of the commission on wartime -- contract think will be here, chris shays and charles tiefer. we will talk with the head of the weather forecasting service, jane lubchenco. ♪ host: president obama yesterday previewed his speech to congress on job stimulation and the call for more infrastructure spending. what do you think about another potential stimulus program? will it help the economy but that is our question to you this morning in the first section of the "washington journal" as we go through the newspapers.

here are the phone numbers -- you can send as a tweet, twitter.com/cspanwj. you can make a comment on our facebook page. facebook.com/cspan. you can send as an e-mail, journal@c-span.org. put a hyphen in there. here is what the president had to say yes today at the white house. >> making real investments in our infrastructure from federal courts -- ports 2 high speed rail. the best time to make those investments is right now, not

once another levee fails or another bridge falls. right now is when we need to be making these decisions. host: this is from politico this morning.

host: his remarks began to set the stage for the job creation plan he is scheduled to announce next week. .hat's from politico this is from "usa today" this morning. providing federal money is picking up support. host: another, government

stimulus? what is your reaction? i tell you. he doesn't know what he's doing. host: what do you think of another stimulus? caller: it has not worked so far. host: bob. caller: how can he say he does not know what he's doing? he has to invest in something in order to get a return. mr. obama wants to invest in america so he can get a return.

host: iowa on our independent line. caller: thank you for c-span. host: thank you for calling in this morning. this is from "the wall street journal" this morning.

host: "at times, the two reports have diverged." jeanne from new jersey. jeanne from new jersey. caller: there was a 20% bump in the funding. people work refusing the funds. bankers and the ceo s got a lot of money. never got down to the people that were struggling. host: you would not be in favor of another stimulus -- caller: obama said he was going to watch what happened to it. this program is tutoring

children in new jersey. the children were never tutored. i just saw such waste. unless he wants to what will happen to this money, it will go into the wrong hands and nothing will change. every day people are out of work and nothing is happening. host: that was jeanne in new jersey. the president will address a joint session of congress next week. he asked to address congress on wednesday night. they slugs it out on wednesday over the calendar and the president's desire to give a speech.

here is a letter that was sent back and forth from president obama to speaker boehner. host: that is part of the president's letter to speaker boehner. this is the letter in response from speaker boehner.

host: that is all but of the background there. back to your calls on another government stimulus. tristen from charleston, south carolina. caller: i think it is crazy how

he thinks another stimulus will work. the first stimulus did not work. you put more money and the government puts more money just inside the market and i don't understand. i just do not understand why he doesn't understand. he is supposed to have everything on the table. read your paper work. you're putting more money in the market and it do values of our money -- and it devalues our money. it is crazy, man. i do not think it will work. do youwhat kind of work the d do? caller: i work with mentally

retarded adults. host: joe, you are on c-span. caller: we keep going through caller: we keep going through this with all the stimulus. the american people should realize that we see the debt but that's using our knowledge and going and looking at these going and looking at these corporations and our local governments have all these corporations. at the end of the year, they put out a financial report. that shows how much those corporations taken in positive revenue. you'll notice that they have a budget for $18 billion and that is just a budget shortfall. they do not see the comprehensive annual report. they may make $2 trillion or $3

trillion. host: what do you think about more government spending to create jobs? caller: more government spending, but the american people have to realize what we're putting into it is our money and you have your senators, these people are assigned to these corporations. that is all hidden from the american people. host: yes today on facebook we took a poll -- yes today on took a poll -- yes today on facebook -- yesterday on facebook. we asked if you would be spending more or less money. 56, more money. that is from our facebook page.

you can see the results there. you can go to facebook.com/cspan. steve, good morning. caller: i know you will probably cut me off, is what you usually do. it has been skewed to the right. it has been skewed to the right. american crossroads, americans with tax reforms, the hudson institute, the new american foundation, cato institute, the list goes on. any liberal institution in washington or grover norquist or even the blowhard -- c-span has

been skewed to the right. host: thank you for the comment. caller: i think this president, it is about time he grew some backbone. he has been trying to police the right for some time. there are now turning around -- he has been trying to police the right -- please the right for some time. it serves him right in a way. host: dave from oregon. caller: good morning. i'm wondering how long it will take for folks back their to define stupidity because they keep doing the same things and the same results. host: denise from florida on our

republican line. caller: i believe one of the first collars made a comment about sport businessmen spending investing. the federal government money they spend is not their own money. the government is borrowing close to 50% of every dollar it spends. as long as we're spending social security checks to dead people and income tax return checks to people in prison and one of every 18 americans is receiving a disability check, i think the government needs to rein in a more of the funds that are stolen, as the previous caller mentioned in new jersey about the school system. we're never going to fix this problem.

i do not approve of another stimulus at all. host: at about 8:30, we will speak with lewis morris about medicare fraud and what they are doing to combat it. now from our facebook page, a lot of comments coming in on this question, another government stimulus. government stimulus. here are some of the comments. host: if you want to make a comment, facebook.com/cspan. front and center. you can go down and make a comment. next call comes from new jersey. caller: i am calling mainly in

regards to the target and process of this stimulus money. i think targeting just construction are many construction is not good enough. i think the money should be provided for tax cuts for companies, corporations, or anyone who hires people within the united states. anybody that has within the united states should have been here for a certain number of years. if we have three years of the max for this kind of tax break to take effect would be good. any company or person who hires anyone that provides services that we have to get out sourced should not qualify for it. this should be the best way by which a lot of industries can be

targeted and there can be a possibility for a lot of people to be hired rather than just the construction. host: that was maury in new jersey. this is from reuters. host: "cheney wrote that race

came into my office and tearfully admitted that i was right. i do not remember coming to the vice president's carefully in the eight years that i knew him. the remarks about iraq should not have been in bush's speech. i did say to the president that you were correct but didn't do it carefully." that is condoleezza rice. her first book was about her

childhood, been raised in alabama and in denver. now the policy years are coming out in november. front page of the "new york post." this is about former indianapolis mayor stephen goldsmith. host: here is the inside story. he chewed sharp criticism for the massive christmas storm that shut down the city --

he drew sharp criticism. host: "a verbal altercation between the former mayor and his wife turned ugly around 11:30 pm on july 30."

host: "he released margaret. cops arrived and arrested goldsmith."

host: "the mayor did not feel he should play judge or jury. " in "the newis

york post" this morning. back to your calls. caller: on the stimulus, i note economists said the first one was too small. was too small. in fact, maybe it did not work the way we would have liked. who knows what the result would have been if we did not have the first stimulus? businesses have a lot of money in the bank but are not hiring because there is no demand. we have 25 million people that are looking to work. people are getting in the ticket ecause of our d decaying electric grid. we have work to do in this

country to bring us up to the level of country and some of the other advancing countries. we have worked to do. it businesses are not going to hire. we have to hire the people ourselves. i would like to seek less waste, fraud, and abuse. i guess that is what i am for a stimulus. host: some e-mails that have come in on this question. host host: dale in georgia,

republican line. caller: i have found the stimulus package was a waste of money. most of the stimulus in the little town i live was used for streets and bridges and things of that nature. everybody does not do that type of work. the people that worked on it were the same people for several months. i didn't see a new group of people come in. if they would focus on the housing industry that has collapsed, they seem -- they are probably the biggest employer in the country. there are more industries as far as lumber, electrical -- you

would put more people to work straightening out the housing industry, stopping the foreclosure process, and getting the values to begin to come up and putting that industry back to work then you would never do stimulating roads and bridges and anything else. host: tom in fulton, new york, democrat. caller: the housing industry needs help. any money spent on infrastructure is spent and that creates other jobs. the stimulus worked. his story -- unemployment went down until it started going up again when the stimulus ran out. economic experts like paul krugman and they know that

spending creates jobs. when the private sector cannot -- government is the biggest employer. the government creates jobs all the times. the world war ii generation knew this and fdr knew this. the fact is that spending creates jobs. we need more spending and more stimulus. tax cuts do nothing but make the rich richer. we should not double down on the republican concept of more tax cuts for the rich. i am made semi retired teacher. i am retired through the system,

but i'm working about 13 hours a week. i'm basically officially retired. you are allowed to work as long as you do not earn over a certain amount. host: how long have you ta ught? caller: 35 years. now i'm teaching driver ed during the summer. host: thank you for calling in this morning. from "the new york times."

host: and from the c-span.org website wartime contract commission finds at least $49 billion lost to waste and fraud. it estimates that the u.s. has lost at least $31 billion due to lack of oversight for companies providing national security and support -- this is from yesterday. yesterday, the eight-member bipartisan commission submitted its last report to congress and

summarized their findings during a press briefings with reporters. you can watch that online or in about 20 minutes we will have one of the co-chairs, former representative chris shays and one of the democratic members of the wartime contract commissions, charles tiefer to take your calls. from "u.s.a. today" jennifer grand home and daniel -- jennifer was a two-term democratic governor of michigan. daniel is her co-author on her new book "a governor's story: six ways to create jobs" is the article. incentives to repatiate those foreign earnings. another suggestion, put half of those proceeds toward a blockbuster jobs race to the top modeled on the highly effective education race to the top. number three, invest the remaining proceeds towards

capitalizing in infrastructure bank. and number four, lower the nation's corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% and pay for it by streamlining the tax code and eliminating loopholes. those are some of the suggestions made by former governor jennifer granholm. and from human events this morning, john hayward has an op-ed column. bloomberg news offers a sneak peek at president obama's next big pivot to job creation. of course it's stuff you've heard before because it's the same program of miserable failure he's done since he's gotten to the oval office. the dream that obama refuses to let go of is infrastructure spending. most obviously it gives big government a perpetual excuse for spending boat loads of money. note that obama is still talking about rebuilding our nation's roads even though he already grabbed over $800

billion for infrastructure just two years ago. by any logical standard, his own demands paint him as an utter failure who should be answering questions under oath about where all of the previous infrastructure money went. david is an independent in evans, west virginia. david, you're on "washington journal." what do you think about a potential another government stimulus program? caller: well, first thing i'd like to say is obama has done a good job. good job. and he is looking into the stimulus. if he thinks it's a good idea i believe it's a good idea. host: greensburg, pennsylvania. ellen, republican. caller: good morning. host: hi. caller: i'd like to offer some suggestions. i think that they ought to reinstitute the w.p.a., the c.c.c. those are government programs that worked during the f.d.r.

years. we were in depression then, and it was really great for me because as a child i was able to receive -- go down to the local country store and buy -- get an orange for nothing. i had my piano lessons for 25 cents a lesson, but those people were employed. and they were paid by us individually and then the w.p.a. was a wonderful thing and the c.c.c. also. so tell them to stop all this nonsense with all these other programs that he's trying to do, especially the stimulus. that's a dirty, dirty word with me. but good luck. host: ok. thank you for calling in. from our facebook page if you can comment.

facebook.com/c-span. but steven makes this comment -- how long can the government create jobs? building highways and bridges is a must but we must have private sector manufacturing to use those new roads and bridges. and from our twitter page, twitter.com/c-spanwj. robert tweets in, jobs created by stimulus way too expensive. it just poach employees, not hiring unemployed. host: lori is a democrat in cleveland. you're on c-span. good morning. caller: good morning. i think absolutely we need more stimulus. first of all, president obama doesn't make these decisions alone in a vacuum. he's got great economists helping him make these decisions. i don't see where we have any

other choice. if anybody thinks that we're going to save money by not having another stimulus, they haven't noticed which way the republican party is taking us. locally here in ohio, kasik, this new governor, he stole our liquor stores. we were getting $228 million a year for that. he stole our state penitentiaries. he said he's not going to raise taxes on us. we're just going to fall in a dark hole. our infrastructure's all torn up. if we don't spend the stimulus money, the republican party will find some kind of way to channel it upward to the billion, trillion areas. they will do it. and we were looted by wall street. we've got no reprieve.

people that talk about the stimulus don't know how dire it is for some of these working people. they're just a week or two away from living in a cardboard box in the park somewhere. we need more unemployment checks to keep these families fed. the senior citizens need another cola check for $250. these people are hungry and suffering. this uncertainty. they're afraid that the billionaires and trillionaires have -- host: we are going to leave it there, lori. thank you for calling in. "new york times" says --

host: mr. huntsman's plan to reduce the deficit also calls for sharply lowering both corporate and individual tax rates as well as ending taxes on capital gains and dividends, positions more in line with republican orthodoxy. that's in "the new york times" this morning. and next call comes from georgia. pete on our republican line. hi. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. this is truly a case, the stimulus business is truly a case of you have to laugh to keep from crying. it is pure lunacy.

the government is the problem for the nation's woes and the economy and lack of jobs. they are nothing but a gigantic hindrance and block people from pursuing free enterprise. note the word free which has disappeared totally in our free enterprise. stimulus is just putting band-aids on everything. it's temporary. it's good for polls and public opinion but it's nothing but a gigantic band-aid and we need to get government out of the way of free enterprise and let capitalism work the way it was meant to. thank you. host: thanks for your call. probably in your papers too, this story was on the front page and lead story in most of the pages here on the east coast. well, this is "the l.a. times." "u.s. fears lost jobs if at&t

mentaler ok." host: that's "the financial times" this morning. and here is an editorial by "the wall street journal" on this issue. the headline "t and mobile" and it concludes this way.

host: that's from "the wall street journal." next call on another government stimulus potential comes from

prince george's county here in the suburbs. our democratic line. hi, saby. caller: yes, good morning. host: hi. caller: i wanted to say that the government stimulus would be great but we need to have job training programs for these jobs. if we don't have training we can't do the jobs. you go through them and it's the same people working on the jobs. you need to have training centers set up so that people could learn to do the job. nobody is mentioning anything about job training centers for these people. host: from "the washington post" this morning, "pretray us warns against defense cuts." david general petraeus warned that the nation's leaders faced

with tough budget decisions should be careful not to cut the military's budget too deeply in the years ahead. host: military bands played, medals were awarded and petraeus issued a long list of thanks and the troops under his command. petraeus is retiring which the wars are winding down. most of the ceremony and speeches focused on petraeus' past. something of a departure for a general who worked tirelessly and sometimes obsessively on the future. he will begin his work at the c.i.a. in just a few weeks. kathryn on our independent line. what do you think of another potential government stimulus? caller: good morning.

i have a suggestion on how to stimulate the economy. we need two tiers of taxation. on the corporation profits. if the products are made at home, let's say they are taxed at a 25% rate, if their profits are made outside this country, they they would double that to 40%. but it's not good enough just to have one lower tax rate. we need the two tier because it would create jobs here in america. thank you. host: thank you for calling in. front page of "the new york times" this morning -- florida shutting --

host: lawrenceville, georgia, edward, republican line. good morning to you. caller: good morning. i feel that president obama wasted the first stimulus money . are you there? host: yeah, we're listening. caller: i feel president obama wasted the first stimulus money. key have built roads and bridges. instead he bailed out wall street. and the democrats feel like

they're so against the rich. obama gave all the money to the rich people instead of building bridges, instead of building roads, instead of building dams. host: from "the washington post" -- obama backed green firm shuts down a company that was a showcase for the obama administration's effort to create jobs in clean technology, shut down on wednesday leaving 1,100 people wednesday leaving 1,100 people out of work and taxpayers obligated for $535 million in federal loans.

host: again, that's in "the washington post" this morning. and from "the hill," west considers leaving black caucus. represent live allen west said tuesday morning he's considering leaving the group in light of comments made by representatives andre carson, democrat of indiana, the caucus whip, who said at a town hall that mean tea party-affiliated members of congress are see -- see african-american as second-class citizens and would be happy to see blacks hanging from a tree. when you start using words such as lynching that's a reprehensible word, west said on "fox & friends." and giffords recovers. the idea of challenging arizona representative gabery elgiffords for her congressional seat was once

unthinkable but a few potential candidates are starting to test the political climate. too soon? yes, says arizona political analyst michael o'neil. host: that's in "the washington times" this morning. and as is this article. "9/11 donations overseer of aid."

host: last call on government stimulus spending, denver, democrat, hi. caller: good morning, peter. am i on? host: you are. caller: first of all, i want to say i am very much in favor of the stimulus. i am in my 80's and i lived through the great depression which this recession can't compare in the least to the devastation we went through after the last cheney-bush administration. but anyway, i'm talking about that in the 1920's. but anyway, we did -- the government did put people to work and the government can put people to work. once they get a job, then that -- they spend all their money and we -- you know, my generation built the highways.

we built the hospitals. we built the universities. we built the airports. we didn't build very many prisons, but my children -- i'm sorry to say this, but they did not. they did not keep it up. those things were supposed to last for 50 years and they've been crumbling ever since. you know, they're dangerous now. i mean, take the pipelines in california that burst, you know, and caused the fires, everything's just going to pot. it's got to be done. and i disagree with the caller before who said that none of the money was used for construction. right here in colorado we had big signs up, your stimulus money at work, and it was working. by the way, we have a very low unemployment rate. but republicans had such a fit they took them down. they didn't want that to be known that was stimulus money. so then i have one thing i want to ask you, peter.

i know that the "washington journal" is owned by rupert murdoch. but is "the washington post" owned by him? host: yes. caller: c-span does not get any funding -- host: if he has cable at his home then we get a nickel of his bill just as we get a nickel of your bill. caller: well, i would give you $500 if i had it. host: well, send it in. thank you so much for calling. we appreciate it. coming up next -- we're going to have the co-chair and one of the democratic members of the wartime contracting commission which just concluded on to talk about waste and fraud in government contracting. we'll be right back.

>> he's a partisan guy who wants to unite people. i mean, you -- all of the problems of the era you could get from this guy and why we couldn't -- and why we couldn't elect him is the same reason we eventually went to war. they couldn't be resolved. >> he had the misfortune of running against a great military hero, dwight eisenhower. and so i don't really think there was any way that adlai stevenson could have won. >> you think of al smith in 1928, lost overwhelmingly to herbert hoover, but paved the way for franklin roosevelt. >> there are 14 people in this series, many of whom i

guarantee viewers may never heard of and all of whom i can pretty much guarantee they will find interesting to fascinating and certainly surprising. >> history professor jean baker, real clear politics cannon and presidential historian richard norton smith talk about the 14 men who ran for president and lost friday at 8:00 eastern and pacific. it's "the contenders" beginning friday, september 9. >> it has become an adjective. i doubt many people in this town who would like to describe himself as machiavellian. not too many people would call them self machiavellian.

>> the selfish pursuit of power. sunday night author miles unger says his theories may have been in response to the corruption around him sunday at 8:00 on c-span's "q&a." >> this weekend, a three-day holiday weekend on "book tv." former new orleans mayor ray nagean's accounts of the storm after the storm. on "after wards," randall kennedy looks at racial influence. and live sunday three hours "in depth." ellis on race and the media. look for the complete "book tv" schedule on booktv.org. weekend schedules in your inbox. "washington journal" continues. host: charles tiefer, what is the commission on wartime contracting and how did it come

about? guest: well, it's a commission created by congress. three-year commission. congress had seen there was too much waste, fraud and abuse in the wars in iraq and afghanistan from contractors. it created a commission. the eight commissioners, including myself and chris shays to go to iraq and afghanistan, hold hearings and find the facts and make suggestions. host: chris shays, what did you find? guest: well, we found a lot. first off, the obvious half of our military effort, the personnel are contractors. we learned that there was significant waste, fraud and abuse, and we started out thinking, my gosh, if half of the people there are contractors we better oversee them better. and then we said, well, if you can't oversee them, maybe we're using too many of them. and then we thought, even if you can oversee them, maybe we're still using too many of them. guest: they became the default

option. you know, if something had to happen, well, let's have a contractor to do it. host: how many contractorsate its peak were we using in iraq and afghanistan? guest: over 200,000. host: over 200,000. how many are still active? guest: probably half that. you know, we're still -- the irony is as we leave iraq, the military leaves iraq, the state department is having to hire a plethora of contractors. security folks. they have to have basically their own air force. that's contractors. so there is some irony. if the military leaves, we're having to hire a lot of new contractors. host: charles tiefer, are contractors held to the same rules as government employees? guest: they're not. everyone who works in the government puts the taxpayer first. everyone who works for a contractor is expected to put the profit of the company first.

and so the effort that people within the government make to make sure that the expenditure is at the absolute minimum is not the -- contractors don't do that. guest: and that's not a criticism, contractors. in other words, they have a responsibility to their shareholders but we want them to also have a responsibility to the government. host: so it's estimated about $206 billion has been spent on contractors for these two wars? guest: service contracting. host: what does that mean? guest: well, in other words, the government buys things. that's separate. when we buy services -- services to provide health care, to provide water, to provide cafeteria services, to build buildings, those are service contractors. host: and according to your commission, the defense department in march, 2011, had 207,000 defense department contractors, state department had 19,000 contractors, usaid

had thousands of contractors. -- 35,000 contractors. 99,000 troops. 48% of the d.o.d. work force was contractors. guest: right. this is the challenge. we weren't prepared to go to war in iraq and afghanistan with contractors. we didn't have the proper mechanism within the government. we didn't have the proper oversight. we didn't have the proper planning. and that was alarming. what's even more alarming is we can't go to war without contractors. now, this whole beginning part has been a little negative on them. i mean, they do fabulous work. they can be less expensive because we can use them when we

need them and not pay for them when we don't need them. so this is not a criticism of contractors. it's a criticism of bad contracting and bad oversight by the government. host: charles tiefer, what are some of the instances of waste and fraud that you found in your investigation? guest: well, a whole chapter in our final report, chapter 3, has over 40 of the most striking narratives in -- and in iraq we found half had not been completed. the ones that went to k.b.r. cost over $3 billion more than they should have. in afghanistan we have found that we are building -- contractors are being tasked to build and often this is not their fault. the tasking comes from the government. are being tasked to build many facilities that will not, as far as we can see, be sustainable after the american withdrawal. and so $6.8 billion in security forces facilities is at risk

for becoming waste. for becoming waste. host: chris shays, what about outright fraud? guest: we found outright flawed. how difficult it is when iraqis -- an iraqi company or afghan company. fraud is estimated to be between 5% and 9% of the total waste. it is probably closer to 9% than 5%. host: a couple of headlines. $30 billion to $60 billion.

guest: we think it is closer to $60 billion. the waste is between in our judgment 10% to 20%. the fraud is between 5% and 10% of the total. we have built so many buildings that we do not think can be used. there's a power plant that should never have been billed. -- built. the $60 billion may end up being low. guest: there is an effort to get back some of it. efforts -- there were kickbacks

in 2003. that is a fact of life in the countries we are talking about. kickbacks from foreign subcontractors in 2003. the justice department has just brought its claim this year. the scale is on the order of $400 million. guest: waste can be a project that needs to be done. at one point, there is a threat letter sent to contractors and says this contract company cannot continue work unless it obtains permission from the mujahedin, or else it does not have the right to complain. it is a bill from the enemy to be paid.

we did not leave the phone number and. host: is this report available online? guest: it is, but i screwed it up. host: how did you screw it up? guest: .com. you can call and talk with chris shays and charles tiefer. here are the phone numbers -- also twitter, facebook, and e- mail. first call, from san diego, forests, honor democrat line -- forest, on our democratic line.

caller: what was the iraqi democratic unit changed to the united states dollar? i have been trying to find that out for years. why was the chains to the u.s. dollar -- why was it changed to the u.s. dollar? guest: the gross domestic product is about $1 billion, the economy of thethe country. i would guess their currency was meaningless and worthless. you have so many u.s. dollars in the country. host: kbr has been mentioned a few times. we got hundreds and hundreds of calls about kbr and their role in iraq.

do you agree with the assessment? guest: for the next 10 years, we have contingencies and you are the only player. a lot of companies bid on it and they won it. they got this huge windfall. the government was at fault in not going to -- they were way too late and now you have three companies that are allowed to bid on certain contracts and you have more competition. we also have a problem that we end up paying bills and later, we go back and say is this justified? then you go back and try to get the money. this company got a little fat and all loose. host: next call comes from taxes

on the republican line. vet.er: i am a vietnam all you could get was the vietnamese money. i am trying to remember the name of it. their money was not worth nothing. i have to ask important questions. why is the gas line over there $200 a gallon for the troops? why hasn't anybody been convicted? guest: we looked into a number of instances in which the contract had been to buy gasoline and found instances in iraq and afghanistan in which large purchases had been made in

a situation where there was not competition, where the purchases were made and were sold sourced by the contractor and there may well been overcharging. that would have resulted in a higher price to the united states than it should have. as far as no one been convicted, there have been some convictions, there are many obstacles in the way and particular, what we found is that often foreign contractors have not submitted to the united states jurisdiction and it is difficult to get them if they are in kuwait or in afghanistan, to get them in a u.s. court work they can be convicted for criminality. guest: so one of our recommendations is to put them under jurisdictions. but legal cases take forever.

i wouldn't be surprised if there haven't been 100 that have been convicted, companies and individuals as well. host: here are some of the recommendations that have been made. what does that mean? guest: contingencies are a term where they are limited to actions for even something like hurricane katrina. we need to be more selective and careful, as chris shays earlier. the tennessee is to use contractors as a default option -- the tendency is to you contractors as a default option. guest: it is not a helpful tool in deciding what the government

should be doing. sometimes the government should still be doing it and we won it based on risk -- and we want it based on risk. when we developed a sophisticated way of saying what the risks are in a particular situation -- we don't make overall judgments. in afghanistan, there is a particular risk that afghan security subcontractors guarding the convoys on the road might funnel off a piece of what they are paid to the insurgency, to the taliban. we say that function should be phased out and be done by contractors. guest: there may be a certain

static security where we say this should not be done by contractors. we leave it up to the people in the field. it can be based on risk. host: next call comes from kevin in wisconsin on the independent line. caller: i was over in kuwait in 2005 through 2006. i work with kbr and i did a lot convoy escort over there. what i got from talking to kbr people is that the country of kuwait paid the al qaeda not to commit any terrorist acts or set in kuwait.d's we did not have to worry when we were in kuwait.

but once we went over the border into iraq, there were. in 2001, donald rumsfeld held a news conference and it was something like $14 million was on account for in his defense budget. the next day, we never heard about what happened to the $14 million after the pentagon was hit. host: going to paying off the enemy. is this becoming standard practice? guest: it is an alarming practice. i think it has been documented that it is happening. i think there may be some in the military who think that is the least of the evils and inmate save american lives. there is a group within

afghanistan that is happy we are there. we have added to the gross domestic product manyfold. the taliban are happy we are there. there is some irony going on. we're spending a lot of money in afghanistan. we need to rethink that. guest: we were briefed by the experts when i was in afghanistan in march. even a limited amount of siphoning of u.s. money has a terrible impact. our report finds that the second largest source of money for the insurgency is siphoned off u.s. funds. that would be a couple of hundred million dollars. that would be a big piece of the

taliban budgets. guest: that is the general. we give you more specifics. half of our military efforts are contractors. they do not train with the military. byhoughtws are not sof the military. it would be someone who is focused on contractors. focused on contractors. we have a qdr in the military, there five-year plan of action. we think there should be 8 da dual-headed person so that they

are talking about operations and talking about money and making sure the two mix. host: is there a role for a large contractors in wartime? guest: chris was right. we cannot do without them anymore. we depend on them for a great deal of the construction. the days when there were as the marines or other navy building people who go to specific islands and do the construction, they are in the past. we need to hire people for that. guest: congress wanted the military to be the tip of the spare. we do not want the military having to be the cooks. as long as we don't lose a critical core.

we have contractors to work on the helicopters but we better have enough military folk that know how to do it to. o. caller: i appreciate the remarks of charles and chris. i'm two blocks away from it lipstick building, bernie madoff's office. he was involved with fraud of private funds. some people might have been prosecuted, 100 or so. if the numbers of waste -- let's take $40 billion. that is a taxpayer money. is the government pursuing these people and putting them in jail?

in terms of construction and our military, somebody mentioned kuwait and i think we say it kuwait. we saved saudi arabia from iraqi. these are all rich companies -- countries. countries. the united states taxpayer are paying 75% of that. host: we got the point. mr. shays. guest: i don't think we've done justice to the number of people that have been prosecuted. it is not an insignificant number. it takes a long time. viper view people who commit fraud against the government -- i view people who commit fraud

against the government as being treasonous. they undermine the government. when you look at governments around the world that do not succeed, it is because there's too much corruption. we don't have enough people overseeing contractors. we are making bad decisions on what to do in those countries. it is a lot of things that don't involve sending someone to jail. making government more efficient. guest: there was one example of a prosecution that produced jail time for a significant official. a man got a year in prison and served it for kickbacks. the obstacles in the path are so great that the justice department will be spending years more trying to get the

company, kbr, to pay back on painted subcontracts. years more. host: you can read the final report at c-span.org. you can read it on our website. you guys are awesome. st. louis, missouri, bill. turn down the volume. idaho. jackie. good morning. caller: kudos to the two guys you got there. the tournament that called in before hand, i am retired from the federal government. i have worked in contract in and

it doesn't just happen over in afghanistan and iraq. i live in a town that has an air base. i put myself through college working construction, a girl of the 1970's. i had to try everything. i just want it to let you know that this is one of the reasons -- the president says stimulus or something like that, everybody cringes because the government isn't known to handle money very well. i know that i loved my country. my father was in the specific in the second world war. -- my father was in the pacific. i just hope you guys -- this is

what we need to start doing. host: jackie, thank you. onst: the contract nikko's overseas is part of the general department of defense. the kohl government is more dependent on contractors. -- the whole government is more dependent on contractors. the mechanism for oversight overseas is weaker than here. you don't have it focused as one of the reasons which suggest things like an assistant secretary of state or an assistant secretary of defense for contingency contract in. we have to get visibility of the overseas visibility contract to make up. guest: i know charles would want to make this point. to make this point. the folks that do, attracting

at state and defense come they are fabulous people. they do a terrific job. but there are limits to what they can do given how understaffed they are. understaffed they are. host: who appointed you? guest: john boehner and then mitch mcconnell and john boehner made me the co-chairman. i was grateful -- host: who were the other three republicans? guest: i have to think. the former controller. the former controller. a former finance person in the department of veterans affairs. and we have -- who is the other republican?

doug, zach. host: while you think about that -- guest: he is quite right. it is amazing that chris shays is my co-chair as much as he is the republicans' co-chair. we have catherine, who is with the general accountability -- government accountability office all her life. mike is the deputy head of the defense contract audit agency. and clark kent ervin, an inspector general for two different departments. he brings a fiery approach to the investigation. guest: grant was the acting

cochair and he was the number 3 at the state department. he was on the national security council. what a great background. what a great job he did. host: jack on our republican line. thank you for holding on. caller: this is all but perplexing. you mentioned a fraud. it seems to me that with all the layers of existing government auditors who are auditing contracts, during auditing contracts, during the bidding process, we're already paying extensively for things that looks like you're duplicating now. guest: we are not duplicating. guest: we are not duplicating. we do a much better job and even then we have our problems.

it's not sexy. it is not the joint strike fighter for the f-22 or the things that the public seems to focus on in government. service contradicting continues to become a greater part of our budget. service contract it is larger than the things that we buy in government. that is -- we don't give it the same way and we don't give it the same attention, and we should. it is more than a half now. host: the wartime commission recommends -- host: how much did the

commission cost overall? guest: we were given $30 million guest:. -we new line-- guest: we spend about $20 million. close to 5 million dollars year. host: we have a tweet. guest: how do we know? guest: there has been waste. go back to the revolutionary war when there was considered corruption in the thames by george washington to buy munitions for the army. we used to buy goods, munitions from the outside. there might be waste in that. the services were largely been done internally.

we have access to analyze that and there is a level of waste. guest: you boys have waste in wars, so what is the big deal -- you always have waste. this is preventable. if you are spending $30 billion, why notned a -- spend a small sum to correct that? caller: i remember seeing a documentary -- i do not know if anybody is familiar with that. they showed how much money the contractors were spending. if something happened to escalate, they would say, don't worry about that. we will get you a new one. i i look at how much money

they are spending. there will be cutting my medicare. it irritates the heck out of me to find out all this money is being spent over there for nothing. guest: i want to say how well informed your callers are and how interesting their questions are. this is a budget that has been thinking about these issues. i saw the documentary. it was quite interesting. it is based on allegations. we took it another step and we looked at not just should this be audited but what did the audits show? sell iraq for sale gives us a picture of what was suspected in the mid 2000's. it was the iraq war.

you would think the lessons learned in iraq were being carried out in afghanistan. they were not. problems like those in iraq were there in afghanistan. host: our last call, from maryland. caller: good morning. i am a contractor and officer with the army and have been doing this for 18 years. i was in iraq in 2009 and i met mr. tiefer when this commission came there. what is being done to improve the active military personnel who are serving as a contracting officers representatives who are tasked with the oversight of the service contract? it was my understanding that the number of contracts that they

have and the lack of streaming was leading to less oversight and more potential for perhaps errors and waste to occur in these contracts. thank you. thank you. guest: it is nice to hear from someone who i met on the trip over there. i learn on my trips. chris shays had taken 20 trips to iraq before the commission even started. i had to learn allotted to even -- i had to learn a lot to catch up to him. our first report found a shocking lack -- 85% were not being filled. we started in our first report

and have continued and put more in the field. guest: you need to make sure that they have the ability to become a flag officer. to not end the career as a colonel. -- do not end your career as a colonel. there needs to be a career track that says if you go through contracting and overseeing personnel, that you can become an admiral or a general. we need to make sure they get there before the last ones leave and to make sure they are well informed. the contractor has been there before and will be there after. there is one contractor who knows the whole history of the project. host: chris shays serves as a commissioner on wartime contractor. charles tiefer was a

commissioner on that commission. you can read the entire report online. they continue to be commissioners. charles tiefer is a law professor at the university of baltimore. he served in several different capacities with the house of representatives, a solicitor. a general counsel and the acting general counsel and he served on the bosnia-gate subcommittee and as assistant legal committee in the senate. trial attorney. trial attorney. columbia and harvard law degree and regular viewers know chris shays. he served in congress from 1987 to 2009. word is you are going to run

for senate in connecticut. what about those reports? guest: i am looking forward to doing some new things this fall. you are not giving up on me. i intend to file to run for the senate the day i am no longer a commissioner but i will not talk about it until then. i am a republican. i am a republican. host: chris shays, charles thank you for beeniefer, "washington journal." we continue our series on the federal and government. we'll be right back. >> more on the timing of

president obama's jobs speech next week. spokesman saids the dustup over the scheduling shows why people are fed up with washington. "our intention was for the president to address a joint session as soon as possible." john boehner asked for the be moved to thursday instead of wednesday. the fuss over the timing was nonsense. what people hate -- that is what people paid about politics. president obama "has not been able to deliver on jobs so far." the white house is launching a new website today that will make

it easier for people to press the federal government to act. the new website is called wethepeople, where people will be able to sign petitions. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> he's a partisan guy who wants to unite people. i mean, you -- all of the problems of the era you could get from this guy and why we couldn't -- and why we couldn't elect him is the same reason we eventually went to war. they couldn't be resolved. >> he had the misfortune of running against a great military hero, dwight eisenhower. and so i don't really think there was any way that adlai stevenson could have won. >> you think of al smith in 1928, lost overwhelmingly to herbert hoover, but paved the way for franklin roosevelt.

>> there are 14 people in this series, many of whom i guarantee viewers may never heard of and all of whom i can pretty much guarantee they will find interesting to fascinating and certainly surprising. >> history professor jean baker, real clear politics cannon and presidential historian richard norton smith talk about the 14 men who ran for president and lost friday at 8:00 eastern and pacific. it's "the contenders" beginning friday, september 9. >> watch more video of the candidates with the c-span's web site for campaign 2012.

easy to use, it helps you navigate the political landscape with twitter feeds and facebook updates from the campaigns, candidate bios, and the latest polling data. >> "washington journal" continues. host: on your screen is lewis morris and he is here to talk about medicare fraud. if you could start, what is the estimate on a yearly basis of fraud that is committed against medicare? guest: no one really knows for sure. fraud is a nature of deception and concealment. estimates are anywhere between 3% and 10% is wasted on health care fraud which could be upwards of $90 billion a year is

going to criminals. host: what does hhs do to combat that? guest: we used high end technology to identify fraud early. we move away from pay and chase where the money went out and years later we were able to track down the culprit. the other thing we're using is information technology. like what you see in the credit- card companies and being able to spot trends early on in to get out there a lot faster. a great example is our strike forces. we marry auditors and prosecutors to identify the hot spots throughout the country -- south florida, texas.

they identify the problem and get to the prosecution that much faster. we have over 1000 defendants on trial are facing charges. we have an effective strategy in place. host: south florida -- what is the reason for the fraud? guest: south florida is the wild, wild west of health care fraud, and we're putting significant resources down there because of it. host: there is an article and there is a chapter that talks about one of the perpetrators of fraud and no easy it is to defraud the federal government of medicare dollars. guest: that used to be the case. we're hoping to change the

paradigm. it was said drug dealers got into the health care because it was safer and the chance of going to prison was a lot less than if you're caught dealing cocaine on the street. we have a better use of data so that we identify the problem faster. those who commit health care fraud are more likely to go to prison and for a lot longer time. we're trying to change that metric. host: we are going to put the numbers on the screen. we of set aside our fourth line for medicare recipients. 202-737-2579. we are talking about combating medicare fraud this morning. lewis morris is air gas. given example of an egregious example of a way of committing fraud. guest: the most obvious fraud is

billing for a service that was never rendered. we have convicted a medical supplier in puerto rico who bill does for four prosthetic limbs for a roofer. we found him on a roof. the more sophisticated criminals are hiding the fraud and bribing doctors to write prescriptions, hiding under the cloak of legitimacy. fortune five funded companies are involved in health care fraud -- fortune 500 companies are involved in health care fraud. they are stealing from the medicare trust fund and beneficiaries.

host: of that $90 billion that could be wasted, how much is recoverable if you discover it? guest: last year were brought back $4 billion to the medicare trust fund. this money provides needed services to our citizens. we don't know how much of the money that might have gone that we have deterred by causing those who were thinking about committing fraud to decide it is not worth the risk. we brought back $4 billion last year alone. $18 billion total to the trust fund. we have a very effective and highly professional group of folks. 1700 men and women spread throughout the country -- auditors, analysts.

we are a great investment for the american taxpayer. we grew back almost $7 to the american people for every $1 that is invested. we're doing the best job we have. the more resources we have, the more places we can get to. host: do you enlist seniors as investigators? guest: we sure do. we also have a robust hot line number. 1-800-hhs-tips. we have operators standing by who want to know if you have identified health-care fraud. host: we have that number up on the screen. that is not a call-in number.

we start our calls with judy. caller: good morning. i have been on medicare. this is my second year. towards the end of my first year, a health problem up. with my heart that i didn't see coming. i know how these programs operate. i swore that i would watch my charges from medicare closely, to monitor it for fraud. the reports, and medical-ese. even though i am an educated woman, there is no way i can understand them. i'm wondering if there's anything you can do about these reports so that people like me and other people can understand these reports so we can be sure to filter out the fraud.

guest: that is a great question. explanations of benefits are mailed out and it is so important that people look of them to identify the services that are being paid for. sometimes it is hard to know what services we paid for or the provider was. we're working with the medicare program to make sure that those explanations are in english. if you see a charge on one of those explanations of benefits that does not look right, go talk to your doctor and say, i'm seeing a charge and i do not recognize the name of the provider or the date. it can beat it is a legitimate charge or maybe another company is the billing entity. if you have a question, first go talk to the provider. if he sensed there is something not right, call us and we will

look into it. host: we have a tweet. guest: as i said, we have a pretty good sense that the scope of fraud is enormous. i do not know that i can give you a percentage of fraud that is condoned or approved by legitimate providers. anyone who is participating in our program who is ordering a service has enrolled in the program. if a physician is ordering a service, he is a "legitimate provider." if he's taking a kick back, he is violating the law. caller: good morning. the governor of florida, his company was convicted of

medicare fraud and it was a huge case. i wonder if you can shed some light on how that went down and how big the fines were and how he managed to take the fifth 30 or 40 times to keep themselves from getting convicted. guest: you are correct that mr. scott was the head of the organization that pled guilty to fraud. he was not charged. that history is not relevant to our current enforcement efforts except in this respect. we recognize that corporations are run by individuals. it's important that we call the heads of organizations responsible for that which goes on beneath them. maybe an executive who oversaw the major crime enterprise could've gone away with it.

these days we're doing a better job of scrutinizing responsible corporate officials. if they are part of the problem, they will be held accountable. host: according to this article, it says in 2006, fewer than 3% of claims are reviewed before they are paid. guest: the reason we do not review more claims is because it slows the process down. the medicare program gets in millions of claims every day that it in over $1 billion a day in claims and we want to make sure honest providers and suppliers get paid on time. on the up front side, we're not pulling lots and lots of claims for review. we are using technology to screen those claims and look for

patterns. when we start to see patterns liked when the volume of those are theds o, claims that a pulled aside for further review. host: next call comes from mississippi, faye. caller: good morning. i was just calling to tell him that the providers that provide the equipment for people that are at home, that are on medicare, like next door, a lady has been in a nursing home since february of last year. the providers that provided the bed and the wheelchair and walker, all that equipment is still in the house, and no one

is living in that house and no one has come to fix up -- no one has come to pick up the equipment. guest: we don't know whether that equipment continues to be billed for. call in number of her family. there could be there is some equipment that no one is using. get the supply company to pick that stuff up. a lot of times what appears to be a problem at the front end -- equipment that does not appear to be used -- may not be a problem. if you can make a call or have a member of her family make a call, that would be a big help. you can call 1-800-medicare or

the tips number. the supplier may not be aware that she is in the nursing home. host: we have a tweet. guest: certainly doctors, device companies, suppliers, anybody who participates in the medicare and medicaid programs has the opportunity to commit crimes. the vast majority of physicians and suppliers are honest and want to do the right thing by the beneficiaries and the trust fund. anyone can exploit that trust. that 3% of the claims are reviewed on the front end. we operate on the principle of trust. anyone who wants to violate that

trust can do so. more and more they will do it at their risks. host: long beach, new jersey. caller: my question piggybacked on what the lady said it in one of the last calls. with regard to medicare contractors, those who are contract it officially to provide services or equipment, are gaming the system with medicare and with social security. these are organizations such as the scooter store, when mr. doug harrison runs four or five commercials per hour on cable television guaranteeing medicare people that they can receive a scooter free of charge just by calling his 1-800 telephone

number. the disability advocates guaranteeing people who apply for disability, that he will game them their disability payments or else he doesn't get paid. he once -- he runs five or six commercials per hour. what happens to the scooters that are given to someone who passes away? are used scooter's recycled through the system? guest: there are those who are manipulating the system to their advantage. they can get away with that because of the reimbursement for things like power wheelchair's s far in excess of what the supplier purchased the product

for. there is a big spread. they can make all sorts of enticing offers to patients and still make a handsome profit. one of the things we do is identify where there are breakdowns in payment methodology and tell the medicare program and the congress that you have to do something to close the gap somewhat honest suppliers can make an honest day's living. you'll be pleased to hear when our investigators go out and read an illegal operation that is billing for wheelchairs that is billing for wheelchairs that are not being used, we got to wait senior's home who says there is a wheelchair that i never order, those wheelchairs

are given to wounded warriors. those wheelchairs' are getting into the right hands. host: what about the legation lawyers? guest: what about them? host: what about those claims? is that one of the areas of from the you investigate? guest: disability insurance is outside of my expertise. anyone who offers to provide a piece of medical equipment for free is likely to be crossing a line. you cannot offer something for free to someone without the risk of that being seen as a kickback. look at some of these advertisements -- any particular supplier.

they have been pretty lawyered up. they perhaps come up to the blind but may not cross it. -- they perhaps come up to the line, but may not cross it. when someone offers you something for nothing, it is probably too good to be true. host: next call is from san antonio, texas. caller: i was wondering if it would be possible to combat medicare fraud with private companies having the ability to listen to that and being able to compete and finding a better method instead of having the government come up with ways to do that? the private sector doing that in

different ways and be successful in certain ways, and then maybe it would still be fraud. guest: that is a great idea. it is already in place. the medicare program has recovery audit contractors. these are private entities. their job is to go out and look for billing errors, misquoted services, and potential fraud, and get that money back to the program. their incentive is getting a percentage. so they drive pretty hard to look for the abuse of the program. many times they come up with innovative techniques, using analytics the we have not thought about. then we pick up on those successes and a corporate them into our efforts. we're using every possible

approach we can come up with including private sector to identify and go after people who are abusing the program. host: st. charles, illinois. caller: good morning. i was involved in getting the sleep apnea machine some years ago. through chance i found out the price that medicare paid it was roughly 200% more than what you could pay on the open market. i wonder who rattled whose chains to allow those prices when they could've done the same thing for much less money. i grew up in the chicago area. guest: that is a great question. payment methodologies are part of the problem. whether it is a sleep apnea

machine, a power wiltshire, there are many examples of where the medicare program place to much -- a power wheelchair. when it starts paying for a new piece of technology, we pay retail. over the years, the price drops. the medicare program does not keep up with at reduced cost. we keep paying at the original retail. your example of the sleep apnea machine. because a supplier around $3,000. we pay close to $17,000 for the same piece of equipment. we have to think about fixing the system. we will go after the fraud. but part of the task has to be changing payment methodologies so that there is less of an incentive to abuse the program.

host: here are some examples of host: here are some examples of medicare fraud. host: could you address the company -- using a drug plan that is not been approved? guest: we have seen this creep up as the medicare part d plan began. offering seniors an incentive to join a plan that has not been approved. sometimes they get the senior's

social security number and sometimes a credit-card number. don't give your social security number over the phone to a stranger. stranger. that is the identification of fact. we're seeing a growing problem we're seeing a growing problem with scam artists getting critical information and going out and create identities and billing for services under these created identities. that is theft. it is critically important that seniors protect their medical identification so that when at they offer you something to good to be true, you did not become. host: tallahassee, you are on with lewis morris. caller: couple of questions. medicare, durable medical equipment, would eliminate a lot

of the fraud. many years ago, when george bush was president, mike levitt, head of hhs, wrote a piece about this, durable medical equipment. he was talking about oxygen concentrators. you can buy one for cash, $600, and medicare pays $200 a month for a three-year lease, and it still has not been fixed. address thesebody issues? is outrageous. guest: two interesting points. first, the one related to managed care, medicare advantage -- there has been a lot of analysis of whether the managed- care model is more cost- effective. much to the surprise of many, it does not save the medicare program much money. i don't agree have found a silver bullet yet, although we will keep looking for it. the other example of using --

the other issue of using the oxygen concentrator, for example, is that certain amount of money paid for something that if you went into a drugstore you could buy for a whole lot less. some of that is the antiquated way we price for services. some of that, to be very frank, is the powerful lobby in washington to make sure the status quo remains. there are lots of people will profit from these inflated prices, and they have powerful friends on the hill . friends on the hill . host: the task force identifies investigates and prosecutes fraud and operates in nine cities. why those nine cities? guest: we use data, we are made

all the information about plans, beneficiaries services, and found outliers, places where you could not explain the aberration. using data analysis, with it at a cost of a particularly expensive product. in most places the cost $800 bid in south florida, a cost $4,400. $4,000-plus for the same product. we thought we were getting killed 10 times more items, more units of drugs, -- billed 10 times more items, more units of drugs that were actually purchased by suppliers. that tells us there is a problem, and by using data, we know where to start investigating. by using this highly efficient and very effective tool, we can

spot fraud hot spots and get on them faster. the criminals are also very sophisticated. as a target and area, what we find that the fraud migrates and the crimes are viral. if we target a particular infusion drug and say that this looks like a problem and we start targeting investigations, the drug, the criminals switch to a different device. we've got to be on our toes because the criminals are because the criminals are testing where are the vulnerabilities, exploiting them until we close them, and then let me go elsewhere. host: a lot of large cities, and then baton rouge. guest: that gingr -- baton rouge has a lot of creative folks and 8. it is between houston and a south florida, and a lot of the criminal problem is migratory.

you squeeze houston, people go east, you land in baton rouge. host: california. hi, earl. caller: my call was told -- i have some medical records in my towed,my car wars and i have some medical records in my car t. my life. that institute the calls -- my lawyer that institute the cost -- it was uncalled for -- it wasn't a called for -- host: mr. morris, he is looking to get his medical records. can you help him there? guest: we are not the best place to start. if you have an attorney, find a

towing company and find out what happened to your possessions. if that doesn't work, talk to your local district attorney or someone in local enforcement to see if they could help you but you should be getting those records back. it is important to protect those both for your health as well as your identity. probably the best place to start would not be the federal government. host: steve, you are on the air with lewis morris. caller: how come there is a two-year wait -- i am on social security -- i was on medicaid to get my medicare. mandatory two-year wait. they said you have to wait two years to get medicaid and medicare. i don't have guest: -- guest:

i don't have expertise in that part of our programs. i suggest you reach out to the medicare folks and have them explain to you what is going on at there. i don't have an answer to you, to be honest. host: debra has an email. medicaid is as critical to the welfare of our country as medicare is and we have to do everything possible to prevent fraud in that area as well. there are a couple of important aspects to the anti-fraud measures in a medicaid. every state in the country as a medicaid fraud control unit, funded by a to jazz, and we provide oversight of those -- funded by hhs, and we provide oversight of those. they have tremendous expertise, particularly in the area of long-term care at protecting the interests of medicaid beneficiaries.

there also are a large number of there also are a large number of frauds that cross from medicare into medicaid. when we bring cases against drug companies that abused the medicare program, we also bring in the medicaid side of the house so their interests are also protected. you are right, we tend to talk in shorthand about medicare fraud. we ought to be talking about health care fraud. host: jane has an email. guest: we worked very closely with private sector counterparts in private insurance, and they face the same problems and challenges we do, both in terms of collaboration between health care providers and to those who would steal from the programs. i don't think there challenges are much different than ours.

if there was a silver bullet that the private sector was using to successfully defeat health care fraud, we would be using it. one of the things we're doing is benefiting from this partnership. a lot of the techniques the private sector uses, particularly in the information technology area, we are adopting. every advantage we can bring to the fight is put to use. host: laredo, texas, linda, a democrat. caller: i have two areas of concern the deal with attitudes. one is in part a recommendation of what you are discussing with the costs of things, medical equipment. there are ads around for scooters, anywhere from $400 to $700, originally over $2,000,

$3,000, new. if you could put some of the power and reward backed by beneficiary or consumers' hands for finding cheaper equipment and notifying medicare, here is the savings and, and have them the savings and, and have them report it financially somehow , and then he " would be more motivated to look for cheaper things rather than just getting the biggest chinese sample they can reach. -- shiny sample they can reach. i have seen many times were orthopedists have patients outside the waiting room that serves a different waiting rooms when they are going to do need injections and and they will charge $75 for surgical tray for each room.

they use the same bottle of stuff for the need all and everything. it is on that trade just about. and yet it will use only when in actuality. i know that is wrong. on the other hand, i feel like there is a fraud being done on good doctors by this business of saying that doctors in this part of the country are only build this amount of money for this service. i have never seen that list. i want to know who those doctors are, where those doctors are actually the government is depending on to create this list -- host: we got your two points. thank you. guest: let me answer your first excellent point that there's not much of an incentive for the beneficiary to find the lowest- cost item.

one of the reasons we have copays is that the beneficiary has some skin in the game. they benefit from having a lower-cost item. of course, many times dithey don't have as much control over the particular supply. there are incentives in place to have citizens identify abuses are problems. the false claims act, a very powerful tool in fighting health care fraud, will provide some of the recoveries that come from successful prosecution to the people who brought the information, the whistle- blowers, to us. we've got to be thinking for other ways for beneficiaries and citizens to be cost-conscious. your other point about the incentives to spread costs and make sure we're not over- utilizing our billing for services, whether it is a surgical tray outside a hospital or not -- one of the things health care reform is

challenging us to do is to find ways to bend the cost curve while continuing to provide quality care gu. one of the way the program is evolving is trafficable care organizations so that physicians -- accountable care organizations so that physicians and suppliers, if they are more efficient and don't miss supplies -- weiss supplies -- those not only benefit of position and moscow, but all of us as taxpayers, because costs come out over time. we are trying to find ways to minimize patients and physicians and hospitals to be more prudent -- to incentivize patients and physicians and hospitals to be more prudent buyers. host: you are on with lewis morris of the department of health and human services. caller: excuse me, a comment and kind of a question, and kind of set it up quickly. when i was 18 in 1988, and

it up by my own health insurance because i did not have parents and stuff, i was paying $50 a month, blue cross blue shield, for coverage. before i turned 20, i was in a motorcycle accident i broke my spine and ended up being permanently disabled, still am -- guest: sari. -- sorry. caller: thanks -- and have been on medicare and all that stuff. one of the things they did, and i ask them to do this, they evaluated and and they said health insurance is cheaper price than paying your health care, so we will pay your health insurance premium. over the years, i've been doing the math, and, again, recently, the cost of medicare, the health care provides,/the number participants it serves, and said to be 800, $850 a month.

my health insurance costs are $220 a month. to me, that that does not add up. i'm wondering why in the world we cannot just leave medicare with its income from our taxes and what not. but instead of it providing care directly to people like that, just did to that and get a group health plan -- j butust -- just ditch that and get a group health plan -- host: thank you. is that an area of yours? guest: probably isn't. you are raising good points about health care in this country. my job is to make sure it goes to needed services and not to criminals. host: last call comes from st. louis. louis. hi, jay. caller: mr. morris, i can tell you really care about the system. one of the things i'm concerned

about is when the lobbyists get in there and they help of the health-care industry and drug manufacturers and all that, the system is pretty much broke their. when you talk about the silver bullet, there is the one we need to go at right there. we need to get rid of lobbyists, make it so that you cannot legally bribe congress and the senate and make all these situations happen, because there are ones who benefit from it, all the kickbacks. the drug companies give out so many billions of dollars a year to all of these people, and yet it is wrong. it is making the whole system corrupt. guest: thanks for your comment. i should stick to what i know, which is combating health care fraud, but i appreciate your thoughts. host: according to the government accountability office, which came out with a report on your efforts to combat fraud, $48 billion in improper payments.

what did you take away from that gao report? guest: first of all, the medicare program needs to do a better job of processing claims. this is just claims paid where there was no documentation, the klan did not conform to our pro gram rules, and we do not know about the services provided as by our program. it could be misspent. on top of that, you have the problem of people creating records to appear legitimate. it is a huge challenge, and we

in the inspector general's office are looking for opportunities to make sure that payments are proper in the first place, and that those who come in to abuse it are prosecuted. host: as always, we appreciate you coming and taking calls from our viewers. lewis morris is in the health and human services' office of inspector general's office. the number if you suspect fraud,1-800-hhs-tips. we will be right back with our final segment after this news update from c-span radio. >> jobless numbers of find that fewer people apply for and a limit benefits last week, a sign that it job market might be improving slightly. weekly applications fell to a seasonally adjusted 409,000 last week, the first decline in three weeks.

as for worker productivity, that number fell at a faster pace than previously estimated, this as labor costs are rising at a faster clip. both developments it could pose a threat to the economy. forecasters say it is too early for predictions about the latest storm. hurricane katia is travelling across the land it with little change in strength. kat katia could become a major hurricane but it is too early to predict a change in direction. >> we think a good things come in two's. >> c-span's coverage of the house. >> coverage of the senate on c- span to. >> you can watch programs at c-

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"washington journal" continues. host: today we are continuing our series looking at the government's role in providing weather services. tuesday, we look at disaster relief and preparedness. wednesday, climatology and weather dynamic spirit tomorrow we will wrap things up with a look at the role of the national weather service. today we looking at your of the national oceanic and atmospheric administration with jane lubchenco, administrator of noaa. what is no a's mission? what do they do? guest: noaa's mission is very broad. we use science to provide information about oceans and atmosphere, things like navigation charts, the weather forecast. the national weather service is part of noaa.

we also use science to provide warnings about pending disasters -- tsunamis, or hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, as he weighs, those kinds of things. and we have a very important responsibilities to use science to manage oceans and coasts and keep them healthy. we manage the fisheries, for example. we do all of that because the ocean and the atmosphere or an integrated unit. one affects the other. everything and no way a starts with signs. the services -- we provide -- think at -- everything at noaa starts with the science. the services we provide a promotes safety and allow businesses to thrive and grow. we do all of that would stick to the arts satellites in space, planes and in the air, -- state of the art satellite and space, plant and the air, ships in the water, computers, lots of wonderful partners, and we do

that for less than a nickel a day for americans. the best bargain in the country. host: 12,800 employees. you are contained within the commerce department. why the increase? guest: 1 to the important things we do is build and operate satellites that allow us to do many of the good things i talked about. there is a request in the president's budget for $1.7 billion to build and then fly at a very important series of satellites that provide information that enables us to do many of these things. we have a current satellite that is in space doing that, but it has a finite life span.

they are vitally important to doing the kinds of forecasts and disaster warnings. disaster warnings. host: administrator, levchen lu, what we are watching to weather, are we seeing images from noaa satellites? guest: you are indeed. the images you see on your tv screen are provided by noaa to everyone. this is one of functions that we do. all of those swirly pictures of clouds, those are satellite images. host: are those provided free of charge to the weather channel or local news? guest: they are. host: what is the philosophy behind that? guest: we believe the basic function of government is to provide essential services to save lives and property, the kinds of warnings we do in daily weather forecasts. that same information also enables businesses like the weather channel or

accuweather to take that information and add value to it, bells and whistles, and provide additional information. the core, basic information is a function of government. host: when you break down at the at national oceanic and atmospheric administration atmospheric administration offices, there is ase -- correct? guest: correct. host: r. they equal in size? guest: no, the satellite division is approximately $2 billion. the fisheries division and weather are about $1 billion. the rest are in the remainder of

the budget. host: the national weather service, is that what most people associated with it? guest: actually, many people in the different parts of noaa. as i travel around the country, many people are most familiar with the weather service because everybody relies on whether information what they don't often know is that it is noaa that is providing the information that they receive on their smartphones or tv screens or the radio. all of that information is coming, basically come from an l.a. 8. i have had a number of people say, "what do i need your weather satellites? i have fill in the blank --" weather channel or whatever. in reality, it is an owl a that is providing that information -- it is noaa that is providing that information did the research done allows us to provide services like weather forecasts and warnings.

forecasts and warnings. host: administrator lubchenco , you referred to the economic benefits noaa provides the country. could you be more specific? guest: if you consider how dependent the aviation industry is on whether, when we had hurricane irene up the east coast recently, flights were canceled, so, too, were trains and other. those transportation systems, including ones on the ocean, are dependent on weather information. we penetrate pretty much all aspects of the economy. that is a single and example and there are many more. host: if you could talk about oceans. guest: before i got oceans, still staying on weather, the dependence on the weather

enterprise, the private weather enterprise that has grown up around the basic information we provide is worth about $1 billion. that created new jobs and unable new business opportunity -- and enabled new business opportunity. on the oceanside, fisheries are equally important and provide nearly 2 million jobs in this country and considerable economic benefits. host: our guest is noaa administrator jane lubchenco. this part of our weeklong series looking at government and weather and what the government does predicting weather, etc.. today we are focusing on noaa. if you would like to send an e- mail, you can send it to journal@c-span.org or you can

send a tweet. we have gotten this tweet. is noaa the only government agency with public satellites that do what you do -- i mean, such as these images? el nino, la nina coming through. is noaa the only place to get this information? guest: no, some of our sister agencies p fly satellites and provide nicely complemented information. noaa's satellites are focused on taking environmental dat to understand change and the

oceans, sea level rise, those kinds of things. there are multiple sources of the satellite imagery. host: hurricanes -- we often hear about the hurricane hunter aircraft. are those noaa aircraft? guest: they are noaa planes, and or by the air force and they flights to the hurricane, so did once operated by noaa. they gather data that are vital to understanding how intense the storm is, how well it is structured, and therefore, enable scientists to plug the information into models and do forecasts about where it is the storm likely to go, how big is it likely to be, how intense is

it going to be, etc. information from inside the storm is vitally important. we also have another airplane, g-4, that flies above and around of the storm hit both of those drop instruments into the store and take data on temperature, precipitation and pressure, and so we have a way of characterizing what the storm looks like. because of those instruments and because of our past investment in research over the last couple of decades, we've been able to get better and better and better at forecasting where the store is -- where the storm is going to go. we have increase the accuracy of the track very significantly and saw that in no uncertain terms with irene. on tuesday, four days before irene hit landfall, we predicted pretty much exactly where she ended up going.

the thing we've not got in as good at yet and are working very hard on is increasing the accuracy of the predictions about the intensity of the storm -- how much energy is in that storm, and therefore, what the winds are going to be and how much storm surge there will be, but the rain is going to be. we are in year four of a 10- year big research push to better understand the intensity of storms like irene, hurricanes in particular. those airplanes you asked about a minute ago have special instruments that record doppler radar as the plane is flying through the storm. that information is allowing scientists to better understand this very complex dynamics outside, inside, right in the middle of the hurricane.

we believe that with sustained investment and research, we are going to be getting better and better at predicting intensity like we have done it in predicting the track. host: have you had the pleasure of going up in one of those planes? guest: not yet, but i look forward to it. host: first call for noaa and mr. jim lubchenco is from gold beach, oregon. caller: good morning, jane. web site. of the noaa we have a lot of fishermen out here, and they really rely on your information, and it is reliable and that is really good -- host: john, can you explain, how the fishermen rely on noaa information? caller: well, they mead advanced idea of what the weather conditions are going to be out, because they go out early in the

morning and they need a good idea what to expect, you know, what is going to get th -- what is going to be out there. guest: john, thanks for the culprit fishermen rely heavily on the forecast -- really appreciate -- thanks for the call. fishermen rely heavily on the forecast and i appreciate your drawing attention to that. having information about what that sea state is and what the weather is going to be helps fishermen stay as safe as possible. the same is true for maritime commerce, the big ships that delivered so much of our goods by water, are also dependent on weather forecast from noaa. i would like to point out that the polar orbiting satellite we talked about earlier, for which there is a significant increase in the budget request for the next fiscal year, is in fact

critical to being able to do the maritime forecasts. esat satellite orbits the poll and sees a different swath of the earth it every time it goes around, as to what is happening in the ocean, way far away from the land. host: administrator lubchenco talked about noaa's role in hurricane irene. is there some overlap with fema in response? guest: no, it is not overlap, but it is a very tight coupling. noaa does have responsibility

before, during and after a storm like a hurricane. at the beginning of the season, we do provide an outlook that gives us a sense of, given the ocean and atmosphere dynamics, what is the season likely to be. is it going to be normal, above normal, below normal? once we detect is from developing, early, early on, before it comes a hurricane, we start to run our models and use satellites to get information. once it is clear that we are going to have a service -- a serious storm, we work with fema and other and agency managers so that -- other emergency managers so that they in turn can prepare communities. fema is absolutely critical in taking our information and getting it out. if there are going to be significant evaluations, for example, which we saw on some parts of the coast for irene, it

takes time to do that. having advanced knowledge that the storm is coming and some sense of how strong she is going to be is vitally important to doing those evaluations, at this stage and emergency materials -- to stagin emergency materials for fema and emergency managers. we work in a tightly coupled, synergistic fashion. host: fort myers, florida, you are on the air. caller: first of all, living on a barrier island, i would like to thank you very much for the job noaa does. the other thing is, argued the agency that would also get data from -- are you the agency that would also get data from sunlight or solar, wind for wind turbines, and possibly gulf stream data for turbines to be

put out to sea in the gulf stream? guest: the short answer is yes. we provide information about wind forecasts and about solar gradients, and that is now becoming more and more important as we are seeing increased focus on renewable energy. as it turns out, we are trying to do a better job of getting information that is relevant to where the turbines are, the all the tickets they our. we have a new effort that is designed to do exactly that, to be able to provide information to the private sector so that they can maximize both of the placement and the utilization of wind, for example, or solar energy. host: earthquake here in virginia if you weeks ago -- a

few weeks ago -- guest: pretty amazing. the u.s. geological service, part of the department of the interior, has responsibility for monitoring earth? . they are part of an international seismic network. when an earthquake is detected, noaa has access to information instantaneously, regardless of where the earthquake happened. we immediately start running our models to ask a question, well they're likely be a tsunami as a result of the earthquake? that is the role of the plate. we use information about how strong the earthquake was -- that is the role that we play. we use information about how strong the earthquake was and we provide the critical information. for example, the earthquake that happened in japan -- our forecast for tsunamis were issued nine minutes after the earthquake.

they enabled americans in alaska, washington, oregon, california and it is of the islands -- and the pacific islands to know that it was going to be a tsunami and how strong it would be and when it might arrive. that is our role in the aftermath of an earthquake. host: what is your ph.d. from harvard in? guest: marine ecology. host: when you were an undergraduate at colorado college, were you interested in these types of things? guest: i grew up in colorado and my family did a lot of outdoor the things, hiking, fishing, whenever this season. i loved science. i love pretty much everything. but my major in college was biology. that was particularly intriguing to me. between my junior and senior

years in college, i had the opportunity to go to massachusetts and spend the summer there and take classes in marine biology and i thought, wow, this is really cool, i loved it, i want more. it has been oceans ever since. host: next call for noaa administrator lubchenco comes from oklahoma city. hi, scott. caller: hi. appreciate your show. i am interested in weather prediction as well, and i think it is too important a job to lead to the federal government. article 1, section 8 of the u.s. constitution, every congressman has sworn to uphold, forbids them from setting up anything that has anything to do -- i mean, there are 17 hours there, not one of them has to do with predicting whether or anything like that, which was added to file thi-- which was in the founders time as well as today. host: too important to leave to

the power of government, administrator lubchenco. guest: i think it is too important not to have it to save lives and property. the private sector has the opportunity to add value to that, create new products, and thrive. as i mentioned earlier, that private weather sector enterprise is about $1 billion. it is a nice synergy between what the government does and what the private sector is able to do that benefits from the basic core information that is so important. you should not have to buy information about the weather to be safe. host: a tweet in to you, administrator.

any comment -- guest: i am not sure what that is referring to -- host: water flow or anything like that? guest: i am not sure what that means. host: all right, we will leave that alone. good morning, mary. caller: i'm calling about the reports from noaa during storms. frequently, local news stations go to noaa for updates. that used to be this very telegenic it died down in florida -- telegenic guy down in florida that it is great reports and these maps and everything, and i never he retired last year with a year before. -- last year or the year before. -- last year or the year before. now thae noaa reviews, i don't

know where they are coming out of, and the guy that is doing it, i cannot understand it, i cannot read the map. the feed is not good, or not as good as it used to be. i'm wondering what is going on. i'm wondering what is going on. host: let's get a response lubchenco. guest: mary, thanks for the feedback. we are trying to get better. i am not sure who the personalities are of whom you are speaking, but we provide the core information that local meteorologists on tv stations and what not present to the public. most of the core information we have is on our website, and that is actually a great source of information. the national weather service is part of -- or their website has, at during irene, 52 million hits

per hour. that was weather.gov. that is a great source of information if you would like more than what you are getting it now. host: weather.gov got 52 million -- guest: hits per hour during irene, a new record for us. host: we got a call from oklahoma in a while back. lots of tornadoes in oklahoma. what is noaa's role in that? guest: tornadoes are a big challenge, because they are so localized and can be so incredibly destructive, as we saw this year. saw this year. noaa forecasts tornado warnings, and we have gotten better and better third time -- through time in getting a more advanced

morning. that is still a matter of minutes in terms of where a tornado with touchdown. however, thanks to our polar orbiting weather satellite, during the very severe tornadoes we had this last few months ago, we were able to give a five-day heads up to emergency managers that conditions at developing, tornadoes are going to be really severe, get ready. two days out, we said this is the area that is likely to be affected, and then the day off, we would be able to say, ok, it is going to touch down here, going to touch down here. those tornadoes were devastating. some of them had really, really awful consequences. but all of the emergency managers with whom i have spoken has said it would have been much, much worse had we not had the heads of information. now, one of the things that noaa

does is track the number of weather-related disasters that have been each year. we keep track of how many have happened each year that are at least $1 billion in damage. the previous record was 2008, where we had a lot of hurricanes. as of now, as of irene, we have broken that record. we have 10 at least $1 billion defense to date this year. quite a few of those were tornadoes. but we also had floods, we had droughts, wildfires, and now irene. and we stock most of the rest of -- and we still have most of the rest of hurricane season to go. hurricane season runs through the end of november. the peak is typically september and october. and october. our predictions in june -- may,

actually -- word that this would be in the above normal year for hurricane activity. . she keep a sharp eye on -- everybody should keep a sharp eye on the weather outlook, disaster warnings. we have seen with irene how important it is to be prepared and follow instructions. we have a tropical storm that just became a hurricane this morning, katia, out in the atlantic. it is too early to know exactly where she will go yet. we are attacking her and you can get information on her at weather.gov. there are likely to be otherwise development -- other ones developing behind her, possibly in the gulf. it is smart to just pay attention guest g. host: if katia is already out

there, how far in advance to you know this? could it be a week? how far out to you see? guest: she started way on the other side of the atlantic off the coast of africa, where a lot of hurricanes are spine. some of them develop into nothing and just sort of dissipate. others develop into a full-blown hurricane. we track them from the very early days before they are even a tropical storm. we do that with our satellite, we watch them, cross. we watch them come across. if the tracks suggest they are close to u.s. territory, we send out the hurricane hunter plans to get additional information so that we canhone the forecast in the warnings. if you look at path of many of

those hurricanes, they often come across the atlantic in a westerly and northwesterly direction . irene turned northward, and our models and did exactly -- that -- predicted exactly that. as the administrator at fema pointed out a few days ago, a decade ago, our hurricane track decade ago, our hurricane track forecasts were not as good as they are today and we probably would have had to evacuate most of a florida for irene. but in fact, because our track said no, it is not going to hit florida, it will hit north carolina, that was spot on and it's a unnecessary evacuation's -- it saved a lot of unnecessary evacuations as well as a lot of disruption. improved warnings is what we improved warnings is what we constantly strive for.

host: an email for you, administrator. "are more volunteers needed?" guest: that will be a great question for the head of the national weather service, will be on the show tomorrow. yes, we do use volunteers, and if you have a chance to ask jack, a great trait if not, we can provide more information if you send me an e-mail. host: we will put that aside and say that for tomorrow. california, eloise. caller: i am interested in stopping a hurricane while it is still a tropical storm, an article one, section a, speaks of a navy and an army, so under that aspect, you do fall under the constitution. guest: [laughter]

thank you for that. there is so much power in a tropical storm that it is inconceivable how one could even conceive of stopping it. our job is to understand that there are very real forces of nature, and our task is to understand how they works so we can get out of harm's way and that is what we do with our forecasts. host: roanoke, virginia. hi, gerald, you are on with jane lubchenco as "washington journal" looks at weather and government. caller: this is so good to hear a doctor who was educated and well versed in weather. she was talking about wind turbines. we are spending this tax money on these wind turbines bro. i heard on a national broadcast three weeks ago that three of these large projects have now

been shot down. here in the roanoke area, they planning to install 54 in the mountain area that can be seen from the blue ridge parkway for 20 miles away. the blue ridge parkway in this mountainous area here is very beautiful and attracts many visitors. the wind now is not even blowing. it has not belong here for at least three days. -- has not blown here for least three days. i cannot even see a leaf twitching. these wind turbines have to be restarted when the when it does not blow. and they have to have electricity, or they have a draf -- have to have gasoline -- host: what would you like to the administrator to respond to?

guest: to the wind turbines and the fact that these are inefficient. guest: thanks, jerrel. one of the challenges with wind energy is the intermittent nature of the wind, and that is what you described. that is why is so important to have information about what the typical winter is like at a particular -- typical wind is like a particular place so that one can place this in the right spots. even if they are in the right spots, and thought has been given to how to accommodate the intermittent nature. nonetheless, many of the places nonetheless, many of the places where they are, i think, are providing a good wind energy that is not polluting. they have to be designed properly. the department of energy has the department of energy has primary responsibility for those

and is working closely with the department of interior as well as noaa. noaa's role in that is to provide information about the winds that enable others to do their jobs. host: very quickly, a couple of tweets. guest: i believe that everyone i have spoken to appreciates some aspect of noaa. one of my challenges is to represent the diversity of what we do and interconnected nature of it. i believe that noaa brings a significant benefit to the nation, and in communicating that, we will be able to sustain all the important things that we do. there are very significant downward pressure is on everybody's budget, and we attempt to live within our means and address the deficit, as i believe we need to.

guest: noaa does not have satellites that sitting around ready to be launched. we build them and then fly them. we build them and then fly them. host: does noaa have official or non-official opinion on global warming? guest: noaa is the science agency and we track to provide records about temperature, it changes in precipitation, changes in storms and other things. the evidence is very strong that we have seen significant warming over the last century, since the 19th century. we are seeing increases in temperatures and about 1.5- degree fahrenheit. we are also seeing increases in extreme storms, extreme

precipitation events. more flights, more droughts. all that is consistent -- more floods, more droughts. all that is consistent with the predictions that have been made about climate change. we track records, provide information, we use the information to inform people's activities around to the nation. activities around to the nation. host: in fact, dr. lubchenco served on the national academy of science's study on policy implications of global warming during the george h.w. bush administration. she served from 1977 to 2009 as a professor at oregon state university and prior to that taught at harvard for a couple of years. chris tweets -- would you like to address that? guest: noaa played a very important role in responding to the deepwater horizon oil spill,

as we do to other oil spill. that is one of our responsibilities. we provide a lot of the scientific information that enables the response, whether it is weather or oceanographic models that say where the oil will gold. we have responsibility for protecting wildlife and habitat. we are in the process of assessing the damage and then we will help with the restoration. all that is integrated and underpinned by the science that we do. i believe that we did a very, very good job of our part in the oil spill. it was a disaster, it was highly unfortunate, it went on for too long, and there are a lot of lessons to be learned from it. but i am exceptionally proud of the role that noaa played in that event. not a single piece of seafood that was tainted made it into the markets.

we closed fisheries in anticipation of with the oil was going to be and worked closely with fishermen to open up areas as soon as it was safe. we continue to test seafood from that. our models about where the oil would go and what would you have been spot on. -- and what would you have been -- and what would you have been spot on. there was a lot of miscommunication during the event, lessons learned, but we've been pretty much vindicated with what we did. i'm proud of our folks. host: jane lubchenco is the administrator of the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. the website is noaa.gov. if you want to follow them on twitter, usnoaagov is the address. thank-you for being part of our series. guest: thanks, peter. host: