our union was one of three unions that recently commissioned some polling, as well, to sort of figure out how we responded to this-media and congressional action that is happening with federal employees, and the results are pretty interesting, because the bottom line is when it is all said and done, the public in our country things pretty highly of federal employees. and yet, when you ask the question "what do you think about the unions that represent these employees?" their approval ratings when announcing the delay, and i think part oit is due to basically this notion that somehow unions are disconnected from the employees that they represent, and that is nonsense. they are one in the same. the very word "union" implies

that it is individual employees that come together to form an organizaon to represent and bargain, so we have got this disconnect, where we think this union is this nebulous thing out there, and people do not understand that that union is, at least in my case, made up of feral employees. so what we need to do, and i think the message we need to tell folks, and what we are doing is we are taking the tack of having our members tell their stories. what is in, for example, we represent veterans in administration doctors and nurses who are held and the highest esteem of any federal employees in the eyes of the public. those folks went right at the top in terms of a positive impression that the public has

of them, so we're asking our members who are nurses and doctors to tell their story, you know, what it is they can do, the health care they provide veterans, how does that contribute to the nation and to the economy, how does that contribute to making the community's stronger, and talk about, and, again, during the reference from how much money that are paid. it is about the work that they do, the accomplishments that they have, and focus on making sure that those folks have the resources and the tools they need to continue to provide quality care for veterans, so it is about remessaging and getting out of the debate of whether the debate -- the deficit is $1.60 billion. the public really does not give

a damn about numbers. they can care less about where you got your data, and we can have a debate about whether your data came from the heritage undation or the department of statistics, and the average person out there does not give a damn, so it is not about data. it is about the work that people do and how that contributes to the greatest in this country and to the economy to get us out of the financial mess that we're in and putting the 30 million unemployed and underemployed americans who need to get back to work back to work in this country, and that will go a long ys to taking care of this problem that we have in united states today. every company promotes they're satisfied customers, accept us. our folks need to talk about --

folks need to know that we handle more than grievances. we are handling grievances for the same 1% of the membership. leaders need to step back and led to our members tell their stories. when we do a press conference, it does not need to be us out there all the time. it is to be folks telling their own story. in detroit, we have hard times getting the media out and the media told me, that is because we do not want to listen to you all the time. we want to listen to your members. what other kids about facebook. i need facebook to tell the union story. i've gotten -- they have said, i read that on facebook. i did not know that was happeng. everybody needs to use that. >> ok. one more question.

practice for questions. last question for the panel, let's look forward 25 years. what is one big change would like to see the labor union accomplished? >> a couple of things. i would like to see a larger percentage of younger workers in my union and i have today. i think that is an untapped resource in terms of membership and in terms of future leaders. one of the things that -- we have an obligation to our organization to do some successful planning and make sure we have folks in the pipeline that have the tools and skills, the training, the innovati, the willingness to step into those shoes when the current leadership retires or

moves on. i have to be honest, i do not think we have done a good job there. i think that is something that -- it is because we have not put a lot of energy into recruiting and organizing younger workers. that is something that we started -- we changed our emphasis last year in our new organizing plan, our strategy. we're putting a lot of energy into reaching out to younger employees to figure out what it is that they need and what it is that we can offer them. to see some young faces in leership, that would be one of the thin i would like to say it -- see 20ears down the road. >> we have to be speaking for and representing workers, even -- even workers that are not in

the formal relationship. we should be the voice for the unemployed, for example courage we should be the voice for the untrained, for example. we could become the entity that people thi of when they think, i need to change careers, or do i look for help to do that. i need -- i need better health care insurance and we need to have those offerings for these allies that we are -- so we can sustain that relationship. >> this was aut the future of the labor union. the fact that you ask that question, i need to say, definitely, we will be around in 25 years, no matter what they do. we will be around. it may make it more difficult

for us,ut we will be here. in 25 years, i would like to see as using every single tool that we have. i would like to see us using our contingency groups better. i would like to see unions reaching out to each other to help one another. even now, we have those who have relationships with elected officials that can help other unions, and i would like to see them come together and try to use that. i would like to see them using the ceral labor council and set up a triage kind of thing are everything isentered in there and unions come together under that banner to help each other. i guess that is self-serving, but i truly believe that they are the organizations that are there to pull everyone together. unions are so concerned about

their unions, as they should be, but we are concerned about pulling them all together to be concerned about everybody. that is what i would like to see. >> let me jump off from that. we need to get better at doing is working together. the labor -- in this moment, the head of -- we need to sustain that and in 25 years, at that will get taken for granted. that will not be something people even ask about. we need to restore the right of workers across the country to

organize. in mississippi, south carolina. we need to put private sector workers everywhere. some of that has tdo with figuring out how to do it and not waiting for someone to change a lot. the law will foow. that is really the top priority of the labor movement, to figure out -- i hope we would have figured it out in 25 years. >> i believe in dreaming beg. what i would likeo see in 25 years is a global middle-class. i would like for us to of rebuild the middle class in america. working within and across the world. and it is possible. it has happened in brazil. 20 million people taken at a poverty and move into middle- class because they are -- there are extremely strong union at

movement. it is happening in china, and in mexico. i think it is possible. international solidarity, there is more work being done by unions together aroundheorld to give workers the right to collective bargaining. >> the first thing -- i hope i am still around in 25 years. [laughter] i would like to have us have been a part of creating a manufacturing basehat is the world's envy. so that everyone who wants to work at the time has a chance to work at a union job. that we have fully integrated are minorities, women, immigrants, and young people, that they are fully engaged in a labor union. they are fully engaged in

society so they can reach their potential. that we have created an educational system and a skills- based educational system that produces the best workers and the world. -- in the world. >> your turn. questions? are we going to use this microphone? ok. identify yourself, please. >> my name is frank. i am probably the only person in here who has been both a union at stewart before a federal union and management lawyer. i'm currently teaching labor law here. i asked us to my class to be here. the hundred-pound elephant in the room is what happens --

employee pre choice act. you spend $44 million to get a lot -- obama elected trade he had supermajorities in both houses. my studies indicate that if it had gotten past, you would probably be at a 14% penetration instead of 7%. how did it happen that your investment was also pushed off into hlth care as opposed to getting what you -- it will totally turnaround a labor union? >> i have been engaged in this fight for a long time. there is no question that if the employee pre choice act had been passed, workers would have organized. they would have been able to do

so without harassment, without intimidati, and witut being fired. 25,000 or 30,000 workers get fired every year over exercising thr rights to join a union. it creates fear. i go back to one thing -- there was -there was united and fierce opposition from the republican party. the republican party filibustered over 400 built in the senate that theouse of representatives passed. he needed 60 votes -- you needed 60 votes. we never had 60 votes in the senate because ted kennedy was sick. we never had 60 on the floor. had we had the 60, that would have been done immediately. that is not to excuse the lack of action and a lack of pushing for it because more should be done and we will continue to

push that bill. do you know why? the vast majority of americans agree with that. a minority in the senate to can only support the majority will of the people for so long. you are seeing the support for collective bargaining right now growing. 70% right now the american public says people should have the right to collectively bargain. that is their right and they should have it. we will continue to push that and look for vehicles that will give us around a determined minority in the senate and the house -- a majority in the house to prevent that from happening bread what is happening in wisconsin and elsewhere is what happened at the federal level. you had which benefactors demanding pay back for their invement in the election. i received this a warning. -- iac this out as a warning.

because of the citizens united bill, millions of dollars were spent by corporations in the last election. that will be chump change in the next election. they will buy the best politicians they can get. they will use those politicians to try to take away rights for us. less taxes for them, less benefits for you. that is the fight that we have, and we will not quit. hopefully, we will get the employee. choice act done. workers deserve fairness and the current labor relations act is unfair to workers and is absolutely broken. [applause] >> in brad new immigrant here. i was nationalized last year. i may be having a heavy accent,

let me know. somebody was talking abo bringing manufacturing base again in this couny. i was wondering, what has happened -- what has happened in japan is very unfortunate. i feel very bad about it. because of what has happened in japan, there are plants closing down because they do not have parts coming from japan. instead of waiting for japan to get back on its feet? is there some possibility of doing that here?

>> there is a lot of that happening out of necessity in a number of meeng with chrysler, a general motors, ford credit they will not produce products unless they find ways that have alternative sources. there are suppliers in the u.s. scrambling now. everyone is tied int this together and everybody is making a huge effort. the assembly companies go down, the buyer base goes down at. there is this great energy about suppliers and their customers to find alternatives are modes of production. at the same time, we are all very concerned about the people ofapan and the devastation of the people in japan. we have to build a global middle-class. i do not want to read pitted against workers ijapan or brazil or korea.

i want our workers to make a dece standard of living so they c bite -- so they can buy electric or hydrogen vehicles, washing machines, build homes. the only way we will do that -- i want to build a better world. that is what we are all about here today. i wanted to add this opportunity -- i am proud of the labor union. -- the labor movement. we do not want immigrant workers pitted against u.s. citizens workers. we wt everybody to have human rights and dignity and to build a better society great america is a country of iigrants. it is so outgeous to me that the thames by the wealthiest is to pit us against each other rather than building a better

world. especially this week as the anniversary of the assassination of martin luther king. he always talked about building a world that was better for everybody. there is a sma group that wants a better world only for themselves. the rest of the what america is coming together and saying, this is not right. we will build a better world so that everybody shares in the wealth of this country. >> ok. >> good morning. speaking on behalf of the six or so mediator's setter in the room, this is going to be a mediator question. we heard a lot this morning about all the alliances and the mobilization. in the midst of the need to do is, how does the labor movement in vision striking a

balance so that another sector that they maintain those foreigners -- partnerships with are those employers who value you and what your partnership in good faith and want to keep employee in your members? >> i will try that. i speak for my union. we have relationships with employs. it rlly helps if you are not participating in a political cobol and trying to wipe us off the map. it is hard to have a good relationship with people were trying to eliminate your existence. that story is the list, unfortunately. employers that we can have relationships with. think that there is, you know, in my experience, unions are much more willing to be

pragmatic about employer relationships than employers. the example goes back to the health-care debate in the clinton years. we tried to get one ceo of the seven, each of whom would of thought and a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars for the bottom line. it was and their self interest and the corporation. he tried to get one sec to stand with him. in support of something that was directly benefited their shareholders. they were committed to end be the logical based attack. that has got worse in a lot of ways in terms of the illogical atck on -- ideological attack on working people and on

medicare and don health care for all and pensions. we are delighted to partner with employers when we count in support of -- making sure that education is properly funded so they have decent people in their workforce. if they do, as many companies are doing here in michigan, we should take the tax breaks to corporations and still cut education, it is hard to find ways to do that. we're looking for ways to do that. the apartment with employers -- we have partnered with employers around other issues as well. >> but that just add something to that? >> on site. >> this is an importanpoint. workers do not get to bargain over a lot of things that affect our lives. we do not get to bargain over

capital investment. we do not to bargain over productesign, even though the effect. steelworkers in the 1950's and 1960's and 1970's and 1980's were competing with mills made in the 1890's against companies with mills that had been made in the 1960's and 70's and eddie's. they would have loved to have the ability to negotiate with u.s. steel about whether they need to modernize their mills. we do not get that. bob, back in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, about the product design grid they made what was put in front of them knowing that the product was in -- now they do a quality. they do all of that. one of the reason labor law needs to be modernized is so that workers and employers

actually can come together and those type of is used to start working in a global economy to face the competition from a global economy. that is another reason why we need to change labor laws so that workers can have some input into their future. you cannot expect us to say, we want you to be invested in this company, but you do not have any say in it. we simply do not. it is time for us to change those laws and perhaps limit -- give us a 21st century change. >> i am so proud of the auto industry. the best quality products today by j.d. power's are the cars that we are making in the big three, especially ford, a general motors, and chrysler.

the most productive plants, more productive than the nine and a representative plans, are the uaw plants. 20 years ago, our job was to -- the market was captured -- our job was to fight for ourair share of profitability. today, uaw members drive quality and the big three bread with a full-time representatives working with the company every day about quality. it is our representatives and our members that demand will focus on quality. it is exciting today. i am excited about orgizing opportunities. the want to have the greatest voice? -- do you want to have the

greatest voice? that is what we're doing today. >> we have three questions, six minutes. everybody is hungry. >> this is a comment. i feel like i should speak to this point because there's so much misunderstanding. when you have a mature relationship, you find the aces that you have connections. i sat down two weeks ago with its burk, with a -- pittsburgh, we see that we have common interests. u have environmentalist and iron workers and we figured out where we can meet. we did the same thing with u.s. steel. we have workers walked out at a u.s. steel facility in canada, we understand that we have to rebuild manufacturing. we work with our employers to save jobs. that is what leo gerard does

every day. where we share common interests, we will work together. when they try to screw us, we will multiplied. right? [laughter] >> i am a retiree from the uaw. i have been to madison, columbus for rallies. i went to beat john stuart rally for sanity. there was no political statement. it was a huge majority of progressives.

is there any national rally plans in washington, d.c., in the near future? if not, why not? >> we have a national table right now put together that talks about this and we a doing a follow-up on what happened on april 4. maybe i should give you -- what happened on april 4 because we had people come together from all different walks of life. teachers, firefighters, autoworkers, everybody came together. over 1500 events across the country to talk about the need for collective bgaining. we went as far east as paris, france, and and as far west as afghanistan, where they had events. everybody came togetr for a common message. you have gone too far, let's get back to creating jobs. we are now talking abo the

very things that you say. where do we go with this? bringing people into washington, d.c., is sometimes very exciting. bring people into columbus, is sometimes very, very exciting. we're working on the various states and having everybody come together. we are one. for the first time, in recent history, the labor union surely is one with the law of our allies. nothing is specifically plant. but i can promise you that ey are being fought about and work towards. -- thought about and worked towards. >> i would like to direct this question to my combat tree its from michigan first grade when we look at the north american company -- to my compatriots from michigan first.

it is not just the unitedtates problem. what should be our approach to our workers across the river into canada, workers in mexico? what should be our relation to the international labor organization, which has programs for the worker, defense of the worker for women? what should the relationship be to the international labor organization be? >> it should be one of solidarity and we are working with our brothers and sisters in canada, in mexico, and columbia -- colombia, in russia, all run

the world. -- all are around theorld. we are behind the curve. we are not anywhere near as far as we should be in understanding the global economy. but we're moving up very quickly. we're working together and we will not rest until we have a global middle-class where everybody can make a decent living and by everybody else's products. we do nosee that right now. >> i want to give the steel workers credit because they were doing it really aggressively, working with -- supporting strikes in mexico for workers to return to g decent wages. the greatest strain in the middle class in the u.s. is wages and benefits of states in law or mexico. it is because there is not a free trade movement in mexico.

there is a movement to date to help build free independent unions in a mexico. we have joined with the steelworkers and we have worked during closely with the solidarity center, a very active in mexico rit now. we are finding that -- workers are trying to build a trade union movement in mexico. there is progress being made. will join the steelworkers and by our joint pressure, those workers throughout the protectionist union and got an independent union, is a good contract, the right to representation. there is progress being made, but your question is a very important question. >> i want to thank you for

putting this all together. [applause] >> today we go to waterloo, iowa and talk to a second prize winner, a junior. hi, sara. why did you choose the cost of college tuition measure topic? >> i worked with two other students, and we are about as different from each other as you can get. daniel is heavy involved in to the military, jarek with music, and myself with writing and academia. we were struggling to find a

topic that pertain to all our lives. after brainstorming, we realized that as high school's seniors and juniors, the rising tuition cost was something that affected all of us, despite how we are headed down different paths. >> what challenges exist in tuition cost issues? >> although it seems like a simple issue, as we found out for making a documentary, it is really complex. the reason is because there is not just one agreed upon cost for tuition increases. -- cause for tuition increases. in such a schools, it is more simple. a lot of their tuition increases is due to lack of state funding. tuition is generally determine by the amount of funding that they get from the state. but within that, there are political connotations even in

terms of how the schools are spending their money. in recent years, they have definitely had more schools choosing to spend on money that would make them more competitive to get students to go there, new labs, you sports stadiums. in terms of private schools, he gets more complicated because the schools have the scary $50,000 a year of price tags. high tuition costs are reduced as a buffer for students and financial need. the students do not pay the sticker price. >> you spoke with both iowa senator, tom harkin and charles grassley. what did you learn from those interviews? >> those were need experiences. among other things, the most surprising thing for me and my partners was that we did not feel the one me pose the question, what is the role of

the federal government, we did not receive the same answer. necessarily. both senators at different approaches to that question. and this we saw throughout all of our research. >> what should people come away with having watched this documentary? >> i hope they come away with a understanding of the issue both in terms of its significance and its complexity. i hope that they can understand how important this is to students and our country. but also understand the complexity of the issue and may be why there are not so many supple, specific, immediate solutions. >> thank you so much for joining us today. >> thank you. >> year is a brief portion of the documentary. >> i want to be a skeleton.

>> i want to be a president. >> i want to be a football player. >> i want to be an artist when i grew up. chicken there are few things fundamental to the american dream or more essential as they could education. at a time when our children are competing with kids from china and india, the best job qualification you can have is a college degree or advanced training. and yet the very moment it has never been more important of higher quality education, the cost has never been higher. >> you can see the entire video and all the winning documentary's at studentcam.org, and continue the conversation at our facebook and twitter pages. >> in a few moments, the first public meeting of the interior

department's ocean energy safety advisory committee, looking into ways to improve offshore drilling. the committee heard reports from the gulf oil spill and remarks from interior secretary ken salazar and michael bormwich. >-- bromwich. >> on "washington journal," we will be joined by john fund. the executive director of the center for community change, deepak bhargava will focus on president obama support from his democratic base. our series on the recommendation of the national commission on fiscal responsibility and reform continues with a look at health care savings. our guest is marilyn werber serafini a special correspondent with kaiser health news. "washington journal" is live on

c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. a couple of live events to tell you about some more. president obama holds a town hall-style meeting on his deficit-reduction plans. he will be at the northern virginia community college at and then dealt at 10:15 a.m. eastern. then the press club debate on energy policy between ted turner and t. boone pickens, founder of easy capital. turner is expected to discuss his solar projects in new mexico and atlanta. pickens will outline his plan to promote alternate energy sources such as wind, solar power, and natural gas. the interior department advisory committee to recommend improvements in offshore drilling held its first public meeting today. members heard about the investigation into last year's

drilling rig explosion in oil spill in the gulf of mexico. this opening portion is one hour and a half. d morning, everyone. i am the designated federal officer for this committee. i want to make some brief housekeeping announcements. i want to welcome you all for being here. we will call to order. if you have the cell phones, please put them on silent or vibrate. before our committee members and catalyst, -- for at our committee members and palace, please make sure you were speaking in to the freestanding microphone and is flashing green.

you signed and this morning and there should have been some comment, -- comment cards. please feel free to give us back -- give them back to us before you leave. if you do not have a chance to make a comment during the public comment poron, it begins at 4:30. i'll turn it over to dr. tom hunter, the chairperson of the committee. >> thank you. i am going to begin by introducg the deputy secretary of the interior and he will give us [inaudible] >> thank you. thank you to all the views serving on this very iortant new committee.

i want to thank you for your agreement to serve on this committee and to serve the department and the country. it is very appropriate, i think, that our first meeting of the committee comes just short of the first-year anniversary of the deepwater horizon blow all disaster -- blowout disaster. there has been an enormous amount of attention on the safety of offshore drilling practices and appropriately so. we have had a searing experience with people out itself and its aftermath. i was the first administration official down inhe gulf the morning after the blowout t, flying down that morning, on the phone with the command center.

watching that night and the next day as a remotely operated vehicles -- new terms for america that we have become very acquainted with. since then, as you know, we engaged in a vigorous and sciplined reforma agenda, and new safety rules have been put into place, new requirements for cementing ipections for certification, new management system requirements, a major reorganization and enforcement r a deepwater, new containment requirements. it is apparent throughout to that we need more and we need your help. help us define how to do more. the idea of this committee grew out of conversations that we had throughout the summer of

2010 with tom hunter, your chair, tha allen, and others. it became apparent as the struggle to get a deep water horizon situation under control and as we dealt of the -- with the aftermath of this bill that offshore drilling, research and development had lagged in all phases from the drilling safety requirements themselves to a containment. and to oil spill response, where we watched skimmers and effectiveldealing with the spill and scrambled to deal with a 21st century problem with the technology of the 20th, or a scene, the 19th century.

the question that we talked about during many late nights was how we could we gather in one place the expertise needed to have this country lead when it comes to offshore drilling safety? we should have a center of excellence where industry, as it moves forward with expertise, does not leave behind the academic community, the ngo community, our government. that is your basic charge, this advisory committee. how can you help us put together a center of excellence, something like the ocean ergy safety institute, that will enable collaboration in real- time in these three important areas of drilling safety, containment, and of oil spill response?

we need this, we have the opportunity to do this, and all of you have given your service to this effort to. i will warn you, having served alongside tom hunter in a number of capacities,ou'll be working hard. tom hunter does not lead moscow under his face -- maas grow under his feet. that is why we are also excited that this public process is now underway in. while we are proud of the reforms we have put in place, we note that more needs to be done and we look forward to your guidance as we move forward and the secretary will be here shortly after lunch to reinforce these messages. in the meantime, i look forward to the morning session and to his leadership. let me make one final comment.

i want to thank some of the key folks who have helped put this together. including brad, whom you just heard from, it has been a huge organizer of this entire effort to. with the full support of mike, tommy, melissa, and the entire team. i would also like to thank ray, who has been a leader for my in this effort. it was a tremendous effort to sift through the enormous numbers of nominations we received before the seeds around this table. congratulations to all of you are in d.c. it's because there was significant competition at. it was brad, brian, in particular, a porch with time to put this thing together. a special thanks to them.

>> thank you, david. let me welcome everyone on the panel. [inaudible] those panelists who will be with us and will have a chance to talk to us. i nt to echo some of dav's remarks. they worked very hard. i could not help but notice today thate're within a couple of days of the anniversary of the deepwater horizon. there is no question about the impact on the nation, an industry. it had a great iact on my life and my view of things. it really demonstrated something which i pondered about for a long time. the incredible and balance we have between -- imbalance

between a secure energy and protecting the earth on which we live. i really think that is where a lot of the future may rest and i lieve that it is important for us -- and might not coming throug brad? ok, sorry. the impact that it had on all of us, the great reality this question of balancing we did to preserve the environment. the world needs a lot of energy and somehow thateems to be unchangeable. the environment has taken a significant insults', one more insult -- income by this incident. we may not be able to survive once the get their. -- there. something about this event, it

was an unthinkable and eves. it seemed to be unstoppable and some days. and it was unacceptable. i do not spend a lot of time on my introduction to. it was my privilege to serve the country as director of the national laboratories for the bulk of my career. this is the opportunity -- it left me with a lot of deep appreciation for the expertise in the industry and the government about this business of a deepwater drilling. it was a role that i needed to gain a deepe understanding and allowed me to meet some people and have an impact on where it does not coat it was a tragedy, catastrophe. it could have been avoided, it

could have been contained earlier, and the gulf ecosystem could have been reduced. the role of this committee is to bring ideas and actions to gather from industry, government, non-government organizations, and universities to make those could have been the reality. to make it so we really do avoid such incidents in the future and lessen the impact in any way that w possibly can. i am pleased that you have agreed to serve on this committee. it is a distinguished group. there was a lot of competition. it is one that has a diversity of views and persptives and experiences that will allow us to accomish a lot. there will be a lot of rules to follow and rabble keep a straight on all those rules at all times. we will come to know each other and our role and that will be a

large part of what today's meeting is about. we will then try to seek a better understanding of where the upgrades inechnology for deep water drilling really are today. we will look for ways in which we can make recommendations about how to improve and enhance those. this morning, we have a series of speakers who will be bringing us up to speed on perspectives on what has occurred in the last year or so. we will have some questions to get to a common level of understanding on those events. it will be about scope and charter and where we will move the committee a we will also address what we just heard om david. we will address what is the most effective way in which gornment, industry, and universities can work together to pull the nation for? of late, but we would have to save the world come together, and how we can develop a much

safer environment for energy production and the waters of the world. we will begin gathering such information and i would encourage you to ask questions and to bring your experience and insight into those questions and try to participate in the discussion. it will be moderated, and it is my honor to introduce eacof view, which i will do with the following method. i will ask you to introduce yourself. mike, we will make the last. we will start with a joke. we look -- we will start with joe. we wld ask you to state something about your role, your current role professionally, and al to state something about your hopes and desires for the future of this committee. joe, we will begin with you.

>> thank you. i have beein the oil and gas industry for 17 years. i joined the oil and gas industry after finishing princeton university. my role currently is the manager of spluttered delivery. my role is inhe fabrication of floaters that argues for production in the gulf of mexico. -- that are used for production in the gulf of mexico. my hope is that we rk together to be able to achieve a safer and environmentally sensitive way of producing oil and gas from the u.s. waters. with that, i will pass it onto ted. >> i am the chairman of the

university of texas in austin, texas. i worked as a civil engineer for abou30 years now. i started my career from shell in houston. for the last 2.5 years, i've been teaching and traveling. my background is in applied mathematics and physics more than anything else. iowa work also on the intersection of energy supply systems and ecosystems and dynamics of sustainability of the human race. the results are not positive. my hope is that not only will we achieve progress here, but we will also manage to keep public interest in this extremely important area of intersection

of the highest energy supply for humanity and also impact on the environmental systems. >> good morning. i am the assistant minister of the u.s. epa. i spent many months with david dealing with the response, including many weeks and the gulf. -- in the gulf. we recognize that are prepared this was not as good as it should have done. a spill with significant impact on the livelihoods' of people. i met with many community members and i saw the consequences to date lives, both the direct -- the daily consequent on the longerm

consequent on the psychological consequences. my hope is that we remember the lesson learned. that we put into place a system that ethnologist and recognizes the severity -- acknowledges and recognizes the severity of not being prepared as we should have been. so we can enable the state development of energy and consider the potential consequences if we do not have the systems in place. >> my name as paul, president of energy company. my hope is that this committee works to regain the public's trust, which is a license to operate and a straight in the deepwater. have learned a lot from the incident. much work has already been done. the opportunity for this committee is -- for this committee is to buil on that

body of work. establish safe work procedures and cleanup response for the years to come. i thank you for the opportunity to serve, and i look forward to serving. >> good morning. my name is richard sears. most recently, i served as t chief scientist to the national commission on the deep water rise in blowout and spill. prior to that, i had a 33-year career with a shell as a physicist and senior executive. i was responsible for shell's global exploration in deepwer and development activities. i brought that experience to the commission's work and hope to bring back this -- that experience also to the work o this committee. i look forward t extending the work that we did on the commission to understand the roots of this accident and also

pulled into that the board that is going on with the investigations better still on gog. >> good morning. my name is patrick reynolds. in commanding officer of the coast guard marine safety center. it provides technical services to the post -- to the coast guard. i am obviously career coast guard. i am looking forward -- michael would be to improve the status quo with respect to drilling safety and environmental protection at. thank you. >> my name is walter and then the deputy director -- i have been with the bureau since 1988. what i am hoping for from this committee is that we have taken a lot of substantial steps to improve the safety of offshore operations. i thinkhere is more to do and

rather than just thinking of what we can do right now, i am looking forward working with this committee to understand how we can organize ourselves strategically for the long term to stay out in front of the next wave of new technologies and types of operations we will see in the future. >> my name is nancy and i am the director at mit in aerospace engineering at. my specialty is really more general system safety engineering. i've been doing this for about 30 years and i've worked in nearly eve industry. at some point in my career. although there are differences in the problems in each industry and in the culture, my hope for the committee is that we will be able to implement some of the lessons learned from successes at in other industries in preventing accidents. >> i am charlie williams, i have

been with a shell 39 years. i'm a chief scientist for while engineering and production technology. well engineering is what we call drilling in shelby's days. -- in shell these days. i was vice president of hurricane recovery. i am also on the chair of the industry task group of four energy safety and containment. i am on the governing board of the marina will contain the company and the operating committee for the project. what i really look forward to and hope for is that we make a significant technical contribution to prevention in

the industr but also that we make a significant contribution to management systems and safety management systems and their contribution to prevention. thank you. >> my name is stephen genzyme senior research scientist for the u.s. geological survey, wherever to over 20 years. of anabolic from research in the academic side. -- i am involved with research from the academic side. i was heavily involved in the response over the summer with thomas and others as part of the well integrity team. it was a very sering experience and i hope we have to never lived through it again it. my hope is that we will identify what we do know and what we don't know about ideological barriers to containment of oil.

identified a passport to answer those questions and we gained -- identify a path forward to answer those questions. >> good morning. i have about 30 years in the industry. i was -- i was a civil engineer with shall. i work to do a number of assignments or iran did global engineering business that charlie talked about for the last couple of years. prior to taking the head of a global agency and sustainable development for shell, or i did that for a couple of years. i left and went to another company for a year. now i am with a gbal drilling contractor. in that role, i am responsible for the operations of those

units around the world, and the construction of new units that were built in a number of places around the world. i will express my expectations for the committee, that we improvehe safety and effectiveness of our industry. i think we have the wherewithal around a table to help do that. my hope would be that it translates into greater access of offshore drilling around this country because it is a great energy supply for the country. thank you. >> my name is christopher smith and then the deputy assistant secretary for oil and natural gas at the u.s. department of energy. in that role, i am responsible for the oil and gas programs for -- programs. prior to this role, i started my

career as an army officer and i spent about 11 years after that working for chevron in various roles. that was a combination of experience is that has given me a real appreciation for the work, the difficult and dangerous work of producing our oil and gas resources offshore. in addition to the other cintas that a been expressed here, i hope we e able to provide that conclusion to he in short that the folks to do this important work are able to work safely and return to their families every day. thank you for the opportunity to serve. >> this group has enormous versity of experience and insight to, but also shares a common purpose, as i listen to your comments going around the table. the nation calls on us to render the type of service -- someone may have asked why we are on tv

and why we have the public from mark that we do. -- a framework that we do. the public of this country and people all around the world are looking to this industry, to this government, to this committee to give confidence that we can proceed with the exploration are around the world. the record should note that we have this challenge, but we have a shared common intent. it is very important to think about the different sectors represented here. i am going to introduce michael, and i want to comment on that. for me, there was enormous experience about the first week in may and went in the entire summer and into septber. you get to know people and you get to know how people think.

when you talk to people at midnight and wonder what will happen at 6:00 in the morning, you reach conclusions about what people intend to do and what -- what their intent r. mike represents an organization this people were dedicated at that time, and we will hear from some today. they are dedicated now, and in the aftermath is that they believe deeply their role the federal government has here can be fulfilled, one that allows for a responsible approach. also one that allows for proper oversight. this means we will spend time trying to encourage and support them, and i wanted to comment by way of introducing -- it is a

good thing we doo provide support to all the people we represent. >> thank you, very much, and i want to thank you all for being here today. people who are attending or watching know what we picked this group. we picked nter because we are already 120 minutes ahead of schedule. that is extraordinarily unusual. ight to our first session. we are fortunate have professor cherry murray from harvard universityith here -- with us here today, who brings a background in a variety of fields. professor murray got her bachelor's and ph.d. from mit. she has spent a number of years working at the bell labs.

she moved on to another one of our national labs where she rose to the deputy director and then principal assistant dictor for science and technology. in july of 2009, she was named dean of the harvard school of engineering and applied science, as well as a professor of engineering and applied science and professor of physics. in addition to all those qualifications, she is a member of the national academy of sciences, national academy of engineering. she is a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science. with that background, why she is here is she served as one of the commissioners on the president's

commission on the bp oil spill. she will share with us her observations and share the findings and recommendations of the national commission. we are extremely fortunate to have professor murray hre. >> thank you, and good morning. i would like to express the appreciation of both of that commission co-chairs. the commission is now over. we have produced our report, which i will review with you. i am sure you have all read it. you also have two people on your committee who are intimately familiar with the commission and its report. we had seven members of the presidentialommission that

began in june. the report was finished in record time after six months. we could only do that because we had such an incredible staff. we had 60 people on the staff, of which the chief scientist was rich. what the president asked the commission to do was to determine the root cause of the deepwater horizon disaster, to evaluate the cleanup responses, and this was being done in real time as tom and his group were trying to manage this, along with bp and some national lab folks. advise the president and t nation about future oil and gas exploration and production can take place responsibly,

particularly in the more challenging deep water areas. we were not asked to assess legal, -- legal culpability, reform energy policy, or duplicatether investigatis. as you are aware, there were at least 10 and out 12 other investigations of this disaster. it was truly a disaster, not only did 11 people lose their lives, 17 badly injured, but the gulf has suffered a considerable ecological disaster as well as the loss of fisheries, tourism, and other economic impact. one of the first things we did as a commission is go to the gulf and spanned out and talk to

the people compacted, and it was prettyobering to see this in real time. we conducted a thorough investigation of the engineering failures. we had a cef counsel -- we will hear from the deputy chief counsel, and there is a report of the chief couns on the web site, as well as 21 staff papers. what you see on the screen behind most of the committee is the cover of the report, and this is also just a recommendation, which is also on the web site. i will not go through this entire thing, which would take way too long. but our major finding was that the deepwater horizon disaster was foreseeable and preventable.

errors and misjudgments by three companies, beebe, halliburton, an transocean, played key roles in this tragedy, and government regulation was not effected in preventing the disaster. offshore drilling is on to become even more complex and riskier. no one on the commission expects offshore drilling will cease at all. weeed a u.s. source of oil and gas. we need to do this in a more safe and responsible manner. when we do not know that much about the geological and other conditions, it becomes very risky. we believe that it can be done safely. the commission recognizes that

significant steps have been taken thus far by both governments, including michael bromwich, in reorganizing his organization, the mms, into i will call it -- more needs to be done. we need more research in all areas related to explanation, the contnment, and i hope this committee will oversee this research and suggest what needs to be done. the industry needs to develop a far better culture of safety. these recommendations are contained in the rort. first off, there is a compelling need for a culture of safety. business as usual is not good enough.

the north sea, norway and u.k., have better safety regimes, australia and canada are revamping their safety regimes. industry, it is our belief that it is industry wide that this need for a culture of safety exists and that they should establish a private organization which is no a lobbying organation, to develop, i doubt, and enforce standards of the lexus, to ensure continuous improvements in safety. as michael bromwich noted, i spent some years in the nuclear

weapons regime, lawrence livermore national lab. the industry associations for the nuclear power industry formed after three mile land a separate safety-oriented organition calle npo, the institute for nuclear power operated is, that only the safety and -- that only the safety and safety inspections of nuclear power plants, which is quite effective peer review. peer pressure, the industry is at the cutting edge of technology, and the instry needs to focus a lot more on safety. one of the things i was quite if you look at,

the r and d that the industry has put into deepwater drilling , it is incredibly impressive. it is not that much different from going into space. however, if you look at the r and d that the industry has actually put into either safety or cleanup, it is less tn 1% of the r and d that they have put into drilling. this needs to change. we do need to drill safely for th the people on the rigs, the people who are affected by ecological disasters, in our environment. we also need to cooperate internationay to ensure

safety and prepared this around the world and to learn from international data. we do not currently collect the data that would be useful for management of these spills. this is not a black-swan event. it is bigger than usual, but there were 79 other blowout and well-control issues in the gulf of mexico. it was not a loan company -- a lone company that has this problem, although some companies have a better safety culture than others. bell whole industry has to have a far better -- the whole industry has to have a far better process safety culture. so what we looked at his, as i

was talking about improving the safety of offshore operations, safeguarding the environment, strengthening spillresponse planning and capacit advancing while containment capability, which is obviously, after this event, kind of important, and it was very clear that nobody knew how to do this and we had to invent things in real time. restoring the gulf of mexico. this has had enormous ecological impact for the last 50 years due to dredging and to oil and gas production, as well as this major event. ensuring financial responsibility of the companies who were drilling, a also looking at frontier areas in the

arctic so changing government -- we should be the most advanced in the world in drilling regulations and enforcement. we currently are not. as i said earlier, the commission is quite impressed with the department of interior movings quickly as possible to reorganize. they definitely need to develop a proactive risc-based proformance approach, similar to what what we call the safety case approach in the north sea. the international regulators forum is a good forum to express these new standards and

revisions. and we suggested that the congress a the department of interior create an independent agency within the department o interior which enforcement authority, to make that severna -- separate from the revenue generating agency. that has happened through the executive order. we also proposed that the council on environmental quality in the department of interior should revise and strengthen the nepa policies, practices, and procedures. we need to strengthen science and injured-agency consultations with noaa and usgs. we also suggested one thing that has not happened, witches -- which is if you look at the

stable resources for regulatory oversight, they have not been there from the u.s. government. we suggest that similar to other countries that industry fees support the regulatory agency and that environmental science is also supported by industry fees. it will be interesting to see what this committee says about that. the department of interior -- what we suggested is that some rulemaking is quite important and some prescriptive detailed plans and risk analysis be done as well as a safety case.

as you can see by the graph, there are more and more deepwater wells being drilled and altered-deep water drwells being drilled. it is not just the water that the issue here, but it is the geology of the deposits that are becoming quite challenging, and the risks are actually quite high. one of the things that we suggested is that the liability cap from the oil pollution act, which is $75 million, be lifted. that is way too low a cap. it isot incentivize the industry to prevent these kinds of things and to do the research

and development. also, there is currently $1 billion limit to the oil spill fund. clearly, as a result of this incident, $1 billion is not going to be sufficient, and we suggested that that be lifted as well. there is a considerable discussion going on about the six majors versus dependent companies, andhould independent companies be allowed -- be allowed to get insurance to do drilling in the gulf. we did not address what the liability cap should be, but that clearly $75 million is too little.

ntainment and response. we had to invent the containment in real-time. this is not good enough. as a result of this spill, the industry has come up with two different containment -- i will call them services -- that is certainly better, and the bureau of ocean and energy management has required that leases be given out. you cannot drill without having containment capability, which is a good first step. we were quite disappointed that spill response technology had not advanced since the exxon valdez.

this is not sufficient. way more research and development needs to be done by the industry and supported by government on spill response, and the spill response was really pretty minimal when you look at the oil that was actually collected. containment is critically important, and we -- and more research and development needs to be done on containment as well. government needs to have in- house containment expertise. one of the things we suggested is that, as was pretty apparent, the department of energy and the national labs does have experte and should be brought to bear in the containment and

risk response to suchpills. in looking at restoration -- excuse me -- we suggested, as have several members of congress, using 80% of clean water act penalties to restore the gulf, that is some money that is going to be there and it is quite important. in the restoration of the gulf, science and the coastal marine -- excuse me -- planning is

quite important. and finally, that we ought to be extremely careful about the arct, because we know that spill response and the coast guard cannot get to the arct farewell, that is a thousand miles away from the beaufort sea, and cleanup is going to be considerably more difficult, and we do not know that much about the ecosystem and the life of the arctic, so we suggested that the arctic be developed, but

more slowly, so that some research can go on. one of our commissioners is now named head of the arctic council. i think what i will do, since i am coughing, is to stop there and allow you to ask questions. >> thank you, very much. we appreciate your presentation. we have time for questions. then be turned over to tom hunter to begin the questioning process, which will be limited to the members of this committee. >> thank you very much. i was struck by your comment about the nuclear industry, and if we think about the nuclear industry and you will note the

government has the involvement has been extensive. there is npo, also another committee which is a bit of an analog to this committee. we will see how that develops. commissioners, the have any insight into why -- let me comment that three mile island was the initiating event. do you see a parallel as rsx deepwater horizon being an initiator, and did you spend time on the understanding of what one industry is so heavily engaged by the federal government and the other one is not? >> we had a number of discussions about this. the oil and gas industry is a little bit more complex tn the nuclear power industry in that they are on each of the deepwater raids -- let me say 20

contractors. it is always more difficult to have a safety regime with contractors who work for different companies. nevertheless, that is also true in the north sea, and in the itself is, there r rig required to have this a case, not the operating company. this committee may want to look at that as a model. the people who live on the rig actually want to be safe. it is really important to have a safety regime that allows for ings like whistle-blowers, and there was one argument at each well is completely different. they are not like nuclear power

plants, about which there are about six technologies, and they're all pretty much the same. i would argue that it is true, each well is completely different. it depends on geology, the design. there are best practices in well containment and shared best practices are really quite important. one of the things that happened th imho, as you are aware, is that about nine years into their for me, 100% of nuclear operators were members of this committee. each of them had to have insurance in order to operate, which is slightly different from the oil and gas industry. ors are the operati

self-insured. the rate of insurance premium was dependent on the mpo rating. there was quite a bit of -- n po had a few metaphors in the industry, because a different reading of good and excellent meant a huge amount ofnsurance premium that had to be paid. also, if npo does very serious inspections. they are nuclear needy people. they're pretty serious out it. it is an inspection that is about two weeks.

i will say it is non-binding and it is not open. it is actually proprietary, and it is industry -- these people go on inspections. it is industries learning from each other. there could be an analog for this for well controld. npo does coordinate with the nuclear regulatory commission. npo does not set standards. nrc sets standards. if npo finds that a power company is not operating with the safety regime that it believes is important, it basically operates this confront of the entire industry -- it

basically parades this in front of the entirendustry. if the analog is the operators of drilling platforms, there is some analogy that could be. >> thank you. >> that may eourage all the panel members to take this opportunity to learn more about the commission's results as low insight.'s own this may be one of our opportunities to engage the commission so directly. >> i am not quite as familiar asnpo, would you comment on the role you see going forward with the api which has set standards. he made a comment abo the need to set a safety commission

separate from the lobbying effort, which is directed at api. could you compare and contrast the role that api has. >> the nuclear industry also has the nuclear industry industry association, which is an api- like body. it is a lobbying organization. it gets the industry together. it does actually look at safety standards and things, but it does not set the standards. the nuclear regulatory commission does. . api and a lot is nei, and that the oil and gas industry really does need something like npo. npo is nothing but safety. it does not lobby, it does not set standards. it just does industry to

industry peer review of the safety regime of the power plants. >> the audience is having trouble hearing. please make sure you have your microphone on. when you see the green flashing light, that is when you speak. identify yourself before you speak for the court reporter. >> nuclear industry is 20% of one-third of primary energy. the oil industry is 70%, roughly. nuclear indusy has not bui a new reactor since the late 1970's, while srigs being operated by -- while i am speaking to the. you have an order of difference

of the size, and you have another order of magnitude of difference up the complexity. i would submit that controlling and improving the oil industry is more difficult than the nuclear industry. having said that, in my mind, failure of human organizations was probably the biggest contributing factor to the accident. do you have suggestions to the oil industry that the beyond the npo-type activities? >> you areight that there is way more of our energy coming from oil and gas, not from the u. s, but imported. there are about 105 nuclear

power plants now in the u.s. they were being built when npo was around. i am not suggesting that all of the shallow water and relatively -- let me say -- less complex rigs also be part of this regime, but the more complex rigs be. when you look at that, there are hundreds of as opposed to thousandor tens of thousands, so it is not that much different in scope, but you are absolutely right -- and it is also true for nuclear power -- it is the human organization that was the root cause of this.

it was human lack of judgment and also the fact that people who are contractors to the operator could have felt a little bit anxious about bringing up safety. in fact, we know from the testimony that a number of people did not bring up the their issuesith safety on the rig, and certainly, from my interaction in the national labs, our biggest safety issues were with contractors. i think that needs to be seriously thought about. how do you ensure that the team,

which includes up to 20 different contractors on the rig, acts like a team? i think that this is doable. it may need training as a team. this is actually what is done in the north sea. we have some examples. >> may i follow up on that, because you made a comment rlier and you were talking about the u.k. safy regime, and made a comment that the workers there want to be safe. that is the inference that the workers elsewhere to not want to be safe. the point is in cct case regime there is a identifying the hazards and identifying roles and responsibilities, make for a safer work environment. >> i certainly did not mean that people in the gulf of mexico did

not want to be saved. in fact, they do. workers on the rig do indeed want to be safe, which is why there is an opportunity for doing a better case for all the people on the rickeg, no matter which company they belong to. there is one difference that may or may not play a role in the north sea, and that is certainly in norwegian case, the workers are unionized, and the union has a big part of play in safety. i believe you can do training, roles and responsibilities, as an entity that is gone to be operating together for the next three months and that you can

do a safety case. one the things that we've learned, which i was quite surprised about, it kind of shocked me, is that bp and transocean did not have a agreement on how they would do well control. this is not acceptable. well control is one of the most critical things. if you managed the well, then you do not have to worry about containment or spill cleanup or anything else. >> ank you for your comments. one question i have, the question i had is more related to the safety case in the u.k.,

norway, areacked up by guidancewhich are similar to the api standards. in your discussion, i value the api standards. they have a lot of experience that they have built on, i have served on committees that have developed those standards. in your view from the commission, what is the way forward in that regard, because i do not think as an industry we cannot go down without having those standards as a -- in the form or another? >> i agree with those standards, and how those standards are determined -- just in the new clear case, the nuclear regulatory commission's defines what standards are. where it gets that from is obviously the operator. and some judgment. and someapi definitely -- i think api can propose standards

and it is up to the bureau of ocean energy management to accept them and amend them and make them even stronger. they should be e owner of the standards. >> thank you for the clarification. >> doctor murray, i was impressed by your comments, including the documentation. one thing that struck me, the people within the various subcontractors, had concerns that were not passed out to the decision makers. there were far rawls built between subcurrent -- between subcontractors. that would mean the rapid unfolding of events. people did not have time to react. if they had time, they may not have reacted differently. have you thought about other ways of training people on the rig floor react more rapidly to these sorts of incidents, maybe

using simulators, something that gives people real experience in reacting to the signals they see. there is a human tendency to not believe a disaster is unfolding below your feet, and there's something people might be able to recognize faster what was going on in terms of training for people actually working at the rig itself. >> that is a good point. one of the things that usually happens in a disaster like this is that it was right at the shift change between shifts. everyone was in a hurry. when that happens, you have ability to not make the right judgment calls. also, i actually think that

training that team together is really important, not just individuals with a simulator. i do not know exactly -- and this is something that api may be this committee can think about -- is there a better training exercise which has, here is what happened, what do you do? at would be extremely helpful to train the team onhe rigs. the other thing i will put out his the-pressure test, which was obviously misinterpreted on the rig that night. it did not really -- there was no agreement as to how that negative protest would be done. this is something that obviously needs to get fixed.

>> i have not read all the report, and i was surprised to not see any mention of any kind of a real-time operational safety group or even a person that was consulted when these decisions were made. most industries have such a thing. when you have accidents, after allenger, after colombia, one of the things they found is those organizations had become silent and were never not consulted in the decision making. did i just missed something? was there something there? and it just was not mentioned? >> as far as i know, there was re were there accept their wor

the people on shore who were in a situation where people did not know what to do should have been contacted, buts far as we can tell, there was no contact of people on shore. whether the people on shore could have done anything, i do not know. but that is one possibility, when training whole crew on the rig, including all of the contractors, is that there is a 60 -- a safety committee that stands back and thinks about these decisions going forward. >> doctor murray, he made a comment that this was not a black-swan event,and referred to the number of events that the

commission had observed when they we going through their investigation. in your discussion with industry brisbane's throughout the process and the investigation, and looking at statements that are being made as we move to the one-year anniversary, do you have an opinion about the degree to which industry is dealing with this as a black-swan event or something that companies can take a close second look at do you have an opinion based on your experiences on how that is going? >> i certainly have an opinion, but i will not state it. the reason that the commission came down on the side of it is

industry-wide, it is not just say one rogue company, is because it is quite clear from our investigation, and you can hear this from sean grimsley later on this morning, that there were at least three companies who made really seriously bad calls in judgment. halliburton, who is the largest cementing company, andoes this forveryone, went ahead and, despite the fact that there were three tests,went ahead and pumped the cement. quote bill riley

when he asked the ceo of halliburton whether or not a burden on the pumps that cement for bp. i doubt it. they were doing their job, but somehow the fact that the cement, the slurry, was known not to be good, and they did it anyway, was indicative of something that is not right about the industry. also, transocean and.p. did not have as i said an agreement for how they did well control, which is, i will say, the most important thing to do while you are drilling a well. so, whose fault was that? i would say both of them.

some companies doave a far better safety regime, but they still operate on rigs that are leased and owned by other companies, and with a number of contractors, and do we know that they have a good safety case? i reallyon't think so. >> thank you. one of your comments, you said you did not feel like water that was driving curling risk, but you felt like killing risks right to increase the future. could you say a few words around the commission's findings in that regard. >> what i meant by that is death means higher pressure, colder temperatures, -- depth means

higher pressure, call whatever, and that makes it more complex. what mes it complex is the geology. it should not be water depth that is relevant, but how complex is the geology of this well. there were serious worries of lost returns, and part of the judgments that were made were to mitigate those worries about the fracture of the formation, which is,mud was circulated very slowly, and things like that, which, if there was to appoint a safety organization that look at all of the decisions and the big picture, they might have said that is okor not fracturing the formation, but the cement

leaky probably full of -- the segment will probably be full of mud, and you should take that into consideration. each decision was taken one after the other and not a big picture of, ok, we have a serious issue here with all these different issues in this well what is the best decision to take, not just of, we fix that one, let's go ahead and see if that worked. >> thank you very much. >> you mentioned that there are a number of less disastrous things that have occurred and the need to do some risk

analysis to understand the nature of the risk of drilling cherry i was wondering if you expand on that. >> i was -- one of the things that was noted was that in the gulf theres well control incidents that are not reported by country -- by companies unless there is a spill of oil and gas. if there is a well control incident, instead of saying we could learn from this, it is not brought forward as part of the database. all people who are actually, all industries who are actually seriously worried about safety, look at what is actually -- look at what has actually happened and what are the precursor to a possible safety condition and not just looking at the

incidents that were of a certain severity. that is one thing that if there npo- let's just say, and like entity, they could look at the precursors way better than the agency can. >> i completely agree with you, and there has been a thorough analysis done ofhe last couple years, and found out that many of the accidents were not reported, and he had to rely on oral communications of people who may not have remembered. swans were mentioned

a couple of times. ofre talking about talkees extreme value and contributions. would you suggest that perhaps a more formalized process of reporting, and i hate to say that perhaps to api me other organizations, butlso a more thorough actuarial analysis of extreme distributions is in order because wdo not know when we make assumptions that are completely arbitrary? >> yes. i do agree. i think reporting of any loss of well control, even if it is only for a minute and it is weekend, can help the industry learned how to deal with these events, and also, of course, it

would helpful to have the statistics to know, are we doing bett? >> thank you. >> they had to derive their real-time monitoring with respect to a response. the most significant was dispersants and how to do real- time monitoring. do you have view as to how to take those lessons learned and where we institutionalize it, and who owns the execution of a more rigorous monitoring regime? >> you reminded me what i was going to say, but i did not in my earlier talks, which was the u.s. government needs to measure the amount of oil spilled.

just period. finally, after some amount of time, say, a month, noaand usgs did a very good measurement of the oil was spilling out. i think it is reay important if there is such a spill that some organization in the u.s. government -- it could be the doe national labs, together with noaa, need to beeployed immediately to measure the amount of spillage. why is that? there is a conflict of interest with b.p. measuring how much oil things bill because they will pay penalties for the amount of oil that is being spilled. assuming that the responsible party is responsible for dng

the measurement i think is a bad assumption. they will measure it, of course, and they are also doing the -- assessment, and there will be probably in the courts dispute about how much oil was there. but if the u.s. government was prepared quickly to measure the oil spill, we would not have these disputes. for real-time monitoring, one of the things that steve chu and the panel noted was that there really was no pressure gauge that was accurate on the blowout for vendor. so, you could not measure the pressure down hole, i will say, or down at the s floor, and that would be awfully important, and until the capping device was

put on with pressure gauges, nobody could tell whether the well was gone to blow out into the formation or not. that is kind of important. having better real-time monitoring his probably -- probably should be a better regulation that he should hav real-time monitoring for this kind of situation. >> any more questions from the panel? just a couple things. we had two panel members not with us. am i not coming through? we had two panel members not withs. david is. noaa -- the is -- david is from

noaa. i wanted to have a final comment from dr. murray. [unintelligible] . murray, in the end, the american public wants to understand whether moving forward with deepwater drilling, particularly with the broadwater and deeper wells, is a need to pull -- is it doable? , my personal sense is it is still -- >> my personal sense is it is the will. the industry needs to make it more self. it is perfectly doable. i am impressed with the technology in order to do the drilling. or technology needs to be

developed, and some has in just responding to this spill, in thin like containment and skimming, and something needs to be done about or just needs to be understood about our dispersants could under sea? did they work? i don't think we know the answer to that. unfortunately, we had this as an experiment to figure out whether that helped or not. >> thank you. let me thank you again, professor murray, for coming here and taking the time ensuring the recommendions of the president's commissions, but also assuring us your own views on this in response to questions that a committee has. thank you very, very much for being here. we will take a 10-minute break,

and we will start back up at 10:35, if my watch is accurate. thanks very much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by nation identify yourself for the

public record. let's get started. >> we will begin with the next panel. >> we will go into our second panel focused on the investigations into the deepwater horizon blowout. we are happy to have mr. grimsley andand mr. winter. he is professor of engineering practices and the department of marine practices. he served as secretary of the navy, and lead america's navy

and marine corps teams. previously he served as president of north from grumman's. he is also a graduate of the university of southern california management policy institute, and harvard university program for senior executives if in national and international security. in 2002 he was elected a member of the national academy of engineering. sean grimsley was chief counsel on the bp the deepwater controlling panel. he was a graduate of the university of texas, and the university of michigan law term. it was a judicial law clerk to harry edwards here in the d.c. circuit as well as sandra day o'connor in the united states supreme court from 2003-2004.

it is our great pleasure that have dr. winter and mr. grimsley here. >> please to be here this morning. i will be presenting the results of the national academy investigation into the causes of the deepwater horizon. i will know that that i will be presenting what had been our interim findings which were first released back in november, and because of the process than -- that the national academy goes through with a formal peer review one of our findings, the next phase of our report which hopefully will be available around june has yet to be released. i will be giving you the report that we gave to the secretary and the staff back in november. in fact, i will be using the same charts for the most part during the presentation.

on our activities in the reason for it, the national academy of engineering does such study as a matter of course. this one was in particular a request from secretary salazar. our focus is very specifically on the causes for the blowout explosion and subsequent fire. with recommendations to come as to hopefully how to prevent such events from reoccurring in the future. the interim report was specifically intended to provide the secretary and the staff with a preliminary assessment of our findings, but also to inform but the oil spill commission and the marine board of inquiry in terms of some of the aspects of our findings. and as i stated earlier, if we will be having our final report in the june time period. a few notes on the committee make up. the committee includes a number

of individuals, 15 in total, on the committee. many of whom are national academy members, some are not. the individuals have been chosen to span a spectrum of expertise that runs the gamut of everything from geophysics to petroleum engineering, marine engineering, but also organizational behavior, human factors, accident forensics, and safety systems. a very broad spectrum of expertise, and also reflecting both industry, current and retired, as well as academia. all selected with specific consideration to avoid any conflicts of interests. a few notes on the context in terms of establishing expectations here, if you will. we have noted on several occasions and i want to note again this morning that it may

not be possible in the opinion of the committee to definitively established all aspects of the causation for this particular accident. that is in part due to the loss of some of the critical witnesses come out the sinking of the raid, obviously, but most importantly the difficulty of conducting reliable forensics on the deck of the macondo well. we do believe that we have developed a good understanding of many aspects of this particular in this event and believe it is worth while sharing those with the administration as well as this particular committee. we have identified in particular the decision to proceed to temporary abandonment in spite of the failed and negative pressure tests as precipitating elements of the blowout and the subsequent release of hydrocarbons.

we view this is particularly important because up until that point in time, there wasn't that control over the well, and there were many options available to the crew to be able to proceed in various ways. however, once the decision was made to proceed to temporary abandonment, those options for the most part were taken away, and of course, the subsequent events were set in place. we have noted in particular that that decision -- the impact of that decision was compounded by a number of factors, one having to do with the delays in recognizing that flow was starting in the well. and then when that flow was in fact observed, the actions that was taken were very limited, they were not what one would characterize as aggressive well control action, and that further

compounded the events. furthermore, we note that the b.o.p. was unable to control the blowout, and we are still in the process of evaluating the forensic evaluation that has been submitted to understand in the titular the extent to which that inability to control well blowout was due to failure mechanism in the b.o.p. and/or limitations inherent in that particular b.o.p. and its questionable suitability perhaps for this particular well. would we look at the overall implications -- when we look at the overall implications, we've identified several ways of characterizing this. one of which is that we believe that it suggests an insufficient

discipline, in particular, and insufficient consideration of risk. that calls into question the adequacy of operating knowledge and training of the key personnel that were involved in that decision. and we note also, and i was a consistent with dr. murray's previous comments, that this was one of a series of actions that reduce the margins of safety associated with the well and well controlled. in particular, it is very important to note not just this one particular decision but also a number of other decisions all made in the course of construction of this particular well, which we believe potentially contributed to the blowout.

and which all had a questionable considerations associated with them. i will note the wide range of considerations in here, everything from a very specific technical the citizens associated with the well design and the design of the cementing, for example, to more organizational, managerial decisions such as changeups of key personnel on the rig, just prior to this particular incident. we see here a situation where multiple decisions apparently contributed in various ways to the situation on the rig, one of which the decision to proceed to temporary abandonment precipitated the specific loss of well control, all of which has caused us to focus on

behavioral considerations as a root cause of this particular incident. we note in that regard that there were insufficient checks and balances for these decisions. the question of schedule as a relates to schedule costs versus the consideration for well safety we note an absence of formal mechanisms for properly comparing and weighing those considerations and making an appropriate determination as to what is a viable balance between those considerations. we note that none of these various decisions that we have identified were identified as flawed or corrected, either by the operating management of the various companies involved, and while i have be pat -- bp

identified here come the other contractors were involved, and we know that those decisions were not identified in a timely manner by mms, the coast guard, or any of the various organizations responsible for regulation in this particular domain. much has been said about the questions of cementing, and it does appear there was a failure of cement to create an effective barrier to hydrocarbon flow. that said, we are still looking at the specifics of the failure mechanisms associated with that, and we are looking at a wide range of potential sources. it is our approach and methodology to consider any and all considering factors. we may or may not come up with a definitive determination as to the cause of the failure of the

cement. we may identify a number of potential contributing factors. that is part of our process, and also we think it is most appropriate in this particular case, because there are a number of considerations of associated with the cementing operation that appears to be wanting in terms of the technical decision making process. similarly with the well control actions and the b.o.p. in particular, we notice that this obviously did not recapture control of the well. the extent to which that is due to the timing of the well control actions and to the design, and the extent that is due to the maintenance and particular failure mechanisms on the b.o.p., all is still under evaluation and we hope to be able to be informed by the current evaluation performed

under a contract here recently. we also note the failure of emergency disconnect systems to properly separate out and permit the rig to move away from the macondo well. the impact that that had on the subsequent loss of the rig. these aspects are both under current evaluation. one other aspect that has been discussed extensively at the marine board of inquiry in particular has to do with the potential mechanisms for igniting the gas. we will note that the committee as assess that given the large quantities of gas is released on the raid, coupled with the very low wind that was observed at the time of the accident, the belief is that ignition was

likely to occur one way or another. while we may be able to determine what all more likely source of ignition was, this was something that probably was going to occur in respective of that unique source. one other aspect we are looking at here has to do with the alarm systems and the concern about of the failure to provide timely general alarm and the potential impact that that may have had in terms of the extent of injuries and loss of life that occurred on the rig. obviously, none of this was actually going to avoid the actual blowout, but may have, if corrected in the future, the potential for minimizing the loss of life associated with such events. when we look at the event of in a total integrated fashion, we

note first of all that this is an inherently risky business. as i said on a number of occasions, these are complex wells, drills using complex drilling rigs, and uncertain geology, in an environment at sea that is always changing. and they have a certain degree of inherent danger associated with them. that needs to be recognized and factor again and it needs to be considered on an ongoing basis to assess what the appropriate margins of safety should be. furthermore, there is a significant need to ensure that we learned from previous near misses. much has been made, for example, of the proceeding event in australia. all of australia, the blowout,

and whether or not that event and others both in the gulf of mexico and elsewhere around the world worked properly considered and factored in to the training and to the operations used for the macondo well. we believe that a systems approach, sometimes referred to as process safety approach, in the chemical industry needs to be able to be integrated in evaluating all the various factors that could impact the safety of the well, and in particular, well control. assess those coming integrate those, monitor them, understand what is happening to those margins of safety as changes are made in this well as there are in many cases, there were many significant changes made during the course of construction here.

and ensure that those changes come of whether they are in the design or in the response to various geologic discoveries, understand whether or not they are materially impact in the margins of safety and take those considerations into effect when one is deciding how to proceed on various aspects of the well construction. and we are right now on the process of completing our investigations. we do have the data that we need at this point, we believe. we are also in the process of having a number of discussions with other regulatory organizations, in particular, those in both norway and the u.k., to understand those perspectives on similar matters. and we are in the process of putting together a final report

which we will consider our overall assessment of the causes and our recommendations for future, particularly focused on future regulatory regimes. and with that, i would be more than pleased to take any questions that you may have this question. and what i think we will do is have mr. grimsley to his presentation and then open it up. mr. grimsley. >> thank you very much for inviting me here to speak today. i know time is short so i will try to get right to it. there is not too much that i would disagree with that was just presented by don. don has looked over our ports and policies a lot of similarities to the presentation he just gave. the chief counsel report, i do not know how many of you have had a chance to read it. 373 pages, you have probably not read the whole thing. in 20 minutes here, i will not go through all of those findings. i will try to limit that to findings that i think will be

interest to you, and recommendations as you go forward with your mandates. >> could this be more closely to the microphone? >> yes. just one caveat before i began. i was the deputy chief counsel to the commission. you notice there are some recommendations in this presentation. those are my recommendations based on the investigation we perform. these have not been imbedded with the commission. these are much more modest recommendations based on observations we made during the investigation. just a star with a little background. -- just to start with a little background. the root causes of the deepwater horizon oil disaster, and submit a final report to the president with his findings, often for considerations come within six months from the date of the commission's first meeting.

the first meeting was in july. we had 2 inches -- we had to submit a report in january. there was a more lengthy report, but we had a very short amount of time in which to do a detailed investigation. the task of the chief counsel's investigative team was not the task of the commission. the commission had a much broader task. we're asked to identify the root causes of the blowout. there were other staff members and individuals who investigated containment and response. as you know and as we made clear in our report, we did not investigate the b.o.p. fell your post-explosion or blow up. there was an ongoing forensic investigation at the time. it was not going to be finished in time for our deadline. that is simply not in these reports. we had a number of specific tasks and presented preliminary findings and prepared the

commission's final report and we prepared and submitted a chief counsel's report with more detailed findings. the two reports at what point you to in terms of root cause of the commission's report, chapter for which we are involved in sets out the findings regarding rig causes, and then the chief counsel's report, all more detailed explanation of the findings of chapter 4. it contains additional information that we obtained after the commission's report was published but before we actually issued the chief counsel's report. all the additional information we received confirmed the findings that were already in chapter 4. what happened at a very high level -- i will not get into all these technical failures. they are and our report. here is a schematic of the macondo well, how was supposed to look during the temporary abandonment process. what we have here is mud displaced down to 3000 below the

sea floor, and then mud in the riser is that have been displaced as well. there is a thousand feet of mud that has been displaced. the key thing to keep in mind is that during the temporary abandonment procedure, the only real barrier in place between the rig and the hydrocarbon bearing zone was the job -- the cement job at the bottom. if it fails, and hydrocarbons got into the center casing, there was a straight shot up, and that is the key thing to keep in mind on the recommendations. the b.o.p. was there, but the b.o.p. was open. we will talk more about this in a minute. the b.o.p. is a contingent barrier there. let's go through what happened at a very high level. the bottom cement job was the only active barrier when the blowout occurred. the mud was removed, 8000 of it,

and the bp -- the b.o.p. was opened th. bp did not choose to put more my in. that is something that could have done but chose not to do. the bottom hole cement job failed. like don said, we may not be able to identify the specific failure mode for the bottom hole cement job, but we do know that it did not isolate the hydrocarbon bearing zone, and there are many possible reasons for why the cement job may have failed. this was an unusually tricky cement job. and this cherry noted, the cement path by halliburton was likely unstable. once that bottom wholesome and had failed, there were no barriers, and no one detected the failure -- the failure until was too late. there was a misinterpreted negative pressure test.

once they'd be at -- proceeded beyond that to this place mud for the riser, the rig crew failed to detect the influx of hydrocarbons during the test. that negative pressure test and the failure to detect the hydrocarbons depended on human judgment. we had one active barrier, the cement, tested by the negative pressure test and that was it. everything else depended on human judgment. when human judgment failed here, there was no additional line of defense. that is critical and understand what the root causes are here. i will not going all the technical failures. this is a slide from bp's accident investigation report. it basically illustrates their view of the world that is all these events had to line up almost coincidentally for this event to occur. and it is true -- all of these

things did have to happen, all these mistakes. but it does not coincidental that these things happen. there was something in the background that caused that single failure mechanism, and we have identified a failure of management. a failure to manage risk, to manage personnel, to train adequately, a failure to ensure good decision making. as a result of those failures of management, these eight mistakes lined up. keep in mind, each of these were not just a mistake, it was an opportunity to stop this blowout from happening. it was a failure of management that resulted in nobody's stopping it at any of those points. and i want to go over briefly what the management failures are that we identified in our report. i will not talk through it like all of them, but the first is an absence of a sense of real

responsibility. one of the problems that terry murray identified is that there are upwards of -- cherry murray identified is that there are upwards of many contractors on these rigs. you have a team out on the rig. there are a lot of different low side decision making. what we saw here was a different contractors making critical decisions often times without communicating information they had learned while making those decisions to other decision makers. for instance, bp onshore made the decision on the well- designed and on some of the cementing issues but did not communicate the risks that might be associated to those cementing issues and well-design decisions to the rig crew. they had to do that.

we found that there was an effective communications, not only between contractors of bp, but between the individuals on shore at bp and those out on the rig. you got the sense that there was say, we give you an informational on the need to know basis and the proper context was not always provided for the individuals making real time decisions. we that -- that comes down to a real lack of leadership and safety culture. it will take leadership among the companies in this industry and we only look to bp, but it will take real leadership within bp to change that safety culture and address some of these problems. i have some thoughts on how this committee might address some of these things. but it is simply a safety culture issue. number two, setting people up for failure. this comes back to what i had said earlier. there was an overreliance on human judgment.

the folks at bp trusted this rig crew, the folks at the peak trusted their well site leaders. this was a very experienced crew. their executives from bp. that day to give this crew an award for safety. but with that trust came too much reliance on human judgment. we know that people make mistakes. he will end up in a situation where people make mistakes and you have a disaster. we also saw that there was inadequate construction and on timely procedures. i'll give you an example of that in a minute. the rest to little detail given to the rig crew that had execute procedures by the folks on shore from bp. and it went off -- and they were often given to the individuals on the rig late in the day in and untimely fashion so they

cannot digest those procedures. something that is, already this morning. we saw an inadequate training in emergency situations and i will talk more about that. and then poor management and staffing. there was a sense that all personnel were fungible. for instance, the well site leader was -- the normal one was taken off of the deepwater horizon. he was replaced by todd who had experience as a well site later but not on the deepwater horizon. he did not have the context that the normal one would have had. bp treated its personnel basically as fungible. stick anyone out on the rig and everything will be fine. the needs to be a better consideration of staffing and personnel issues. and finally, an adequate risk assessment. what we saw was a lot of ad hoc

and tunnel vision decision making, particularly in the last two weeks leading up to the blowout. that is because there were serious gaps, we think, in bp's risk regime and risk assessment regime. we also identified problems with safety metrics and process safety. cost is easy to measure. people understand that. if some decision will increase costs, people appreciate it will be a costly decision. process safety is much harder to measure. up front and even after the fact. so there will be a tendency for decisions, unless there is a real robust risk assessment regime, fort decisions to be biased toward costs safety. that leads into the last point, focused on efficiency by institutions toward cost savings. >> you have about five minutes.

>> this is just an example of how many companies are out there. the charge can get very complicated. this is an example of the cement job, and numerous examples of the problems with diffuse decision making. little to no communication of those risks to the individuals responsible for executing. a result of looking at risks one at a time rather than collectively as a group. one recommendation here is making clear who is responsible. there is a tremendous amount of finger-pointing after the fat. bp says it is halliburton's responsibility to pump the cement. halliburton says it is bp's responsibility to design the cement job. we need to make clear what entities are responsible for what the citizens and probably even more so identify one specific entity who was responsible for the overall operation. i would think that that would be

the operator, but we need to make a clear. so that some of these decisions are not falling through the cracks and someone is in fact taking was possibility. poor communication, an example of that is the december 23, 20009 event in the north sea with near identical near miss on a transocean rig. transocean identified the problem there, very similar to those that led to the blowout in the gulf. but transocean did not adequately communicate those findings to its own personnel. it limited the distribution to the north sea, because that was where it occurred. but the lessons would have been useful for everyone, and rather than distributed broadly, tell everybody, you need to look at this, they simply put it in a data base. it is accessible to people but

there is no indication that anybody on the deepwater horizon ever saw that. another recommendation -- create a centralized industry-wide system to alert all concern for lessons learned and near misses. is not just within transocean. the industry could do a better job of collecting the information itself and keep better track the procedures used by different companies in order to facilitate study and identification of best practices. we've talked about overreliance on human judgment. i will not go back over that period -- over that peri. the industry is advanced in drilling technology, but it did focus on safety, and it was one of the biggest surprises to us as individuals coming from the outside. the centers, many of them are antiquated. data presentation is antiquated.

there are very few automated safety systems and checks, like on an airline or an airplane which could very easily have systems of automated warnings. the drillers in the drill site, so that they are not relying on themselves and their own judgments solid, and having to be looking at the exact right data at the exact right time and in making the right decision. it appears that this decision has lagged behind others, particularly where there is no drilling efficiency pay off. this gives you a sense of just what the driller is seeing. we were quite surprised at the level of technology there. the recommendation -- eliminate human judgment as much as possible for mistakes that have huge consequences. required redundant barriers were incidents must have two active barriers when the well is under balance. so that one fails, even though it has been tested, you have the back of another barrier. in incentivize development of technology to eliminate

reliance and human judgment were possible. i will move quickly to a couple of these. we showed the slide at our hearing but this was one of the more surprising things. in the last seven days before the blowout, the temporary abandonment procedures were changed no fewer than five times by bp. this is significant because we will see on april 14, there was going to be a second barrier prior to displacement. by april 16, the permit submitted to him as has the effective barrier being put place only after displacement durin. what this shows is that ad hoc decision making, none of these changes go into any formal risk analysis. they simply were not subject to any sort of formal risk analysis requirement within bp.

here is a recommendation. bp did not cement temporary abandonment plans with the original permit request. they did not develop until the last 10 days before the blowout. this was on purpose. they had submitted well plans. they did not want to tie themselves into a particular plan and then have to go back to mms to get a different permit if they wanted to change. that led and hot and decision making. i would require earlier submission that would require greater agency review. they also require strict adherence to ams approval procedures. bp did change the procedures that was approved by mms. i am not suggesting that particular change had a call relationship to the blowout, but it was a change made in an hot fashion. people looked at it and thought the procedures were safer.

that would have ended differently. requiring strict adherence to approved procedures will prevent that type of ad hoc decision making and force companies to do real risk analysis. as for training for emergency events, there is a lot of training and a lot of well control manuals on what to do during typical well controlled events. we'll have a small cake, which can be identified, said again, circulated out. we found an amazing lack of procedures and training for a real emergency events. for resistance -- for instance, when gas is in the riser, you have very little time to react. that gas expands as it had suffered, and expands rapidly. once it hits the rig, you are real -- you're in real trouble. ignition was almost inevitable in this case.

you go through the sections and steps to figure what the step is. but the ninth step, you need to be prepared to send the gas overboard. in a situation like this, the individuals need to be trained that gas needed to go overboard basically right away. i am not saying that over bordering the hydrocarbons would stop the disaster, particularly given the wind conditions, but they should have been willing and ready to send it over board immediately given the situation. require the company's training drill for emergency scenario such as blowouts and require companies to submit emergency procedures and training plans. and then finally, on risk assessment, the major process safety gap, and this will be the last thing. bp like most of these companies

have very robust process safety risk assessment plans in place, but only for certain stages of a well-designed -- the well design. many of the critical decisions on design and procedure were made during the execution phase. we need to make sure there is a good formal risk evaluation system in place during all phases of the well. and lastly, and most critically important, you have to have real post-execution audits for evaluating decisions that increase low probabilities for high consequence events. those things did have aligned. if anyone had stopped it at any one of those points, there would not have been the blowout. but that does not mean that

there were not good decisions made along the way. if someone had recognize the kick, we might not now know they had only one barrier during displacement. and that that is a bad decision and increases risk. unless you have meaningful audits were something does not go wrong, you will not be able to ferret out bad process safety decisions. and i will in with this. it is somewhat indicative of the ad hoc decision making. this is an e-mail from brian morel, about on the rig on april 15, when they were developing the to very abandonment procedure. he said, recommendation out here is to displace the sea water and then set the cement plug. this is the change in the order of when the plug would be set. does anyone have issues with this? response from an engineer on short -- seems ok to me.

this was a critical decision that was made and the level of risk assessment being done on that type of decision. so ensure that companies have regimes that do not have gaps in critical areas and perhaps even think about making failure to it. the ones on risk assessment freezers some sort of regulatory violation. >> thank you very much. what we start with questions. i'll turn it over to tom. >> would take about 15 minutes of questions. with necklace or scheduler taking a lunch break. >> a couple of quick ones. thank you very much for that presentation. don, someone made the comments about the failure. are you far enough along that you think you have the most likely flow path into the

central casing, and can you tell us for the benefit of the committee how likely you would get to what was a central flow path of hydrocarbons? >> i do not want to suggest that we have a definitive answer right now or that we're going to have one. our approach here is to identify both potential failure endpaths,s, and p separate what we do not know in what we think, and provide that data. in addition to that being far process, i would note we find many aspects of the cementing to be wanting, if you will. we would prefer not to make a determination that we know exactly what happened unless we truly know that that is what happened and that none of the

other factors contributed to this failure. and so that is where we are right now. we will hold to our standards. >> vechey. i notice in your assessment it was focused on the logic of decisions in the order of the decisions that were made. sean, you mentioned more formality in the injection of third parties are other ideas. did your study with the general nature of the environment and the timeframe for decisions, and conclude with those could be done speculatively? >> we did. it will depend entirely on what the decision was. for instance, the design of the temporary abandonment procedures would change dramatically over the last week before the blowout. they did not to wait that long before they came up with this design, and if they had, there was certainly still time to engage in a real formal risk

assessment process. the negative pressure test is different because it occurs in real time. what is interesting here is that the negative pressure test took three hours. the well was shut again. these guys noticed something odd going on and they did take the time to try to figure it out and get it right. the call back to shore in that situation to engage engineers familiar with negative pressure test probably would avoided the entire catastrophe. there was a situation where you would have time. things were not happening in real time they were creating immediate risks. and then there is fine with the failure to detect the influx once they were in displacement. and that really was more real time. it is hard to know what resources you could bring to bear on that. but when the regrow began to notice anomalies, there could of been a "we're going is headed in

and figure things out," rather than leave the well, this place it, while it tried to dig knows -- i guess the problem. -- while we try to diagnose the problem. >> thank you both for these great presentations. putting a lot of information about your work before this committee, to give us some real context, i think is great. don, have a question not asking for the answer, but you anticipate -- you could sit in your presentation on the failures of limitation of the b.o.p. to stem the flow. do you expect that you will be able to look at the failures of the b.o.p. with respect to its design and specifications as well as what s which is what actually happened on that day? >> that is one of the areas we are looking into. we note that b.o.p.'s are

specified designed and tested to static conditions. we also note that they are used often under dynamic conditions. as it was attempted in this particular case, and i think we will be noting some of those issues and making suggestions, recommendations if you will, of relative to what may be appropriate in the future to provide a more robust capability. what also like to note of this surprise to us, the extent to which some of the limitations or shall we say uncertainties associated with b.o.p.'s seemed not to be well understood. within at least the senior management levels.

the question of whether or not the history, if you will, as reflected in the data bases as well as other sources of the information relative to failures of b.o.p.'s are well understood, communicated, and in fact part of the training and education of key decision makers in these processes. not clear. we will be addressing those aspects, i believe, and our final report. >> thank you. >> i have a clarification question for don. on your multiple decisions, there was a bullet point on the casing. as i understand, there were flow valves there. >> a number of issues associated with the design of that.

and whether or not the design would have permitted a complete cementing bottom lot to have been run. it could have at least determine top of cement in this particular situation but would not have been able to fully explore, and that has to do the way in which it was designed. >> the cement log will allow 12 times this -- 12 hours to set the cement. >> yes. [inaudible] , sean.estion for you come the high pressure used to convert the flow valve. was it clearly a complicated procedure and not proceeding according to plan? there was a comment that someone on the rig thought that maybe

the casing had been damaged by the high pressures that were reached in attempt to convert the flow so that they could start proceeding with the procedures and something may have been damaged in the casing. is there some component in the casing that could have actually ruptured at those kind of pressures? or was the real time conjecture? >> from what we could tell, it was real time conjecture. i don't think he had any specific notion as to what might have ruptured. we cannot. -- which can point to that has call, having any sort of causal connection. but it did try that shine a spotlight on the poor decision making and poor management of situations as they come up on the rig. they had difficulty controlling -- converting the floats. an individual thought something had blown out of the bald.

they ran a few tests, were not able to figure out what was going on, and decided to put off until later that concerned, because they knew at some point later, there would be performing a positive drug test and that would indicate any problems with casing integrity. it seems that once they had gotten that passed the low conversion and thought they had gotten to where they needed to be, there was no memory of their having been a problem with low conversion. and it got down to the negative pressure test, when there were kick detections after the negative tests, no one had in their mind that there was a weird stuff with a cement job, we better be particularly careful about what we're seeing in the data and the pressure reading. anything out of the ordinary should be treated as a problem with the cement job. >> one additional question on that. it was not clear that the field this place which could allow the cement to go back up into

the casing, you note that that did not happen? >> we cannot rule that out. >> a simple question with a complicated answer. if you go through redundancy, much debate on discussion on that, how you define redundancy in this case? and we have a recommendation, had to look at other industries? there's a lot of debate about having a back up in the same system line. you have an independent system to have redundancy. is there also recommendation of redundancy given the disbursed to safety and redundant management to address the high safety risk? the both of you identified? >> we did not look at whether it would help to have redundant management. one of the problems we identified is that they were too many cooks in the kitchen and decisions were being made by one

entity and another that made it critical decision did not know what was going on. i would be careful to further decentralize that process. as far as looking at other industries and how they would -- to find redundancy, we did not do that. this is a simple point we were trying to make that these barriers do sometimes fail. people sometimes do not identify that failure. so at least having one more active barrier in place that does not depend on human judgment, pressing a button that someplace on the rig, would be an easy recommendation. >> let me add one other thought to that. one of the issues were identified in our in our report that i expect will be further amplifying on in our final report has to do with the concept of in detective -- independent technical parties. -- authority bop.

-- authorities. the separate operational control and technical authority. the individuals making a determination on the adequacy of the technical decision making on at the same individuals that are responsible for cost schedule and operations. that is, if you will, a check and balance, whether you want to call that a redundant management system or not, i've had just note it is a system that has been used in a number of other areas that i am familiar with, and it does still permit clear- cut management of party -- authority. >> as terrible as this incident was, it could have been worse had there been an underground blowout. there was an indication of that

earlier in mid drilling process, that that right to the formation. and that led to many decisions to not only when they were drilling but also during the attempts to stop the flow. in the national academy and the nrc studies, are you expecting to reach any insights on those types of risks and perhaps another case that we might need to be concerned about as we look at regulations going forward? >> one of the areas we're looking at specifically has to do with the unique aspects of this particular reservoir structure. the five different zones, the various floor pressures, but try to radiance, and the challenges, if you will, associated with attempting to cement and close out all five zones with one single application. we're going to be looking at that, in particular, the specific issue here, and

hopefully we can generalize that to provide a better perspective on how one may want to manage such risks in the future. >> as we close, just one comment and i will turn it back over to michael. these are terrific insights into something that occurred. this will be a four-looking committee tried to gain information on what has happened hanna. put that into a framework or we can make recommendations on what alternatives we have in the future. it is very important that we gain enough insight into that. but it is not in my judgment not afford to get all the details of all the deepwater macondo experience behind this, but we will spend some time into the lessons learned. the two of you have really set us up nicely for that. >> thanks, tom. i wanted to thank both don a andsean for their eliminating

and helpful presentations. you read mine. -- you read my mind. this lays down a factual background looking backwards, and now we can look at the lessons learned which will in turn informed the deliberations so central to the work of this committee. thank you both for a very helpful presentation. let me turn it over the brad. >> we will take our break for lunch. we will start promptly at 1:00. remarks from secretary salazar. at this point, we are on break until 1:00 p.m. we will be starting promptly. members of the committee, you have a list of local restaurants. for all the folks would join this in the audience, pick one up. they are available at the tables. thank you very much and we will see what accurate 1:00. >> was actually get in place by 1:00, which means assembled by five or 10 minutes before. [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national >> the committee also heard from secretary ken salazar. >> it is a great pleasure for us to have the secretary with us this afternoon. i'll turn this over to michael. >> the secretary does not like long introductions. it is my pleasure to welcome him to join us at the meeting. we're telling the we're delighted to have his support and his presence here today. and with that, i'll turn it over to secretary salazar. >> thank you very much, director bromwich, and chairman hunter,

and brad, for your leadership of this committee and i am looking for to the results. the men make several points. the first is, last night i read each and every one of your bios in your resonates. -- and your resumes. i have to s it is one of the most outstanding groups of scientists and experts that have ever been assembled in the united states to deal with the issues of oil and gas drilling. for every one of you, i know what your responsibilities are within your companies in the ngo community is within government, and i want to say thank you for being very much a part of this effort. to dr. tom hunter, he and i and some of you in this room lived through the deepwater horizon natural crisis -- national crisis for our country.

he reminded us the other day at the international containment forum, for 140 days, we're on the phonelmost every single days. i remember on a plane trip, flying down to houston in those early days, for the deepwater horizon explosion, and he was drawing different diagrams for me on the plan on how he and his staff could bring the macondo well under control at the time. in the ensuing days and weeks and many months that we went to that national crisis, he was the president's right-hand man, secretary to pause right hand man, and mine as we get to the nation -- guided the nation for the crisis. we work closely with jane, who is very much part of that, as well as other people involved with us. fink you for being chairman of this organization. a quick word about michael. we recruited him

>> to come and help us perform about how we do of oil and gas drilling with the department of the interior. he has had a very busy last year. we have a lot more work to do. he and i often talk and have meetings where we recognize that many of our reform efforts have been very good over the last year. we are very proud of the efforts that we have underway. wilson know that this is a dynamic situation. we will continue to learn and to implement things. we brought together the 12 countries from throughout the world incding places like india and brazil, mexico and canada to talk about the future of ocean dwelling -- drilling. it reminded me once again about

how global this industry is. it is not just what we do on the united states side of the gulf of mexico, but it very much inlved in the future of the border. we have been working hard on that effort to make sure that we move forward with the gulf of mexico and a common set of oil and gas drilling. for several weeks, [unintelligible] and also recognize that in terms of deep water, they are the no. 1 deepwater producer in the world. with otherountries around the world, it gives us an opportunity because of the fact

that we went through to develop the gold standard as we move forward with oil and gas production. our policy has been clead. its important for economic security. the oceans of america, including deep water. when we say deep water, weay, yes, even though we went [unintelligible] those lessons that we have learned and are continuing to learn will help us move forward in a way that will develop the resources in a safe way.

you have a major assignment as a committee to help our nation d really to help our world in terms of how we develop oil and gas. the ints have been laid out to you in terms of the possibility of encapsulating things, recognizing that there is additional work to do. on the investigations and assessments that have been done, drilling and workplace safety is a key point to focus on. if we never have another deepwater horizon, that would be great. the prevention side of what we do is really important. in the second area of what happens when you do have the

very low probability of than, it will be likely did. we want to make sure that we are prepared and able to go into the containment program that while it allowed the kind of skls for the 87 days that we have them actively still here. what are the best containment strategies? dealing with oil spill response, making sure we have the most effective oil spill response, having the united states coastguard being here with us today and members of this committee as well in dealing with that.

i was very impressed. >> thank you for joining us this afternoon. i was to join the secretary in thanking you for joining us. we are reminded how critically important it is for us to bring about the broad experience and the best minds. he suggested, we are in a much better place than we were a year ago.

as we push forward, a year in the future. in the aftermath, people have begun to realize the importance of bringing together, we'll look at the iues from an academic perspective and various other perspectives as well. we feel very good about the concept of this committee a the composition of this committee. they reviewed their resonate as last night and did not see the incredibly distinguished applicants for membership on this committee. one of the toughest things i have done is sifting through an incredible number of qualified people to distill it down to the

people or the groups that we have today. its a tribute to the number of people that we have serving. frankly, it is a tribute to you that you were the selections that we made. the presentations we heard this morning have already highlighted a number of areas that are in need of further research. i was gratified by the number and the incisiveness of the questions that many of you have asked this morning. it shows you are up on the issues and that you're looking to help push those foreword as we move forward. three activities are of particular interest for the entire department. i woul like to lay those of very briefly. what we need is a thorough assessment of the existing procedures and technologies.

for drilling and workplace safety, source containment, and clean out. as well as recommendations for additional search in those fields. we have made a comprehensive list of government in drilling and workplace safety containment and responsive to identify gaps in the current knowledge base. d last but not least, we're very interested now and in the future, the best mechanisms for long-term cooperation. i think that is what has been missing in the past. i think this committee can help begin to fill the gap. as the secretary suggested, it is a continuous and dynamic process.

you'll want to figure out what thappropriate institutions are to make sure that this kind of collaboration continues. let me say thank you to your service for the country. we look forwarto your recommendations to make sure and that it can be conducted in a more environmentally responsible way. >> i like to make a comment about the leadership of this agency. you wonder if, in fact, the leadership of the country is interested in what you have to say. you wonder if the leadership also cares about the details of what you're doing. they are deeply embedded in this

important topic. there is an enormous amount of time understanding the ramifications of what might come out of this committee. i can only a testo the beginning of every day with telephone calls to the secretary. and pointing out that this is an engaged leadership, and it will listen to us earnestly. thank you to you both. >> if i n reflect on a personal level, i remember it will always be blazoned in my mind. a lot of things have happened including the fact that they have in the having to have a root canal. it is probably set for the hours

of the dentist's chair. the question relative to the risks that we are assessing in terms of replacing the ceiling had. and whether or not it would remain in place and what some of the factors were relative to integrity. in a very interesting way, looking back at the difficulty and the pain of the hundred and 40 days that we went through. my great hope is that the legacy is a good legacy. it is a legacy that we will be able to do something moving forward with oil and gas production.

thank you to all ofou. >> and you would rather have a root canal? [laughter] >> will star with in the third panel's presentations in two minutes. >> and a few moments, a forum on the future of labor unions. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern. a couple of live events to tell you about today. president obama holds a town hall-style meeting on his deficit reduction plans. he will be at the northern virginia community college at 10:15 a.m. eastern.

at 1:00 p.m. eastern, it is the national press club debate on energy policy between cnn founder ted turner and t. boone pickens. turner is expected to discuss his solar projects, while pickens will discuss his plans to promote alternate resources such as wind, solar, and natural gas. >> i think we are all badly for democrats and republicans to get the country on the right track. >> the debate ahead of us is about more than spending levels. it is about the role of government itself. >> with the economy of spending result, lawmakers turned their attention to the debt limit. watch around washington online anytime with the c-span video library. surge, watch, clip, and share --

is what you want when you want. >> now discussion on the future of labor unions in america. hosted by wayne state unicorp -- when state university in detroit. united auto workers and the communication workers of america. this is an hour and half. >> to start the program, what i am going to do if asked each of the panel we have got to take a minute, maybe two minutes max, and identify one dimension which is impacting it the movement today. we want to understand where the movement is today before talking about the future. talk about one item that is impacting the labor movement. it could be something impacting it positively, - 3, and would

you like to start? >> yes. sure. thank you for having me here. one thing that is affecting the labor union -- labor movement right now, it is both positive and negative. to give scott walker, the mobilize their of the year award, this year. it is more than just an attack on collective bargaining. it is actually an attack on democracy itself, because going after collective bargaining, they are going after the right to work, but they're also going after voters' rights, state rights. it was said that students in new hampshire is should now be able to vote because they are a row. that is a direct quote. they want to rewrite history.

they want to take down a mural that talks about the history of maine because it was said to be to a worker oriented. taking away the strength of private-sector, trying to tie up our resources, but there is a positive side, and we are trying to do this. in wisconsin, we have organized five new universities since this battle. 1 -- [laughter] we're bringing in more so the backside and permanent increase in the number of people, and the other thing it had done the most effectively, i think, is to bring all progressive groups

together. progressive groups are working together and solidarity more than ever. >> thank you. >> working in the automotive world, what is your dimension? >> well, it is for all labor movement, and it is much broader, as he was saying. there is a new social justice movement coming together, and i think that when unions are focused on everybody in society, the great united labor table, bringing together the energy in the membership, and i hope that south is going to talk about his union it -- seth is going to talk about his union. >> ok, thank you. >> michigan, ohio, illinois,

indiana, and wisconsin. i want to take a minute and reflect on what is going on in those states. it is very exciting. i think that this is an incredible moment in america. i think this is a moment when the political ground is shifting. also, in terms of the organization of people. in ohio, there were 3000 people at the statehouse. i reminded them that six months ago, 3000 people was huge. 500 people is small. this is a challenge for us.

it is a majority, not just unions, and you will see this happening across the midwest. tolet's move closer to home, the state level, and the state of michigan. >> so the first step to building that movement and across the borders is to build it with our own members. we live in a time when we have lost a lot of members and have lost a lot of opportunity. when this country gives away the manufacturing jobs, that is 1 million families who do not top union at their dinner table or talk union to their neighbors, so we have to take are millions of members and mobilize them to build the majority we have been talking about.

>> you know, there is a multiple of external challenges that we have, but as mark and others have said, i think it will be the internal things we do within our union. unions have to come together. two unions over here and two over here will never make for. -- four. it has to be a bad unions coming together, and if you believe there is strength in numbers and that we need strength to fight those each rural programs, then we have got to bring the unions together, but we also have to truly, truly focus on localizing our members. we have to use that worker to worker process, where there are people at work sites who are actually talking. they are not just putting things on the board are getting something in the mail that they are not going to read.

it had got to be communication, and that communication have got to be at the level where everybody is. i mean facebook and twitter and email and text, and wherever folks are, that is where we need to be, though it had got to be using the rank and file a lot more than we have in the past and trying to get them to feel some ownership. i have been around for over 40 years, where people have said to me, "you need to do something." i am thankful, as well, for what is happening, because it helps us to mobilize and helps us -- it highlights the issues of who we are. >> let's move to the government sector. >> personally, i would like to thank everybody else for the opportunity to be here and participate in this panel, and from the federal side of things,

i think we have both a challenge and opportunity with what is going on in the country right now, and the challenge and opportunity we really have, at the heart of that is how do we re-engaged and reenergize the federal work force which does become disenfranchised and demoralized. you avulsing the impact in the media. we have seen the attacks from congress with the federal employees. we know that government is on the verge of shutting down at midnight tomorrow. we see an attack on benefits. we see employees characterized as overpaid, underworked, as lazy. and what this does is allow of the men and women to be disconnected, from knowing and believing that what they do matter of and that they make a contribution to the greatness of

this country into our society, so what we really need to be about doing is changing the freight -- frame of reference. this is from the debate that has gone on in this country essentially from the elections of november of last year, and i think it is going to be a continuing debate, and organized labor needs to seize the opportunity to get engaged in this debate and to help frame the debate and make folks understand that all working men and women offer something of value to this country that need to have a voice in the workplace. >> ok, we have bounced around a couple of times in our comments.

wisconsin. for the people in this room, for the people watching and on c- span, what happened in wisconsin and why it is so important? >> sure. legislation was offered up by the governor and the legislature to essentially weaken or restrict collective bargaining rights for public sector unions. in response to that, the sleeping giant of organized labor rows up, and thousands of active is -- rose up, and thousands of activists essentially took over the area. i think where we are right now, i think ultimately, whether that legislation is enacted or not will be determined by the

boards. >> you made a great line. giving the best recruiter award to the governor of wisconsin. what can be done to take it managed of that situation so it does turn into recruiting could >> to actually paid a bit more of the picture of what happened in wisconsin, because we jump in right at the point of the battle. first, this governor gets elected, and he has a surplus in his budget. he takes that surplus, and he gives major cuts to which america. he created what is a miniscule deficit, and he says, "now i have a deficit, and we are in crisis, so you have to give me something." phillie ask for a 5% contribution from the public

employees and a 10% contribution from the pension plan. pension plans that were down because of the recession. here is what we found out when we started sifting through it. it was said that workers were paying too much. we found out is that they were paid less than their private- sector employees, not more. it was 25% less. so we found out that there was a deficit. he did not have a problem with the pension. but the workers and wisconsin said they were willing to pay

their pay -- their fair share. we will give you the 5% cut and the 10% from pensions, even though they are totally unjustified and that the rich people, corporations, did not have to share and it, -- in it. but he could not say yes. he said he wanted more. "i want to take away your right to bargain. i want to prevent new. i do not want you to be able to talk about patient care. you, mr. fireman, a police officer, i will be able to dictate." and the public in wisconsin and everywhere else said, "enough.

enough is enough. we hired you to create jobs, not destroy them." so they came out and tripled the grass roots movement. they could not get this thing passed because of all of the people. the democrats decided to leave the states and they could not have a quorum. so they literally in the middle of the night, near 3:00 a.m., they passed this thing in the middle of the night. again, it backfires on them. they said "mathison of." if there is some thought about him or another governor are overreaching, he continues to

drop like a rock in a shallow pool. workers have banded together. they have had an election on tuesday. all three democratic senators one because those on the republican side said that report -- support this governor. 55 to 25 just three months ago, and she came back and beat him, and that is the sea change. [applause] i apologize for taking so long to get to your question. but i thought was necessary to have the background. so how you build on this issue

continue to stoke it. there are petitions. we have enough votes for two more senators. take them to recall and flip that over, getting friendly candidates into the senate, and when they see the power that they have, it becomes infectious. you talk about corruption, in ohio, they did not have enough votes to pass some things. they did not have enough votes, so they started the vote, and in the middle of the vote, they were moved two republican senators.

to get it out of committee, and the vote is 17-16. if it had been the other way, they would have lost in committee, and it would have been all over. now we have a citizen veto. we are all together in this. a citizen veto. and when people see this to stop overreaching governors, i think it becomes infectious. [applause] >> so i think what is happening not just in wisconsin but throughout the country, the story you have heard in ohio,

there are 22 republicans. the democrats could not even stop any day. the republicans had a super majority. but there was a grass roots lobbying of citizens. not union members, citizens across the state. they created so much pressure that they could not get the bill out of the committee. then they could not get it through the senate morals committee to get a vote on the senate rules committee. collective bargaining in ohio. this is important. it was citizen driven. this whole effort is a citizen driven effort. it is a bipartisan effort. it is a grass-roots effort.

this is a very, very interesting phenomenon. it is to my knowledge, in the history of america, that the people have done this on the issue of collective bargaining. living wage, other things. but this has not happened to my knowledge anywhere else. this is a very conservative state in a lot of ways. a combination of mass action, mass movement. coming together, not just for a bigger movement but the faith community being involved in doing stuff. quite dramatic.

and it has an impact on the climate. the public and private sector, right? it had not been doing so hot for a variety of reasons. >> yes, i just want to chime in on the recall he is. -- recall peace. -- piece. if they do not listen to voices or anything, they will listen to recall. for years to come, when we showed them the power that we have with the recall, we will never have problems.

if we do a recall, i know they definitely will listen. >> bob, in the automotive industry, for the last couple of years, there have been a lot of changes in compensation and benefit packages. it was tough negotiations, tough to accept, but it did not seem to be as galvanizing as what was happening in wisconsin. >> i think that is because there were totally given situations. the problem with all of these governors, and it is important to understand that this is a coordinated national attack on working people. they are trying to take more and more money away from seniors, from kids in school, k through 12, and give it all to the

wealthiest. the fiscal problem is not too much benefit. the problem is we have given too much money to the wealthy, and if that money was back in our communities and back here, we would not be having this. when we went through the automotive industry because of some bad decisions that were made and everything, there was a crisis. part of the crisis was created by the same people. but we had to react. in my view, the crisis at the state and federal of it is a revenue crisis -- or federal level is a revenue crisis. the first thing he did was to get away another $1.70 billion to $1.90 billion to corporations in michigan without asking for a single thing to help the community. that is the biggest welfare did

when you can ever think of. there are no requirements. it is not that a single corporation has to bring in a single job for those dollars. and then, how does he want to finance it? he wants to finance it with taxes on the pensions of retirees. i know what it takes to get corporations to invest in the community, and one of the most important things that look that is what is the educational system in that community and what is the skills of the workers. this is trying to take $480 per student away from k through 12 education. we should have 50,000 people in lansing. this is outrageous. these are hard-working people who because we have a lack of a labor movement, collective bargaining rights in this

country, are working 40 hours per week and making poverty- level wages. many years ago, we should have why isn't up. now, he wants to take that away from them while he supports giving the wealth these millionaires and billionaires an extension on their taxes. so with the outrage here and basic fairness and basic justice is what i believe it is this notion social justice movement in the united states, and i am excited about it. i think you will see a change in the united states. [applause] >> it seems to me what we're hearing is there is this whole sea change. traditionally, when i started a career, people would pay their dues. they would do their job and take their turns in the local union, doing their work to keep it

going, and expect better pay, better working conditions, pay, and now, i pay my dues, i do my job, and i may lose some day and lose some benefits. how is that changing the mindset? >> the way you describe it in the past is right. now, these threats to them are from the outside. who changed the lot i can no longer collectively bargain? they have always been part of a movement, but not everybody understood it. this is the opportunity to talk to them about being part of a movement and making that as important to them as the next contract, and you are beginning

to hear a lot of communication that the reasoning of difficult negotiations is not centered right here in the company alone. the reason health care is on the table is not centered in the health of this alone. this is a national crisis. so we are using this opportunity, and we must, if our members are very receptive to this, we are using this opportunity to broaden their outlook, and i think it is only going to pay dividends, and, frankly, one concern that i have is with the excitement and interest by members and people in the community, the election is a very important thing, too. >> and definitely, it has to last. the motion will make it last. i think we're doing a better job with the opportunity for

education, and it is about educating not only the community but also educating our members, which is why when they understand what is going on, why they did not get a pay raise or whatever, so i think it is about education, and it is just a real opportunity to, again, bill the labor movement. >> we have been talking about -- this is today's world. what do employees what from their labour unions? are they looking just for traditional services and a normal type of dues, or in this sea change, are they looking for something else? rich? >> first of all, i want to go back and attack the basic premise of what you said. but this is just something we have to except. we are still the richest nation on the face of the earth korea

over the last 30 years, listen to this, all of the income gains that the country has seen has gone to the top 10%, and 58% of all of the income gains we have seen in the united states had gone to the top 1%, and 30% of all of the gains have gone to one-tenth of 1%, and that means that one american out of every 1000 gets 30% of all of the income gains. it is not giving people a fair chance to get ahead, and you are seeing ian, and the quality level in this country suffer, and we hear the republicans. we heard ryan yesterday. "we cannot afford good jobs. we cannot do in here," says he. "we cannot afford health care for everybody."

they do it in the rest of the world, but we cannot do it here, says he. retirement security, they do it in the rest of the world, but they cannot do it here, says he. and education, we have to cut back away. a good public education is now a frail or a commodity of the rich. -- now a frill. a governor like chris christie, the governor of new jersey, says, "look. you do not have a pension, and these overpaid public employees do. let's take it away from them." in america, did we not always say, "somebody -- everybody needs to have a pension." they want us to scale back on

the american dream, and we refuse to give up on the american dream. [applause] so this is a time for us to come together and actually reeducate america. there are some of my friends who are in education. a couple of others have come to me to tell me we are missing it. this is a time when you can be educating your members on a different type of economic policy. and i think they're absolutely right. that is what we need to do, because america does not have to give away everything that made us great. we can still achieve it. i believe that. [applause] >> i think that is absolutely right, and this is why we are

trying to do these things in different ways, to help organize citizens, and that is what this is about. people like chris christie and one from indiana have called this a privilege. it is a privilege to lead this country. the top 25 hedge fund managers on wall street made $25 billion in 2010. that is enough to pay for, you know, three-quarters of a million teachers. to add more value to our economy? by the way, those hedge fund managers are paid taxes at a lower rate than the teachers in michigan.

for most of america's history, for most of michigan's history, for most of wisconsin's history, good jobs and strong communities. these are connected. we need an educated population. we did it. we all pulled it together for a public education for everybody. these are policies that help build the middle class in this country. for the past 30 years, we have had a different view of the world free trade without any labor standards, giving huge tax breaks to rich people in

corporations and hedge fund managers. without any kind of regulation at all. we did that for the next 30 years. how is that working for america? this is an opportunity that we have for that kind of change. i think our members expect differently as a whole different level of communication. some of this is generational, right? it used to be that some did not want to worry about the details. one of the challenges we face is to not just education on this but with email and text and social media to be a part of feeling very connected to this

fight, very connected to the broad movement. >> we will change gears, but in the same general direction, in the communications business, we used to have wires. it used to be the every assembly test was done by a person, and now this robotics. the government is going into a whole new sets of programs. how does that impact the unions? how do you deal with that could >> well, let me jump in. making a better nation. it means making a larger middle class, to me. understanding the framing of the issues today. people, just when they walk out

of here, -- i lived in ann arbor, and there are bridges that they have cut off because they do not have the money to rebuild the bridge. it may collapse. we're becoming a third world country because we are letting the right extremists in this country define everything about cutting, cutting, cutting and giving it all to the wealthiest. the things that which talked about. income created by workers be more productive. we were told of we were more productive, we would share in the gains from productivity, whether it be in manufacturing or new technology, instead of that, the compact is broken, and it is going to the wealthiest.

what i see and is what i am concerned about is that people are waking up. we talked about the frustration of people voting. that has changed. the extremists have point -- pushed it so far that governor walker or scott, they have pushed it. they are realizing if they want a decent future for themselves and their kids and their grandkids, they have to stand up and fight. president obama, and this is the final part. president obama in my opinion is the best present we have elected. he is more worker friendly, but here is a mistake i believe we made. we fell into this trap like we did about thinking it was about the contract.

we thought if you let the right person, they will get the job done. we collected were obama, and we went back to our couches. -- we elective obama. where were we? not being activist enough. what you're seeing is as coming alive and realizing it is not about a socially election. -- a single election. the sit-down strike. what is the great lesson of that? if they had waited for legislative change, the what would have never been changed. now, it was important that just before the sit-down, we learned that frank murphy, a democrat to be, it with he who refused to build -- bring in