clear, this book is not a defense of ronald reagan pose foreign-policy in general or particularly his domestic policy, about which i would have enormous criticism. even on the foreign-policy front, i spoke about how many people died in the wars in central america, part of the results of america's actions. the reason it is important to write about reagan is the myth of the idea that he won the cold war through military force, that he was someone click on the trigger when it came to deploy u.s. troops and that he bludgeons the soviet union into submission basically through military force is a myth that has cost america's enormous harm in the post cold war era. .

caller: why did the democrats and republicans both agree -- the job benefit thing is down. i think both sides applied

again and they do not do what they are supposed to do. people count on them to do right. i want to know what it will do about the job benefits. host: thank you. guest: it is crazy that republicans are opposing this. as a moral human issue, when unemployment is up 60%, 70%, you will allow people to go without unemployment -- to go up 16%, 70%, the party that once strong families. what do they think will happen when nobody is working and they do not have jobless benefits? secondly, if people do not have money in their pockets, they cannot buy anything.

then factories are not producing anything. then people in factories are not working. this is what you need money injected into the economic system in order to try to prevent stimulus so you can get the private economy working again. republicans are right to be worried about debt in the long term. health care costs, the costs of these wars. but to oppose unemployment benefits is indefensible. host: our last call is from florida. good morning, larry. caller: my question is about the palestinian people. has there been a palestinian state and are the people the offspring from the plo back in the 1950's or 1960 boss? thank you. guest:no, there has not been a

palestinian state. that is not to say there is not something called the palestinian nation. there are a lot of countries that were not historically states that developed a national consciousness and a deep desire for independence. i think that is what you see with the palestinians. there is the belief that ey are their own nation. look at the way they are treated. it becomes clear that they do speak arabic, they are a distinct group from many others in the arab world. that is one of the reasons why palestinians have not been easily assimilated into lebanon. i think that the goal of u.s. policy should be to facilitate that as long as the israel

security can be contained. host: the book again is called "the icarus syndrome: a history of american hubris." peter beinart, thank you for joining us. that is it for "washington journal." we will back tomorrow morning and we hope to see them. -- we hope to see you then. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> a live picture of the oil spill leaking into the gulf of mexico on the 80th day. these pictures provided by bp

and available at our website. we are awaiting the remarks on the latest on the gulf coast oil spill. thad allen will give us an update in just a few moments from alabama. environmental technician terry simms talks but efforts being made to clean up the will. she describes the process and mentions that bp is doing everything they can to clean up the spill.

>> i am from louisiana. i have lived here all my life. i am down here working on the oil spill. i have done environmental work for the last 40 years. i'm down here cleaning up. we do feel like we are making progress. we want to help. we want to clean things up. >> how long have been down here? sixth week working. >> how did you come to this location? >> i traced the oil to the source. i came with my son.

this is the source. this is where it started. offshore. this is where it started. i am working for a company. >> what types of things have you been doing? >> i have been on a beach cleanup. we have boat operations and land operations. i have been on the beach cleanup going into six weeks. >> what do you do on a beach cleanup? >> we shall all -- we shovel all of the tar balls. we beg it out. we dispose of that. -- we bag it up. we hired on to work. anytime you have a disaster like this, you are here for the

duration. you worked 7/12. you hire on for 7/12. beach cleanup, the folks are here. in the state park. i work on some teams. the groups of people i'm working with, they are all wonderful. they are all wonderful. the yell buses, they are taking workers down to different zones, taking workers back over to the island and to the different surrounding areas where we are working. that is what the buses are for.

they are work buses. the come in, a transport us. they take us and drop us off, pick us up. >> what is going on -- there seems to be a pretty robust operation. what happens in the facilities? >> they have everything. they have the chow hall, the tents set up, tools and everything. the set up, the cleanup. it has been a good operation, i think since i have been here. it really has. >> do you think the government and bp are doing enough to clean the oil? >> i think they are doing

everything they can in their power. it is a big disaster. they are doing what they can do. i feel they are. i know people do not believe they are. but it is a process of elimination. you do what you can do. my sons and i came down here in a camper and we had our camper said about at a campground. we are fortunate. we don't have to stay in a tent city which has been set up for the workers. >> we go now to tell about work that alex is talking about the latest in the gulf oil response. this is live coverage of c-span. >> the battle will begin his overall review. i'll turn it over to the admiral.

>> thank you. can you hear me ok? good to go? thank you. it is great to be back here. i want to thank the folks for the good work they are doing. we can talk about skimming operations. there has been an effort to increase our skimming capabilities. the spill has evolved into hundreds of thousands of oil patches that are out there. we need to masked forces and attacked this oil offshore rather than deal with it on the beaches. we have an aggressive program with skimming equipment out there. it is used by vessels of the federal government and by vessels of opportunity, as well. there have been a number of questions about skimmers.

we thought it would be helpful to have a broader discussion on skimming capabilities. i will be available to answer questions. we have expertise from our strike team and they can provide you in depth briefings on different type of skimming apparatus. let me give you an update on what is going on. in the time and the last night come we have recovered nearly 25,000 barrels. it flows off natural gas and oil. i visited the site yesterday. i was with bob dudley who is leading the bp response in the gulf. we spoke about the system that is there and the containment plan and the plan to move

forward. i will speak about the status of the relief wells. the current containment plans for now are centered on the cap that is on the well. it is a loosely fitting cap with a rubber seal around the bottom. the results with oil being released around that seal. we have the capability to hookup a third production platform, the helix producer, that will bring our capability up to between 50,000 53,000 barrels a day. we need to put a flexible hose from the vertical pipe that connects back to the killed line on the well board to the bottom of a billbuoy. we had to stop this a few days

ago because of hurricane alex going through. it appears that today and we will get to finish that cook up and we hope to be producing the helix producer which will optimize the production capabilities on the will board. the three modes of production are the discover enterprise, which produces oil and gas, the q-4000, and now the helix producer, which will produce the oil and transfer it to wait shuttle tanker to be taken to ensure. that will be the maximum production that we can get out of the system with the current containment cap. i was in houston with bp and our technical team. we are looking at options for a

second containment captured bp is in position to move forward when the conditions allowed to put a second containment cap that will allow us to remove that piece of riser pipe and replace that with a pipe that is bolted onto the flange that will give us a sealed. -- that will give us a seal. dell will allow us to increase our production rate to up to 80,000 barrels. this continues to be an estimated flow rate. once we get this well bore sealed, we will have better empirical data by which to refine our flow rate moving forward. the big question is the weather window to achieve the removal of

the current cap and put a new cap on. i will be communicating to bp a request for a timeline in how we can go ahead to do that. we will have a science team meeting in houston tomorrow. i anticipate to move ahead with the second containment capture it would have the proper time lines. that will be an ongoing activity within the next 24 to 48 hours. we'll stay with the 53,000 barrel capacity and move ahead with the new containment cap and we will have a quick disconnect capability in the event of heavy weather. with capacity to the yucatan peninsula, we are in a bit of a

between tropical depressions. so the conditions leading to that decision point will be looked at over the next 24 to 48 hours. the lead drilling rig is now at 17,000 feet. it is within a couple hundred feet of the well bore. we are closing in where we can intercept the well. our target date remains the middle of august. there are a number of uncertainties when we get down there. there are certain things that could move that date of. it will be the middle of august before this well as captain. if something happens, i will

advise you. right now the current estimate is the middle of august. when the relief well is adjacent to the well bore a close enough to make the penetration, it will first penetrate the area outside the well pipe and we will see if there is will there or not. if it does not contain the well, the mud and cement plug will be inserted and we will drill into the inner pipe with mud and cement. these procedures will take us into august. there are things that could happen that could shorten that period end of august is the official estimate. i flew over the area from new orleans this morning. we flew over the entrance to lake pontchartrain and

mississippi sound. the skimming vessels are coming back over the water this morning. there are a significant number of vessels coming out and there are vessels in and around biloxi bay moving towards alabama. in looks like we're getting the skimming equipment back on the water today. the weather is improving. we hope to have a more productive day today. we will try to take advantage of this weather opportunity to fight the oil at sea. now i would be glad to take your questions. [inaudible] i think everyone would agree there are not enough skimming operations.

that is the area we could have the most of fact. the elements that have to come together have been forming up over the last four to six weeks. first of all, the overwhelming response to the solicitation for vessels of opportunity, we're grateful for that. the local water men show up with a commitment to work for their community. they all have the same types of boats. some are very sophisticated fishing vessels communications and electronic devices. everybody showed up with the fight. our question is, how do we make these groups most effective? where do we tell them to go and have the record made how they are doing that?

this has never been done on this scale. " we have done is formed these vessels into task forces that are subdivided down to strike teams with tracking devices so we know where they are at. but we need to have the aerial surveillance to find the oil. you could have oil 100 yards away and not be able to see it. several weeks ago, we created a management system for the entire gulf where there is a requirement for air surveillance to be coordinated. what we have done is created a command and control structure and this allows us to deploy them with the right capabilities and send them to where the oil is at.

so the question is, how do we bring these parts together and give them the communications and tell them where to go to find oil. that is what has been happening. there has been a marked improvement. it takes time. the local folks need to be trained. we have to provide communications equipment. i think it is time to ramp up. [inaudible] it is more related to vessels of opportunity that when the oil came alpert we have been attacking the oil at the well site. what created the opportunity from the shoreline out -- how do

you take the vessels and bring them into the system? that is what is taking the time. a little bit of noise here. [inaudible] both timeline reflect two things. if you take into account that you will exhaust every possibility if you go someplace and you have to find it someplace else and you have to seal the area outside the pipe with mud and go back and go back into the pipe itself.

you will slowly remove any source of oil if you have to do all of that, it will take you into august. if you get in there and find the oil, you can deal with the oil the first time around, it could be shorter. it could happen but i'm not going to assume that. we need to over deliver. august. ok? [unintelligible] i am not in his position to comment on the policy of the

moratorium. it is above my pay grade. a little over a week ago we published an emergency rule that allowed vessels around the country to lower their stem by requirements for oil spill response. we cannot free up resources to flow to the gulf. there was an assumption they could lower their standby response for a worst-case scenario. planning factors to use in a response plan. it could aggregate through mutual aid and all commit to apply local resources to assist that facility to meet their requirement to free up the facilities to come here. what is required after worst is almost a state by state evaluation of how you set up that plan and what could be

freed up to come to the gulf. the moratorium issue, i would leave it to those making policy decisions. as far as response equipment, there is some flexibility in how you maximize a force to deal with a worst-case scenario to free up some resources to move down here. [unintelligible] there certainly is.  we understand that when oil comes ashore, changes can be

buried with sand pit one of the things required at the end ofn oil spill response is an agreement on everybody on how clean is clean. there are provisions to come back and continue to clean that up under the recoveries until we get it clean. those criteria will be brokered locally. we have the war fall to order removal and we can have the responsible parties come back as many times as need to to get it clean. we would like to turn it over to the phone line. >> good  . i have a question about something you said there.

i apologize if someone asked earlier. he said bp is prepared to move forward with a second long-tem containment cap and you have a window to decide if the weather conditions are met and if they get through this timeline. when will this take place? you'd mentioned in the next seven to 10 days you're looking at a good weather window. is that when this would take place? >> we are going to askedo give us a detailed timeline on what series of events would he to take place. if we move forward, we're goig to move forward in parallel wh putting up the helix producer to be able to produce from the free-standing riser pipe and it would be part of the future

recovery system. the initial thinking was we would do that, see the results of that and move to a decision on the containment cap. it may be a weather window we may not see later in the summer that would allow us to move to the new containment cap. i am asking bp to give me a detailed timeline on how to accomplish the hookup of the helix producer to the free- standing riser pipe and how to move the current cap and effectively seal the top of that well and go to the new containment structure which gets us to a production capacity in a system of the up to 80,000 barrels a day and gives us a quick hook up in the event of whether issues. we will get the weather to put up the helix producer.

i have asked a detailed timeline that we can look at and approved that would allow us to move forward. we'll take advantage of the weather window if we can. >> you said a couple of things that could move the date up with regard to the completion of the relief well. could you give us a time line of where we are now? how many days or weeks away in terms of getting to that well to be able to penetrate it? >> we are several hundred feet away from the penetration 0.3 they will drill a had somewhere between 10 and 15 feet at a time. they will put down a sensing device on electrical cable and take a look it tried to detect the electromagnetic field around the pipe casing. this allows them to get a

bearing from the well board they are drilling to the well bore they are trying to intercept. at the end, the pipe is between seven and 8 inches wide and they're doing this and over 17,000 feet of measured depth. this will probably take seven to 10 days. at that point, they will go through a series of players leading to the inner pipe. it depends where the oil is coming up throw, where they cannot put the mud and the cement plug and how many days after that to actually sealed the well better if all oil coming to the service is coming through a circle of area outside the pipe, they put the mud it to put the plug in and that stops it, everything will happen much sooner.

but the will coming through te center pipe would require them to drill back in again and complete the same series of steps to plug the pipe. if you take t all means, it takes you o august. oni do not think we need to bet hitting its the first time. weatherd run into eight weathea window. i think we're looking for mid august. i think that is a reasonable date. >> i know that you are saying that you're hoping for this to be completed by mid august.

bp said that is pushing to get it done by july 27, in time for its earnings in order to show investors that it is taking care of its problems. is there any concern that they are rushing or that they do not want to put the second cap on because they are hoping the relief well will be done by july 27? >> i do not want to speak for bp and how they deal with their board. my board of directors is the american people. next question. >> thank you. with regards to the backup plan for the relief well, could talked-about what you have identified you could pump oil into with the relief well? >> it is at the request of the federal government in a meeting

two almost weeks ago in washington. i think we found out so for you need a backup to the backup if you cannot in responding to this crisis. one idea was to take local wells that were not producing and put the oil back down into those wells. there are some wells that are owned by various companies. the opportunity exists to lay a pipeline and use the mechanism we are putting in place for the containment system that i have just briefed on and to divert that flow into the pipeline and run back into wells that are not producing now. that will take some construction and some time. that will be in the later august time frame. it becomes a viable backup if the relief wells are not successful. we believe we are going to be

successful with the relief wells. to have a backup plan, have it engineered and be moving toward that back them plant being available in the event the relief wells do not come through. i will leave the details to the plan and the arrangements to be discussed by bp because those are business arrangements. next question. >> hello. thank you for taking my question. 17,780 feet. i just wondered if you know what the ultimate target measured depth is they are going for. >> i did not have the numbers in front of me right now. today is more of a tutorial on skimming. tomorrow we need to have a discussion on how they measure

depth. that would be good for the american public and the press to understand. we will provide you the exact numbers. there are two measures of depth. when his colt measured depth. that is the total feet of the will board. as you know, that is not vertically straight. it started off a good distance from the current well site and it has occurred in. the other is true vertical depth. is the depth at which we will penetrate the will board to a plane tangent to the service of the water. imagine a perpendicular line going straight down as measured directly and then a curving line that reflects the direction of the relief well. we have measured depth and true vertical depth.

they both represent ways to describe where the intersection will take place. tomorrow i will have the exact numbers for you. one final question. >> yes. hello. you mentioned earlier at the point where the relief well -- is truly parallel now and it will turn. can you talked me through how that will work. see what happens and possibly the actual pipe. >> it will go there first. if there is oil, they will pump mud in. it will go and fill the wallboard top to bottom with the weight of the mud will overpower the pressure of the oil coming up from the reservoir. once they have stabilized that,

they will cements in a plug between the relief well at the current well to basically killed the well with some men. they will then backed out -- with seacement. they will reach real into the cement -- they will re-drill into the cement until weight of the mud overcomes the pressure and put in a plug at that point. imagine a series of hollow tree rings. you fill the outer ring first. they go to the inner ones until you get to the pipe and fill it up. if you go in sequence, there is oil in everyone of those links, this takes until the middle of

august. if it is only in the pipe, you cut significant time out of that process. we do not know the status of the well boarre. we will have to wait and see. the date remains august. one more. did i hear you right? in a t seveno 10 days, they will -- in 7 to 10 days,   t begin penetration? >> that is correct. we now begin the skimming overview. >>   >> i cannot stand up here and give a lecture or we can talk about it. what would you rather do?

first of all, i want to introduce you this with tenet -- this lieutenant. they are from the gulf strike team located near the station in mobile. they work with folks on the water. i thought we take you through skimming 101. i do not know if this is camera- worthy or not. oh, good. ok. i'm going to give you a general overview and i will have these guys explain the technical detail. when we talk about skimmers, we talk about a wide variety of instruments to mechanically

removed oil from the water. you cannot remove oil from water in a variety of ways but it up.not fathom it uppe vacuum you can take a conveyor belt and run it through the water and you can have the oil cleaned through the conveyor belt. we have materials e technical term for a substance that oil will stick to that water won't. you could take a substance that can beat a drum, a roller, a disk, ropes, you can pass in oil

and it wouldoil,   be the equivalent of a oil harvester were you harvest the oil, and we will show you how -- >> we are having technical issues with our video signal from theodore, alabama. thad allen is giving us the latest from the gulf of mexico. this is the 80th day since the welt exploded. we did have the second part of the briefing which was supposed to be a demonstration of the skimming operation. looking live now at the ruptured leaking will pipe about a mile beneath the sersurface. you confined congressional hearings, multiple briefings, speeches from the region that

c-span.org/oilspill. our live programming continues with the future on immigration policy. that gets underway at noon eastern here on c-span. later we will have more live coverage from the brookings institution. the japanese ambassador to the united states will be speaking there. you can watch that live and 3:30 p.m. on c-span. >> prime-time book tv continues tonight with a look at politics. "the promise," year one. also, attend a book party". toxic talk" by bill press.

michael gramaham defense the tea party movement. >> a look now at the status of the nation's electrical grid and the impact of climate change legislation on the industry. ies. "washington journal" contins. host: check out your morning energy hostess. answering questions about summer blackout, the electric grid, renewable and electricity standard and power plants only climate bill. email questions, comments, and complement's s to cdavenoport@politico.com. c davenport is coral davenport.

how was the electric grid holding up so far? guest: we had several blackout last night. over 1000 residents lost power. that tells you about the state right here in the nation's capital. as far as i can tell it looks like in new york, they were pushing hard and managed to keep it together, but certainly it seems like up and down the eastern seaboard where the heat wave is hitting us, utilities are stretched to the limit, and that is not something new. we will certainly see that as a summer proceed in going forward. host: coned center figs to keep the lights on. they talk about a new technology they have employed since the big blackout in 2006. and all of the money they have

put back into the system. can you talk and more general sense about lessons that the utility's learned from the blackout. guest: what happened after the blackouts is utilities and regional management services invested pretty heavily in new transmission, upgraded transmission. they made early first steps in doing what we call the smart grid technology. they are little bit better prepared for the increasing demand. they are also doing basic things like making sure they are keeping branches trimmed. that was really the main reason for the big 2003 blackout. they have also been given authority predicts the federal government now has authority to fi local and regional electric companies that do not comply

with basic standards. they had definitely tried to any of mp up. host: wwe want to talk about the power supply. obviously our conception of power increases exponentiallyas we add more devices were lives and certainly the industrial sectors have more and more need for electricity. at the same time our electric grid is complex and also aging and basis security threats as well. all of that is in the mix as washington debates energy legislation, reaction to past failures of the system and hears about new threats from those that want to do harm. we would like to involve you in the discussion.

we will take your messages on twitter and you can send us an e-mail as well. this is a map that is from fema. it is a look at what the power grid really looks like. i am just getting ready for this yesterday, learning there are 3000 separate utilities that supply power to the nation. how is t infrastructure set up, and what are the biggest challenges? guest: there are thousands of utilities, and the idea of one national grid is kind of a misnomer also. there are several different regional grids that were put in place over the last 60 to 70 years. they were not necessarily made to match up and communicate with each other. it is a very patchwork, not always comprehensive, well-

organized system. this is one of the big challenges facing policy-makers right now, looking at this aging patchwork, regional system of different networks, a different grades, a different utilities and trying to overhaul. it is kind of a mid-20th century system and trying to figure out how to overhaul this physical infrastructure into a system that can beat 21st entry needs. host: you reference this marg concept. what is this about? gu-- you referenced the smart grid concept. guest: you have a system whereby you would have computer

hookups, and essentially this idea were digal technology and sensors would understand where need and demand isreatest, where it is leased. it would dtribute electricity to where it is needed most. it would dial down production of electricity when it is least needed, for example, at night a smart grid would understand that there is less demand on the grid so it would tell generators to produce less or save electricity to be needed, toe deployed during the day when demand is high year. it would be combining the wires and the brain of the computer to most efficiently deploy electricity, but it is still very much in the research and development stage.

host: have an article from october of 2009. this was an announcement the president had made in arcadia, florida. territories that would receive a federal subsidies to modernize the electric grid. the administration was expected to inject more than $8 billion into grid modernization nationally. administration officials said represent a fraction of what is needed to bring the entire grid into the digital age. how does the distribution of the fund a stand right now? guest: i think about half of the fund has been put out, but this is very much a research and development prect. experts estimate it would require an investment of $100 billion. this initial investment of $8

billion is really does seed money. some of this is for communities to test out what kind of smart grid system would work for them. it is really very much in the early stes. it will probably be a number of years before we see the system start to work gether. host: less of a survt's overlayt energy debate that is going on. guest: the piece of energy legislation that right now looks most likely to head to the senate floor in the coming weeks has some really key, the big changes to the electric generation and consumption stem. it has of renewal bulk electricity mandate, which would require that as much as 15% of the nation's electricity be generated from renewable sources such as wind and solar. that is a huge jump up.

it is less than 5% today. in doing so, that would transform the transmission mapped for electricity. instead of being power plants located close to cities and a wire going from power plants into population centers, we would start seeing a lot more wind and solar being generated in remote locations. being generated ineserts' or on plains. that triggers all whole need for electricity transmission. the legislation would set up a w transmission highways going across the country that would be aimed at moving all of this new solar and wind and other renewable technology, but it would be a big change to the grid as we know it. probably very controversial. host: i want to get to telephone

calls. the debate over the energy policy has been going on for a couplef years now. one bit of irony. energy department uses to much energy a report says. li losing weight, saving energy is easier to promise that aually do, even if you are department of energy. the website advises 2/energy use by 15%, but they're having trouble taking their own advice according to an internal audit released on wednesday. ry few have switched to a promising technology, light- emitting diodes. use a this is not the first time. guest: unfortunately this at

least the second or third report we have seen on the energy department, which course has been front and center and promoting all of the new energy- efficient technologies and all of the new mandates for new efficiency and renewable technologies really not taking its own medicine, sort of fitting into the stereotype of the government bureaucratic dinosaur. maybe the third time is a charm. host: we welcome your input into this conversation. if you live in the east coast and have been going to the heat wave and would like to report to us on your utilities and whether you have experience any blackout and what your comments are about that, we would like to hear about that. robert on the independent line. caller: i have a question. i thought there was supposed to

be money in the stimulus package, and has any of the money in any improvements in infrastructure? that is all i have a. guest: there are several billion dollars in the stimulus package for smart grid, for new infrastructure. one of the problems with energy spending on the stimulus package is it has been pretty slow. we see that of the money that was allocatedfor a lot of the energy spending, for several projects, less than half of the money has been spent. those projects have been quite slow to get off the ground. while we are hearing from the energy department is as the years go forward, but we will start to see this investment taking place, but it might be a few years before we see a significant change, a significant impact of the infrastructure. the money is there and the department tells us it is being

deployed, but it it appears to be a very slow process. host: our next telephone call is from kentucky. good morning to don of the democrats' line. caller: i want to thnk c-span. mrs. davenport, back in the 1970's when carter was president, all of the federal buildings have solar panels. as soon as reagan got in there, he took them down. back then he wand all the federal buildings to ha solar power and we were talking about electrical problems. the problem is there is too much corruption. if obama was sincere, he would already have done that, what carter did.

it is on the bush administration and too much money and corruption. our politicians will not do anything. if they are sincere, he would have major all of the federal buildings has solar power. my dad and florida has hooked up a panel on his radio just to try it out, and it has been going for years like that. the problem is it is too much money in the pockets of the politicians. i will get off the phone and listen to your response. . . there was a bit put forth for a plan from a gigantic solar panel that would have taken up the entire wall of the energy department in downtown washington, d.c.

that plan was put out and design and basically buried in the bush administration, and it does not like we're seeing renewed interest in that project is expected to be a model solar panel demonstration that would show all the new

can see that, you know, even deployed at its fullest, solar and wind will always have to be supplementary to the baseline generating sources such as natural gas, coal, and nuclear. there is no doubt about that. i do not think that we see anyone realistically making the claim that sources like solar and wind can be, you know, baseline core sources, but they can provide a really strong supplement. >> illinois -- sour about mispronouncing the name of your town. caller: first of all, the problem is global warming.

it is a lie. we do not control the temperature of the earth. i hope some day it all comes out and people realize that. it is the cost, ok? of energy -- that is the problem. nuclear energy is the way to go. she even said it. you're speaker there, that nuclear energy does produce more, it is also safe, clean. wind energy -- i watched this lady on tv crying because the energy company raised the rate 40%. the reason they raised the rate is because the windmills cost too much money. then they break down and then they go to china for the parts. when is america going to wake up? al gore -- global warming -- that is a lie.

that is all i have to say. host: there are new stories out today about the climate research. here is a "new york times" version -- bring us up-to-date. guest: as so many of us remember, back in november, the ipcc report, which is viewed as the core scientific basis outlining what the threat of global warming and fossil fuels are -- that has really been the report that has influenced so much of its international policy on climate change. that came under question. national policy. there were some findings from the university of east anglieng. there were questions about how the research had been done and this exploded into a climate gate.

these have been put under certainty by their peers -- squinty by their peersquintcrut. so it puts that international scientific process back on track. the caller also mention nuclear power. where does that debate stand right now? guest: this applies 20% of our overall electricity. the big it damage it has is that it does not produce any carbon emissions. this makes it a huge player in the ongoing global warming debate, and of course the other side is that it does produce nuclear waste. in the united states we still

not have a solution. that is ongoing back and forth about nuclear wer. that debate is probably just going to increase significantly as we see potentially a price put on carbon emissions and growing demand for nuclear power. we see that a lot of people in the environmental community had a fear about environmental waste. they said they're willing to embrace new nuclear power because as the environmental advantage of no carbon emissions. we have not had a new nuclear power plant built since the 1970's and the united states. the obama administration is really pushing with loan guarantee incentives to grow nuclear power. we will see that debate going forward. we will probably see the share of nuclear power in our

electricity. host: the last thing he reference was the wind turbines and how we would bring green jobs to the country. guest: what the administration is trying to do is put in place mandates requiring wind power to be geneted in the united states. the argument om the administration is once you have the mandates, you will see those turbines and those equipments build in the united statesbut right now since there is no market signal, there is no requirement, demand, there is no mandate for wind or solar energy and the united states. that makes it difficult for companies to invest in that manufacturing. for the time bei the biggest sources of manufacturing for wind turbines are countries in

europe where they do have that mandates for nuclear power and of course in china. host: the next phone call is from texa michael on the independent line. what is on your dmind on this discussion? caller: would it not be feasible to go ahead and make it mandatory for all new construction to include solar paneling. . . all new construction after that is going to be adding on to the power that is needed, and then you could shut it down a little at a time.

thank you so much. a statistic that is from the administration on what sectors of society use electricity -- residential accounts for 36% of that used a commercial 35%, industrial, 29%. about 64% are from the business and economic side across the country. guest: getting to the collar's question, i can see that the building and construction lobbies would have a great deal to say about such a mandate. that said, the legislation that is being put together as head of the senate floor right now that includes the mandate for generation of renewable technology, renewable electricity, while it does not mandate that individuals put solar panels on their homes, the mandate would lead to a great deal of new generation of solar

power, sort of broadly at the utility scale, which i think is more the purpose of the federal legislation, and it does include packages of incentives and benefits for homeowners who choose on their own to add solar panels to their home. i know there are several states that have metering programs that allow homeowners that generate their own electricity to sell and use electricity back to the grid. that is being addressed in sort of a mix of state and federal mandates, although again, i can definitely see the construction lobby having a big problem with the requirement that they include solar panels on their homes. host: next up, virginia, fairfax, republican line, ben.

guest: i am very interested in the earlier discussion about the interior-grid communication, and the commercial connection. three questions, really. one, the standards that support the communications among different networks, a type of networks, commercial for buyback para i wonder if there is -- . policy-setting. what the long-term prospects are for sufficient power generation sources for the electrical system to carry, whether it is water -- and then for the types of controls that were discussed earlier, the grid levels. of course, that is very exciting to hear about.

are there potential for sharing communications or even setting standards across grids? i guess that's it for my questions. thank you. host: many of those are details of the any caring side of that -- on the engineering side of it, so if it is beyond the scope of your reporting -- guest: one of the big question is how do you come up with one set of standards so that everything communicates. everything communicate? that is one of the press -- questions being looked into with all of this r&d, stimulus money. you do not want one community to putç in place a set of softwar, a certain kind of technology that wouldç not be standardize, that would not communicate outside of that utilityegion. that is one of the things being

developed right now, suites of softwareç standards, so that smart grid across the country could be able to communicateç. as for the question of artificial intelligence, i do not know, although i use expressions like "theç gd with no" -- i do not jíow if we quite see artificial intelligence being integrated, but it is certainly possible and could come down the road in the future. that would probably raise a new set of challenges and questions as well. host:ç lynette sends us this -

that is one aspect of it. the ability of the people who operate the electric grid to controlç consumption. çthere is a later explanation f how that happened. they have a program that allows coned toç reprogram the thermostats in homes and businesses. çso the signals are sent to the individualomes and businesses by coned when they need to lower

demand over all. jason, democrat line.4j you are next. caller: i just wanted to point çout, and in the 1960's, we put in a lot of hydelectric dams and it has not affected this deal had or sal -- theç steelhd or salmon runs. i do not see aç problem with te technology. guest: the debate we see in congress about hydro electric dams, although there have not been too many negative guest: there is a very lively debate that creating very large new amounts of hydroelectric is the three new dams could have

potential negative impact in terms of the fish population, in terms of wildlife habitats, and for that reason, hydro electric has really not been expanding -- expanding hydroelectric has not been part of the renewable electricity debate in washington. focus on hydroelectric has been on increasing efficiency of existing hydroelectric production, but there are -- there is a great deal of concern that broad scale deployment of hydroelectric in regions where it might not be appropriate could have negative repercussions. hydro electric industry would beg to differ with that and do, but that is the source of that debate in washington. host: this is just on the independent line. caller: you read something a minute ago in "the wall street

journal" about the electrical grid. i was the reason obama support until i started researching some information -- i was a recent obama supporter until i started researching some information. people are also going to be .ax on carbon emissions i have been researching about supplies being shut off. -- about like being shut off. if i live in my own home, i have the right to have my lights on. it is going to be to the point where the government is going to tell me when it is time to shut them off, and that is an invasion of privacy, an invasion of the constitution, and that is wrong. there is really nothing that has changed since the bush administration. it all sounds good. i mean, he said he was going to

abolish the patriot act. he has not done that. i did want to know on your question, since we are human beings and we exhaled carbon dioxide, are you going to tax us? carbon dioxide, are you going to tax uq guest: the caller raises a legitimate challenge about a smart grid -- the smart grid. does the idea of integrating technologyç with our electric system, does thisçive an elector utility or anyone monitoring that, too much information on consumers, could there be a violation of privacy? one of the previous callers mentioned this could create aç big brother to an area. this is one of the challenges that the energy department is grappling with as they try to çfind a way to create a system

that can use energy efficiently, save money, save fossil fuels, and not violate privacy. it is a question they are strugglingç with. i am sure we host: patrick is watching us on arlington, virginia he is on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. i want to touch on a couple of points. you were talking about the cru, and how they cleared climate- gate up, which was really comprised of a bunch of -- it turned out that the cru and dr. phil jones was refusing look at refuting evidence. cru have a and the

vested interest in cap and trade and this science. also, dr. phil jones had said there has not been any evidence of global warming in the last 15 years and pointed out that as early as the 1400's, the climate was warmer than it is today. in the end, i think what we are told is america only has 2% of the world possible oil but uses 20% of the supply -- of the world's oil, but uses 20% of the supply. we only explore a small percentage of our resources. if you look at oil and natural gas both on the east and west coasts, we have -- and i am reading this offline -- 1.836

0.4 trillion cubic feet worth of total oil potential. that puts us number two in the world as far as energy supply. host: the phil jones that he referenced is the leading climatologists that headed the climatic research unit at the university of east anglia, in place that name is not familiar to you. guest: the caller raised a number of questions, but at the end of the day, you know, the scientists of the ipcc -- there are several thousand of them that are independent scientists. if you look at a list of who they are and look at their research, you know, most people, most scientists, most institutions are comfortable with these independent peer reviewed assessments. so while there are still

questions -- people will raise questions and point to the cyclical trends of governmenglol warming trends, by and large we are seeing that the scientific assessments are broadly accepted. host: making a lecture produces more vulnerable despite a tax -- despite cyber attacks? guest: once again, a huge challenge that will be part of developing smart policy. right now we do not have one standard smartly deployed by brit, and as u.s. energy policy moves potentially in that direction, that is a very legitimate question. it has been addressed several times by members of congress as they try to figure out how to write this policy. it is certainly true that if you are incorporating i.t. digital

technology with the distribution of energy resources, there is the potential to know much more clearly who is using what kind of energy, potentially to disrupt that, to tap in to a lot more information. so this is absolutely a question of this being -- that this is being wrestled with as lawmakers try to come up with a way to use smart grid technology. host: let me point you to a story "u.s. plants cyber shieldç ."

just a couple of minutes left. next phone call for coral davenport. çcaller: thank you very much. çthe basic problem i in seeing here in the amount of brainwashing, through the ownership of the media, khalil interests. it seems to me, people should be apologizingç to bp. the thing that gets me the most is the amount ofç lies that go on. could you state that it is irrefutable, that there is global warming, that human beings are the cause of the it? on theç other side, we gain

nothing by sending our money out to the people who are trying to çdestroy us. we need a carbon tax so we can get off of our intention of oil and get us back onto renewable, which the rest of the world is doing, including china,ç puttig us in economic straits. guest: just to clarify,ç i am t a scientist. however, the ipcc report is a report compiled by thousands of scientists andas come to a firmç majority, want the peer- reviewed, excepted, andç that fossil fuels and carbon emissions are contributing to global warming. that is something that most

journalists who cover this issue are comfortable with. çwithin the media, again, i thk there areç journalists -- there is a shortage of journalists who truly understand the science, but the majority of us are comfortable with these peer- reviewed reports. host: richardç is next on the independent line. caller:ç certainly, in the electrical grid control is significant. there is one thing i have been wondering ever since we have been talking about energy efficiency. people anticipate with the use of alternate fuels, and electric çgrid, that we are going to increase our energy efficiency by perhaps 15%, 20% in the next

30 years. the only thing that seems to be overlooked this, i think there is a per capita energy price. in the next 20 years, the worldùs population is probably going to increase that sameç 15%, 20%. nobody seemed to pay attention to population control in terms of energy costs. guest: certainly, when the u.s. department of energy takes into account what energy demand will be in the coming years,ç when they make those projections, they take into account the increasing population,ç but you are absolutely right, and the gains that are made in energy efficiency are, one might say, countered by the increasing population. if you look at the energy

tremendous gains inç efficiencs and use of renewable, but we still see the use of fossil fuels rising over the next 20 years simply because that is the base load source of energy and there will be more people using energy. i do not know thatç the energy department would advocate population control, specifically as an energy policy,ç but growing populatios is certainly a director contribute to the energy debate. host: sasha sends us this tweet ç-- you write about that in your column today. ce you tell us the status of this grant? guest: sure.

this is one of the many stimulus grants that have gone to alternative energy projects around the country. te)one of the reasons the president is there today is he is doing a bully pulpitç tour ahead of bringing energy legislation to the senate next week. he is giving a speech after touring the economy and we expect him to give it a bigç ph to clean energy economies, new mandates, that would contribute to the his plans we expect to hear from secretary steven chu, and again from the president tomorrow about how he isç going to try to push these things through. here is where the money is

going, hereç is how it is contributing to the economy. host: sarasota, floda. a dream, a republican line. caller: this subject that you brought up about president obama leads me toç believe the insanity about our electric power grid situation. we are telling people toç use electric trucks, cs, plug- ins, where is all of this electricity coming from? with all of these people using it, are we going to blo up the grid? guus,: once again, do have brought up another one of our electric grid, which is we are probably going to see a tremendous increase in demand as we move forward with the development of plug-in vehicles, plug-in cars and trucks.

it can go far towards diminishing dependence on oil, but they put a tremendous new demand on our an electric grid. this is one of the major issues as policy-makers try to figure out how do you take our old 20th-century britain and overhaul it into a 21st century brit -- 20th-century greetegridd overhauling into a 21st century greid. i don't know if we will see a blow up of the grid, but we could see a significant challenge to demand until we see an overhaul or a new kind of grid policy. host: this chart shows us right now where an electrical generation comes from in the united states. institute showing the largest

sources of energy. the subject of the debate in congress as they face energy legislation. as next week? guest: they have not yet nailed bill to look like. we are betting on july 19. they have to get something debated and passed before they leave for august recess. once they do, thatç is sort of the end of the legislative season. right now, senaá majority leader harry reid, his staff is working with staffers in the capital to work on a final package. the white house has made it clear they want to get that done in july. electricity will probablyç be a central part of that. host: if you are interested in

the eejtricity politics, go to >> our live programming continues with a discussion on the future of u.s. immigration policy, hosted by the brookings institution. that gets underway and about half an hour at noon eastern here on c-span. later we will have more live coverage from the brookings institution. the japanese ambassador to the united states is speaking there, and his focus is the japanese response to global challenges. in between those two brookings events, we will have live coverage of defense secretary gates and joint chiefs of staff chairman admiral mollen.

coming up tomorrow, is the national governors' association meeting from boston. state executives will gather for three days of talks and presentations, including a session on sunday featuring former senator alan simpson and former white house chief of staff erskine bowles "national review" magazine has stated there opposition to legislation making its way through congress. a look now at their discussion on "washington journal" from this morning. spruiell, a staff writer for the "new york times." good morning to you. thank you for being with us. ças we begin, let's talk about

the legislativeç head counting. what is scott brown so important in the process? >guest: as he said he might be, he is the 41st vote. depending on what happens in çwest virginia, with respect to the seats filled by the late robert byrd. the latest cloture vote was as closeç as these things can be. democrats were barely able to get 60 votes. when the bill itself came up for a vote, it passed with four republican votes. chuck grassley, theç two senats from maine, and scott brown. two democrats voted againstç i, recant well and russ feingold. cantwell has said she will support the bill this time

around. susan collins and olympia snowe has also -- have also said they wouldç support it. chuck grassley will likely vote for it again. feingold çhas decided he will e sticking with his opposition. it does not do enough for the liberal priorities, does not do enough to limit the size of big banks, does not do enough to prevent a future crisis. çif you are keeping score at home, that makes scott brown the 41stç vote. of course, that could change, if a person sent to washington than to fill byrd's seat is a democrat, as well as someone willing to vote for the bill. çhost: we have confirmed with s office that senator brown is not yet ready to make a decision.

çyour magazine's would you make the case, based on your reporting, about this, about some of the concerns that your colleagues have? guest: sure, and it is not just myself and my colleagues but also concerns that senator brown himself has stated that we are not -- that were not addressed by the democrats in the conference committee, despite their claims to the contrary. there is these issue of the bill's cost, which is the original reason why scott brown said he would not be voting for the bill that came out of the conference committee. house and senate negotiators, when they met to reconcile the house version of the bill and the senate version, had a problem in order to meet the democrats take no restrictions, by which any bill that spends money has to have that money

offset somewhere else either by a tax increase or spending cut. the cbo was telling them that their bill was going to cost somewhere in the area of $19 billion, which they decided to fund by placing a tax on large banks. scott brown opposed this tax in his campaign for senate. he was asked about it at a press conference, very near to his election, and in a state as blue as massachusetts, he came out and said taxes tend to be passed on to consumers in the form of higher costs, higher fees, so i would not support a tax on banks. it is an idea that barack obama was floating back at the time in january. having staked out that position in his campaign, he could not be coistent and vote for a bill that placed a $19 billion tax on large banks, regardless of what you think of the merits of a tax

that scott brown has already voted against it. -- has said he would vote against it. what are we going to do to get this one senator's vote? they took out the tax and replaced it with a funding mechanism that is nothing short of fraudulent. they decided what we are going to do is cancel the remaining three months of the authority under the troubled assets relief program for the government to make loans to banks. remember, this of the $700 billion bailout passed back in the fall of 2008. that is going to "save $11 billion." that $11 billion was never going to be spent. the administration has not made loans under the tarp program in months. as far as we know, they were not planning to make any future loans, and at $11 billion was estimated losses on loans that would have been made in the remaining three months of the program's of authority. they were not going to make any new loans, so that $11 billion

is pure deficit spending. because of an accounting trick, they are going to be able to say that was spending that was cut. the rest of the shortfall, they will make up by increasing fdic assessments. they raised the money for that activity by imposing a premium on banks. this legislation would raise that premium. the problem with this is that small and large banks alike pay these premiums, but the fdic -- the costs associated with the bill is attached to this new power that the fdic is given to wind down large institutions. federal legislators did not happen fdic-like process for seizing and winding down insolvent investment banks, because the fdic only applies to

commercial banks, depository banks. they said if they had had that kind of power, they could have prevented the lehman bankruptcy and all the messages associated with that. and they would have had a better tool to use -- and all the messiness associate with that. those new powers only cover large financial institutions. now we are going to raise fdic assessment of small banks? it is not consistent with what senator scott brown has said in the past is his preferred policy. so we made that point in the editorial, saying if you want to be consistent about not adding to the deficit and not raising taxes on banks, this bill still does that. in fact, it adds to the deficit, whereas the previous bill, which funded all of its -- voting for the bill would be inconsistent with senator brown's previous

position month deficit spending and bank taxes. there are a host of other reasons to vote against the bill. your editorial does have a multi-part position here. it is available atç nationalreview.com. çlet me tell you how you can gt involved. democrats, 202-737-0002. republicans, 202-737-0001. independents, 202-628-0205. çalso, as always, you can reach us by e-mailç or send us a message through twitter. our guest is a writer for the "national review." we turn him over to you for your questions and comments.

this is an island, florida, on the democrats' line. caller: good morning. my name is owen. i want to comment -- we are working class people. these people -- we are working- class people. by czech by check, weekly they need to do something. host: the concerns of working- class people not being met in the late gestation, -- in the legislation, purses people with money. guest: the unemployment benefit extension that the senate democratic leadership has been unable to find the votes for. this would be approximately $100

billion piece of legislation that would extend unemployment benefits that are currently set to expire for the long-term unemployed, people who lost their jobs during the recession and remain unemployed. the problem with this bill is it is not paid for. it already adds to the historic 1.3 trillion dollar deficit that we have this year. a lot of republicans think this is a worthwhile program and something that we should do, we should at least find a way to pay for it. republican john finan has put forward an amendment to do that -- john thune would reduce government spending across the board and spend -- cancel some of the unspent funds from the previous bill, the $32 million grant and various other things like that that are not really priorities right now when so many people remain jobless and the democrats want to extend unemployment benefits.

they have to make choices if they do not want to add to the deficit. host: going back to the reform legislation, specifically on credit rating agencies. many hearings by congress and the commission, the finger continually being pointed at their lack of appropriate assessment of the risk valuation. your editorial suggests that this legislation does not address that problem. would you explain why? guest: because it still provides the rating agencies, the largest credit rating agencies, with a nationally recognized prominence. in other words, for all types of offical regulatory uses, it is necessary for pension funds and other types of investors to hold assets that are rated aaa or that achieve a certain rating

by the nationally recognized credit rating agencies. this gives them a government- backed oligopoly and protect them from competition, which is one of the reasons why we saw the laziness and incautioned that was rampant in these companies when they work rubber- stamp in what turned out to be toxic mortgage-backed securities with aaa ratings. there are reforms that could achieve what we would like to see, which is to take away the reliance on a government- backed credit rating oligopoly and actually let there be a marketplace for risk assessment. or better yet, let banks perform their own risk assessment. one of the things that contributed to the severity of the crisis is that these large banks were not -- did not have the proper incentives to investigate the quality of the

mortgage-backed securities they were investing in. they simply saw that it was rated aaa by moody's or s&p and added it to their portfolios. that is why they say it was not our fault. how can you say that we were engaged in reckless risk-taking when all these mortgage-backed securities were rated aaa by the credit rating agencies. we need to break up the oligopoly, the government-backed oligopoly that concentrates the market for risk assessment in this handful of firms and let other firms compete to provide credit ratings. or, better yet, encourage banks and investors to do their own risk assessments. host: "national review" has its opinion on dodd-franc bill.

this is rica from new jersey, calling us on the democrats' line. -- this is rita from new jersey, calling us on the democrats' line. caller: good morning, everyone. i just want someone to explain to me -- how do you get anything done when you have to compromise on everything you do in washington? it does not make sense to me. you need the republicans help. you have to help help -- to have help, and the republicans are refusing to do anything to help the president. the bill is not perfect, and you know you're not going to get a perfect bill if you cannot get any assistance from the republicans. can someone explain that to me? how can america be so confused, so confused to see that these republicans are doing everything they can to destroy the president?

can anyone explain that to me? guest: i understand the point of view you are expressing, and it is one that the president himself and a lot of democrats are expressing. it is that republicans deep down do not have strenuous and principled objections to a lot of this legislation but that they are opposing it simply to hand the president a political defeat. i think that is wrong. . i have talked to a lot of republicans who have worked on this issueç, people like scott garrett of new jersey, bob corker of tennessee. they want to get to a bill that is a good bill, that will avoid some of the mistakes that led to the crisis in 2008, and that will put inç place new and stronger financial regulations that do with the problems that still exist in our financial sector. çthey are trying to find a

solution. but they still have legitimate concerns, as do we. we wrote in the editorial, as susan has been talking about, 10 reasons for scott brown to oppose this then enter regulation bill. çthere is probably a good bill somewhere in there. there are some thingsç that moe us in the right direction, but there are too many parts that would encourage the same kind of reckless risk-taking that led us to the crisis in 2008. otherç things that absolutely must be addressed, such as problems with any mae and freddie mac. çthe way we framed it for scott brown is your continued opposition to this bill could lead not just to improvement in the cost area where you have raised concerns, the improvements across the bill. there is no reason this needs to

çbe done right now. the democrats put an artificial timeline on this and rush it throughç congress. by contrast, the last two former financial regulation bills took 97 and 74 calendar days. we have rushed to this process. the financial crisis in agree çcommission, the panel forced o look into the crisis, has not even issued a report(ydt. so we do not have an official word from the government on what went wrong, and we are already trying to fix it? there is no urgent need to pass this right now. we have other problems to worry about, such asç continued sluggishness in the economy, that this bill does not address. host: what is yourç response to people who say that it will be two years since we have the

financial crisis? guest: the government took a similarly wamp amount of time to pass financial regulation reformç after the stock-market crash of 1929. it was years before the legislation that craáed the sec and other kinds of reforms that were passed -- in the 1930's, and they did some investigations. but they spent a lot ofç time gathering information and figuring out what went wrong. r theing out what went wrong. slowness here, first of all, democrats had other priorities. they wanted to move health care. they wanted to do the stimulus at the beginning of last year. they had other priorities that they wanted to make sure they got doneç while they had favorable numbers in congress. we expect some of that to change

in november. çthey certainly would not have been able to do health care. that does not necessarily mean that they have been spending that time perfecting this legislation. take for instance the new çresolution authority given to the fdic to seize and on one large, non-banking financial çinstitutions. a lot of which looks like it was copied and pasted from the legislation that created the fdic. but non-banking financial institutions are not like commercial banks. when the fdic takes down a %1 bank, it is designed to bail on one class of creditors for that bank, @íd that is the depositors. as a society, we have decided that depositors deserve a bailout. it is a good thing to have that in place to prevent panic and

bank runs, but you cannot justç cut and paste that language and applied it to investment banks whose creditors are not çdepositors, there are sophisticated investors who know very well what they're doing with their money. the way the legislation was originally written, it would have allowed the sec -- fdic to build these predators, which meansç that they would take an even bigger risk. thanks to oppositionç from richard shelby, the ranking member on the senate banking committee, there were some changes to that legislation that improved it. . . ç limited its ability to the bailout. but that is just emblematic of the haste with which this

legislation was drawn together, and i think this legislation, if they took more time on that, see further improvements. host: next call, sarasota, florida. republican line, greg. guest: i just wonder what you thought the fairness act effect was on the financial meltdown. guest: this was a law that required -- i should not say required, but strongly encouraged banks to make loans to increase loans to low income communities, to maintain as a percentage of their portfolio such loans. and the question is whether or not that encouraged banks to lower their living standards, to

make home loans, for instance, to people that might not have been the best credit risks. i think the cre was a contributing factor but i do not think it was the primary factor. it worked in concert with a number of other regulations and government efforts to subsidize home ownership that fueled the deterioration of lending standards that led to so many bad loans being made. i think almost more important than the community reinvestment act -- if you go back and look at some of the things that the clinton administration was doing with respect to fannie and freddie, pushing fannie and freddie to make home ownership, and particularly low-income home ownership, a bigger part of their portfolio, pushing them to lower their standards so that more low-income people could qualify for fannie and freddie

loans, and discontinued -- look, the bush administration was also guilty of this. the bush administration fell under the same sway of thinking that, you know, homeownership was good, everywhere, and we need to do a lot of things to encourage it. even among people who might be responsiblecially or ready to take on a mortgage. i think across the board politicians in both parties encouraged home ownership among communities and economic groups for whom home ownership might have been the best option. een the best option. host: shares of freddie mae and freddie mac will begin trading over-the-counter thursday nearly a month after it was delisted by the new york stock exchange. we are talking about coverage of and the editorial opposing

the dodd-frank proposal. we have someone on the republican line. caller: i am 72 years old. not one thing have they done for the working man. they have done medicare. they can say they have done a lot, but they have not. they have tried to destroy this president. if we say no to everything, we can destroy you as president. that is what they have done. come on, a young boy. you are smart enough and educated enough to know that the

republicans are for the rich. that is why you don't want regulation on banks or businesses. you don't want to take any tax breaks from the businesses. you want to take the money from the working man and they don't have it. host: thank you, paul. guest: i think what paul is voicing is a common frustration among democrats. i find it interesting that, you know, a lot of these calls have not had much to do with financial regulation. i just -- the only reason i say that is because i feel like this bill is very misunderstood. paul said that republicans don't want regulations on banks because the party -- we are the party of the rich. a lot of the problems i have with this bill and that other

conservatives have with it is it would continue to subsidize wall street. russ feingold is as liberal as they come. he is from neighboring wisconsin. paul is in minnesota. he said the bill does not do enough to prevent the kind of bank problems we saw before. i think there is a lot of misunderstanding about what this bill does. i think the democrats have been very effective at labeling it wall street reform. when people are asked in surveys do you support wall street reform, do you support a bill that would crack down on wall street? they tend to be in favor of that, they say, yes, of course. that is why does bill into is broad support. but there is a lot in the bill that really entrenches the status quo. as i said, the fdic resolution authority really would allow

for some of these large financial institutions that failed to get a better deal than they would have gotten in bankruptcy. the bill also entrenches the federal reserve authority to make credit available to firms experiencing liquidity crises. as we saw in 2008, the federal reserve has been willing in the past to make this credit -- these lines of credit available to not just illiquid firms but insolvent firms, firms that would fail if it were not for the fdic willing to -- if not for the fed's willingness to accept garbage loans as collateral and make loans to keep them afloat. there are a lot of provisions in this bill that subsidize wall street. that is one reason a lot of

clarence and is only thursday. who knows what is going to happen -- >> and it is only thursday. who knows what is going to happen tomorrow or next week? it has been a big week for me personally because the brookings institution published my new book "brain gain: rethinking u.s. immigration policy" and the bookstore does have copies out in the hallway if you are interested. i will be signing copies at the conclusion of this event. in the book i argue that we need to enact comprehensive reform in order to boost long-term

economic development. i put a picture of albert einstein on the cover of the book to remind us of the contributions of-by immigrants over the years. and we know that google was co- founded by a russian immigrant. and your who was it established by someone born in taiwan. -- yahoo! was established by someone born in taiwan. " would it look like if google was based in russia and yahoo! was a taiwanese company? in my book i argue that these are not isolated studies. companies -- immigrants have made a vital contributions to our economy, our knowledge base, arar are gergel luttrell sector, -- agricultural sector,

culinary life, and sports. despite these and other immigrant contributions to our country is paralyzed by immigration policy. i talk in the book about why it is difficult political leaders to -- to go for political leaders to address immigration even though everyone dislikes the status quo. i suggest that the media focus on bad news instead of the good news about immigration. we have a long history dating back to the chinese exclusion act of 1882 of inflaming public opinion and polarizing discussions. i went and reviewed 50 years of public data on immigration at to see the arabs and flows of how we think about immigration -- to see the ebb and flow about how we think about immigration. for example, in litigation

proceedings, defendants win their cases only 60 percent of the time when they do not have an attorney. border crossings between us and mexico are at a 30-year low. most it will do not believe this, but we have actually made tremendous progress on securing our borders. that story never gets reported. i wrote this book to inject some facts into what is a very emotional and polarizing topic for many people. if you look at our history as well as our contemporary discussions over immigration we have made a very bad policy decisions. we need to step back and about what is required to accomplish as a nation and what are the best ways to get us where we want to go. i got interested in this subject several years ago when i married a german woman. in seeking to bring her to the united states and get her a

green card i discovered how complex and frustrating the immigration process is. i have a ph.d. in political science, but i have to say i found the entire process very confusing and difficult to navigate. maybe that was because i had a ph.d. i do not know if that helped or hindered. we discovered many things along the route that i discovered -- the guy has american did not know about the immigration process -- that i, as an american, did not know about the immigration process. to help us develop a better understanding of the immigration area, we have put together a distinguished set of speakers. solyndra lake is the president of lake research -- so winducela lake is the president of lake

research. she has advised various national party committees and office seekers around the country as well as a number of groups that work in this area. she is also the pollster for vice-president joe biden in 2008. she has appeared on the verge of a every leading news outlet in the united states and given people the benefit of research and expertise. in research -- in recent months, she is focused on immigration reform, and the ways but progressive advocates need to refrain the issue -- the ways progressive advocates say to refrain the issue in order to progress. -- reframe the issue in order to progress. before one osuna -- if juan

osuna was the deputy assistant attorney general, he was also the highest -- part of the highest administrative body for intervene law. he received his b.a. from american university and a master's degree in law and international affairs from american university. he will be discussing the legal and policy aspects of the immigration area. the format that we are willing to follow today is that celinda and juan will outline their thoughts on immigration. then we will open the floor to questions from our audience. we will start with celinda lake. [applause]

>> thank you very much. the presentation is loaded on to the computer. there it is. thank you very much and it is nice to be here. i want to thank dr. west in particular, and produce in general -- brookings in general, for adding more like to a conversation that often has more heat then like to it. i think is a very thoughtful book and a great analysis of a lot of information out there. i want to assure you recent survey that we have done looking at the -- to show you a recent survey that we have done looking at voters nationwide. latino's have become very important in the 2010 elections, but generally in the future are very important. we looked at how people feel about the arizona law, how people feel about comprehensive reform, and how might this play

out in the current elections. one of the reasons i love being a pollster is because conventional wisdom is usually about 95% wrong, plus or minus 5%. this is yet another area where conventional wisdom is wrong. there are tons of public polls out there. we found the majority of voters to support the arizona immigration law. but that is for the accuracy stops. the assertion has been, particularly in this town, that it means a diminishing support for comprehensive reform and that the law was put in place as a rejection of comprehensive reform. both could not be more wrong. first, we found that with the passage of the arizona law anwas largely about frustration,

critically at the federal level. people still feel overwhelmingly that this is a federal solution, not a state solution. even the people of arizona and feel this would be better served by a national solution. support for comprehensive immigration reform is stronger than it ever was and, in fact, it is most strongly supported by those same people who support the arizona law. people are becoming increasingly aware of what comprehensive reform is. dr. west talks about security as an important component. cracking down on employers of illegal immigrants and requiring those who are here illegally to go back to the back of the line for this insured.

-- for citizenship. you are required to register, pay taxes, work, learn english. interestingly, people thought that if you pay taxes, you really should become an american because there is nothing more all-american than the fate of sharing taxes and irs. people thought also that learn english was better than no english. people did not want a lot of grammar test out their for themselves or others. finally, we asked people what about acting now and people want to iraq and now. one of the really interesting -- what to act now. one of the really interesting conversations in the book is how the mood has been set for reform in terms of the economy and in terms of the flow of immigration. ironically, people say this is a bad time for immigration reform.

actually, what we have found in our work is that it is a good time for immigration reform. people do have more awareness that the flow is down. who knew that the canadiens were such a threat? and michiganders are feisty, but as one blue-collar workers at in michigan, you would have to be an idiot to come to michigan for a job right now. and these people do not look dumb to me. the flow of the economic situation has made it easier to have this conversation. people also think that is an equal opportunity recession, that everybody lost their jobs in this recession/depression. actually, i think during a time of recovery when there will be more tension about who is getting jobs and who is not. first, hooking a comprehensive

reform, do you support or oppose it -- looking at a comprehensive reform, and you support or oppose it? there was a time, and frankly, a time in the last debate where people did not have a very good sense of what comprehensive reform was. now there is increasing awareness of comprehensive reform and 57% of people say without it being defined, i guess, i support it. only 18% are opposed to it. it is not the overall levels of support that are key here. what is particularly key is it the intensity. intensity is important on any issue, whether it is abortion, gay marriage, or immigration. 42% of the voters are saying that they strongly support comprehensive reform. only 11 percent saying that they strongly oppose it.

latino voters are increasingly important and increasingly disengage as we are approaching -- as we approached the 2010 election. among latino voters, 60% favor comprehensive immigration reform. when we defined the bill and we defined it, as we said, including border security, including registering, paying taxes, getting to the back of the line. , 70 -- 77% of all latino voters were in favor of it. every single demographic group overwhelmingly supported comprehensive reform. you can see strong bipartisan support. in fact, the republicans do not know that they are supposed to

be against this. their support is the highest of anyone's. you've got to love conventional wisdom. and there is strong support across the region. this issue is not nearly as regionally defined as people think. we asked people, and you think it would be better if people were in the u.s. illegally and that we made them legal and they pay their taxes and pay their fair share, or that they leave the country anbecause they are taking jobs that americans need? 58% said it better for them to pay taxes. people are seeing more and more services cut back and are 2 to 1 upseppa-john r. beating two to

one of the thought that they should -- and are between 221 the thought that they should leave -- are betweating 2 to 1 e thought that they should leave. 64% said that they should register, become legal, under grow -- undergo background checks. there was a time when people thought it was kind of anti- american. now people are clearer that this is an arduous process, even if they do not have the level of dr. west's experience. if you are here and working and paying taxes, become an american and join the rest of us. people think it is wildly unrealistic to think -- to try

to deport everyone and people do not want temporary workers. they want them to be here long term or not here. the support for temporary workers is something that has diminished with the toughening of the economy. people say they will vote this issue. 66% -- 56% of all voters and 57 percent of latino voters say this is an important issue. 24% of all voters say this is a very important issue. across every political group base davis's it. -- they say this is a very important issue when votevoting. at a time when people in congress really is not getting anything done and congress' own rates -- own ratings arhalow, pe

want congress to take some kind of action. in the same way that people support of the arizona law, 60% of people vote -- support of the arizona law, 45% strongly. but notice, among latino voters, 55% opposed it. there is a challenge here of redefining the issue for a generation in the latino community, increasing the an important constituency. here is a description of the arizona law. there is a very positive discussion and nothing pejorative in doubt. supporters -- in that. supporters of the arizona law are more likely to be white and supporters of the tea party than other voters overall, but

it is marginal oil -- marginal differences. when we asked people why did you support the arizona law -- and we did not just assume that we knew, and we did not tell people why they supported. we asked them. 52% said they supported the law because the state took action when the federal government failed to solve the problem. and people still respond very strongly to the language you hear the president use that this is a broken immigration system and we need to fix it. the 28% supported the arizona law because they thought it would reduce illegal immigration, 12% because it would reduce crime and 8% for no reason at all. the overwhelming reason behind it is frustration. not that people think this is the best approach. the reason that people said that they oppose the law is because it will lead to american citizens be asked for papers

either for their accent or their race and it will divert law- enforcement from concentrating on more serious crimes. people think overwhelmingly this needs to be handled by the federal government. at a time when feelings about government are solily negative, people still that you cannot handle this just state- by-state. you can see that people believe overwhelmingly that the federal should deal with this and not just individual states. then we looked for comprehensive reform by whether or not you supported the arizona law. conventional wisdom would say that if you supported the law, and you would not support

comprehensive reform. but 84% support a comprehensive reform, including a 67% strongly. if you were an opponent of the arizona law, 62% supported the arizona law, 48% strongly. and again, you can ask people in a different way, which view is closer to your own view, that a state by state approach will not work, or i think we need a version of arizona's law and our state and give police the tools to enforce our lot and finally cracked down on -- our laws and finally cracked down on immigration. the large majority of people said no, we need a national solution. the state-by-state approach will not work. i should have started by saying that this was a bipartisan poll

that we did with public opinion strategies, a republican polling firm. never one, the fact you support the arizona law is not at all inconsistent in people's minds with supporting a comprehensive reform. number two, people are frustrated with the system. they want to get moving with fixing the system and are interested in new approaches. i think that is why dr. west's book is such an important contrition truth -- contribution to the solution. and finally, people do not want to be next to a state that does not enforce this law. they want a national solution here. they do not want to have people moved by laws from one state to another. and even arizonans, they are

not the only state that is unhappy with passing a unconstitutional laws. 13 states said, it is unconstitutional then i do not want to pass it. qarizadah said, i want to -- arizona said, i want to pass it. i look forward to your questions. [applause] >> it kind of intimidating. -- that is kind of intimidating. [laughter] thank you for inviting me and thank you to brookings for having this important event. i would like to talk a little bit about what has been happening on comprehensive immigration reform, where we have been, maybe a little bit about where we have gone, some

of the sections that are likely to be included and some of the challenges that we face in getting this reform done. the big news this week is the filing by the department of justice of the lawsuit in arizona and while there are obviously strong opinions about that lawsuit, one thing we can all agree on is that the department believes that the arizona law is a manifestation of a federal failure, a failure by the federal government and congress to enact the very needed reforms on a level that are required for the national interest. i think this is something that we can move forward on. the administration believes that. the president believes that. we will see what we can do for the rest of the year-end going into next year. as the president said last week, we do have a broken system. we do have a system that does

not serve the national interest in a lot of ways. the only into this is a comprehensive national approach that needs to move forward -- the only end to this is a comprehensive national approach that needs to move forward and is not going to be easy. i was like to say that if you thought that the health care town halls were ugly, wait until congress starts considering comprehensive reform. it is going to be very contentious. it is going to be very difficult. but as the president said last week, it will be one of the challenges of our time and this administration is not willing to kick the can down the road on such important issues. that is where we are. no one should underestimate how difficult it is going to be. all you have to do is look at the last time we tried this in 2007 with a bipartisan group of senators with the full backing of the bush white house for comprehensive immigration reform and it still could not get done. it is going to be a difficult

issue, but it is something that the president and the administration are committed to moving forward on. in the vernacular is cir. the action has started in the senate with senator schumer. as you may know, he took this on to his credit and to on the responsibility of trying to craft a bipartisan bill. senator lyndsey gramm of south carolina joined soon after and it looked fairly favorable for moving forward, at least on the bill at some point. -- at some point last year or this year. late last year, they came to the old to ask for some assistance on the various portions of this bill. the department of homeland security has been designated the lead in agency -- the lead

agency in comprehensive reform. but other agencies, including the doj and otherthe labor depat and others have been moving forward and try to provide some feedback, some ideas on some of the ideas that are being bandied around. it has been an effective set of meetings that start of last summer. it did look like there was the possibility of something moving forward late last year or sometime this summer. the plan was really to have a bill drafted by early in the year and introduced and moving forward in the senate. as i say, if anything happened on the way to the formal. -- a funny thing happened on the way to the form. it was very controversy will and

serve to enhance the partisan rancor on the hill and made the moving forward of other bills much more difficult. things were relatively quiet for a few months. there was still a fair amount of actions behind-the-scenes trying to graft ideas, trying to see what was doable. but there was not much movement. there was some catalyst for action that occurred a few months ago and that was the passage of the arizona law. again, it was a recognition that the failure to enact immigration reform on a national level was a real catalyst for that. a lot of organizations started coming forward and saying how concerned they were about the arizona bill. and that was the blueprint that the democratic -- and then there was the blueprint that the democratic offices released on what comprehensive immigration reform could look like and it

had republican support. but we also have the effect of senator gramm, who was a key player and continues to be a key player, backing away from his efforts with senator schumer. that put the entire effort -- it took several steps back. one thing that the president leaves, and we all believe, that it is one of the few ironclad must deducdo's is that it shoult be done with only democratic votes in the house. it is going to require some significant republican support. not just a token republican support, but significant republican support -- support. and that is good to be a

challenge for the rest of the year and into 2011. the democrats have released this blueprint. it has been out there for a while. so far, unfortunately, we have not had any interest from any republican offices coin forward, at least not overtly. -- going forward, at least not overtly. absent something changing over the next few weeks and getting some bipartisan effort on this, there will be little movement on this. at this point we are looking toward the elections in 2011 to see if something will be moved forward. we do not know how things are going to continue to play out, for example, in arizona. arizona is a somewhat volatile

environment. there is passion on both sides of this bill that has been passed. there is the border of their and the narrative that -- the border out there and the narrative that is not as secure as it could be. the border is more secure than it ever has been and the president said that last week. if you go down to the border, you will see that the border of 20 years ago is not the border that is now, just in terms of the resources that are down there. but it is going to be something that will have to be provided for. and the president is committed to providing additional enhancements to border security. that argument is out there. there is the argument that until the border secure that cir will not be possible. it will be interesting to see how that plays out going forward. a lot of this will depend on

what happens in the elections. if we have a significantly different make up in congress than that will change the dynamics of this. but it is something that we all hope and we expect that congress will move forward on either this year or maybe post-election because most folks do recognize even though there are significant disagreements over this issue, this is a national priority and it has to move forward at some point. the president is committed to not kicking the can down the road any further because it is really necessary. let me conclude with some of the broad sections that are likely to be included in comprehensive immigration reform if this ever moves forward -- or when id which moves forward, i should say. -- when it moves forward, i

should say. is it enough for a stand-alone bill all by itself, or wrapped up together is it enough to make it a significant burden to move forward on? i think any version of all of these things are going to be included in comprehensive immigration reform. number one is a title on enforcement. what i mean by that is not just border security, but interior enforcement. there could be some innovative ideas that are put forward to try to deal with people who are here and documented -- un documented. the desire is that there will be a fix to this. people are required to come forward if they are undocumented status and there could be some some significant punishment for

not doing that. the second thing is that there is likely to beat unemployment -- likely to be an important employment verification system. senator schumer has proposed a security card that every employer would have to provide and everyone would need to this card in order to get a job going forward. yes, it is going to be costly. yes, it is going to the controversy 0, but it is something that the senate officers who are working on this are committed to seeing in comprehensive reform. and they're right on this. full control of illegal immigration is going to brely on full control at the workplace.

really doing something about the magnet of jobs is keyed to enforcing and deterring illegal immigration. number three is what the president has called the gauck to citizenship -- the past to citizenship, or similar terminology. it is unrealistic to expect massive deportations. nobody thinks that is doable, even if we wanted to do that. at the same time, we cannot have a blanket amnesty. the president has to have some sort of acknowledgement, responsibility for these folks to come forward. but they do need to be brought out of the shadows, as has been said, not only because it is good policy for a number of reasons, but also for our national security. we need to know who these people are, where they are, who they are. it is an unhealthy situation for

a number of reasons to have people here under undocumented status without knowing who they are or where they are. finally, there is what is called future flows, or adjusting the legal immigration system so that it makes sense going forward. there are a number of proposals out there, enhancing visa's for high skilled workers, the agricultural workers of tuition to provide some sort of mechanism to allow employers to bring in agricultural workers more easily than they can now. in the senator's proposal that was released in april, there was a commission to study and make recommendations on future flows, or marked changes in the economy -- market changes in the economy that would make it easier to bring in certain kinds of workers, or by contrast, not

bring in certain kinds of workers going forward. that is a very difficult challenge, but it makes a lot of sense because one of the signs of the system being broken is that it does not serve our economic interest as well as it should. the system that should be included in any kind of reform. finally, i'm sure there will be other things thrown in there. when this thing doesn't start moving forward, you can expect numerous -- the start moving forward, you can expect numerous amendments -- when this thing does start moving forward, you can expect numerous amendments, but that will be when this get some traction on the hill. i will stop there. i am happy to answer any questions. again, the administration is committed to seeing this happen. it is a national priority that the president has committed to make happen, but it will truly require bipartisan support. we are hopeful that as the year

goes on and the elections loom, and post elections, there will be some republican members of congress, especially in the senate, who will come forward and join in the bipartisan effort to get this done in the national interest. thank you very much and i am happy to take any questions. [applause]

>> i would like to thank both celinda and juan for their contributions to this discussion. i think they have raised a number of helpful points. i would like to ask a couple of questions to each of them and then we will open the floor to questions and comments from you. i would like to start with celinda. you presented some very important -- interesting information about the american public opinion about the arizona law. how you see those issues playing in the midterm elections?

what do you see as the risk for each party, particularly as it relates to the latino vote? >>, in two minutes or less -- [laughter] that is a good question. in terms of the arizona law, you have to separate out arizona appeared and -- to separate out arizona, and particularly in places like california. and you have to separate it out as yet another problem that in the voters' minds are not getting soft. you were acquitted in your remarks about this and the president has been an eloquent about that the president -- that we cannot keep kicking the can down the road.

there is this sense that congress and the administration has not done enough done. i think leaving anything on the table is going to cause frustration for the voters. that is question no. one, that as just an issue, yet another area that people can point to where nothing is getting done, that will be a frustration to voters and across parties across the country. in terms of arizona, in a number of congressional races -- there is a senate race with a very aggressive primary. he has been very conservative on that issue in the face of the primary. this is a man who once got a 60% of the latino vote. and a member of the congressional districts are dependent on the latino vote, but there is also a sense that

they are legitimately at ground zero on this conversation.ody bi conversation better than jenna nepolitano. it is a very difficult conversation to bracket. elected officials in arizona have taken a stand against the federal government suing them. when this will be a very hot issue in that state. california and other places, this is already emerging, including in the gubernatorial debate. and you have an immigration fight as you had with the governor before pete wilson where he alone made it -- where he alienated for generations of latino voters -- four generations of latino voters. this is someone who had gotten

quite a bit of the latino vote before he alienated people. [coughs] sorry. i think this will play out in terms of the latino community, and whether we are able to get latino voters out -- i think many will say that if there is no action on this issue i will sit home because i do not see this government doing anything that i need for me and my family. and i think in general, you will see divisions around -- in states particularly with latino populations -- that could define generations to come. >> juan, what i found it

especially interesting was the legal rationale that was used. when this lot was first passed, many people talked about the racial profiling based on the arizona law, but the legal argument presented in the justice department lawsuit was based on federal preemption and not the possible discriminatory impact. the question i have for you is, why prevention as opposed to civil rights and discrimination? -- white pre-emptiowhy pre-empto rights and discrimination? >> the president and the administration is concerned about the impact on the racial profiling in this law. that is a concern with these sorts department of the division of justice as much as for its civil-rights implications. the reason that the department felt it needed to be on a pre- emption basis is because the

law and should does not take effect until july 29. -- the law actually does not take effect until july 29. the full impact of this will not be seen until that time. at least, the full impact of the civil-rights issues at that time. the language of the statute itself led us to conclude that the statute on its face conflicts with federal immigration law and therefore, is pre-empted under the supremacy clause. that is the reason for the focus on the lawsuit. >> celinda, we were talking before this event started about a family unification principle. many of you know that this is the dominant issue in american immigration policy. about 1 million visas have been awarded each year, and 64% of

them have been based on family reunification, as opposed to 15% for employment related reasons. in canada, those numbers are reversed. canada is much more strategic in linking to economics. at 59% of their visas go for employment related be says. -- a visas. what are the ones is in how people view that? should we define the issue more narrowly or broadly? what do people think about that? >> it is a principle that americans tend to be pretty committed to. one of the things that is most disturbing to them is the length of weighthe wait for family reunification. they tend to be thinking in terms of parents, siblings, and

kids and bosses. -- spouses. one of the things that was interesting is that we asked if this will provide a flood of immigration into this country and most of the people in the test group said that most of their family did not like them and they were not that worried about wanting to come over -- them wanting to come over. making those visas to come much faster with a narrower definition, that might be more popular. but in general, they thought the delay was outrageous, and the delayed by different groups, depending on your ethnic background did not make any sense to them. >> and the flip side of the question is, how do people feel

about the economic aspects, the employment related to be suspects -- employment related visas? >> there is some tension around temporary workers, in general, has a broad category. that is an action area where the rest of the pressure has been off of immigration. you have seen less of a desire for temporary workers because if anyone is going hired, it is going to be me. there are some interesting tensions are rounound the says e you have some in some communities, like the african american community, that if

you're going to have those programs, then there should be simultaneous programs investing in our community. there is no reason that we should have a google founder in the african-american community in detroit, but that person is getting a much worse education than their counterparts in china or india. there is a real desire that we invest in people here. there are complex views on the economic front. >> in my opening remarks i discussed some of the problems in america's immigration courts. i have a colleague that has done a an interesting research on this. you gave testimony a few weeks ago before a house judiciary subcommittee on the condition of the courts and discuss the court shortage of judges has led to an overboard and court docket -- overburdened court docket. what is the justice department doing to fix the court part of the immigration system? right now, we have 48 vacancies, which is 17% of all of the immigration judges.

what's one of the interesting things about our immigration system -- >> one of the interesting things about our immigration system is that there are so many pieces to it. there are about to wonder 35 immigration judges and 58 immigration courts are around the country -- 235 immigration judges and 58 immigration courts around the country. the deal with about 400,000 matters in a single year. it is very high volume. the department -- and adequately functioning immigration courts begin with adequatel resources. if all goes to plan, we will be hiring 47 immigration judges in 2010 alone. many of those are already in process. some of those have already come

on board, and the restaurant the final stages of selection. if congress approves the department's request for 2011, there will be an additional 21 immigration judges hired for next year. and when i say immigration judge, it is actually an immigration judge team. that means there is support staff and other resources as well because as has been pointed out by russell wheeler and others, it is not just judges, but the law clerk resources that they need to have. the department has identified this as one of their high- performance goals for 2010 and 2011. the hiring of immigration judges in order to stay up with the caseload, especially detained cases, has been identified as one of the six high priority goals for the department. beyond that, there is also more recognition than there ever has

been at the department and within dhs as well that this is a shared burden. it begins with an enforcement action by the department of homeland security. we are trying to engage quite a bit more with dhs in making sure that the research of -- the resources are required -- acquired and that they will be there on the judge decide to handle the case going forward. but one thing that you want to avoid as much as possible is cases being presented and then not handled. that is a very bad situation to have happened. that type of coordination with dhs is something we are engaged in along with other initiatives. >> i have one more question for each of them and then we will open the floor to questions from you. celinda, i hate to cite a competing poster, but a few

weeks ago, the gallup poll showed concern about -- they gave the respondents a long list of items on the debt, illegal immigration and other items. 84% of americans thought that the national debt represented a a a great threat to the future well-being of the u.s. each rivers and sign it cited unemployment. 64% said illegal immigration -- 86% cited unemployment. the 64% said illegal immigration. it showed that we are afraid of everything. one thing is joined with the high emotion attached to this, the anxiety, the fear loss of jobs. how you advise -- how do you

advise politicians to deal with the emotional side with this? >> first, in terms of the mood of the country right now, it is a time when people think things are not going in the right direction. there are many -- very many long-term problems that we are a long way out from under a very big concerns about -- a long way out from and there are very big concerns about. there seemed to be multiple problems, wars that we cannot be out of, take -- and an economy that cannot seem to rebound, oil that needs to be capped and then they knock the cap off. it is all part of the very real anxiety the people are facing. and they also think of it as more long term. in terms of dealing with

emotional issues, first, -- and again i aside secretary nepolitano as an example -- by site secretary nepolitano as an example. on these issues, you can run, but you cannot hide. your instincts might be to try to avoid this issue, and it is an eminent -- an understandable and instinct, but you have to lean into the issue and engage your voters in a dialogue and say clearly what you are for and not try to obfuscate it. and with the data showed, but the new language and in turn -- and also how to talk about it, for example, i think many of us are more comfortable with the term of -- with the term "undocumented worker" and "illegal immigrant." well, american voters were very

uncomfortable with the term of undocumented worker." -- with the term "undocumented worker." people associated with a terrorist because if you're undocumented, then you can are even get a drink. -- you cannot even get a drink. one of the things that i would say about iit is, conventional wisdom is at least 99% wrong when it comes to social issues. it is very easy for politicians to get intimidated. they need to understand where the -- where the broad base of the republic is. >> the other thing that i write about in my book is that the u.s. supports 350,000 people annually. since 1999 we have deported 2.2

million people approximately. there is little attention paid to the 350,000 people removed from this country each year. can you talk about that policy and whether there are any differences between the bush and obama administration's in how they think about this issue? >> that is primarily a dhs matter. so, let me give it a shot. removals' are at an all-time high. that is the technical word. deportation is at an all-time high. the priority -- well, there has been an emphasis -- there are different enforcement priorities. dhs has its priorities in terms of going after be both criminal convictions, people who are

violent, who may be dangerous. that is the number-one priority that the dhs has in terms of enforcement efforts, not just insurance of finding people and putting them in deportation proceedings, but in terms of actually getting them out of the country. there are different levels and a denard member the exact terminology, but i know there are different levels of priorities. number one, national security risks, dangerous people, violent criminals -- those are the ones they go after first. and i should note that criminal aliens are increasing percentage of the population of people that are actually deported from the country. it is not just people who are coming across the border. actually, a growing number of the deportation numbers are the high priority folks, the ones that -- i do not think anyone would disagree khaybar-1 is that we should be going after first because -- i do not think anyone would disagree are the ones that we should be going after first

because they are a threat to our community. that is the emphasis now as opposed to in the past, but the numbers have been going up for the last decade or so, as you mentioned. >> we're going to turn to the audience participation part of this. we will take two or three questions at a time from the audience and give the panel a chance to respond. there are people with microphones walking around. the we would ask you to give your name and organizational affiliation. please keep your questions. so we can get to as many people as possible. a question in the front row here. >> i am from the orange county register and i have a question for, -- for each panelist, if i can. you said in your polling that you oversee of latinos -- you over sampled latinos. do you think that might have had an impact in the results, in had an impact in the results, in