the long-term unemployed for this country -- guest: as you stayed on foot longer, the chance of you getting a job tends to diminish. we need to do more. one of the things people don't recognize is that even in an 8.3% unemployment and farming, businesses -- unemployment, businesses are looking for workers. the other big number that is out there is the real unemployed which is 15%. we have to do more to alleviate those structural challenges. host: the federal government and states have invested quite a bit of money.

in retraining. or the opportunities offered to honor -- unemployed people? >> to a certain extent but not fully. manufacturers tell me they are looking for talented workers being able to attract workers is one of their top concerns. we're not getting that full match there. part of the challenges that we are not educated enough people in technology and dealing with math. there are definitely some larger educational challenges that are out there. beyond that, it is the stigma attached to manufacturing. it is one of the bright spots. when we do surveys of manufacturing, even though people of manufacturing and they think it is great bus making step in america, when you ask of people will work for the manufacture, they are less likely to say yes. we need to do as much as we can

to change the perception of what manufacturing is. it is a highly skilled and highly paying job. host: new york city, democrats -- caller: good morning, you are ignoring the fact that both democrat and republican administrations have negotiated contracts with countries where labour is restricted to and corporations are allowed to do anything they want. we negotiate agreements with countries where unions are banned and where collective bargaining is forbidden. the recent trade agreements with panama and colombia and south korea, there are no unions there. the only way we can have a fair trade agreement is to compete competitively with overseas markets by allowing trade unions. that brought about the middle class. unless we stop negotiating with

countries where unions are bent and people are shot for organizing unions, we will never have a market here. guest: i believe those free- trade agreements were done earlier this year. they were renegotiated to try to bring in some additional protections to labor. when the trade negotiators are going out there and working with these new countries, labour conditions are one of the components of they look at. the other thing to keep in mind is that the u.s. is only negotiating one trade agreement right now, the trans pacific partnership. the rest of the world are very aggressively going after trade opportunities that we are passing over in this process. the president does not have fast-track authority which he needs to go out and negotiate these free trade agreements on an up or down vote in the senate and we are missing out on enormous opportunities.

though -- those three trigger and sat still for many years and the rest of the world was very active. -- those three trade agreements sat still for many years and the rest of the world was very active. we are hamstringing ourselves in terms of future growth. host: taking a look at though 263,000 jobs added in july -- -- 163,000 jobs. guest: about half of the durable-goods number was in motor vehicles.

when you look the sectors that are doing well in manufacturing, they primarily are in the durable-goods space like machinery, motor vehicles, aerospace, metals. that has accounted for the bulk of the growth in manufacturing over the last year. motor vehicles continue to be one of the drivers. the state those from most is michigan. the automobile sector as has come back.ost host: michigan, go ahead. caller: are we competing with other companies but other american companies that went to these other companies and hired lobbyists to get lower tariffs? one example of that would be microsoft. have educatedn't enough people to build what ever they make but we hear there

are 12-year-old chinese girls making them. isn't that a false premise that we're competing with other countries? years ago, john mccain sued the companies -- the cigarette companies. why haven't these manufacturers leaving this company paying more for the damage they are doing to this country? everybody i know that worked in manufacturing plant, their jobs have moved overseas and in northern michigan here, there are devastated counties in this state. are we competing over there or competing with ourselves? guest: people have to realize that we are competing in a global environment. we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. you will see manufacturers try to compete on a global stage, looking for the best environment

they can compete in. when you have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, you will see people react to that. the other issue i barely touched on earlier is the territorial tax system we tax on income regardless of where it is earned three we are the only country that does that in the developed world. as a result, many businesses i talked to are sitting on an enormous amount of catch -- cash overseas. if they brought into the united states, they would be taxed on a further so they leave the cash overseas. there is over $1 trillion of caches that has no intention of coming into this country. the tax system is broken and needs to be fixed and that is one element of a strategy that can bring some of these manufacturers back. we are seeing some signs of increase competitiveness in u.s. manufacturing but there is a lot more we can do so that we don't see more communities like yours losing their manufacturing base. host: some economists have said

the reason jobs are coming back is wages are lower since the recession. guest: that is one component of their income -- increased productivity. unit labor costs were down around 5% so you are getting 5% more out of your work force than before. even if wages stay the same, you are getting more out of your workforce and becoming more competitive. manufacturing make higher compensation than any other industry. we have to be competitive as much as we can but we also have to recognize the manufacturing is a high paying wage and even with life after the recession, it continues to be so. host: good morning, fla., a republican --

caller: a lot of manufacturers are doing good because down here they tend to hire temporary companies. you may get an assignment depending on how much work they have for like two days and after the assignment is done, you go back with no work. the tampa company keeps a big chunk of the money. -- the temp company gets paid a big chunk of the my. >guest: the lot of manufacturers are hiring temop workers. manufacturers are hesitant to bring on full-time workers because they don't know what the environment will be like moving forward. temporary workers are a way they can alleviate some of the anxiety but also to potentially try out workers before they bring them on full time.

we did a study on the defense sequestration. as we move forward for the rest of this year, there is a high risk that you will see a huge declines in overall claims in the manufacturing center based on sequestration. you are already starting to see manufacturers and companies in the defense space trying to stop hiring. host: is there a notificatio for defense contractors? >> it is known as the one act. defense contractors have 60 days they have to give notice before they were to make cuts, 60 days before january 1 is november 2. that is right before the election, coincidentally. the labor department put out a notice this week that potentially defense contractors

might not have to give notice of the 60 days because maybe there'll be a settlement in the fiscal cliff. many manufacturers and the defense space continue to be very worried about the defense sequestration. they don't know what programs will be cut so therefore it is possible everyone that works for their company might have to be let go to protect their base. caller: i want to tell everybody how america disgusts me. we want a trade deal with you. colombia, you want more than $1 an hour? your kids are kidnapped and murdered because you want more than $1.50 per hour. panama will be the new cayman islands. while we are attacking afghan

and pakistan and yemen, iraq is threatening syria and iran. besides paying for a pentagon that said don 9/11, maybe we should handle all this and fight for freedom again. i'm so disgusted with this country. what is treason? sending our jobs to the chinese? guest: there are differences in wages around the world. but one thing to keep in mind is the u.s. manufacturer remains the most productive in the world and that is the reason why we have not lost all of our jobs. we continue to invest in technology and innovation. manufacturing is not your grandfather is manufacturing. it is highly skilled and is a high level content. that is the key component here. we can continue to compete anywhere.

we have gained about five of the thousand jobs in the last couple of years and you can clearly say that. host: new york, an independent -- caller: the reason we have a mismatch of skills in this country is because the big corporations, the big business, sent all the jobs overseas where people were invested and had 40 years in and now they are getting ready to retire. they unloaded the expense of labor and sent them overseas for peanuts and hour and a turn around and say we have a skill gap. why don't these corporations investing teaching people their skills that they need? partner with these colleges and get these jobs tot to these kids coming up and get them into the straits.

big business does not want america to be free or dependent on them. they want us to be under their heels of a can control the people. they control of voting and we have the best congress that money can buy. guest: we need to have a greater emphasis on trade. i mention manufacturers continue to look for work beyond manufacturing. some manufacturers are definitely looking for more. we have not done a good job to make sure the youth, to the trade. we need to emphasize science, technology, engineering, and math. at the manufacturing institute, we have very aggressively gone

out to make sure we do instill these skills at the community college and before that at the high-school level, the number of programs called a dream it, do it. we have been very aggressive in making sure that states are aware of these programs and manufacturers to an enormous amount of training once they bring in workers to make sure they have the skills. host: last call, washington, d.c., what's your question or comment? caller: out of the g-20, we're the only country in the world in the g-20 that does not mandate that all government purchases of manufactured goods be made within the country. if obama wanted to win the

election and get jobs back in the country with a pen stroke, he can mandate that all manufactured goods the government purchases be purchased here. if you take a look at stanley, they to call the manufacturing overseas. then they claim their corporate headquarters in the cayman islands. they shipped the jobs overseas and they don't pay taxes in the united states. the president can change this and add 1 million manufacturing jobs because they are the largest purchaser of goods in the country. guest: that is a good point but it is hard to implement than it might sound what is an american good? you mentioned a company whose headquarters is overseas, does that not make an american? there are so many different components of a product. half of them could be assembled in the united states and the parts could be coming from

elsewhere. it is harder and a global environment to pinpoint what is an american goods a you could make sure you only buy american. the other point is, even better than mandating by america products program is making sure that america is the most competitive in the world and to attract jobs. if companies are moving overseas because of the tax environment and the regulatory environment, we need to do as much as we can to make sure that environment improves so we can continue to get those companies to stay here. host: thanks so much for being with us. in our final segment, america by the numbers. we will be looking at how the government measures the country's economic situation and our discussion will be what are your own measurements at home to have an understanding of your economic situation? steven landefeld is our guest.

we will be right back. >> in the weeks ahead, the political parties are holding their platform here is in advance of the summer conventions with democrats voting next week and on their final platform recommendations in detroit followed in mid august as republicans start their platform process at the tampa convention site. our coverage begins august 10 with the reform party in philadelphia fall by live coverage of the republican national convention beginning monday, august 27 from tampa and the democratic national convention live from charlotte, n.c. starting monday september 3. >> at the foot of that bridge, i was beaten.

i thought i was going to die. i thought i saw death. >> in 1965, a 25-year-old john lewis took part in a voting rights march from selma to montgomery, alabama on a route that would take them across the edmund pettis bridge. >> we came within spitting distance of a state trooper and a man identified himself and said i am major john cloud of the alabama state troopers. this is an awful march and it will not be allowed to continue. one of the young people walking beside me said give us a moment to kneel and pray. the major told the troopers to advance them across that bridge, author and congressman john lewis sunday at 8:00 on c-span 's"q &a." guest: " continues -- "washington journal" continues. host: steven landefeld is the

head of the economic bureau of analysis. guest: for a number of years, we have been searching and looking at better ways to measure the economy. in particular the financial crisis pointed out some significant gaps in our statistics. in particular, giving adequate warning to the downturn in the housing crisis and an increasing number of americans are feeling like the top down numbers like gdp just don't reflect their experience. those of the two major bits of work we have been doing to better measure the economy in the u.s. and abroad. next week, we will have a major conference of the international and domestic people who do work in the measurement of gdp and the like in cambridge to attempt to answer some of these questions. host: hoping the next crisis, we

can see and avoid it? guest: absolutely. host: we will look at how the government measures aspects of the u.s. economy. you might tell us in your own personal environment, what are the economic indicators you look to as to how your family circumstances are? unemployment, saving for retirement, owning your own home -- owning your own home -- you must be keeping some things and we would like to know how you do that and how that has been measuring up since the 2008 downturn. we will take your calls so feel free to comment on these numbers. the first slide you brought is what we missed during the great recession. guest: this is something that got us thinking. two of the most prominent business journals at the time

had these covers. a lot of it is about the economic data. when the new administration came in, they ask that question -- are we doing a good job and what warning signals do we have? --t: let's look to this one what is your share of the $15 trillion economy? that is the overall size of the u.s. economy right now. guest: what we are showing is the blue bar is 2.4% growth. that is how much the economy is growing after we adjust for inflation. a lot of growth in gdp simply goes to pay more workers to support a larger population. in terms of how the average family fills about a coming you have to reduce the to size and put it on a per-capita basis. the second bar does that. it takes at $15 trillion of gdp

down to about $48,000 per individual and the growth rate slows down significantly to 1.4% indicating a fair amount of growth. the 1% was simply keeping up with growth in the labour force. host: moving on to the other side, during 2007-2011 during recovery and recession, growth in real gdp grew a small amount. when we look at real gdp per capita, accounting for the growth in population, it fell zero 0.7%. the feel of the economy is different on a per-capita basis. that is the heart of the disconnect that people feel between their own situation and

what is happening in the headline numbers. host: let's move on to the next. this is living statements -- standards as the government grows. guest: the bars on the left are measures are real gdp per capita and real disposable, personal income per capita. those are both growing between 2000-2010. another cited figure is a real median household income. it shows standards of living as measured by household income shrinking by 7%, almost the opposite result. we've got two numbers and the figure prominently in international and domestic debate on what happens. what we can take away from this

is the blue and yellow bar our gdp numbers which are based on tax records and business records. they are probably more accurate than what we get out of household surveys which are independent. households have trouble recalling and most of us don't know exactly what their employer pays for health insurance or other types of benefits. that probably is a missed. household surveys have problems of getting the upper and lower income individuals to report. host: when you want people to know what the health of the country is in terms of living standards, you say much of this might be underreporting? >> yes, much of it may bay area host: so it is not as bad a story as it looks that guest: yes but another takeaway points shows that half the people above that number and have below it is a much better measure of what

people are feeling than the average number. those are lifted by the bond buyer's that made for -- that made a fortune. that distorts the picture as a measure of what is happening to middle income families. host: we begin with albuquerque, you are on the air -- caller: good morning, cspan and thank you for your great service. this is a great topic. the bar that is not represented is how we feel about the standard of living. i look at what my grandparents and joined and my father's generation. they are in a burning category. my wife and i struggled to pull $50,000 per year. i have a list of the things i like to do.

i was making money in the real- estate industry and now have gone back to college. i feel pretty good. i go fishing. i love doing that. i take the little things. inhave a son o making90's high school, i go biking in the rio grande, they're animals everywhere. i used to make a good income but i have had to let a lot of things go. i have defined the things i like to do and i am happier when i turned off the constant barrage of media telling me what i should be doing and what i should be thinking and what i should be wanting. if you want that big expensive mercedes, and the $300,000 house

or would you rather go fishing? the happiness factor would be a green bar in between your blue and your yellow. gauge g spelled-a-u-g-e. host: thanks for mentioning our spelling error. he is arguing for something the some countries are doing which is a happiness measurements. guest: exactly, that is probably the ultimate goal that we would like to measure. we have some charts of the back of our package on that subject but the difficulty with happiness as a measurement is peoples have been this don't have a set point. as a look at it over time,

people have to adapt for the well to recessions and or or whatever it may be. over time, they look pretty flat things like gdp per capita are a pretty good guide to a police the objective things we can measure to do more for our situation. it is not just expensive houses but better health care that will improve life expectancy. even reducing pollution, a lot of the amenities of modern life are captured by things like gdp per capita. we're talking about ways we can supplement our existing data to better measure what is happening with the diverse mix of americans across the country and industries. host: the next one looks at what is happening to wages. what is happening? guest: the bar are left shows

inflation is real. this shows both wages and salaries and fringe benefits, health, pension, and other things. the yellow bar is often cited and referred to in shorthand as hourly wages. those wages are for production show a much slower growth. a big part of those differences are the supplements and benefits. those fringe benefits grew at an annual rate after inflation of 2.9%. they were growing faster than wages and salary.

host: this is compensation including all that. next is a call from quincy, mass., you are on the arab caller:. good morning, a wanted to make a call about the north american water power line. that has been on the table since the 1960's. have you heard of that? host: nope. you can look it up. it is a three-tier program.

the north american water and power authority -- host: as interesting as this is, how does this fit in with our discussion? caller: we have these political candidates running for president and neither one of them will ask to reinstate glass-stiegal. it is in congress now. call your congressman and tell them to stay in session and reinstate glass-stiegel. i will call my congressman in massachusetts. host: thank you very much for the call telling us in a different direction. let's move on to sacramento. caller: good morning, echoing

the earlier caller, gdp is not really a good indicator anymore for economic health. we need to distinguish between needs and wants. the need that indicated -- economic indicators need to focus on our clean air and water, healthy food, shelter, plenty of sleep and plenty of exercise. if everyone was getting these things come a lot of our expenses would drop. gdp is really just a measure of transaction volume. it does not tell you what you are really getting for it. money can never be the independent variable. you have to look of the real stuff on the ground. host: thanks. guest: i would agree that gdp is

not the be all or end all measure. you need lots of different measures to see how society is doing. i would argue it gives us a good measure of how some of our standards are doing. you do what those other measures and some of them that were mentioned by the state of the environment and things like our use of natural resources, those are things that are envisioned and we have talked about expanding a set of accounts. even if you are only word about the economy, you should be looking at what is happening with natural resources and their implications for tomorrow. host: we asked this question on facebook earlier --

are we seeing this and the numbers? guest: we are, indeed. the recovery has been weaker than normal. a fair chunk of that is due to weaker than normal growth in consumer spending. that is people dialing back. we have run up a lot of dead as individuals and families between the mid-1990s and a financial housing market collapse of 2008. people had to pay down those

debts and live within their means more. this recovery has been slower than it otherwise would have been. host: more income measures -- guest: we start with the top down number of 2.4% and would look at disposable personal and come and we deduct what you paid in income tax and this is the measure of the media -- how much of that growth in the 1.8% bar is due to growth and upper income individuals who are holding up the average and not affecting people in the middle? the middle number as 1.2%. that is significantly less than real gdp growth.

this is an indication why we need to develop measures of income for the median and the distribution of income so we see how reached a record is doing. host: this is 2000-2007. we have an economy that relies on consumption. guest: the number we produced in the past is disposable personal income, what you earn less your taxes. what people have available to spend for discretionary spending, whatever it may be, are not just concerned about what the taxes they paid what they have left over after they are spending things -- on things like the mortgage or medical

care for transportation services. when the polos items suspect payments, we find -- won the pole the items of fixed payments, - when we pull those items as fixed payment, they are quite a bit more. this discretionary measure may be a better measure of household capacity. host: does the government have more recent numbers than 2008? guest: we have some on an experimental basis. host: this will give the people who tracks such things better

productions -- better projections about what money americans may have? guest: yes. host: you have to pay the utility bills and the mortgage. next is a call from long beach, california. caller: thank you for taking my call. i used all of my savings and retirement to pay the mortgage and i lost my house and i am fortunate that i'm living with a friend. all hope and change of of the four did not turn out well for me. my economic situation is very dire. i don't know exactly what i will do.

there are people that are a lot wealthier and there's a lot of parties going on the white house and lots of trips being taken and what ever else shall i don't think we have elected people who care. host: what was your line of work? >> it realtor. >host: are you seeing any return as a realtor in the long beach market? the numbers tell us there's an upturn. caller: there may be in the future but i don't know. if you decide to market someone's home, you have to have some money to advertise it and when you take a listing, it could be month-to-month. a house might still be 45 or 60 days before they can get a loan. host: have you looked into

alternative lines of work? caller: yes, i have. everything i know how to do there is not a market for. i did not have a government job you have the big benefits with. i have the kind of just a few work to get paid -- you get paid, if you don't work, you don't get paid. host: thank you very much and good luck to you. our next chart looks at how different states are doing. how is california doing? guest: california is amongst the faster growing states. but faster growing states are in blue. the slower growing states are in gold. the point of this chart and i think the caller just heard our

differences by geography and industry. the growth rate among states goes from 6%-27%. the average growth rate was 10.6% for the nation. that probably does not portray places like north dakota that had a booming economy versus other economies like florida that had slow growth. that is partly for the real- estate reasons that were just mentioned. host: north dakota had a natural gas boom. guest: north dakota was in the range of 27% to 11%.

i don't know for sure but i would be willing to guess that north dakota is that 27%. host: this next chart is how well businesses are doing. what is the difference between industries that are doing well and those that are not doing well? here is our last caller. this is one of those sectors that is in the negative category of 5% guest: in that industry, we have,bubble in real-estate prices and it collapsed. housing prices are way down the good news, i suppose, is a lot of the debt that was accumulated is coming down.

households are nearing equilibrium and as deleveraging process of paying down their debt. housing prices were within 10% of normal levels. hopefully, there is some good news around the corner. that is effectively what is driving the slower performing sectors like real-estate. host: this is the non-economist asking a question but the areas that are growing well, the combination of services and this is from the latest job numbers -- the top few our disposable income driven. guest: a lot of it is what you call disposable or discretionary spending going on there. tourism and travel, kind of thing still doing well.

what you see more of is in services that people are crimping on, higher education services -- you are still finding an overall growth in consumer spending but it is still below average in some of these industries, the growth rate has been strong. that was like for manufacturing the that was from a sharp drop. it is coming out of a rebound host: let's go to austin, texas. caller: i know you will have a big conference next weekend and will anything that come out put more light on what we are talking about today? what about the fragmentation going on with outsourcing?

we have heard over and over in this political season about how this is the worst recovery of a recession ever. i'm wondering what is your opinion on that? i have heard good things about you, thanks. guest: yes, we certainly hope coming out of this conference -- this is not just talking conference. this is commission papers on proposals to fix these things. historically, these two associations have produced most of the improvements you seen in gdp and related accounting or last six years. we have a good track record. with respect to your question on outsourcing, i know it is a much-discussed topic and have you lost your job because of outsourcing, we collect data on

multinational companies that the bureau. over time, we don't say precipitous drop off in the share of those multinational activities occurring in the united states of verses their affiliates abroad. it has between 75%-80%. it is falling but not nearly large enough to explain what we have seen on the doubling of the of employment rate. most of that activity is done in high-wage countries. it is mainly assets to markets and as a result, the jobs overseas does not really replace a job domestically. there may be engineers designing products. most of those imports like the ipad, the bulk of the value added remains in the united

states. host: more people are telling us their personal stories -- ithe feeling on capital gains hs to do with housing values? guest: yes, those comments you just read related lot to this. part of what this chart shows is the big blue mountain of building network by households. the red line is savings.

what ramped up in the mid-1990's was a feeling in many households that they could let their capital gains increasing the value of their house. they spent a lot and they felt there were able to go out and borrow a lot host: so this is a predictor. >guest: yes, it is not complex by think people are aware of it. looking at the son of a regular basis would have been useful in terms of reminding people how unsustainable the current trends were in both saving of current income and consumer spending. host: if this had been something that people were more aware of, what could have changed it? guest: there is no particular set of statistics that would change policy.

quarterly gdp growth for the unemployment report begins to set people's feelings about what is happening in the economy. hopefully, what such data could of done was have a more balanced debate on what was happening. we wouldn't have been quite as complacent about it. instead of the bubble running out, it might have run up more slowly. host: we will take a call. how did we miss the housing bubble? guest: we ask economists in general. that shows the ratio of households of assets to personal income. ultimately, you have to pay for those mortgages you can see the line increase through 2006-2007. we were taking on a lot of buying houses that were large

relative to our ability to pay for them. another line is the total liabilities of the household and personal income. that stopped growing as well. host: people were spending more of their income on housing? guest: yes, and they were borrowing to pay for it. that put them into a lot of debt. then there is the actual bubble and housing prices. when the bubble was bursting, they came down. households are also working to pay down the debts. that is constraining consumer spending. host: next up is richmond, virginia. caller: how are you doing? people have always borrowed. they thought things were going

to get better but they never did. host: do you think there was a sense that housing prices will always go up? caller: that's what i am saying. people thought it would get better. it just got worse and worse. the interest rate kept going and going. it got up to like 17% and i could not understand it. i have been working for 25 years and i had to have an emergency operation on my back. my desk was cutting into my spinal cord. all of a sudden, i was working one day and i noticed that when i got into this situation, the way they calculated different

things was completely different. take, for instance, say you wanted to apply for energy savings. they don't care rugger house now. they care about how much money you're bringing in. your check could be $1,100 to qualify. you have a house payment for $800. does that make any sense? it was like going from one room to another that you never thought about. it was crazy. to think people have to live like this -- to think -- it was amazing that either you did not know it or you did not

want to know it. host: we talked about housing prices going up. has there ever been a bubble that has sustained? guest:, no, they get punctured. host: this were told us that housing prices will com down at some point. > guest: looking back at history with less rationalization, there was no good explanation why housing prices were what they were. this was predicted by some of the nation's most esteemed economist. better statistics provide a little better policy. host: this is a look at the

stock market bubble there are concerns this morning about a social media bauble was on the way. maybe past and prolog would be an interesting point. guest: the overall stock price index was not quite a misalignment. the green line the stock prices from 1949. we see that these lines grew together. your growth in stocks are future looking view of what corporate america will look like. it should grow about the rate of growth of the economy. host: this just took off around 1990. guest: at the time, there were very good explanations for this. people said the increase in value was in tangible assets. the set we were entering a new economy with higher

productivity and higher gdp growth which would justify the higher valuations. eventually, the bubble burst. gue host: you are in the business of sending out statistics about the government but you said people found rationalizations for what is going on. is it not the nature of us in society to find reasons for things that will defy statistics? guest: you will have those kind of discussions on both sides. there are probably as many articles you can point to that are on the other side of the issue. the value we provide in the statistics if we did a better to point out what the facts are. a lot of people look at the facts but they will not change your explanation. they provide a fact check on how

this performs historically. host: you're doing all this work at the new conference. what is it all about the people and of rationalizing this text a couple of more comments -- you captured some of this in the numbers about real discretionary spending? guest: yes. host: our time is running out and i will take a call and look at what we must look out absolutely. san diego, you are on.

caller: i would like to ask a question about two things -- he is talking about ggdp. they used to have the g &d years ago. what is the difference between the two statistics? what to believe about of the gdp? host: the gross national product version of the gross domestic product -- guest: that was a change made some time ago and the g and d include overseas products and we had. back in the early 1990's when we had overseas earnings were going up and domestic manufacturing was going down. we focused on gross domestic

product which better represents what is happening in the united states. host: one more life experience -- guest: the first chart shows that the blue bar is real gdp and shows the growth from 1965- 2005. that is significant growth. you can see clearly the effect of recessions over time. the very flat line is the world happens measures. that's fairly flat line is that the mass and it is an indication that people adapt overtime to happen as.

we heard this earlier in the program. the next line shows that when the financial collapse began, have been missed dropped three sharply. that was the blue line. happen is returned to where it was before -- happiness returned to where it was before. in 2008, they lost $1.60 trillion in guelph. -- in wealth. they were less wealthy and happen as went back to where it was. it seems like a pretty subjective measure that does

not -- that various with -- that varies with conditions. host: that is it for our time. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] i hereby appoint honorable bill flores to act as speaker pro tempore, signed john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by father conroy. chaplain conroy: let us pray, dear lord, we give you thanks for giving us another day. we come you to as a nation in the midst of great uncertainty and worry as people work for causes and solutions, the temptation is great to seek ideological position. we ask that you might send your spirit of peace and

reconciliation, that instead of the sentence over opponents, the members of this people's house and all elected to work together humbly recognizing the best in each other's hopes to bring stability and direction toward a strong future. this chamber is now silent. members gone for the august recess. the weather continues to damage crops, the economy continues to struggle, sequestration threatens interests of all americans from a myriad of points of view. during these coming weeks, may all americans find repite from their struggles and all members find rest and resolve to return to the service of these united states as citizens empowered by their constituents to address the needs of the nation.

may all that is done be for your greater honor and glory, amen. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 3a of house resolution 747, the journal of the last day's proceedings is approved. the chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable, the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on august 3, 2012 at 9:23 a.m., that the senate

passed senate 3245, that the senate agreed to senate concurrent resolution 59, that the senate agreed to senate concurrent resolution 58. that the senate passed without amendment h.r. 4240, that the senate passed without amendment h.r. 3670, that the senate passed without amendment, h.r. 1402, that the senate agreed to, without amendment, house concurrent resolution 135. with best wishes i am signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 3-b of house resolution 747, the house stands adjourned until >> the house is in recess. they fail to get the number of

votes necessary. all democrats voted against it. tailback in a couple of days -- they will be back in a couple of days. the house here run c-span. next we go to the national press club for an energy discussion on the gulf of mexico. michael bromwich took over in the wake of the bp oil spill. they will discuss drilling operations and it has just started. >> we will go from there. >> thank you for inviting me and for assembling this panel. let me talk about the recent past, present, and future of offshore drilling with the focus

on the gulf of mexico. we begin with deepwater horizon , the fire and the spill and the 11 deaths at the 4.9 million barrels of oil. that pop the bubble of complacency on drilling for many years. it led to a comprehensive review of the accident itself and of the structure and the content of the regulation of offshore drilling. it led to examination of ways, overhaul, the agency structure and it caused an intensive look at what new regulations were needed to regulate offshore and development. that led to the development of a number of reforms which we implemented while i was there.

we enhanced prescriptive regulations through the drilling a safety rule which addressed casing issues and the certification of drilling programs and so forth. at the same time in 2010, the first performance-based set of regulations were implemented. that required the development of comprehensive programs to minimize the risks in offshore operations. we did our best to enhance and foremost a protections by eliminating categorial exclusions and more intensive analysis through site specific analysis. those were the reforms and we spent a tremendous amount of time for organizational reforms.

we eliminated the structure of the former mmp and created a new structure that would eliminate the longstanding conflicts among the different missions of the old agency. we provided through the reorganization a new structure that allowed them to focus in a more single-minded way on their missions. one was balanced development of offshore resources. and the regulation and enforcement function which had been starved of resources over the years. we did that and the new structure and the bureau of safety and environmental enforcement have accomplished

what we have set out to do. one part was blown off with it a few months of my getting there. let's talk about the present. there was a slowing of the pace of permitting in terms of improving plans and permits. the chief cause in the leg was there were new rules that needed to be applied. there was some legitimate confusion in the industry and the agency on how those requirements it should apply. and third, there was a lack of containment capabilities that existed. as we all remember, bp and others and the government struggled with the way to cap

the well. o it.ok 87 days to d there were not other resources available. an industry formed to consortium, but that equipment was not ready until many, m onths later. arguments suggesting the moratorium is extended beyond october of 2010 and it moved in thatnored the fact until february 2011, there were no adequate containment capabilities. if we had started permitting applications to drill without the containment capability being ready, i think there would have been a case for impeaching me.

the pace picked up as soon as those contained capabilities were available in the spring of 2011. industry became more familiar with the regulatory rules and how they should be applied. and because the process started to move again. the pace has picked up substantially. look at the current data on the website and there is a small current backlog and a low number of permit applications in the return category. and at this time, deep water permits are being granted roughly at the pace of eight to nine a month. i think everyone has to

acknowledge that there has been remarkable progress. the number of deep water rigs is at or near those levels. the pace of permitting is at or near those levels. if you take the period before my 67 new wells deepwater permits were approved. the take a similar period and 61 mits wereer mets were approved. the ability of the ad agency to continue processing the permits

is dependent on a mainstream and that will be up to congress to maintain and continue. let's talk about the future. i think based on the recent fails and the data on rigs that i've talked about, i think no one can deny the future looks bright. a successful sale in december, $338 million in high bids. 56 companies submitted almost plusbids on for under 5450- tracks. let me close with a sobering note.

i think this could come crashing down in the event of another accident. how do we avoid that? there has to be continuing investments in safety and environment protection and they must keep pace with advanced technology and the ambition to move into frontier areas. those advances needed a place in prevention, containment, and in the spill response. innovations in safety and environmental protection with each other and with the government. there needs to be research on the challenges posed by frontier environments. industry and government, again. there needs to be creative steps to bolster the technical

expertise of government through exchange programs with other countries and with industry. that is something that needs to be looked at very carefully. there needs to be continued focus on recruitment of engineers with an adequate level of expertise and efforts to retain them in the government. if you don't have regulators with appropriate training, things will slow down. the needs to be a focus on insuring adequate funding for the regulatory agency. additional substantial funding has been forthcoming. if that stops or slows, we are all in trouble. we do have a greater global cooperation on prevention, containment, and spill response issues.

the advances that i talked about have all been done internally by the department of the interior. frequently it gets less credit than it deserves. it is noteworthy and extraordinary that two years after the spill there has been zero congressional action in response to the spill. thank you. >> thank you, frank. good morning . we have seen an increase in domestic oil production despite the moratorium two years ago and the drop of production in the gulf of mexico. domestic oil production last year reached its highest level since 2003.

i think there is more that we can do and i want to talk about that with specific reference to the gulf of mexico. overall crude oil output increased last year. output in the gulf of mexico has declined, down 230,000 barrels a day. that is about a 30% decline -- 13% declie. the number of annual leases has declined. as of july 1, according to baker-hughes, there were 19

active drilling rigs in the gulf of mexico. that is still short of pre- moratorium numbers. the gulf of mexico is an important energy source. there are tremendous reserves yet to be tapped. can reverse the trend of falling production, the better in terms of economic security and energy security. in today's markets with growing demand despite the recession in europe and slowdowns in other parts of the world, growing demand for oil. currently more rigs operating in the gulf of mexico and offshore? one reason is the current

regulatory regime. we have a new set of regulations. there's eight learning curve -- there is a learning curve and we need to understand these new regulations. piper's is not to criticize but to suggest there is room for improvements in the way we administer our offshore operations. the industry is committed to safety and reliability in their offshore operations, i believe. macondo was a public-relations disaster. the containment facilities are available if there is another blowout and we hope that does not happen.

i would also argue that energyent obama's strategy is critical link to what happens in the output of the gulf of mexico and other areas. you may have seen the study that we did examine the status of permitting and drilling activity in the gulf of mexico. the purpose of the study was not to be critical but to suggest there are some areas of improvement. when an operator submits a plan to drill, the regulators must determine if it meets the initial criteria to be ready for review. first you have to review the plan and the plan has to reach a

certain threshold. the next that this application for a permit to drill. the average number of days for a plan to move to final approval has risen from 50 days to 207 days at present. the amount of time to go through seven phase has ballooned. another area that needs improving has to do with the way that permits to drill are issued. currently there approved on a just-in-time basis. the problem is it hinders a company's ability to plan ahead. these rigs cost anywhere from half a billion dollars to $1

billion. the industry standard is the backlog of at least three approved drilling permits for each active raig. we kick it back there, that would help drillers get long- term contracts. if we have 19 active deep water rigs, inventories of approved permits should ideally be 57. but there were only six approved permits. that is an area that needs attention so the drilling companies can line up business in advance and maintain their cash flow. i agree that we have made a lot of progress since macondo.

the productivity of the gulf of mexico could be improved under a more transparent and predictable environment.ulatory >> i thought maybe steve could touch on the role of the gulf of mexico and its impact on the global markets. >> thank you for having me today, frank. i wanted to put the gulf of mexico into a global context and comment on what the previous speakers have said. one thing going on that many of you have read about is that we are undergoing a very different global narrative involving gas. we were heading into an era of a

scarcity. we were running out of oil and natural gas and have to develop alternatives in order to compensate for that. we have had a number of reports from wall street and think tanks and from consultants of a contrary nature and that is that we're headed into a flood, a global flood of oil supply for two or three decades, not just in the united states but around the world. just starting in north america, the projections here is that by the year 2020, the united states -- north america including canada is not only

self-sufficient in its oil and natural gas needs but has a surplus supply of 3 million barrels a day that either sits in the united states as spare capacity or gets exported. this surplus in the oil patch goes all the way down into south america. there is a boon in brazil and in french guiana and more drilling in that region. both coasts of africa are undergoing deep water drill bonon.s and then up north in the east mediterranean. israel and cyprus are finding themselves suddenly petrol states.

how does the gulf of mexico fit into this? citibank released projections for 2020. it is the most bullish of the investment banks, the one that projects the united states is producing 3 million barrels a day surplus that can be exported. gulf of mexico production triples from 1.25 million barrels a day of to 3.75 million barrels a day. the gulf of mexico accounts for almost all of that surplus. what i see is a very different

narrative from one that i am hearing -- that i have heard on the panel and that i hear on the outside. it is not that oil companies are standing on the sidelines or nervously biting their nails, " next?"e going to join nedrill oil companies have their hands full in what the world drill around the world. the challenge for all oil companies is how they are going to drill next. it includes political temperaments that bud alluded to and a belief in part of the population that we should be shifting from fossil fuels and

more towards renewal bow ables. there's been an assessment that 22,000 skilled geo scientists and engineers on the oil patch will retire in the next three years. the number of college graduates and of pregnant employees in the oil services industry and in the oil companies to replace them or not there. there is a current and impending skills crisis. the question of oil rigs was raised. there was a talk this year of a threat of a shortage of

deepwater oil rigs, and there is and one. not a bigs also surplus. it is sort of teetering. just to close out, if the federal government opened up every single possible acre in the gulf of mexico up and down the atlantic east coast today, the scene would see would not be a big rush into those areas in order to explore them, if here is oil to drill theire, would see a scene of long-term planning down the road down the road and also a big question mark, how will we drove those

fields? >> thank you, steve. next i turned to our umpire calling balls and strikes. she is a reporter. there is a link to alaska. a lot of the drilling is in the gulf of mexico and alaska and hope you bring that into the discussion. >> offshore drilling is a hot- button issue before the oil spill and two years later there is just as much heated discussion surrounding the issue. the politics of the issue can make it tough for anyone to get a good read on were things really stand.

there have been policy decisions made during and after the spill that hurts the bottom line. smaller operators bear the brunt of regulatory risk. it exacerbated some of the financial problems of existing companies. there is the recent argument that's the moratorium was necessary, especially while oil was flowing into the gulf of mexico. so much of what you're hearing today boils down to a balancing act between present and future production.

there was uncertainty injected into the mix and it has taken .ome time for that to shakeout illthe aftermath of the spe and on some of these calculations, i have heard from some operators who said they were engaging with a real back- and-forth with the regulators. i don't think any of these folks relished the process. they wanted to get back drilling. these folks acknowledge and there was a real attempt to get this right and an effort to help them figure out how they could satisfy what started out as vague requirements and

benchmarks. they are figuring it out. they feel like they have a good sense of how to apply for permits and how to get their plans in order and to get an application submitted and the time to submit one has been shortened. that feeling of certainty along with the oil prices earlier this year is one reason why you do see rigs approaching pre-macondo levels. there are new rigs coming into the gulf. one challenge for reporters is affecting how much of the changes since the 2010 spill are not just window dressing and

meaningful. regulators are no longer doing categorical exclusions, exploration plans. there are those that will probably right way questions whether those analyses are more robust than what was done before and more than a check the box analysis. companies can contain deep water run away well. there was a successful test of one of those systems. before that, the only fair test was done by people sitting around a table top. we have seen in history make changes to improve safety including metrics for process

safety. there's a strong industry that industry is sblinded by their hubris. i will remind you about a refrain we have heard over the past two years. there have been 50,000 wells in the gulf of mexico with one major accidents. deepwater drilling is far more riskier than shallow drilling. deepwater drilling means dealing with incense pressure and combating incensed temperatures. that involves complex well designs. we should be considering there

were 43 wells as complex as macondo that have been drilled without an accident. >> thank you. if none of you asked about alaska, i will. we will do questions. we will take questions from reporters first. if we run out -- i doubt that we will -- we will give others a chance. state your name and try to speak loudly. c-span wants to capture the questions. i will start with the first question because i am the moderator.

the talked-about new regulators and the people that are coming in. well-trained regulators are an important part of that. there has been an industry for many years which has been attacked by others but has been seen bas a benefit by others. how was that going in terms of making sure that there is expertise but it is not a bias or anything like that? >> the line in the wake of macondo is that there was a day too-cozy relationship and that probably overstated it.

the benefit of the criticism is in reminded everybody of the need for there to be a business like but arm's length relationship between the regulators and the regulated. the regulators have a serious job to do, make sure all the jobs submitted meet the regulatory requirements. if they do not, they should not be approved. it is important that all regulators recognize the relationship that the need to have and maintain with the regulated entities. it does mean their knees bent arms length relationship -- it does mean there needs to be an

relationship -- arms-length relationship. there is a growing level of sophistication in the wells that are being drilled and the wells that industry wants to drill. that will require a higher level of sophistication to scrutinize the applications that are submitted. there have been problems recruiting senior engineers with the skills to give those applications a close look. there are efforts on going including a pay increase for engineers which moves the ball forward, but more needs to be done. we need to think about those from other industries and other

countries which would help regulators do their job in reviewing the applications they have to deal with. that is not a criticism. if there is a rush of new deepwater applications, i think it would be in no one's interest for the backlog to stack up. >> address some of the things that steve mentioned with programs aimed at that. >> absolutely. >> anybody else want to contribute to that? >> there is a brain drain or worry about technical expertise in the industry to satisfy the demand of energy and that makes the problem that much more difficult.

>> the market to do work. you find at smu and other universities, there is a big uptick in the number of students that want to major in petroleum engineering and related fields. >> some questions from our reporter friends. andrew? >> you mentioned your frustration with the lack of action in congress. they appear to be laser focused on this report on the gulf moratorium. they held several hearings on this. if you could weigh in on what the house has been doing. >> we are in a political season which means we're are in the silly season.

house committees are engaged in passing legislation and focusing on issues that they know full well are not going anywhere because they will die in the senate or would be vetoed by the white house. it is unfortunate when there is such an unfinished save the agenda in terms of responding to the oil spill including ratifying the reorganization that we did at interior. it is a shame that they are focusing on the drilling moratorium and the editing of a document that had no meaningful impact on the decisions that were made. that decision was made by secretary salazar because he thought a moratorium was necessary and appropriate.

three days after a started at interior, the original drilling moratorium was overturned by a federal judge. one of my first tasks was to focus on what we should do. we concluded after a couple of weeks of intense review of the options that were available that reimposing the deepwater drilling moratorium was the right thing to do. there was no reliance on engineers recommendations. we thought it was the right thing to do. the problem is that people are not through the recent scrutiny given by the house looking at the logic and the meaning of the moratorium and why we thought it was necessary. it is bizarre they rejected

tocretary salazar's offer testify about that and instead focusing on how a report may have been edited and maybe some of them supported a pause. take a step back and it is ridiculous that that was the focus rather than on substantive problems that this country should care about. >> you are finding that in other sectors. i do think the shallow water drillers that have operated safely have felt caught in the net. maybe there was a logical explanation because they were caught in the net. how we could have avoided that

or avoid it next time if something like this happens again? >> shallow water drilling was not affected by the moratorium. there were certain requirements that were imposed in june of 2010 that shallow water drillers had to observe. there was maybe the same uncertainty in the short term and that slowed things down. everybody in interior tried to provide the clearest guidance that they could. when you're dealing with the aftermath of an event like deepwater horizon, nobody is ever going to get it right exactly the first time. i don't think anybody can suggest there was a deliberate attempt to slow things down. i have heard that there was a

grand plan to shut down the fossil fuel industry in this country. people realized that was preposterous but it got said over and over again. the reaction of the administration was to try as responsibly as possible impose new requirements and to work with industry so that they understood those. let's talk about permit approvals. that has improved recently because of genuine confusion and uncertainty in the industry and also and the government. in terms for greater transparency, we did everything possible to increase that transparency. record meetings and workshops on plans and permits to enter the multitude of questions that

existed on the part of operators about the new plan approval process. i think the slowdown is that we sought and some of the friction we saw was inevitable. >> i do need to disagreed with might shallow water drillers who were seriously affected after macondo. it was difficult for them to operate. it was all those committees of the texas-louisiana gulf coast who service the offshore industry. they were hurt badly and many of these communities still have not recovered. >> i do not deny that for a moment. there were additional rules that have to be observed by shallow water colors. i know full well the devastating

impact. >> go ahead, ray. >> you mentioned that this new deepwater drilling, there are 43 at the moment. the thing that has anything to do with that kind of skill set or technology? is there a link between those skills -- he said there was a shortage of skills there. is there any connection between the two? , cnpc, the time

other big chinese overseas oil company, had been attempting to sweep up oil and natural gas around the world, but where are the most important of these plays, the ones that have the biggest prospects, and they are in north america. the play -- you mentioned skills -- is to obtain skills in shale gas and in deep water drilling. it does obtain both with this play. shale. shale. why is that? china has potentially the largest shale oil and shale gas

supplies in the world, but they it. to know how to get addt they need the biggest expertise in drilling. the biggest plays of shale oil gas are in the united states. >> trying to tackle more complex wells. the mexican oil company has focused on shallow water and now they want to do more deepwater exploration. some companies want to get a hold of new technology and expertise and move into new frontiers. >> we have all kind of interest in cuba and now it is going down. >> we were concerned a year ago -- we were interested in what

was happening down there. wells drilled earlier this year or a bit of a bust -- were a bit of a bust. >> we do not know what will happen next. are the next set of wells going to be drilled? >> go ahead, david. >> we are three months away from the presidential elections. what kind of role will the memory of macondo play in the election? we had delegates chanting, "drill, baby, drill." >> i do not know.

i do not think anybody can know for sure. i have been surprised and troubled how quickly the memories of macondo have faded. all the discussions i hear on and off capitol hill are all about the pace of deepwater drilling and speeding up the drilling application approval process. very little discussion about safety and the need to advance safety and the importance of companies investing in safety and sharing learnings about safety. that is all very disturbing. i wish there was more of a public outcry pushing for that. in our culture today, i think we generally have short memories and i think for getting about macondo sooner than one would think is a symptom of the.

>> if i can broaden your question. what energy itself be an issue in the presidential campaign? three months ago, gasoline was over $4. the my aunt of the politicians and public was focused on energy. the candidates and members of congress were talking about energy. now nobody is talking about energy and i think that is unfortunate. we do not have what i would consider a comprehensive energy policy in this country and we need one. >> just to differ on that one. int. i think energy has been

identified by a certain sector of the campaign and it is the american chamber of commerce but also the oil and gas industry in swing states, a number of the swing states there is a jobs push and it is identifying the development and the enhanced development of shell gas and shale oil in pennsylvania, ohio, and other states -- shale gas and shale oil. i see energy as being front and center in the campaign in the most important places, the swing states. >> i was down in the gulf region in 2010 just as much as anyone. a member of lsu said the gulf of

mexico is a vibrant place and it can take a number of punches. he said there will not be much environmental impact because of the natural leakage and stuff like that. one reason people have forgotten is because we're seeing ads from bp about how great the tourism season is and we're eating shrimp and having what we want down there, fishing trips and things like that. you lose what happened in 2010 in that sense because we have pushed around it. >> the administration is getting flak from a hill by not opening the atlantic to new leasing. was your input to the secretary of the five-year new leasing on the atlantic and what lessons

did you draw from the gulf that makes the atlantic not appropriate to open up for the next five years? >> most of the development occurred after i left. i know that people including the secretary had not forgotten about deepwater horizon and i think that shaped their decision about wanted to move carefully and prudently. there was a proven history of being able to extract the oil and gas that existed. i think that is the logic and reasoning that was used. reasonable people can differ. the bill that the house passed, they expanded lease sales to include parts of the country that had weighed in that they do not want them, including the

northeast in new jersey and california. call for it does not want drilling off their shores again -- california does not want drilling off their shores again. >> regardless of the politics of today, the long-term trend is that there is a play, a deep water play that begins all the weight in the southern tip of south america and africa and goes all the way up to canada. the belief is that there's a lot in different places. some of the biggest oilfield are along this play. over the medium and long term, these will be explored and they

will be developed. >> that may well be true and interior will do it seismic work in the atlantic. >> you have a lot of democrats in virginia who are interested in trying to get some drilling. ine the senators. that is a regional issue. >> jim moran he will not allow drilling off the virginia coast as long as he is a member of congress. to drill in thee to dri unsafe atlantic anytime soon? >> i think it is wise and

prudent to do the seismic work so we have a better idea of where it can be explored. >> i hope it is not too unsafe. >> we were invited to ask about the arctic. some of the senators from alaska have been saying that the window is getting shorter and they should consider making it longer. do you think the interior department should be open to extending that time period? they have said they do not know much about the arctic and conditions are always changing. should the interior department be open to extending that time period? >> the outer boundary were done with knowledge of the historical

conditions that exist there. everybody understands the very substantial dangerous cause of potential oil spills.i think the reluctant to expand that window. it was based on reason and fax at the outset, and the fact that there has been a host of things that have created delays, some of them by mother nature's, some of them because of delays in getting things approved by the coast guard and the epa, i am not sure that is sufficient reason to expand the window. >> it is clear that they are interested in doing -- that the time for drilling -- and they

[unintelligible] start a well, come back, and finish it. they have gone back to their case history and say that is the historical practice. that is a possibility for work we could see letter this year. >> what else were your impressions of being up there? as a person who has covered this for so long, did you get a sense they are ready to go and that the interior is ready to go with them? >> there is a determination on the part of shell and certain folks in the administration to get this exploration under way. there have been a few recent setbacks, including problems

getting a key piece of their carroll response plan, a barge certified by the coast guard. folks are seeing this as all systems go, but there have been delays, and there is questions that remain. >> time for about two more questions. >> i am a political analyst with press tv in tehran. a lot of folks we are aware in florida who have not been paid out by bp. a personal friend of mine, $1 million of lost revenue, and i wanted to have the panel weighed in on people not being compensated for their

businesses. the other issue was around the solar industry, widely successful in germany, and i would like to get the panel to weigh in on why we are wasting money in failed companies, $500 million coming out of the government's funded by businesses in the united states. >> it sounds like another newsmaker. let's talk about compensation issues and whether you think people have been responded to. >> i do know if we have any detailed knowledge about the structure that was set up through mr. feinberg and the court has now taken it over. i have no insight into that. >> i have not seen a lot of people were really upset with a lot of the heartfelt efforts that have been made by companies to reinvigorate the

region. we know -- we -- people were hurt by it, and there are lots of other issues there are -- that are at play, but the government, bp, and the efforts jointly have been targeted on trying to get people back to that region and get the economy moving again. does anyone else have a question? >> you mentioned the importance of the continued funding stream from congress to continue processing these applications. the administration has predicted an increase in production in the next 10 years. can you comment on whether -- and this time of austerity and it is enough to keep up with the

pace of applications, and maybe you could comment on the pending cuts, how that would impact the drilling agencies. >> i think flat funding is insufficient. we're making up slowly, but finally making progress, on a 28-year deficit when there was inadequate funding for a full range of responsibilities that the mms had. i think flat funding would be in this sufficient, and they need to wrap up the funding. i have not looked at what the impact of sequestration would be specifically on interior or a disease we created through the reorganization, but i suspect it cannot be good. >> the only thing i would add, one of the things republicans did early on was they fully funded a lot of those new

inspectors and things like that, which was quite the opposite from some of the things they were doing. i found that to be interesting. >> i know they are not eaermarked, but considering the billions of dollars paid in taxes, you would think that money would be used to enhance regulatory oversight in interior. >> to follow up on the arctic question, al a.c. treaty might affect that, and if bp and russia and the arctic has affected congress' thinking. >> the latest is there is byrd it will come back in september after the recess, and there will be interesting discussions in all on that.

>> i am not familiar with the law of the sea debate, which -- would be interested to know what the time line is there, but russia is going to aggressively into the arctic. there are three big contracts that have been begun over the last six or a months, with a big players, exxonmobil, and the guys know what they are doing. at an aggressive pace in an environment there are not the type of regulations we have here, the most optimistic projection of first will is 23. -- first oil is 2030. >> five years when we reconvene this panel of the next five-year plan, and what has happened in the past five years -- give me

your predictions, what happens in that time period. go ahead, steve. >> i think production in the gulf up but mexico will be much higher than today, and that the oil industry will be complaining it does not have enough access. >> that is a shocking prediction. go ahead. >> i would hope five years from now oil and gas industry will have created another 700,000 jobs as they have in the past five years, and it is important to keep in mind, if we look at the economy today in terms of total employment, it is not back in terms of where it was before that great recession. but the oil and gas industry, net 700,000 jobs. >> five years from now there

will be an increase in oil and gas production, due to what we're seeing in the reserves in north dakota and around that area, and people hear arguments about whether drilling off the virginia coast should be allowed. >> i hope it is most likely that the discussion we will be having -- i fear unless people continue to be focusing on safety, we will be having a very different discussion. >> i want to thank the panel for being here. we will be here for a few minutes after that answer individual questions. we want to take everybody and c- span for being here, too, and feel free to ask us questions individually. thanks.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> the unemployment rate came out today. u.s. employers adding 160,000 jobs in july, but the rate went up. the unemployment rate rose to 8.3%. july's hiring was the best since february. it was enough to keep up with population growth. president obama will speak today about the bush-era tax cuts, but about 35 minutes. congress went on its summer break yesterday without continuing to extend cuts.

we will have live coverage of the president's comments at 11:45. mitt romney is on the campaign trail today in nevada. he is in north las vegas this morning, reno, this evening. his campaign released this statement, today must increase in the rate is a hammer blow to the struggling middle class families. yesterday i launched my plan for a stronger middle-class that will bring more jobs and more take-home pay. my plan will turn things around and bring the economy or in back with 12 million jobs created by the end of my first term. that statement to date by mitt romney. this afternoon we are featuring interviews by people who may be considered as vice-presidential candidates. comments from marco rubio, rob

portman, tim pawlenty, and paul ryan. thisere joined morning on washington journal -- continues. host: on your screen is chad national association of manufacturers. reaction to the job numbers? guest: i think they are slightly better than we expected to the overall consensus was about 100,000. it was 163,000. the challenge is the participation rate continues to edge a little higher and lower. we have some adjusting. host: can i stop you and have you explain to people how the federal government collects statistics explain how people fall off of the unemployment rolls even when they are not employed.

guest: they actually asked, are you working or not. the second question is, are you actively looking for work or not? a number of people are dropping out as a result of seeing the bad jobs numbers and the weakness overseas. maybe they have been looking for a while and have given up. you assume the preservation rate drops dramatically over the last couple of months and is starting to edge up a little bit now more recently. hence, you are having that 8.2% to 8.3% number that we see now. 1630,000 is better than expected -- 163,000 is better than expected, but it's not good. we are not generating enough jobs to be able to bring down the unemployment rate in a substantial way, as well as to be able to help our overall economy. host: the headline in "the washington post" business page captures that.

job growth moving sideways. what are the fundamentals going into the current status in the job market right now? guest: there's a lot of uncertainty out there. when i talked to manufacturers and businesses, they're worried about a fiscal cliff coming up on january 1. they're worried about the budget cuts that will be happening as a result of sequestration. they're looking at what's happening in europe. they're looking at the political stalemate in washington. there's a little bit of sitting on the hands. everyone is on neutral waiting to see what happens on election day. everyone was expecting 25,000 jobs created in manufacturing -- very good. yet, the same time, we could be doing a lot better. that's the message that is really playing on people's minds

right now. host: i have a statistic from the bureau of economic analysis. this is one of the charts they brought. this is 2009 to 2011. manufacturing leads the way in real gdp growth among the sectors. 12% to 1515% growth over that time period. guest: manufacturers have taken advantage of trade opportunities overseas. relatively strong growth. the consumer continues to spend. we've also seen an improvement in overall residential housing and overall investment in terms of construction. each of those elements has helped manufacturers. you have seen the manufacturing sector do a little better. manufacturers have become a lot more competitive. if you look at productivity numbers, we're getting the

productivity numbers next week. manufacturing productivity has been really high. as a result, there's been an increased competitiveness on the part of u.s. manufacturers. ofre's an enormous amount evidence that u.s. manufacturing has become more competitive. as a result, it has become a bright spot in the economy, generating about 180,000 over the last seven months. probably 17% of all the net new jobs really coming from manufacturing. therein lies why so many people are talking about manufacturing now. it is kind of that bright spot. guest: it seems to be almost oxymoron it if you increase productivity that there would be more jobs. you would think that increased productivity means fewer people with the same output. guest: you are getting increased productivity because of increased technology and innovation. you can only increase that so

far. productivity in the first quarter was 5.2%. that means you're getting 5% more out of your work force on any given year. you cannot do that forever. you cannot work your work force with overtime forever more. at the same time, you also have new opportunities three output is up substantially. they are letting a little bit of the steam out by bringing on additional workers. i am not shocked to see when you see such strong productivity gains in manufacturing that they need to bring in additional workers to make up the difference. host: sounds like this story. clouds on the horizon. this is "financial times" this morning. this goes on to suggest that

europe, the major customer of the united states, is part of the reason for the slowdowns. guest: i agree with that. manufacturers are very worried about where the economy is headed. they're very concerned about what's happening in europe. europe accounts for about 20% of our exports. it is major competitor for us, second only to north america. as you continue to have this overall -- europe is frankly in a recession right now. as europe continues to go down that path, it leads to an enormous amount of anxiety. i think the other anxiety that is really getting a lot more attention now is also what's happening in washington. again, when i talk to manufacturers, they're very much focused on the fact that their taxes will be going up on january 1. those in the defense industry, as well as in the supply chain, are worried about budget cuts that are coming their way. they're also worried about what is going to happen after the election in terms of not only just taxes, but also the

regulatory environment. there are so many questions with regard to what will happen on election day and after that you are really seeing holding back on the part of businesses. host: the supreme court decision on the health care act, did that take some of the uncertainty out of the lines of business people? guest: it took some of the uncertainty, but we still do not know what's going to happen. as with everything, things are waiting until the election. romney said he would repeal it on day one. you continue to have an enormous amount of doubt as far as implementation. some states will be participating in the medicare parts of it. some states are not. you still have eight certain degree of uncertainty in terms of the overall implementation and what's going to happen, depending on what happens with the election. host: let's get to calls. michigan. brian is a republican there. you are on. caller: good morning. the part i do not understand --

it was years back when george bush's father talk about this new world order and the global economy and they had written nafta. this was bipartisan. president clinton signed this into law in the 1990's. both sides of the aisle not only led the way for nafta, both sides signed onto it. this is from the 1990's. that is the game plan. why do i have to listen to today when we say "buy american"? i am totally confused. you are trying to move the goalposts and have it both ways. you are trying to have your cake and eat it, too. if we are in the new world order and the global economy, that's the game we're in. as a hostile, a business older, -- as a household or a business

owner, anyone should die for value regardless of where it's made. you cannot have it both ways. we need to get fully into the game of new world order and the global economy. we have been in it for over 20 years now. guest: that's a good point to 95% of our customers are overseas. we need to make sure we need to take advantage of as many opportunities as we can. trade is an enormous boost for manufacturers in terms of growth opportunities. what i talked to a lot of the businesses, they are very aggressively going after markets overseas. they are also very aggressive going after this market, as well. we have seen increased competitiveness in the u.s. market for manufacturers. the caller has a point. this is a global market. have to take advantage of the

opportunities that are out of there. we actually have a trade surplus with those countries we have a free-trade agreement with. we need more free trade agreements moving forward. host: andy is a democrat. go ahead. caller: the way i see it is everyone -- they're sending jobs overseas. i am 69 years old. a lot of people are not at all in this country. they do not realize, years ago, hollywood here is to not buy anything from japan, anything overseas all -- you would hear is to not buy anything from japan or overseas. they are a bunch of traders sending their jobs over to china so they can pay somebody 50 cents per hour, send it back here, and sell it for $40, $50. these are not patriotic people. it is horrible what's going on to you cannot keep sending jobs overseas. the president's infrastructure

plan -- that should be already going. when you have more people working, more people paying taxes, the government does better. if you have no government here, i think people would be running around the streets with no clothes on. guest: we agree with you on the infrastructure bill. i think the other thing that is the key here is we need to do everything we can to make sure the u.s. is as competitive as it can be. we need to make sure our taxes are as competitive as possible to we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. we have a regulatory environment -- 20% higher than they are elsewhere among city of our major competitors. there are a number of things we can do to increase the overall competitiveness of u.s. manufacturing. until we do that, you are at risk of sending jobs overseas. we need to do as much as we can for a pro-growth policy.

host: manufacturing jobs have been on the minds of the presidential candidates. we will start with governor romney and the theme on manufacturing jobs. >> started in 1970 to selling cars. >> in 2009 under the obama administration's bailout of general motors, ohio dealerships were forced to close. >> they were spending my credit line. we had 30-some employees out of work. my wife and i were the last ones out of work. it was the dreamwork for and we worked so hard for. >> i am mitt romney and i approve this message. host: president obama and a theme of manufacturing in this ad. >> over the last three and a half years, we have worked to make progress. 4.5 million jobs created. half a million new manufacturing jobs. they counted the auto industry

out and now it's coming back stronger than ever, right here in ohio and all across the country. host: my apologies. the second is obviously not an ad, but the president in akron, ohio recently. what do you think about the level of dialogue on the presidential campaign trail about jobs and manufacturing jobs? guest: it is very encouraging that both parties are talking about manufacturing. we have been trying to work with both campaigns to make sure they are both talking about the issues that are important to manufacturers. i think that will continue. the president mentioned the resurgence in manufacturing. we've seen about 500,000 jobs generated in manufacturing since the end of the recession. a's also clear that there's lot we need to do. we have the highest corporate tax rates in the world. we desperately need overall comprehensive tax reform. there's a lot more we can do on

the regulatory front and on the skills front, etc. there's a lot more we can do in the next administration to continue to make sure we see these gains moving forward. host: could you be more specific about the corporate tax rates? what is the closest major competitor? guest: up until march, we had the second-highest corporate tax rate. japan was higher. we have 35% corporate tax rate. but a tiny ad in all the other taxes, state, local, etc., i think the average tax rate is around 39. something -- 39 point something. japan is number two. in canada, they just lower the corporate tax rate to 15% through a lot of others are much lower. we would like to see the overall marginal tax rates for corporations go down to 35% to 25%, as well as being able to have more of a territorial tax system.

having said all that, 2/3 of all manufacturers are not corporations. we also need to make sure we are doing something about the overall marginal tax rates for those businesses, as well. assuming that the fiscal cliff goes through, on january 1, they're going to go up to over 40%. this puts them at a huge disadvantage competing around the world. host: 4 people who do not know, small businesses. guest: that is correct. . host: james asked on twitter -- guest: energy is one of our real strengths right now. that's an excellent question preleasing a resurgence on the overall exploration theshale -- exploration of shale and fraacking. the job gains would generate about 1 million manufacturing jobs over the next decade. that comes in two forms.

one, lower energy costs on the part of manufacturers. in addition, you're also getting all those jobs which are being generated by the overall exploration of shale. whatever we can do to be able to bring down energy costs, that will help our overall competitiveness and something we have been trying to push for an all of the above approach. host: the next call comes from new york. allen is an independent there. good morning, sir. caller: good morning. i was wondering, you know, the bush tax cuts and everything has been lately in the news -- whether it should be extended or not. it seems to me that it has been about 12 years almost that it has been in effect.

it never really worked. you know, the jobs were not created table say the top 1% and stuff our job creators. if they create jobs anywhere, they're overseas. they are not in the state. as really think that, american companies, they ought to do their part and hire americans. host: thank you. guest: is certainly did work between 2002 and 2007. we saw several months of expansion in the overall economy. things have been a lot more downhill since then after the recession that began in 2007. the other thing to keep in mind, one, we need to make sure we can do everything we can to be as competitive as possible. many of our trading partners have taxes that are a lot lower than in the united states.

if you raise taxes on small businesses, you are going to obviously hurt the overall competitiveness. economists of all stripes have said this, if we continue on our current path and we go over the fiscal cliff on general one, we very much risk a recession in the first half of next year -- on january 1, we very much risk a recession in the first of the next year. there's an overall consensus that is where we're headed, that we will go over the cliff. host: on twitter -- with high unemployment, why are h1b visas still allowed? guest: when we talk to manufacturers, almost everyone is looking for skilled workers. we do not have enough people to fill the jobs that manufacturers need. we're trying to increase the

number of skills domestically. the manufacturing institute is really working to try to instill these skills at the community college level. we have a skills certification program endorsed by president obama. it is really trying to take off. at the same time, we need to make sure we have some very high skilled engineers and high- tech folks that will be filling some of these jobs. until we can do more to increase the moreh1b situation -- the h1b situation, they will be putting facilities overseas, where the situation is a little easier. host: the next call is from vermont. don is a republican there. caller: good morning. chad, i've been a member of the institute of supply management treats each month, -- management. each month, ism produces the

pmi. it covers a lot of the topics that your organization speaks about, too. month the article's last was the european ripple effect as europe's economy struggles -- takes steps to mitigate supply chain risk. can you speak a little bit about the purchasing management index that we put out. a question for you, susan, i've never seen anybody on c-span from the institute for supply management. they have a wealth of data that i think folks would like to hear. host: thank you for the tip. guest: the institute for supply management puts out the purchasing managers' index. we've now had two months in a row where that number has been below 50. that suggests the manufacturing

sector is contracting. that's the first time in three years it has been contracting. it goes back to the point we made earlier. the manufacturing sector, in many ways, is stuck in neutral. uncertainty is heavy. as you mentioned, slowing global growth. one of the real drivers for manufacturers right now are exports. as you have seen a slowing around the world, exports have slowed pretty dramatically. europe accounts for our second largest trading group out there. other countries, as well, depend heavily on europe. china is europe's largest trading partner. as you have seen europe go into a recession -- their pmi was 44, much lower. that is slow growth elsewhere in europe, not just year, but also china and south america. that has hurt u.s. manufacturers. host: digging in more deeply to the unemployment numbers, here

is this statistic. in july, the number of long- term unemployed, those jobless for 27 weeks and more, was little changed at 5.2 million people. those individuals account for 40% of the unemployed. "usa today" has the story -- as you know, this was a congressional initiative this year. they say that about --

guest: as you stayed on foot longer, the chance of you getting a job tends to diminish. we need to do more. one of the things people don't recognize is that even in an 8.3% unemployment and farming, businesses -- unemployment, businesses are looking for workers. the other big number that is out there is the real unemployed which is 15%. we have to do more to alleviate those structural challenges. host: the federal government and states have invested quite a bit of money in retraining. or the opportunities offered to

honor -- unemployed people? guest: to a certain extent but not fully. manufacturers tell me they are looking for talented workers being able to attract workers is one of their top concerns. we're not getting that full match there. part of the challenges that we are not educated enough people in technology and dealing with math. there are definitely some larger educational challenges that are out there. beyond that, it is the stigma attached to manufacturing. it is one of the bright spots. when we do surveys of manufacturing, even though people of manufacturing and they think it is great bus making step in america, when you ask of people will work for the manufacture, they are less likely to say yes. we need to do as much as we can to change the perception of what manufacturing is. it is a highly skilled and highly paying job.

host: new york city, democrats -- caller: good morning, you are ignoring the fact that both democrat and republican administrations have negotiated contracts with countries where labour is restricted to and corporations are allowed to do anything they want. we negotiate agreements with countries where unions are banned and where collective bargaining is forbidden. the recent trade agreements with panama and colombia and south korea, there are no unions there. the only way we can have a fair trade agreement is to compete competitively with overseas markets by allowing trade unions. that brought about the middle class. unless we stop negotiating with countries where unions are bent and people are shot for

organizing unions, we will never have a market here. guest: i believe those free- trade agreements were done earlier this year. they were renegotiated to try to bring in some additional protections to labor. when the trade negotiators are going out there and working with these new countries, labour conditions are one of the components of they look at. the other thing to keep in mind is that the u.s. is only negotiating one trade agreement right now, the trans pacific partnership. the rest of the world are very aggressively going after trade opportunities that we are passing over in this process. the president does not have fast-track authority which he needs to go out and negotiate these free trade agreements on an up or down vote in the senate and we are missing out on enormous opportunities. those free-trade agreements sat still for many years and the rest of the world was very

active. we are hamstringing ourselves in terms of future growth. host: taking a look at though -- 163,000 jobs. guest: about half of the durable-goods number was in motor vehicles. when you look the sectors that are doing well in manufacturing, they primarily are in the durable-goods space

like machinery, motor vehicles, aerospace, metals. that has accounted for the bulk of the growth in manufacturing over the last year. motor vehicles continue to be one of the drivers. the state those from most is michigan. the automobile sector has come back. host: michigan, go ahead. caller: are we competing with other companies but other american companies that went to these other companies and hired lobbyists to get lower tariffs? one example of that would be microsoft. they say we don't have educated enough people to build what ever they make but we hear there are 12-year-old chinese girls making them.

that that a false premise we're competing with other countries? years ago, john mccain sued the companies -- the cigarette companies. manufacturersese leaving this company paying more for the damage they are doing to this country? everybody i know that worked in manufacturing plant, their jobs have moved overseas and in northern michigan here, there are devastated counties in this state. are we competing over there or competing with ourselves? guest: people have to realize that we are competing in a global environment. we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. you will see manufacturers try to compete on a global stage, looking for the best environment they can compete in. when you have the highest corporate tax rate in the

world, you will see people react to that. the other issue i barely touched on earlier is the territorial tax system we tax on income regardless of where it is earned three we are the only country that does that in the developed world. as a result, many businesses i talked to are sitting on an enormous amount of catch -- cash overseas. if they brought into the united states, they would be taxed on a further so they leave the cash overseas. there is over $1 trillion of caches that has no intention of coming into this country. the tax system is broken and needs to be fixed and that is one element of a strategy that can bring some of these manufacturers back. we are seeing some signs of increase competitiveness in u.s. manufacturing but there is a lot more we can do so that we don't see more communities like yours losing their manufacturing base. host: some economists have said the reason jobs are coming back is wages are lower since the recession.

guest: that is one component of their income -- increased productivity. unit labor costs were down around 5% so you are getting 5% more out of your work force than before. even if wages stay the same, you are getting more out of your workforce and becoming more competitive. manufacturing make higher compensation than any other industry. we have to be competitive as much as we can but we also have to recognize the manufacturing is a high paying wage and even with life after the recession, it continues to be so. host: good morning, fla., a republican -- caller: a lot of manufacturers are doing good because down here they tend to hire

temporary companies. you may get an assignment depending on how much work they have for like two days and after the assignment is done, you go back with no work. -- the temp company gets paid a big chunk of the my. guest: the lot of manufacturers are hiring temp workers. manufacturers are hesitant to bring on full-time workers because they don't know what the environment will be like moving forward. temporary workers are a way they can alleviate some of the anxiety but also to potentially try out workers before they bring them on full time. we did a study on the defense sequestration.

as we move forward for the rest of this year, there is a high risk that you will see a huge declines in overall claims in the manufacturing center based on sequestration. you are already starting to see manufacturers and companies in the defense space trying to stop hiring. host: is there a notificatio for defense contractors? >> it is known as the one act. defense contractors have 60 days they have to give notice before they were to make cuts, 60 days before january 1 is november 2. that is right before the election, coincidentally. the labor department put out a notice this week that potentially defense contractors might not have to give notice of the 60 days because maybe there'll be a settlement in the

fiscal cliff. many manufacturers and the defense space continue to be very worried about the defense sequestration. programst know what will be cut so therefore it is possible everyone that works for their company might have to be let go to protect their base. caller: i want to tell everybody how america disgusts me. we want a trade deal with you. colombia, you want more than $1 an hour? your kids are kidnapped and murdered because you want more than $1.50 per hour. panama will be the new cayman islands. while we are attacking afghan and pakistan and yemen, iraq is threatening syria and iran.

besides paying for a pentagon that said don 9/11, maybe we should handle all this and fight for freedom again. i'm so disgusted with this country. what is treason? sending our jobs to the chinese? guest: there are differences in wages around the world. but one thing to keep in mind is the u.s. manufacturer remains the most productive in the world and that is the reason why we have not lost all of our jobs. we continue to invest in technology and innovation. manufacturing is not your grandfather is manufacturing. it is highly skilled and is a high level content. that is the key component here. we can continue to compete anywhere. we have gained about five of the thousand jobs in the last couple of years and you can clearly say that.

host: new york, an independent -- caller: the reason we have a mismatch of skills in this country is because the big corporations, the big business, sent all the jobs overseas where people were invested and had 40 years in and now they are getting ready to retire. they unloaded the expense of labor and sent them overseas for peanuts and hour and a turn around and say we have a skill gap. why don't these corporations investing teaching people their skills that they need? partner with these colleges and get these jobs tot to these kids coming up and get them into the straits. big business does not want america to be free or dependent

on them. they want us to be under their heels of a can control the people. they control of voting and we have the best congress that money can buy. guest: we need to have a greater emphasis on trade. i mention manufacturers continue to look for work beyond manufacturing. some manufacturers are definitely looking for more. we have not done a good job to make sure the youth, to the trade. we need to emphasize science, technology, engineering, and math. at the manufacturing institute, we have very aggressively gone out to make sure we do instill these skills at the community college and before that at the high-school level, the number of

programs called a dream it, do it. we have been very aggressive in making sure that states are aware of these programs and manufacturers to an enormous amount of training once they bring in workers to make sure they have the skills. last call, washington, d.c., what's your question or comment? caller: out of the g-20, we're the only country in the world in the g-20 that does not mandate that all government purchases of manufactured goods be made within the country. if obama wanted to win the election and get jobs back in the country with a pen stroke,

he can mandate that all manufactured goods the government purchases be purchased here. if you take a look at stanley, they to call the manufacturing overseas. then they claim their corporate headquarters in the cayman islands. they shipped the jobs overseas and they don't pay taxes in the united states. the president can change this and add 1 million manufacturing jobs because they are the largest purchaser of goods in the country. guest: that is a good point but it is hard to implement than it might sound what is an american good? you mentioned a company whose headquarters is overseas, does that not make an american? there are so many different components of a product. half of them could be assembled in the united states and the parts could be coming from elsewhere. it is harder and a global

environment to pinpoint what is an american goods a you could make sure you only buy american. the other point is, even better than mandating by america products program is making sure that america is the most competitive in the world and to attract jobs. if companies are moving overseas because of the tax environment and the regulatory environment, we need to do as much as we can to make sure that environment improves so we can continue to get those companies to stay here. host: thanks so much for being with us. >> president obama is at 2 feet above the busch-fairfax cuts. converse with on its break without continuing to . the senate voted to extend the

cuts making $250,000 or less. president should be speaking for. he may talk about the unemployment figure for july, 163,000 jobs added to the economy. the labor department rate rose to 8.3% in june. we may hear something about that. congress failed to pass the adjournment resolution. the house and senate will be in pro-forma sessions as a result of that. democrats were joined by the pub inns in blocking the resolution, saying congress should stay in session and finished work on tax cuts, spending bills. this morning historian about the productivity of the fourth congress, comparing it to previous concrescence -- congresses. host: we thought that something

had to our discussion. who reference if we reference that harry truman appoint the phrase fief-nothing convalesce. >> individually the house and senate have pass a lot of bills . the parties disagree strongly that there have not been a consensus. when we have had a productive congresses, one party controls

both houses and the presidency. the exception is when there is a crisis, and they get consensus born of extreme necessity. a good example of that is 2001 when democrats controlled the senate, republicans, the house, and they came together to pass legislation to support the president at that point. host: is there a chance that you find popular metaphors and can never trace the source can you tell us when this metaphor kicking the can became so popular? guest: there is a lot of kicking the can that has happened over time. i do not know when that

particular expression began, but in the last generation it has been a popular one for describing. punting is another way of talking about these issues. we talked about gridlock, any possible way in which things are falloffs her system was never designed the efficient. we had a peculiar congressional system in which one house of congress everybody stands for election every two years, and they are the authors of the constitution were afraid to have wide swings back and forth. only 1/3 of the senators run. of the senators/3 were elected in two dozen 6 and 2 bethany.

host: do you have a sense of how often lame duck sessions have happened? guest: people have said no war. when tip o'neill was speaker, it was an unproductive lame duck session in 1982. in the times since then we have had a number of lame duck sessions. sometimes they are not productive, but sometimes they are buried in 1980, after of ronald reagan was elected, was a coming together on the alaska land bill, and that was passed during the elaine session and the election suggested this was the best they were of going to get on this issue. sometimes elections reinforce

one side. host: some critics of the senate? essentially and automatics filibuster, the 60-threshold. there have been discussions about a filibuster reform. when it did the current system become currency? guest: 1975, when the filibuster was changed. it made it more likely that majority leaders would filed motions and minority leaders would look for 41 votes to stop them. that tactic has been increasing steadily, starting in the late 1980's, and has increased to the point where there is a cloture vote on everything to proceed. before -- both parties the

majority if frustrated faceoff -- this will stop us from the steam roll. there are two different sides. the question is whether or not they will reach a consensus >> president obama will be

speaking shortly about the bush- era tax cuts. they have been extended several times and are times, due to expire at the end of this year. the senate two weeks ago passed a version that would extend those cuts for those making $250,000 or less. the house passed a version that would extend the cuts for another year for all income levels. the president will come out and talk about his support for the senate measure. u.s. employers added 363,000 jobs in july. the unemployment rate rising to 8.3%. mitt romney on the campaign trail today. he is in las vegas, saying that "these numbers and not just statistics. these are real people suffering, having hard times." live coverage from the white house here on c-span.

>> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. [applause] >> thank you, everybody. good morning. thank you. thank you so much. dinkey. have a seat. it is great to see all of you. i hope you're having a wonderful summer. i am joined here today by moms and dads, husbands and wives.

middle-class americans who work hard every single day to provide for their families. like most americans, they work hard and they don't ask for much. they do expect, however, that their hard work will pay off. they want to know that, if they put in enough expert, if they're acting responsibly, then they can afford to pay the bills, that they can afford to own a home that they call their own, that they can afford to secure their retirement and, most of all, that they can afford to give their kids greater opportunity, the other children and grandchildren can achieve things that they didn't even imagine. every single decision that i make is focused on giving them that chance. if we want to keep moving this country forward, these are the folks who will get us there. this morning, we learned that

our businesses created 172,000 new jobs in the month of july. that means that we have now created 4.5 million new jobs over the last 29 months. and 1.1 million new jobs this year. those are our neighbors and family members finding work. and the security that comes with work. but let's acknowledge that we still have too many folks out there who are looking for work. we have more work to do on their behalf. not only to reclaim all the jobs that were lost in the recession, but also to reclaim the kind of financial security that too many americans have felt has been slipping away from them for too long. and we knew, when i started in this job, that this would take some time. we have not had to come back from an economic crisis this before this painful since the 1930's. but we also knew that, if we

were persistent, if we kept at it, and kept working, that we would gradually get to where we need to be. here is the thing. we will not get there -- we will let it to where we need to be if we go back to the policies that helped to create this mess in the first place. and the last thing that we should be doing is asking middle-class families who are still struggling to recover from this recession to pay more in taxes. the building a strong economy begins with rebuilding our middle-class. and what we should do right now is give middle-class families and small business owners a guarantee that their taxes will not go up next year. when families have the security of knowing that their taxes won't go up, they are more likely to spend and more likely to grow the economy. when small business owners have

certainty on taxes and can plan ahead, they are more likely to hire and create new jobs. and that benefits all of us. that is why, last week, i was pleasantly surprised -- i was glad to see the senate come together and extend tax cuts on the first $250,000 of every family's income. that means that 98% of americans will not see their taxes go up next year. that means that 97% of small businesses wouldn't see their income taxes go up next year, not a single dime. that would be important. that is why it is so disappointing that so far, at least, house republicans have refused to follow the senate's example and do the same thing. on wednesday, they bolted to hold these middle-class tax cuts hostage unless we also spend a trillion dollars over the next

decade on tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of americans. in fact, it is worse than that because their plan would actually raise taxes on 25 million hard-working american families by about $1,000 each. at a time when too many working families are already struggling to make ends meet, they want to give millionaires and billionaires and folks like me tax cuts that we don't need and that the country cannot afford, even if middle-class families have to pick up the tab for it. those are their priorities. this week, we learned that there are some in the republican party who do want to stop there. an independent nonpartisan study found that one plan at least would give more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires and they would pay for those tax

cuts by raising taxes on middle- class, an average tax hike of more than two thousand dollars for families with children. i just think that we have our priorities skewed if the notion is that we give tax breaks to folks who don't need them and, to help pay for that, we tax folks who are already struggling to get by. that is not how you growing economy. you grow in economy from the middle up and from the bottom up. and the kind of approach that the house republicans are talking about is bad for families and bad for our economy. the people standing behind me should not have to pay more just so the wealthiest americans can payless. that is not just talk-down economics, but upside down economics. [laughter] instead of the middle class paying more, we should ask the wealthiest americans to pay a little more, a modest amount, so we can reduce our deficit and still make investments in things

like education that help our economy grow. we are talking about folks like me going back to the tax rates that existed under bill clinton. if you remember, that is when we created 23 million new jobs, we went from deficits to surplus, and most of the top did well, too, because, when middle class families have money in their pockets, they go out to buy that new car, the new appliance, the new computer for the kids come and go out where restaurant or, heaven forbid, they take a vacation every once in awhile. businesses do well because they have more customers. here is the thing. there are a lot of well-to-do americans, patriotic americans, who understand this and are willing to do the right thing, willing to do their part to make this country strong. for those of you who are keeping score at home, here's where we stand.

we might have a whole bunch of disagreements with folks in the other party on whether it is a good idea to spend more money giving tax breaks to millionaires were billionaires' and, frankly, that issue is probably not going to be resolved until after november. in the meantime, we say we all agree on extending tax cuts for middle-class families. the house says it agrees. the senate has already shown that it agrees. and i certainly agree. so let's at least work on what we agree on. let's keep taxes low for 98% of americans and we can argue about the other 2%. let's keep taxes low for the 97% of small-business owners and we can argue about the other 3%. if congress sends me a clean bill extending the tax cuts on the first $250,000 of every

family's income, i will sign it right away. [applause] i will sign it right away. there is no reason to wait. there is no reason to make families and small businesses anxious just so one party can score political points. go ahead and given that guarantee now that their taxes will go up next year. keep in mind one last point that i want to make. we are saying that nobody's income taxes go up on the first $250,000 of their income. even someone who makes more than that will still get a tax break on the first $250,000. do you understand? even somebody who is worth $200 million, on that first to under

$50,000, -- on that first $250,000, your taxes will be lower. it is the right thing to do for our economy. this shouldn't be one of those things we argue about for the next five years. [applause] what the american people sent us here to do. let's work on those things we can agree on. let's make progress. let's do right by the people behind me and the millions of americans that they represent. i will be fighting every single day to make sure that you have opportunity. i expect and i hope that congress will do the same. thank you very much, everybody. god bless you. [applause] god bless america and have a great weekend. [applause]

>> following reaction to the president's comments on twitter -- we will have more later ensure to the president's comments again around 3:00 p.m. eastern. we will also follow that with your phone calls and reaction on twitter. mitt romney is on the campaign

trail today. he is in nevada campaigning in north las vegas pin he will be in reno this evening reacting to the 8.3% unemployment figure. his campaign released a statement saying -- that is from mitt romney's campaign. potential vice-presidential candidates have been speaking and supporting mitt romney lately. we will show you some of the comments from some of those. senator mark robo florida, senator robb portman of ohio, and to pawlenty and paul ryann later this afternoon about 5:00 p.m. eastern paul ryan will be part of a live

event coming up next. this is the upper senate park next to the capital. he will be joined by the head of the republican study jim jordan to speak to folks here calling for a repeal of the health care law, opposing the health care law, which was up held recently by the supreme court. it is hosted by americans for prosperity. they have made a $24 million month-long ad by against president obama. this event was scheduled to start 15 minutes ago. we understand it is about to get underway. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] ♪

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>> ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to the state and welcome the president of americans for prosperity. [applause] makingll you, you're these ultimate sacrifice today. i am a southerner, but i think it is 193 degrees out here. all the folks in the back rows have to come on down up. we will shame you for just a few minutes. come around, guys. as hot as it is today, if we keep working this issue, it will get even hotter for harry reid. because i think the american people are fed up. don't you?

today, united as one, we gather -- clear message for the united states senate whose offices are up there. repeal of this disastrous health care now. [applause] and if you refuse to repeal this legislation, the american people will repeal you! [applause] and today, we have another message for the president of the united states. mr. president, with all due respect to you and your office, keep your hands off our health care. keep it off our health care. [applause] over the last two years, three years, really, and a great debate has taken place across our nation. it is over whether or not

washington, d.c. health care is a good idea. i am here to tell you -- and you know this already -- the debate is over. the american people have spoken. they have made their views known loud and clear. in november of 2009, they had a message for then speaker nancy pelosi. is it nice -- isn't it nice to say "then speaker nancy pelosi"? [applause] they said thanks but no thanks, you are fired. 37 days ago, the supreme court had a disastrous ruling, right? it was frustrating. no way around that. we will not sugarcoat it. it was disappointing to see

chief justice roberts in upholding the constitutionality of a law that we believe is unconstitutional. forcing americans to buy a private product by law. that was wrong. it was frustrating. it was difficult. but here's the good news appeared in the end, the supreme court of this great nation, as powerful as it is -- as it is, they don't have the last word. you have the last word. it is not over until we say it is over. and guess what. it's not over. we are starting again today. we are here in washington, d.c. with a clear message for the senate, for the house -- i will tell you this. criticize thew members of the house and the senate. they stepped up within days of

the ruling and they voted to repeal obama care. they deserve a round of applause for that. [applause] we are gathered here not for political reasons. we are gathered here for some basic common sense principles i have twin boys. where are they? right there. i don't know about you, but, when it comes to the government taking care of their health care, do we want that? we don't. we don't trust the government running health care for our children. if my mom and dad are in their late-70 paws, they battled hard issues for a decade. , they -- late-70's

battled hard issues for a decade. do we want being counters in washington, d.c.? i don't need some bureaucrat from washington telling me that my parents don't have enough quality of life to deserve treatment and we will let that happen. we will stop that from happening. and when it comes to holding down the cost of health care, this is almost laughable -- do we really trust the federal government to hold down the cost of anything? it is laughable. amtrak is not exactly -- every federal program does what? it goes over budget. it goes over spending. over the next 10 years, it will be a trillion dollars. it will be trillions of dollars that this government is spending and wasting. remember the gsa conferences in las vegas with our money?

it will be gsa on steroids. these people will be spending money beyond belief and we will let that happen. when you look at obamacarol ready, you see also the government cronyism -- when you look at obamacare already, you also see the government cronyism. if you are a well-connected union or a well-connected corporation, you get a waiver from obamacare. do you get a waiver from obamacare? no, you don't. if you happen to be a small business in nancy pelosi is district, congratulations, you get a waiver. they have given dozens and dozens of waivers to her district were connected. we will let government cronyism to get rid of the greatest health care system in the world. when they pass this on all of

us, who do they exempt? themselves. the president come every member of congress who voted for this monstrosity, their staff -- they have the federal health- insurance program. this is not secret and i don't talk about this very often. i worked on capitol hill for three years. i did come i'm sorry. i was a chief of staff regan conservative member. but i had the federal health insurance benefits. i had dozens of choices. the very thing that they want to deny you and me when it comes to health care, a choice, the ability to do what is best for us and our families and our children and our grandkids, they want to deny that to everyone else while exempting themselves and keeping their own health care. that is wrong and we won't let that happen. we won't let that happen, folks. we will appeal this bill. we will repeal this bill.

i said, we will repeal this bill. repeals the bill is what we will do. repeal the bill. that is exactly what we will do. i heard the voices. some of them are our friends and they are saying, look, we cannot do it. we will never get 60 votes i the senate to overcome a filibuster. we will never have a president who will sign or overturn this legislation. but there was one silver lining and only one in that health care decision that chief justice roberts and for liberals on the court put through. they said that the individual mandate is what we know it is, a tax increase, right? so the senate rules, under reconciliation, means that, to strip out the tax increases and the spending increases, we don't need 60 votes. and we can do that. we can do that.

and then, we need a president who will sign it. and i think we can do that. we can have a president who is convinced to do the right thing on this legislation and sign this. so look, there is hope. we can beat this thing could we are not -- we can beat this thing. we are not saying it is over. the american people are with us. they are with you and me. how many of you called and e- mails and wrote your members of congress? almost all of you. we lost in congress. we won with the american people. and we're winning today. we have to make sure we keep on doing it. thank you for coming out here. today is another day closer to victory. and when we stand in the shadow of the senators, we're sending a message they need to hear. we have allies in this effort. we have a group called concerned women of america. don't you love them?

we have traveled the country together. they are great allies. i think i saw jenny at the to fillet -- at the chick-fil-a yesterday. isn't it great to stand for freedom and also eat the best chicken in the world? please welcome our good friend penny. >> thank you. good morning. thank you for coming out. you know, president reagan said to os freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. we did not pass it to our kids in the bloodstream. it must be fought for, protected and handed for them to do the same. our children and our children's children, we will tell them what was once like to be free. do you believe that?

we are at a crucial moment in this nation's history. as a matter of fact, we are at a tipping point. i don't know, if we don't change the direction of this nation, if we will be the same, strong constitutionally sound freedom- loving government that we have always been. i don't know, if we don't change the direction we're going, if we will be able to stand on all the work that our founding fathers fought for and died for on the bloody battlefield of lexington and concord and yorktown and boston. we have to change things. and a clear indication -- and there are so many, i could go on and on, but i will not. a clear indication of the differences of where we're going versus where we should be is this health care law. we were promised that we would have lower premiums. yet $2,400 per person on average increase.

we were promised that we would not have to violate our consciousness -- our conscience and have to pay for abortion drugs. but we do, as of august 1, because of what the hhs mandate has done. we were promised that we could choose their doctors and there wouldn't be a problem. it is not what we were promised. and it is not too late. we can repeal and we can ask for a change. so ladies in the audience, let me have your attention for a moment. this is what we call an ester moment. it is a moment where you have to think about leadership. you have to think about, even though all the things you have been given, will you take the stand -- because, perhaps you were born for such a time as this. do you believe that? so do i..

i believe that all of the things we have enjoyed in our lives, the blessings we have been giving, our freedom and families and the pier wealth has led up to this moment. so i am asking you to be the esters of your generation, to take a stand with concerned women for america right now, right here. concerned women for america. i am climbing on a bus on monday morning. we will be oliver north carolina, virginia, montana, all over the country. and we will register conservative women all across the country. if you have heard something called the war on women, let me tell you something. it is a war for women. it is a war for your hearts and minds and your families and your future. and i need you to stand with us. so stand with us. register women to vote.

register conservative women. did you know that in our churches today, half of the folks use it with on sunday morning are not registered to vote. and they will not show up on election day. that is a shame. we cannot complain if we don't do something about it, right? so join with me, together, we can register thousands of people to vote, right? together, we can stand for our families and our future and our freedom. so say it with me coming together, c vote. c vote! thank you and god bless america.

>> thank you, a penny. i wanted you to hear from one of the leading up-and-coming talk- show hosts in the country. he is based out of tennessee. i met him years ago. we were doing an anti-cap and trade rally event in tennessee called the cost of hot air. where is al gore when you need money daylight this, right? come on. but want you to hear from him because talk radio is a crucial part of our alliance. please welcome rid of talk-show host phil valentine. [applause] >> to think that i missed the kiss-in at chick-fil-a for this. remember when nancy pelosi told us about all of these poor folks

that we had to take care of? all of a sudden, the supreme court affirms obamacare and they are all the seven deadbeats. isn't that amazing? they went from being uninsured to being did be scared the number is not 40 million and it is not 50 million. the last study was that there were 3 million to 4 million people who are chronically uninsured and something needs to be done about that. but we don't change the entire system for a vast minority of people in this country. but i think our side has been missing the boat a little bit on this. it is not about the individual mandate. it is about the employer mandate. most of us get our insurance through the employer. the mandate is not that much of a problem, although i think it is unconstitutional. it is a golden parachute. it is a ski pass that they give

employers now that obamacare budget it is an escape past that they give employers -- it is now an escape pass they give employers now that obamacare pass. it will be 90% of us in obamacare and the government will run all of the insurance. do we really want the same people that run the post of us to run your insurance? it will also be a huge burden on small business. i read a figure today. $87 billion in the first in years it will cost small business when we're trying to create jobs, not kill jobs. this is a job-killing bill. they call it the affordable care act.

it is the unaffordable care act, folks. we don't need it today. we don't need it tomorrow, next week -- we don't need it ever. thank you so much for having me and enjoy the day. >> how many of you are a little tired of aarp? [cheers and applause] these guys whipped out the pompons and did some of the fastest endorsing of this health care disaster of any other group. in effect, selling out their own members for political gain is what they did. but i have good news for you. we have a seniors' group that stands for economic freedom. it is called safety plus. they are great allies in this effort. we have been all over the country together. he is 103 years old or something like that. i still cannot beat him at basketball. it is very frustrating. i want you to give a warm

welcome to jim martin. [applause] >> i appreciate that. thank you very much. thank you for that introduction. it is great to be here with all your good friends. i am recruiting for the 60 + association. i don't see anybody out there old enough to join 60 + yet. [laughter] but i will wait for you, ok? look, just so you know, 60 +, aarp is not for me, we used to carry around a bumper sticker, but it is too big to carry around. i'm a fan -- aarp is not for me. let me point out a couple of differences. the aarp makes millions of dollars on the backs of seniors. we don't. we depend on voluntary donations from you folks.

they sell a lot of insurance. they are a nonprofit. let me ask you this. they make $600 million last year in profits. how does a nonprofit make $600 million in profits. they make on insurance. they make it on the backs of seniors. let me give another huge difference between the aarp and the 60 + association. they tout as other men of the year harry belafonte [. boo-hooing he is a great entertainer, but he is so far to the left that he makes president obama a moderate. legendary singer pat boone is another legendary singer. [applause] pat boone, of course, likes to tout his friendship with his old buddy ronald reagan.

those are some major differences. let me point out another one. just recently, on this particular bill, obamacare, and this is why i am recruiting 60 plus members. it was found out that an e-mail from a r.p. to the white house, senior citizen voting is hard to beat. they were floating -- they were voting 14-1 against obamacare. a r p is -- aarp is now out on a listening tour. they were not listening before. what they did quite frankly is they ignored what they were hearing from their own members. that is almost criminal. the fact is, if you are representing seniors and they are voting 14-1 against you, all

they have to do is hold a press conference publicly and say that seniors are against this bill. you know what they sent instead? they sent an e-mail saying that we must change our messaging. that is almost criminal. i want to thank you seniors in this crowd for what you did in 2009-2010. i remember when seniors were the only ones who read the bill before the one that the former speaker said we had to pass it so we can find out what is in it. back then, she called the men and women, you senior citizens at a rally, she called you an american. -- she called you unamerican. there are men and women who fought for the right to allow her to say that. i won't name her, but her

nationals are nancy pelosi. [laughter] [applause] so we have been out there regarding your since then, bringing the message out to seniors. the supreme court of the land passed the bill. guess what. we will not take it to a higher court -- we will now take it to a higher court. it is called the people's court. and we will repeal in november. thank you so much for your time. god bless. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, jim. the house wrapped up early and paul ryan did the right thing. he went home to see his family with young kids. but we have a special guest. does anybody here watch fox news at all? anyone? [applause] you may see him on fox news.

would you please one of his books. they're the best ones out there. he is quiet. he is shy. he is unassuming. coaxed him intos talking today. please welcome dick bourse. >> this is my backup group. [laughter] this is a non-political rally. it is designed for public education. so there are some folks back there and on the other end of pennsylvania avenue that need some education. and we will make sure they get that education when the semester ends later this year and that

education will serve them all very well in their retirement. [laughter] [applause] because they are headed for retirement. believe me. i am not as predicting that. i am telling you that. >> thank you, dick. >> after 30 years, i know how to read those polls. the issue we're talking about today is health care and it is not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. this is not pursuit of happiness. this is not about liberty even. this is about life. some of you may be pro-life, others may not be, but can we not all agree that we're pro- life to keep somebody alive when they are alive, what ever a federal bureaucrat says? [applause] can we not all agree that we

live until the medical profession cannot keep us alive and god says it is time to die without asking barack obama? [applause] this is truly the most fundamental issue. when obamacare was first introduced, i worked on a speech and an ad that we ran around the country that says how can you treat 30 million more people without any more doctors? the real question is how can you treat 30 million more people with fewer doctors? because of retirements and cuts in the reimbursement rate and the increasing enslavement of american doctors, how can you do it? and the answer is that the only way you can do it is by dumbing down the quality of medical care until it is so low that it

is not recognizable anymore for anybody, for any amount of money, in any situation. and that is not acceptable in the united states. [applause] i mean, there is a word here -- it is the most heinous, of seen four-letter word in our language. oddly enough, it is one they don't fire me at fox for using. it is called qulys. quality life years. what they do is, the federal government now has all of your personal medical records. it knows for each one of us what medications we have ever taken, what hospitalizations, any prescriptions we have ever had in our entire lifetime, any hospitalizations, any diagnosis of any thing, our current

weight, our current blood pressure, our current height, all of that stuff is now in the computers in washington. not in violation of the law required by this law. and what they will do is, when one person in this audience -- actually, when i look over this audience, none of the people here are or 65, so this probably has no applicability to any of you. but when somebody comes in here and says i need a heart bypass so the doctor says she needs a heart bypass, they look at the medical history and they figure, without ever meeting you, without ever talking to, without ever talking to your doctor, how many qlys does this woman have? well, she is 83. she doesn't work. she is retired. she has high blood pressure.

she used to smoke. and whatever. she has -- she might live for six years, but and our judgment, only for them are qly years. and you can only spend $4,000 per quality year. that is $70,000 or $80,000 a year. denied. it does not matter if you're talking about someone who has paid taxes into social security and medicare their entire life. it doesn't matter if they are an american citizen. it doesn't matter if they fought for their country. none of that matters. all that matters is what the statistical tables say. if you get cancer, you probably want to be treated with the drug

of choice. in canada, they don't allow people to take it. not because of health reasons, but because it is too expensive. it costs $75,000 a year. and if you are 80 years old, you're not worth $75,000 a year. the bureaucracy has decided that your life is not worth that. obama disingenuously says that there is a red pill and there is a green pill and they can it do the same thing. let's give them the red pill that costs half as much as the green pill. that is an absolute total lie. it is not what this is about. what this is about is making judgments as to who is entitled to what life-saving surgery, who is entitled to a hip replacement, who is entitled to a knee replacement. i am sorry you will be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. i am sorry that that will cost you three or four years of life.

but it is too damn bad. you gave us that power and we are exercising it under the terms of the affordable care act. [booing] and you -- and if you're a young person, as though many of you are, then the issue is a little bit more immediate. if you want to give away one month's income in taxes to pay for obamacare? one munson come. either that you have to pay for health insurance before any subsidy kicks in or as a tax that you have to pay for not having health insurance. oh, my god. i am so sorry. tim will come down on me like a ton of bricks. i used the word "? ." we all know it's not a tax. we all know that it is a

penalty. it is a fine. it is an in cents -- an incentive pay is an inclusive. but it is not a tax. you know how i know? because president obama promised not to raise taxes on anybody making less than two hundred $50,000 a year obviously, it is not a tax because he would not break his word. and when "the wall street journal" says that the cost of obamacare would be borne by those making less than $120,000 a year joint family income, then -- they misunderstand it. they think that is a tax. but if it walks like a tax and talks like a tax and it quacks like a tax, he is a pretty good crack himself -- quack himself,

then it is a tax. those young people may need health insurance, not because they're sick. they are in the best of health could not because their children could they are all -- they are in the best of health. not because they are children. but because they might be hit by a bus or run over on their way to a tea party rally. in that case, they need catastrophic health insurance. which is very cheap, not expensive, $1,000 to two thousand dollars a year. and if you want, just give it to them. don't ruin our whole health care system over that. don't make them by the soup-to- nuts policy that a person my age would need good when they don't want it, don't need it and

cannot afford to buy it. then there is the worst tax of all. this is a tax on sick people, literally. the sicker you are, the higher your tax level goes. this is called progressive taxation not new-style. right now, you can deduct on your income tax all medical expenses beyond 7.5% of your income. he has raised it to 10%. so that means coming if you have someone who is so sick that basically one out of every $12 of pre-taxing come, one out of every $5 or $7 of after-tax income goes toward medical expenses, not more, they cannot deduct that. they lose that benefit. you have a pacemaker? it is taxed under this law. you need a hearing aid? tax. you need a prosthetic limb because you served in iraq and

you gave your leg or your arm for your country, we will tax that prosthetic limb. that is a way of saying thank you very much. justice roberts upheld the individual mandate. but that imposes that individual mandate on each and every one of us and then individual mandate is to work like crazy to educate the american people to the dangers of obamacare and to let them figure out on their own, because this is a non-political rally, how the hell we get rid of it. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, dick morris. we have to have dick morris in

office one day. what you think of that? >> he cannot. it is unconstitutional. haven't you read? the 13th amendment prohibits slavery. [laughter] >> thank you. ok, you have survived the warmest, most timid -- almost most humid rally in history. tonight, at the asp tribute to reagan dinner, remember scott walker? this afternoon, we will kick off the general session. so head back in, get some water, get refuel, and we will see you in a few minutes back over the hill. thank you very much. [applause] ♪

>> the rally on capitol hill wrapping up. the house failed to agree to the adjournment resolution. looking ahead to our schedule later this afternoon, we will be featuring speeches and conversations with a number of people mentioned as possible republican vice-presidential candidates. we will hear from senator marco rubio, senator robb portman, former gov. tim pawlenty, and congressman paul ryann. that gets under way at 5:15 p.m.

eastern here on c-span. >> in the weeks ahead, the political parties are holding their platform hearing in a dance of the summer conventions with the democrats voting next week and on their final platform recommendations. then republicans begin their platform process. the democratic national convention who live from charlotte, n.c. starting monday september 3. >> the young america's foundation is holding its 34th annual student conference. c-span 2 will have live coverage as the top of that u.s. immigration policy. coverage continues this evening for the young america's foundation dinner. peter schweitzer will talk about

his book. that is live at 7:45 p.m. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> the house natural resources committee questioned the acting interior department inspector general yesterday on the administration's temporary freeze on deepwater drilling after the bp oil spill. the report claimed that outside engineers that the freeze even though they had not good secretary salazar later apologized.

the hearing is 2 hours 45 minutes. >> and oversight hearing on oversight of the actions come independence, and the accountability of the acting of the inspector general of the department of the interior. open statements are limited to the chairman and the ranking member of the committee. however, i ask unanimous consent that any members who wish to have a statement in the record have it by close of business today. without objection, so ordered. i will now recognize myself for five minutes. two years ago, members of this committee requested the investigation of the executive summary that was edited to appear as though the six-month drilling moratorium was approved

by the engineering experts when it was not. the ig ultimately agreed to an investigation. a report confirmed that the white house officials were responsible for editing the report executive summary, but the ig was unable to verify whether it was intended to mislead the public. this committee has been conducting an investigation into the editing of this report and how the moratorium decision was made. along the way, troubling questions have arisen about the thoroughness and independence of the acting ig's destination, as well as its unwillingness to fully cooperate with the committee's investigation could the inspector general act of 1978 requires the ig to be independent, to cooperate and to protect whistle-blowers. it is supposed to be an

independent watchdog of the executive branch. there are legitimate questions that this independence is being compromised. this includes the refusal of the acting ig submitting documents on the grounds that the administration may exert executive privilege to withhold these documents. this was done without the acting ig's office ever being informed of the administration's intentions to exert executive privilege or requiring -- or inquiring if the administration had any such intentions. the committee raised red flags about the investigation into the drilling moratorium report. e-mails from the investigators detail how they were not able to obtain all of the oi documents that may have been relevant to their investigation and they were not allowed to interview secretary salazar for white house staff involved in editing

the report. in one such e-mail, "i am deeply concerned that this is yet another example of how a double standard is being followed by -- in this investigation in granting great deference to the secretary's office that would not be granted to any other department europe or its employees." another e- another e-mail the lead investigator wrote -- "i truly believe the editing was intentional. it was by an overzealous staffer at the white house, and if yes, by as a case agent would be happy to state that opinion to anyone interested." the thoroughness of the investigation is important. the report is used as a defense

by the obama administration that the matter has been investigated and resolved. in reality, the department has never disclosed documents or answered questions on how or why this report was edited. it is important to learn more about the acting ig's exact role in the process that produced the report. in testimony before the committee, ms. kendall stated she was not involved in the process of developing this report, however the state does not appear -- . to be consistent with documents stated -- stating she attended meetings. she'd received draft sent accepted at any indication -- an invitation to serve on the ocs oversight board. i have to question the ability to be impartial in investigating the matter that one that mr.

have direct involvement with, including direct interaction with the political appointment -- appointees on the matter being investigated. this does not strike me as the independent role than ig is expected to serve. as it -- raises a bigger question about the acting ig. a question is whether they can be impartial while openly expressing a desire to be the permanent ig, and of course the opposition is nominated by the president. this is not questions about the investigators, but rather about the leadership and the administration of the office. the written testimony of the acting ig seeks to provide a defense and explanation, but in several instances it raises more questions. it is hoped direct answers before succumbing, but we are

prepared to take the necessary steps, include those that extend beyond today's hearing to insure that we receive all the facts. i recognize the ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am giving my remarks today while watching the bp spill cam, not because i like to watch barrels of oil dumped into our shores, but to have republican members remember the disaster they seem to have forgotten. it is betting that the

republican-led house has not passed a -- bad enough that the republican-led house has not passed a single bill that would improve the safety of offshore drilling. last week, the house passed it will bills that would put american dead an even greater risk of another oil spill. -- at any even greater risk of another oil spill. one would rush drilling off the coast of maine, new hampshire, massachusetts, connecticut, new york, maryland and other states, all without any new safety reforms. the other, the republican regulatory freeze at, would block all matters of health, safety and environmental protections, including new safeguards being developed by the department of interior to improved safety requirements

for offshore blowout preventers, 17, -- 17, casing and well designed. it has its advantage of being trivial, but it is no less miss guiding -- misguiding. we should say thank you to the witnesses for highlighting safety reforms at the interior department in preventing another catastrophic spill from happening again, but committee republicans are not interested in looking at reforms to improve the safety of offshore drilling. instead, we are here to investigate the investigation of a two-year-old copy and paste mistake. nearly two 0.5 days after the spill, administration officials moved on every point -- worked

out a report that offered recommendations to the president on how to respond. between the hours and 11:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., text was both in the executive summary in a way that created ambiguity about whether the reports and external reviewers, many of whom consulted the offshore drilling industry, supported a six-month moratorium on drilling in the gulf of mexico. the review endorsed a temporary pause of the did not review the recommendation of a six-month moratorium. when concerns were expressed about the executive summary, secretary salazar immediately sent public apology letters to them, clarified the recommendation for a six-month moratorium -- clarifying that

the recommendation for a six- month moratorium was his alone. secretary salazar parent congressional republicans asked -- secretary salazar. congressional republicans asked for investigation on whether these were politically motivated. the ocs review draft of the report and interviewed read yours as well as department of interior -- reviews, as well as department of interior employees. the conclusion? there was no evidence of wrongdoing. not satisfied with this conclusion, the community majority has -- the committee majority has responded by turning the investigation to the acting inspector general, mary kendall, but the majority's problem is not really with the white house, ms. kendall, or the

department of interior. the majority's problem is with the facts. the fed still not sure what the majority wants them to show. -- the facts do not show what the majority wants them to know, so now all was left for them to do is investigate the investigation. i want to remind the majority of what was happening at the time. look at these monitors. this is what secretary salazar and others in the administration were trying to stop. this is what they wanted to prevent from ever happening again, and this is what we in this committee should be working to prevent. this is under the jurisdiction of this committee to put the safety measures in place to make sure it does not happen again, and this is what this committee has avoided doing for two years to protect against a repetition.

instead, the majority is wasting time on this trivial, baseless investigation of an investigation. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you for your statement. i want to welcome the acting inspecting general of the u.s. department of interior, miss mary kendall. thank you for being with us. you been in front of the committee, but the rind -- let me remind you again your full statement will appear in the record. when the green light comes on, the five-minute clock starts, and when the yellow light comes on, you have 30 seconds and i asked you to keep remarks within that timeframe if you could. with that, welcome, and you are recognized for five minutes. >> mr. chairman and members of the committee, the morning in thank you for holding this hearing. as you know, inspector general are appointed without regard to political affiliation and solely on the basis of integrity and

demonstrated ability in a number of fields pursuant to section 3 of the ig act. section 2 exhibits independence. for the past four months, i have weathered the scrutiny of this committee, which has used a unilateral approach to investigate me by requesting select documents from the office of inspector general, drawing conclusions from those documents without all the facts and presenting those conclusions to the public with press releases, challenging my integrity, independence and objective and, therefore i welcome the opportunity to respond, and present the facts as i know them. the letter requesting my attendance at this hearing said i should be prepared to answer questions about my role relative to the six-month drilling

moratorium in the gulf of mexico following the deep water disaster. the investigation into the peer review, my response, and my previous testimony before the committee. in short, i can answer these issues as follows. i stand behind the oig investigation into the allegation that senior officials help to justify their decision misrepresented the moratorium was reviewed and supported by the national academy of engineering scientists and industry experts. this was contained only in the executive summary of a report commonly called the 30-day report, there for the executive summary was the focus of the oig investigation. the focus unintentional

misinformation came down to an exchange of e-mails in which the executive summary was being edited. these emails revealed no evidence that the executive summary was intentionally edited to leave readers to believe the moratorium recommendation had been peer reviewed. this committee has posted on its website a number of emails from the case agent that investigated the. you wish to the suggests he was not able to take every step he wanted to take. none of the agents' complaints was made known to me during the course of the investigation. had they been brought to my attention, i would have addressed them directly with the case agent, but based on what was presented to me i was confident our investigation was well done, thorough and to the point, precisely what i expressed to the case agent directly in the mail. until this matter, in my 26 years with the federal

government i have never experienced an incident where executive privilege came into play. we've since learned that in situations where this is resolved is both a lengthy and complex. i reiterate the dispute is between this committee and the department. the doctor began the documents are not the -- the documents are not the oig no -- nor is the privilege to way. i elected to exercise this independence and object to the in a way that maintains a healthy tension between the oig department that we oversee. i believe independence and object to the are not compromised by a respectful relationship with both the department and the congress, the two entities we are charged with keeping fully informed pursuant to the ig act.

we have effected a great deal of positive change by working with the department in a speech to to achieve such change. although i have testified numerous times, i assume my testimony relates to the questions on june 17, 2010. i address those questions in my letter of june 27, 2012, to the committee, and in my formal statement today. mr. state -- mr. chairman, i hope we adjourn have been addressed all the questions the committee had about me. although the questions reflect on the oig, it has become clear that your questions are really about me, if nothing else than from the title of the hearing today. i've been an attorney and member of the bar in good standing for approaching 30 years, a public servant for over 26 years,

without blemish to my record, and i am born and raised in the midwest where one's honor and were are sacrosanct. the past weeks have been the most painful and difficult of my career not only because of the attacks on my personal credibility, but this has eclipsed the work ocs has done and continues to do. -- oig has done and continues to do. this concludes my remarks and i am prepared to answer questions the committee may have to >> thank you for your statement. you're full statement will be in the record, and i, too, hoped the outcome you expressed is an outcome that we can have with the members here, but there are concerns, as i have mentioned. but we recognize myself first for five minutes. you know, ms. kendall, that i have significant concerns about wasthe ig's investigation

handled, and your conflicting position on the ocs safety oversight board. the ig was intended to be an independent watchdog, and your role on theo changes that -- ocs board changes that role in my view. you interacted with political appointees who wrote the report an executive summary. you were a first-person witness to that process. it is very difficult to understand how you cannot see how the dual roles are in conflict. you are supposed to be the independent and objective investigator. you said that in your statement, but when you participate in meetings or conference calls and receive draft documents on the same issues that your office might be asked to investigate, and then did investigate, it is

clear your primary function was compromise. you did not see this participation as a conflict of interest -- it is those actions that trouble me the most. so, my questions are, why did you not decline the administration's request to serve on the safety oversight board when it was clear that it would place the integrity and independence of the ig's office into question? >> mr. chairman, i recognize the potential for an apparent conflict of interest at the outset of my acceptance as a member of the safety oversight board, but the department was responding to a crisis. i did not think it was appropriate for me to say you go ahead and deal with this and i will stand by. >> we have a short time here.

by your own bid mission, you -- admission, you were not familiar with the details of this oversight, and by your own nation, one of the reasons you wanted to be involved -- admission that when the reasons you want to be involved was to bring yourself up to date. >> iapetus pitted in meetings to bring myself up to date. >> on issues you did not know anything about her >> i did not know anything about them. >> you did not know anything, yet you were expecting a policy position. >> i did not to dissipate in the policy decisions. >> this is the policy board. >> it was not a policy board. it was a board asked to bring safety recommendations. >> which is policy. that is policy. can you provide an example of prior times when ig's have

participated in policy groups like this? >> i do not have an example on the top of my head, but i'd like to note that the ig became one the most effective tools the department head because of my petition on the sport. in our massive he got you it -- participation on this board. on our massive investigation -- >> that is exactly the point. you were working side-by-side, working on earth policy. since there were questions raised on the summary, which we ask you to look at, and considering that you looked right along side the people that are being investigated, why did you not recruit -- recused yourself after we had asked you, and knowing your participation earlier -- why did you not recuse yourself from the

executive summary and editing? >> i did not participate in the 30-day report. >> i know you did not, but there were people involved with that. let me ask this question -- did the people investigating, your ig inspectors, did they know you participated prior to the executive summary? >> i do not know that. wait, i do know that, sir. i actually had an e-mail from a case agent that said in your role as a member of the safety oversight board if there is anything i could do to help i would like to. >> have you provided that? >> i would think so. >> but you do not know. >> i do not know. >> my time is running out.

it seems there is an inherent conflict from the role of ig. congress demands that the ig be an independent watchdog of the administration. that is the intent of the law. clearly, this give and take we had raises more questions, but my time has expired so i recognize the gentleman from massachusetts. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ms. kendall, this committee voted yesterday to subpoena five interior department officials. your office interviewed two of these officials as part of your investigation -- steve black and neal. do you have any evidence they were being not truthful when they told your office there was

no intention to mislead in the editing of the report? >> no, we did not. >> the remaining three individuals, the individuals the committee chose to subpoena, is there any reason to believe any one of these people has important information related to this investigation? >> i have no information to believe they were involved in either the 30-day report or the executive summary. > the core function ofi's -- of ig's is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of programs and to uncover fraud, waste and abuse. in many ways, ig's look out for the taxpayer to make sure they get money's worth it to their money's worth from the government. how much of your time has been

spent responding to the majority's investigation of this one issue? >> i did not calculated the amount but it has been significant. >> have the committee's multiple and extensive document requests taking you and other senior staff away from corps work? >> i would say yes. >> ms. kendall, your office provided the committee of many important jobs that are either on going or has been completed over the last 3.5 years. you are conducting several ongoing investigations related to the bp spill, including one with the department of justice, and you have already completed five investigations related to the bp spill, including cases relate -- labeled halliburton and bp scam, testing a bill of preventer and bp safety failures and policies.

-- testing a blowout preventer and bp end years and policies. can you tell the committee where you have found? >> the criminal investigation continues to be on going so i cannot comment on that. >> did you say criminal? >> criminal. that is the investigation conducted by the department of justice. we conducted an investigation on the civil side. the three that you mentioned, they are not familiar whiff me. i am not sure they came from our -- with me, and i am not sure they came from our office. >> could you expand a little bit on what this criminal investigation is looking at? >> i really cannot because it is ongoing, but i am hoping it will come to fruition in the near future. >> you served on the outer continental shelf safety oversight board.

can you describe the situation when you joined the board? >> the board was tasked with overseeing the investigation into the deep water horizon event, and to provide the secretary with safety recommendations to improve operations and oversight by the department. >> can you describe your role and the role of the office of inspector general in the mission of the board? >> i offered and then test my entire central region to conduct a comprehensive review of the outer continental shelf operations overseen by the department of interior. some 60 people spent three months, a short timeframe to conduct this comprehensive review, and they provided findings and recommendations, as we do as an oig, to the safety

oversight board, which adopted them to issue their september report, and then the oig issued an almost exact, but a little more detailed report of its own in december, 2010. >> in the role, where you in any way involved in the drafting or editing of the 30-day report or the executive summary? >> i was not. >> do you think your independence was compromise with respect to your subsequent work looking into the editing of the executive summary? >> i do not. >> week thank you, and we thank you for your work. your comments about the ongoing criminal investigation involving those companies, and we saw the pictures what they had -- of what they did in this crime against the environment, the greatest in the history of our country, that is where the work should be in this committee. we should find out who did it. we should have them sitting

here, the ceo's of each of those companies, and has not happened in one year and a half, and the american people are waiting for this committee to do their job. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from colorado. >> thank you. i want to take us back to a 2010 subcommittee hearing in this room. i asked you if the office of inspector general is investigating the circumstances surrounding the editing of the drilling moratorium report. he said no and that you were not involved in the editing of the record. i would like to show a video clip. could you show exhibit number 6. -- exhibit number six? >> i was not involved in the process of developing that report, and i think it would not be appropriate for me to comment on it. >> by the way, i did not want to make a suggestion that you were

involved, in fact it is good that you were not so you can be an objective observer because there needs to be an investigation. >> i think you would agree that the inspector general has to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. since the hearing, there have been questions raised about whether you crossed the line and in turn whether your june 2010 statement might have been misleading. a number of calendar entries have come to light showing you have access to draft of the drilling moratorium record in the days before it was finalized and you attended meetings with both the peer reviewers and the same senior department officials that were later subject of the ig investigation. only three weeks after the report was issued, in the clip we just saw you said you were not involved in the process of developing the record. after these questions were first raised in may of this year, you wrote to the committee to say you attended a number of these

meetings to learn about offshore drilling in your membership of the ocs board, and "in the of these meetings was the substance of the 30-day report discussed. , i'm curious what happened in these meetings. there was a meeting on may 17 that you were invited to with steve black, counsel to the secretary and lead author of the report, one of the people who was part of this investigation. could you show exhibit seven, please? on the agenda, you will see in the redbox to the right, walked through documents to be reviewed and a discussion on the document. there is a follow-up e-mail from mr. black to you and others asking for comments and suggested changes, based in your

own work to date and today's conversation. exhibit 8, please. then, thank you for participating on the call today with the experts. i would be grateful for your comments and any suggested changes by close of business tomorrow based on your own work to date and today's conversations. lastly there is no other e-mail from mr. black to you where he thinks you for your participation. exhibit 9, please. thank you for your kind words, mary, and your participation in the meeting's leading up to this report. your effort has been enormously impressive, by the way. ok, my question is, do you still stand by your june, 2010, testimony you were not involved in the process of developing the drilling moratorium report.

>> i do. >> would you agree that an inspector general -- this is a rhetorical question -- any appearance or actual conflict of interest and lack of independence? >> i do. >> ok. considering your system and control in working closely with members of the safety oversight board, do you think you should have recused yourself from investigating the moratorium and the editing of the report to avoid suggestion the report was compromised? >> to this day, i do not. >> when you testified that you were not involved in "process of developing the report," do you believe the process includes a meeting with peer reviewers, which you had done before your testimony? >> i attended that meeting for informational purposes, as it did with barry and many others

were either the ball deep water drilling -- as i did with many others, where i learned about deep water drilling, and orchestrating rigs world wide. these are the things i attended these meetings for. i did not participate in developing the 30-day report or the executive summary. >> i would have done it differently. i would have met with experts that are not subject to the investigation and then briefed by them on the technical issues. d.c., finally, how people could raise questions -- do you see, finally, how people could raise questions that you have been too close to the department to be objective and you were able to investigate the moratorium decision and addicting? >> in the context of the crisis to which the department was responding at the time, i do not. >> thank you. >> the time has expired. chair recognizes representative

holt from new jersey. >> thank you. evidently, the majority here does not, did not like the conclusions of the report, so they turn this into an investigation with a number of subpoenas and now the testimony of the acting inspector general. as i said here yesterday, it is ludicrous. it must look really silly to people outside looking at this. here, we are spending committee time, using subpoenas for people, calling them in because in the preliminary addition of the report the word pause was used, and in the final report a more official-sounding word, "moratorium" was used. yesterday i went through various

pseudonyms for a moratorium, which would include the synonyms for moratorium, which would include -- systems for a moratorium, which would include pause. i do not see anything nefarious here. it is simply that the majority did not like the conclusion and they want to discredit the report, and, unfortunately, discredit some hard-working, conscientious, altruistic public servants. thank you for coming, ms. kendall. i'm sorry that you have to go through this. let me run through a few questions. when the case agent finished a draft of the report, you reviewed that with an eye towards adding that. is that correct? >> i added almost every report

that leaves our office. >> so this was standard. >> a absolutely. >> after you finished, you send it back to the case agents and best he had any response to the changes, and he said your e- mail whang which was far simpler than my own yet i believe -- your e-mail language was far simpler than my own, yet i believe accurately captured the intent. is that correct? >> that is correct. the case agent never communicated concerns during the course of the investigation and i met with him at the end. he did not express concerns at that time. >> ok. do you think -- so, there is now a discussion by my colleagues and others about whether the

editing was intentional by an overzealous white house staffer. do you think there is evidence to be gained if we conduct a more thorough investigation? is there more to be brought to light, word to you think that all of the facts -- or do you think that all the facts that are out there have been considered in your investigation? >> we got and reviewed the e- mail exchange in which the ended team was done and the moratorium. to have been peer reviewed. we reviewed those and the did not indicate anything that was intentional. the case agent has the opinion that the evidence does not show that. >> the case agent has stated that he has an opinion. >> he has stated his opinion.

>> yes, and that he calls his position and opinion. >> i do not know that he calls it an opinion. >> again, a few more questions, did you interfere with the work of the case agent? >> i did not. >> was the investigation thoroughly in your opinion? >> it was. >> did you find evidence of wrongdoing? >> we found no evidence that the changes to the executive summary to make it look like it was peer reviewed was intentional. >> in the preparation of your report were you pressured, ask, directed, in any way influenced to go easy on the administration? >> i had no conversations with the department on the report until it was issued. i let them know we were doing it but i did not talk about the report until it was issued. >> in your 26 years as a public

servant is the first time anyone has questions your impartiality, professional misconduct or completeness? >> yes. >> i wish i had more time to let you say what i think you are entitled to say about these allegations set your work is not reliable or without integrity. i hope this committee will give you a full opportunity to address these allegations. thank you for your work. >> the time for the gentleman has expired. the chair recognizes representative gohmert. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we have read the " -- we have had the question asked time -- many times, why we are here. so my colleagues will understand why we are here, and so they will understand from someone that went along the coast after

this disaster, the biggest disaster came not from the oil that was escaping, it came from the order of this president to have a moratorium on shallow water drilling that put thousands and thousands of people out of work, thousands of people into poverty, thousands and thousands of people into needy situations because this president acted on the recommendations of the experts who did not make those recommendations. so, i think is critically important that we find out more about the process, and i appreciate the inspector general's position that is sufficient to ask individuals if they were involved or if there was a -- or -- if they were involved, or if there was a problem, to and it would become as great comfort to

investigators across the country, including the criminal investigators that we have been told are moving forward, if they knew of they had to do was not gather evidence, not look at hard drives, as people were directed not to do in this case, as we see from the e- mails, and as they were directed not to leave you emails of people who were -- review e- mails of people who were involved. as we see in the mail where it is said "as you know, i was directed to not ask for secretary counselors steve black's e-mails that contain the executive draft sent to and returned by the white house, even though he told us we had them if we wanted them." let me ask you, who directed richard not to request those emails and not to reveal hard drives? >> i do not know. >> did you investigate who might

have directed him not to acquire those emails? would that not be important from an inspector general's standpoint? >> he did receive the emails. >> the question was who directed him not to? >> sir, i do not know that. >> would it be important to know why richard was lying if he received emails that he said he was not? would that cause you concerns with his inconsistency? >> if i may, at steve black's first interview with the case agents, he offered the e-mails. >> he points that out. i covered that. he points out he was told by black that he could have them, and then he was directed by somebody not to have the mail. >> he chose not to accept them at the same time. >> so he lied when he was

directed not to ask for them? would that not be worth investigating why you are saying richard live in this letter that he wrote where he says i was directed not to ask him? >> i would be interested in knowing. >> do not have the authority to ask that question. >> sir, i am not done anything to put this case agent in jeopardy because he is -- >> madam, i would submit you have done nothing to put anyone in jeopardy, and your job is to investigate the fact and somebody needs to be put in jeopardy, you do so. you said that i recognized my potential for a conflict of interest, but we were dna crisis, and i cannot sit by and do nothing, so that tells us you did participate.

i would tell you that as a judge and chief justice there were times i saw lawyers not doing an effective job board investigator not doing what he should have, but i could not compromise my position because it was to win ported, so why did not jump in and do those jobs. that is what an inspector general is supposed to do. as you said, i recognize my potential for a conflict of interest, and you should have protected that, so as a result we have a report that cost thousands and thousands of people more misery than the old oil that was coming out of the floor did. we cannot even find most of that now. i would submit to you the you should first do no harm, and you could have avoided the harm if you help us get to the truth. you complained about how long this has gone on. i would submit that if you are consistent it would not go on -- all. >> the time has expired.

the chair recognizes the man from georgia, mr. brown. >> thank you. >> in march, 2009, president obama issued a memorandum expressing how important it was for the public did discuss science on which policy decisions were being made and political appointees should not surprise or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. and i am troubled the moratorium decision was imposed without any scientific support, and that political officials of the department or the white house altered the 30-day report to incorrectly suggest that peer reviewers endorsed the moratorium when they scientifically did not, all to the contrary of the obama administration's scientific integrity policies. the ig office aggressively

investigated scientific integrity violations of the last administration that seems to be less aggressive in pursuing this investigation. do you believe it is inappropriate for political appointees to alter or suppress scientific findings or conclusions? >> baidu. >> are there ever situations where it would be appropriate for a political appointee to alter or suppress scientific information? >> i cannot think of any. >> ms. kendall, it has happened. this administration's transparency seems to be another bit -- another word for their transparency is opaque. we are trying to get a better understanding of how they office has acted for the last 3.5 years

with an actingi. i would -- ig. i would like to discuss ethics complaints. the ig conducted investigations into the previous act and this it -- administration, including an ethics secretary and i hope your office is pursuing allegations against your current administration just as aggressively. as i understand it, conflicts of interest cart track for department officials, but your office is the one that handles investigations into whether department officials have violated the ethics laws. this is one area where i could see the importance of a strong, working relationship between the department and ig. does your office get referrals from the department's office of ethics programs for further

investigations? >> we do. >> when a complaint is received, what is the process for investigating an ethics complaint? is it the same as for other criminal or integrity investigations, meaning you review the complaint and decide whether an investigation should be open? >> yes. >> what is the process? >> it defers almost every case, we reviewed the allegations and we determine whether it is something that falls within the scope with what we have defined as high-impact, high-risk cases, and if it does we expected for investigations, and most -- inspect it for investigations, and most ethics cases fall within that. >>, the ethics complaints to the receiving a given year, and how many -- how many ethics complaints does the office receiving a given year?

>> i do not have that answer. i could get it to you. >> i appreciate that. >> how often are these cases referred to the department of justice for criminal prosecutions, and have you made any referrals in the past 3.5 years? >> not that i'm aware of, no. >> how often are these cases referred? >> quite readily, and even more rarely prosecuted. >> how about in the previous a demonstration? >> i would have to get back to you on that. >> i appreciate that, but you have made zero referrals in the last three years, is that correct? >> i think that is correct. >> how come you have not referred any? there are no ethics violations in this the administration at all? >> we have said several cases we have investigated, and as i and thinking about it, most of the time we will be referring them,

usually excepting declination, so we may have referred some of those. i would have to give back to you. >> please do. my time is following --, running out, but if you cannot follow will put a list of complaints and you're not referred to any, but have been referred to you or otherwise been received by your office in the past three years as well as the status of any investigation of any complaint or referral -- would you do that for us? >> we can do that. >> can he do that in the next two weeks? >> i think we can get >> the time of the gentleman has -- that we can do that. >> the time of the gentleman has respired. the chair recognizes mr. fleming. >> the underlying question is the 30-day record and whether or not the text was manipulated to

show something that really did not exist, which is that this blue-ridden panel. you'd to make it appear they believe there should be -- panel was. you'd to make it believes that -- to make it believed that a moratorium should the been issued. after that, it went to court, the president failed in court, and once the moratorium ended, we then had permits for him, foot-dragging, and even today, and even today we have seen tens of thousands of jobs lost, rigs that of gone elsewhere, and i would argue have been at more risk environmentally because they're going to countries that do not have the level of regulation and oversight that we do.

i agree with representative gohmert, the real damage has been done by the administration itself to prevent people from maintaining, keeping and acquiring good jobs. we have lost that, in many cases, forever. my question for you is, you are acting inspector general, is that correct? >> that is correct. >> do you wish to be appointed to be -- to be an appointee of this administration? >> i have expressed an interest, yes. >> so, in effect, you have the role of investigating the same administration that would be potentially selecting new for the job? is that correct? >> essentially, yes. >> ok. have you not been in an auditioning position to audition for the administration, and

would that not be a conflict of interest? >> i have no interest in being nominated and confirmed, but i want to do this for the oig as an organization. >> but it would not make sense to make the president mad at you, is that correct? >> there is a potential for a conflict of interest, but i have seen many colleagues rise from deputy to the position of ig without conflict. >> not under this president. >> under this president >> can you give me an example? >> -- president. >> can you give me an example? >> he went to a different agency, but the -- the deputy ig. >> did this person come out with a negative finding? >> i am guessing yes.

>> it sounds like pure speculation. i will expect the we do not have a good example at all. also, what did not make sense since you are coopted to be in the policy arm of this, and really disengaged from the investigation, that really you were part of the policy from the get-go? what we learned, in effect, shows that the lead investigator was the one that had a concern, although we did not know about this until we uncovered emails. >> and neither did die. >> ok. it really seems -- and neither did die. >> ok. it seems in your testimony and in the documents we have, that while you were engaged in the policy side of things, that the lead investigator below you was not in good communication with you, and not plugged in. he would make you did not know

about that. he leads to the question of how you can claim to be disinterested in an objective, and potentially one that could bring out the negative activities and improper activities of the administration which i think it's clear with this 30-day report -- how can you claim to be objective one at the very least you are part of the policy process? >> i was not part of the policy process. i was part of the process of reviewing operations for safety and operational improvements. >> is said really your job? your job is to investigate wrongdoing from the department of interior. >> my job is also in part -- >> your job is to investigate anything, fraud, waste, abuse -- legal problems and 11 desiccators that are not in good communication with -- and you have deputies that are not good

communication with you on that. >> the times -- the gentleman's time s -- has expired. >> ms. kendall, in your letter you say given the transparency given to the process, and the complete absence to date of any complaints about the manner in which this effort is proceeding, the oig does not have plans to conduct additional reviews of this time. is that correct? >> that is corrected >> said there has been an absence of complaints? >> we have not received them. >> on february 24, and 11-page report was filed, documents in the allegations of systematic, scientific and scholarly misconduct relating to the klamath river dam removal

process and it was filed by dr. paul hauser george mason university, who was at the time the bureau of reclamation's science advisor and science integrity officer. specifically, he documented the intentional falsification of scientific results included in the draft in related to scientific and technical reports, and intentional circumvention of the policy that ensures the integrity of science and scholarship in actions the compromise scientific and scholarly integrity. given the well-documented complained of political tampering with scientific data made by the official directly responsible for overseeing the scientific integrity of these studies, your statement that there has been "a complete absence of any complaints about the manner in which the study is proceeding" is an absolutely stunning. i would ask you again, has there been a complete absence of any

complaints? >> perhaps i needed to be more complete to the inspector general's office. is that complaint was referred to our office, i was not -- is that complaint was referred to our office, i was not aware of it. >> would that not be of prime interest to the inspector general's office next would not a competent inspector general be concerned of allegations by eight individuals responsible for protecting the scientific integrity of these studies? >> mr. chairman tom -- yes, sir pitt >> mr. chairman, i ask for unanimous consent to include for the record the letter and the complaint filed by dr. phil -- paul hauser. >> has the department of interior received complaints from that individual or others alleging and scientific integrity complaints?

>> i would not know what the department has received. usually, things are referred to us. i would have to check. >> one of the concerns addressed here in this hearing and elsewhere, ms. kendall, is a complete lack of focus on the principle responsibilities in the inspector general. these allegations of the falsification of scientific data would not -- they were not exactly a secret. they were widely reported in newspaper articles across the pacific northwest. mr. chairman, i would ask for unanimous consent to insert into the record articles on this subject. >> no objection, it will appear in the record. >> did you not consider -- you have said that you would consider this of interest to the inspector general's office, but you have not looked into it?

>> i do not know that we have looked into it. i think it is something that we should look into. >> why have you not looked into it? >> i am not aware of it sir. it, sir.ot aware of >> have you, or anyone in your office to your knowledge had any discussion with the secretary's office, including the chief of staff about dr. hauser's complaint were your office's investigation of it? >> none that i'm familiar with, now. >> in the list of complaints you provided to the committee, there is one by kira, is that correct? >> if that is in the documents to >> what was that regarding? >> i do not know. >> she was dr. paul hauser's boss. her response was to fire him. she is also the