sitting there defending the president's budget. i think it's grossly inadequate and i hope that we can help a little bit. i know that i heard the gentleman i think from mississippi mention that we had no aviation deaths the last two years. i know that you know why. we've got those satellites that's predicting weather and make sure that even farmers know when a drought is coming and whether food supply and what have you. do you know the condition of those satellites? >> congresswoman, i will get back to you on specific satellites and their life expectancy. . .

to do to help rescue the minors. can you explain that? it has nothing to do with nasa . >> know when in nasa ever

dreamed we would be able to do -- no one in nasa ever dreamed we would be able to do what we did. three doctors and one engineer asked if they could go down to chile to see what needed to be done. they said we need to find ways to get food to these people. we need to find out what is needed to keep them alive for the month we originally thought they were going to be down there. when we bring them back to the circus, how do we get them back to normal. we -- bring them back to the surface, how do we get them back to normal? we put to work the lessons we had learned in the exploration, things we had never thought about. one of our engineers who was a navy submariner, got together with a navy submariner.

they designed the capsule that brought all of the miners that up to the circus. that was a phenomenal success story. nobody dreamed we would ever do that. something with the earthquake in haiti and the gulf oil spill. we are the most ready when the nation is least ready. >> thank you. i think the life of nasa depends on the life of our nation. >> thank you. those are things that should be better known to school children and those who have killed words for the work of nasa. words for the work of nasa. the committee may have additional questions for you. the record will be kept open for additional comments.

mr. johnson has suggested he bought some comments -- has some comments he wants back. >> thank you. we will try to get the comments back to you in a timely matter -- in a timely manner. i want to recognize the chairman. with that, we adjourn. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> on friday, the crews of the space shuttle discovery and the international space station took questions from the media. discovery is on his final mission delivering scare -- spare parts and robots that will be used to assist crew members with daily tasks aboard the space station. the mission has been extended to at today's to allow crewmembers to unload supplies about- extended to extra days to allow crewmembers to unload supplies. this is just over 30 minutes.

>> have there been specific times with the legacy of the vehicle have struck you -- has struck you? >> we have been busy during our mission. mostly we have been spending 95% of our time on just doing the work and getting the work done. when you are busy like that, you are focused on doing the task and doing the task correctly and making sure you are getting everything done the way it is supposed to be done. there have been times when i have been reflecting about it being the last mission and what

a wonderful vehicle it is. when you look out the windows, you can see the wings and see discovery written on the wings. i reflect on what a great vehicle it has been. 39 missions and one year in orbit. i think about the things the big coal has done and it is inspiring to may -- about the things he'd be a call -- the vehicle has done and it is inspiring me. >> they say picture is worth 1000 words. we got to see when you took a glance at discovery during your space walks. can you describe what it was like to see discovery and reflect on its past 365 days in space?

>> i will recapture what steve said. it is a magnificent ship. it is huge and complex. it is a completely capable vehicle. to be out there working around and near it, it is a privilege to be a part of the legacy of discovery. it seems like a blessing. >> what was the most difficult and the most exciting moment? >> that is easy. they are both the same. when i first exited the air walk, we were over the jungle in south america somewhere. it was beautiful, the clouds,

the river basin and the greenery. i had to remind myself that i had work to do and i could not take in the scenery. i had to tear myself away from that in get things ready for our tasks today. >> what was your most challenging task? it you have any surprises and what was your most exciting moments so far? >> it has been a pleasure so far here. we have spent two months on expedition 26. the most challenging time here -- there is no real time. the challenge is when i look at a procedure for the first time. it looks complex and i tried to do it without making mistakes. sometimes i do. for me, those are the most challenging times.

as usual, with familiarity, things get more familiar and we get to do it with no problems. we always have the mission control helping us and keeping us out of trouble. >> i represent a cohasset mariner in massachusetts. what has been the most challenging part and the most unexpected part of your shuttle flight? >> the most challenging part was trying to get up to speak and understand the eda's and understanding what my tax would be and how much training i had to -- tasks would be and the training i had to do. that was the most difficult part of it. the best part was working with

the crew. that has been great. a great crew and having the ability to spend time with them has been fantastic. that has been the best part of it. >> thanks for the good words. now a question for the west coast steve. what an adult can you share with newspaper readers in your -- what anecdotes can you share with newspaper readers in your hometown? >> i think a favorite steve story for this mission so far was when state was taking a module of of a transporter eba and mike and scott were driving

him on the robotic arm. by the time they released the module or state to take into his arms, -- module for steve to take into his arm, it crashed. he was stuck holding this payload for what seemed like a long time for him. the crew did a great time to get it back alive pretty quickly. he was stuck there for about 35 minutes holding this pump module. it gave us an opportunity to joke with them while he was out there stuck with nowhere to go. >> i want to add one story to the storage or state.

we were out think -- we erwere outfitting the module. steve has been in there all morning long doing every one of these bolts. i think he just finished. that is the kind of guy he is. he always gets things done. >> what is great about this is that steve is fluent. we have been working together on the pmm's. it is a pleasure to watched him get to work. >> i have a couple of questions. the first is our scott kelley.

can you explain the extra time discovery is spending at the space station and how it benefits the space ops the most? >> in the original plan, they were not going to have much involvement in getting the pmm in the of the hardware that needs to be disposed of. when they left, we were going to be in a time crunch to get all of these metal structures and foam disposed of. having the extension gives us to extra days with six people to get all that stuff, or some of it done before they leave. it helps maximize our time for things like science and other

activities we have to perform aboard the space station on a daily basis. >> can someone explain where express rack 8 and up at the end of this process? it is my understanding that that is the last of the express tracks. -- express racks. >> express rack 8 is to my left. i am not familiar with the kind of site is going to be performing. right now, it has a small refrigerator, a glacier, another refrigerator. those things keep him in science samples in them as well as some of the lockers. katie might have a better idea.

i will pass the microphone to her. >> what is great about and expressed rack is that it is my gender. it can contain either storage or experiments that need power and cooling. now that we have the big refrigerator sized been in place, smaller things can come up and we can have payload after payload in this facility because everything is provided. it is exciting to have another onboard. it gives us a lot of locations were small experiments. >> when discovery does the fire around after docking, can you speak to the -- does its slide around after docking, -- fly around, can you speak to be significant of that?

>> we have been talking about the long history of the space shuttle. it is a privilege to get the opportunity to undock. the international space station has every partner represented with the different models on board. we have something from the european space station and the htb from japan. what is amazing is how big the structure is. we can fly around the vehicle and take pictures and marble that the majority of the u.s. segment was brought up a piece by piece. it will be truly amazing. >> congratulations on a successful mission. the question will be for someone who wants to tackle it. i do not think people on the ground can appreciate what the

living spaces are like in the space station. now that it is complete can you talk a little bit about how large it is and how much space you had to move around in? >> just to start off, this space station is the largest pressurized volume in place in history -- in space in the history. i use the word that my son uses, which isginormous -- is g inormous. it is equivalent to a seventh 47 or bigger. it is oppressive -- a 747 or better. we can use every single one of the walls or models in a way

that we cannot do on the ground. it makes for a wonderful resource for science and living and being up here floating around. it is great. >> i have a question about garbage, literally. how much trash does the iss generate? where do you put it and do you recycle? >> we do recycle certain things. we recycle our water and -- our urine and turned it into water. that is helpful. disposing of any trash is quite a challenge. right now, believe it or not, we do not have all lot of common trash, which is the garbage we generate from our food and clothing. that is because we have recently

had to progress vehicles -- two progress' vehicles depart. -- progress because depart. -- vehicles depart. generally, the trash states in a certain area of the node. there is a certain area in the russian segment will be trashed space. it stays there until we can dispose of it. we dispose of it every 2 or 3 months when we have a vehicle that departs. it generally burned up in the atmosphere. >> that concludes questions. please stand by for a voice check from kennedy pao.

kscpo.s is a how do you hear me? >> we hear you loud and clear. >> there is great interest in r2. will the robot's on bailing be moved up because of all of the interest -- unveiling be moved up? >> we have been trying to move up getting him moved out of this box. there are things that have to come out of the pmm. the people on the ground are working hard on that. we hope we will be able to bring him out before discovery leaves.

i am looking forward to working with him. we want to understand how to work with him and the mechanics of how it works and how it is affected by zero gravity. we want to understand that before we send him to other planets. we need to be able to do that before exploring a human presence. robonaut is a good first step. >> steve, it has been a real world went for you. are you pinching yourself? have you had a -- it has been a real world and -- real whirlwind for you. how are you going to make it up to tim?

>> he did a fantastic job. there's no way i can make it up to them. >> bill harwood with cbs news. for alexander, were you looking forward to the fly around? are you disappointed that called off? how you compare the benefits of a picture like that bursas -- versus undocking and fly around? >> we have no decisions about the separation. it is a unique picture from the international space station.

unfortunately, we do not do this. >> the value of those pictures are clear. there is a value to it. it is hard to measure. it is objective in my opinion. the risk is something you can quantify. we never got far enough along in the process for me to see the hazard analysis associated with doing a fly around. there are disadvantages and advantages to doing it. and programs wayeigh those came up with the decision not to do it. as a crew, we support the decisions that are made by our leadership. >> for dr. barrett, i wonder if

you could describe beginning the reentry and feeling the effects of the atmosphere for the first time in a couple of weeks. what are you going to be feeling physically? what types of things will your body be experiencing? a difference will that be from your other return? >> that is a great question. the big difference is that the other returned after six and a half months and up here. i had time to decondition in the weight less environment. you do not decondition that much and you do not get back on the top of your game. we are see ted -- seated up

right. the gravity -- the blood is coming from our head rather than our test. chest. will tell yourthat 1.2 g's feel like 3. we have fluid loading to try to get our bats dealer bought him up again. suits e most-- vascular suuits that get us up again. >> please stand by for a voice check fro.

>> how did you hear us? >> we hear you loud and clear. welcome aboard the international space station. >> thank you to the commanders for having us participate in this event. how was it like having partners from all programs? >> it is one of the great things about this program. it is an international program. it shows up countries that cooperate can do great things. building a space station is probably one of the most significant engineering achievements that people have achieved. we have done that with this

international partnership that i think is one of the highlights of this program. >> from the news agency. what are the current operations that are going to happen on the anterior? -- the interior? >> we are working hard on the bottle because it came in eighth light configuration. we are removing -- in a flight configuration. we are trying to store it in the

japanese model that will be leaving soon. we are using the discovery crew to help us with that. >> good evening to be crew. -- the crew. in less than two weeks on march 17, it is 150 years until the unity of italy. how long do you plan on celebrating aboard the international space station any bit that is so important for the nation? >> this is an important holiday for our country. i am ltd. in being able to celebrate. i have brought a little flag that i will be able to fly on that day.

seeing it in from up here is a beautiful view. i have tried to have everyone partaking in its fight sending picture -- in it by sending pictures. it stands out during the day and at night. it is easy to see from a geographical and international point of view. we have to keep it in that way. >> good day to everyone. you see the sun setting and rising every day. you have 45 minutes of light and 45 minutes of day. do you realize that? how do you manage to keep the time? >> here inside the space station, we have view ports

that are not always open. most of the time, they stay closed because we have to maneuver outside. we base our gaze on the clock, which -- base our days on the clock. we have standard work hours. using work from 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. with about -- we usually work from 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. with about one hour for lunch. we look outside and it is gay or light -- day or light depending on where you are. it is extremely beautiful to see the world turning around you. within the time of one day. >> hi.

this is paolo. i wanted to know if you have touched the moon rock that the apollo 11 astronauts have bought back, which is a boy iss -- brought back, which is a board the iss? >> this is a rock that has been all over the place. i have touched it. i have seen it. it is interesting and stimulate thing to note that that robb has toen on such a tour -- t hasknow that that rock been on suchn a tour. >> i am from sky 24.

some people will be leaving soon for what will be a tourism trip. what do you think of that? do think their dreams coincide with some of your dreams? >> i am convinced that space tourism will be one of the frontiers opening in space. when i got here when we had more time to get used to the absence of gravity, i really thought it was a shame that so many people on earth cannot see this. in the future, this will change. it will be a pleasure to have the opportunity for everyone to come up here and spend some time here and be able to see our and experience the absence of gravity. this is something that will happen in the future. i hope it will happen sooner

rather than later. >> earth seen from up there is beautiful. a lot of things are happening on earth that are changing, in north africa for example. how do you or see these changes up their? -- foresee these changes up there? >> we have pieces of newscasts that we see. i've read some newspapers in the little time that i have. it is interesting to understand how the world keeps going. from up here, it looks still, but its is still going. sometimes i look down and try to see if i can see something.

i do not see anyone. i would like to be able to see people and what is going on down there, but i do not see it. we all know that things are happening and this is history continuing. we are certainly with all those down there who are trying to have a better life and a better future. >> i wanted to ask you. you are more or less half way through your mission. what you expect this point -- at this point? are you missing earth at this point? >> my halfway point was passed a few days ago. i am beginning to not feel like i just got here so i do not have to ask where things are or questions about this or that procedure.

i am feeling a little more at home now and not like a guest anymore. i like working. i find more enjoyment in working. initially, i was a little afraid of what i was doing. i did not want to create some disaster. now i am a little more comfortable. i expect that this is going to get better. i expect i will have a little more time to enjoy the views from the outside and the work inside. from the time being, i am not missing earth. i talked to my wife and my daughter, who is going up. we talk almost every day. we have conferences every couple of weeks. i would love to see them and hug them and go out with them.

but it is not that feeling of missing that is destroying me. it is fine. jokingly, one week ago i sent a message asking if they would send me a pizza. actually, the one thing that i miss is a good, healthy people. -- healthy pizza. >> that concludes the dance. thank you. >> m.i.t. american history professor pauline maier has written several books on american history. her latest book is "ratification." join our conversation with her sunday at noon eastern on c- span2. 2.

what previous "in depth" programs at c-span.org. >> lawmakers were told thursday that congress was to blame for wasteful spending. there was an house oversight hearing. the gao report released tuesday pinpointed areas where federal agencies have we done good progress. is hearing is two hours and 10 minutes. programs. this is two hours and ten minutes. >> good morning. the committee meeting will come to order. >> as is the new tradition of this committee, we will begin by reading the oversight mission statement.

we exist to secure to fundamental principles. first, americans have a right to know their money washington spends and takes is well spent and second, americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them. our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights. our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to tax payers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government. we will work tigers tirelessly with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy. this is the mission of the oversight and government reform committee to read today's hearing is the second time this committee has met in two weeks to consider the effect of wasteful spending have on the federal government, the economy and the taxpayers. this week's gao report exposes

serious government breakdowns in effective and efficient use of taxpayers' dollars by conservative estimates the duplication and fragmentation highlighted the gao report represents over 100 billion in annual losses. yet there was great consternation and 90 hours of hard debate in order to propose $62 billion in cuts the gao report, unlike the cuts, is not about eliminating services. it's about standardizing, combining and eliminating duplicative services that cost the american people money without serving an additional use, meaning if we cut the bureaucracy, if we cut so many of these programs that repeat each of them having high paid

and a high-ranking individuals and i.t. groups and separate publishing and if you will advertising campaigns, we can even in the cost without the american people suffering one loss of the essentials service is believed to be done by these programs. i'm sure in future times we will have additional hearings on programs that should simply go away with it is one or 100 within government. but today we are going to meet with 33 talented and very educated individuals who are going to help us understand should be a win-win for the american people. when when because we aren't talking about cuts, we are talking about cuts in bureaucracy, cuts in bureaucracy of money while delivering a better product to the taxpayers. with that i would like to yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from florida for his

comments. >> thank you mr. chairman. i appreciate hearing today and i look forward to hearing from our witnesses. something strikes me as odd, and that is we've heard the president say over and over again, and let me just quote he's going to conduct an exhaustive line by line review of the federal budget and seek to eliminate government programs that are not performing. well, that's something we can all agree with and we seemed no action on the president's words. we have a hearing today where we invite the director of omb, which is a presidential appointee and he refuses to show of. so is the president serious about doing a line by line review? is the director of the omb is he trying to hide the questions? it's outrageous that we find ourselves at a hearing we have

the opportunity to do something good for the american people, and that is cut spending and cut this budget and get rid of waste. mr. chairman, you talked up the duplication and the $100 billion the director of omb won't show up to give us an opportunity to ask questions and find out what we can do to cut this $100 billion to find another hundred billion dollars to cut to try to bring this budget in line? i think it's outrageous that the director doesn't show up. i think issues in this regard to the legislative branch and the separation of powers. it says to me that the administration and the director of omb is more interested in talking a good game now in the public but doesn't really want to get to the hard work. so, mr. chairman, i look forward to this panel.

i look forward to your leadership but i am extremely disappointed the director didn't show up and by not sure this administration is serious about cutting spending if they can't even send the director. i thank the director and reclaiming my time. >> our invitation to the office of management but will remain open. i now recognize the distinguished ranking member for his opening. >> thank you mr. chairman and for calling this hearing today. i just want to go immediately to what the congressman just said. i don't think the president is hiding or the omb is hiding anything. the fact is the president in his state of the union made it clear he is about the business of addressing these issues and omb is carrying in the process of conducting his own analysis of effective ways of streamlining the government services and to cut unnecessary cost. this is critical to ensure federal programs are working as effectively as possible and that

is why i signed a letter with the chairman requesting from going updates as a when the tax on this monumental task as my understanding the water will be going out and as soon as we get the signatures up to senator collins and lieberman might think it is, but i want to make it clear, and i do believe that again, one of the things about this chairman i know he likes to do things effectively and efficiently, so i would think that omb there will come a time they will appear before us and we will be in the best position to provide some testimony would be helpful. now, mr. chairman, it is certainly good to see all of our witnesses here today. to truman davis it is a pleasure to see you again. your name has been evoked quite favorably around here and so it's good to see you.

and mr. de alexander it's good to see you again. today we will hear the results of a report issued by the government accountability office on duplicative programs and major opportunities to enhance federal revenues. first, the gao report demonstrates there are real opportunities to streamline federal programs come save taxpayers' dollars and deliver services more effectively and efficiently. flexible, gao identified at least 31 entities within the defense department is supposed to address the urgent needs of war fighters. the gao reported there are challenges with the department's fragmented guidance and raised concern about the numbers and the rules of the various entities involved. solving these problems will take a vacation, by partisanship but it will help both american troops and taxpayers. the gao report also describes numerous areas where we can recover hundreds of billions of dollars of federal revenues.

for example, ga0 highlights the united states is essentially giving away up to $53 billion to all companies that are not paying royalties on certain leases to extract oil and gas from federal lands. that is our money. a lot has been said about the tax payers said during the last election. one of the things these it is they don't want to be cheated of their own money. congress passed legislation in 95 to give oil companies so-called relief. the goal of the legislation is to encourage production by exempting the companies by paying royalties to the federal government. the legislation was supposed to require governments to start paying royalties when they recoup their investment and began making a profit. but the legislation was poorly drafted and when the companies to alleged in court the successfully avoided paying any royalties at all. in its report the gao reported it could result in $21 billion

in lost revenue to the federal government. this is going to an industry that is making staggering process despite the worst economic downturn since the great depression. mr. chairman, you need significant work, we need to do sycophant work on this, and you have to be you've been a leader in this area and as a matter of fact in 2009 you issued a report about what would happen if these companies on their lawsuit. any company that entered a similar lease between 1996 and 2000 could be skipped paying royalties. that is when you said. you also said the fifth circuit decision may force the federal government to reimburse companies who have already attended royalty payments. depending upon the market price of oil and natural gas the total cost of the for all royalties totaled nearly $80 billion, and of quote. mr. chairman, you warned about this problem and i commend you, i really do. but now we need to fix it.

and it's coming to take a bipartisan effort. we just had a vote in the house where we had an opportunity to fix it, and we were not able to. and so, i think as mr. davis has said many times, this is one where we can come together as democrats and republicans. it is a win-win situation, but it's not a win just for republicans, not just for democrat, but most importantly it is a win for the american people and i don't just want to be sitting here ten years from now saying the same things having lost even more money so i look forward to the hearing mr. chairman and i think you. with that, i yield back. >> i thank the ranking member and all members will have seven legislative days to submit their opening statements for the record. i now go to the distinguished panel. the honorable thomas davis iii. former chairman of this committee as the ranking member said he looks down on us every day. now the director of the federal

government affairs and the man who issued the subpoena to the oil companies on my behalf in order to begin the process of doing the oversight on the flawed contracts that would cost the american people tens of billions of dollars and i want to thank you for that today publicly. the honorable gene dodaro as the comptroller of the united states appearing for writing the second time as the confirmed comptroller versus the many times that you appear before us graciously as the acting. your work as a legislative branch employees spanning both the executive and the legislative branch providing more than 3,000 people who give us the nonpartisan reports and fact-finding that we absolutely rely on. and mr. ryan alexander, president of the taxpayers for common sense and often contributor. welcome back. pursuant to the committee's rules all witnesses are asked to

be sworn in before they testify before this committee. if you please raise your right hands. do you solemnly swear or affirm the the testimony you are about to give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but truth? let the record reflect all witnesses have answered in the affirmative. thank you. please, be seated. in order to allow time for discussion, and as my predecessor would say a longstanding tradition is that you will have five minutes, there will be a green light for as long as you may talk freely, there will be a yellow light to warn you your time is elapsing, and i will be understanding for you to complete your sentence, but not much more once it turns red, and that will allow a healthy dialogue afterwards. the chair recognizes mr. davis for his opening statement.

>> thank you chairman issa and colleagues. thanks for the opportunity to testify for you today and i'm doing so in my capacity as the former member of the house and specifically chairman of the committee and i want to thank gene dodaro for putting together an outstanding report on the basis of today's hearing. i'm hoping we can engage a wendi before the system because we are in this, democrats, republicans, the house, senate, exit to this branch. we all cause the problem, and i think we need to be there to solve it as we look forward to this and at this point they are not here today in the future we need to make sure they are engaged and doing some things we need to hear about. >> during my tenure i examine how the government could operate more efficiently, focusing on the government issues, procurement, i.t. policies possible service, government organizations. in this process of one said the weaker to extract savings from the federal government is to simply cut off fingers and toes

rather than the one after the fact that smolder throughout the body politics. as we see in the gao report issued earlier this week sometimes uncle sam does indeed have too many digits in some surgery may well be in order. so where does the blame on? as i noted there's plenty of blame to go around. a lot of places to point the finger and let me start with congress. duplicative and overlapping programs frequently exist because the way that we in congress legislate. indeed one of the earliest enduring lessons i learned, the election of the house was the jurisdiction trumps all. while different members believe there may be need for a given federal service it will surely right the authorizing legislation for their individual committees in mind. for example if a member of the education work force committee wants to enact a job-training program they will write the legislation to ensure it falls under an agency that committee's purview. this thing would be true of a member of the veterans administration. the financial services might like job training to low-income people in such a program to cut.

john transnet of three different agencies. under this arrangement there off a bit differently, measured differently and administered differently. common sense suggests they should be combined to get the economies of scale or to make it easier for the citizens to know where the programs exist. we can blame the bureaucracy in many ways congress created the monster we bemoan and attempt to protect the larger risk products. another plant that should be examined in the quest to crawl duplicative or overlapping programs or to implement broad personnel reforms we need to implement government wide solutions as often discussed. but while the executive branch has the ability to affect such efforts to a certain degree the compartmentalization approach that congress takes often prevents the type of all listed action required. this is especially true of the appropriations process in which all the subcommittees would have to every for an initiative a

task we can't ask to take a back. finally on necessary ramifications of the state and local levels congress should examine the marion reporting requirements of the federal programs, human service programs, educational programs and transportation programs to see where we can make better use of consolidated systems. with existing technology it seems unnecessary to have every statement in its own reporting system for if a given program essentially the same information is required from everybody. government-wide and the executive branch culture exists. too many agencies have pipes for the delivery services, personal rules and internal protocols. the result is the seamless communications and information sharing our rear between the government departments. information gets lost, analysis becomes disjointed and offered ability becomes and it is an effective catalyst for establishing cooperation and communication between agencies which could in turn lead to an

exponential increase in efficiency. had the authority of the mandate to do so. unfortunately the administrations of both parties the office of management and budget said the becomes the office of budget. the concentration calls on the budgetary aspects of the agency's and a management review to deal with much more long term savings. the key to success is focusing how the services are delivered and how the services are procuring and how the information is gathered and analyzed the zearing is the executive branch seems to be deficient. the a solutions of the redundant programs are not government skill sets. it often tends to reorganize afforded by inadequate time constraints, unwilling employee participants in the federal managers to know that a slow roll or weighted approach will trump the most ambitious change efforts. what did congress do and omb to avoid the situation? from the congressional standpoint it completely structures the committee system is unlikely. a first step to avoiding the program duplication and efficiency might be a cbo review

of newly proposed programs for consideration. in closing there are good dedicated people working in government but upon examination of how the employees some of them are doing tasks they don't need to be doing under the regulations that didn't need to be written. today's hearing marks the start of an effort and a sustained effort to address these issues. again, i appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts and look for to questions and ask that my statement put in the record. >> members of the committee, i am very pleased to be here today to talk about the gao report which outlines opportunities to tackle overlap and duplication, reduce cost and enhanced revenue collections. the report discusses 34 different areas of overlap and duplication and fragmentation and it out lines a number of

specific activities that need to be reviewed. i will highlight a couple categories this morning. one, there are multiple programs and specific areas that have developed over the years and that need to be tackled pittard for example there are over 40 programs and employment and training areas. there are over 80 programs trying at least in part to improve teacher quality. there are 80 programs intended to improve economic development. surface transportation has a multiple program as well. these programs have developed over the years and in some cases decades and in many cases there is really not a lot of empirical evidence to show the outcomes of the programs or that they are operating effectively. this is a perfect opportunity for the congress and the administration to look at these portfolio programs that we outlined in our reports and to

begin to rationalize the programs, prioritize what the role of the federal government should be, and to give clear directions as to what is to be accomplished through the programs on how to measure the results and how to streamline the delivery systems and also reduce administrative costs. i think there's a lot of opportunities here. we also outlined in the defense area opportunities there and medical commands comer urgent needs as was mentioned in the opening comments and there are other areas where the dod can leverage the purchasing power for example and purchasing of drugs and also pursuing a parallel paths and developing electronic medical records and there are opportunities to conserve and resources and get better results for less cost we believe. in addition to the over less fragmentation of the duplication

we also outlined a number of opportunities for cost savings and enhance revenues 47 areas are outlined in the reaper. many of the opportunities go to the nuts and bolts of the government and how it operates. germany was outlined as the need to make sure there's more competition in contracting the there are fewer contract in people's to reduce the cost and we are paying to maintain an unneeded federal property and we are paying through improper payments for services that either aren't rendered or are not well documented, that we have confidence that they are being saved or appropriately paid. and in the revenue area there is a gap at the tax level between texas at the collective $290 billion there are areas the

we believe through prudent use of increasing the electronic filing using third-party data to identify potential non-followers and other activities that need to be looked at. now, one of the things we are going to continue to do since this report is the first report that meets our statutory requirement to annually produce these reports we will be looking at other opportunities going forward. tax expenditures, flexible, and how they might duplicate other things for the simple in this report we mentioned the tax credit in the at the mall area, duplication, the renewable fuel standards that are in place and that congress should take a look at the need to continue this ethanol tax credit which is billions of dollars a year a foregone revenue. there is overlap between the tax credits, loan programs and other federal spending so we will be looking at these areas in the

future, and we already have work underway for the next year's report and we look forward to working with the congress to help streamline the federal government activities to make sure that its operating more effectively, more efficiently, and then tax payers best interest. so mr. chairman, that concludes my opening statement. i would be happy to answer questions at the appropriate time. >> thank you. the gentleman yields back 14 seconds. [laughter] >> ms. alexander, please. >> good morning, trice, a ranking member cummings and members of the committee, think you for inviting me to testify today. our mission for common sense is to achieve a government that spends taxpayer dollars responsibly and operates within its means. all of our work reflects the belief that no one, no matter where they fall on the political spectrum wants to see their money wasted. to that end we have worked with the left and right to achieve the victories on stopping the bridge to nowhere, getting the car-mart moratorium enacted, cutting funding for an alternate engine for the joint strike fighter and creating an inspector general for the iraq

war. we testified before the committee several times with proven results for american taxpayers. we test for the cost overrun problems the of 22 rafters and the program was stopped. when mr. davis was on that night would testify on crop insurance, based printing the agricultural committee to take action and working with you, churn and i said, we testified on the army corps of engineers issues and the committee regarding lost royalty revenues from offshore oil and gas both of which are in the gao report we are discussing today. in addition to might as the money i would like to enter the record the detailed recommended budget cuts. in the more than 15 year history, we've worked on many of the programs and issues highlighted in the gao report. we hope to increased scrutiny generated by the report, the current political will to tame the deficit and good work the committee will need to meaningful elimination of many of these programs. obviously there is much too much to tackle in this report in five minutes or even 50, i will just highlight a few issues. across the government gao found samples of duplication.

reference to the acquisition process the from and why it could yield significant savings. this is particularly true in the pentagon for the rest of duplication across the surface as our high. evers requirement weapons like the eagles should be coordinated across the services, encouraging competition in the interagency contracting to help drive down cost by as much as 500 billion by the gao estimate and has mr. dodaro mentioned courtenay and from the dod and electronic of record systems for the purchasing. they also have enormous possible savings but from disposing of billions of dollars worth of unnecessary federal property, but perfect vehicle management and better cost analysis of purchasing and leasing decisions. in addition to opportunities to reduce spending the gao report highlighted ways to enhance revenue, another critical element of reducing the deficit. give away the state oil and gas industry to the royalty management and collection systems have been highlighted by the report, gao numerous times and added to the high risk list this year. chairman as you know all too

well from your work on these problems, the result of the royalty relief in the mid-1990s to oil and gas companies operating in the gulf of mexico problems stemming from the relief act including a portfolio of these holders to pay no royalties for oil and gas from the federal waters will cost taxpayers three and a 50 billion in the next five years. the gao report notes almost 1 trillion federal revenues forgone in fiscal year 2009 due to the tax expenditures but the commission called tax earmarks. the 173 tax expenditures are similar to spending programs that can be the same magnitude or larger than related federal spending exit without the oversight. we believe this is an area this committee could play a critical role on increasing accountability, examining effectiveness and saving taxpayers' dollars. in the recent report the gao says reductions of revenue losses from eliminating in effect and text could be substantial. tax expenditure performance is in every it would benefit from the congressional scrutiny as the congress considers ways to address the long-term fiscal the balance.

last year forcible the gao recommended congress modify the research tax credit to reduce wind falls for the taxpayers research spending they would have done any way and this report suggests changes to the tax credit as well as reviewing the toxics and status of bonds. these text extenders for effectiveness and fallujah and eliminating the largest corporate tax loopholes would pave the way for the corporate tax structure learning over all breeds and establishing an important level of different business communities. other tax expenditures such as the mortgage interest deduction or deductions for the sales tax shall also be considered. reforming federal law activities related to the corn ethanol would be a double whammy eliminating redundant programs and enhancing revenue. the use of ethanol is mandated, protected from foreign competition and subsidized. any one of these redundant market distorting policy options might be proposed to help emerging industry that is indefensible but the mature corn ethanol industry continues to benefit from the decades of responsible tax credit to blend ethanol at a cost of the taxpayers more than 5 billion per year.

clearly the gao has given the congress ought to think about coming eliminating duplication and waste of government and revenue are the critical first step to addressing the $1.65 trillion budget deficit. >> i thank the gentlelady. you feel it back 18 seconds. this is probably a record for any committee. i now yield myself five minutes. mr. davis, the work you did when you were here continues on that as you can see, there is more to do. when we start looking at duplicative programs, from your experience on this side of the desk, do you recommend if the committee offers legislation that we use a carrot or stick or both? for example we could look at these programs and simply say through appropriations we are only going to fund x amount now

you have to figured out how to combine these rather than eliminating them when you run out of money, period or do we create legislative authority for pools of savings being combined and thus create an opportunity in which there's a carrot for agencies that come together such as the electronic medical records if in fact the dod and our previously serving members often known as veterans can simply come together and realize they're dealing with the same people and get stovepiped with different systems. how do you view those two options? >> i like the kid a better simply because when you try to start a budget they look within their budget, they don't look how they can share savings with another agency. it's just not in the nature of the beast. if you can then synthesize groups that work together in those kind of shared savings environment you could do much better. organizations or -- you have to

look healthy or incentivized. they're hesitant to give up the control because they don't know what authority they may lose over the long haul so when it comes to the shared savings we are not getting the sustainability that we need. i would do something like mandating agencies to look at two or three lines of businesses with the nea each one they could share some of these instead of putting them into stovepipes but it doesn't intend buys them to work with other agencies. it's not the nature. >> i appreciate that, mr. dodaro. >> i think the and said -- >> he's not chairman any more. you don't have to agree. [laughter] >> in this case, i mean it. [laughter] i think there are disincentives in the budget process, for a simple, and the way that the money is there. it's difficult to collaborate across agencies and i think there could be more flexibility

that way. also, the idea is you positive there i think are also true at the state and local level in dealing with federal agencies on grants like for example we recommended that the federal agencies look at incentives for states to combine and the in plymouth in the training area. a lot of these programs are delivered to state and local lead ministry destructors and a lot of times to have to set up separate structures in order to deliver multiple programs. so i think there's a lot of opportunities for incentives and flexibility. >> a quick follow-up on that. >> since so much of what is delivered in programs like that is in fact presidential earmarks often called grants and competitive grants and so on, should we require that the executive branch do that consolidation, recognize that if you're going to get five pots of money to do substantially the same thing for the executive branch and all many of them on a

formula that in fact they become blind. do you think that is a wise piece of legislative or should we try to work if you will combined with the administration and their own best interest or last, should we give the states authority to easily come by grants so that no matter where they come from the can merge them which is something governor barbara talked about where he gets different pools of money with different strings. how do you view those options to try to get the efficiencies? >> - all the options are very valid ideas. at the federal level i think there are opportunities to consolidate the various programs. for civil we understand in the administration's proposal for three of the rising and the education area, actually 38 programs we have identified our proposed and consolidated into five. there are thoughts on the surface transportation, clearly that. i do think that the state's should have some flexibility to

show, and they can do it in a way to help reduce some of their own cost as you know they're struggling with their own fiscal stress and give them some flexibility as long as there is a proper accountability in place. one of the things we've said is there's not enough tracking of the and obligated balance and grant programs. so i think that all of those could work. >> i appreciate that. mr. alexander, just a quick one. you're opening statement, when you took on one of the hardest pillars to take on, the ethanol subsidy, and i appreciate that, how do you propose we begin the process of dealing -- doing away with one of the obvious not a fossil fuel waste in government? do you suggest that we in fact take that 5 billion simply force it to be put into renewable fuels more broadly so that they can be competition from what most would call the more

promising fossil fuels or do you have an alternate suggestion? >> our preference would be to have the savings the go to deficit reductions and not just in terms of the elimination for several years. i think in many ways, you know, it just can expire. it's done at the end of this year. we don't see anything replacing it. there are lots of efforts to look at new and more promising fuels' but i don't think they need to be tight. that is a failed policy. >> thank you. i recognize the ranking member for his questions. >> thank you. mr. dodaro, one of the things i found interesting about the report is in the report it said dod made major revisions to the acquisition policies and he went on to say more emphasis is placed on the knowledge about the requirements, the technology and the designs.

as the chairman of the coast guard subcommittee what we discovered when we were dealing with the deep water project by the $25 billion worth of hardware over 25 years and boats that didn't flow, part of the problem, literally, literally, part of the problem of acquisitions process. in other words, they didn't have people who knew what they were doing with regard to specifications, putting together contracts, but the determining, you know, when something, performance was done. they even had the contractors determining when bonuses would be given. and so i'm just trying to dig deep with this dod because we see a lot of money going out the door there. how far have they gotten with that acquisitions that they've made some movements? what do you, i mean, what do you see that -- how much progress

have they made and do you see other things that can be done in that regard? >> i think basically, for example the weapons system acquisition they put in place as a result of the congressional laws of the weapons systems acquisition reform act as 2,009 the put good policies and practices in their regulations and manuals but the need to implement them more consistently across the department. >> how can we get them to do that? that's the question. >> there's no substitute for regular congressional oversight. >> and chairman davis, you said you talked earlier to me privately about it has to be a sustained effort. how do we sustain? i know if the coast guard we kept bringing them back over and over and over again and we got things done and we saved a few billion dollars in a very few years. but i'm trying to figure out how did we keep that sustained

effort, chairman davis? >> two things. one is the difficulty in sustaining this in government is you have people who are replaced a free period of time. they have a lot of other priorities. i liken it to mergers and acquisitions. in the private sector cost. you have to take those out and stay competitive. you have a strict time lines, management oversight from of. many times in government you have costs that look good at the front and on paper but by the time they are translated two or three years it sometimes and said costing you because you have this atmosphere. one other thing on the procurement, we don't have enough procurement officers. there's a policy of broken up officers of the pentagon and the need to hire and train more people in these areas. it saves money in the long term to have good people behind them. >> mr. dodaro, i only have a few minutes left, two minutes left, your report says the united states is giving the oil companies at $53 billion because

back in 1995, congress exempted them from paying royalties on the leases in the government of mexico. there are some oil companies today that pay no royalties to the american taxpayers on certain leases. as part of the so-called royalty relief primm these companies are removing the oil and gas which belongs to the american people, selling it and making a record profits. and so, i'm just trying to figure this is our money is and it? >> there hasn't been a comprehensive look in 25 years of what the federal government is charging for these leases, and when they are ranked, u.s. government's ranked against other countries and even some states we rank below what we are asking for the regular basis for the return of the release for the land. interiors finally agreed to do the comprehensive assessment. it's supposed to be completed this year. i would encourage the congress

to review that study and make sure that there are proper incentives. we've also said, mr. cummings, that there's not enough verification of production that is occurring on the land is in order to make sure the government is getting its fair return. as bernanke put this on your hi list risk is that right? why was that? >> we believe there wasn't reasonable assurance that the federal government was getting the revenue that they were due as a result of the leases for two of the reasons i mentioned before. >> in other words they were being cheated? >> i think that it's not clear we have reasonable assurance. we are getting everything we should -- >> but the fact is it's money that is due to the american people on our land and we are not getting it will let me tell you something, if that happened anywhere people were being cheated, folks would be going to jail in my district.

as a matter of fact someone steals a $300 bike they go to jail. so, here we have billions drifting away into the same time we are trying to find money to make sure that kids can go to school and have teachers and all that kind of thing, but this has to be a priority. and i know the chairman has made -- this is a big issue for the chairman and i looking for to working with you as we tackle this problem. thank you, mr. chairman. we now recognize the gentleman from florida. >> thank you mr. chairman. a quick note on the ethanol, count me in on finding the savings and on a personal issue at all has been screwing up my boat motor. so count me in the. a minute ago the ranking member said that the omb was sent here partly because the planning and

doing, you know, but wouldn't it have been a great way to plan to actually come to the hearing and get some input and share their thoughts? and the ranking member also said one of the ways they were able to get some savings and be effective in another committee dealing with the coast guard was keep bringing them back but i would like the wendi to show up for the first time so we can keep bringing them back and figuring out ways to save some money. and i'm going to -- let me start with this. mr. dodaro, has the administration had any reaction to your report so far? >> i've not talked to them about the report. we have -- there are some areas in the high risk list that we have made a number of attempts omb is on high-risk list and we are engaged in regular

discussions on that and i do believe the announcement yesterday they were proposing a commission to deal with the federal property issue was in response to this report as well. i do plan to follow-up with them and to try to create dialogue to make sure all these issues are addressed. >> the haven't had a reaction. >> would be nice of the director of omb was here so we could ask him that question. >> my understanding is the director said that they are on the same page as we are. >> mr. davis, good to see you again. isn't this really -- i mean, i remember my first term here when we were in the majority, weren't there reports -- did in the president, president bush at the time, didn't they come up with programs that were duplicative and in the nature that could be

done away with? so this is a real problem. this isn't just the first report were the first time we've learned the federal government is wasting money by having duplicative programs. >> unfortunately it's a soap opera. mr. dodaro would agree that. things that have been in that high risk list for a generation, and it takes a sustained effort on the part of republicans and democrats working with the administration to get these done and the promise is keeping your eye on the ball with everything that goes on and when you cut budgets and go through this er these are the kind of things that fall through the cracks. you still have the pentagon but the books aren't able to be audited so how do you know where you are on these kind of things? so yes it's a soap opera. >> mr. dodaro, can you give us any recommendations on what might be some of the low hanging

fruit? i mean, do know, mr. chairman, if we could move on any of these, if you would be a sign of moving in the right direction. so is there any kind of low hanging fruit, things that are either so ridiculous in nature that by not acting it's kind of a shame? >> my recommendation would be to build of where there is good consensus about the need to streamline, like for it simple, in the areas i mentioned with the multiple programs there are recommendations flexible on the employment and training area to reduce and consolidate some of the programs and surface transportation there is agreement, the quality and improving those consolidated and there's common agreements there semis just would be to build off where there's a consensus as a starting point. and these areas where mr. davis

mentioned on the high risk list we've seen progress. i would say the real point though we took two areas off the list and both of those areas have more than a dozen congressional hearings. it requires top-level attention, metrics on progress, but there's a lot of opportunities to do this. also opportunities in the property area that isn't needed if it needs to be disposed of. we are spending by the latest estimates over $1.6 billion a year to maintain property this underutilized. it doesn't make sense. there should be more competition in contracting. about one-third of the contracts that were put in place had either no competition or one better on the competition. there is also $640 million

sitting in a customs collection account for a number of years that there haven't been decisions on how to use. that could be an easy and quick wit and. there is also a lot of money going out the door of the improper payments that i think could be stopped. that is going to take time and effort. we talked about the use of technology but i think that that's another area where the latest estimate and all of the programs have been estimated yet. the latest estimates are about $125 billion so there are plenty of targets of opportunity and would be happy to work with congress and the administration to get results. >> thank you very much. >> i thank the giblin. >> i recognize the gentleman from ohio, mr. kucinich for five minutes. >> thank you very much, ms. alexandre i would like to ask you as the president of the tax payers for common sense, you're take on the american people giving the most profitable industry in the world

is $53 billion gift. i'd like to break this down in layman's terms, and if i have any misperceptions about this media can help me with it. due to a flaw in the 1995 our continental shelf deep water fact, numerous companies are drilling in mexico in federal land and paying no royalties to the federal government. is that correct? and as we have heard, the gao -- could you see that louder? >> my microphone was not long. i'm sorry, that's right. no royalties right now that the interior and the structure of the deep water royalty case. >> as we heard the reports u.s. taxpayers could lose as much as $53 billion as a result of this and it's already begun and

fiscal year 2011 the bureau the ocean energy management regulation and enforcement estimates we will lose $1.4 billion. in contrast, the oil industry is making stuttering profits. for example, the top five oil companies reported profits of $485 billion in 2005 to 2009. exxonmobil, the largest american oil company reported a 53% increase in its fourth quarter profits. chevron, the number to american oil company reported fourth quarter earnings 72% higher than the preceding years. the third largest, conocophillips, reported quarterly profit climbed 46%. now ms. alexander, is this an industry that needs billion dollar giveaways? >> tax payers for common sense has worked on this a long time and our position is perfectly clear we do not think the oil

companies need the subsidies or any others so we think this is an issue that is right for the congress to address and in some ways it is so outrageous problems in the deep water royalty relief is that there should be bipartisan agreement on these are taxpayers' assets people are taking and if any of us all those oil reserves and said yes, just take it. people would think we were a little crazy. >> back into those of life on the wheel was about $55 a barrel president bush addressed the society newspaper editors i want to quote what he said. quote, i will tell you which 55-dollar oil. we don't need incentives to the oil companies and gas companies to explore. there are plenty of incentives. we need to put a strategy in place to help the country over time become less dependent. ms. alexandre, would you agree with that statement by president bush? >> i would come in and with the last check about $98 a barrel it seems like it's still less. >> so it makes more sense now?

recently, john hofmeister retired in 2008 and runs the citizens for affordable energy told the national journal that big oil companies don't need government help. would you agree? >> i would agree it doesn't need government help. >> how can we modify the subsidy structure to encourage the transition of what say clean renewable energy sources? >> our position has always been we know what we don't need and we can get rid of it. congress can come together, develop a solution to the problem of the royalty relief leases and some of the bigger tax expenditures have significant benefits for oil and gas companies. there are subsidies for the gas companies in the tax code and for different spending programs that there's a big opportunity for there to be bipartisan action for the reform that will help close the deficit in just

one step and what a mature industry stand on its own 2 feet. many of the subsidies the royalty relief program isn't 100-years-old but some are as much as 100-years-old and the industry doesn't need that anymore. >> and the handles don't do anything to help the american economy is that right? >> we think that the handle torian very profitable companies. >> with the gentleman yield his remaining time for a follow-up question? >> sure. stat ms. alexander, i think it's important for everyone that wasn't here when german davis had about our investigation it's the leases of called, not necessarily the wall. isn't that correct? the lease is didn't trigger when the oil prices and natural gas prices reached the threshold to trigger the royalties. >> my understanding is there's a set of leases issued between

1996 and 2000 that were false, there was an era in the drafting than that because they didn't have the threshold and subsequently the court ruled all of the structure language in the leases and that period that contained them was flawed and so all of those or extend from the royalties right now. it is a complex problem, but it's not -- >> i do think was bipartisan support, still, to try to fix that. thank you. >> i'm sorry. mr. langford of oklahoma. >> thank you. and thanks all for coming. we talked earlier about incentives for agencies to look reduplicate waste. obviously everyone wants to have more staff and do more things and everyone sees problems and they want to help solve it. one incentives specifically do you see that you think okayed this is an incentive to help the cause honestly i talked with several people that are federal workers. they see it as well. they see the waste about them and i can't believe we felt this form and we do this. someone else does this. they see it.

how do we create incentives in the agency to that specific employees to say when you see it here is a way to be able to help us get out of it. >> i will give a couple of samples. why was that of the fairfax i went to my agency heads and a budget time and asked for the budget and they came up with nothing. we said look, what you can find you can spend some of this your own way within certain guidelines and they came up with a lot more. his interest in coaching to be cutting their budget or is it is going to the, quote, deficit. it's not in the nature of the way things work. so that is one thing you could do. another is we could bring the agencies and ask them to take certain lines of business and look for ways to share the savings and report back. just two or three lines of business her agency. right now they can work together. the best example of that is the record between the va and the dod. there's no reason you have to do the different sets of health records. i will give you one other if i can just take a second. right now for the state

governments spending a lot of money on just being able to authenticate the communications with the federal and from it. security standards exist to authenticate users to access data and federally funded systems posted by the state. each federal agency interprets the standards differently so the states have to meet each federal agency standards replicating a different process to various programs that cost a lot of money. social security uses technology for verification, department of justice will use a certain procedure and protocol on that. have you do different things you ought to have one standard and cost for these things. >> that's terrific, mr. dodaro. >> mr. davis talked within each agency, and i do agree with his suggestions in terms of forcing people to come up with recommendations. but many things we point out in our report or multiple agencies involved in the same area and we believe the only way this is going to get assault despite

high levels within the administration. owen b. needs to play a very critical role in this endeavor and the congress does as well to provide the right type of incentives. for example, one of the areas that's not mention what we are going to work on it, it's in our high-risk list is the disabilities programs. it is about 200 different disabilities programs, and because of our insistence working with omb on the high risk set of meetings i talked about before, it brought together all the agencies involved in that process. it was one of the first time as they ever met to be able to discuss that. so i think there is ways to build incentives and deal with disincentives. another area we recommended before is leasing versus buying. there is, you know, a sort of a bye yes in the roles that we have recommended that be changed as well. >> what me ask you a specific question. you mentioned about contacting vehicles and two are recommending to were contracting. he compiled a list you say these

should be seriously looked at? >> yes, these are contracts that are interagency contracts and what we have said is there are really not a list. the list of to be compiled by the executive branch and need physical and people should make sure -- -- we have a multitude of contracts and systems for procurement. you don't have at this point a list to secure the different contracting vehicles waiting are inherently inefficient. >> we have the types of vehicles that are inefficient or pose more risk to the federal government. i would be happy to provide that. >> i would like that list as well. graybill to reach these different agencies to be given to research and in a way most cannot. what would you perceive as the need for individuals to the devil to reach in and be able to search the data city agencies can get out their employment, their strategies, the program philosophies to be able to go through the cut and search it not just a pds on the web site but actual searchable data is there a need for that and is that possible to pilaf?

>> there is definitely the need for it. there's not enough of it and it is possible. estimates that one of the areas you have the opportunity to do that but there are people at home the would like to search that and research that would be journalists or individuals and that is something i would like to see us continue to push on as has been mentioned before and continue to find ways to do that. one last thought on the sunset programs. is there a particular plan that you seem to say this is a great way to sunset these out? >> i can't there needs to be regular reauthorization of programs. there are too many programs that are created that don't have a regular review and process in place. i do think the government needs to invest more in the program evaluations. one of the things we find and we talk about here a lot of the programs have been operating for years and it's really not a lot of empirical evidence of what the returns are, whether they are being effective. so i think the federal government has in the past shortchanged the program evaluation, and i think it needs to be put in place on a regular

basis. >> thank you. i yield back. >> i now recognize mr. connolly. >> thank you. our former chairman and my predecessor in this seat in virginia, my good friend tom davis. welcome back, tom. in fact perhaps congressman davis we could begin with you. you talked up the fact it would be a wise investment to expand the number of acquisition procurement personnel within the federal government so that we are looking for a efficiencies and cost savings. could you expand on that just a little bit? because one of the things that certainly has struck a number of people is federal contracting increased enormously in the 1990's but procurement and acquisition personnel within the federal government didn't keep up with that. >> and cemetery as it declined. it cut budgets and in fact many times to go to a procurement meeting and what you have is a lot of contractors running the

procurement. that's not all bad that you need a cadre inside of the government to understand the tool box that they have to figure out what is the best value for their government and that needs constant training and all of those kinds of things. what's happened many times is the end of losing good personal to the private sector and yet that's where you get your cost overrun. that's where you get contracts that aren't performing well because you don't have the appropriate oversight. .. >> i think that is a good point.

sometimes we get. away. sometimes, we have to make strategic investments that will protect taxpayer dollars. >> that is true. we need to look at the outcome as you are getting from the programs, and make sure you have the proper oversight. contract in is particularly important. >> congressman davis, knowing your interest in the technology sector, right now the administration is looking at federal data centers and tried to consolidate. there has been a big proliferation. what is your sense of both achieving more efficiency in the protection of data and a cost savings for taxpayers? >> you have over 21 data centers. i think you can save several

hundred dollars -- several hundred million dollars a year by consolidating. you need to look at the security. in so many areas, we are still fighting. there are so many ways we could work across agencies to store these things, to not only getting economies of scale in this, but you get a lot of other savings if we would learn to share these things between agencies. it has not been the culture. >> mr. dodaro, the boy back to the subject of oil, and ms. alexander, he said the problem was really with the royalty agreements, not with the law. i thought i heard you say there was a change of law perhaps that was written in 1995, that had the effect, the did not, of exempting offshore oil-drilling from any royalty payment at all? >> it is my understanding on the

execution of the leases at interior in the 1990's, whether or not there is a flaw in the law is more of an opinion matter. we think there are problems with the structure of the law, because subsequently, the court's decision it rude -- it was ruled illegal. the execution is a problem. >> with respect to this change in the law, that is within the purview of congress. >> this is something congress can come together and figure out a solution for. fwe hope you do. >> finally, any estimate of the lost revenue to u.s. taxpayers due to the fact that we are 93rd in the list of countries with royalties extracted to the oil industry? >> we do not have reasonable assurance that we are collected

as much as we should. >> thank you, i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you. mr. kelly, a pennsylvania. will the gentleman yield for just a moment? >> yes, i will. >> mr. connolly made a good point, and his chairman mr. lankford -- this is probably an area where the subcommittee needs to take on and work together. his is an example where the kind of questions and answers here, we could provide your subcommittee some of the history to work on procurement reform, to make it clear that we never run -- write a law that could be misinterpreted, written in correctly, and ultimately not separate -- survive. i appreciate that. >> thank you. mr. derr, good to see you again. -- mr. dodaro, good to see you

again. lot of touring and i've been to a lot of deepak plants. maybe you can understand me. we started talking about duplication and how many people we have in different places, taking different names. a lot of the same time is maybe coming up with some type of the lead. the usda has every day, is that not true? >> i believe so. >> again, my question then comes when we have the folks every day. we have a plan that has been on for the critical control point and considered in appearing scientific application of the state-of-the-art systems. every meat plant designs their own system in accordance with the usda requirements must operate successfully. we do not need an inspector at every plant everyday. we operate the same whether instructors are present or not. i would say from an attendant

lifetime, with a lot more important from snapshots time to time. we have folks in the plant everyday come usda inspectors watching what these people do. in addition to that, we send in another group that comes into go over what they already have gone over. and i would that happens, these aren't large meat processors. small place that may be 4050 employees. they've got to stop what they're doing and spend a week going over the plan, which has gone over every day with the usda inspector. i'm just trying to understand if they go through this and see the duplication of this and the cost to taxpayers and the cost benefit analysis, wherein the end of the taxpayer and could you shed any light on this? >> we have learned out for a number of years that the food safety system is completely fragmented. it's really not operating effectively. there is a need to go to risk

based approach and i think that is worth your pointing out the real need to do that. we'd recommend it that there be a congress commission studied with the national academy to redesign this. a lot of her food now it's coming from foreign is them are so on domestic reduction a lot. so we set the system right now can be a lot better and there needs to be real look at the risk based approach is really the way to go. >> i wonder about this. i just keep wondering why we keep shooting ourselves in the foot and wonder why we haven't been. we have these diminished and we keep going over and over again and everybody comes up at the same answer. there's too many regulations and too much overlap. when does it stop? when we face it? >> i think you just have to

figure out which priority is congress wants to pursue and stick with it. i mean, i think there is not a lot of substantive focusing on these areas and results. they are our cultures and incentives that will keep things in place until they're broken and the only way they'll be broken is through sustained efforts by the congress and the administration in order to do it. otherwise it won't change material. >> i'm looking forward to working with you in to write the same conclusions to get things faced. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back the >> we now recognize mr. tierney for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, it's interesting, mr. dodaro. i heard my colleagues say they would like to solve the problems having to do with the lease of the noncollection royalties. your report that government

retain oil and gas produced by federal leases. seems like a very commonsense recommendations. everyone on the panel says they agree with it, but interestingly these royalty issues the lease continue. and you agree we're not getting it. >> there's not reasonable insurance we are. >> with the report by mr. issa and his colleagues phyllis thatcher during may go beyond 1998, 1998 bases and culminated depending upon the market price of oil and natural gas off work on royalties for a total of nearly $80 billion. in fact, your report says that between $21,000,000,053,000,000,000, jumping from his oil companies into their pockets instead of playing down debt. we have shell and bp and exxon mobil, 485 profit in the last 10,200 jobs. so this is a situation and they

talk about understanding the history. everybody knows that the problem is. everybody knows what the consequences are and i just want to make sure everybody knows there's a solution out there. my massachusetts colleague, ed markey has proposed a way to address the problem. first he recognizes he can go back and what the list is bogus and litigation. his resolutions are an alternative to that. they would not allow any nearly 50 companies that are currently benefiting from no royalty leases. those companies have the choice to either keep your no oil leases or begin a fair price and get releases eventually on the deceptive man. now my colleague has worked very closely with the congressional research service to make sure there were no constitutional issues. my question to you, ms. alexander is do you support legislation? >> we work with representative

markey. we just want to see this fixed. but that would work coming out. >> now with a history of everybody saying they want to reserve the problem. and yet as a result, let me tell you the last week -- last friday mr. markey offered that legislation on the house floor. not a single one of our colleagues from the other side voted for it. all the people on our side did. it was off the floor again this week and again not what i want her colleagues voted for it and everyone that people on the side of the aisle voted for it. last year and the year before -- this is not a new idea. this is something he's repeatedly brought to the floor. so if we think we'll understand the problem, if we know the history and if we all say we ought to fix it, it always takes these can make things happen. i hear a lot of words. so ms. alexander, we can offer this over and over, but until her friends on the republican side of the aisle want to put these behind their words, we will get much action.

what you say to convince my republican colleagues over here were blocking this change, what would you say they have in mind when mr. markey reaches the floor? >> as they say, our position is to just fix it. the markey bill does fix it comes up that's one way to do it. come up with another solution. >> taught him by the markey amendment works and why you support it. >> we supported because it is a constitutional approach based on what we've read to putting the lease holders of the no royalty is in a position where they have an incentive to renegotiate. simply put, we just want to not continue to give away, so really cannot let the different options. >> when you say to my republican colleagues. we understand the problem. we share you say. it's your intention to resolve it and we provided you with a perfectly legitimate way to resolve it. let's work on it and next time it comes, maybe he'll vote on it to get the matter resolved.

$53 billion back to where people. so when i'm running around cutting money from teachers and reduce in pell grants for students can't afford college, wracking job ratings. let's get serious and descending for real. >> of the gentleman yield? >> i will yield. >> mr. alexander, one of the things the report says was that in some instances information is being provided by the oil companies around the sleep in their results reporting and in some instances there is no reporting what the weather. >> could you comment on that, please? >> the issue of self reporting is basically an honor system. here is our oil, take us, tell us how much you've taken. if you don't think that's the right way to do business, congress and the administration is treating taxpayers if they have a fiduciary responsibility to manage assets. we do support the markey fix, but we also worked ghostly with mr. chairman issa.

i think there's a real potential for a bipartisan solution on this and from the taxpayers do this to the over. >> thank you. >> i think the gentleman. >> for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for the presentations from the entire board. mr. dodaro, i didn't know for sure, but i was listening to the language and i thought he picked up the pittsburgh and i'm glad to see -- is jim dodaro your brother clerics okay, it's the pittsburgh and the boys. listen, thank you for your presentation today. i come to this committee with a background that includes time as united states attorney and in that capacity came in just after september 11 when we were dealing with issues of terrorism. we share responsibilities and other committees as well. one of those committees on which

i served as homeland security. and as a result i think as each of us went to your theory comprehensive assessment of government spending in various capacities, but also the duplication is really struck for two reasons, one with respect to the bureaucratic overlay of so many agencies, but also what's at stake with the issue of bioterrorism. so i take a minute to read from your report at least five departments, agencies and more than two dozen presidential appointees overseas, $6.4 billion related to bioterrorism. on the front end of this, we are saying there is no broad integrated national strategy that accomplishes all the stakeholders have bio defense responsibilities to identify the risk systematically, access resources that are needed to do it and to prioritize and allocate the investment across the spectrum. so that's on the front end to

prevent an incident. then you conclude there is no national plan to coordinate federal, state and local efforts following the bioterror attack. the united states? the technical and operational capabilities required for an adequate response. this could be katrina all over again. we're really on the front end of a remarkable challenge for my work on homeland security council, bioterrorism is the very real threat. can you take a minute to comment on this very, very important aspect of this report? >> if they would commit thank you. following september 11, there is a lot of focus on protect in the transportation system, particularly the airline industries. what we were trying to focus on and i think the 9/11 commission was whether the other potential risk for the country? what are other avenues that could be pursued?

for example, smuggling information or threats over the border physically. other modes of transportation. but the bio defense areas where we fell for a number of years wasn't getting enough attention and understanding that the threats were for having an appropriate plan in place to be able to do it is like a number of areas that really requires multiple agencies to be involved and they really haven't been a means to coordinate a year and we try elevate this with the homeland security council and the national security council which are well poshard. we have in.net much responses i would like in this to provide for proper leadership. so i do think this is an area where congressional oversight is foreign to and from my would be very welcome some of the very important things that could be done to make sure we position to

detect and prevent something, not only in a position to be reacting after-the-fact. >> mr. davis. >> let me just say if you think that's tough, what about cybersecurity, or you can tell, dhs, dod and every agency doing a different approach? i think it will be even more alarming. >> i only have 50 seconds, but i'm going to ask both of you in response to this, would you tell me how we look at creating the kind of mechanism where there is a national strategy focal point worth a single point of response to be both prepared on the front end and coordinate these assets and that's important in the event that we have been in demand to be able to respond effectively on the backend. we have asked for attention to be paid. if i understand, maybe you can tell me the history here.

what is the solution? what works best in terms of how we organize and then seek accountability? >> i'll take a quick stab. one of the problems that the executive branch level is jurisdiction in terms of who is going to be involved. this is going to take engagement from the congress, both parties that the administration and figure datapath in moving ahead. we have a deprivation since 2002. long overdue, but i think will take a lot of dialogue and a lot of bipartisan cooperation to decide, but it has to be done. >> i agree with that completely. i think this needs upper-level congressional and mustered support to be able to do it. you can't work with the agencies on a peer level and expect they are going to create this type of mechanism. this fundamental problem. >> and i just said, two of my kids but these were not college. >> they are obviously bright

children. ending on the high note, the gentleman's time is expired. we now recognize the gentleman from vermont for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. dodaro, that is a great report. i really want to thank you florida. i thought among other things it was terrific that it looked at the whole problem, not just the loss from duplication, but also the loss from inappropriate tax subsidies, improper payments come in the air raid in our payments. so it was quite comprehensive and extremely helpful. mr. chairman, went to thank you thank you, too. the focus of this inquiry is very important, mr. ranking member, really appreciated. a little bit about the oil subsidies is an easy target for us, but if it isn't taking care of, your report indicated $53 billion could be saved by taxpayers if we eliminated the oil subsidies for royalty-free drilling at a time of $100 a barrel oil.

so you fully support eliminating that subsidy for the oil companies so they can save money for the taxpayers? >> we were asked to calculate what it would be if that would have been in place. >> i would ask you what it was for. it would be $53 billion. >> i believe that is the high-end of our estimate. but what we are trying to focus on -- >> let me just go on. ms. alexander, you indicated again i applaud you because you're taking a comprehensive approach her, looking at all the elements of how the taxpayers getting hammered unnecessarily. but the oil subsidies and a bespoke about as well that we should get rid of the oil companies disagree in a spent about $340 million in the past year saw been to retain this tax payer health. >> the oil companies jobs to make company drilling oil.

it's congress' job to have the fiduciary role and take care taxpayer dollars. we think there's room for a fix. >> is a curfew if they are going to taxpayer subsidies, and that is an expense to every taxpayer in the country, but the intention is to create jobs but that subsidy should go to emerging technologies and industries, not mature and profitable industries. >> we took a skeptical look at all subsidies and certainly as a starting point we want to know what would make getting for attack dollars. to put a dollar and 20 street, we want to know why we are doing it and what our goals are. if were trying to get jobs and are not coming to an effective subsidy. if it's mature and should be allowed to take care of itself, should need subsidies. we'll be skeptical about subsidies to an emerging technology that is very high performance standards and a reason in that timeframe.

>> that skepticism is appropriate and should be applied to a tax expenditure, which cost the taxpayer money as it should be applied to any line item expenditure in the budget, correct? >> we see it that way, yes. >> mr. davis, some people say you're real smart politician. i want to ask you really for some advice. >> i'm a reformed politician. >> you know, in this room was that the democrats attempt to hammer away on what we see as tax giveaways and a lot of times the other side of the aisle is focusing on duplication. my view, we are both right. whether his duplication, we had to eliminate. or there is a freebie tax subsidy we had to eliminate that. but we are sort of berates an opposite kind the line here and now the chairman make you never want to save taxpayers money. as the ultimate goal. i wonder what you think about is trying prepare areas. mr. langford is doing good work

in a subcommittee. you mention, for instance, duplication and makes those vents. why don't we have one set of medical records? would've prepared that getting rid of the ethanol subsidy were there does seem to be some bipartisan port and you're doing them together. or another might be no purpose in costing taxpayers $53 billion in repair that with following your advice on the worry of different federal agencies requiring the states to accommodate each one of their different standards for verification. it makes absolutely no sense. so how do we -- my frustration here at times of namesake of the political impediment that inhibits us from taking appropriate action that can make real progress. in your testimony, you suggested we look in the mirror and frankly i think that's pretty good advice. and michael here with e. to save

taxpayers money. for the duplication we can agree on not be eliminated, but to avoid there is a tax expenditure that's just a rip off from the perspective of the taxpayer. with eliminated. moving ahead, making progress, the chairman make you never want to accomplish here. do you think that makes sense? >> in him only makes sense, it's essential. you're the democratic administration and need the administration by them. a congress that is divided. and when it comes to race, one man pork is another man's state, but a lot of these efficiency issues i think we have to deal to come together on this committee, sit down. we're not going to agree on everything, but there enough things we agree not to put together the report and then you have to drive it. you have to go to the administration, go to the floor. let's face it. this interest group that set committee room to want to weigh in on subsidies and if he's each

talk in the vacuum. these are the numbers. when you get outside, it becomes more difficult. this committee could play a very vital role in coming together with a strong bipartisan report and pushing not come a holding hearings. i think it getting everybody back again with get some agreement on this and trying to drive it. the frustration i felt it. 14 years in the house is there is no sustainability. u.k. report come at the hearing, get momentum and we forget about it and move on to the new thing. but this is something this committee was empowered to do when it was formed back in the 50s. and i think it is something we're not going to agree in everything, but there enough things we agreed to put together a juicy report and save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. i think it's a good suggestion. >> i would give you more time if i possibly could because you are on all the right methods and i

think the gentlemen. we now recognize the gentleman from pennsylvania. we are very pennsylvania oriented. mr. platts for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i certainly think all three of the witnesses. great to have all of you. mr. davis, with all respect, i want to say mr. chairman, great to have you back as well. >> whetted out. keep letting it out. >> your insights are certainly very helpful to us and i want to commend senator coburn are having sponsored legislation to result in this report in the important work of the gao and now following through on the assignment. and really what i see is the beginning of the process, the first of what will be opiate daylight between gao, this committee and support work. and tom come you touched on a perfect sustainability that we all just talked about these things, but then we follow through. and when you are chairman and now chairman ice, had the

privilege of chairing the subcommittee on government organization efficiency and the nature of management. i assure you we will do our best as a subcommittee to sustain this effort from the legislative side and working with all the parties. on a specific issue, when you think about within the report, what is highlighted in the inefficiency and duplication, the waste of resources, teacher quality, education of kids come employment training, especially with unemployment for a most ears, dod, homeland security committees are all top priorities for our country and for citizens, yet we know we can do a lot better with resources we are putting into them. the 21st questions rtu and this will probably in follow-up hearings with fewer staff on the subcommittee level. as he looked at some of the duplication, such as 4 billion on teacher -- teacher quality,

is there any ability to give even a testament of saving, administrative savings if we took 82 different programs into even half that number? any ability to give a testament and how much could we likely save from eliminating the duplication? >> i'll go back and take a look, but i don't think we were able to do it because there is a lot of limitations on the amount of information that's available, on what it costs to administer some of these programs, particularly those in the case that administered to the state and local level. we do believe there's plenty of opportunity to consolidate programs. as i mentioned earlier in the administration's proposal for education reform, they are already proposing consolidating these programs in 12 of them. i think there's a lot of opportunities. i don't have a process i wish i did. >> that is a positive sign here come the reference to secretary

duncan, though looking at trying to be proactive in the consolidation effort, to be more efficient if they follow on any similar answer that shall have the ability to edit detail at at this point. and that is when you look at the teacher quality, teacher preparation, those 82 programs i don't think probably have the data available to you right now to do a cost-benefit analysis and a are we happy these two programs -- these i have over here we can show it done a great job. these other 77 are struggling, so when we look to consolidate consolidate -- is that accurate at this point you don't have the data orient the ticket to the detail of the cost benefit analysis? >> that's correct, especially for the smaller programs. we do mention the reported number of the smaller programs are so small it's hard to evaluate them. >> under 50 million number of administrative costs them with

the savings would be. and looking ahead to the hearing process, i've got to tell you, temptation is to try to make a point about the duplication to invite one representative from a 82 i'm just teacher education. we feel the room. i wouldn't be any seats left to make the point that your report does. we need to do a lot better here. additional questions that we try to squeeze in here and proper payment is a huge issue. you reference 125 william and probably the low end. as we know or think we know about how much is really out there. any specific recommendations? when we think of how to balance the budget and deficit reduction, you know, it's entitlement reform into the biggest areas are medicaid and medicare. any specific areas you want to point us towards with them is the two programs? >> the first thing i would say in the medicare area or needs to be an estimate for the

prescription drug component. right now there is of the the estimate is incomplete. there are opportunities to use more information to elegy up front to help attack and we are looking at and evaluating opportunities right now. we talked about the high risk the chairman ice and we're looking at that issue. i think the improper payments elimination and reporting act was passed by congress last year at the very important vehicle that lowers the threshold, requires accountability, requires regular reporting, setting a target in follow-up entrained spirits and reporting. so i do think this is a really important area that we sustained attention, that can make a lot of progress. >> hopefully we can sustain that effort with you and chairman davis -- >> i would just say i'm improper payments i think has been constantly solvable for government and the legislation helps. there is so many great software

items out there in front detection that are being utilized. i think you need to continue to push that from here. and i just said, sharing savings contracts or something the government needs to look at in these areas here that is basically don't see anything amiss to get to 93% are not and is negotiated down. they are legal under the fire, but rarely used. it is a great way to get something out there quickly. it doesn't come out of budget, producing that government. >> i think the gentleman. >> the gentlelady from the district of columbia, is burned for five minutes. >> thank you very much. i have a question for mr. dodaro and mr. davis, my regional neighbor, but i'm going to give you a pat on the sentencing to sure. i'm not going to ask about oil

subsidies. in fact, i'm going to ask you about a subsidy with the surface. our ranking members chaired a committee that has to do with property and property disposal. i note mr. dodaro, that you identified as i'd like you to elaborate upon it because it's dated improving cost analysis to make federal facility decisions could save tens of millions of dollars. just give an example, we just built a beautiful department of transportation just a few years ago. it was huge, state-of-the-art. guess where? we built the department of transportation and will always be there as the headquarters building. we built it, give it a 15 -- it's built by a developer. we have a 15 year lease on it.

when that leases the outcome would show a bought the building. and we will start buying the building again. i believe this has a lot to do with scoring. what changes do you think should be made into should make it? we want to came to this humongous boss if not tens of millions, but billions of dollars because we don't do real estate the way the private sector does. how should we change the scoring? who should do a quick visit administrative? >> we recommend that the omb, but proposal to be what to do with this issue. that's not been done yet, but it's a combination of action by omb work in the cbo in the budget committees they really would have to make a change in the rolls. i think it's appropriate. there needs to be flexibility. it's not always one way or the other, but there needs but there needs to be a good cost-benefit study and the government and taxpayers would benefit. >> on asking for is the federal

government should not have one way of doing real estate transaction with the rest of the country does it another way. first thing you got to look at its widest everybody else do it that way? why do you buy a home with a mortgage and put the money straight down? why is that better for the taxpayer? mr. davis, i was interested. mib. -- this is so davis lake, when approach to things, this notion of trying to find ways to work together. i noted that in properties, we signed a letter with the chairman in which we were asking dsa to access to their database on excess profiting. now the president has a hold that the on excess property

going on and now you see her committee well. so you see the administration can you see this committee and you see the appropriate committee all going at the same issue, all seen that there are dollars there. were all, mr. davis, having been chairman of the committee do you think the committee should play now that there's been so many interested in this low-hanging fruit? >> the administrator of gsa has just put this together her own advisory committee on the subject, too, doing away with the surplus properties. you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen right now. this committee meets driving outcome. they think you need to hold the seat to the fire, for some time limits on this. this has been around a long time. before i came to congress, trying to dispose of property are useless to property and away we can rehabilitate and use them to share the private sector. what we need to do here at the

subcommittee level is continue to hold hearings and tried to keep their feet to the fire. you got the time limits on this before the clock runs out. i think mr. dodaro's report shows a lot of savings and we can get it right. just add one little thing in the scoring. i hate to mention this, but you get frustrated and congress can direct scoring you don't get any action. >> which we direct scoring? >> you can read the rules for scoring. we've done it with some frequency. >> i yield back. thank you. >> the generally deals back in another former chairman of the committee, mr. burgess, recognize for five minutes. >> time, it's good seeing you again. i understand you're in the private sector making lots of money. good to see you. he's blushing -- >> out this morning, but -- >> anyhow, welcome back. it's good to see you. this picture simply doesn't do you justice. but anyhow, i'd like to make a

brief comment about mr. tierney's remarks. i wish he was still here. we checked on the issue that he raised on the eternal motion in the reason the re-committal motion filled with because they were an aside -- i don't like to use the term blackmailing, but black checking the oil companies into renegotiating leases that it darty been agreed to in order to get a new lease. and that is some end i think most people would agree is a violation of law. there was the case and i'm saving all this for the record. there was a case in 2007 that went to court, where they try to force the renegotiation of the contract in one because the contract was valid in the government had no right to go back and insist on changing that, simply because they wanted to get more back from the

company. now, i think there is a baby can do this in the future and we talked about that. and then as we can encourage them would renegotiate leases, not threatening the old thesis, but when we've renegotiate leases to create a better way to get those funds back that would help bring women into the treasury and reduce the debt. now i'd like to go into this a little further. this is not the subject at hand, but i think it's extremely important. we've been talking about this i notice on the news the last few days there's more and more commentators and experts, quote unquote talking about it. and that is, our dependence on foreign energy and it plays into what we're talking about in an unusual way. we import about 63% of our energy back in 1972 when we had the oil embargo about 25% or

26%. the more than doubled our dependency on middle eastern oil, oil coming from mexico canada and venezuela, communist dictator down there, shouted your rear in a situation where these oil supplies were in jeopardy. we could see the cost of oil per barrel go through the roof and the cost of gasoline and other things we use oil for us or his energy is concerned go through the roof. right now i've got some gasoline last night, which may not be of interest to anybody, but reykjavík castling to cost me $3.57 a gallon and that was the lowest i could find on the entire george washington parkway. so the cost is higher than that in d.c. and is going to. some people say there's disruption of the oil supplies coming in from the middle east alone if we had blockage of the suez canal for the persian gulf,

that we'd see oil and gas costs go through the roof here you can see $5 from $6 a gallon gas. now, we deliver in this country a great deal of our resources by truck. pickens was inducing a week or two without any told me of the converted or got all of the 18 wheelers use natural gas, we could cut our dependence on foreign oil by 50% within the next decade. that's one thing and yet we're not drilling or doing anything to explore for energy in this country. we can't get oil leases, new oil leases aggregating all kinds of environmental issues raised that say we can't drill here, and drill there. we've got trillions of gallons of coal shale to be converted to gas, to oil. we've got oil all over this country come in the end were enough the continental shelf and in the gulf of mexico.

we've got trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and we're not doing any thing. and so we are in effect creating a greater dependency on foreign energy than we ever have in the history of this country. we've gone from 25% to 60% dependent on foreign energy since we had the oil embargo, where people were bucking for bucks to get a can of gas to get to her. and so just give me another 30 seconds, mr. chairman. i think it's extremely important than a novice this is off the subject and i appreciate you being tolerant of my comments. it's important when we are talking about renegotiating or negotiating oil or whatever were talking about, do we realize we have a huge dependency on foreign energy in this country from an economic standpoint and a defense standpoint could be in a terrible situation if we don't move towards energy independence. i think all of us, regardless of whether were democrat or

republican ought to be talking about ways we can move in this direction as quickly as possible. because if we don't do things go south in the middle east or in venezuela or elsewhere, we could really see problems. my thoughts, castling through the roof, cost of all the good things service is going through the roof and inflationary spiral that could kill this country. without coming thank you very very much, mr. chairman. >> mr. burton, can i react to that? i think you're on, but you've got to remember the stone age didn't and because they ran out of stones. our dependency on oil. they will be alternative fuels developed and i think that continues to be long-term strategy. the most frustrating if congress is in ability and i was part of this, to come to grips with some kind of defined energy policy that has more domestic production. as you noted, more research and incentives into alternative fuels, which we started to do. and more conservation. it's a three-pronged deal in the

party should be able to come together on this for exactly what you say is going to happen. >> ester chairman, let me make one brief comment. and that is the thing for mr. a lot of the things we are talking about is going to take time, five, 10, 15 years. we don't have the luxury of time that we need to get moving on energy independence right now. thank you very much. he met the gentleman yield back. how could i not agree? you make great points. its economic security, national security. they are all intertwined. so with that, i yield five minutes to the gentleman of missouri, mr. clay. >> thank you, mr. chairman. on the first welcome mr. davis back in mr. orton certainly looks good in this freshly

painted hearing room. let me start my question with mr. dodaro. thank you for your testimony and recommendations on ways we can make the federal government more efficient to save taxpayer dollars. i would like to focus on the earth in defense. i am concerned about dod's pattern of negative appearances in gao report. as we continue to increase dod budget, the agency continues to be plagued by an efficient tea, duplicative programs, waste and in some cases fraud. in your report, you identified dod's military health system is an area of concern for duplication and redundancy. the reports state that the dod military health system has no

central command authority or single entity accountable for minimizing cost in achieving efficiency. and that's very troubling, given its mission. can you share with the committee the annual cost of dod military health system and what are the project could cost increases through 2015? >> it's about $50 billion. >> 50 billion for the health care. rate. we point out in the report to the health care cost the dod, just like they are in other parts of our economy growing. in the area that we mentioned in terms of the military health care command is something that's been studied by the science board and others, recommendations within dod to do it and they pursued a strategy that has minimal changes

involved. and we think if they pursue a broader strategy, it would be very important. also in the health care area, congressmen, the cost of prescription drugs is fast growing partttttnicomponent of health care. we think it could yield some benefits by leveraging their purchasing and they've agreed to start revisiting that issue. >> thank you for that response. and what impact do you think the systems redundancy and command structure issues have on those costs? >> the estimates that were made at the time, savings can be achieved between 250 million over $400 million a year, depending on the nature of the consolidation. >> okay, so that was kind of hope saved the taxpayer if they

took the recommendations that implemented them. >> that's correct. >> right now they are pretty much ignoring them. we might is made a minimal changes in that regard, but we think they could do more. >> okay, me and you have recommended alternative concepts that have been on the table for a while in addition to your report. the naval analysis did one in 2006. you also report the dod officials generally agree with the facts and findings that with rising costs in the billions, with dod's health system and clear and efficiency, that you think dod is doing enough right now to make improvement. >> i think they could ignore as we pointed out in her report. and we encourage them to do so. we'll continue to do studies,

basically outlining some of the options would be for a single military command is an option. there are other options that could be pursued, but this is a case where there is a cultural stove piping that the services and their new to be some broader leadership brought to bear. i think it is warranted given the fast rising health care costs. >> thank you for that response. mr. davis, going back to the inefficient energy policy and one argument we hear is that eliminating subsidies will cost jobs. i note that from 05209, top five oil companies have reduced the u.s. workforce by more than 10,000. would have been if we shifted these subsidies to win or other to mr., would not spur job creation in this country? >> i'm just not an expert on these areas.

we let the marketplace instead of the centers. we start to incentivize when none of these other areas have an effect not just in job creation, but reposition us for the future in the global economy. >> i think gentleman. before i recognize dr. kosar, we've had a request from two members to had to leave today that there be unanimous and for the general to revise and extend your report. i understand there's additional detail is then requested figure people said they could give the supplemental for this report. is that amenable to you that with the record open for you to supplement with any additional details, for example, agencies, naming them, those sort of things? we realize that's not easily put together in one day. >> i'm sorry. >> dr. kosar is recognized for five minutes.

>> mr. davis, and currently cosponsoring resolution x 06, which establishes a bipartisan, presidentially appointed sunset commission identifies field programs and those that achieving their goals to review them and subject them for termination. i suspect the commission would refuse this committee's work. with your experience, what are your thoughts on this at the legislation were enacted into law? >> if i were in congress, a cosponsor. that's a good place to start. for the things you have to members to remember is if you start talking about programs that don't work, their are a lot of interest groups out there that we don't care about efficient the time they push members and they have theirs in this or the time it's over. that's great whether gao or commission that can call the ball strikes. then it gets harder for somebody to defend some of the subsidies and programs that may not. i think it's a wonderful idea and another starting point on this. the only point i would make

assault is, the sustainability is keeping the momentum going. it's easier to make government work more efficiently and take off to cut programs. and that's where focusing to be. >> ms. alexander, which you see that taxpayers could get behind? >> we've reported different forms in the past is something we look at the resolution and certainly we're open to idea. >> mr. dodaro, you mentioned real property owned and maintained by the government that are unnecessary and not being used. in your view, what is the best method to get the agencies to private property is sold to the private sector? what our next steps to make this happen? >> we have recommended a would be chair with a real property counsel at this point in time. i think congress should require regular report on a quarterly basis from a wimpy about what the plans are to dispose of

property. right now there are over 45,000 buildings underutilized. but it's grown over the past year by 1800 buildings. the cost to maintain underutilized properties is up $1.6 billion a year. so i think there needs to be a plan. the administration has goals to try to dispose of property by the end of 2012, but it ain't part of congress' responsibility is to hold them accountable for what progress they are making towards achieving those goals. >> thank you very much. i get the balance my time. >> would the gentleman yield? thank you. mr. dodaro, have you looked at some of the excess property in sufficient details to look at things. for example, said moffett field and we discovered that not that was utilizing the relatively small portion of its

profitability and the minimum amount of it for non-core business that was important to the community. have a look at those things and whether or not agencies hold them and that is not technically underutilized, but being utilized. did you look at any of those sort of items? >> i'd have to go back and i'll provide you an answer for the record, mr. chairman i'm not. the one additional one is you talk in terms of the other side was asking questions and i think this. eyeful. you are almost saying we needed a second goldwater, that we need to go further merging the command structures of the military from the standpoint of spending. is that pretty much of the sustained part of your report? >> i think there needs to be some outside intervention in order to break some of the stovepipes that the movie.

>> chairman davis, you've certainly seen this then you are here for the process. would you say that's one of the things the committee should look at us learned when they no longer belong to the military, yet they are still costing the taxpayers? >> the mckinney act was passed to think with the greatest of intentions, but at the end of the day i think the priority has shifted from how do we use this to happen we put this back on the taxco and hungry get money back for the federal government? for borrowing 40 cents on the dollar. it's not attainable. we have to start looking at cost. i agree. >> thank you your one last question to follow up is you've been very supportive. i remember your organization and several others were supported about us that the course of the ability to make the decision that the unfortunately named behemoth the oil leases that

were flawed. and i know we agree to disagree on whether or not mr. markey states will be held constitutional, whether it is punitive, but more probably, have you looked at what can be gained by congress taking all of the dairy subsidies, oil is being one of them, and other energy subsidies and requiring them to be brought together, something that follows we been talking about today. >> we haven't specifically looked at how to package all of the energy subsidies together. we tend to look at individual subsidies, but we recommend energy policy and look at whether or not each dollar is going towards a common goal. it is something we be happy to work with the committee on. we've looked at energy subsidies and they try to look at them together, but we understand the difficulty of looking at the mall side-by-side. we certainly don't think that we

have apples to apples comparison coming out of the administration asked congress would like. >> i look forward to working together. i recognize the gentlelady from new york for five minutes. >> first i would like to welcome my former colleague, tom davis who did an extraordinary job was chairman of the committee. he was always a good fighter for the part of the cause, but also reasonable and listen to the minority in work together on a not good bills. it's good to see you. we miss you, tom. welcome back. i want to thank mr. dodaro for your report. it's very helpful and the chairman for focusing on it because this is a time when he to look at ways to protect taxpayers dollars and start reducing the deficit and debt. ..

may have withheld 117 million in uncollected or royalties. that is a staggering amount, and your report indicates one reason this may be happening is because we rely on oil companies to self report. >> there needs to be more verification by the interior department of the data to make sure that the federal government is getting -- reasonable assurance they're getting the

revenues that are there and so there is a set schedule with the department was behind in maintaining that schedule. why in the world don't we have the royalties reported by the agency or at least a third party? why in the world are we relying on the oil and gas industry that isn't reporting accurately according to your own study after study after study? >> our recommendation is there is more verification that needs to be done by them. >> you're still letting the companies verify, correct? >> no. interior needs to verify. >> having sold reported information can work if it is verification by the department of the checks and balances rather than go out and have people independently measuring it, so it can work, but the

department has to do their part to protect the taxpayers and that's what you're saying and we said in our recommendations. >> also in the recommendation your report proposes the federal government use independent third-party data to assurances accurately paid. it's to have interior do a job fair fighting. islamic interior needs to do better job of verifying if the can use their own verification they can use other third-party to cooperate as well. that's what we did in our audits and verifications. you should use everything available to a watergate data to make sure that reporting is complete as possible and we're getting the revenue that we deserve. >> how do you estimate we would able to keep them if they verify inappropriate way? >> we don't have an estimate right now. >> why is it taking so long? are they fair fighting in a better way? have a stake in to be taken the steps to respond to the

recommendations? >> we are going to be following up and staying on this and will provide regular reports to this committee. >> you think it's important maybe we need to legislate that they verify cracks to make sure it happens? what do we do to make sure this happens? >> i think i would explain what they're doing and the importance of doing it. i think the regular oversight is important. we have done work and the inspector inspector general has done work. we continue doing our part and so i think that it's good to have sustained follow-up with of the department that responsible for handling these matters. >> i regret there was an amendment i offered in another committee and the debate went on just until now so i missed a great deal of your testimony and the 21 seconds left i would like to ask you in your report with other area in government can we manage better and save funds?

obviously the oil and gas has historically been an area of tremendous abuse on the oil extracted from federal the owned land but what other category in government do you think if we manage it better we would be given to save taxpayer dollars and make up a dent in the terrible deficit we have? >> i think the report discusses opportunities virtually across government. the department of defense is an opportunity there i think for significant savings. and i also mentioned the need to focus on the revenue collection and away we are not cutting we're actually getting more that we are owed from the revenue standpoint beyond the interior issue i think the irs can and should implement a number of our recommendations to take that area on. i think we also recommended the tax expenditures be brought under regular review. that's almost as much a discretionary spending in a year in revenue forgone so i think all of those are really good

opportunities to be able to save money and be more efficient. deficits have to go beyond just these programs and to entitlement spending as well. >> my time is expired. thank you. >> i thank the gentlelady. mr. davis? >> mr. kysa asked a question where he talked about something similar. there's a lot of savings between agencies where they can start sharing services and i know that they diluted that in the report it wasn't just the focus of this report, but agencies can share services. right now it's very stovepiped in terms of the way they look at it and our budget and they are reluctant to do that, but they literally, billions of dollars probably tens of billions they could share services between agencies as we talk about the best illustration being medical records between the va and the dod is no reason to separate lists the that is the kind of

thing the collaboration between the agencies it's not really existing now that could save a lot. >> i thank the gentleman and enclosing for the gentlelady's edification, too, because i think the mr. dodaro did a very well in claiming something to us. this third-party data we want to explore further with the gao, the idea when an oil company takes over oil they put it on to a tanker that weighed and measured and the offload it and its metered. this is third-party data that if we gathered it all it would be impossible not to see any discrepancies between what is reported and so on and this is early hear what they said about the irs. the fact is if somebody says i don't have any money and yet you see credit card receipts saying you're spending money, if that data is compared in the internal revenue service the third-party corroboration, remember the irs voluntarily reported too some

people don't quite report accurately as they discovered when people were saying what they lost in louisiana didn't match anything that the ever declared so i look for to working with the gentle lady on that and in closing, particularly for mr. dodaro, our intention of the committees to have you back on the roughly quarterly basis. i hope that either you or designated representative would be able to do that so we can continue this dialogue in a way to stay on top of what you're doing and of course on what the administration is agreeing to do. additionally, i want to again, repeat for the record that the commitment to go after a number of areas you covered here today including natural gas and oil and constitutional ways to keep from losing the money that we are losing and particularly we are going to have the new agency, the ocean energy management, the old mms. we intend to have them back and out of deference to the organization that was announced

by interior we are trying to get a reasonable amount of time, but we are going to have them in specifically as we did when chairman davis had them in repeatedly. so i want to thank the witnesses today and i would like to have you all back i suspect because of your expertise we will have you back and the committee stands adjourned. >> sorry, and unanimous consent that your statement and all statements may be placed into the record for of to seven legislative days and all of you by unanimous consent may revise that same period of time. we stand adjourned. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> with a two week extension, republican and democratic leaders continue to work on a spending bill. watch the debates so far on c- span's congressional chronicle. track the daily time lines and read transcripts. by the fuld video archive for every member at c- span.org/congress. >> now, in a speech from the national security analyst for fox news and former defense department official. she talks about global hotspots and what is next for the middle east. this is about one hour. [applause] >> i have to mid that it was a lot of fun traveling and staying

with bob schaefer. when you walk into a meeting with chinese officials, they're like this and bob schaefer is like this. we had immediate respect. i was writing my dissertation at mit and nuclear weapons and we were invited to get in norad. i am in the big war room with 25 other students and there is a big map of the world, lights are blinking, and he is saying, "here is what happens normally, but when we have a crisis, all of these lights behind me start blinking and 13 generals walking in with briefing books."

and one of us say, "you mean like they are blinking now?" and he says, "oh, my god. we're going to defcon." we were right in the mountain. we were told they would be right back. we were there for about five hours. and was the day ronald reagan was shot. it was when the united states went to re-con-3 alert. and was such a harrowing experience to be locked up the under ground in a mount for five hours of having any idea what has happening. i have not been back for 30 years. [laughter] i think what i should explain to you that i am a brunette, right? [laughter] that is not the biggest strike

against me. i thought i better explain to you how i got there. i and the fox news and national security analyst. i had a terrific career in the nixon-ford administration, and when numbers in the reagan administration i have the civilian rank of a three-star general. i meant a great guy, got married, and five kids later, i was the. rehn the good life in the hamptons, madison and park avenue, and life was good. 9/11 happened. i was downtown in lower manhattan and are saw the first plane hit the tower. i immediately did what everyone in the new york they did try to figure out where my kids were. for me, it changed my life. i knew once again that my country was in trouble.

i had a daughter in high school at the time. she had a girl she looked up to who was five years older than her who was killed in the two towers. she said, "mom, i'm going to fight for my country." she applied for the naval academy. then she said, "mom, time for you to get back to work." usually the parent tells the kids to go get a job. my mother -- my daughter told me to go get a job. i decided to get back into government and politics. i signed up for a suicide mission to run against hillary clinton in 2006 and climbed my way to fox news where i in the national security analyst. i look at the flashpoints around the world and say what i think is going to happen and explain

it to not just the public but everyone who works at fox news. that is what i am going to do for you guys. what are the flash points to look at in the next year? you all should have a handout. look at your map. with the exception of north korea and the korean peninsula, everyone of the flash point to think about in the next year will be in the muslim world. if you look from the atlantic to morocco all the way to iran and the persian gulf, those are the go through that will some sort of regime change. how that works out in in the next year or two will affect the next 30 years of all of our lives. one of the major things that will happen in the muslim world? i think there are three. one, there will all be uprisings in this country as that of struggle with a lot of these same things. each country has their onset of

problems but they'll have a baby boom generation, a very large population. never in the history of the world has there been a baby boom generation that has been anything other than revolutionary. the american revolution was a baby boom. the french revolution was. the russian revolution. the chinese cultural revolution. what you are seeing is the baby boom generation in the muslim world. it is even worse because they do not have jobs. very high unemployment, high inflation, lousy economic opportunities, and there is social networking. those are the ingredients you will see throughout this region. the second is that they are all, for the most part, governed by aging autocratic dictators who have no particular secession plan other than dynastic to pass up to their brother, sun, our nephew. -- son, or nephew.

we already seen teenager coming egypt come and libya right now. -- we have already seen tunisia, egypt, and now libya. the second thing you'll see as we look at this map, look at iran in the right-hand corner. the rise of iran will be the next major thing. they will move in to take advantage of all of the chaos that the changing governments will have. iran has rewritten -- it used to be that the gulf right there, it is now called the persian gulf. the iranian think of themselves as the inheritor of the persian empire and they want to claim that. i went to go back to 500 b.c. and reclaim their place in the world. they will do it with nuclear weapons and by exporting revolution. the third thing i think you'll see in that region is israel. what does that mean for israel

and the united states? what are our core interests? i always get the question, "what does this mean it to me? why should i care?" you think, oh, another revolution. the reason we have core interests are the energy resources. secondly, i think we have an interest in keeping israel a surviving state. third, this is where all the terrorism is coming from. that is what they are exporting. how do you prevented from coming to the united states in the extent that it will exist, and how do you keep it there? first, i went to the back to the notion of uprising. -- i want to go back to the notion of the uprising. we are starting to see different things. egypt has been the most

significant so far. we have seen a pretty smooth exit from the stage. every revolution, think of this as a to react play. act one, get rid of the dictator. sometimes it is painless and peaceful. sometimes it is bloody and retracted, like i think it will be in libya. act two is one of the reformers to get rid of the dictator, it is their turn and they tried to figure and how to govern. they have never done it before. they're not very good at it. the country does not have the institutions that they need for elections, democracy, they have no freedom of press, assembly, so they start falling out with each other. act three is when they either get their act together, like we did after the revolutionary war, often with the aid of another country, or they do not and they get swept from power by the well

organized minority that comes in. and in this case, islamic extremists who come in, shove the liberal reformers aside, lock them up, execute them come and take over. what are the two examples we have a revolution like this in our lifetime? this is for those of you who are my age. the first time i saw this was in 1978-1979 with the fall of the shah of iran. jimmy carter was president and the shah was humbled by a very well-meaning group of liberal reformers to thought it would of women'sn ear rights in iran. jimmy carter was asked to help and he said now. he said this cannot have an american stamp on it. this has to be the iranians figuring it out for themselves. if we get involved, it will discredit the movement. we all know how that worked out. those reformers were brushed

aside by the ayatollah in the radical muslim clerics came in, executed the majority of the reformers, and to cover. but we have seen for the last 30 years is a radical iran. what is an example of a different outcome? 10 years later, 1989 was the fall of the berlin wall. my boss, ronald reagan, had helped the wall to come down. when it came down he and bush 41 did a very different thing than jimmy carter. they learned his lesson. we sent in a lot of soft power assistance to hungary, bulgaria, czechoslovakia, poland. we went in and we said constitutional lawyers from the national constitutional center in pennsylvania and we wanted to help them write constitutions.

the national republican institute for democracy, an equivalent democratic institute, we sent them all over, ngo aid, we wanted to say, "let us help you form political parties. you guys have never had a free and open elections. we will show you how to do that. we will tell you how to find candidates and groom them." you need that core knowledge of how to do it. we knew how to do this stuff and we helped. it did not cost a lot of money. what was the end result? democracy. countries that are the most pro- american countries in the world today. if you ever meet any eastern european to have come from that period of time and i have done so much speaking there, anyone under the age of 25 said ronald

reagan-ovitch. those are the two examples we have today as the uprising occurs. we have a major role to play and we're not playing it right now. i can promise you that the other guys are playing. the muslim brotherhood wants to take advantage of the chaos that they see. they have been waiting for decades for this moment. there is a major islamic cleric, 84-years old, a charismatic, the most popular show on al jazeera that meet -- that reaches 12 million muslims every saturday. he is trying to organize the

muslim brotherhood. while we are waiting for in the dust to settle, they are getting organized. what might happen? it could be a lot like what happened in gaza when we had free and fair elections in gaza. you have an election. one man can vote one time. and guess who gets elected? the muslim brotherhood. we need to send some community organizers to egypt. [laughter] we need to try to form that government. the next thing i think is important is what is going to happen with iran.

their whole rationale for why people should support them is that they hate the west. they want to destroy israel. they want to completely create a new persian empire, and they are well on their way. they are developing a nuclear weapons program. it has been set back a little bit as of late, but they're absolutely attempting to get nuclear weapons, and they need three things. they need enriched uranium, and we know they are enriching it. he made missiles, and we know they have bought missiles, -- you need missiles, and we know they have bought missiles. some estimates are a year away. some are five years away. we could well have a situation

where iran takes control of the region. think about emboldened they will be with nuclear weapons. the other things it will do, is if iran becomes a nuclear weapon, it will convince all the other countries that they need their own nuclear weapons. it will be a nuclear arms race. saudi arabia, egypt, turkey, libya, all of these countries feel they have to balance a nuclear iran with nuclear weapons of their own. this is the most dangerous part of the world, a part of the world that has close connections with exporting terrorism. i think it is pretty scary already. the thought of them having nuclear weapons is horrifying.

they just sent two warships through the suez canal. why? they're trying to show the world that if you look at your map -- and see where iran is? that is the persian gulf. that is a little check point where the you a -- uae -- 35% of the world's oil goes there. they could sabotage it and close it down. our fleet is there as well. we could open it up, but it would send the price of oil through the roof. they have looked around yemen and saudi arabia and come up through egypt through the suez canal. they are trying to show that they have control of the second checkpoint in the middle east. that is where all of the energy goes to europe. they are trying to show the world, we are on the rise.

we can take the two major world checkpoints, oil and gas, and we can potentially sabotaging control them. the third thing iran is doing is circling israel. if you look again at your map, you see syria. next to syria and lebanon. i was on the border between israel and lebanon right before it thanksgiving, and had escorts from the israeli intelligence. i was on my has been with my hat -- i was on my stomach with my husband, looking through my binoculars, and a showman, underneath that building are stockpiles are -- they show me, underneath the building are stockpiles of missiles. iran is encircling israel with hezbollah, which is in southern

lebanon. it is a muslim brotherhood radical organization dedicated to the destruction of israel. it is encircling israel from hamas on the gaza strip'. iran's closest ally in the region is syria. if something happened to eject -- to egypt -- as if the muslim brotherhood became in charge, they would immediately abdicate the peace treaty with israel. i think it calls into question what is the united states role in this. if israel is encircled, there is a war. are we involved in the war? that war?t involved in ou of those things affect our core

interests. the first one potentially affects the free flow of oil. the second one of the excess because of the radicalization of the region and nuclear weapons and the connection between iran and terrorists, and the third one is israel. one theory is that you do what jimmy carter did. say, hands-off, we are going to let egypt decide egypt's destiny. we will lead to media decide to neoplasia's destiny. we shall -- we will let to tunisia's an destiny. well we should let them decide the destiny, but we have a role to play.

they have figured out a way to infiltrate the iranian nuclear weapons program. there is a worm, a virus, that we started seeing evidence of about 18 months ago, two years ago, when places like semantic -- syman-tech or getting questions from the iranians about how to get rid of computer viruses. it turns out that the worm that was put into the iranian nuclear weapons program was the program that enriches their uranium. the way it worked was they caused the centrifuges, which make nuclear energy, spin faster and out of control. if you were a scientist looking out at the screen, you've got

everything was just fine. that virus is now replicating itself and computer experts i have talked to said iran might have to start over with its nuclear enrichment program because their computers are so infected. that is great. that is terrific news. that is an example of cyber- warfare. [no audio[applause] that is going to make a big difference on israel's calculation of how long it is going to wait before it engages in a crisis with iran. but if they feel that iran is close to nuclear weapons program, as they will take action. i do not think prime minister netanyahu is going to be the first israeli prime minister to let iran get nuclear weapons. i do not think they will launch a nuclear attack, but i think it

is highly likely that they will consider some kind of bombing raid. would that involve the united states? maybe not going in, but it might going out, because whatever would have been, once you wound to the snake, you want to make sure you cut the head of the snake off. but that would be a potential problem. obviously, the free flow of oil. we have a world economy that is just turning to recover. we have just in oil go over $100 a barrel. if we see another crisis in the middle east, for example, bahrain. that is the one to watch. it is more important than libya. gaddafi is going no place. he knows that if he leaves libya he will be milosevich. he will go to the international criminal court and be tried.

he will stay there to his last blood, as he said. the situation in bahrain, you see where saudi arabia is? and the united arab emirates? well there is a tiny little country there, bahrain. bahrain started a little bit different. they have a huge population. they do not have terrific jobs. budget -- but there's is more trouble. it is really a proxy war between saudi arabia and iran. saudi arabia is looking at bahrain, and if the bahrain government topples, bahrain government is steny. iran is shia. the saudis think that if our rain falls or has a constitutional monarchy, if they -- if by rainfalls -- if by

rahrain falls, it is a dry run for iran moving in. they're trying to affect things in afghanistan. iran is trying to affect things as we leave iraq, same kind of a problem, where iranians are inspiring their shia brethren to cause problems. of this sounds pretty grim. it sounds like we should all get to that norad underground large room. it is not. because what are you not seeing throughout the middle east renown? -- right now? nobody is burning the american flag. when is the last time you saw a

demonstration in that part of the world where they weren't shouting death to america? all of those people who say, you brought up those dictators and they will hate us. they do not hate us. that is why i think the united states does indeed have a role to play. finally, there are two theories of world events. one theory is that empires rise and inevitably fall. and we are on the downside. i think that is what 1600 pennsylvania avenue believes, that our best days are done. the other theory is that america is different. there are a whole lot of reasons we are different. we know how to self correct. the middle east, i guess what? they believe the second version.

they believe an american exceptional azzam. i interviewed someone who sneaked into libya from egypt and he said, i have heard from people who have declared their independence from gaddafi and are saying, where is america? we followed george bush talking about democracy in 2005. we listen to barack obama when he spoke a cairo -- in cairo in 2009. when are you guys going to help us? i am actually pretty optimistic -- not for this the administration. [laughter] i think this is administration is jimmy carter. i am waiting for ronald reagan. [applause] agree have an opportunity in that part of the world that could mean -- i think we have an opportunity in that part of the

world that could mean we could squash terrorism and allow for the free flow of energy. the alternative is not a world any of us want to 11. so, is that good enough? ok. -- want to live again. -- want to live in. so, is that good enough? ok. [applause] you get to ask me tough questions. >> i love your comments and very much appreciate you being here. talk a little bit more -- i am very concerned at whatever the next explosion happens to be, macro sense of around the world, that the crisis will be even more energy related. you have talked a lot about the

middle east, but you did not talk about what happens to the north of there. over the next 30 years, what is the impact of all of this on europe, the islam is aging going on in much of -- islam-ization going on. how do europe and russia factor into this, especially the role that russia is going to play? >> that is secret occult -- that is the critical issue with europe right now. where are they going to get their energy? putin said that russia will rise again because russia will be able to use its energy exports, particularly gas, to europe, and that is how we will rise again. we will get the money.

we will have the alliances we want. we can win the cold war by doing this. once he was in power, what he did was say, you do not want to rely on oil. those guys in the middle east are unreliable. why not switch to natural gas, and we will sell it to you at great prices. so now most of europe is dependent on natural gas. if they decide to turn of the pipeline, as russia did a year ago, they are then freezing and in the dark. the russians know that. i think what you'll see is the russians continuing to use the natural gas weapon and have some kind of alliance with germany. the germans and the russians -- it would be very good, from

their point of view, a symbiotic relationship. the germans have a lot of money. russia's energy sector needs to be modernized. i think the russians are looking at the germans. the germans are looking at the russians as a potential relationship where between the two of them, they exploit russia's natural energy sources and then they have much greater control politically over western europe. energy is going to be the biggest factor in the next 10 years in all parts of the world. now, the european situation is not so much oil from the middle east. it is some, but it is particularly natural gas from eastern europe. the second thing in the relationship between the two, the europeans are petrified that if the situation in northern africa goes badly, there will be an influx of refugees that had immediately come to the mediterranean and go to italy,

france and spain. then you will see what is called eurabia. it is a europe with large muslim populations going for economic opportunities, but other things as well, which is to further the notion that a islam and sharia law get spread to european countries. that is why it has been very reassuring to me that angela merkel of germany and other leaders saying multiculturalism is not working and we are going to take steps to turn it around. [applause] they know it is bad now, and they know it could get a lot worse. that is what it is crucial to let get the middle east. that is why the donna needs to fall for us and not against us.

>> -- the domino needs to fall for us and not against us. >> can you comment on wikileaks and the security breaches? >> i have gotten threats because i came out immediately and said that he should be prosecuted for terrorism. [applause] the army officer who corroborated with him should be prosecuted for espionage. then, if they were found guilty, have the full force of the law, which in the case of espionage is execution. people said, how can you say that? freedom of the press. let me tell you what has happened since wikileaks has come out. on the one hand, it has been an

embarrassment. it made life really lousy for hillary clinton when she had to get on the phone with people sheehan said not so nice things about. we recall lot of our diplomats and spies from those countries -- we had to recall a lot of our diplomats and spies from those countries. it was embarrassing. we had to recall people who had been in certain parts of the world for 20 or 30 years, through our eyes and ears on the ground. it had a chilling effect on intelligence cooperation. in egypt, before the last month, we had put our best intelligence on al qaeda. cnn was certainly the place we wear during most about -- yemen was certainly the plays we were hearing -- place we rehearing most about the qaeda.

now, if there -- we were hearing most about al qaeda. now, the only way we will know about that stuff is if the people who live in that part of the world share with us. the only way they will share it with us is if they think we can keep a secret. we have shown we cannot keep a secret. i think the ramifications of wikileaks will go on for years because people cannot trust us anymore. what is the major weapon we have in the war on tara? intelligence. if we have our hands -- or on terror? intelligence. if we have our hands tied behind our backs, we will not succeed. >> i am from the army. >> my brother is from the navy.

we usually say, beat army. >> baby to the army and football, but that is about the -- they beat the army in football, but that is about the only arena. [laughter] i agree with your analysis about what we did right in eastern europe and what we have not done right in other areas. at that time, we had a very strong sense of who we are. we believe american exceptional azzam. one of the things i noticed when i was in afghanistan, a very junior guy watching some of the policy discussions about what we can do to help, why is it that we have this wonderful constitutional system in the united states, and over the last decade or so, we have tried to impose a unitary democracy, a

winner-take-all type of system, which is completely in the chemical to the politics of the region? -- antithetical to the politics of the region? >> where were you in afghanistan? >> couple. i was training the afghan -- pkabul. the restraining the afghan national army. >> i'm going to say something most people will not like about afghanistan. i think we did it wrong. i think in 2001 we should have said, we came to get rid about qaeda. we got rid of them. let's go home. we get involved in interventions and we go in with the mission.

and then the mission changes. you do not want to have mission creep. you want to have a defined objective, a military force and achievegs you need tubino those objectives, and you need to be honest with the american people. i think we have gotten away from that in afghanistan. we had a good objective, which was to go in and get rid of the pop qaeda. but we stuck around. -- get rid of all qaeda. -- al-qaeda. but we stuck around. you do not have a government? we will help you build a government. you do not have schools?

we will help you build schools. women do not have power? let us help you out. where we are losing this is in kabul and islamabad. i am a vietnam-era person. we won that war, but we lost did in washington and we lost big in saigon. i think if we had made the decision at the highest levels that we are in a war we are not going to win because we cannot win it or we do not want to win it, we have an obligation to the young men and women in the armed forces to not leave them there. [applause] if we had made that decision -- and i think our government has made the decision, then why are we sticking around several more years to lose more people? either win it or get out.

>> what about the soft power aspects and what we can do to help transform the government? >> by the way, i did not answer your question adequately. i totally agree with you. wiry trying to oppose -- to impose unitary government? i met with someone in afghanistan to explain did that, a brother will fight a brother, but then the brother allies with the brother to fight the cousin in the next valley. the only time they have been united is when they have been invaded. i think the best solution for afghanistan renown -- right now

is to give them bags of cash and tell them to spend it however they want it. just do not kill americans are let out qaeda back. i think that would be a cheaper, better solution than the one we have rainout. by the way, saw power? egypt is about to start. -- soft power? egypt is about to stardove. why do we not teach them how to grow wheat? for not a lot of money, we could be very influential.

press is for your service. maybe someday your guys can win a football game. >> i am a marine. i think we be both in football this year. >> are you a plant? i'm sure you have a good question. >> i spent a lot of time in the middle east with the u.s. central command. you talked about iran and the revolution. we have seen in the last couple of years, small uprisings, if you will, by comparison. what is happening now in iran and what is the likelihood that there might be a democratic revolution in their country? >> this is a question about iran and the democracy movement in iran. i think we made a really crucial mistake 18 months ago. crucial mistake. the day i was buried underground

in norad, ronald reagan gave a speech to the afl-cio. in the speech, he wrote that the solidarity labor movement in poland has a right to organize. he said to the afl-cio, your brothers and poland should have the same rights that you do. when he came out of that speech, he was shot a few moments later. absolutely nobody remembers that speech. guess who remembers? the polish. that gave them the sense and the courage to go on. we should've done the same thing iran. had we done that, the result might of been the same, but we would have had a lot more credibility in that part of the world. i think the iranian movement comes back, but i think it comes back after a lot of the other ones do. you cannot have a huge population that don't have jobs

and keep it going forever. >>-particularly interested in some of your thoughts on the encirclement of israel. we of that involvement in constructing countries out of pieces of direct, we have treaty obligations that will pull us into some of days. can you comment on how we might honor those obligations without getting entangled in a vietnam era at type war? the use suggests that perhaps we will be supporting a single generation -- do you suggest that perhaps we will be supporting a single generation ruler in some of these countries? >> it is a great question.

what does the united states do, should we get drawn into conflict because of our treaty obligations? right now, we're so tied down in afghanistan and iraq that it would be difficult for us to have extensive involvement in other parts of the world. the real treaty obligation we have is with south korea. we have 30,000 troops on the border as a tripwire. if the north koreans do something -- and i do not think they would do it intentionally so much as miscalculate and drag as potentially into a war, the question becomes israel. at what point do we support israel and at what point do we not? we have an obligation to support israel. i remember the 1973 yom kippur war. the israelis took the first

blow. golda meier was prime minister. the united states wanted to resupply them. we did not have a treaty obligation with them, and frankly, we do not have a formal treaty with them now, but we want it to resupply them. all european countries were so nervous about having any potential relationship with israel that they refuse to allow american aircraft to refuel anywhere in continental europe on the way to israel. we had to refuel in my york up. -- mayorca. i have to tell you, i think there is going to be a good chance of seeing an israel- somebody war in the next two

years. will we be able to supply israel? you tell me. i do not know the political will of this government. i think the united states has an obligation -- not to get drawn into a war, but to help them help themselves. >> is there a first strike obligation? >> if you take them at their word and benjamin netanyahu is still prime minister, israel will not live with a nuclear iran. that would be the one time they would consider a pre-emptive strike. i think they bought themselves some time with the computer virus. i think that is a problem we see 18 months-two years from now. >> to put things i would like

for you to comment on if you can. -- two things i would like you to comment on if you can. and see no evidence that this president has any interest in stopping the radicalization of egypt or any other country. will it be too late by 2013 if we are fortunate enough to replace them? we did not talk about the radical islamists inside our country. >> i will try to be quick. i do not think barack obama cares about foreign policy. i think he wants to create america in his image and this other stuff is just a diversion. i think that is why they are devoting no real strategic thought to it. the second question was homegrown terrorists. >> many people say we're being

infiltrated by radical islam. >> we definitely are. >> but nobody is talking about it. >> it is happening in several ways. we thought we were immune to this. it was happening in europe because second-generation are not adapting to the culture, but in america, a second-generation go to the mall and so they will not look at radical islam. i think it is happening. i think there is recruitment. i think there is self recruitment. i do not think it is a matter of another 9/11, but i think you will see a lot of individual, self motivated, self radicalized people who find jihad on the internet.

i have one of their magazines. they write about how to build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom. that is what is so important to have intelligence. >> you talked earlier about supporting eastern european emerging democracies, and obviously bill clinton continued that policy. what will hillary clinton's influence the in terms of supporting those democracies in the middle east? >> i ran against her. i cannot believe i am saying nice things about her. but i think of all the people in the administration, she is the one who gets it, because she saw it. i just do not think anybody is listening to her. we're not talking about big bucks. $10 million would make a huge difference in egypt. you could feed them and help them create those institutions. i think she is the only hope.

i think the rest of them do not care. >> we are now for the first time in a semi mature phase of social networking with facebook etc.. do you think it is a coincidence that all of these protests are happening as soon as social networking is available? does the social networking availability influence your guess as to what the outcomes of these things might be? finally, do they increase america's ability to influence the outcome. >> i think social networking is crucial. i think it is the one ingredient that has made it happen so fast. it has made time shorter. the revolution in iran took two years. the same stuff happened in two weeks in egypt. what is our role to play? i think it is huge. what you have seen in libya,

iran, frankly in china, is that they are shutting down the internet as fast as they can. they know that danger is from within. historically, countries like -- dictatorships, you never saw what the outside world was doing. but once you started seeing what life was like in other places, you started saying, i am not happy with this fall. it is one of the reasons the soviet union collapsed. they all got television. guess what their favorite show was? dallas. they were all saying, that is how america is living? they have beautiful wives, big cars, what do we have? we want a little bit better life. what we can do, however, as these countries are trying to shut down the internet -- did anybody see the movie pirate radio?

it is about an american guy who put a ship off of great britain and pumped rock music, the beatles, but to britain. they knew there was rock music. we could have pirate internet. we could put ships, or however we would face it, and we could have that vehicle as a work around. i think that is a great thing for us to do. it is non-military. is what we are -- it is what we are good that, and it would probably give jobs to all those 25-year-old kids who are unemployed. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> over one belsen students entered this year's documentary cup -- 1000 students entered

this year's documentary competition. we will stream of the winning bid is. -- we will stream all of the winning videos. >> now an update on the talks between the nfl and the player'' unions. he university of illinois on the campus there in urbana and he is here to talk to us aut the n.f.l. and union labor talks and have been extended for another week. tell us what got us to this point where they were able to agree to another extension after facing a deadline i guess of yesterday. guest: well, i think the parties were anticipating a deadlock. and then the lockout imposed by the n.f.l. we got here because of the judge's ruling on tuesday that the n.f.l. will not have access to approximately $4 billion of advanced tv money that would

have helped them ride out a lockout and given them some cash to ride out the storm. host: take us back to before that. the end of this particur collective bargaining agreement. whats it that the two sides are fighting over and why can't they seem to come to an agreement here guest: well, they're fighting over how to split theevenue pie. this industry generates about $9 billion in revenue every year and that ref new pie has been growing. the origins of this dispute go back to the early 1990s when the players achieved free agency but free agency with a form of revenue sharing and caps imposed on teams. so that limits to a degree their ability to negotiate perfectly free market salaries. but we got here over a succession of collective baaining agreements in which the players had the upper hand

in terms of distribution as far as management thought and management has reached the point where they want a bigger cut of the pie. host: in the "wall street journal" this morning, n.f.l. player talks go into overtime. how serious are these two sides about getting what it is that they want? and are both of them willing to risk losing the 2011-2012

season in order to make their points? guest: well, that's the fundamental issue. and you ask how serious are they. they're deadly serious. there's a lot of work that they can do up until the point of the expiration of the agreement. on the players' side, they don't want to see that agreement expire because that agreement also carries with it a very unusual feature. it carries with it this federal judge in minneapolis. and he is so of a, he wouldn't view it this way but in effect he is a third party that can put pressure on either side to negotiate an agreement. and he has been side by se with the parties sce the selted an anti-trust claim in 1993. so both sides are extremely serious and feeling intention pressure. they have internal pressures from their constituent groups. they have economic pressures. and there's a great void of uncertainty if they reach the point of impass and the lockout takes place.

host: we're falking with michael leroy from the university of illinois at urbana-champagne. he's a labor industrial relations d law professor here to talk to us about the current situation regarding the n.f.l. and its contract with the owners. if you want to get involved in the discussion, by all means give us a call. you can also send us messages via e-mail and twitter. the headline in theports section of the "washington post" this morning, n.f.l. talks extended again. they've got a quote from the executive director of the n.f.l. players association.

at this point, do you see them being any closer to getting to this deal? i mean, beyond splitting the billion dollars that seems to be in question, are theyny closer to nailing down some of the other issues that seem to be driving them apart? guest: well, nobody knows that answer except the people directly involved in the talks. but indicators are both sides are making movement. typically what happens is the mediator will caucus privately with the parties. they're not probably going to meet face to face in part because that will lead quickly to friction. so typically a mediator will separate the parties will separate back and forth. we would not have gotten to the seven-day extension if there wasn't some indication of some

give and take. so what that give and take is is not exactly clear but there is movement. and once there's movement there's substantial hope for a settlement. host: tell us exactly what is meant by the term lockout. guest: the lockout means that the employer is invoking a work stoppage. it's the reverse picture of a strike. if we think back to 1994, when the baseball players went into their season without a contract, that sort of frames our thinking. the players did not have a contract. they talked to management. eventually they went out on strike when they could not close the gap and then the season s halted on approximately august 12, 14. baseball was in play for the rest of the season. that's the -- the contract is exiring. they don't have toockout the plaring. but then the bargaining power would shift to the players.

and if you use the basebl strike, pick the time when the players would have maximum advantage. it's going to be late in the season when interest is peaking. and then if they were to follow the script of the baseball players association, they could go out on strike at that point. so the lockout is a way of management saying, look, we're at a point where the contract is ending. we anticipate a stoppage. and frankly we want to put the pressure back on you to give us concessions. host: the n.f.l. players association is considering decertification which would mean that the n.f.l.-pa no longer represents the players as a bargaining unit but would transform from a uni into a strayed association. why would the players want to decertify? what does that mean and what kind of bargaing leverage does that give them? guest: first, that never happens in any kind of labor management situation where a union voluntarily decertifies itself so that it can position

itself to file an anti-trust lawsuit. this is a unique setting. what makes it unique is the fact that you've got an industry that depends for its survival on restrictive labor rules. labor rules that in effect spread talent across all the teams in the league. picture a world where you didn't have any kind of salary cap revenue sharing, you had perfect free agey. the rich teams would outbid the small market teams and you would have unbalanced competition. host: like major league baseball. guest: exact lifment and that sets up a situation -- and by the way, with baseball you still have restrictions on free agency for the newer players. but getic back to the n.f.l., the bottom line for the players association is if they can't get what they need or want at the table, they then want to go forward as individual players. they then want to say that salary caps, that revenue

sharing restrictions, that deals between the tv networks and the league, that forward money to the league to ride out a labor dispute, all of these are restraints of trade and they're therefore subject to the anti-trust law, the sherman act. and this tactic in fact worked for the players after they lost their strike in 1987 ofment so they'reberoing a page from their playbook. the way they're changing the bay plook is saying before we lose in a work stoppageet's beat management to the punch. if we can't achieve our objectives we will decertify. that means individual players can go forward, file anti-trust lawsuits. and from the union's perspective, even though they in theory don't exist, their players would have a chance to appear before a federal judge and get an injunction, a court order to stop and picture a

restrictive practice. and that in turn is designed to increase pressure on management to come back to the table and conce on its part. host: we want to show you some facts and figures before we start taking calls. this from the "wall street journal". the owners receive $1 billion expense credit from the annual revenue. that's tauf top. and then the players get 60% of the estimated $8 billion in remaining annual revenue. now, according to the labor relations today.com, the n.f.l. has filed charges with the national labor relations board on february 14, 2001. the n.f.l. filed an unfair labor practice charges against the players alleging that the union failed to bargain in good faith and accuses the union in engaging in unlawful surface

bargaining and anticipate tri refusing to bargain. we'll continue that conversation, get more of an exanation regarding that. let's go to the phones. canton, ohio, home of the national football league hall of fame. james on our line for democrats. go ahead. caller: i would like to know if the football owners consider the increased value of their franchise in this bargaining agreement. host: what do you mean? caller: i mean, if their franchise grew up $1 billion every so often, that ought to be considereded income. it ought to be on the barging table. guest: well, the players are cognizant of that. from the playerserspective, they have created all the wealth that the league enjoys.

and the caller is right, the value of these teams on the whole has increased dramatically. the other side of that coin though is that their expenses have grown too. many of these franchises have built stadiums, sometimes with public funding, sometimes private, sometimes a mix. but their costs have gone up as well. but in any event, they can talk about that at the table. the reality is that particular element is not directly a subject of bargaining. host: kneel on our line for independents in florida. you're on next. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i've got a curious question. to me anyway. in comparing all the operations that you are discussing here and the valuation of it, how much money is totally involved. and then comparing that to like the psychor league in europe, for example. is that any kind of similarity?

is there thatch money? and do they have similar protections that we have? and these guys are highly speclized athletes. why couldn't we bring some of the athletes in from europe on the same scenario that that sexaurpt programmer from detroit was -- computer programmer was involved in? it's a different game. the similarities. i'm curious about that. and just how much money is involved. host: thanks for your call. professor. go ahead. guest: well, tt's a really interesting comparison. the long story short is the sides aren't discussinghat or anticipating that. i think what the players are concerned about though is the prospect of a lockout and then the resumption of games with replacement workers that hasn't been talked about in the news and i don't know that the league would go forward with it. they do have a right, as strange as it may seem, to lock out players and then in support of their bargaining position to resume opposition with

replacements. there would be a tremendous risk in that and that is just the quality of their product. can you call that a major league sport any more, professional sport. in 1987 that's exactly what the n.f.l. did albeit they did it after the players went out on strike. so the caller's idea that there is a potential pool of replacement workers out there, that's a true statement. there are plenty of players who are just at the edge of making it on a to a pro team and they don't succeed and they potentially could fulfill that void. host: the number $9 billion has been bandied about. explain to us what's involved in this $9 billion. is it money that owners take in athe gate and tibet prices and parking or -- ticket priceses or does that include the contras as well? sf guest: it appears that it includes everything. it's a gross revenue figure. so everything you mentioned and more. it's corporate sponsorships,

it's billboard a in the adium. and probably a host of revenue sources that don't even recognize as ordinary fans. it could be licensing. from their product, their sports wear and so forth. but as i understand it, that's a gross revenue figure. it is the business. it is the n.f.l.'s gross revenues, their total take. host: next up, indiana. john on our line for republicans. turn down your television. caller: how you doing, guys. my concern is i love football. i'm a football fan, been a football fan all my life, even played some football when i was in school. i make $606 a month on ssi because i cannot work. and these guys are getting billions of dollars just to play catch football. i'm wondering, the economic crichese that we are in, in

america, why can't they do nate some of that to help the poor out? because they've got billions of dollars and millions of dollars, and their lifestyle has so, they go out and buy these brand new cars. i have got a car that can't even hardly run but i'm struggling and we're talking about bringing people from overseas to play this game and get millions of dollars. i would like to hear your response. host: well, i understand the frustration behind that. and it comes down to what the labor market will provide these guys. you said you're a le long fan. many of us are. and we feed that beast. and while we feed e beast, we grumble and i think rightly so that these players fritter away a for tune, some of them have lifestyles that are less than commendable. and you lo at them when they're 40 or 50 years old and they don't have a penny in their pocket. so the frustration behind that

question is surely understandable. but as long as you and i tune in the game and as long as we pay to see the sport and buy a ticket, we're going to contribute money to that $9 billion figure and we're going to grow that figure and the players are gog to sit at the table saying i've got a three-year career, that's what it comes down to on average. my body is wrecked after that and i want my cut of the revenue. host: we've got a twitter message from j 08 your thoughts on that. guest: there's truth to that statement. there's surnt for that and a lot of serious questioning about how and why that's occurring. but that's water over the bridge at this point. the parties are not talking about that. the parties are talking about the economics of the sport today. they're talking about the

expiration of their labor agreement, they're talking about the ruling, about their issues, about all those things. the caller has a great question and it's an interesting question that municipalities and county governments, states governments have to think hard about. but that's not somhing that these folks are looking at today as they're looking at a seven-day extension to their labe air greement. host: our next call comes from north carolina. curt on our line for democrats. go ahead. caller: i just want to ask the question, number one they're trying to talk abo compplementing a rookie wage scale. and as we already know that the contracts are not guaranteed anyway. so say if a rookie is supposed to get $50 million over 5 years, my question would be, ok, so now we're going to give this rookie $20 million over 5 years but are we going to guarantee the contract of the -- of what we would call the veterans?

that's the real slippery slope when we decide to go in that direction right there because if they can't get their money up front, what guarantee is there for them to get their money on the back end? guest: that's a great question. that's exactly the kind of issues that the parties need to confront here. and i thk what's interesting about where we sit today with the judge making a ruling and with the prospect of the players decertifying, hype thetically if they do decertify and then they go down the anti-trust path, the conversation that was just put forward by the callerser, that n't take place. so the caller is talking about ways to structure contracts, guarantee income for players, limit rookie salaries. those are matters that are on the table. the mechanism that you use for putting a limit on, giving that money perhaps part of that money or all of that money to veterans, that is the meat and potatoes of collective bargaining. host: is there any other major

league sports in the u.s. right now that has as par of its agreement a limit or a cap on how much rookies can make? guest: well, the nba has a similar feature. and there are all sorts of ways that you set caps and then there are gimmicks around the cap with signing bonuses and so forth. so even if you look at the labor agreement, when you look at how deals are negotiated there are ways to move around those features. d i think that's the frustration that the owners are bringing to the table. they're essentially sayinsave us from ourselves. we can't say no to a star rookie who is a top five pick and we give the guy 70, $80 million and he is a bust and we're out that money. so players association, why don't you agree to a limit. and the players association says that's your problem that's

not our problem. host: next up is green bay, wisconsin, marsha on our line for independents. you're talking with michael leroy, labor industrial relations and law professor from the university of illinois. caller: good morning, c-span, good morning, professor. sir, a two-part question. would you speak to the unique ownership arrangement of the green bay packer franchise. and second part, do you think it would make any difference if more professional teams, regardless of the sport, were publicly owned as opposed to privately owned by a single individual of family et cetera? host: before you go, do you own stock in the packers? caller: this family has four shares. they will be part of the will. host: what's the current value of a share for a green bay packer stock guest: well, actually, there is no value. we don't get dwends, we are not

allowed to -- dividends, we are not allowed to sell the stock except back to the green bay packers. you can't -- it's not publicly trade ed or anything. the fans own the team, and you could say it's a partnership arrangement. we take care of the team, they provide us with super bowl victories. host: well, you probably are the wrong person to ask about this. but what happens if there is a lockout and this extends int the season and there's either a shortened season or there's no season at all? are you going to be likely to come back and support the packers in 2012 if they're not around in 2001? guest: first of all, a facetious answer. yes, i would because i have dead relatives that would strike me dead if i ever changed my amlegions, but i'm old enough to remember the shortened season in 1982. what did it do? it broke my hrt.

were we still packer fans? yes. i would like to think we would always be kind of in the blood as it were. but yes. because you see not only do we own stock. we are lucky nouf have season ticket options. now, short of the grand children not being able to afford college, i feel i not only own a piece of that team and therefore have a right to criticize whom ever, but i make arrangements on our budget to pay for season tickets. will i be a fan? yes. if there is a lockout will i be sad? i will be the first one sobbing into my whatever. but yes it won'take any difference to my allegiance, my husbands, my children, my son inlaws, and i would like to think we are raising the grandchildren prorly also. . .

fundamentally, it would produce a different atmosphere at the table. i think that is where the question is going. whether there would be less adversarial tone, whether the parties would be willing to threaten the vitality of the sport by going on strike if you have publicly owned teams. you just heard marcia speak to her devotion. the fans and other cities are equally devoted to their teams. she has equity in that team. she has a voice in the management of the team. i do think that makes a difference. exactly how the voice gets filtered and at the bargaining table, we will see how that works. my guess is we would have a different kind of atmosphere at

the bargaining table with work teams like that. host: what kind of pressure is there on the owners and players? let me know if this is a correct analogy. these guys produce a drug, let's say. the fans are addicted to the drug. the players are the producers. the owners are the distributors. nobody is talking about the effect on the fans, consumers. they are talking about the distribution of money. it does not seem like there is real concern from the players or owners about the effect on the fans. they know even if there is a lockout, they will be back at the end of the lockout craving the product. guest: i can work with your analogy. to further it, if we have a

pharmaceutical company, we have a patent on our drug. the patent expires after a number of years. that is the dilemma for the players. their longevity in the league expires sooner rather than later. the average career in the nfl is about three and a half years. if we have a lockout next year, somebody loses 1/3 of his career, typically speaking. that is a huge price for that kind of pay. that is a huge pressure on the players. even though you do not have the same clock running on management, they have to pay bills. they have to build the stadium. they will be having difficulty with the networks and deals they signed if they do not get a labor agreement. the clock is running on both parties. the pressures are intense. you asked about the fans, the

end users of the drug or product that are addicted. that is a neat way of putting it. the parties are bargaining in a context framed by the national labor relations act. within the law, there is a section that obligates the parties to bargain in good faith over wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. run the list and see if the fans appear. you and i are not in the discussion. they will not be talking about us directly. indirectly however, they are thinking about the fans. they are thinking about the loss of games. they are cognizant of what has happened in their history. marcia spoke about how upset she was after the shortened season in 1982. she said she came back reluctantly. the sport takes years to

recover. that is the hard part to calculate. if there is a lockout or shortened season, does the industry get back to $9 billion the next year? if history is the guide, the answer is no. it takes several years for them to get back. in some ways, they are never the same. that is probably the greatest risk that both sizes -- sides recognize. host: we have professor michael leroy. chris is on the line for republicans. >caller: i am a season-ticket holder with the green bay packers. minor in the outdoor clubs section, the new party built. per ticket, it is $212 this year. as a season ticket holder, i am required to buy the pre-season

with the regular season games. they are so expensive. it is impossible to sell the pre-season games. i feel like what the commissioner said about the pre-season not being a good value. do you think the pre-season will be reduced and the regular season increased? host: i want to make sure i understand. you have a 16-game regular- season packet plus four pre- season games. caller: that is correct. host: the cost of the pre-season games are the same as the regular season games. caller: that is correct. that is the problem. i can sell the regular-season games. nobody is going to pay $212 per

ticket for a pre-season game. host: professor michael leroy? guest: even though your situation is genuine and understandable, they are not talking specifically about whether the fans can sell a pre-season ticket or not. the caller is asking if i think there will be a deal with a pre-season games are shortened and added to the regular-season. i think that is a possibility. there are several major issues on the table. you are looking at revenue sharing. you are looking at how you calculate the way you split the money. then you are looking at a restriction on rookie money. you are looking at apparently an issue of human growth hormone testing. you are then looking at the

definition of the regular season. i am suggesting that we have four or five major issues on the table like that, and to have a highly skilled mediator, you get into conversations about making trades. your guess is as good as mine. the owners get one more regular season game hypothetically. they come off of a revenue split and the players have way. that is a possibility. my hunch is there will be movement on that. there will be fewer pre-season games. the players are going to ask for more money to put their bodies at risk for the regular season games. the injuries are greater and so forth. host: local, kentucky, carlton is on the line. caller: i would like to know about the retired players, the veterans who have been out 10 or

15 years. are they in the mix in the negotiations for health care and attention and all? -- and their pensions and all? guest: i do not have firsthand knowledge of that but there are indications they are in the mix. there's already a disability and welfare program that the parties bargain on in the past. but as a platform for them to continue the discussion and make improvements. -- that is a platform for them to continue the discussion and make improvements. in light of the increased publicity about how harmful football is to the body and mind and how debilitating it is, the players are likely at the table seeking improved benefits for retirees. that is on a different legal footing than seeking wages and benefits for current employees. the parties are permitted to bargain about that.

they do not necessarily have to bargain about it. under the current agreement, there is a provision for that. within that framework, one can imagine the players association is seeking significant improvements. host: houston, texas, on the line for independents. caller: let me applaud my president for being a man and standing up and not injecting himself in this. football is a luxury. those people making that kind of money, if they do not play, i will be in my backyard play -- watching my kids play or trying to play myself. that is totally ludicrous with the condition this country is in today. football does not support an of meaningful jobs