with such a pluralized process. that is what all other countries have to do with united states every day. china is becoming more like the united states. it is a pluralized, messy, often difficult, often un- transparent, difficult actor. we look in our chapter at this discourse which is very diverse. why in an authoritarian one- party state and strong internal security, isn't there a coherence of the views? the answer is no. there is no coherent of views. there is huge animated, ongoing debates about a variety of issues. the paper goes into some detail on each of these seven issues that are being debated.

there are other issues being debated but these are the seven principal ones that we look at. these are the topics with which chinese pundits, policy makers, acted -- academics have been most fixated over the past few years. but those on the table. we did not try -- i hope you can see that slide -- week dis- abrogate the discourse into several schools. evan made a good, that we need to marry better the seven issues to the seven schools. that can be easily done a matrix. we should have done already but we will do so in the next draft we see a spectrum of views that emerge in the chinese discourse

about its own international identity. this is a spectrum about china's own global roles. we find there are these discernible tendencies, those of us who were schooled in the soviet union long time ago, you remember tendency analysis. skillimg and griffith - this is the literature we need to draw on. these are tendencies. these are fluid debates. these are not fixed debates. i would argue that it is impossible to tie schools of thought to particular institutions or even individuals. our interviews with many individuals for this project shows the chinese strategic and -- the anchors are eclectic. they are not coherent. they are a bit like us. they will tell you one thing that fits in one school in the

next sentence will be another. it is hard to pigeonhole people and institutions to schools. having said that, these seven distinct tendencies emerge. when we get into the rest of the project this morning and if you read the introductory chapter, these seven schools are similar to but different from the three schools. it is identified in the india paper three predominant schools, nationalist, a realist, global list. these seven schools fit that broader template. the three central schools which are regionalists federalist category.

the selective multilateralists set the global list category. -- fit the global list category. i apologize you cannot see this because it is too small. i am just learning power point. the slide looks at each school along three indices. were the origins of the school? what a policy goals of the school? water the tactics that the school uses to try to achieve its goals? i took this from deepa's paper and have tried to do this for the chinese. there are very distant origins, gold, and tactics. i still an idea from the dick samuels paper. you had a very nice chart, i remember.

the japanese schools were on an active/passive u.s. position. i tried to position my seven schools on a similar spectrum. what you hopefully can see is that the major powers are potential candidates for cooperation with the united states. the multilateralists are selective and cooperating because they have to and because they will be shamed in the international community for not cooperating. they do as well as possible but with a high profile. it is tactical. it is not philosophical. they do not buy into the western liberal agenda. you have the other schools that

i would argue are not anti-u s but they are anti american. that is another way to think about these schools in policy terms. maybe i can sharpen that discussion. finally, what the policy implications to the united states if this came through? there should be three colors on the slide. the first color is the school, the second color is basically short and sweet, where do they stand on the u.s. and the third color is what should the u.s. do about it or think about them? the nativists are deeply hostile to the u.s. and we should ignore them but be aware of them. they represent the strands of thinking in chinese society. the chinese foreign policy of

increasing reflects the strands in the populist. the realists seek to challenge the united states and strengthen china. that is their main goal. what does that mean for us? those that argue for strategic hedging argue that that is the best way to deal with such a semidesert revisionist/realist state. the major powers schools is the good news. these other guys we can work with. they want to work with us and we saw that on display in january with the hu jintao visit. the implication for the united states is engagement. we work with this school. this school has been dominant in the leadership over time, particularly hu jintao has grudgingly, around to this school. -- come around to this school.

hu jintao has changed and is thinking overtime from a kind of global revisionist, russia- oriented, asia and view to the major powers kind of thinking. finally, we have the asia first school which seeks to compete with and undermine the united states in asia. they see that as their backyard. they say we are the intrusive party. for the united states, that means we have to maintain our presence, strengthen our alliances and partnerships and soft power in the region. the global sow school which we saw on display hunan province, they seek to undermine the united states and western dominance in the system. that means we need to play that game. we need to compete with the middle powers.

many to increase u.s. aid and activism in the developing world. under the obama administration, development has been elevated.

the global lists are a natural partner for the united states ended believe incomprehensive

multi-lateral listen. they believe in contributing much more, substance a plea to global governance. we should welcome this but we should realize they are a minority and i would argue that this credited kemp and school and the chinese discourse in the last couple of years. that is basically our takeaway for policy. let me close by arguing that the chinese international identity is not fixed. this is highly fluid. it remains very contentious. it is very much under debate. it is very much a work in progress. therefore, the united states and others can influence these ongoing debates for both actions and words and our part and we can do so negatively and positively. we can reinforce some of the more negative trends for a certain nativist and realist actions on our own part and we

are highly capable of that, i would argue. i really worry that the american realist and the chinese realists will clashed together. we need a much more sophisticated strategy ban -- on the american side than to push the default realist button. we have seen this movie before, is called the soviet union. that is not the movie we are looking at today. there are those in this country and in this government who i think believe that. this is a work in progress. it is fluid, dynamic, we affect their debates. we have to recognize we are the sente -- center of gravity -- we have to recognize where the center of gravity lies. we have to recognize that and there are institutions like the people's liberation army tied to that school. this is fluid, but that helps explain, i think, some of the

multifarious actions on the part of the chinese government and the last two years. we see china in the international arena acting in contradictory ways. my argument is that the chinese are puzzled because they have this debate internally. that is one reason for the seemingly contradictory behavior of the international and regional states in asia. these roles will evolves as the perceptions the vault. they could hearten and get worse. the realists and the major powers are already the center of gravity but there is a strong pull from the-desperate jernigan become much more truculent and much more assertive and much more difficult for us to deal with. it is not really that the movement will be toward the right hand and of the spectrum. we hope it is but there are strong and powerful forces at

work in china that argue that may not be the case. we have to perceive multiplicity of voices and advocates over the years ahead. that will sustain the chinese multi-dimensional form policy. with that, i will stop and leave it to my good friend in colleague mike lampton to tell me where i have gone wrong. >> ok, can i put this lid down here? >> you can open that. >> thank you very much, david and ren-chau. you can convey my congratulations for a great paper. you could focus on areas of additional clarity but let that not obscure the fact that this is a fascinating paper as evan

mentioned. it as their research and it does a lot to map a landscape which is a welcome thing to me and many of our colleagues. this is a terrific paper. let me say first of all that it raises a couple of very central developments in chinese foreign policy. this is just one expression of the polarization of the chinese foreign policy process. also, i think it is a reflection of what i would say is a weaker chinese leadership and a stronger chinese society in the policy process. this really raises a number of questions that i would like you to at least -- this paper is more important in a sense even

though it appears bkush. who speaks for china? i would like the comments of evan but who you listen to as authoritative on various policy issues? in the sense of most closely linked to actual behavior of the system. there may be more than one. group. who speaks for chinese policy? this bears on the whole question of when we say the ality.e have intention alida that is hiding a lot. who are the chinese? where does the intentionality in the system resides? ? all those issues cannot be answered in this paper.

when we talk about the chinese have intentionality, who are we talking about? secondly, this paper raises and the fascinating question to me. as americans, we think all good things come from democracy. there is a proclivity there. in fact, as you look at the range of views, if they are going to be given more expression in chinese society, in fact, what comes out in your paper is actually the top leaders seem to be the moderates, frequently, in this situation. if overtime leadership becomes less salient and society more salian, you have to wonder where chinese policy and behavior is happening. this is somebody who is an interdependence guide. interdependence and

globalization raises the cost of conflict and therefore, i would have thought in some sense reduced the probability of at least system destructive conflict. in fact, i am beginning to wonder if increasing interdependence does not breed resentment and conflict. there are these big questions that your paper raises. i know that was not your design necessarily to enter them. secondly, i would call your attention to what i would say are some interesting charts and tables. you mentioned your policy and the spectrum of tendencies and so on but i thought some of the other charts or eight -- were fascinating as well on page 13. you have a figure one which talks about the frequency of articles on soft power. what seems interesting to me is

these articles peaked in about 2008 and dropped precipitously. i know the problem with content analysis and frequency counts in all of this stuff. it seems to me that there is a relationship between perception of the strength of the u.s. and the popularity of the idea of soft power. broadly speaking, the weaker the united states is perceived, the less attractive and -- in relative terms sought power is. some explanation for what your hypothesis is with respect to that is a very interesting thing. your figure three on page 21 did a similar kind of frequency count on the china model. i would say that is the expression that china had found the path to development and provides a model, at least, for others in some broad sense if not in specificity. what is interesting is that

shoots up by more than 200% in the 2007 and 2009. it seems more related to the assertive character that you talked of chinese foreign-policy and so forth. then you have to figure four on page 23. i thought this was fascinating. it is the relative frequency counts on different areas of the world that chinese academics are looking at the united states, although we drop in percentage terms quite substantially in 2008, what struck me more than anything is how off the radar screen europe is to the chinese. it is totally disproportionate to any fair rating of the importance of europe. also, you raise the issue of russia. from what you said and what i believe is that russia in the long run is not a terrific

strategic partner for china. in any case, i thought that charge about the relative attention that china is paying two different areas seen so disproportionate. i think the chinese are underestimating europe, japan, and the united states in some sense in terms of resilience. the implications of that, some discussion would be useful. it seems that beyond the data, i have some questions. that is what i want to focus a bit about. on page 16, your seven tendencies chart, the spectrum. i have to confess to my failing but it seems to me that those boxes are not exactly comparable units. it seems to me that there is some lack of clarity between identities, the use of the word

identities, perceptions, conceptions of interest, conceptions of capability and we have the radical orientations. in other words, the boxes are put on the same line but they're different things. i was trying to think how it would make more sense to me. it seems that you have two theoretical orientations. one is the realist and the other end of the spectrum is the interdependent global list types. below that, you have the other boxes that can fit under york realists. you have major power orientation which seems pretty consistent with realism. asia first would seem to fall there and global south would seem to follow. you have that have a realistic but realism is a theoretical

orientation into which these other things seem to fall. interdependence under that is a sort of the radical orientation. you have global list and select a multilateral we still are left with the reality you describe. many people don't fit neatly into one or the other. this seems to put these boxes a little more than a comparable kind of way. the seven boxes on the same line did not quite clarify things well for me. the second broad comment is i am still wondering how important are scholars? this is essentially documented how chinese scholars view their own circumstance and role in the world. that raises the question of how important art scholars? in the policy process? you have to have a section on

the chinese policy process as i understand it. on several occasions, one was on page 24, you said a majority of senior leaders and policy makers still endorse a major power orientation. i agree with that. but then that raises how do i sit with the discussion of scholars within that reality that the leaders are still more important than how to the scholars relate to what leaders may think and under what circumstances do scholars have more or less importance in the policy process? i would argue that it seems that maybe the hu jintao accord a significant amount. it is not a suspicion that they are irrelevant. i would like to see more about how they fit into the process. let me end with a couple of questions. on page 32, you made an interesting statement -- china

wants to please everybody. but is only out for itself. [laughter] who is china and does it have a single intentionality? you have described a divorce situation that in the end, you summarized it as a unitary actor in a sense. it is not self evident how those two conceptions fit together. this is the big policy problem that your paper describes. you say in a sense that as a policy prescription, you have to ramp up our activity in the world, our global presence and you mentioned development assistance and all of these

things. how we do that in the current circumstance economically is an interesting question. beyond that, you also say it is important to avoid a competitive dynamic with china that gets the cold war spiral. it seems that the policy process is how the ramp up activity and how do you increase activity around the china periphery of all sorts without setting off the competitive dynamics? that seems to me to be the policy problem. thank you and thank you for writing such a great paper. >> mike, thank you for being on time. we have 20 minutes. i am happy to open it up for q &a. i am slightly blunted by the lights. -- blinded by the lights. >> i am from princeton

university and i found the discussion fascinating. i am wondering whether there is more strategic coherence, this is a country you have described as learning the lessons of the soviet union as intensely interested in devising a strategy for responding and yet you are presenting a kind of chaotic discussion verytheir propaganda department and the intensification of the criticisms of the u.s. and japan and so on in 2010 all suggest there is more of a top-down direction and some had to hold their tongue for a while and now we are seeing some response. is there more of an overlap in these nt-u.s. and anti-injured the attendance -- is there more and overlap in these anti-u.s.

and anti-interdependence of views? >> thank you for the question. i would invite both my colleagues to respond to the questions on the floor, not just myself. they have views that are quite nimble -- eliminating. you have eliminated a lot of this in your recent writing. my brief response to the question you posed is the one that might started of his commentary with, the polarization of the policy process and the influence of society. you posed the question in terms of top down. i would argue that it is just the opposite. we have a highly nativist --

nationalistic, anti-american, and i will use that word and i just came back from living in china for one year or i experienced this on a very frequent basis. it took me aback. i did not realize the depth and the pervasiveness of societal views of the united states, not to mention views of themselves. this is a country that has gone rather intoxicated on its own rise. mike pose the question about leadership transition. if we have an increasingly pluralistic policy process an increasingly influential society, what impact will have on leaders? to date, the leaders have been the pragmatists, have been the hu jintaos who buy into the major powers: want to manage the chinese foreign relations on a more pragmatic, steady basis.

they are fighting against a tsunami, a societal tsunami coming up from below that says don't compromise with the americans and don't compromise with the japanese. let's teach the s.e. agents who the -- let's teach the southeast asians who the big power is. dismissive mess of europe came through loud and clear. -- dismiss of mass -- dismissiveness of europe came through loud and clear. it's really not a top down issue, it is bottom-up. how can the system which is still a single party dominated system of this electric or they choose their own party, how about -- how can the pratique -- pragmatic tendency of leaders be

insulated from the kind of nativism you have found in your ridings and i have found in this paper and we all experience when we go to china. this is the big question. it is not encouraging. i would be interested in mike this its' the view of weakens because of the record. >> [inaudible] >> when you interview chinese leaders and i don't mean just senior leaders but upper level vice-minister type people in china and practically the first thing out of their mouth is the increasing importance of public opinion and the internet. it makes you wonder where the idea of an authoritarian system came from to hear them talk in such a reactive way.

it is so pervasive that i take it to be some reality. i have tried to understand why and how this public opinion and i would include this as a subset of public opinion and i go back to the public opinion or of a man named daniel yankelovich who came off with boundaries of the permissible. he says that every political leader has an idea, i brought idea of if i go beyond this point in this policy issue, i will elicit a reaction that i don't want to have to deal with. different people have these boundaries but it may mean we don't fully understand where they are. they have them and i think there are some unpleasant redlines in the leadership that make them very reticent to move in certain directions.

japan would pay one area, taiwan would be another area, maybe the dali lama is in there but they have these red lines out there. they spend an awful lot of time on public opinion monitoring. it is very extensive and often quite objective. i would say that they are sure spending a lot of effort to ascertain opinion if we presume they don't care about it. that is not to take away that on certain key strategic issues that the chinese leadership can assert itself. i think they still can. there are many issues where it chooses not to. or is it self-conflicted? >> any comment i make is entirely my personal opinion and

completely off the record. [laughter] that is a serious comment on my behalf. i agree with what david and mike said. i have written about the growing role of society in foreign policy debates within china and the growing attention to public opinion. that said, let's not forget that this is a leninist political system. it is very top down like the politburo. there's a standing committee. it is a consensus based decision making. even though there is an enormous amount -- even though there is a greater role for scholars, a greater role for public opinion, there are a growing number of actors within china, whether it is state-owned enterprises,, the pla affecting decisionmaking, there is still a process. it is highly regimented and it

is top down in which the leadership makes decisions and implement them. even though it gets us to the decision involves a greater diversity of voices than before, this is still a leadership capable of making decisions and going forward and implementing them. i am trying to provide a slight balance to the notion of what is china and how do you do business with china? we do lots of business on a daily basis. we have a clear view of what the leadership things as we manage the u.s.-china relationship. even though there is a diversity of voices, the system of china still functions well and clearly and we are able to manage this relationship in a stable way. >> you have to go back to your moderating role.

[laughter] >> right, a gentleman over here. i'm with the cato institute. that is that precisely the point i want to get it. i could not help noticing that in the presentation, there is no mention of the communist party line. you say it is still top down but when i talk to be under chinese, they never bring up the communist party. , never. i have been struck by this and i'm wondering if we are not seeing a gradual transition here. i want to press this issue further. how important is the communist party now? with the tolerance of the schools of thought in which they are allowed to debate regardless of the official position, are we seeing the emergence gradually of a multi-party system, something evolutionary rather than all at once? >> we have 10 minutes so i will

take two more questions. >> i am from the east-west center. this may be related to the project as a whole. frequently, we talk about schools of thought. we focus essentially on international issues on foreign policy. the making of foreign policy, domestic politics, domestic issues, the type of political system, all that plays into domestic farm policy debates. where does that figure into this in terms of understanding the debates within china in terms of its foreign policy? that is one question. second, would not be more useful to talk about issues and goals rather than talking about schools of thought?

i don't think these flow from particular schools of thought and issues. they are issues of concern and how they are expressed and who expresses them and what the goals that china seeks? they are linked to the anti- u.s. sentiment. focusing on the u.s. in the project rather than what this chart not want and how does that impact upon what the u.s. wants, in that way i think you get to a much broader sense of what the issues and goals are rather than simply saying it is anti-u.s. or pro-u.s.. >> the third question? ambassador pickering? >> tom pickering -- i am struck by one set of phrases that david used -- there is no personal

coterie that clusters around a particular set of ideas and there is no institutional base. that seems to me to be, if i can remember my logic well, that we have not in fact created schools out of differing views but without any institutional base and with no coterie of people. it becomes in a sense an analytical tool that has some relevance but it seems to me to be very distant from policy formulation or policy influence in any way related to a group phenomenon. i wonder whether that attacks the basic purpose for which we are here. maybe it does not matter that these institutionsl-ess people-

less schools have no foreseeable policy implications other than on an individual basis. i am struck by the fact that evan says we have a lummis process but almost everyone in your believes we have no leninist policy. we have a communist-less approach to policy and even debates surrounding ideological faithfulness stemming from readings of the historical text. i think that also is interesting. i have not heard the word pragmatism been mentioned at all whether it is a school, an approach, or a philosophy. it seems to me to be not unrelated to what it is we are dealing with in current de china. >> we have six minutes.

i will ask david and mike to fill it in. >> there are a couple of questions related to the leninist character of the system and a description of it is pluralized. leaderless -- that is not a bad description in that you are getting more foci for behavior in the system. you now have multinational corporations acting in the world. you have retired military officers that seem more empowered to talk about grand strategy. with the media and the internet all the information revolution that these views and interests and behavior are getting out there and frequently the system

rejects some aspect or the consequences of this behavior and is in a reactive mode and can get very leninist, pulling it back and disciplined people. i don't disagree that there is a leninist system. there are people who can decide. in a sense, it is becoming reacting to be able to a greater extent than initiating behavior in the system. in other words, it seems that there is something between denying bill leninist character of it and denying what is obviously polarization of the process. we are trying to understand how these come together. in the end, if the chinese are not happy with the concept of court interests out and the world, they r tried toeel this thing back in -- eight try toreel this thing back in and try to be more consistent. we are groping for that kind of accurate description.

>> [inaudible] >> we give you intellectual property rights. [laughter] >> david? sure which order to take these. maybe i will start with ambassador pickering's the final observation about schools. i tried to make the point that we did not find that we could closely identify institutions and schools. in the paper, there is an explanation of how certain schools are more institutionally-based. i did not have the time to go through that. the nativists, some of them are a free-flooding pundits writing books with a very catchy titles that sell tens of thousands of copies because they are hyper-

nationalists. institutionally, they are rooted in the academy of scientists. you can go through several of those institutes which i have done. you can find lots of evidence of nativist thought. the realists are across the spectrum although i said one institution that comes through singularly realistic is thepla. you don't find evidence of their views and the other seven schools with the exception of some discussions of non- traditional security, military operations that you might want to put in the global list camp. pla are hard realists. i divide the realists into different sections. the pla are hard offensive realists. we find realists in various

academic institutions. ching hua university seems to have more of their share. this is not only a study of academic writings. we did a lot of interviews with officials in the international department of the party and the foreign ministry. the leaders are very much pragmatists. that is where the term privatism comes in. i would associate pragmatism with major party orientation. the asia first people were primarily in the foreign ministry about 10 years ago. there are vice minister is running the policy today. one would imagine, do we attribute the regional a surplus of china in 2010 to no?

, they only came to those positions recently. we see recalibration of the china asia policy in the last six months away from the assertiveness and back to more confidence-building. that could be attributable to the vice ministers. there were foreign ministry people associated with that school. you can go for the schools, tom, there are some institutional bases for different schools. i will not walk through all of them but it is not completely willy-nilly. what is not talked about? that is a good question. there are things that do not emerge in this discourse at all. in most important is china's own behavior and policy. that is the product of the leninist system. they cannot criticize themselves. they have a complete

incapacitate to look in the mirror and say their policies towardx was not correct and produced a deleterious consequences. they are policy descriptive but not prescriptive. they are right op-eds like we do in this country saying that the u.s. and should dox. the chinese don't do that. dprk, pla modernization, intervention and genocide and no are other no-go zones. your second question about the emphasis on the united states during the project, you can blame that on our organizer.

writers what this means for america. that is why in the last section of our paper we try to get to that last slide. it may be more a prop. ask this of to china and you could put a mattress -- a mattress with united states and see how they match up. on the ccp, read my last book on the chinese communist party. i spent five years working on the pollution and of theccp and argue that we were seeing an adaptive party that was pluralizing and moving in some encouraging directions, not multi-party democratic directions but in some more

pluralistic directions. i would argue that we have seen in the last 18 months along with the chinese extra behavior and their increasingly draconian internal behavior, we have seen a stagnation of internal party reforms. the polarization of boys is that not equate with the pulsation of policy process. that is a funny thing about the polarization of china. this is still a leninist system. at the end of the day, it still has a lot power. let's try to close on time there and thank you both for your comments current >> thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

[general chatter] >> virginia's republican governor bob mcdonnell will talk about the fiscal condition of his state and the budgetary challenges the country faces. live coverage from the national press club begins at 8:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2. later in the morning,jim lehrer a la with executives from npr will discuss the future of public broadcasting. the university of monorchid --

missouri school of journalism host the event live at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2. >> this year's studentcam competition ask students to consider washington dc 3 verlaine's. their lens. this is the first prize winner. ♪ >> i'm a junior in high school. on may 25, 2008, my life were changed forever. a history >> making twister produced winds in excess of 200 miles per hour. the severe storm system virtually wrapped the town of parkersburg and have ^ it destroyed 22 businesses, level 222 homes, and damaged 1400 others. in a community of only 2000.

the statistics don't to justice to the heartbreak and to the hurt. >> my home was located near the east edge of parkersburg. it took nearly one year to build and we are finally able to move in in late 2005. in a matter of seconds, it was gone. after a tornado, parkersburg did not cease to exist. our recovery began the moment the storm passed. today, the high school, city hall, a majority of other buildings destroyed in the storm have been rebuilt. >> it is amazing to see the resiliency, the determination -- that was inspiring to see the community really come together. >> there is still a cloud hanging over my community. we still struggle with the federal government, fema. >> we are 2.5 years removed from

that disaster and we're still working on fame of. >> in the 1990's, fema was a model government agency. as hurricane katrina showed, cronyism, under-funding and lack of leadership turned the match into the most ridiculed agency and the government. >> how does the federal government affect my life? it is most evident in the way that fema and disaster relief in parkersburg. >> there are parts of fema that are good and parts that you are not crazy about. it is a love/hate relationship. >> in natural disasters, the man has not functioned so well. -- the man has not functioned so well. they have got their act --fema has not functioned so well. >> they held a tornado very well. >> fema is able to act with

state partners as requested. >> fema has been good to us and they have dealt with school buses and the track by the football field, playgrounds, parking lots and a number of areas where they helped us. >> once the tornado happen, it was apparent that it was a catastrophic event and it would be beyond the needs of the community of parkersburg and the state. fema stepped in early in the process. >> their response is fast. it showed they cared they set up a community center here for helping the disaster and recovered but also helping the citizens seek funds demo will distribute more than $2 million than the first two weeks of bad tornado in parkersburg. >> withoutfema funds,

parkersburg would not exist. >> however, due to communication and may be flaws in the theme of policy, parkersburg finds itself today in a critical struggle. >> at the grassroots, there's a little problem with fema, may be different people have a different view of what the government can or can't do. >> things change often and with those changes so does the story. >> it is easy for misunderstandings to happen because they don't keep up people on the payroll to handle a disaster in that part of the country. >> fema has a full-time staff of 3000 folks across the country. we then poll from our reservists or disaster assistance employees. unfortunately, the way that reservists were, we rotate them in and out. >> it is very frustrating. >> 2.5 years later, the

information we received was inaccurate. some of the guidance we received was not policy-driven. the decisions we have made as a school board and the district on behalf of our students and community was based entirely on that information. we find ourselves 2.5 years later in the financial crisis as we await official word on funding. we received almost $700,000 and fema is requesting it be returned. >> we get out an estimate of the amount of funding. there are likely to be changes. that is how those type of situations where we have obligations occur. >> that is the 180 degree difference. you sign a project worksheet

that says the federal government will help contribute this money toward the project. months go by, in this case years go by, and a combat after a third or fourth review and says that is not how it should have been handled and they will de- obligate that money. >> they can take it away. de-obligate is a strange word. to dodon't expect whatever we want with the money but fema has strict guidelines. if you don't do everything right, they have the ability to de-obligate at any point. >> it has become such a factor for us that the people we originally work with understood we needed to get back into our high school within one year. decisions were made to move that time line along quickly and understanding was that it was

understood. that is how things have changed. it is being reviewed by the third or fourth reviewer is. they are not aware of that. emergency situation. and the cost associated with that. debut in a different manner. >> the city parof parkersburg may not have recovered without the help recovered fema. >> we had a can-do attitude and went ahead and did it and did not wait for the federal government. >> they were part of it but we the people, created our success. >> fema help tremendously but it has created challenges that have affected parkersburg and the progress we have made. lack of funding jeopardize my school and the education of parkersburg. without renewed aid of federal government, my life and my

community may face continued devastation after the storm. ♪ >> , go to >org to watch -- go to studentcam.org to watch all the winning videos. >> "washington journal" is next and we will take your calls. the iowa caucuses 10 months away, we will take you live this morning to the radio show for a preview of the 2012 campaign live from who in des moines. at 10:30 eastern. coming at this hour, the former head of the federal aviation administration will discuss some of the latest air traffic control tower incidents in the news. after that, the electronic privacy