who is a drunk on cheap labor. i have been in construction my whole life, and i can tell you that it counts to 10% to over 50% in the last 10 years. in the hospitality industry, it is 80% illegal. when they were going to institute e-verify, they're very human resources people were worried about what to do. the problem with that is they are charging $300 for tourists. they are paying $8 an hour to wash sheets. they are not sharing the wealth. final th: paul taylor, oughts? guest: while the public does not like illegal immigration and is

understandably frustrated with the immigrants themselves, there is another part of the equation and that is those folks who employ them. in some cases they are a small business, but in many cases they are large employers. it works on the bottom line. it is one of the reasons it is such a complicated problem to solve. it is one of the reasons both political parties are split on this issue. while the republicans tend to be very aggressive, wanting more enforcement, there is a piece of the republican party that understands the chamber of commerce point of view, which is the status quo has served us pretty well. host: if you want to hear more about it, go to their web site. there is an interactive map there for each state. thank you for being with us. that does it for today's

"washington journal". we are back tomorrow and 7:00 a.m. eastern time. we have a show, we will take your telephone calls. we will talk with an assistant professor of economics at george washington university. she will break down the labor market for you. at 8:30, we will have brigadier general jeffrey smith joining us from kabul to talk about security transition in afghanistan. then we will turn our attention to the housing market. the "time" magazine front page cover story was re-thinking home ownership, why owning a home may no longer makes economic sense. the author of that report will be with us. thank you for watching today. we will be back tomorrow. . .

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> this one and c-span, "newsmakers," close guard, not admiral robert papp. he talks about the role of the coast guard during hurricane season. after that, a look at his mission in iraq. the presidential address from thursday. also, the response by john barringer.

>> was the coast guard will and the operation of their the -- out there? >> we will respond to any search and rescue cases out there that happened. i would say if you try to correlate between the deep the water rise in response and the response to the vermillion 380 response yesterday, they both the start of s search and rescue cases. that is how we react. we try to get out there and tavis as we can. we are very fortunate -- we try to get out there and save as many lives as we can. we are very fortunate in the case yesterday that we got out

there and put out fires and it was case closed. >> the incident that happened was on thursday. >> do you play a role in keeping these units saved? >> we play a role in the inspection with these units. but if it is a ship, we inspect plants, look at stability, look of firefighting procedures with the crew on board. if it is a platform, something attached to the bottom of the sea, those inspections blog to the department of interior. >> how frequent are the inspections and some of these floating vessels? >> there refreshers and if people have a good track record , then we do reviews on them one of the committee meetings i

attended -- reviews on them. >> one of the committee meetings i attended there was discussion of the cleanup once the incident happens. the mineral management service gets reports about company saying how they will respond, but the coast guard was not in on any of those reports in terms of what the company has to do when there is a discharge. >> we review plans as they go forward. the mineral service, yes, they do plans for operations. we look at facilities and port facilities and ship plants for what they have a case there is a spill. a lot of what we have is focused back on the exxon valdez, which was a ship ran aground on a rock, a finite amount of oil.

we look at how those ships maintain equipment, store equipment. >> this was possibly one of the largest accidental spills in history. new just spent several months of dealing with it. there are other aspects of the gulf that are not just about drilling rigs. there is an offshore refinery and storage systems that are being set up. are you confident now that you have the resources in your organizational structure from the coast guard and the industry assets to deal with any colesville or possibly greater that could come along? >> absolutely -- with an equal spill or possibly greater that could come along? >> absolutely. we are being flooded by people with proposals for different

types of technologies that could respond to this in the future. but we responded in in an unprecedented way. we followed all kinds of resources -- we've put all kinds of resources down there. and we worked with the responsible party in this case, british petroleum, and worked for other types to come down there. >> what weaknesses in the system of you already discovered? >> we are in the process of that. the commission is taking a look at it. i think it is premature right now to say that anything is a weakness. we are very pleased with the overall way we responded. we will take a very deliberate approach to the entire case and come up with some recommendations on the underhand. the >> could you give us some

examples -- you are watching this unfold. and we're good things change? >> uncontrolled spill -- where could sh, things change? >> uncontrolled spills. we're looking get this thing a mile under the water. if a ship runs aground on iraq, you know there is a maximum amount of oil. you can stockpile equipment for that. what we had here -- i used the term ground rod day. every day was -- groundhog day. every day was a new day. i think we learned a lot from them. many people are not familiar with the maritime environment

and things can change daily and have to have the ability to deal with it. the coastguard produces very capable resources, our ships, and our people as well. >> you have not been able to identify a particular area of concern that you would like to the exchanges? >> we have some very good people that we have recommended to the commission that are working on it and we will wait for the results before we announce any shortfalls. >> you have had resources from all over to deal with this. you also had to start off the year with the disaster in haiti. this must be put a real strain on your services where you do? howff -- where you do not have

all that you need already. >> first, and very grateful for the resources that we have. the country has invested heavily in the a coastguard, particularly since september 11, 2001. we have about 40,000 people and just the people alone give us the capacity to take on these challenges. plus about as i said earlier, we build a very versatile -- plus, as i said earlier, we build a a very versatile aircraft and ships. as far as haiti, we already had ships down there on drug missions and it was very easy to redeploy them. i do not think we will never have enough resources to do every mission that we are assigned 100%. that is where our job comes

from. based on our career, we got all those missions -- we've got all those missions on any given day. >> in terms of homeland security, what do you see as your role? >> we have a love of the statutory permission areas -- 11 a statutory mission areas. it could be broadly stated that our 11 mission areas have not changed that much. perhaps, some focus, for instance, since 9/11, we put a lot more emphasis on our security operations in our ports and offshore. we have enhance the capacity of our maritime safety and security teams and we work regard to make sure that our courts are secure. the and 90% of our trade comes through those ports.

to minimize their will and brulte -- there of vulnerability. rightly so, the congressional oversight committee has identified the fact that the marine energy has -- the marine industry has felt a bit short changed because of our focus on security. we have a marine safety improvement program that we have been diverting resources to. we are showing improvements there and we have been supported by both the administration and the congress. if we are in good shape. >> u.f. commanded your share of cutters in the day. there is always the question the about the aging fleet. what are we going to do to replace the older covers of a

of? where will that money come from? >> first, we have replaced a major portion of our tour boat -- our patrol boat fleet. we have 80% that are out there that aren't more venerable -- that are more vulnerable. if the 110 foot cutters, called the fast response cutters, are being built down in louisiana. we will probably build four to six per year for the next three years. we have reformed our acquisition programs. but we have built up capacity and now we have just chris in our third national security cover -- we have just christendom our third national security cutter. we're hopeful to build that portion of the fleet out. and then we will start working on our medium endurance cutters.

that is probably what i view as my biggest challenge, as commandant is to recapitalize and powerfully. >> how long will the coast guard be in that area? dealing with the oil spill there. >> first, that is the eighth coast guard district. we live there. our people are part of the communities down there. they are affected just as much as the people of louisiana are affected because we make our business the water down there as well. we're not going to go away. we will remain until this is cleaned up. >> what role will you play? >> will be supervising the cleanup. its british petroleum has pledged to stay down there to restore the health of the region. >> for months, years? " whatever it takes. -- >> what ever it takes.

>> when disasters strike, if it has to do with water, people tend to look to the coast guard for leadership. they also look to for assets. but is the structure ok now? are you ok with the leadership structure? does the coast guard dena any -- need any statutory authority to make things work better? >> you might be talking about my predecessor, admiral allen, who was taking a look at the overall leadership structure in the goes guard and moving away for -- from the geographic structure of support and trying to move into a structure of functional areas. in looking at logistics, we have

completed most of those changes. the we are in the final effort of arranging our basis -- our bases to give that support. the modernization effort that we put forward upon would have reduced a as 21 operational -- reduced cost to one operational commander. how i could keep a good focus on the pacific as well. what i started doing his reconstituting and holding on the pacific area commander and seeing how our coastguard authorization bill proceeds through the congress. we cannot complete those changes without the authorization in title 14. i have been in the office working with our oversight

committees. i think we have the flexibility within out to set of this construct 50 if the authorization bill is passed. -- if the authorization bill is passed. >> in 2011 i saw that the coast guard will be getting a 3% cut in its budget. how do you deal with that? you have so many things to do. >> everybody plays with the numbers. between what is enacted and what the president called for, we have shown steady progression in our budget. i feel like the 2011 budget was hammered out with a great deal of difficulty in a very -- in a very constrained environment and we got most of the things we wanted, continuation and bill the hollander and ships. -- building the new ships.

we have three of the new cutters that are being built. we have money coming in for more of those. it is a daunting act. everyone is dealing with strains on their budgets right now. i'm happy that we are getting the money to recapitalize. seems like a good place to end. thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> we are back with chris and kevin. what did you hear from the admiral daud -- about his job with the coast guard? but he is new to the coast guard, -- >> he is new to the coast guard, so it is not surprising that he was

noncommittal on many things. i think people understand that the final verdicts of these things do not end, but frustrating when something is out there. we're not sure that this would work. the nation has spent a lot of effort on getting the oil industry, for example, ready to deal with this. we do not fund the coast guard to be reactive element here. the industry itself is supposed to fund most of the equipment to deal with these things. >> busey a change coming down the road with that equation?