratic line. good morning. caller: -- host: 7 on the independent line. what are your thoughts? caller: i am listening to many people blame president obama for the cleanup, but bp is in charge of the cleanup. why is the plane going to the federal government? government? host: there is an article saying

that time is quickly running out for congress to act before the midterm elections. that is a "new york times" editorial this morning. "the washington journal" also weighs in. augusta, georgia. dawn on the republican line. caller: i'd like to think the

president for lying to me about my medicare. i know it is cut 21%. also, i thought it was disrespectful for him to be campaigning for barbara boxer when the people that lost their lives were having their funeral. host: next caller. caller: the gulf area is a good area. we could start thinking about having water turbines and harnessing the power. we could use heat pump technology like other places in the world, and it might make a big difference. host: richard on the independent line. caller: i was calling in regards to agent orange. some of the listeners may like

to know that before the senate recessed for memorial day break there was an emergency spending bill that was passed for $60 billion. in that bill, thanks to general erickson, there was $12.3 billion in mandatory spending to compensate 68,000 vietnam veterans who were exposed to agent orange but were denied compensation. this is the first time that a very large sum of money is being set aside for vietnam veterans in relation to agent orange. that is an article in the congressional quarterly weekly, may 24, 2010. there is an excellent article on an overview of agent