program provides a severely injured veterans and service members access to the benefits and care that they need to recover. our 20 federal reserve coordinators' work with members of the services of wounded warriors program, service recovery care coordinators' and various staff members and to bridge the transition. each enrolled client has an individual recovery plan based on the goals and needs of that service member and veteran, and based on the needs of their family. these are the basis of returning our wounded warriors to the highest level of functionality that they can achieve. we implemented a robust screening program for posttraumatic stress disorder. we screen every veteran from afghanistan and iraq for brain injuries cut depression and problem drinking. if the screening is positive, we

require an evaluation for suicidology. any positive screening leads to further evaluation in the primary care setting followed by specialty services as needed. we have established standards for mental health of the require prompt context of new patients within 24 hours of a referral by a commission to determine the urgency of the needs. if a veteran has an urgent need, we require staff to make appropriate arrangements, including immediate admission to one of our facilities. if the need is not urgent, the patient must be seen for a fall at the valuation and the inappropriate treatment plant within 14 days -- for a full evaluation and appropriate treatment plant within 14 days. a suicide by a service member

or veteran is a tragedy for the individual, his or her friends and family, and to the nation. we have initiated several programs that put us at the forefront of suicide prevention. we have established a national suicide prevention hot line, placing suicide prevention coordinators at medical centers, expanding mental health services, and incorporating mental health care into primary care to eliminate the stigma. the result of these efforts is significant. our hotline has saved the lives of more than 9000 veterans and service members since its inception. younger veterans who come to the v.a. are 30% less likely to die from suicide abandon those who do not come to us from care. suicide among veterans receiving health care from the va has declined steadily since 2001. this corresponds to about two

hundred 50 fewer lives lost as a result of suicide. these are considered accomplishment that we can be proud of, but it is imperative that we reach more of our veterans and service members and deliver the care they need. we maintain a long standing relationship with dod that shares best practices, identifies joint solutions, operates centers of excellence, and supports the brave men and women who wear the uniform. thank you for the opportunity to discuss these issues today. i am prepared to answer your questions. >> thank you very much. >> we are lucky that the chairman of the veterans affairs committee is also chairman of the armed services committee.

that has allowed us to do much better coordination in these matters. he is a member of this committee. minutes before the first round here. general, let me start with you. a couple of weeks ago, national public radio reported that the military is failing to diagnose brain injuries in troops who served in iraq and afghanistan, that the injuries were not documented on the battlefield, the soldiers do not always get the best medical treatment. interviews with soldiers at fort bliss revealed that some soldiers were crying out for help and still had to wait more than a month to see a neurologist. also, they reported that many military doctors failed to accurately diagnosed tbi. can you give us your response to those reports? >> i've provided a complete response to national public

radio in which i detailed my problems with the report. i have three basic problems. number one, it criticized the leadership for not caring and not doing anything about it. i think that is far from the truth. i take great exception with a report stating that our doctors will not seem to care, do not properly diagnosed these injuries, without explaining the real issue here. you cannot isolate traumatic brain injury without talking about posttraumatic stress. as i mentioned in my opening statement, it is very difficult for doctors to make that diagnosis. of my army wounded warrior population, the most severely wounded population i have, as

60% have either tbi or pts. i really believe that when you fail to talk about both in this issue, you are doing a great disservice. to stated flatly, our science on the brain is just not as great as it is in other parts of our body. researchers are struggling today to find the linkages and to learn everything they can about the brain. because of this, we are going to see some misdiagnoses. i can tell you that the people at national public radio had over 200 appointments -- the people that national public radio talked about had over two hundred appointments a piece. you can go anywhere in the world

and find soldiers who are struggling because of our inability to nail down and determine exactly what treatment they need for these issues, but i promise you, it is not for lack of trying, or a lack of caring on the part of our doctors. our leadership is completely committed to this. >> one of the soldiers claim the month to more to see a neurologist. >> i will tell you that and neurologist is not necessarily the answer to these issues. i have a total of 52 neurologists in the united states army. 40 of them are currently practicing. 40. that is when i include my child. 18 new works of behavioral health issue is a team of a near rolla -- the team who works on a behavioral health issue is a team, a neurologist, a

psychologist, and behavioral health specialists. even the medications for pts and tbi are totally different. if we might miss in as been the beginning, the medications are going to be different -- if we misdiagnose in the beginning, the medications are going to be different than what they need. there are also anxiety issues, depression issues, other issues that are the product of these wars that are causing us so much difficulty in this area. i have 79% of the psychiatrists currently assigned to the united states army, and i know that authorization is lacking, but i only have 79%.

it is not just an army problem. this is a national problem, the shortage of behavioral spell health specialists. -- health specialists. >> is this a matter of funding, of finding people? >> i think it is a matter of finding people, of getting them to move to some of the places where the army is stationed. when you have shortages, it may be because a psychiatrist prefers to be in nashville banner in clarksville, tennessee. clarksville,n in tennessee. >> is the delay because of a lack of resources, or because of the complexity that you just

described? >> i would argue that it is the complexity. i really would. i would not say that in every instance we are getting soldiers in exactly when we want to, but soldiers have a primary care manager at the rate of one per two hundred, a primary care manager of where you or i would have a primary care manager at a ratio of one to 1200 or 1500. have a squad leader at a ratio of one to 10 or less. we are short behavioral health specialists. >> but again, that is not a funding issue. >> it is not a funding issue. >> the va, you testified, screens all of our iraq and afghan veterans who receive care from the va for traumatic brain injury.

does that screening indicates that there is a routine failure in the military to properly diagnose traumatic brain injury before you see that veteran, when they're still on active duty? >> i do not think we can say that. the problem with traumatic brain injury is that there is no hard, fast diagnostic test. it is not a lab test that you can send off and get a solid answer back. this is one of the temporal issues that often takes time to manifest some of the effects. i do not think that it is a failure on the department of defense side to find these people. i think it may just be the complexity of disease, as you have heard, takes time to manifest in ways that we can then identify. >> first of all, it was called

to my attention, oddly enough, of all the committees i have never served on, one is personnel. it was called to my attention the propensity of these suicide and i made a request the restarted looking into it. -- that we start looking into it. general, i know the you have really made a study of this thing. you said something to the effect, i did not see it, i was told it was in your written testimony. on active duty, we have actually had a reduction of the number of suicides, is that correct?

>> that is correct. >> in the 1990's, we were downgrading the size of the military and all of that stuff. after 9/11, we had all of these appointments. we all hear from people back home, our garden reserves. they say it is not livable. that goes all the way across the services. i would think that perhaps the up-tempo might be some leading cause of these, in that it is much higher. do you see that relationship? >> i see that as one of the factors. we have had an increase, it is really interesting. an increase of the active component force.

it is about 700,000 person force. once a reserve soldier is made an active-duty soldier, he is counted in my active component number. we are down 50. we are up 21 in our national guard soldiers who are not on active duty. that concerns me greatly. a think it is multiple deployments. i do not think we are getting enough time with them to give them the kind of checkups that they need, behavioral checkouts. third, i think senator mccain said in his opening statement, this lack of human interaction with other soldiers when they leave the service after a 12 month deployment is a real issue here. >> that is. that is what you're talking about.

you implied with the public radio think that it was not totally accurate and i agree with you. there was another article on the 14th of june in usa today that talked about -- it was pretty talk aboutbecause it caho a law that was passed in 2008 which said that there have to be both pre and post, and apparently we are short on the post and a bit. can you elaborate on that? >> the law stated that we had to use a screening tool in pre and post deployment. and we still use that in pre deployment to the baseline on cognitive and skill. "we found that when we used it on a post -- we found that when

we used it on post we are getting a high number of positives, a false number, way too high. we had a number of specialists working their way through these false positives. we still use the test if a soldier demonstrates any of the symptoms of traumatic brain injury or cognitive issue. we're still using it, but we're not making it mandatory for every soldier so the we do not make our limited number of behavioral specialists have to wade through all of these tests. we have other things to analyze virtual behavior health. we can give every soldier a 30- 40 minute riyadh session with a behavioral health specialists using -- triage session with the behavioral health specialists using the internet.

this is the kind of thing would like to be able to provide to reserve components soldiers when they get back, but i do not necessarily have the time necessary to do that. >> do any of the rest of you want to comment on that in terms of how relates to the law that was passed? >> we still use the test pre and post. we are fortunate in a way that we can do that based on the numbers we are dealing with, even with the false positives. we have had a fair amount of success with a post deployment health assessment that takes place in the theater shortly after return. six months later there is a reassessment. that assessment has yielded 16% of those chairmen that we are trading for -- those airmen that

we are treating for posttraumatic stress syndrome. with thein agreement army and the other services. we used the test with 100% of our marines prior to deployment. we are not doing that when they come back. it is used occasionally by our mental health professionals if they do not have anything better, but the issue of false positives and the lack of reliability on the post leads our navy doctors, our mental health professionals, to seek other ways. we are doing that. we screen 100% of the marines as they are coming out of theater, and then at 90-100 days later we do it again.

15% of those that are screened coming out of theater answer some questions positively which would lead you to further screening. of that further screening, 7% see mental health professionals. by the time you whittle it down, about 2% of the marines actually need mental health care when they come out. >> that is very helpful. my time is expired. but i want to rescue a question -- ask you a question. another article talks about tying an up-tempo with families, with deployment, and apparently the new england journal of medicine did a study. i read this article and then did a little more research about the findings they're having in terms

of these families, the wives, the kids. nothing was really said during the opening statements about that, so i would like, for the record, to have the four of you address what we might be doing in terms of the wives and children at that might have the same problem and the same ratio that the troops in cells -- troops themselves are having. >> i have made reference to a bill that was introduced by a congressman who was the co- founder and co-chair of a task force. we have received a statement from him which we will make part of the record. >> thank you for scheduling this hearing on these vitally important topics. i want to thank my brother and

friend, senator inhofe, for helping to bring this about. i want to recognize our distinguished group of witnesses and thank you for your dedicated service to our come. untry. i also want to thank the men and women that you leave for their outstanding service. the topics that can today are ones that i cared deeply about. in continuing to work with you and my colleagues, we can continue to refine efforts to prevent military suicides and look for better ways to treat, detect, and care for those suffering from the invisible wounds of war.

, suicideors prevention is difficult and challenging, and for all of you in our panel, this has come across because of what we call combat stress. as was mentioned, that includes ptsd, tbi, and behavioral health issues that we are facing here. as was previously stated, there has been a rise in suicide since the wars in iraq and the afghanistan started.

there is a need to look suiciding get to a point where we can prevent it. how can the dod and be a better collaborate -- dod end of the better collaborate on suicide prevention research? >> i would argue that i believe that cooperation has never been better. we are running a pilot at different installations that is proving to be a great success for the united states army. the wonderful thing about this is that when a soldier goes through, we ensure that if they

are leaving the service that they are in a v.a. system. this is something that is never happened before as far as i know. it is a wonderful benefit of desperate -- benefit of this, that when a soldier makes a decision to leave the service, he is in the system. before, we would have soldiers separate and it would be their responsibility to work their way through the process of getting into receive both their medical benefits and other benefits through the system. i think that you have hit upon a key piece, and that is stressors. it is not only combat stress, it is individual soldiers dressed and family stress. when we look across the that aum, we're seeing soldier in at the first six years that he or she spends in the united states army has and the accumulative stressors of an average american throughout

their entire life. that is when you combine high up-tempo, individual stressors, and family stressors. this is an area that we're looking at very hard. when you realize that 79% of our suicides last year word soldiers, 50% in in their first term, 79% one a deployment or no deployment, i think it points to doing everything we can to mitigate those stressors whenever possible and, as we're doing so hard in the army, worked to increase the resiliency of our soldiers, particularly in their younger years. >> senator, i would be happy to talk about not only the relationship of the hand of between the military and the veterans' association. i have never seen it better.

the entire organization is a well lit from the top down. they are passionate and compassionate about the men and women to enter our system. i have travelled around and visited a lot of our hospitals and our wounded, and i am very moved by what i see. there is a systematic handoff. in the marine corps, and this is done by our recovery care coordinators'. we take summer rains we have around the nation, u.s. marines to stop in life is to know everything they can -- whose job in life is to know everything they can about the va system. that recovery care coordinator contacts the recovery care coordinator federally. we have a network to put our

arms around a guy. i have seen it firsthand where the actual hand off foreign needy marine, in some cases two years after the initial diagnosis of the injury, i just saw this last month. a young marine diagnosed two years ago, his wife as unravelled right now, and their federal recovery coordinator and the care coordinator in san antonio, we were able to plug this marine back into a hospital right now to get some care. i've never seen a better. >> thank you, senator. i think the general hit the nail on the head. i think cooperation is very good.

we rely on them to streamline the system. what we are finding in our study of suicides is the transitional period seems to be a spike in stressors. this is something we need to watch very closely to ensure that our sailors have the social support network that they have had as they move through their career. that is an area to watch out for. >> we have about 700 men and women in our wounded warrior program. their lives have been changed forever, and we are dedicated to taking care of them from the time they're wounded until they no longer need our services in the air force and they make a transition to the federal system. we use much the same system that was described with a recovery

care coordinators around the nation. we are very comfortable with our relationship with the va and the way that is working. >> so as not to reiterate things that have already been said, i would just like to point out a couple of areas where this level of integration has really become manifest. first, the reassessment exercises. the va generally has a presence at those exercises, not to administer the exams, but to be present to ensure that those service members are aware of all of their benefits that the va can provide, but also, if there

are immediate health, particularly mental health issues that arise, that they are there and can literally make an appointment on the spot. and if we need to take them into our care at that point we can do that. so we participate in that. and the second is the polytrauma networks, which really are -- while the va has four, and going on five now, polytrauma centers of care, those are very tightly integrated into the wounded warrior programs at walter reed, in bethesda. in fact, i had the real honor to accompany deputy secretary gould and dr. stanley on a tour of walter reed, and then come directly down to richmond and look at the seamless way that the -- both patients and their information move back and forth through those networks, including the fact that there are va representatives stationed in the dod facilities, and dod clinicians in the va polytrauma centers, so that we ensure that any movement of

patient is a warm handoff and not just being sent to another place. and then, finally, in the mental health area, i think there's just been an extraordinary collaboration going on for some time now. there was a joint conference, in the fall of '09, that led to an integrated va/dod strategic plan. and the real goal was to make sure that when, for instance the -- there are evidence-based therapies for post-traumatic -- treatment of post-traumatic stress, that the va and the services agree on how we treat those patients so that as treatment begins in the services, and then transitions in the va, we're not abruptly stopping one form of therapy and entering into another. and i think this is a hugely important point of collaboration, that we've gotten that far. >> thank you for your responses. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator akaka.

and the testimony of our witnesses, saying that the integration of planning and diagnosis and treatment of our troops that are veterans is going along at a good pace, is important news to both of our committees. it's something we put a great focus on, both veterans affairs and armed services. and our wounded warrior legislation was aimed at accomplishing that. so, this is important testimony, and good to hear. senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we've all got this strange echo today. general chiarelli, i want to follow up on a question that senator inhofe asked you. and, senator inhofe, i want to thank you for suggesting this hearing, as well as the chairman, for holding this important hearing. in the past year, i have met with a retired general in my

state, with returning members of the national guard, and with a whole variety of healthcare professionals, to discuss the mental health needs of our troops and the troubling rise in suicides. to a person, each of them has told me that it's insufficient dwell time between deployments that they believe is the biggest factor, that there's not sufficient recovery time before deployments occur again. how important do you think that factor is to the increase in problems with mental health and the suicide rates? >> i think, for the national guard soldiers, it may be higher than we're seeing with the active-component soldiers. as i indicated, 79 percent of our suicides last year were soldiers who had never deployed or only deployed one time.

so, that would argue that, in that group of 700,000, there's a bit of resilience that grows with repeated deployments. i -- i'm not -- i'm just giving you the numbers we're seeing out of nimh, and as we start to pull the early results. i really believe, though, that what -- the real issue here for our national guard soldiers is that, when they come back off of multiple deployments, that second or third deployment, that we have sufficient time at the demob station to do the kind of medical tests, such as a virtual behavioral health counseling or other things, to ensure that, number one, we get a good read on how they're doing; and, number two, that they fully understand the medical benefits that they're going to have when they return to their state. one of the hardest things for

any of us is that the benefits for a national guard soldier differ from state to state. we've made great progress with tricare reserve plus. and you add that to tamp, which gives you 6 months of care when you come back home. if we can get the soldier to enroll in tricare reserve plus, we can provide them continuous medical care to the next deployment. and i think this is critical. so, i think we have to look at this population a little bit different, and realize -- and, again, as senator mccain said, i am able to wrap leaders around returning active- component soldiers for the entire time that they're back. we take a reserve-component soldier today and, within 5 to 7 days, he's back in his community, on his own. >> a related problem, at least in a rural state like mine, is

an absence of mental health professionals in those rural communities. even though the va will provide the assistance, or the national guard will provide the assistance, it's often many hours away. and that's a problem that's in our society as a whole. and you've mentioned the shortages that you're facing, and that it's difficult to match the mental health professionals with where bases may be located. but, that's an even worse problem when you're talking about national guard members or reservists who are going back to their home communities, their regular jobs in small communities that may not have any mental health professionals

at all. >> if i could just quickly comment. >> yes. >> we started a program, last august, which gives counseling, 247, without a tricare referral, to anyone who's authorized for tricare. and it is done online. it falls short of psychotherapy or prescription pain management, so we can't do that online. but, where i really see us making up for this shortage is to really explore what we can do with tele-behavioral health. >> i agree. >> because this gets at stigma issues, it gets at the kind of shortages you're talking about in rural areas, senator. and i really think that this is something that will fix us now, rather than wait til we grow the necessary providers that we need over time. i really think we should be exploring this as hard as we possibly can. >> i completely agree. there's great potential, particularly since so many of these young troops have access to computers in their own homes, because the stigma still is there. despite all of our efforts, it's still there. so, i'm delighted to hear you put an emphasis on that. general amos, even though we've given a lot of attention to the army's rising suicide problem, i was struck to see, in 2009, that the branch with the highest rate of suicides among active duty personnel was actually the marine corps.

what is the marine corps doing -- the army's clearly done a great deal -- is the marine corps matching that effort, in stepping up your programs and trying to tailor them to the culture of the marines? >> senator, that's a great question. and the short answer is: absolutely, yes. we are joined at the hip with our programs that we mutually share across -- cross-boundary. we are aware of all that each of the other services do. we collaborate. we share best practices. we steal good ideas from one another. so, the answer is yes. we are -- in 2009, we led the department of the defense in

suicides, percentage-wise. we had 52. that's double what we had in 2005, when we had 25. so, you ask yourself, you know, ''what is it that's caused this?'' we don't have all the answers on this thing, and you wouldn't expect me to, but you would expect me to be trying to find out and do something about it. interestingly, the marine corps is the youngest service, age- wise, of all the other services; for instance, 67 percent of all of our 202,000 marines, between the ages of 17 and 25. if you compare that to the other services, we are woefully more -- when i say ''immature,'' i'm just talking about years -- as a whole-cloth force. so, that, in and of itself, causes some issues. our population, where our marines are killing themselves, are between 17 and about 23/ 24; it's male; it's about half

married, half single; white. and the deployment -- for instance, this year alone, we've had nine young marines take their lives that had never seen their deployment. we have had marines come right out of boot camp, and, after having spent 12 weeks in what is arguably a ''legendary boot camp,'' which calls out an awful lot of folks who just can't handle the stress, they kill themselves. they go home on leave, and every now and then they'll take their life. and they've never seen deployment one. and they've just completed the most rigorous, probably, physical and mental examination they -- that they've ever had in their life. so, what causes that? we had a young lance corporal just check into his unit, who were deployed in afghanistan 2 weeks ago, his very first day, he goes on duty, walks outside the perimeter, and shoots himself. and he did this -- as you, kind

of, do the forensics on this thing -- his girlfriend left him just before he left. he has issues with his family at home, his mother and father. and so, these are the kind of things that we're seeing. so, what are we doing about it? first of all, and foremost, in our organization we're focusing on the leadership of the marine corps. i know that sounds trite, but we're an organization that's based on leadership, everything we do. so, we start with the very top. the commandant of the marine corps, the sergeant major of the marine corps, are adamant about this, and it's flowed all the way down through our senior leadership, that we have to absolutely pay attention to this. this is not something to be taken lightly, and it is an issue. so, that's the first thing, the

senior leaders' focus. we developed, last -- it took us about 6 months to develop -- we pioneered it last -- about july, a noncommissioned officers suicide prevention half-day course. and it was -- it's video, it's film, it's in the vernacular of the ncos, because looking at that population of our young marines that are taking their lives, it's that 17-to-22/23. that's where the noncommissioned officers -- they own those marines. they know them better than anybody. so, we focused this effort on them. high reviews, just great reviews from the noncommissioned officers. one-hundred percent of our noncommissioned officers have gone through this thing, and they're taking that training down to the young marines below

them. interesting, we've seen a drop in suicides this year, even though right now we are on the same plateau as we are last year. if you consider -- and that's probably not very encouraging -- but if you consider this vector we've been on since 2005, which has been very steeply vertical, the fact that we are even where we were last year is an encouraging sign. the further piece of news that's encouraging is, this nco course, we think -- too soon to tell -- but, last year, 92 percent of our suicides were in this age group that i just described, about 23 to 17, and a lot of them were noncommissioned officers. we've seen a drop this year down to 84 percent, as of today. so, we've taken that -- we've said, ''okay. let's take a look at those real young marines, the privates through lance corporals; let's take a look at the staff ncos; and let's take a look at our young officers, lieutenants to captains, and let's build a very similar program.'' we're in the throes of that right now. it should be published within the next 2 to 3 months. and we're going to do that whole thing for the entire marine corps. so, we think it's going to work. we think it has worked. too soon to tell. but, ma'am, we're doing that. we've got -- we're -- we have increased our resiliency training by -- immersion

training for our young marines, all that predeployment stuff, trying to make our marines more resilient. i have a list of things down here that i could go through. but, i just want you to know this has our attention. this is job one with the marine corps. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator collins. senator udall is next. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning, to the panel. and, general chiarelli, i want to, in particular, note the attention you've paid to these important issues. i had an opportunity to travel with you to fort carson earlier this year. i know you've immersed yourself in these difficult discussions. and i know we don't have all the answers yet, and that's why we're holding the hearing, in part. and i trust my questions will be received in that spirit, as well. and i want to -- i wasn't here earlier, during the questioning about the anam test. i think you said that, while the army uses it, predeployment, for a baseline, you don't use it post-deployment, not usually, because of the false

positives that often result, or result, to some extent of the time. here's my question. by definition, a baseline is supposed to give us something to look back at, in the aftermath, a way to compare. so, if we're not using, what is it, close to 600,000 pre- deployment assessments to compare to the post-deployment assessments, what are we doing with them? why use anam at all if it's not being used in that post- deployment situation? >> sir -- senator, i will tell you, we are using the anam on post-deployment, but only if the soldier demonstrates some kind of a symptom of having cognitive issues. and that may be cognitive issues that could be caused by tbi or some other behavioral health issue. so, the baseline is very, very important, because it gives the doctor an additional tool that, when symptoms are demonstrated, or in a post-deployment screening we have reason to believe we soldier go through the anam, we go ahead and use it. what we're just not doing is doing a post-deployment anam for every soldier irregardless -- or regardless of -- my english

teacher would have just been -- thank you very much. >> mine too, general. [laughter.] >> yeah -- regardless of whether they show those symptoms, because we were getting so many false positives. and we just don't have the folks, the behavioral health specialist folks, to work through all those false positives and give the care we need to, to the rest of those who need care. >> that's helpful, and we'll continue that conversation. my next question will follow on that. i want to talk about the post- deployment health assessment, the pdha. and it's supposed to catch things that weren't caught in theater, as i understand it. and a soon-to-be-published study has shown that the standard screen on the pdha fails to catch 40 percent of those who sustained a tbi in theater. and this comes from research at fort carson, in my home state of colorado. i've been there, as i've mentioned, on a number of occasions, to get briefings on how they're handling tbi patients.

i think they're doing it right. they're -- by using a more thorough exam, with clinical interviews to augment the pdha. and there's a concern, as i understand it, that those -- that individualized approach would take too much time, and require scarce personnel to administer, and that such an approach can't be replicated across the force. but, i'm told that at fort carson it only takes about 15 to 20 minutes to -- in addition to -- to do this. could you speak to fort carson's approach and whether the army's looking at maybe applying this elsewhere? >> i'll tell you, i disagree with fort carson. i want them to institute the virtual behavioral health screening, so that we can ensure that we get everyone. i don't want to use any form. i don't want to use any series of questions that automatically

says that a soldier does not have those issues. and i think that what we really need to do is to get to a standard that says we're going to give everyone a post- deployment screen; follow that up, 90 days later and 180 days later. here's my problem with the fort carson approach. the fort carson approach focuses on soldiers with doctors that they have assigned when they come back. and they may get through a 15- to 20-minute screening of a select population who's demonstrated, based on a questionnaire, that they may have issues, they may be medium to high risk. but, when you do that, you take away the doctors that are providing care to those folks that we have already found, because you're focusing on this group. that's why this virtual network is so important, that you can do an actual triage and get the number down to those that you can treat with those people you have on base. i've had discussions with fort carson about this. and, i've got to tell you, until i get doctors to use the virtual method, they -- many of them push back, and they push back because they have never done this before. i -- but, what we're finding is that those who go through it, the doctors -- those doctors are the biggest supporters of it,

because we find that this generation, in many times, opens up much greater using either skype technology or some kind of high-definition vtc, even more so than sitting across a room, like you and i are right here. and they really feel they're able to get at some of these issues and do a good evaluation. >> well, i respect the passion in your response. let's continue the conversation. and, again, it points out how -- general, how involved you are, and how much you've paid attention to details and individuals -- soldiers. let me turn to another -- perhaps a bit of a difficult conversation that's tied to the npr story. they report a term that's used by researchers, ''the miserable minority,'' to refer to those who suffer from mild traumatic brain injury, who have long- term repercussions. and it's true, from what i learned, that most soldiers recover from mild tbi, but some who seem to have symptoms

persist for months or even years, and if you get a repeat of a tbi incident, you can aggravate that mild tbi. the npr story intercepted an email from one of general schoomaker's advisors, dr. hogue, who questioned the importance of even identifying mild tbi accurately, asking, quote, ''what's the harm in missing the diagnosis of mild tbi?'' can you help me understand whether finding ways to diagnose and treat mild tbi is important to the army? >> it is extremely important to the army. and dr. hogue represents a population of psychiatrists and psychologists, quite frankly, who -- you can find one who will support just about any different way of attacking this. it is not this well-developed science that we have in other areas, such as heart surgery. i think the dialogue is good. i didn't necessarily agree with dr. hogue when he wrote in the new england journal of medicine. but, he did do a study -- peer- reviewed study, where he talked about this.

i think, the great disservice that npr did to everyone was to try to isolate tbi from pts. and that is just not possible. as i indicated before, the comorbidity of these two is what's giving us the difficulty today. and i also think that they did a disservice when they indicated that pts is a psychological problem. it is not just a psychological problem. it is a physical injury that occurs. and, if anything, i think could be best described as a chemical injury, because that frontal cortex doesn't turn on and stop the flow of those things that keep this -- a person at this altered state for 4 to 6 hours. so, i think we have to look at these two together and realize

the real difficulty that doctors are having trying to separate and understand the symptoms 100 percent in every single case. >> general, thanks. let's continue this spirit of discussion. i want to thank all the members of the panel, as well. and i thank you for your service. thank you. >> thank you, senator udall. senator mccaskill >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank all of you for being here. there are basically three areas i'd like to try to cover, quickly, that i think are important. an overarching concern is that of confidentiality. so many of the issues surrounding mental health, whether it is brought on by a brain injury or whether it's brought on by substance abuse, alcohol abuse, or prescription drug abuse, so much of the problem we have in the military is the stigma associated with getting help, particularly for active military, reserves, and national guard. and i'm sure you all are aware of the pilot program that is ongoing -- i know general chiarelli and i have talked about it -- for the confidentiality of alcohol and substance abuse treatment at three different facilities, where these soldiers are not

being referred to their chain of command after they have sought treatment. i would like -- general chiarelli, could you address how that program is going, and whether you think this pilot program shows real potential for allowing folks to get help without the negative impact to their careers that so many of them fear right now? >> tremendous potential. we've done it at three installations. we start in fort carson in august. we're expanding it to two others. the only thing that's not -- and the secretary of the army approved this, a month ago -- the only problem that we're having is trying to recruit the number of drug and alcohol counselors that we need in order to ensure that, when someone self-refers themselves for this problem, that, in fact, they can be seen immediately and not be told, ''well, come back 6 weeks from now and we'll take care of you.'' but, we're seeing

great results from the three installations that we have started the pilot at. >> well, and i -- that leads to one of the other areas that i wanted to cover today, and that is the availability of counselors. as you know, in 2009 i was successful at getting a provision that required the institute of medicine to do a study whether licensed mental health counselors should be allowed to practice without supervision within the military for purposes of this kind of counseling. that study was released in january, and supported the conclusion that they should be able to practice without that extra layer of supervisory personnel. and i'm curious now, with that, do you see the ability for us to staff up at more appropriate levels to get at this problem that we see, in terms of availability of mental health professionals for our men and women who need help? >> yes. this is a wonderful provision. and we've come to about 92 percent of our pre-2001 authorization. but, i -- we've done an exhaustive study. and just as we reach, or are

getting close to reaching our goal, because of the increased amount of drug and alcohol issues that we've got in the army -- and i'm not going to paper that over -- we need about 225 more. so, we have got authorization to hire an additional 225, and this is going to be a great help to us. >> i think it's so important that we look at this as just as important as so many of the other tools we give to our fighting men and women. our heroes need, not just the protective armor of the battlefield, they need the availability of help when they need it. and, i know that you've made this a huge priority, i know all of you on this panel have. i want to make sure that if there's anything that we can do, as members of this committee, to continue to reinforce this at the highest levels of leadership in our armed services, that you let us know. because, i think -- the idea that we would stand between more help for our men and women who are struggling, that we need to get more people on board, is very frustrating.

and i want to make sure that you know that there are many of us that want to -- we want to go to battle over this, if necessary. and that brings me to the final thing. unfortunately, missouri has had one of the highest rates of suicide in our national guard. and that is this notion of embedding, particularly for our national guard and our reserves -- embedding mental health counselors within units. as you probably know, this has been done in california, at a surprisingly low pricetag, because the availability of the embed is for the weekends and for the 2-week training, as opposed to, you know, 365 days, around the clock. and that help, during those weekends and during those weeks of training, i think, could be a huge assistance to our national guard members. and would want your reaction to that. i know that we don't have a member of the reserves on the panel, or national guard, but if -- -- >> no, i look for any way that

i can get behavioral health specialists down to national guard units, and i think embedding is an outstanding idea. i will work with the surgeon -- they have not brought that program to me. we've been trying to expand at the telehealth capabilities to our national guard armories. but, i promise you, senator, i'll look into that and talk to the national guard surgeon general about just that. >> this is really important, because in california, which has the largest guard component in the country, it has 40 different units -- guard units, in california -- the cost for 1 year of mental health embeds was 820,000. that's a bargain, particularly when we see this kind of increase. we've lost 5 members of the national guard in missouri, already this year, to suicide. that is something that is

unacceptable, and something we clearly -- and i know the general of the missouri national guard, general danner, is very concerned, and wants to move toward some kind of embed program. and i would love -- i think the support of the people at this panel this morning would be crucial for that to move forward. and i think we could also, obviously, do it for the reserve units. >> we need to look across the national guard, because, as i indicated before, we've had an increase of 21 suicides across the national guard, at the same time we're down in all other categories. so, this has really got my attention and, i know, the attention of ray carpenter. >> okay. i'll continue to follow up on that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator mccaskill.

senator begich. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i want to follow up, if i can, on just a few of the comments and responses to some of the questions that were given earlier. first, general chiarelli, i want to, one, thank you for the work you're doing. you are definitely passionate

about trying to resolve this issue, or at least move forward in a positive way, and i really appreciate that. so, let me ask, if i can -- because i appreciated your comments on telemedicine. and i know, dr. jesse, you've been subjected to my conversation before on this issue, through the va, for the veterans committee. and i do believe this is a huge opportunity that both the dod and the va can really exploit in a positive way. with the new generation of young people who -- you know, you think, 10 years back, where we were with pdas and telephones and cell phones and computers, to where we are today, is unbelievable. and so, i'm curious, because i hear what you said -- your comment about the doctors, some doctors push back on this new technology. how are you getting them to see the value? and i say this in a -- in as polite way as i can. you're the military. one thing i've learned about the military is, when you want to do something, you just do it and get moving. i understand that doctors have to grow into some of these things. but, time is of the essence. so, how -- what are you using to get these doctors to get up -- get on step with telemedicine? because that is the future, when it comes to mental health services, especially in a state like mine, where, you know, these folks come back from serving, and they're sent out -- back home, to a village -- and i'll use the guard as an example -- back to a village of 200 people. no medical services that they can tap into, from a veteran's perspective. but, what are you doing to get those doctors to get on step and get on with the program, here?

>> we're doing exactly what you would expect us to do now. we published an overall comprehensive behavioral health plan. we're standardizing how we're going to treat soldiers when they come back. part of this time, i believe we've seen a thousand flowers blooming, and i think it's time [laughter.] -- to move away from that, ensuring that we look for innovation and new kinds of treatments, but, at the same time, we have standard program for returning soldiers, that not only takes them from the day they return home, but at the 90-, 180-daymark, when so many of us, i think, would agree, we start to see many of these programs -- problems pop up. >> right. >> so, we're doing it exactly in the military way that you allude to, senator. >> okay. >> and we're going to make sure that it's standardized across our force. >> i think that's great. and i want to -- if -- dr. jesse, i know we've talked, but i'd love you to put on here -- i actually just saw some technology development, done by an alaska native corporation, on utilization of blackberrys, pdas, and others, on alcohol screening and alcohol abuse -- kind of, follow-up for those that decide to move forward. and i -- you know, i saw that technology, and i -- it was impressive to me, because what it shows is, it's reaching into how to get to these young men and women in their world of technology, versus what we think is right way, bringing them into the office, sit them down. we're touching them in a different way. so, that technology is very unique. and, i know the va is starting to look at some of that.

can you just put on the record a little bit of what you're doing around electronic telemedicine? >> well, sure. as you know, we've got quite a long history in telehealth, the -- actually, dating back even to the '80s, with home monitoring of pacemakers, as, you know, one of the -- using ttm technology. we've invested heavily in home telehealth by putting, if you will, ''boxes'' in patients' home. i think we've got 43,000 of them deployed. but, as you mention, the new technology is using smart phones, where you don't even have to invest in something that ties somebody to their home. anybody who's got a kid in their 20s now knows you don't even bother to call them, you just text them. >> that's right. >> they don't answer their phone, but they'll text you back. >> right. >> and, interestingly, as an example, you're all aware of the va's suicide hotline, which people can call in to, but, about a year ago, they started a chat line for -- you know, the younger folks are much more

used to chat lines on the web than they are to having phone conversations. and that's been, i think, an important, you know, emerging way to contact, for the younger people. so, as we deploy that mental health technology, along with all of other medical capabilities, using new technologies that the people who need it understand and prefer to use, i think, is going to be vital. so -- >> could i mention -- >> yes. general chiarelli. -- one other -- >> please. general chiarelli. -- thing? we just signed an mou with the va on credentialing and privileging, which is a key and critical piece, here. and we can do that with the va so their doctors can be part of our virtual behavioral health -- >> excellent. yes. >> but, that is a real issue when you're trying to provide the same kind of care across state lines, and even within state lines.

and in the area of behavioral health, i think we really need to look at some of those rules, and think about, do we -- do they need to be the same for this branch of medicine as they do, say, for a heart surgeon or someone else? >> you just got to my next question, so i'm going to start with you and then come down the row here. i'll leave my friend, howie chandler to last. but, let me -- if i -- you just hit on -- and that is -- my next question was, what do we need to do -- i mean, it's kind of the question that hasn't been asked; i think senator mccaskill kind of started to get to it -- what do we need to do, here in congress, to help make it easier for you to deliver the services that you know, instinctively and as well as data has shown you, to the young men and women? and what you just made a comment about, making sure -- delivering these services over state lines, or -- i want to -- maybe you could elaborate, but i -- what are those one or two things, each one of you, if you could just expand -- because part of what we should be doing

here, honestly, is -- what do we need to do to support you? it's great to have a hearing, but what's the next step? >> i would mention credentialing and privileging. give you just a quick example. i can go ahead and provide a tricare referral for a soldier at fort campbell, kentucky, to drive 100 miles to nashville to see a psychiatrist. i cannot hook him up over the internet if he is not at military installation, and privileged and credentialed from that location. so, i can't hook into his office in nashville, yet i can put a soldier in a car and send him 100 miles to go see that doctor, as a tricare referral. >> good example. i mean -- my time is up, but i wanted to give -- if each one of you can just give a quick one, and then i'll close out. thank you, mr. chairman. go ahead. >> senator, for the navy, if we could look at the age of healthcare professional appointments and mandatory

retirements, there are a lot of people want to help, out there, that may be over the age of 42. and that, i think, if i understand it right, is the limit for a lot of our healthcare providers, particularly mental. that could be helpful. >> very good. >> sir, for us the -- your continued support for our deployment cycles and the -- in sustainment of our marine corps while we are in between those deployment cycles, with programs like the yellow ribbon program, our returning warrior programs, those kinds of things that help our families -- it's -- that is a modest investment that has paid rich dividends. so, your continued support on that would be great. >> general chandler? >> senator, i would echo what my counterparts have said, and also add to that, thanks for your support for the bonuses and special pays. that has allowed us to recruit, frankly, almost the numbers we need, in most areas. we're suffering, as the nation is, in a shortage of mental health nurses. but, that's really the only shortage that's dramatic at this point. and we appreciate your support for that. we've had some promising research at lackland air force base, in san antonio, with tbi and hyperbaric treatment. any support that we could receive in that area would also be very helpful. thank you. >> very good. thank you very much.

and, dr. jesse, we've already had our conversation. i'll leave that, if i can, because my time is expired. and i'll be tapping you, don't worry. [laughter.] mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator begich. what kind of support do you need for that hyperbaric treatment? >> sir, we're actually in our infancy, quite honestly. if i can take that for the record and get back -- >> is it a -- general chandler. -- in terms of costing. >> but, as most things go, it becomes a personnel and dollar issue. but, we've had some fairly promising results with hyperbaric chamber treatment. >> if you can just give us any example -- and this goes for all of you -- where there is a funding shortfall on the appropriations side, we would more than welcome it. we're determined we're going to get you whatever funding you need to address this issue.

senator lieberman. >> thanks, mr. chairman. thanks, to all of you. i apologize that i was drawn out to another meeting in between. i appreciate, very much, the work that all the services are doing on these problems, particularly, obviously, suicide prevention programs. and i know, for each of you, this is a deeply personal issue, and i thank you for the time that you're putting into it. in my own work on this, i have become familiar with some statistics that surprised me. and i want to offer them, not to diminish the problem that you and we are facing among service members, because every suicide is a tragedy, and we want to prevent them all. but, what's interesting to me is that -- and obviously the most significant factor for all of us is the extent to which the suicide rate among active duty u.s.

military personnel has increased, over the last decade, from 9.1 per 100,000, in 2001, to 15.6 per 100, in 2009. the increase is in comparison to a rate among the civilian population of 11.11 percent per -- 11.11, per 100,000 population. but, what's really striking to me, and shows, really, a broader societal problem -- if you take out the young male population in the country -- and the military is still disproportionally composed of young males, as compared to the overall population -- the rate of suicide among 18- to 24-year- old males is 17.8 percent. so, this -- i mean, this is -- this suggests a broader societal problem, which was a total surprise to me as i went over the numbers. and it doesn't diminish the -- in any way, the importance of the efforts you are making, and we're trying to support you in making.

but, what it says is that rate of suicide among young males in military was actually significantly lower than the general civilian population. certainly, a decade ago, now has come up, but still is lower. and obviously, we'd like it to be zero. but, i want to suggest, in these statements, no attempt to minimize the problem, but to say that this cries out for some larger societal response that deals with young males in our society. i don't know whether any of you want a response to that -- or want to respond to it. >> if i could, real quick. the -- you know -- >> yes -- >> we've -- >> general chiarelli. >> sir, we've run across something that's very, very interesting. as i indicated -- i threw out some numbers -- but, when we look at the number of soldiers who are first-termers --

>> right. >> who join the army between the ages of 28 and 29, they account for three times their expected rate of suicide. in other words, they're only 5 percent of the first-term populations, but they account for 15 percent of the first- term suicides, which would indicate that not only is it youth, but it is also this combination of additional stressors. >> interesting. well, those are compelling numbers. let me go on to a question. and, i apologize, i gather, from staff, this hasn't been dealt with in depth, so i'll run the risk of asking it again. and this is the question of how the services diminish the understandable human fear, that anxiety in a member of the service, that going for help will be detrimental to that serviceperson's career and advancement. i know that the air force actually quantified that in their study. but, my own sense, from conversations with members of other services, is that this is a pervasive problem. and i -- so, the question --

you all, obviously, are deeply concerned about this and focused on how to make it better. and, in some sense, my question is, how do you transfer that concern down the chain of command so that individual members of your services feel that, you know, you go for help for a mental problem, just like you go for help if your leg is bothering you? >> senator, i wouldn't minimize that problem for the air force, quite frankly. i think it still exists, and i think there is a stigma attached to that. i think the basic answer to your question is, it becomes a leadership issue, directly down to the senior ncos and officers

that look the young men and women in the eye every day, that can recognize whether or not they have an issue, and then act accordingly. we have the same demographic issues that you described earlier, in terms of young male airmen that are taking their lives. we diverge a little bit from the other services, in that our biggest issue, in terms suicide, are relationships; about 70 percent of air force suicides involve relationship issues of some kind. >> you mean within the military -- >> yes, sir. these are typically personal relationships. >> personal. yeah. >> second would be legal issues that a member might have. and then, thirdly, financial. only 20 percent of our suicide victims had been deployed in the last year.

so, we deviate, again, a little bit from the army and the marine corps, as we do that. but, if you look at the elements of the air force where that occurs -- those specific career fields -- those, in fact, are young male members, primarily in terms of security forces, eod -- explosive ordinance disposal -- and those kinds of duties. but, at the same time, those career fields are also under a fair amount of optempo, as you know. security forces are at 1-to-1, in terms of dwell time. so, i wouldn't minimize the way we get at this in the air force, but we have moved our mental health care providers into our primary care clinics, to try to keep people from having to necessarily go someplace else, behind a curtain, to see a mental health provider. our airman family and readiness centers also provide military health counselors, where you can actually go get help with your family members or for yourself. and, of course, the military one source provides, at no cost -- i believe the number is six visits that you can arrange for yourself to do that. again, all of these are confidential kinds of ways to do this. so, there are ways to get at it, including our chaplain corps, which are all trained in suicide intervention, as well. so, we can approach this from a number of different directions. but, i think the stigma issue is one that's going to be very, very difficult to overcome. >> thanks.

you know, my time's up, but i wonder if any of the others of you want to briefly comment on that. what -- essentially, what you're doing to try to remove this -- the -- what general chandler called -- i think, appropriately called, a stigma. >> senator, you're absolutely right. and i think this is evolutionary. just 5 years ago, you -- we wouldn't have even been talking about this in a battalion or a squadron or some type of deployed unit. we would be sloughing this off. so, now, my sense, in the marine corps, is, we have the senior leadership of the marine corps, both the enlisted and the officer side, that are believers. they understand that this stigma is real and that we have to set the conditions to get around it. i'm not convinced that our middlegrade staff ncos and our young officers have the same sense of appreciation. i think it's probably because they're younger, there's less -- >> right. >> they've been exposed to it less. but, this is a leadership issue that we're working on. to get around this and to try to mitigate this, we've put mental health -- we call them oscar teams -- we put them in

the deploying battalions that are forwarddeployed. we have gone through -- and that's got mental health providers, corpsmen; we brought our chaplains involved in these things. so, now we have embedded these units with every single forward-deployed unit in afghanistan right now. so, we're trying to get away from that. and the final thing -- i mean, there's just a host of things we're trying to do to deviate around this, or sneak around behind the backdoor of this stigma thing -- but, the last thing is, is that, on the suggestion of our young marines, we are establishing, right now, with tricare west, everything west of the mississippi, a marine distress hotline. it's manned by marines, plugged into the tricare west, 21,000 healthcare -- mental health care providers. and the whole idea behind that,

it's completely nonattribution. family members can use it 24 hours a day. you can call and say, ''i'm having serious issues with post-traumatic stress,'' ''i'm having issues with whatever.'' and it can be a -- and it's all anonymous. so, we're -- >> right. >> -- working around it, senator. >> mr. chairman, i know my time's up. i leave it to you. i don't want to intrude on senator hagan's -- >> admiral, that's fine. you can go ahead. i'm sure -- >> real quick, senator, if i may. we have a, kind of, statistically different situation. the -- our demographics for

those that committed suicide is sort of spread across the age spectrum, and location and rating and seniority. the last three suicides -- we had a 40-year-old senior enlisted individual, right before deployment; a 50-year-old captain about -- entering retirement; and an 18-year-old sailor, just out of boot camp. so, what -- looking across that, our focus has been, no one's immune to the stressors, and, if you can't deal with the stressors, to a bad choice. >> right. >> so, it's a -- to us, a leadership issue. we focus on operational stress control and management. and for those that still have a stigma -- and it does exist -- we have what we call deployment health centers -- there are 17 of them, they're spread around where our fleet concentration area is -- where folks can go and see a clinician or a counselor, with really no -- it -- the stigma's not attached. it's not attached to the hospital, it's not attached to the fleet family support center; it's located away, where our sailors feel more comfortable. we find that, once they go there, then they'll see there's nothing wrong seeking treatment, and they tend to migrate to the clinic. thank you. >> good. thank you. >> before i call on senator hagan, let me mention this. i'm going to have to leave. there's a question, that i'm going to ask you to answer for the record, about the status of our centers of excellence for traumatic brain injury. >> and, if senator lieberman is not able to stay, then i would

ask senator hagan to adjourn the committee after she is done. thank you. senator hagan >> so, that means we might be here a while. no. [laughter.] i think this is a very important hearing. and i think anytime we have one suicide, that's one too many. and certainly, the numbers that we've been seeing is certainly unacceptable. so, i really appreciate the time that the services is putting into helping address this issue. general chiarelli and general amos, you have underscored the importance of mental resiliency programs, proper and timely diagnosis, transferring the culture of leadership with regards to the invisible wounds, the strain of our forces, limited dwell time; and personal problems, such as financial and relationships, are certainly among the many challenges that we have to overcome. however, we do have a responsibility to effectively institute mental resiliency programs to prepare our service members for the combat stresses that they will ultimately face. what are the services doing to institutionalize resiliency training at the predeployment and the post-deployment stage? >> our program is comprehensive

soldier fitness. and, as you know, senator, we've been working with the university of pennsylvania. we have trained over 1200 master resilience trainers, through a very intensive course. our goal is to get them down to every battalion in the united states army. we are focusing those trainers, right now, at the basic entry levels of our soldiers, because we know we have to build their resiliency early on in their career. it is absolutely critical. in addition to that, we have the global assessment tool that is a requirement for every soldier to fill out, to understand where they stand when it comes to resiliency. and we've had, now, over 780,000 folks fill out the gat. plus, online instruction, based on the results you get on the gat, that is available for a soldier to take, to work resiliency. so, this is something that finally starts to get us to the

left, and not waiting until we see soldiers with problems, but try to attack resiliency as far to the left as we possibly can. >> thank you. >> senator, we, in the marine corps, believe it's twopart. resiliency is both physical and mental. the beginning stages of a marines recruit training at parris island or san diego builds -- begins to build that physical strength. and we attribute a lot of our ability to be able to do the things the marine corps does for this nation as a result of its physical strength training. so, it begins there. values-based training was instituted about a year ago in the marine corp, at boot camp

and at schools of infantry -- at north carolina, at camp geiger, and out in san diego, at camp pendleton -- which teaches some of these things, along with suicide prevention, sexual assault prevention, those behavioral health issues. so, that's where it begins. when the marine enters his first unit and is preparing to deploy, we believe the best thing we can do for them is to not only get them physically fit, conditioning-wise, which we have a combat fitness regimen we put them through, but the second piece is what we call immersion training. in other words, it's -- we want the marine to experience, back home, before he or she leaves, most of what -- the fear, the anxiety, the confusion, the fog of war. so, we have built -- we started on the west coast, we're now migrating to camp lejeune, going out to hawaii, and and we'll do the same thing in okinawa. but, a -- but, an immersion trainer, inside a building -- it's a huge building -- and

we've got -- we transition from an iraqi village to an afghan village. we've got role players, we got amputees in there, we've got rpgs that fire, we've got music, we've got -- well, we've got everything in there. you couple that, and you rerun the scenario over and over again, so the young marines become accustomed to fear, and they become accustomed to the uncertainty of warfare. you take that, you put them in an ied lane that's as -- 2 and half miles long, walking through villages, ieds are going off, rpgs, more role players. and so, you get the idea that our last attempt to build this resiliency is to immerse them, as much as we can, and help them know that their training is adequate and they will be okay. we find that, if we do that, that when they are -- when they hit their first firefight, their chances of them surviving are greatly enhanced. and we believe, intuitively, that they'll probably have less cases of pts, down the road. so, that's what we're doing to build that resiliency. and we follow along when they

come home. >> thank you. admiral greenert, you mentioned, in response to senator begich's question, the last question that he asked, something about the age of 42. and i didn't quite get that. could you elaborate on that? >> yes, ma'am. healthcare providers who desire to enter service, there's a limit -- maximum age of 42. that allows them 20-year -- for a 20-year career, age-of-62 mandatory retirement. that was the point. if we could raise that age -- because there are a lot of folks older than 42 that -- >> okay. >> -- want to help. >> that's what i thought. thank you. many of the burdens associated with the wars in iraq and afghanistan have been shouldered by the reserve and the national guard members. and when these citizen soldiers redeploy, they are almost immediately demobilized and returned to their civilian lives. unfortunately, for many, the lives and the jobs that they left are not what they return

to, which is compounded by the isolation of not having a support structure that's comparable to what is available to those on active duty. i've got -- one of the questions is, what efforts are being made to ensure that our members of the guard and reserve have a soft landing when they return home? >> senator, if i could. i would -- >> great. >> -- i would tell you that, in your reintegration and redeployment process, you need to go all the way back to the beginning, obviously, before you start your deployments, to make it successful. our guard and reserve total force, if you will, in the air force, and that includes air force civilians, all have access to the same things that our active duty people do, as well. your point is well taken, in terms of how we reintegrate those people once they come home. i would tell you that the yellow ribbon reintegration program, that's been a very good part of our guard and reserve,

has been very successful at, not only preparing members and families for deployment, but caring for families during deployment, and then giving us the opportunity to reintegrate those guard and reserve members when they return. in my discussions with the commander of the reserve and the director of the guard, they seemed to be very happy. we're happy, at this point, with the results that we're getting. and we're getting the resources to do that. and for that, we appreciate your support. >> senator, for the marine corps, we will deploy almost two types of -- we don't have guard, as you know -- and two types of reserves. we'll deploy what we call a selective marine corps reserve unit, which is a whole-cloth unit, a squadron, a battalion. you know, it's some type of unit.

they actually activate 4 months or so before they deploy. they go through the entire training program, the resiliency training, the immersion, all that stuff. so -- and when they come back, they do a unit reintegration. so, it -- they have access to the exact same capabilities and helps that a regular unit does. where we struggle, and where we have been working hard the last year and a half, are what we call ''individual augments.'' in other words, that's that young marine, out of the middle of north carolina or oklahoma or someplace, that is pulled out of what we call individual ready reserve. he or she has volunteered, perhaps, and come forward and said, ''i'll go to afghanistan. i'll join the staff of general mcchrystal.'' and that individual then comes on active duty individually, doesn't have access to all these great programs. we do our best, we have a training program for them to get them set; but, when they come home is where we -- where i worry the most about. and that's where, just as general chandler talked about, the whole idea of the returning warrior, or the yellow ribbon program, has been such a huge hit, because we reach out, harvest them in, and then plug them into that program, along with their spouse, and it gets rave reviews. so, that's how we are trying to accommodate those onesy-twosies. >> all right. thank you.

my time is up. senator lieberman >> thank you. sorry. i have no further questions. and i thank all the witnesses for what you're doing, and also for your responses to our questions. i know, from chairman levin and senator mccain, this will be -- and for all of us -- this will be a continuing focus of concern for members of the committee. we are so grateful to our military personnel. they serve with such honor and capability and sacrifice. it's a part of why, of all the great institutions in our country, i think the military today remains one that still enjoys broad public respect and trust. but, it takes its toll, that service and sacrifice, and i think we're getting much more in touch with the toll it takes

on the minds and spirits of people who serve. and therefore, we want to do everything we can to make sure that we, one, prevent the most serious problems, such as suicide; and, two, we treat problems much before we get to that point. so, i hope you will understand that we -- that you should feel free to advocate to us what you think you need from congress to fulfill the goals that you have in this regard, which are the goals that we have as well. i thank you very much. and the hearing is adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> this is c-span. next, secretary of state hillary clinton announces the resumption of middle east peace talks. then, a gulf coast update with retired admiral thad allen. after that, vice-president biden speaks at the summit meeting of the democratic national committee. secretary of state hillary clinton says direct talks between israeli and palestinians will begin september 2 in washington. leaders from both sides will attend a white house dinner the day before president obama. the state department has set a

one-year time limit on the talks. at this briefing, we her first from secretary clinton followed by a special middle east envoy george mitchell. this is 35 minutes. most recent developments in our pursuit of middle east peace. the secretary will begin with a brief statement. george mitchell will stay behind to answer your questions. and we are joined today by your colleagues in the white house press corps up in martha's vineyard and we'll be sharing the -- they'll be sharing the q&a duties with you. but we'll start with secretary clinton. >> i don't like that idea. they're in martha's vineyard. [laughter] >> i will appoint a negotiator to deal with that. [laughter] since the beginning of this

administration, we have worked with the israelis and palestinians and our international partners to advance the cause of comprehensive peace in the middle east, including a two- state solution which ensures security and dignity for israelis and palestinians. the president and i are encouraged by the leadership of prime minister netanyahu and president abbas and fully share their commitment to the goal of two states -- israel and palestine, living side by side in peace and security. after proximity talks and consultations with both sides, on behalf of the united states government, i've invited israeli prime minister netanyahu and palestinian authority president abbas to meet on september 2nd in washington, d.c. to re-launch direct negotiations to resolve all final status issues, which we believe can be completed within one year. president obama has invited president mubarak of egypt and king abdullah of jordan to attend in view of their critical

role in this effort. their continued leadership and commitment to peace will be essential to our success. the president will hold bilateral meetings with the four leaders followed by a dinner with them on september 1st. the quartet representative tony blair has also been invited to the dinner in view of his important work to help palestinians build the institutions of their future state, an effort which must continue during the negotiations. i've invited prime minister netanyahu and president abbas to join me here at the state department on the following day for a trilateral meeting to re- launch direct negotiations. as we move forward, it is important that actions by all sides help to advance our

effort, not hinder it. there have been difficulties in the past; there will be difficulties ahead. without a doubt, we will hit more obstacles. the enemies of peace will keep trying to defeat us and to derail these talks. but i ask the parties to persevere, to keep moving forward even through difficult times, and to continue working to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region. as we have said before, these negotiations should take place without preconditions and be characterized by good faith and a commitment to their success, which will bring a better future to all of the people of the region. george. thank you all.

>> madam secretary, are you traveling to pakistan [inaudible] concern, madam? thank you, madam. >> i'll be pleased to respond to any of your questions. >> as tempted as i am to ask you about roger clemens, i'd rather -- or p.j. perhaps. [laughter] >> i predicted that. >> can you tell us what was the turning point here? what was it that got the -- that overcame the final snags to get them to come back to direct talks? >> we believe it's the recognition by the parties themselves, by their leaders -- prime minister netanyahu and president abbas -- that the best outcome is an agreement which results in two states living side by side in peace and security, and that the only way that can be achieved is through direct negotiations between the parties in which the

united states will be an active and sustained participant, and with the full support of our many friends and allies around the world, including, of course, specifically, the quartet. >> but what was it that got them to -- i mean, you've been trying to do this for months now. >> yeah. >> and why -- so why -- how is it that today, you've gotten to this point, whereas three days ago, you weren't at this point? >> yeah. i think it's the cumulative result of the efforts made over that time and the recognition by the parties that this is the right time. we will be active participants and there is broad support, as you know, by members of the quartet and others around the world. but in the end, these decisions will be made by the parties themselves. >> and [inaudible] senator mitchell --- >> senator mitchell, could you --

>> i'll let -- why don't i let p.j. -- >> could you talk about the sequencing of the talks? will they discuss territory, refugees, or jerusalem first, or will this all be in parallel? >> all permanent status issues will be on the table. it will be for the parties themselves to decide the manner by which they should be addressed. >> senator mitchell -- >> yes. madam secretary mentioned without doubt there will be more -- without doubt, there will be more obstacles. what will these obstacles be? what are the main sticking points that are going to be going forward? >> we are all well aware that there remains mistrust between the parties, a residue of hostility developed over many

decades of conflict, many previous efforts that have been made to resolve the conflict that had not succeeded, all of which takes a very heavy toll on both societies and their leaders. in addition, we all know that, as with all societies, there are differences of opinion on both sides on how best to proceed, and as a result, this conflict has remained unresolved over many decades and through many efforts. we don't expect all of those differences to disappear when talks begin. indeed, we expect that they will be presented, debated, discussed, and that differences are not going to be resolved immediately. but we do believe that peace in

the middle east, comprehensive peace, including, but not limited to, an end to the conflict between israelis and palestinians, is very much in the interests of israelis and palestinians, of all people in the region; it's in the national security interests of the united states, and therefore, we are going to continue to pursue that objective with patience, perseverance, and determination. we know that will be difficult. we know, as the secretary said, there will be obstacles. but we're going to proceed, as i said, with patience, perseverance, and determination. >> go ahead. >> senator mitchell, sir, the palestinians, the israelis, and the united states have been down that road many times before. now, what is in your opinion, sir, this time around that engenders -- or should engender hope and optimism to get these

talks into its intended end? and what kind of incentive did you offer president abbas to entice him into the direct talks? >> i don't want to repeat everything i said in response to prior questions, but i will say that i believe that it is very much in the interest of people in both societies that there be an end to this conflict enabling both to live in peace and security. and i believe that their leaders believe and understand that, and therefore, notwithstanding the many difficulties that they face -- and we recognize those difficulties -- this is the best course for them. on the question of past efforts in failing and succeeding, i'll return, if i might, to my experience in northern ireland. i chaired three separate sets of discussions in northern ireland, spanning a period

overall of five years. the main negotiation lasted for 22 months. during that time, the effort was repeatedly branded a failure. i was asked at least dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times when i was leaving because the effort had failed. and of course, if the objective is to achieve a peace agreement, until you do achieve one, you have failed to do so. in a sense, in northern ireland, we had about 700 days of failure and one day of success. and we approach this task with the same determination to succeed notwithstanding the difficulties and notwithstanding the inability to get a final result so far, including past efforts. but past efforts at peace that

did not succeed cannot deter us from trying again, because the cause is noble and just and right for all concerned. >> let's take michele and then kirit and then we'll go up to martha's vineyard and come back. michele. >> i wanted to get a sense of this timeline, this 12 months that the secretary talked about. do you see that as a deadline or is that -- or is it looser than that? and also, just following up on this other question. i mean, what makes this peace process any different from all other peace processes? >> we will only know the answer to your second question when it is completed. but i believe that, as i said in response to the previous question, that the cause is so important, so right, so just, that our continued effort is the right thing to do, and we are going to pursue it with

determination. i believe that the two leaders themselves, president abbas and prime minister netanyahu, are sincere and serious and believe that it can be done, and we will do everything humanly possible to help them see that it is done. with respect to your first question, prime minister netanyahu said in a public appearance in this country on his most recent visit to washington that he believed it could be done within a year. president abbas has expressed similar sentiments to me, and i hold strongly to that belief, having now been involved for some time in the region. so, we believe it can be done within a year and that is our objective. >> but it's not a deadline then? >> kirit, one more and then we'll go up to martha's vineyard. >> it took you about nine months to get to the point where these guys were willing to sit down and talk to each other. what makes you think that you can get them to agree to peace in one year? at what point during this process is the u.s.

willing to put its own ideas on the table to help move this forward? and after the initial set of talks here in d.c., where do you expect the talks to take place? >> i'll take your questions in reverse order. one of the subjects to be discussed in the meeting on september 1st and 2nd, and also in preparatory meetings that have been occurring on a regular basis and will continue between now and then, will be the timing and location of subsequent meetings, and we certainly expect some of those meetings to occur in the region. with respect to the timing and nature, how long it took to get here and how long will it take to get in, i don't think one is a necessary determinant of the other.

it's -- i liken it to the first time i owned a house and had it painted. it took the painters seemingly forever to prime the building and the walls. i kept asking myself, "when are they going to start painting? we're paying by the hour and we want some progress." [laughter] and after this seemingly endless priming, they painted it very quickly. now, i don't want to suggest one year is quickly, but i don't think that events leading up to the negotiations are themselves decisive in terms of the negotiations themselves. we believe that the statements by the prime minister regarding within one year are credible and appropriate. we believe that president abbas shares a similar view, as do we. and that's what we're going to pursue. >> and at what point does the u.s. put its own ideas on the table in this process?

>> we will be active and sustained partners, although we recognize that this is a bilateral negotiation and we have indicated to both parties that, as necessary and appropriate, we will offer bridging proposals. but i repeat: this is a direct bilateral negotiation between the parties with our assistance and with the assistance of our friends and allies. and although nobody has asked it, i do want to take a moment to acknowledge and recognize the enormous support and assistance we have received from many of our friends and allies: egypt, under president mubarak; jordan, under king abdullah; many of the other arab states; the other members of the quartet; the united nations under secretary general ban ki- moon, who has been extremely helpful in this process; the

european union, with lady ashton as the foreign minister; and the -- russia, with foreign minister lavrov, have all been active and very helpful along with other european states. so it's important to understand that while the united states is playing an important and active and sustained role, we do so with full participation, full input, full consultation, full discussion, and we hope full support, from a wide variety of allies whose efforts have been extremely important getting us to this phase and will be extremely important in reaching a conclusion. >> operator, we'll go to take two or three questions from white house press corps. >> thank you. our first question comes from philip hartley with washington today. please ask one question.

>> good morning. actually, it's two; i apologize. have all the invited parties accepted the united states' invitation to weigh in next month? and the secretary had mentioned references to peace in the world, and as an envoy of peace, i wanted to know what your thoughts are on whether the proposed mosque be built at the ground zero site. >> i'm sorry, i didn't understand. >> we're not here to talk about that latter subject. we'll take the next question. what was the question? >> wait -- >> the first part was -- >> have they accepted. >> what was the first question? >> have they accepted the invitation? >> we have been in consultation with both. we expect to hear from them shortly, but it will be their decisions on whether to accept. >> we'll take the next question, operator. >> thank you. our next question is from jonathan broder with congressional quarterly. >> yeah. do both parties have to ask for the u.s. to step in with its bridging proposals, or is it enough for

one party to ask for that bridging proposal? >> we're getting a little bit ahead of the game now to be speculating on what may or may not occur well into the process. as i stated earlier, this is a direct bilateral negotiation with the active and sustained support of the united states. and we will make bridging proposals at such time as we deem necessary and appropriate. but i don't want anyone to have the impression that we are somehow going to supplant or displace the roles of the parties themselves, nor do we have any view other than that this must, in the end, be an agreement by the parties themselves. >> we'll take one more, operator, then we'll come back here to this. >> thank you. ron kampeas with jta.

>> thank you. one technical question and then a real question. on september the 2nd -- is that -- are they actually -- are you actually launching direct talks on september the 2nd, or are the leaders getting together with the secretary to discuss the re-launching of direct talks? and the other thing: what role, if any, does hamas have in this process? >> the first question is yes, we are launching direct negotiations beginning on september 2nd. and the second question is: none. >> senator, is re-launching the direct negotiations without preconditions means that we are re-launching the direct negotiations without terms and references? >> only the parties can

determine terms of reference and basis for negotiations, and they will do so when they meet and discuss these matters. as you know, both we and the quartet have previously said that the negotiations should be without preconditions. >> thank you. can you tell us whether they're going to start from scratch, or will they build on what talks that -- during the olmert period? and the second question is whether israel is expected to continue the freeze. do you think that they'll continue the freeze? do you think the palestinians will continue their boycott of settler goods? >> the parties themselves will determine the basis on which they will proceed in the discussions, in response to your first question.

in response to the second, our position on settlements is well-known and remains unchanged. we've always made clear that the parties should promote an environment that is conducive to negotiations. and as the secretary said in her statement a few moments ago, it's important that actions by all sides help to advance our effort, not hinder it. >> charlie. >> senator, just to follow up on that and a previous question, your position is well- known on settlements, but the israelis, when they've chosen to, have ignored it and gone ahead with settlement construction as they've seen fit to do. do you have any understanding from them that they will not do that this time? and referring to the earlier question on hamas and your quick answer that they will have no role, how do you get around the fact, even in the best of all circumstances that you negotiate an agreement, how do

you get around the fact that hamas is playing a huge role in gaza? >> with respect to the first question, let's be clear that the declaration of the moratorium itself last november was a significant action, which has had a significant effect on new housing construction starts in the west bank. and as i said, our position on settlements is well-known, remains unchanged, and we expect both parties to promote an environment conducive to negotiations. with respect to hamas, let's be clear. hamas won a legislative election. they acknowledge the continued executive authority of president abbas and his team,

and it is entirely appropriate that we negotiate with the executive head of that government. when democrats regained control of the congress in 2006, that didn't end president bush's tenure as president, and others who wanted to negotiate with the united states negotiated with the legally elected and then-chief of our executive branch of government. and that is the situation here. >> so you expect hamas to accept any decision made by president abbas at these negotiations? >> it is not for me to make decisions for others. >> we'll take one more here, then we'll go back up to the phones. >> senator mitchell, is it your understanding that this would be a shelf agreement, something to take effect at a later date when political conditions in the palestinian territories

allow, or is it your understanding that this is something that would take effect in a very short period after it was agreed? >> that's obviously subject to the results of the negotiations. we are not creating limitations or restraints upon what the parties may agree to. our hope is that there will be an agreement that will end the conflict for all time and will result in the establishment of a viable, democratic, and independent state of palestine living side by side in peace and security with israel. >> operator, we'll take one or two more from the phones. >> thank you. our next question on the phone is margaret talev with mcclatchy newspapers. >> hi, thanks for taking our questions. the palestinian press has reported that the u.s. put the harshest pressure to date on the palestinians to get them into the talks. what i want to know is why did the u.s.

feel that this was the time, in the palestinians' view, to bully the palestinians into talking, considering the politics of the israeli administration right now? >> the united states position has been well-known from the time that this administration entered office. we have and we do favor direct negotiation between the parties to resolve the conflict and to produce an agreement that results in two states living side by side in peace and security. we have encouraged the two parties to enter into such negotiations and they have now agreed. and we are -- we believe it's the right thing to do, we think

that both of the leaders believe it's the right thing to do, and we believe it's in the best interests of the people they represent. >> we'll take one more, operator, from the phone. >> thank you. susan garraty with news talk radio. >> hello, senator mitchell. you harkened back to the northern ireland peace process, and as you certainly recall, the president then played a very intimate role in that. considering that many americans themselves are even confused about president obama's religious affiliation, do you feel like the people of the middle east on both sides of this issue will see president obama as an honest broker and someone that they can actually reach out to in that same intimate fashion? >> yes, i do believe that they

do and will continue to regard president obama in that fashion. i will say that from the outset, both he and the secretary of state have played an important, indeed critical, role in this effort. both are deeply involved on a regular basis and deeply, personally committed to the cause of a comprehensive peace in the middle east. i think that is not only widely recognized throughout the region and the world, but very much appreciated, and in particular, throughout the region. >> we'll take a couple of wrap- ups. go ahead. >> yes. senator mitchell. >> yes. >> the total settlement freeze never happened, so i was wondering, how can these talks be considered authentic in the region when that demand was never met?

>> we believe that there is a basis for proceeding and achieving a successful result, and we're going to pursue that. we do not take the position that if you don't get everything you want the first time you ask for it, you pack up your bags and go home. if that had been the standard applied in south africa, there would never have been peace there; in northern ireland, there would never have been peace there; in bosnia, there would never have been peace there. it takes patience, persistence, a willingness to go back again and again, to not take the first no as a final no, to not take the 50th no as the final no or the 100th no. we are patient, we are persevering, and we are determined, and we believe there is a basis for concluding a peace agreement in the region, and that's what we're going to pursue. >> samir. >> senator, do you understand

that -- you expect abbas to accept entering these talks without preconditions? >> both the united states and the quartet have said that we believe there should be direct talks without preconditions. and we also have said many times that we think that these talks should be conducted in a positive atmosphere in which the parties refrain from taking any steps that are not conducive to making progress in the discussions, that negotiate seriously and in good faith. and in all of these respects, we think that there is a basis for making progress. >> so the talks won't be based on the quartet statement of march 19? >> the parties are the only ones who can determine what the basis of their discussions are, and that is the case.

>> yes, thank you. senator, so many palestinians, as you know, and arabs believe peace with the actual israeli government is practically impossible because of its nature, past statement regarding refugees, jerusalem, et cetera. aren't you concerned that by setting this one-year deadline, you'll probably be raising expectations just like a la camp david and all what happened after that? >> the reality is, of course, that there are some in both societies who do not believe that the other side is serious, who do not trust the other side, who do not wish to proceed with the other side. and if we accept the premise that because some in one or both societies hold these views that we cannot proceed, then of

course, what we are doing is consigning all of those people to never-ending conflict, never-ending difficulties. we simply don't believe that's a proper basis for any country, and certainly not ours, the united states, on which to base its policy. we believe that the best course of action is the direct negotiations that result in a peace agreement ending this conflict and resulting in two states living side by side in peace and security. we believe the only way to achieve that is through direct negotiations. we believe that if those negotiations are conducted seriously and in good faith, they can produce such an agreement within 12 months. and that is our objective. we acknowledge, we recognize, as you have just stated, that

there are many who don't believe that, many who don't want that, many who will act to prevent that. but their lack of belief, their contrary views, their contrary actions cannot serve to prevent us from trying to deal with this conflict, nor can it prevent the leaders of those countries who both recognize that the interests of their people, the future of their societies rests upon resolving this conflict and achieving the kind of peace and stability and security from which they will all benefit. >> last question, mark landler. >> senator, this administration believed from the early days that its middle east strategy and its iran strategy were linked in the sense that if you could make progress in one, you might help make progress in

another and vice versa. you now are moving into a period of less engagement and more confrontation with iran. i'm wondering whether you think that is an added hurdle to a peace agreement or is it something that could actually help in the sense that the israelis may feel that the u.s. is going to be tough on iran and it allays their fears somewhat in that regard. >> that extends somewhat beyond the area of my involvement in this process, and so i would defer for a more full and thoughtful answer to those who are directly engaged on the broader issues. i will simply say that if you look at the middle east and review its history over just the past half century, never mind several millennia, you

will conclude that there is no really, quote, "right time" to do this, that there always have been and always will be issues external to the immediate parties that have an effect upon what is occurring. and in my judgment, what is occurring in the -- throughout the region, not just in iran but in other areas, all add compelling, cumulative evidence to the need to act with respect to this conflict. that is to say, whether or not the circumstance you describe produces the result you describe, it still remains a compelling argument that it is very much in the national security interest of the united

states, in terms of dealing with other conflicts, to assist, to do all we can with the help and support of our allies, to bring about a resolution of this conflict. it helps in so many ways, and most importantly, it's the best thing for the palestinian people and for the people of israel. and it is in our national security interest and in that of others. thank you all very much. it's been a pleasure to be with you. >> up next, a gulf coast update with retired admiral thad allen. after that, joe biden speeds of the summer meeting of the democratic national convention. after that, ed royce holds a

town hall meeting. tomorrow on washington journal, reporter believes radnofsky talks about impact debris talks about the impact -- talks about the impact of stimulus funds. a university of delaware economics professor discusses how he would lower the federal deficit and balance the budget. it is what it 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> one of the things i regret about political and a tour of life in washington is that every major figure from the president on down is merely reading what somebody else was in committee wrote. inhe wrote about president's

"architects of power." sunday night, he will share his insight on washington on c- span's "q and a." >> thad allen announces the bottom kill procedure to permanently flood the well may happen the week after the holiday. he made the announcements at washington d.c.. >> good morning. i am a reporter for usa today. miami disaster reporters of this is my beat. i am the immediate past president of the national press club. before we begin, let me remind you to silence your cell phones yet again and also on the

question and answer portion begins, please wait for the microphone to come to you. everybody can then hear your question and please identify yourself and your news affiliation so we know who is asking the question. our guest today has an interesting take on retiring. after four decades of service in the u.s. coast guard and rising to operational commands at sea and the sure to become the 23rd commandant of the coast guard, admiral thad allen retired june 30 and continued to work 20 hours days as the federal incident commander overseeing the containment and clean-up of the will spill in the gulf of mexico. admiral allen is here today to discuss the most recent developments in the containment of the spill including a directive he issued yesterday for the replacement of the blowout preventer on the well and to brief us on what lies

ahead. please join in welcoming admiral allen. [applause] >> thank you. good morning. what i thought i would do this morning is to view and update on what is the amount out on the wellhead and follow up on the order i should yesterday. public to think a picture on what is going on because it is rather complicated. as we get closer to removing the blowout preventer and doing the bottom kill and shifting to what we call plug and abandonment, several other equities are having to be considered including the joint investigation team into the event on the wall itself. the equities of the department of justice and so forth. if i could give the status of where we are this morning and where we are going in the future. right now, we are halfway through what we are calling in ambient pressure test. we have done a lot of pressure tests on the blowout preventer handicapping stack was put on

july 15. we are trying to understand the static position when the well is filled with seawater that is the same density of the water on the outside so there is no difference, is there any change in pressure that would indicate there are hydrocarbons leaking from the plug well? there is 5,000 feet in cement the was put down during the static killed. is there any leakage from the ulus?st following the ambient pressure test, i have asked for bp to give me a procedure that will allow us to put a drill pipe down into the blowout preventer with the camera on that and conduct what we call a fishing experiment. that is to ascertain the existence location of the drill pipe or any pieces of the drill pipe that might remain in the block preventer. when we cut the roster pipe back before we removed the pipe and

put the cappings back on, we were concerned there might be a pipe in their or possibly to pipes and we might have to bend them together to put this pulling tool on to allow us to connect the capping stack to the blowout preventer. we know there is a pipe in there somewhere, perhaps to pieces of pipe. before we replace the block the venture, we intend to do that for the kill. we want to make sure if there is piped there, the location so when we put the ball preventer and we know how to seek it. critics see to -- seat it. i expect we will get a procedure later today from pp which i will then review. if it is consistent with the guidance of provided, we will move ahead. the work on this to date has been extensive. the science team is led by dr.

steven chu. they have been involved in the development of the procedures for the experiment that will be conducted and we have also been in the region in touch with the department of justice and fbi because we want to preserve evidence and make sure there are implications for federal or civil mitigation is moving forward. we will be looking at a salvage plan for the deep water horizon block preventer. this will become material for the investigation team and for any follow-up action by the department of justice. that is being coordinated with the department of justice in new orleans and washington d.c. the ambient pressure in the well is 2,189 pounds per square inch and that has not varied since the test started. that is telling us at least until this point there is integrity in the well and there

is no anomaly. we are taking steps on the q 4000 to take steps to do with they have been doing in providing support and they will be prepared to lift the block printer when we decide to move forward. the second relief well being drilled, they have put a plug in the well. they call it eight rotational packard set. they are displacing their riser with seawater. that is in anticipation of final preparation to pull the ball to venture and move it over. that will be the replacement will prevent her. the development to drill three drilling the primary relief well is currently at 17,000 feet below sea level measured depth. they are standing by and there are approximately 4.5 feet

horizontally from the well and about 50 feet above the intercept point. they have been there for a number of days. they will stay there until we give them the go-ahead and that would be a result of our tests. removal of the karen -- removal of the current well. and the reason we are replacing the blowout preventer is that we want to minimize the risk when we intercept the well and the drilling mud starts filling that pressure will rise up, move to the seal into the current glut preventer capping stack and it might actually exceed the pressure limitations and a result in a discharge of hydrocarbons into the environment. that was critical to the decision to replace the blow up the venture before we finished killing the well. once we intercept the anulus and

mud is pumped in, that will constitute the bottom kill. i have been asked repeatedly by the media about the timeline, as you can see, this is all conditions based on the outcome of one step before we decide the next day. i believe this -- if the sequence of steps is followed and a successful, we should be some time in the week after labor day to execute the bottom kill. i cannot give you a more definitive timeline until we are through with the ambient pressure test and we know with the condition of the pipe is. in the meantime, we will continue daily to check what i call the vital signs of the well. we have been since we put the capping stack on which includes a constant temperature check, as a tinted temperature would indicate products moving around. vibrations from the wall itself which would indicate potential movement. sound measurements on the wall itself. we do visual checks daily to

make sure there are no visual anomalies, bubbles, discoloration of liquid, and we are doing seismic and acoustic runs with vessels across the area to continue to take slices of the formation. if you can imagine in our eyes slices for the rock formation around the well to give us a means to compare the formation the baseline formations to see if there are anomalies. this would be a hydrocarbons' moving somewhere in the formation telling us something is wrong with the integrity of the well are we have some sort of change that we would have to check out. so far, those little signs have been maintained constant. there is no little changed and we are prepared to move forward with the ambient test and fishing test. i appreciate the patience of the media as we work through this. there has been some frustration at the inability to get hard dates. i will tell you we are down to the very end of this process and we are moving very cautiously. an overabundance of caution was indicated. we do not want to make a mistake

in the last days of this operation because frankly, we want a stake in the heart of this will end for it to be put away forever. this has been very deliberate. dr. chu has been extraordinary and his team. they have drawn in different opinions and have reached out to competitors of bp within the industry. we have had what i would call, to diversity being brought to bear on this problem. we are proceeding on the right question put -- on the right course i would be happy to take your questions. today marks the 20th of august which is four months into the event. we are not done. nobody has declared mission complete. this will be a longstanding effort especially around the marshes of beer terry of bay -- >> this will be important in barataria bay.

we have been able to control the source of hydrocarbons since july 15. the gulf has been set for that long without more oil being spilled into it. that said, we are in the process of transitioning to work in the sure, looking at the long term recovery process for marshes and we are negotiating with the parish president of louisiana. also with the states of mississippi, alabama and florida about how clean is clean and how we will check out these beaches and how we know the good enough requires no more treatment and we will create that checklist. we will do that in conjunction with the local authorities. bp will not be involved in that. we will collectively decide how clean is clean. knowing that if the beaches are

revealed by a storm or some surface comes up that we will send a team back and start the process over and regenerate the check list. that is our commitment to make sure this response is carried out to the and and with a seamless transition into the recovery phase. as we move to that, secretary davis has been taxed with having a team to create a report. we are looking to have that report done somewhere around mid to late september. as far as my own personal position on this, the criteria for me it requires that some at e -- that set -- that' report is submitted. we will move from a national region command to a local regional command. a couple of thoughts as we stand

here on the 20th of august four months into this event. is the largest oil spill in u.s. history. it has been problematic from the start in terms of the scope and the challenges we have faith because it was never -- there was never a large, monolithic spill. there have been hundreds of thousands of small spills. some of it went east, west, north, and self. that required us to create a resource management scheme that spread from south-central louisiana to florida over hundreds of miles. it required us to some of the glee increase our skimming and boom capabilities and we have done that. an unprecedented amount of boom and skimmers has been brought. when we were early in this response, we could line up 200 skimmer's the were available. we have 835 and the water.

there has been a significant coronation. we moved response equipment from different parts of the country for the first time in the nation's history where that weaver was invoked to allow us to bring more assets to the team. i do not think we should discount the fact that this is the largest public participation in a national incident in this country. an unprecedented number of vessels of opportunity have been involved. an unprecedented number of volunteers have been involved. looking forward, we need to understand that will never to a large corresponds that does not include large-scale public participation. one of the largest challenges we had was excepting the vessels of opportunity that were given employment by bp when they could no longer fish and putting them to proper use where they can be effected. you can imagine a floating militia, that is what we got. it came with compassion,

resources and commitment. the challenge was, and i almost the quick to bit militia before the revolution, they should up with passion and commitment in resources but some of them had a musket, some of them had a knife. we had some large boats with communication equipment and small boats with outboard motors and getting those into a task force operation where we could function effectively was a challenge. we got that done in one of the key aspects of being able to approve or reject improve our effectiveness was taking airspace over in the gulf. we did that. we did that after discussions with the chief of staff of the air force. the assisted us greatly in we set up a command center right next to no red.

-- norad. i think the other thing that was were the in this response was the national assets of satellite imagery. i cannot overstate the importance of the national dos- based intelligence agency in supporting us with overhead assets, surveillance, and being able to put that into an on classified environment where it could be put on the web for the public to see. while this response took a while to build up steam and there were concerns early on about the quality of the response, i can tell you that there are things that have been done that have never been done before. we are sitting president. it will perform how we do response planning in the future. it would be adding a crime to a crime if we did not learn from this. we will take these lessons learned and welcome back into future response planning and how we approach a spill or any issue

of national significance. with that, i would be glad to take any questions. >> thank you. you talked about the decision to replace the current block preventer partially to preserve it for investigations. you and others have referred to it as the metaphorical black box. so much material has gone up through the blowout preventer during the blood itself and was pond down into the book preventer during the killed and the other operations, i am wondering how much is left for investigators to look at. is it damaged beyond the point where it is the label as evidence? >> i think the answer is we will not know until we raise it. i cannot 12 assume the produce

of the investigation beyond my background. the condition of that will prevent your back and look that will be valuable in any sense. it was not the main reason we are removing it first. we are removing it first because people preventer and the capping stack and the connection between them together constitutes a system that we do not think would withstand the pressure if we put -- if we pressurized and lift the seal at the top. this is a risk mitigation procedure. it would have to be removed any way under the directions of the subpoena those issued by the joint investigation team and the department of justice. we are complying by all of those. >> please state your name and affiliation before you asked her question. >> thank you.

some of the scientists involved have been speaking to oil masses suspended within the water column and there are varying assessments of these. i would wonder if you could please address this and elaborated -- elaborate on it further. >> let me start with what i feel is my role. first of all, there are a lot of members of the scientific community that are looking at the impact of oil in the gulf and we need everybody's eye on this. >> let me tell you how we got to the oil budget from where i sit. from the start in this event, there has been a concern about the flow rate.

it has been reported in the press many times. early on, they're rough estimates. and 1,000 barrels a day. 5,000 barrels a day. at that point, i started a team under the national incident team that was ultimately headed by marcia midinette. we then separated and the estimates of flow rate from bp and we involved government scientists and consulted with academia around the world. i was on a call with a professor from barcelona talking about this. as you know, we went through a series of efforts that led us several weeks ago to conclude that we believe that it probably started out a little over 60 and as the reservoir to pleaded, dropped down to the current estimate we're using a 50,000 barrels per day. we needed to know that for the purpose of knowing how much

skimming equipment and what will would be on the water and we needed to understand how much oil we were dealing with. once you have a flow rate again flow rate, that leaves you to the total amount of oil of what actually occurred. we believe that is now 4.9 million barrels over the life of the event with plus or minus 10%. this was generated by the flow rate technical group as input and a group led by people from noah looking at this. as i told the press on several occasions, if we do not have been number, that is a problem. if we have any number, it is a credibility not -- credibility problem. let's talk about numbers. i am a simple sailer. i will keep this how i understand it. if we have 4.9 million gallons, estimated to be discharged, the

skis me, perils. let's take what we know. we took about 827,000 barrels out of that well and actually took it up to tinkers and sent it to shore. we can measure that as it is a matter of record. we also know we did burning and swimming and we apply this persons. there are ways to measure the effectiveness of comic oil came out of the water or was removed result of that. in the case of dispersants, how much was dispersed into the water. when you disperse oil, it does not go away. it is dispersed into smaller particles to biodegrade quicker. there are a lot of people who have been working on this for a long time to find out how his presence -- how oil naturally while degrade into the water.

burning and scheming, which we can measure, and you get the measurements of the effectiveness of evaporation. you can make sp -- as immense -- estimates. if you add all that up and use all or x, you get 26%. based on the set of assumptions, that is what we arrived at. we need to learn as much as we can and be prepared to refine our estimates as we moved away. if you come up with a different set of assumptions, then you get a different set of answers. none of them are wrong. they are all consequential and all need to be considered. as a simple sailor, i would say let's calm down and look at the data. out of the oil budget, once you account for what we can measure or estimate, what is left is

26% of the 4.9 billion -- million barrels. it is based on the estimates as defined in the oil budget. the bass lines -- baselines are used to get a better measurement going forward. >> he mentioned that it was more difficult because you have had more than one oil spill. >> i have turned it as hundreds of thousands of patches of oil. >> isn't that the result of this person. -- of dispersant? wouldn't it have been easier if you had just had one stream of oil coming up and you had skimming frighters -- freighters scooping it up. >> that is a legitimate

question. skimming and burning actually removed the oil. dispersants accelerate the by a degradation of the oil on the water. - biodegredation of the oil on the water. if we can look at a way to trade all these ways and methods of doing things, i think that is a legitimate question. i can gain a conference call with this the jackson -- lisa ? and and i said there are some implications about how we are trading off burning kept ability and dispersants as relates to the overall state of the oil.

our field commanders have never been faced with a spill of this magnitude and making those choices. we now have a record of those interventions and the facts of those interventions. it is a completely the ligament -- legitimate line of inquiry. how can you put tools into the hands of commanders in the future? it allows them to say, if i have these three choices, i get the best effect out of this one. the problem is they all operate differently in different environments. there are times when the water will not allow you to skim or burn. but a sea state that has some energy and it actually increases the effectiveness of the dispersants. they are more affected if you can mix them into the oil with the water rather than put them

on top when it is calm. there are circumstances that need to be taken into account. dealing with 100,000 patches of oil that had a localized effect that you can deal with purses a monolithic slick the size of the exxon valdez, that is a tough choice to make. what we have our 100 miles of coastline that have been -- hundreds of miles of coastline that had been affected. in the long run, we are probably going to find out that we were able to minimize the effect on the coastline by having hundreds of patches than going somewhere with a monolithic spill and wiping it out. i am speaking rhetorically and analytically. -- anecdotally. was lapped responsive?

-- was in that response? >> we heard about it is a man that said there were dispersants use by a demand -- dispersants use by a fisherman. is that true? >> no. the 19th of july was the last we used dispersants. we will get you back gate. >> could you make a comment on the discovery about the deepsea plume and how it will be taking care of? >> are you talking about the sighting that was reported in june? i talked on the thought about it last night. this is based on my understanding, ok? what they thought was an

underwater mist of fine particles. a report was released about how they did that for the scientific and minty. -- by the scientific community and so forth. we knew at the time that they had located that. we dispatched boats looking for hydrocarbons in the water column. we found, with the testing we have done, the further you get from a well head, darker background traces of oil. while we understand there are differences in densities and anomalies that can be thought out there, locating these things in perpetuity and tracking them is a [unintelligible] task. -- is on ephemeral task. i am not questioning their measurements or their data or anything else. our real challenge is trying to measure for hydrocarbons and track them and trying to understand what is going on.

last week, i signed a directive to take the effort that noaa had already generated as far as testing for hydrocarbons and try to unify that around a golf and to bring in research institutions to come up with a large collective way to try to better understand the ball to abrogate the affirmation we have. -- gulf and aggregate the information we have. from an operational standpoint, that would be my view. >> moving forward, what is your most difficult task left in the containment and clean-up in trying to wrap up the entire oil spill response? >> making sure we do not have a source of hydrocarbons. we still have areas that have significant oil that we need to be concerned with.

there is the western end of mississippi sound and some areas of alabama and moving over to the areas around there. some of these areas are marshy areas. it may take awhile to get the oil out of there. one of the things you may not want to do is go in and try to clean it up mechanically because you may do more harm to the marshes by creating a way to get their mechanically. our main folks are primarily in those areas. this leads us to eighth base -- a phased approach that takes us out of a response and into recovery. something is being negotiated by the paris president. -- parish presidents.

that will be a significant undertaking. the trustees are starting to engage with the state and local governments for an assessment of what natural resources were impacted and what should be done to replace those. bp is liable for all that moving " or. -- moving forward. that will be a multi your activity. was that response and? >> i was just wondering. you see a lot of images coming out of bp and some of the aircraft they are using. one of them is a dc-3 built in the 1940's. why haven't we heard about unmanned air vehicles? why not for tracking oil?

>> we have used all manner of aircraft and surveillance systems. we have literally had everything out there on civil air patrol. we had a canadian and an icelandic pair of dash 8's. we have used some pretty sophisticated nasa sensors. i hope i am getting the acronym right. it is a measure of reflectivity on top of the water. apparently, water reflects differently than oil does.

there are some baristas -- some very sophisticated detectors out there. we actually kill a couple of predator missions with the homeland security predators. there are some issues with the altitude access and control in the air space there. the air space was a significant problem before we took control of the. we had eight near misses before we took control of the airspace. so it was imperative that we did that as well. we did not exclude anything that could be brought to the site. >> i want to return to this 26% of the oil that is remaining. you are aware of the georgia study that came out earlier this week that said you cannot count dispersed oil as gone. for that matter, the oil that evaporated is in the atmosphere. as they said, we do not know what kind of impact that will have. can you respond to that? >> if you create a different set of assumptions, the results

are different. it is all important. >> even allowing for that, the dispersed oil is still in the water in the tiny droplets. you say you cannot count that as being -- so you cannot count that as being removed. >> there was no one saying it was not out there somewhere. it will be biodegraded at some point. if you are taking a set of assumptions, it take you to a certain number. the question is, what are we trying to understand about this. we all know dispersed oil will be degraded. but it will degrade quicker than if it was not disbursed. >> i have two questions. what is with respect to looking forward.

in terms of looking back at assessment with us bill and the potential damage, there has been a lot of [unintelligible] about if there were or were not plume. what would be your guidance for these regional areas and turin f describing what clean is clean? do you go with industry advice or do you go with independent evidence that is not from the government. and what would have been most helpful to know before this incident and how will that affect future plans? but those are good questions. let me separate the response operations from a long-term recovery. we are talking with the parish presidents about when we move cleanup we-- remove cleanup equipment.

what do we need really to come back and respond its oil comes ashore six months or one year from now? if they come across some buried oil on memorial day, what do they want to do about that. this allows us to say when we start demobilizing and equipment. what should remain? we are negotiating that in great detail without -- with the parish presidents the louisiana. that tells us that the oil spots -- or response is finished. we moved from the near term

response to the long-term assessment and recovery. that is done under the national resource assessment model from the 1990's. that is where the long-term implications of hydrocarbons in the gulf -- what we get to a certain point, it is not a clean-up issue. it is about a long-term damage to the environment. want damages have been accrued and how do we measure that? what mitigating measures you would use to assess that and how does bp, said the people in the gulf to do that. -- how does vp compensate the people in the gulf? because bp -- how does bp compensate the people in the gulf? i would separate this into two operations. how clean is clean is a tactical decision.

when do you say we are going to pull back. this section of the beach is done until we have an indication that we need to come back. is that clear. >> having that on hand response is helpful. i was just wondering what qualifies as a measurable effect that would require a response. if la. want one day and someone else was another, what is the scientific formula -- >> to the extent that we need a parish level decision to do that, we will do that. we will take that into account. those of variations for local conditions will be taken into account in the transition plans. it there is no oil coming ashore in x amount of days and all the oil being recovered can be and we cannot add any more value if we go into the marshes, we are point to stand back and

do surveillance for a certain amount of time. we slowly changed our readiness posture. we are saying there is no more intervention. that is when you say it is clean for now always subject to bringing the equipment that if additional oil shows up. ok? >> i understand you have been helped by a warm water's ability to break down the oil. cold water is a different thing. how worrisome would it be if it is true that this huge plume under the cold water is not breaking down? >> your question is how fast does it break down. the temperature of the water is an indicator.

and higher temperatures, it would degrade faster. what we need to do is find out if there is oil out there and we're it is. that goes back to the order i signed last friday that is trying to unify all the monitoring efforts that are going on right now with noaa and all elements of the federal government and reeking -- reaching out to academic institutions. we want to do a metaphorical mri on the gulf. we are trying to bring that together in almost a task force. this has to do with monitoring the ball. we have set - sent ships out to locate the plume. we are point to try to locate

it and understand where it is and what the implications of that are. i did not enter your second question. you asked about containment. some thoughts on containment. when we finally realized we had a low rate that was somewhere around 63,000 barrels a day, before that we had a range of 34,000 to 50,000. we went to bp and we said, here is what we want you to do. we said, you need to build a system that can accommodate 53,000 barrels a day with no hydrocarbons going into the environment. you need to build a recovery system that needs to produce that much. we were at 25,000 barrels per day. we said, not only do we what the capacity, we want redundancy. we want your system to be redundant and what the capacity to be over what you need.

bp came back to us and it proposed a system that could contain 60,000 to 80,000 barrels per day. there would be four bustles that we would bring in to see that. the oil would be shuttled ashore. it's one of those four was not operating, -- we wanted that if one of those legs were not working, we would still be able to reduce the flow rate. they decide that and present at the plant to us. it was probably two-thirds of the way done when we had a whether wendell for about 11 days and it was going to be -- window or about 11 days and it was going to be calm. it worked and we did not static killed.

-- we did a static kill. that was the containment plan moving forward. >> what was your plan for teachers -- for future containment? toewhere in the late 1980's early 1990's, we went to platforms in the water that had a blowout preventer on the platform. when a pipe went down, they drilled. once they did that and control that electrically , that electricallydeep. -- controlled that electrically, everything when -- went deep.

when we go back and look at it, the oil pollution act of 1990 should have been called the tanker act of 1990. it is up and at the responsibility for companies carrying oil, response plans and so forth. the fact of the matter is, in the gulf of mexico, almost all the oil was recovered by pipeline that take it back to the shore. if you have a problem in a well and you are trying to recover the oil and it is coming out of the top of the well, that system of production does not help you contain. what bp had to do to create the containment system that we ordered them to do to give us a

redundancy and capacity, they had to get pieces of production capability that was in different parts of the world. they brought in floating production platforms and shuttle tankers. is he went to scotland, you -- if you go to scotland, you would seek shuttle tankers coming in with oil and taking it out to sea. instead of having a traditional engine room and a rudder, you would have to have propulsion jets and computer controls allow you to take gps positions and hold it. the computer tells the ship what to do, basically. the only have that in certain tankers in the shuttle trade because it is so expensive. they did not have those in the gulf of mexico. the first thing they did was

they brought those production platforms in with shuttle tankers and brought them ashore. the second thing is, how you get it to the surface? we installed a vertical rise or pipes. these are pipes that are not connected to the well or the production units at the top. they have a flexible coupling that floats below the surface. at the top, there is another flexible hose that goes into the production unit. that is how they produce oil off the west coast of africa. the ultimate solution -- there are some significant implications for that moving forward. what bp created in the eighth five days was a production -- in a five days was a system -- a

system work while containment for this incident that could be used to look at response systems in the future as part of assessment or response plant and how to mitigate risk in the future for oil production. is that responsive? i have exhausted all i know on that subject. >> i know you have mentioned numerous resources and dod resources being deployed to the gulf of mexico area. the naval district of washington sent some skimmer down that way. can you give us an idea of how helpful those were? >> every skimmer use and is still being used down there. the scamming issue is significant from a policy concept. i had several conversations about this. large databases have to live in pollution control capability, -- large navy bases have

significant pollution control capability, just like large petroleum operations do. they sent us a number of them. the navy supervisor has an inventory. when we needed more, we needed to go to the naval bases and ask them for skimming capability. we also needed to go outside of the gulf for skimming capability. the problem was that those skimmers were required as a result of their response plans. we actually had to go through an emergency rule making process to issue an emergency rule to let a response requirement or loosen them so that that equipment could be floated in the gulf. we still have a remaining problem, that was state and local requirements. individual liability for companies and commanding officers at label -- at naval

bases in case there was a spell when that equaled was not there. -- when the equipment was not there. moving forward, you will see a serious discussion about how this relates to local compliance with state law and liability concerns for companies or naval command officers to be able to move this equipment. the equipment was put to good use. some of the navy skimmers were very helpful to us. there was pretty shallow water and their shallow water skimming capabilities were very valuable to us. >> i have two questions for you. i will follow my own rule. can you please assess for us how copper chip bp has been? my second question is, as we approach the peak of the hurricane season, hit a category 4 or 5 comes running

through the ball, how secure is what is in place now? -- through the gulf, how secure is what is in place now? >> the oil pollution act of 1990 designated in lot a term called responsible parties. it did not exist in law before then. it now exists in law and regulation. it is part of a national contingency plan. the doctrine we follow in oil spill response is guided by that legislation and a national contingency plan issued by epa. they call it for inland oil spills and the coastguard college it for other spells it-- follows it or other spills. they are liable for the cost of

-- the responsible party pays. they are responsible for the cost of cleanup, claims, and natural resources, damage assessment, and mitigation. this is public policy as passed by congress. they often made a decision that we would create a private sector in this country of contractors that would do spill cleanup. those contractors would be identified in response plans. if you have a contract or a vessel, you would say i have these resources and contractors standing by. bp had that against the worst- case scenario. you can question whether or not this an area was correct. as a result of the oil pollution act, we made a decision that we would privatize oil spill response. the oil spill response resources would be identified and the response -- the responsible parties would bring those to the scene.

that is exactly what happened in this spill. i will tell you this. i believe there has been a social and political nullification of law. it is hard for the public to understand that a responsible party that is clearly responsible for the event itself is corporative in the response -- should somehow be cooperative in the response to the oil spill. as a matter of fact, that is exactly how we have conducted oil spill response is in this country. if the responsible party is going to pay, somebody has to write the check. if they are writing the checks, they have to be in your command center. somebody has to visit the order that it paid the contractors. it is impossible not to be co- located and be able to do that. the notion of cooperating with bp has met with universal

disapproval. we in the coast guard had operating in the oil spill response where we can manage that seeming paradox where there are a point to be criminal penalties coming down the line. everybody understands that. you pull together and you create a unity of effort. and you attack the spill. from where i sit, i get a lot of questions. do you trust bp? have they lied to you? my answer to that is best. the goal should be unity up efforts. not only between the coordinator and bp, but between the government. everybody that is involved in it. my goal is to achieve the effect on the water to promote the most effective cleanup we can. it is impossible to do that and not be able to collaborate with bp.

you can call it trust. you can call it cooperation. you can call it collaboration. the current response model assumes the response to a party will work with local and state entities to achieve unity of effort. i will tell you that it has been challenging at times to create that unity up at given what -- unity of effort given what seems to be the rejection of the notion by the general public. that does not change the reality on seen that the instrumentality by which we are point to effect -- going to affect this will be through bp. there is a limit to how much the federal government can band on this response. -- can spend on this. bp has no cap. they have a response ability to shareholders. they have to put liabilities on their balance sheet. they are not really of that.

-- they have to do fcc filings. they are not relieved of that. the intermixing of their responsibilities to their shareholders and their legal requirements to the requirements-- as the responsible party creates a set of relationships that i do not think are understood. as we move toward, we should vet the issue of whether a responsible party is what we expect and not create a cosmic distance in the public that exist now. -- cognitive dissonance in the public that exists right now. if i really want something done, i call tony hayward or bob dudley, sometimes in the middle of the night. i give them written orders and verbal orders and they are followed. in the minds of the public,

where it starts to break down -- i mentioned this before -- bp is a very large oil production and exploration company. when it comes to the petroleum industry, they are what i would call wholesale. in their corporate capabilities and competencies are in the exploration of oil and energy. if you look at the things that need to be done during a spill and it is not at the wellhead -- at the wellhead, they did an extraordinary feat in bringing these technologies from the north sea and angola and bringing in the containment system. when you start having to pay claims, which is their legal responsibility as the responsible party, it is difficult to write is specification and outsource sympathy and compassion. their ability to connect one on

one on a transactional basis with the public, when you insert a third party in between, first of all, a few that corporate values, trying to inject into that is attenuated. and i told mr. dudley and mr. hayward, the lens by which the public measures their response is not the technology at the wellhead. it is the compassion and empathy shown to the people who are affected by this, in terms of claims process and the vessels and opportunity and so forth. if you do not have the capability of compassion in this spill -- what is the role of the responsible party? what do we expect them to do? beyond that, i think we have moved, since the exxon valdez, the expectation in this country, that we will have the whole of government response that will include things like behavior

health among long-term medical monitoring, things that are not currently allowed under the oil spill trust fund. i think we have redefined the social contract with the people of america on what you do in case of these responses. during hurricane katrina, when i worked as a federal official, we would dispatch out -- we would establish trailers to get people out of the emergency housing. the moment you had with intent people in a trailer site, you needed social workers, the veterans of america, and when you look at the stafford act for an oil spill response, i think we need better clarity moving forward. that is probably belong rancher than what you were looking for. one of the reasons we

accelerated the stacking cap, if we could do and integrity test and it would hold, we would not have to go to the larger production. that means we could leave the well unattended if there was a hurricane. if we had gone to the production system with the four risers, producing 40,000 barrels a day, we would have reduce redundancy, but we would have had to abandon the site during a hurricane. there was a window of opportunity. the bp meteorologist and the noah meteorologist agreed that we had a window to accelerate opening and putting the capping staff on and stack the hydrocarbon flow. so we took a pretty bold step. i directed bp to submit a plan. the original plan for the containment system was given to us on the 21st of june.

sometimes, things go right. sometimes, we have been delayed by weather. in this case, we were able to get that stacking cap on early and stop the hydrocarbons and did give us some kind of a measure that we could survive a hurricane without any impact on the gulf. >> that is it for questions. thank you very much for joining us today. >> thank you. [applause] >> next week, we will show you the continuing investigation into the deep water horizon

incident. hear from key personnel from bp, halliburton, and a transition period it begins monday at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2. -- and trans ocean. it begins monday at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2. secretary of state hillary clinton announces a resumption in middle east peace talks. >> there are 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend on book tv. they debate the size and role of government in the 21st century. darpa is america's greatest idea factory. and a look at the history of malaria and questions why it

kills nearly 1 million people every year. visit booktv.org. >> now vice-president joe biden's remarks at the democratic national party in st. louis. he slinks -- he says the democrats will keep control in the november elections. this is just over 40 minutes. >> if i could have everyone take their seats, we will come back to order. we have a great treat right now, something we have all been looking for. our next speaker gets a big thank you for joining us. vice president biden stood with president obama to pass the

recovery act. he took on the challenging responsibility that americans s.t the full responsebenefit he stood with president obama on health care, did the hard work necessary to help the president around the theme -- round up enough votes in congress, guaranteeing that americans can get insurance that they need and care that they deserve at a price they can afford. he stood to pass the financial reforms to hold a wall street accountable so that american taxpayers are never again left holding the bag for field will street gambles. he has been a powerful force behind everything that this administration has accomplished at home and abroad and that the president is still working to accomplish. vice-president biden has been working for democrats his entire life. he has been a champion in his home state of delaware and all over this country.

even at this early stage, vice- president biden must rank as one of the most important, influential, and the effective price presidents in their history. in the early part of a 20th- century, al smith, the governor of new york, earned this wonderful nickname, the happy warrior. that phrase was then applied to fdr, applied to hubert humphrey. it is a great phrase in the democratic tradition. in 2010, we are prone to it will come -- we are proud to welcome vice-president joe biden. [cheers and applause]

>> hey, folks, how are you? it is nice to see wall. thank you, governor, for that. thank you, all, very much. it is great to be with you. thank you so very, very much. thank you. thank you all very much. governor, thank you for that gracious introduction. one of my mentors, when i got to the senate, when i was elected

at 29 years old and shortly after a couple of things happened, one of the guys who you know, one of the two major influences in getting me down and getting me in garrett was that happy warrior hubert humphrey. to be compared to him is way above my capacity. but to be compared to franklin roosevelt, that is not even in the realm of possibility. [laughter] thank you for that introduction. i want to thank all of you. i want to thank everyone here at the head table. and i want to thank -- you know, there is a great line by james joyce. he said, "when i die, dublin will be written in my heart."

when i die, the lower will be written in my heart and it will be written by john bellows. we started in 1968. he is to blame for me being here. it is great to see you here, john. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, thank you for all the great work you have done. because of your hard work and the party infrastructure you have placed across the country, i am proud to say, now that i am here in missouri, not far from the mississippi river, to quote a missouri and, paraphrasing, as related to our party, but it has been greatly exaggerated. [cheers and applause]

on november 3, the day after this coming election, there will be, in washington, d.c., a democratic majority in the house and the democratic majority in the senate. that will be the case. [cheers and applause] if it were not illegal, i would make book on it. it is in large part because of all of you. i am also going to see the democratic governors coming back in a way that nobody expects right now. the american people are march -- are much smarter than the pundits. they knew the mess that the democratic governors inherited as a consequence of the republican recession. and they know in their debt. they're like the people that i grew up with -- in their gut.

they're like the people that i grow up with. they know that the road was going to be rough. when a million people stood in the mall on a freezing day, you could see it in their eyes, a sense of hope and expectation. but they also knew that there were no easy answers. they knew it was going to be tough. let's get real. and look at the facts. not for the purpose of litigating the past, but for setting the marker as to whether we are heading in the right direction for the future. we inherited an economic policy and a plan for prosperity that lay in creative financial instruments, credit default swaps, collateralized obligations, subprime basically, theea

previous administration had a ponzi scheme for our economic future. we inherited a debt of $1.30 trillion before we did a single solitary thing and a projected deficit of $8 trillion for the next 10 years before we turn on our computers. we inherited an economy that was shrinking at almost 7% -- shrinking at 7%. we inherited an economy that, before i lowered my right hand on that cold day, we have already lost 740,000 jobs that month. folks, these numbers are not like the economists look at them and the way our republican colleagues looked at them. yes, statistics. but every single one of those

jobs represents a person, an individual. every single one of those jobs lost represented somebody who has been devastated. johnson knows heard me said that the most a manner woman could ever make is a flight of stairs up to the child's bedroom. and you can say, i am sorry, honey, you cannot go back to roosevelt junior high next week. you cannot play on the little league team because mommy or daddy just lost their job. these are the people behind those statistics. tens of millions of them have made that walk, just like my dad made that walk when i was a kid. i clearly remember him making that walk up the stairs in scranton, pa., sitting on the edge of the bed when i was 10 years old. and when my beautiful younger

sister, valerie, who is here today, she was so young and said, and joey, debt is going to have to move. i will be gone -- daddy is going to have to move. i will be done. but i will be back every weekend. i have to go to delaware because there are jobs there. but the harder what was probably when my grandfather stood there with his four sons and said, ambrose, i need a favor. can you keep the gym, jeanne, and the kids? i promise it will work out. i will not be any more than a year. i will come home every weekend. that is what those statistics represent. the represent people's loss. my father used to have an expression jobs are about more

than a paycheck. it is about pride. it is about dignity. [applause] this recession stripped over 8.5 million people of not only their livelihood, but their dignity. and when barack and i ran, we meant what we said. we would not measure the success of this administration on whether the stock market bounded up to 12,000 or 14,000. we would measure it on the middle-class people, having a fighting chance to stay in the middle class, and those aspiring were able to get their. we are not there yet, folks. beyond all that, we inherited a foreign policy in total disarray with doubts about our ability to lead not only coming from our adversaries, but from our friends.

we had gone from the most respected nation in the world in the clinton used to literally one of the least respected nations according to a few service. folks, we knew most of this before you put us in office. it was even worse than most economists and most people thought. but we knew where it. we knew there would be no easy answers. barack and die, literally, my word to this -- barack and i, literally, my word to this, when he talked about selecting me, in a hotel room in minneapolis for st. paul -- i cannot remember now because i was snuffed in through the basement of the hotel so that people would not know he was interviewing me. [laughter] all kidding aside, folks. we talked about it.

we did not fall off the turnip wedding yesterday, as my grandfather would say. we knew -- the turn of wagon yesterday, as my grandfather would say. we knew the change would not be incremental and it would not be popular initially. in every one of -- and every one of the democratic colleagues knew it as well. so, folks, we knew we had to act boldly. i would posit that we did with the help of a courageous democratic congress led by harry reid and nancy pelosi, who is one of the most significant leaders i have ever worked with. [cheers and applause] nancy pelosi, you got it.

she is something else. [applause] so, folks, we also need a lot of leaders like you standing behind us. we have been through some tough times here. to make those tough choices, leaders had to be prepared to take their experience, use their experience, and actually believe. we needed people to believe we could get things done. literally, the president and i believe. this is not something done politically. if we were acting politically, we would have done a lot of different things. but we absolutely believe with every fiber of our being that the initiatives we took were absolutely necessary. look at what the president has done. he has stabilize the financial system. boy, that was not popular.

he prevented a total economic meltdown that would not only affect the united states, but the entire worldwide economy. my deceased was said that the greatest ability of mankind was the ability to forget. and my mom used to say that that was true. if it were not true, we would only have had one child. [laughter] but think about it. think about it. a lot of people have forgotten. we were not talking about the bank's reorganizing. we were talking about them shattering their doors. -- shutting their doors. i remember aaron meeting in chicago when we were putting together the new government and paul volcker headed up the comments. one of the first elements of discussion was whether or not we

would have to declare a bank holiday on january 21. the president acted remarkably well. guess what. the banks have already paid back over two hundred billion dollars and they will pay back every single penny that the taxpayers land them. [applause] -- the taxpayers lend to them. [applause] we change in the health care system, eliminating insurance company abuses, giving tax break to small businesses, and driving down the cost of health care $1 billion in the first 10 years and over $1 trillion over the next 20 years. we, with your help, we help people who lost their jobs survive while reviving the economy by giving significant tax breaks to small businesses and innovative companies who

were laying the foundation for the 21st century. we cannot lead the world in the 21st century the same basic policy and economy that we had in the 20th century. we need a new economy. and the result of all of this, more than 3 million americans are working today who would not have been working without this legislation. and when the president announced this initiative, he referred to me as sheriff joe. everybody was ready at the time. you would see great big stories of hundreds of millions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse. i am proud to say that that dog has not been yet. there is a way to go. it could happen. but it is working. we brought reform to wall street. we will make sure that folks

will not get ripped off the way they weren't in the past with new versions of collateral that swaps or whenever they will be in the future. we ended a system working at it -- or credit card companies could raise your interest-rate 40% just because they could, because the fine print said they could raise it at any time for any reason. and they did. we ended a system where mortgage lenders offered a teaser rate that would skyrocket, forcing millions upon millions of americans into foreclosure. not anymore. we ended a system where a company could pay a woman as a man -- a woman could not pay -- could pay will less than a man for the exact same work and not have recourse until long after it was over. we rescued an automobile

industry that was not going to reorganize, but liquidate, costing since the reorganization, the industry has added 76,000 jobs. [applause] there are a total of 1.6 million people making minimum wage and the industry is growing at the fast as it has in the last 10 years. we have totally revamp the education system. instead of handing subsidies to big banks over the next decade to make loans, we make the loans direct, making them more affordable for 8 million additional families. [applause]

there are millions of kitchen table saw today where one of the things people are most worried about today is, am i going to be able to send mary back for the second semester or the second year. can i keep johnny in school? i don't think we can do this. that is what people worry about. do you know anybody, any mother or father from someone living in poverty to the most wealthy person in america who does not have the same aspiration, to send their child to college? i know of no one who does not have that dream. because of what we did and the congress did, we are making that now, today, immediately war affordable. we have tripled how much we are investing in tuition tax credits for families. double the amount available for pell grants. increase the maximum pell grant award.

we cast the lone payments at 10% of discretionary income. how many of you have but shall at home who did not graduate from college? how many of you at home have children who graduated in a significant debt? raise your hand. the good news for me was, the market was high, and i was able to sell my home in order to pay for student loans. ladies and gentlemen, how are we going to go from being 12th in the world and graduating people from college to number one again, without making college more affordable and accessible to everyone? [applause] folks, not possible. we went from a business environment that is generating virtually no private investment in innovation our technology or growth to a business environment in the last 18 months that

invested over $200 billion in capital in new technologies and innovation. energy-efficient cars, broadband, elie the lighting, the industries of the future, because we did what good republicans used to do as far back as lincoln. we provided seed money to private industry. we know we are not going to restore the economy through the government. it will be through the free enterprise system. as far back as lincoln, and we have to remind people, this republican party, that he was a republican. lincoln, in the middle of the civil war, voted for and pushed an act that the congress passed. there was no interest in what was going on in idaho or montana or the state of washington for the transcontinental railroad.

guaranteed they would get $16,000 in bonds if they laid down miles of track. the eisenhower administration came up with darpa which came up with a thing called the internet. it generates trillions of dollars in economic growth. it was the seed money of a federal investment, a mere $25 billion, that got the thing started. i love these republicans who call themselves pro-business. i am not joking. i am not trying to be a wise guy. i am being deadly earnest. i am being deadly earnest. look, none of this would have been possible without you and cannot redo courageous congressional leaders who were willing to stand up, not for what they thought was popular, but for what they knew was right. you know what? what we did is working, and the

american people are only now beginning to see if. in the last six months of the bush administration, america lost 3 million jobs. in the first seven months of our administration, before any of our annette -- any of our economic policies could be put in place, we lost an additional 4 million jobs. in the first six months of this year, we have added 630,000 jobs. not enough, but 630,000 jobs, more than bush created in eight years of the bush and ministration. look, as i said, at the end of the bush administration, the gdp was shrinking at 7%. today we are growing and economy four consecutive quarters at an average of more than 3%. we need more. we need more, but the folks know out there it takes a long time to bring back 8 million jobs and revive an economy that has slipped so badly. when the president and i, we

knew we could not guarantee economic growth in washington, but we also knew that all great presidents can lay down a foundation for business so it can expand. we can support a vision that on drawers can grab onto, providing them -- that andrea noentrepreun grab onto. we have replaced the failed approach of the past with the new vision of the future, the business -- vision of investing and encouraging ingenuity and talent from the most creative people of our country. the vision of a middle-class that it's a head instead of continually falling behind. that is my vision and the president's vision, and a complement yours. it's something we have not had in a long while, national vision. if this is all true, you have to

ask yourself, like art the polls showing things better now? joe, you tell me all this, and you don't doubt what i am saying. you have to ask yourself, why is this not self-evident to all the american people? my grandfather used to have an expression. he is this a joke, no one focuses on politics or the election until the world series is over. most of us in modern politics know it does not start until after labor day. it is literally true, not figuratively true. up until labor day, people focus on their circumstance and how upset they are, with good reason. many of them are stripped of their dignity, and they look out there and focus on the only person who is there, the only one they see, and that is the

president of the united states and a democratic congress. but guess what, folks? come labor day, and shortly thereafter, they will begin to have to compare, focus and compare. there used to be a mayor of boston when i got elected to the senate's. that was way back in 1972. his name was kevin white. he said don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. [laughter] thet compare me to almighty, compare me to the alternative. ladies and gentlemen, people don't want to even have to focus right now. in the dog days of august, they don't even want to focus. and they know they can focus on their understandable anger and frustration and fear. but folks, that is about to change.

when they start to look at the alternatives, they are going to see my phrase, and i will get in trouble for saying this. your father's republican party. this is the republican tea party. this is the republican tea party. [applause] and as they focus on the alternatives, as i refer to it, the republican tea party, what they are going to find out is, the choices are pretty stark. they will begin to see a republican party that is a combination of the old, failed policies of the bush administration, the old neil conservative notions about international relations as well as economic paucity, -- economic policy, combined with a new set of draconian ideas, basically the whole process on steroids. they will go out there and look at a decent man, rand paul.

that will go out there and look at share an ankle. they will look at what the republican party is really -- s -- sharon engle. they are the republican party of the past, but on steroids. it is not a joke. it sounds like it is funny, but it is true. it is not just that they have no new ideas. actually have some new ideas, but the new ideas are taking the old ones and even further squeezing the life out of them. ladies and gentlemen, think about. i know this is a political gathering and i am a politician, but just step back. take off a republican or democratic cap, and ask yourself, what alternative has been offered? what alternative has been offered? [applause]

ladies and gentlemen, ask yourself. i have been a senator and a vice president for a total of 37 years now. i can say without fear of contradiction, there has been no time in my career, and no time in recent history, when every major initiative of one-party has been unable to garner any from the three boatvotes republican party. let's assume we were wrong 90% of the time. at least 10% of the time, there would be some support, but virtually none, because they have all made a deal, even the ones who know better. even the ones who know better, that these two years, they would go along with republican leadership in the house and senate in every procedural matter and not give a single

vote. they gave a couple, 1, 2, 3. i don't mean 10% or 20%. folks, it has been clear. i remember us talking and the president not really wanting to accept my suggestion. i had spoken to seven republican senators in the first two months to tell me they want to be with me but they had made a commitment to stay at every procedural vote with my party. they are betting on -- their success rests on a power failure. without realizing whatever government in power today fails, the american people felt. fortunately, we have been able to overcome it, but not in a clear channel play. not in a clear, unadulterated message to the american people.

everybody wonders why is it taking so long, if we have done all these things, why is it so difficult? these are big, complex bills, and we have a chance now, the people are starting to focus, to lay out exactly what they mean to arab-americans. the alternative will be, they will see the party of joe barden and john boehner and mitch mcconnell. i don't mean at as a personal attack. they are decent people. but joe barton is a leading republican on the house energy committee. he actually called for a requirement that bp paid for the damage caused by that spill a shakedown. and he apologized to bp. that could have been a slip of the tongue, but it wasn't. it is a philosophic point of view, and he was honest enough to assert it. he is not a bad guy. i am not making a moral judgment

on anything he said. but that is what he believes. and he represents a party that believes the essence of what he asserts, if not specifically about bp. john boehner -- i like john, and i literally do. my problem is, i like a lot of republicans, and i really do. and i hope they like me. john boehner is a decent guy, leader of the house. we attempted to hold wall street accountable, and we did. he said it was akin to using a nuclear weapon to kill an ant. guess what? that is a pretty big damn ant. it ate up about 8 million jobs.

[applause] look, folks. mitch mcconnell i have worked with for years and years. he and i both did you do for a mutual friend of ours, ted stevens, just two days ago. i like mitch, but he called for the health care bill to be repealed and replaced. he wants to repeal the right of parents who have a child with diabetes to be covered without exceptional additional cost, and not for a pre-existing conditions to be denied. he wants to repeal the right of parents who can barely keep a 21-year-old in college to keep them on their insurance plan. he wants to repeal tax credits that will kick in soon to small businesses who go out there and break their neck to provide health care coverage for their employees. he wants to repeal the preventative care that is kicking in now for seniors to

keep them from being sicker. he wants to replace it, once again, with the tyranny of the insurance companies. ladies and gentlemen, if you read through this, they are pretty clear about what they believe. the republican party is the party in 2010 of repealed and repeat, repeat the old practices of the past. i believe is out of step with where the american people are. it is our job between now and election to draw those clear distinctions. look, when the american people -- we have the american people focus on our differences, we will do just fine in november. there is a choice for americans in this election. it is not between democrats and the almighty. it is between democrats and republican tea party. it is between democrats and the party of repeal and repeat. the president and i believe, and we have said repeatedly, and i think you do, too, that is much

worse to accept the situation we cannot bear rather than to steal our spine and embrace the promise of change, even though changes always frightening. that is why you put us in the white house, to steel our spines and in turn, turn this great country around. where is it written that the united states has to yield its economic supremacy to china? where is it written that the united states cannot once again be the leading manufacturer of automobiles and manufacturing in the world? where is it written that the united states cannot be and will not be as innovative and creative in the new technologies of the future as we were in the 20th-century?

if we do not, we cannot leave the world -- lead the world. ladies and gentlemen, every american knows in their gut there is no possibility of us leading the same energy, health, and education policy we have had in the last century. they also know change creates uncertainty. this is our opportunity, our opportunities now that they will begin to focus, to lay out honestly what we did and honestly what the alternative is. it is a hackneyed metaphor, but there is a place just across the line in delaware call the avondale quarry. it is a deep, deep quarry of

clear water and high cliffs on the side. notched in that clip is a thing called a sparrow's ness, crow's- nest, an eagle's nest. a bunch of young guys in college try to go up there and jump off it. the highest one is pretty high. they say is 100 feet. i think it is more like 60 feet, but is a long way up. i remember being the worst kind of kid. i would be one of those guys who would jump off. people would say, isn't that right thing? what is frightening, if you have ever jumped off anything that high in deep water, you go down very deep. i mean this sincerely. you go down so deep that it is black. for a split-second, your chest constricts because you are frightened, you don't know whether your swimming down or up. but you get about 15 feet from the top of the water, and you look up and you can see the light. you are still drowning.

[laughter] not a joke. think about this. but you know you are moving in the right direction, you will be okay. that is what we have to make clear to the american people, because they know they should not be doing the crawl now. they are not out there setting records swimming. they know the depths we were put in by the last administration is going to take time. but i promise you, they are like the people i grew up in my neighborhood. you sit around the kitchen table at my house where people lost jobs, and when the news came across, the stock market is up, it did not matter. it matter only if you heard the word steel just tired on 25 guys. or they are building a new supermarket that is going to hire about 120 people full time.

that is when many people sitting around a kitchen table say you know, it is going to be okay. our objective, the president and mine, and i know yours, to put it in blunt terms is to stop that walk up that flight of stairs and allow every parent out there to look in their kid'' eyes and say honey, is going to be okay. that is what we are about. the only way it is going to be ok if we don't turn back now, if we don't continue to stay the course in producing an entire new industry, generating new investment, generating an opportunity for american business and american workers to be able to once again lead the world, lead the world in

economic growth. i believe we are on the path to do that. we have a long way to go. as i see it, and i am sure as you see it, this is not about the next election. it really is about the next generation. it sounds corny. i am not night. i have been there for eight presidents. i truly believe the public realizes we are focusing on the welfare of the next generation. the next election will take care of itself, because if we take care of that, if we take care of business, they will stay with us. i can promise you this, our economy is coming back. america is on its way back. and democrats are going back to washington in the majority. god bless you all, and may god protect our troops. thank you. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] ♪ >> now we talk with the political reporter about some of the house races in ohio. >> matthew murray is traveling in ohio this week, covering the race is in the 13th and 15th district. start with the 13th district. betty sadness in her second term. she won in 2008 with 65% of the vote. why is this competitive? >> it truly has a lot to do with the economy right now. there is a fairly high unemployment rate in this part of the state. it is upwards of 10% or so.

there is not a lot of confidence right now that even in a district like this that a lot of democrats will turn out in november picnics his challenging her in this race, and how is it shaping up? >> the individual who is challenging herkimer -- who is challenging her, his name is everywhere. he is the largest car salesman in the state. he has put a significant amount of money in the race. otherwise it probably would not be competitive. i could not find any polling that republicans had done in this district, going months back, which is the typical threshold at which they might decide to challenge the incumbent. it is really just the economy and the fact that he is willing to spend so much money. >> what kind of voters are in this district, and what are they telling you about these two candidates? >> it is a heavily manufacturing based economy around here, and

there still is quite a bit of that. like in a lot of places, folks are concerned about pocketbook issues. that is what they are talking to the candid it's about. >> will these two candidates get help from their party leaders, president obama, and in this case, john boehner who represents the leader of the republican party in the house? cracks that remains to be seen. betty sutton is one of the champions of the labor movement in the house of representatives. you will undoubtedly see because of the cash disparity between her and her opponent, you'll see a lot of ads being bought by union groups. the 16th district, who is running? >> i am in that district right now. there is a freshman rep and another one time automobile dealer create another will be

self-finder. it is a little more difficult district for democrats, because mccain actually won by a few thousand votes here. he did actually see some bad polling for democrats here late in the spring that really provided an opportunity for him to come in here and devote a certain amount of money. it is a relatively expensive market. >> what about national leaders campaigning for these candidates? >> you will not see a lot of democrats. i went to an event the other night and his whole line was, if you want to vote in november to reelect their represented, that represented is nancy pelosi.

>> let's take a look at this ad and come back and talk about it. >> he cheated on his taxes. he was forced to pay $1.4 million in back taxes and penalties. >> that is really ridiculous. >> he should not even be running for office. >> that is outrageous. >> that is just hypocritical when you want everyone else to pay any don't want to pay your own. >> there is no reason why he could not pay his taxes. >> matthew murray, what has been the response? >> he filed a defamation lawsuit yesterday in canton. i have not seen a copy of the lawsuit, but essentially, they are defaming his character and that of his family. what i think is interesting about that ad, however, is if there was any question after the citizens united decision last winter about how much money

unions or corporations or nonprofit groups are going to spend and how hard hitting those ads should be, is my understanding that these ads came out of general treasury funds for the union. it has provided an opening for a lot of these groups. >> for more information about campaign 2010, go to our website, c-span.org. >> next, california republican congressman ed royce holds a town hall meeting. later, a gulf coast update with retired admiral thad allen. next week, we will show you the continuing investigation into the deepwater horizon incident, as the bureau of ocean energy management and the coast guard here from key personnel from bp, halliburton, and trans ocean. like all the coverage from houston, texas begins monday at

9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2. >> the c-span networks. we provide coverage of politics, public affairs, non-fiction books, and american history. it is all available for you on television, radio, on line, and on social media networking sites. i and our content anytime perceived as video library. we take c-span on the road. bringing our resources to your community. it is washington europe, the c- span networks. now available in more than 100 million homes. created by cable, provided as a public service. >> now, town hall gathering with representative ed royce. he is in his ninth term and he represents orange county. he takes questions on a wide range of topics. this is an hour and five minutes. >> i am going to introduce dead

today -- enter ed today. the only thing i can say is that he does a great job, and we need to keep him there. when you look at the flag, remember all of those in the military, past and present, who have fought, and civilians who have fought to preserve the freedom that we enjoy. please join me. . .

>> i thought i will start to a brief wrap and an open it up to your questions or comments we have a microphone here. we will ask you to come up and identify yourself. we will try to keep the questions and answers short so that we can handle a lot of the questions today. let me just begin by saying we are in a unique position in washington. this is the first time in modern history i think that we are operating without a budget. a budget will not be brought up this p year. as a consequence, our approach stations process is moving at a

very rapid pace. we have had a 12% increase in appropriations. most of the agencies and departments are going at 12% a year. if we look out over the last four years in terms of what has happened to government expenditures, i member been concerned and speaking out about the $162 billion budget deficit. now that budget deficit is 10 times the amount. it is between $1.50 trillion and $1.60 trillion. one of the reason it worries us is because we could lose the triple a rating of our treasury. the credit rating agencies may decide that we are going the way of greece and the sovereign debt

issue might lead them to a catastrophic outcome. it is a very important that the public began to speak out. -- about the level of spending in washington and take action to bring down that deficit and. the actions that i have seen taken in washington and the last year's i do not think have the desired effect. ha most of the benefits increased government agencies, government employment. we have close to 500,000 more new employees and the government than we did have. if you look at what is happening

in the private sector, we have lost close to 3 million jobs in the private sector. rattigan the government spending, which has mostly gone into the public sector, the unemployment numbers are becoming worse. now it is 9.5% as the go forward, it seems to me with all the uncertainty was small businesses now in a situation where we face a new assessment as a result of a mandate in healthcare where they have the potential of that the

legislation that passed the house on the card check program, where we will not have a secret ballot, you have a process. will you be concerned? will you be concerned about hiring new employees that -- if you are hiring people, you are going to be resistance, at least a small businesses accrete 70% of the dot indicate that is a problem. another situation you see are small and medium-size businesses holding $2 trillion worth of

cash from their balance sheet. they are not expanding the businesses in the face of this uncertainty. they may hike their energy taxes by 30%. that bill has passed the house agenda is over in the senate and the that level of kansas -- that level of that uncertainty is freezing up the economy.

i will ask you to come to the microphone, state your name in question. i will be happy to respond. if anyone of like to come forward coming here is the microphone. >> i am concerned about the budget. i have a slightly different take on it. it started the last administration, not this administration. when the biggest problems are the wars that are going on. this is destroying our a economy. why does the congress, including you, i get it out of iraq before the end of next year, get out of afghanistan a right now in use that money to rebuild our country? thank you. >> let me respond to you. in terms of i iraq, all we are

on a path to bring our military out of iraq. what we are trying to do is do it in a way where we stand up the iraqi military. we are on a program to pull our troops out. with respect to of afghanistan, that is also the plan, train the afghan military so that they handled the problem with al qaeda. in terms of the budgetary process, every spending bill under our constitution originates in the house. since the current speaker became speaker, for the last four years, she has been speaker of the house. the argument that i made earlier is that five years ago, i was concerned with the budget deficit.

since that time, during those four years, we have seen this budget. we have seen the spending. all of these bills originated in the house of representatives. the other eye, a concern i have it with the sheer growth in the size of government. i think it needs to be addressed. i am sure you can appreciate the issues that we deal with. quite it has been every

president they have held burda it is all false. when will the conservative rep stand up and said the record straight? >> what i have tried to do in order to get the message out besides being on c-span, fox news, cnn, is to be on the radio stations, to hold these forums out in the community. this is the second one i've held today. i go out and tried to dialogue with my constituents. i think it is necessary we give

people more and fault in this issue. they began. they began to not only go to the polls but the town hall meetings but they would get the perspective outside of washington. what is really needed, we have plenty people and government that all of us can talk to prepare. we need to get out across america and hear from our constituents. >> i am a small businessman.

employees in making about price of what they are counterpart are making. we are in trouble. that has been a growing concern through several administrations and the economic plan bush on that phenomena when is somebody going to step up to the plate and say we are going to take a straight concern across the board cut in everybody's salary? [applause] >> for those of us here have supported a salary freeze, and i had never voted for an increase in salary in congress, we have lost that vote.

i am also a small businessman. my wife said i should have been on the ballot as a sure businessman the. i share your concern. besides the inequity, the attitude toward small business -- in the health care bill, there is a new mandate that every time you have an expenditure of more than $600, you have to put out a 1099 on that expenditure. if you are turning over into the tories, can imagine the cost to small business, the difficulty, in terms of handling these kind of mandates that. irs agents are also fun it through the bill. maybe they can help you. at the end of the day, there is such a lack of balance -- there

is such a growth in the public sector, 15% increase in public employees. this has got to reach back to balance. we have got to understand that the way out of the economic recession is to create and encourage small business that hire 70%. you are absolutely right in this but if i think that part of the answer here is to recognize that there should be the equity between the pay rates. other questions? >> i really silly you for being here and listen to us ordinary americans. my concern is i work in a small

business, a private college. i am a chemistry of biomedical science teacher. i know that in the last election need some money from six banks as your private donors. then he voted to deregulate and remove those reasonable regulations on the banking industry. >> your ted wrong in this. i was one of the voices to regulate the system. >> i am talking about the legislation that does happen this summer. i believe he voted against it. i think the previous deregulation that happened under the last administration is what led to our current economic crash as well as the meltdown. >> let me give you my perception on that from the okay? >> ok'd.

>> in terms of the legislation that is just supported by the investment banks, i do not think it is a good idea to pass legislation that guarantees a permanent backstops, a permanent bailout with the large investment banks. >> i totally agree with that. it is against the tarp money. >> i voted against every single bailout. >> when i was talking about was devoted to the regulate the banks. like i did not vote to deregulate the banks but. i had an amendment to try to regulate fannie mae. >> i am not talking about fannie mae and freddie mac. >> let me continue. >> do i have a free speech? >>, yes, but if you say things that aren't true, i will correct. >> i corrected a it is my

perception -- that the deregulation is what led to the financial, up from the i think this is what led to the deficit. think about it. i had to minute here. if you remove that much of the tax base and take away that money from our country's treasury, they may go into a deficit. >> i'm going to respond. i appreciate your raising these points. first of all, in terms of the question of deregulation, there

is phenomenal regulation. there is the question of whether or not you are going to treat systemic risk. congress created systemic risk appeared i would like to explain how this happened. in 2004, the federal reserve came to congress and said, we face a systemic risk to our financial system. that risk is because of something that congress has done. but congress did is a and allow them to go into arbitrage.

they can invested and risky rate and in a portfolio of mortgage-backed securities for their they were now doing more than just advertising loans. they were involved in arbitrage. what they asked for was the ability to regulate. this was an area in which congress had tied their hands congress have piled on by muscling fannie mae and freddie mac to do 0 loans. and they had muzzled them to make program for affordable housing in which they bought subprime and alt a the loans. that 50% of the portfolio was

directly responsible for 85% of the losses when fannie mae and freddie mac collapse. when you realize what happened next, if aig had insured the mortgage backed securities in the portfolio. when fannie mae and freddie mac went down, on a ieaig went down. the reality is that for the banks, gse were considered capital. now the banks are undercapitalized. the argument becomes one of whether or not to pass legislation to bail out those banks. i was in favor of them going through a process of bankruptcy. expediting bankruptcy just like airlines and railroads go there. i am not a fan of the big banks, all right?

the consequence of the not going to the process is that now a new bill comes forward. i think you and i agree and not voting for this legislation that just went out. what that bill does is it provides permanent bailout authority from the federal government for these large institutions. you have to be significant. here is the problem. if you are a small community bank competing with a big one, your cost of capital is now 100 basis points lower. it is a four point lower in interest. you can borrow because the perception that you will be built out upon the -- bailed out. fannie mae and freddie mac of out a staple -- borrowed at a

full 100 basis points. the big banks are going to get bigger. the small banks are going to be crowded out by the big banks. that is why i voted against that. let me wrap up this road quick. it is my belief that if you keep taxes too high you not maximize revenue to the federal government. i think john kennedy was right about this. i think there is a level of taxation in which has a good to hire and best use. economies grow at a faster rate. it might seem counter intuitive. if you get into high, it is a love on the economic engine. i did not support taxes as high as some of light tuesday. i support taxing business. i think those rates can become

an piscatory when you add them together. >> i totally agree that this legislation that was passed the voted against is not ideal. it does have a lot of giveaways to the biggest banks and big business. i did everything that is a bad idea. i think the spirit of it is good. we are not talking about the economic crash happening by fannie mae and freddie mac. that is what you are trying to turn it into. the fundamental issue is that goldman sachs is responsible. >> we agree on goldman sachs. lester is leave it at that. -- let's just leave it at that. they are regulated. there is small regulations on banks. the problem is getting the regulation enforced. >> i want to give the example

letter i wrote to mayor blinker. i would hope that more americans would write to mayor bloomberg. it is regarding the cultural center mosque. >> thank you. i would just comment on that for a minute. abdul, the head of the cultural center, it is my understanding for what i have seen that he has $18,000 in the account. i understand neutrality in this. the state department has decided to send him on a tour to cutter the united arab emirates. my concern about that is this. if you or i want to put up an institution a ground zero, we

would have to start with more than $18,000 in the bank. if we did not have the money, we would not have the state department probably coming forward and saying, let's into on a trip and seeking come back with the $100 million that is going to cost to build a 14 story mega-mosque. i do not think we have been exactly even-handed in terms of how we have approached this. the other thing i have concerns about is his comments that he believes we were accessories to the 9/11 attacks. that concerns me. i think that his failure several months ago when he was asked about a mosque was a terrorist

organization, his refusal to answer that question is a problem. i know some friends in the muslim community you have a great deal of concern about some of his other comments that have appeared in newspapers in jordan in the past and in egypt. i'm going down as some of their concerns on this. just on the face upon why does the government they will not get involved in zoning issues and impose on the website for the state department the comment by the mayor of new york in defense of this action. that is getting involved in the zoning issue. why is a state department then underwrite a trip? there have been these chips historic two. part of the consequence is fund- raising.

they say he is not going just for that purpose. my question is, what is he going to be doing in a gulf state countries whose objective is to fund mosques in the united states? >> i am concerned about the worker visa program that allows our country to bring in hundreds of thousands of foreign workers that companies like the cannot claim americans. my sense is of a computer science degree cannot get a job. they raise the quota to allow more workers.

this congress require of these companies to separate that they cannot find americans to take these jobs. i've heard that nobody tracks and to make a go home once they are here. >> one of the observations i would make is that in the past there has been a great deal of pride in these programs. there have been stories on that. he has absolutely, this needs to be audited. second, this is a time we have unemployment of 14.5 million americans. i think your asaph their right to be concerned. there is a concern that i have

in terms of the issue of how we are going to handle an illegal immigration. from what i have seen, the enforcement mechanisms that have been suggested by the border control and by deputy sheriffs are not being deployed even though they have been enacted into law. they argued that if they completed the fence across india go they can gain effective control over the border. this allowed them to handle the crime here. the cartels have gotten in control. when the border fence was completed,