ceo of the association of oil pipelines discusses the state of the pipeline system in the u.s. laterlater, dr. francis collins, director of the institutes of health talks about funding for an initiative called brain research for advancing there are technologies. "washington journal" is next. host: good morning. good morning, it is april 6, 2013, days before president obama estimates his 2014 budget plan to congress. more details are starting to be released. meanwhile, wall street and washington react to yesterday's unexpectedly poor jobs report. we begin this morning by discussing a controversial ruling by a federal judge that

has reignited the debate over the age of which women should have access to the morning after contraceptive pill and whether parents should have a say in the access. as we take it to the ruling in the case that led through it, we are taking your phone line -- phone calls. republicans can call republicans, 202-585-3881. democrats, democrats, 202-585- 3880. independents, 202- 585-3882. if you are outside of the u.s., 202-585-3883. you can also catch up with us on your favorite social media website. good saturday morning to you. we will start with that ruling from the judge of the eastern district of new york, leading many of the papers this morning. here is the front page of "the new york times" --

charlotte observer" also has an on its front page -- and here is the front page of tribune." we want to take this one to the front page of "the washington will read you a bit of that story.

we are taking your thoughts and comments on my ruling this morning. phone lines are open. first, i wanted to turn to bloomberg news reporter, who had her story yesterday about this ruling. thank you for joining us on

independents, 202-585-3882 -- "washington journal peer " talk about this and where we go next for the decision. caller: there is the potential for an appeal, we could see something about the implementation of this if it goes that route. as far as reaction goes, it was pretty explosive on both sides as far as supporters and opponents of the decision. we had anti-abortion groups pretty much immediately react strongly by denouncing the decision, saying it could be harmful to young girls if they do not have the same interaction with medical professionals that they would require now in order to obtain plan b period at the same time, women's health groups, supporters of this decision, very strong comments favoring the judge's decision to

make it available. this decision has been described as a gaping rebuke of the obama administration's stance on this issue. phone lines are open. what was the judge so critical of in his ruling? he criticized the fda for stalling, engaging in tactics, rulemaking tactics that were --ended to put up a decision off a decision. he directed the fda to not do this this time around, simply to change the access part. he assumed they are dragging delaying which should be done. of thealk about the role 2012 elections, the politics in this decision, and the access to

the plan b over the years. >> what we had here was multiple efforts going on, on the part of women's health advocate -- an advocacy groups, petitioning the fda to make this available, and we also have the manufacturer, teva, which makes the morning after pill, also try to gain the ability to sell it over the counter. we had multiple things going on. made commentsally suggesting this should be available to everyone and it is safe, potentially save. hadhe same time, we kathleen sebelius said perhaps this should not be available, young girl should not be allowed to attain it.

-- first we had a lawsuit in 2005 which culminated with the judge ruling that this should be made 17,lable to women at least and then following that, -- misinformation for pharmacies in terms of who could access this without a prescription. this seems to be cause to reopen the case, and that is what led to the ruling now. host: this is an issue that came out yesterday at the white house briefing. we are going to hear jay carney talk about the ruling yesterday. >> secretary sebelius made the decision, so i would refer you to her office on the policy specifics, but when the secretary made the decision, the president supported it, believe it was a common-sense approach when it comes to plan b and its availability over the counter to

girls over 17. he believed that was a sensible approach. byin, this is under review the department of justice. they will make decisions on options. does the long administration have before it has to let the courts no it will appeal the decision? frame sure what the time is specifically, but i imagine within a period of weeks. thanks for joining us this morning to talk about this controversial decision. we are taking your calls and comments this morning. we will open the phones first on the republican line. david is from dover, new hampshire. good morning. you could have separated the abortion question from this at the beginning. this is making a prescription

drug available over the counter. that is ridiculous, regardless of what it is. why are we not selling oxycontin over the counter them? it is ridiculous. host: where do you think the administration should go? caller: i think they should go towards appealing it. i am conservative but i congratulate president obama for coming out publicly on this. it was the right choice. host: we want to read you more, this from the "wall street journal" story on the ruling yesterday.

we want to go to john on the phone from bryn mawr, california on the democratic line. your reaction to the ruling? are you there? well, the emergency contraceptive is a good thing, i believe, as long as it is in the right hands. getswise, let's say a kid plan b and puts it in somebody's something thatd happens. who takes the liability then?

your concern is the access of this, you think that the pill could be misused? >> yes. host: here is some reaction from anti-abortion activists calling the decision shortsighted. they said -- the washingtonhe " post" story. from bloomington,

indiana. with "washington post." kids should be talking to their parents, to their doctors about becoming sexually active in the first place. i think it is totally unsafe. it is putting a medical procedure in a child's hands, when that child should be talking to someone more experienced, like an ob/gyn, and their mothers. to do that.is unsafe aam totally against doing procedure like that, because the child could have a reaction that could lead to death.

the child could have a reaction to the pill itself. at night, when everyone is asleep, they could go into a reaction. no one would know until next morning what happened to a daughter or family member. i think it is not safe. we should think about doing these sorts of things. i just do not think it is right. host: we are taking your reaction and comments all morning on twitter and facebook, and our phone lines are open. a few comments from our facebook page.

below that -- on that issue of whether judges should be involved in this decision, here is a column by dr. manny alvarez, posted to foxnew.com. manny alvarez of rightwrites --

that is manny alvarez on foxnews.com yesterday. i also want 20 to an editorial in "the new york times" taking a different approach to the ruling. good sense on the morning after pill.

plenty more reaction but we want to go back to the phones. mavis is waiting from fort lauderdale, fla. from the independent line. your thoughts on the ruling? caller: i am with the judge. most of these republicans -- ,f a teenager gets pregnant there are planned parenthood clinics around the country. if this can help that child, i think she should be able to get

it. the is all because of what republicans are doing. they do not realize roe v. wade is the law of the country. they're doing everything they can try to get it overturned. i agree with the judge. plan bs old, 16, contraceptive pill, yes, they should be allowed to purchase it over the counter. from forts lauderdale, florida. a few tweets. jodi writes -- from gary stewart.

the phone lines are open this morning. we will go to carson, calif. on the democratic line. good morning. i believe the judge's ruling should stand. personally, my experience was at 14 years old. was impregnated by an in-law of the family. it was a rape, not my doing. i had to drop out of school. it took us across the border to mexico to be married. it was a situation that i had to stay in until i was almost 18, one month before i got out and left and never went back. time.a very hard i ended up having two children in that relationship. it was hard all my life raising

those children. i did. i worked for 49 years. i am now 75 and retired, but this is not something that had to happen. howle do not understand girls are in this position, especially at very young ages. host: thanks for the call. we appreciate your insight. john writes on twitter -- that will take us to the "daily news" editorial yesterday which did not agree with the decision.

phone lines and twitter are open. the bill is from an bill, new jersey on the democratic line. your reaction to this ruling? caller: i called on the democratic line but i am not particularly affiliated with either party. i am disgusted with both parties. on this issue, as far as republicans are concerned, they do not know what to do. if they cannot stop this than the abortion issue and everything is gone from their agenda. dofar as women's rights, i not think the government should intrude on personal rights of americans, telling them what they can and cannot do in the bedroom, and other issues.

the judgethink overstepped his bounds here, or is cleaning up a situation created by the obama administration? caller: he is cleaning up a situation that is unconstitutional. the government does not have the right to legislate morality. people are going to do what they feel is ok for them. you cannot legislate morality. much for giving us a ring. the phone lines are open and will be for the next 25 minutes or so on the subject. a few other headlines we want to make you aware of this morning journal."gton here is "the wall street journal."

we will talk a lot more about where those and gains and losses were in our next segment on "washington journal" this morning. we are talking about this ruling by a fedor run judge on the plan b contraceptive. on thefrom newark, ohio democratic line. caller: good morning. i think there should be put to a general election and let the people decide. i think the female vote should only count because it is the female's body being put through this. you think it should be on

the ballot and the only women should be allowed to vote on it? the thing that would happen? itler: i do not know if would happen. if a woman has a chance of getting pregnant, it is the one that would have to carry the baby or go through the emotional turmoil of having an abortion, unplanned pregnancy, whether it is a young girl or older woman that risks having a child with down syndrome or some other birth defects because of her age. i think a woman's vote count on it. host: if that referendum were held, where do you think most women would come down? caller: i think they would vote for it. host: meaning they would allow access to it, being out from behind the counter? caller: exactly. like the last caller said, i do not think you can legislate morality.

people are going to do what they want to do. young people are going to do what they are going to do the matter what a parent says, the matter what educators say. it is out there. if they are going to do it, they need some kind of recourse to protect themselves. touching on the subject in today's "washington post." writes --

"washingtonoday's post" if you want to read more. is calling from wisconsin, democratic line.

caller: thank you for taking my call. as far as that gentleman, king, he should donate some money to planned parenthood. i agree with this stance. women -- if you men were having babies, this will not be discussed. it would have already happened. all you women goodlett in our lives. have a great day. from wisconsin, democratic line. we're taking your calls on this ruling. we will read of the more headlines for you. we talked about the president's budget proposal that would be coming out next week. this is from "the washington post."

one other story about information coming out about the budget proposal.

those are just a couple of

stories in today's paper about the president's budget request, which is set to come out next wednesday. we are talking about the new york federal judge's decision on plan b contraceptive, taking away some of the aid restrictions that had applied to that form of contraceptives. tami is up next from ormond beach, florida to offer her opinion on the democratic line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i think it is a wonderful break through. i knew the religious right would strongly oppose it. they won no control of guns or pregnancies. what parent in their own mind, religious or not, would encourage their 14 or 15-year- old daughter to have a baby? this bill prevents fertilization of an egg, it is not an abortion pill. the religious right are extreme fanatics the one to control

everyone else's lives. this she talked about what pill might and might not do. here is "the wall street journal" talking about how the drug works. despite its availability for years, some doctors are unwilling to prescribe it. taking your comments on this issue, william is up next from duluth, minnesota on the republican line. your thoughts on the ruling? wondering what happens after a month, if a girl finds out she's pregnant, and she does not understand this. andt if she gets this pill

takes eight, nine, 10 of them. ? i do not understand what the pill does myself. what would happen to the girl because she does not understand? host: william from duluth, minnesota. antony from houston, texas on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. ais is a pairing issue, not government issue. every time we come around, it is always about the women having children are being pregnant. it is a sad day in america when all these little girls are having sex. this is a parental issue. parents need to take charge of their kids. women always talking about having to what kids. fathers have a responsibility, too. we want our children.

some want their kids. i would want mine. parents need to take charge of their kids and not depend on the government. we should be doing this as parents. taking a pill is ridiculous. host: talking about the parenting side of this issue on twitter. he writes -- one other tweet this morning from joseph. we will be taking your thoughts on this issue for the next 10, 15 minutes. a few of the other stores that are out there this morning.

sequestered-base closure of air- traffic control towers has been delayed. story. a "baltimore sun" one other story that caught the headlines as today, this also from "the baltimore sun."

we are staying on this issue of the plan b contraceptives. denise is from jupiter, fla. on the democratic line. good morning. caller: hi. feel, in light of the fact it is so easy to be raped, therefore, to have a seriously unplanned pregnancy, i think the

morning after pill, i agree with it. it is an absolute must. and for very good reasons. i have numerous family members and friends who have been raped. when i was a child, 13-year-old friend was kidnapped and raped. my grandfather -- grandmother was raped. my sister was viciously raped. sheba left unconscious, waking up tied to a tree. this is not easy to talk about, but it is rampant among my family and friends. another family member was written by a dentist after finishing college. i myself, i was sexually assaulted by a member of the family. he knew how to not have the dna left behind, and that is the only thing that did not make it a rape. i think the morning after pill, it is almost like people in countries, violent countries, like the middle east, where

women are raped all the time. our military effort to try to make things better for women because it really helps women in there. we are right here in this country and we are getting raped left and right, a month my family and friends. another friend was shot and killed and left by a garbage dump. that is the way it is, in my world, anyway. host: thank you for the call. some more reaction from the bloomberg story. women will no longer face the suspect of having to produce id or talk to a pharmacist.

arety of reaction and we getting your thoughts this morning. naples, fla., on the republican line. caller: good morning, and thank you for c-span. it is a good exercise for the mind. this really deals with the age of consent, which most states is 18. that went tohter the public school system here. i think 40% of girls become sexually active between 13 and 15. everybody that is calling in the are women. i think somebody needs to define what a woman is. 13 is a little young. i understand the real issue that the previous caller brought up, but they should also be similar

to cigarettes. it is a choice. that is all have to say, thank you. in thenother story also papers that has been making news. is from "the washington post" this morning.

plenty of calls coming in on this issue of the plan b contraceptive and its availability and whether parents should play a role in young women having access to this. jess is next from winchester, va. on the independent line. jeff, go ahead. i believe children that are under age, teenagers, if they are promiscuous at a young , they should be able to make their own choice.

host: what role do you think parents should play in this process? haver: the parents should an interactive will with their children, but i am sure in some homes in does not happen. the children may be growing up before they probably should. host: things for the call from winchester, virginia. from mechanicsville, md.. democratic line. the parent needs to be more involved in their children's lives, nowadays. old, you have kids be sexuallyg to active. the parents really need to step up and talk to the child. the child is not going to come to the parent -- i am sexually

active, what should i do. the parents really need to know what is going on in the child's life. that is pretty much all i have to say. subject,that same victor writes on twitter -- we want to go now to lynn from houston, texas on the republican line. caller: i just think this is an awful decision. it takes it out of the hands of the parents and give this into the hands of the state, basically allowing us to -- children do whatever they please. i think this is an absolutely horrible decision. in will lead to more promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases among young people. this is another example of how our government is taking our

country to hell. and getting control of our children. this is an absolutely awful decision. host: you would support president obama on this one, the restrictions that he and secretary sebelius put in place a couple of years back? well, it is not that i support obama and sebelius the sara lee, it is just a matter of what is right and wrong here. if you consider that supporting him, then yes. host: it is more about a judge sitting in here and making his decision rather than the food and drug administration, secretary sibelius and the process they were going through? caller: everything is out of the hands of the control of people. now we have appointed officials, probably a federal judge here. then we have the other arm of

government making the decisions. aree you can see, you arguing both sides of the same coin. of theotally taken out hands of the parents. this country has gone crazy. host: thanks for the call from houston, texas. some foreign policy stories we want to take you through. his is a "baltimore sun" report.

on that same subjects, and want to point the to the front page of "the new york times."

that story is on theront page of "the washington times." that was doing for the first section of "washington journal this morning. u.s. employers added 80,000 jobs, the fewest, falling to 7.6%.

u.s., we will focus on the pipeline system in this country, following a pipeline burst in arkansas last week. "book tv" and " american history tv) we focus on mesa, arizona. an hour-long block teaching her all our programs from the city of 450,000. here is a sample of one of the segments looking at the issue of water rights for the caller: river and its impact on the region. court case in american history is about the colorado river. throughout most of the 1950's, it was finally settled in 1963. a big fight between arizona and california over water, how much do they get, how much do they have the right to? there had been a few lawsuits prior to that time by arizona against california. the major argument was that,

california believe, hoping to get as much water as possible, calif. believed that they were entitled to more than their 4.4 million acre share. that is how we measure the water out here in terms of how much water can cover an acre of land a foot deep. the largest share of the river. they believed they were entitled to more. certainly, arizona was not entitled to a full 2.8 million acre-feet. there was not as much as our cultural usage going on in arizona at the time of the compact in 1922, which remains law, governing who gets how much water. california said, they need to give us some of that water, they should not have all of it, because one of the largest tributaries runs all the way through the state. the water that they pull off from that and the salt river, is all part of the colorado.

we have to subtract that amount of water. what is left is their share of the main stem of the river. arizona said, of course, are you kidding? no. refused to sign the compact a few years as before the treaty with mexico. the disagreement was still there. california was saying no. arizona cannot build that now they want to build. federal funding was blocked for it because california believed that would take away water that they needed, hence the lawsuit. host: yesterday, the bureau of labor statistics reported that u.s. employers added 80,000 jobs in march and that the unemployment rate fell from 7.7% to 7.6% last month. u.s. news world and economic reporter danielle kurtzleben joins us now to dive into the numbers. first explain how businesses can

add the fewest number of jobs they have in nine months, yet, the unemployment rate fell last month. guest: there are two big reasons to talk about there. being unemployed, by this definition, means not that you are jobless, but that you are looking for a job. you have to have been looking for a job when the labor department ask you about it. if you stop looking, you threw up your hands and said there are no jobs out there, when back-to- school, retired early, you are no longer counted as iunemploye. the unemployment rate and 80,000 are from two different surveys. the 88,000 is from the labor department going to employers saying how many people are on your payroll? the unemployment rate is the person coming to me personally saying, do you have a job? a chart of the total non-farm jobs that were added over the past six months.

88,000 last month in march. that is down from 268,000 in february. a lowest in the six months of the chart here, according to "the washington post." i want to stay on this idea of the number of people looking for work. according to3.3%, the bureau of labor statistics. that is the lowest number in nearly 34 years? are people getting concerned about that number, the few number of people looking for work? guest: absolutely, yes. that is the labor force participation rate. that is the share of the people in the economy to have a job or looking for a job. there are a few factors at play. that means people have neither been retiring, go to school, says there are no jobs out there. you can read this a few ways. people are legitimate discouraged and the labor market

is that bad, it is scaring people out of it, which is a terrifying thought. there is also the idea that you have all of the baby boomers who are ready to start retiring, which means maybe we cannot expect rates to go up too much in the next few years because it will have lots of older americans deciding to stop working. with we are talking danielle kurtzleben. we are taking your questions and comments about the jobs numbers. setting up the phone line differently in the segment. give us a call. we want to hear your story. on that subject of the percentage of the country, the 63.3% working or looking for a

job, where do economists warn that number to be? it is it at the lowest in 34 years, where should it be? guest: in the 1990's when everything was going well in the economy, it was around 66, 67%. the question is whether we can get there are over the next couple of years with the baby boomers' retirement. however, it should be pointed out, in 1979, he did not have as many women working. with the population growing, it is arguable that it should not be this low, it is just not healthy. ballpark, i am not sure i would guess around 65%, but we should get it there. host: if some people come back actively living for a job again, will that cause the unemployment rate to take back up, is that expected? guest: it could. at the very least, employers could add a lot of jobs for a few months, but nothing in the unemployment rate.

host: let's bring down the jobs report from march bisectors. who were the winners and losers, in terms of jobs added, last month? guest: the biggest winner was business and professional services. that is a broad category. that includes accountants, attorneys, architects, so many people. that added 51,000. health care has also been a very strong industry during the recovery, 28,000. they have added jobs steadily through other recovery without interruption. construction also added 18,000, which is not a lot of jobs in the broader context of things, but that is a barometer of the housing market, so that is in part to take notes. the big losers was manufacturing. people would like to see growth there. the public sector lost 7000, which shows cutbacks at federal and local governments. retail lost 24,000.

that was a big swing down. host: here is "the washington post" chart and then goes month to month over the last two years about the jobs gain and losses in certain sectors. you specifically pointed out government jobs. here they are here, with a lot of losses over the past two years. is this a sector that can take many more losses? there are lots of calls out there for further cuts to the government. guest: with sequestration, we will see cuts, no matter what. whether those are job cuts or hours cuts, that is the question. this is a sector that perhaps they do not want to take more cuts but will have to. happens,he reason this people have been getting lower and lower incomes, and that means lower tax revenues, which means lower amount of light to be people with. if that keeps happening, there might be cut that have to

happen, the matter what. some calls on this subject. first going to our employers line. is from englewood, new jersey on the employed in line. good morning. you are on with danielle kurtzleben from u.s. news and world report. caller: i want to make two points. the reporter was talking about the employment number was so low. what i did understand about the journalism community is, they never asked the question. maybe it is obama's policies. after four years of what i consider socialist policy, maybe that is the reason why we are getting the kind of employment results, when this economy should be booming.

when is thehing is, journalism community going to start asking the administration, maybe it is your policies? we blame everything else. the second point, to make, a lot of reasons this is happening is because we have made it so comfortable for people not to work. we're giving away free cell phones. goneood stamp rose have through the roof. now we are giving away supposedly free health care, which is not free. people go to find out. it is really medicaid, which is not the most efficient and great health system. we are making it very comfortable for people not to work. kurtzleben, we

will give you a chance to jump in here and talk about how u.s. news and reports on the numbers. in terms of time the numbers to particular political policies, that is a tough connection to make definitively. especially when you are writing the jobs report that comes out that it declined 30, your tried to get it out the door. it is tough to say, yes, the reason there are 80,000 jobs added last month was because of the policy. you could make arguments either way in terms thing i would poin. one is the health care reform act passed a few years ago. i wrote a story on this yesterday. this will be a big topic coming up. with employers having that mandate where they have to provide insurance to their employees or pay a fine, their arguments on either side of this will cause employers to cut back, or having so many more people on the insurance rolls is going to create more jobs, especially in health care,

insurance, pharmaceuticals, those sorts of fields. their arguments are the way. i would also like to address the idea of making it comfortable, as the caller put it, to put people on unemployment. that is one argument. likewise, there is the argument that people who are on employment and to be on the income and of the spectrum. that means they are much more likely to spend an extra dollar than someone who is rich. which means more spending, more growth to the economy. i suppose there are two sides to every story. if you blame one policy, you could blame the other policy, or you income and of the spectrum. could praise the policy. host: david from bowie, md., has stopped looking for work. tell us about your story and why you decided to stop looking. caller: well, i was a carpenter for 33 years.

in the commercial field, the jobs are just dropping off. 2007.d say about then i started working as an independent contractor. the jobs kept on getting maller, the different venues got smaller and smaller through the last three years. back intoried to get commercial. there is absolutely nothing going on. host:i finally just gave up. host: what will it take for you to start looking again, are you done at this point? i am still looking. i have actually tried to get into -- taking a course offered companies, new car

sales companies. but placement. i would get through, but the placement would be for probably younger people. i do not want to particularly say that is the reasoning, but i was certainly eager. host: is this a store that you see often in your reporting on jobs numbers, what people stopped looking? indicative is a very case. you have someone in the construction field. that field has taken a massive dive during the recession and slow recovery we have had. construction is down 2 million jobs in that area from its peak before the recession. host: even though it gained 18,000 last month, it is far off? only: crawling back is the

way to put it. housing is coming back and construction, likewise, is starting to, but there is so far to go. you have plenty of data were construction workers out there, like our caller, are deciding to look at other fields because not seeing the work in their old fields anymore, which means when construction comes back, there is the question of where your workers come from. they go to sales, like our caller. what do you do? columbiaumbia, city -- city, indiana. not seeing the work in theirgo ahead. i am currently working. i went from a decent job from $45,000 a year to barely making a dollars an hour. my husband is paralyzed. one of my questions is, with the health care with with my husband

being paralyzed, we were told for 11 years and we thought we would get him on medicaid and we were told according to the state of indiana that he is not considered disabled even though he is paralyzed. was a law passed that said if you are already on social security disability, he qualifies now. however, it is almost $1,000 per month and when you live on social security and me making $8 per hour, we still cannot get what he needs. there are no organizations out there that can help us because they keep saying we make too much money. it is ridiculous. don't generally focus on the health-care reform and that sort of thing but i would point out that one thing that she said was interesting and sade was that she has taken such a pay hit and many americans have reported that. we are not seeing incomes grow

and income keep up especially with inflation. host: with the jobs gains result last -- or they mostly in high paying or low-paying jobs? butt: not just last month over the last couple of years, you have seen a lot of growth in high and low paying jobs. we have seensense, a bifurcation of the labour market. a lot of those middle paying jobs like file clerks and administrative assistants -- the middle of the spectrum that used to require a high-school education have started going away because of technological advances, for one thing, manufacturing jobs as well. there is growth and low-paying jobs and that means many americans are forced to shift their expectations of what they will get paid to. host: the labor department just

put out statistics on the highest and lowest paying fields. what did we learn from that? guest: health care is where all the high paying jobs are. of the top 10 jobs, i believe eight or nine or in health care in one form or another. the tent one was executives would not surprise a lot of people. the bottom paying jobs are jobs in the service sector and the low end of the service sector like people who shampoo your hair at the salon were number one. host: here is the chart from your story -- how do they compile those statistics? guest: is from an annual survey

of wages. vague -- it comes out every march. on the low-paying jobs, this is also a question of scarcity and lack of scarcity. the low-paying jobs are very plentiful. it has to do with the wages they offer you. so many of these jobs can offer low wages. there are not a lot of anesthesiologist out there. those jobs can pay very well. host: let's go back to the phones on the unemployed from ohio -- just want to make a comment. i want to talk about people that don't want to work jobs and that it is easier to be on unemployment. in ohio,to say that

our roads and everything are so bad. about the roads. host: talking about some of the jobs she thinks are available in her state -- guest: speaks to another key point which is infrastructure. there was a report that came out thatmonth from a society gave a rating of a d + american infrastructure. this is something the president and many democrats have a voice to that we can put people back to work building roads that are tearing up people's cars. this is one argument -- at a time of austerity, when the government is trying to cut back on spending, is there the political will and money to do that? that is a debate that will not

go away anytime soon. host: let's go to oak ridge, tenn., who has stopped looking for a job. tell us about your story. i was laid off when i was 49-years old. i was highly specialized and i have two degrees in chemistry. i am now 52 and have been out of work for three years. ira was maker to start with and have not had an interview for two years. i have just given up. in the past, i put out thousands of applications and because i was specialized in my employment career it amounted to a change and all the opportunities will specify new

graduates. keep it up right now. i could get a minimum wage job but i cannot pay my mortgage and electric. host: what would help you in this process right now? besides being offered a job -- gues caller: they need help for who aren my age group previously trained but may need an opportunity for my age group and not specify everything for lessraduates who have experience than me. i don't know.

guest: this as an all too common problem. she is an example of a much larger issue in the workforce because of the long-term unemployed. that one reason it is hard to shrink the unemployment number is because people have been unemployed a while and it is a vicious cycle. you have been unemployed for a while and employers are less likely to re-hire you and the long-term unemployed are in the older end of the age range. we have also seen many of those people going back to school. the question is whether that helps get them back into the work force. if not, people like the caller will cause that labor force participation rate to stay low and perhaps go lower and it is a step -- a sad story. host: this is from twitter -- that is an excellent question.

i have asked a lot of economists about this. there are plenty of worries. thee is something called non inflation accelerating rate of unemployment. it is the natural rate of unemployment. many economists say that has risen and we will not see a drop down to 5% for a long time. yet, you could say it is the new normal. it will feel normal for quite a while. this recovery is so slow and shows no signs of accelerating host: that is talk leading up to the friday members about a potentially pretty good jobs report number. you had a story about projections of 158,000 new jobs in march? i saw estimates and other papers of estimates of 200,000. why were people still optimistic?

why were they so off? partly momentum. we had a lot of momentum going into this. there were two of its 68,000 jobs created in february which is very large, more than enough to not the unemployment rate down quite a bit. taxe from that, the payroll cut in january made a lot of people optimistic because it did not seem to have a lot of effect in january or february. the jobs numbers accelerated in those months and people were excited. it seems the underlying economic fundamentals are improving and it does not matter that people have smaller paychecks. it seems that the payroll tax cut may have affected people. retail lost a lot of jobs last month.

host: let's go to san diego, calif., on the employed line. what is your take? are you there? kenneth go right to from delaware who has stopped looking. caller: i have been out of work for five years. i went over different states and labor boards and you never get them a call back from these jobs. i am a retired bus driver. i have experience in warehouse work and supermarkets. all these fields, no one has ever called or done anything. the reason why i gave up is i never got an answer. my hands are tied and no one

wants to do anything. i think this would be a good way to put people back to work and pay the debt down and taxes. you have many people out here with experience and the people are not hiring. school before in i was in government jobs in the warehouse and when i was a teenager, i worked in supermarkets. tell people go and what experience you have, nothing helps. that's why i gave up. he mentioned the idea of sending resumes out to employers and hoping you get an interview. that is something we see in many fields. it is not what you know, it is

who you know. it is knowing someone who can help you get a job. arguably, that is what helps people get hired these days. that can be sad. that means of the don't have those connections in some fields, you will not get hired. it could be a reason why some people are having such a tough time. he talked about skills and that is a huge conversation right now. there is the idea of the skills gap. the skills that older workers learned a few decades ago may not be as applicable now which may mean they need re-training are moving to a different field and that can be jarring and pretty difficult. it can create a lot of stickiness and the job market. host: from twitter -- a com -- another comment from twitter --

retell numberse which are down 24,100 in march. good point, this idea of seasonal labor. any of the noise hiring christmas workers. ideally, that is not reflected in the numbers. there is some debate right now over how good those seasonal adjustment factors are. of theings up the idea spring slump. we saw a downtick in jobs over the summer. the question is whether the recession knox the seasonal factors are out of whack that they are not recovered and we

are sailing street -- seeing sings -- strange stuff in the data. host: talk about sequestration that kicked in last month. did that play into any of these numbers? we look at the government numbers that are down 17,000 in march. that is a small amount compared to some of their over -- other losses in the past two years. most guest: economists say sequestration had little to no effect. the government will make cutbacks and worker hours and the government has not had time to send out all those notices. we could see that going ahead. one thing that is a big point of debate is how many jobs that will cut. the congressional budget office has estimated 750,000 fewer jobs over the course of this year. plenty of people question that.

some economists say 300,000 and there is the idea that it will not cut that many jobs but will cut many hours and a lot of pay. there could be fewer jobs in other areas, not just government. from this is from kentucky someone who is unemployed. was laid off from a factory here that went to mexico. i went to school and got a two- year associate degree in industrial maintenance. not get a job as maintenance yet but i picked up a job at a factory and recently got fired because of not being able to meet their expectations. was -- when they were talking about middle class americans in come, $400,000?

you show statistics of $18,000 being a top paying low income -- where do they get the middle class income rate from? even near -- i don't know anybody that makes that much money in the middle class. it would be about $20,000, wouldn't it? i think it would be more fair if they went to the middle class and looked at the actual middle- class income. host: we were talking about the highest-paid jobs and the lowest paid jobs. can you give us some information about the middle income folks? guest: average income in the u.s., the caller is right, $400,000 was the cut off for the tax cuts or the end of tax cuts at the beginning of the year. there are plenty of americans

who say that is not middle- class. by the statistics, you could say they are right. the average household income in the u.s. this summer in the ballpark of $44,000. that is a far cry from $400,000. that, the caller makes a good point which is that the cost of living differs from place to place. behington, d.c. might different than other places like nebraska. host: another technical question on how these numbers are determined -- guest: that comes from the household survey which is the labor department going to you directly and asking if you have stopped looking for work. it is an estimate and there are big margins of error on those estimates.

the number of discouraged workers, people who have given up, is around 800,000. get to reachumbers following month? each month? guest: the government sends out the surveys and asks to find and how many people are on their payrolls. as the government gets more and more information from employers, they revise the numbers. is it -- this month, we learned there were around 60,000 more jobs created around january and february than previously thought which means the 88,000 number we got this month may not be as much of a reason to worry. it is a poor place to start it could improve in the next two months. host: a question from twitter --

could that come back to bite you at some point in your working career? guest: it depends on the employer. it is a question of how hard it is to find a job. 'gavechnical term is not up', it is discouraged workers. whether you gave up or not but if you have been out of work for quite a while and have not found a job, the longer you're out of work, the harder it is to find a job. let's go to debbie on our employed line from michigan, good morning. caller: i don't have a question but, i was laid off in the 1990's and i was a professional machine operator.

the company sent me to school to be a machinist and now i am 59 years old, lost my job about 10 years ago so me and my husband became independent truck drivers. there are so many from michigan and older people like we are, my husband is 63. we have been doing this for eight years. there is so many of us same age people driving became trucks because they're not going to hire us because we have too much age. on insurance.lity host: would you prefer to be doing something else? to work we were raised in a factory and we are out on the road.

we are out on the road for at least a month or six weeks. host: is goes back to the opportunity for older workers. talks about having a job in manufacturing in the 1990's. not killsion did manufacturing. it heard it a lot of manufacturing has been on the decline for a while. right after the 1990's, around 2001, is when manufacturing to be noticed because some say those jobs are going overseas. they can do more with fewer people would go to technology which makes the story sadly makes sense, that people leave the manufacturing work force and cannot get back into it. host: i want to talk about the fallout from the jobs report that came yesterday.

in terms of the markets and how it is being received. talk about what this means for which this has meant for the market. guest: to put it bluntly -- it has not been great. it is vague -- it is not a conference-inspiring number. we have seen the dow jones and the s&p do remarkably well over the last two months of this can put the brakes on that. however, because those markets have been doing so well, you could say it is fuelled by fed policy. there have been expectations

that those markets are waiting for a correction that we will see a downturn in the stock market anyway. market plummets, you could make the argument that it is lack of confidence in the economy but you could make the argument that there is an exuberance that is chilling out a bit. host: is a tweed from yesterday. he is talking about the keystone xl pipeline, the proposed pipeline from canada and we will talk about pipeline issues and that pipeline in particular in our next segment of "washington journal." in randy want to get from spring hill, fla. who has stopped working.

tell us more about your story. caller: i am a disabled vet. i went to college - host: go ahead. caller: i am a disabled vet and went to college and got me an associate of arts degree in computer design and drafting. i have been looking for going on 15 years and nobody will hire me because of my age. wantecond thing i really to say is that if they would get rid of the free trade agreements and tax all imports, then all the manufacturing companies would have to come back to the states. there would be more jobs for everybody. that's my opinion. he brings up this point

of manufacturing having gone overseas. if you got rid of free trade agreements, that is an argument that is made that could bring manufacturing back but there are plenty of other factors at work in manufacturing. if you look att technology -- to say all the manufacturing companies that were once in the u.s. came back to the u.s. or reestablish themselves here, there is so much technology out there that has made things more efficient that you probably would not have all the workers back that you once did. from new's go to joe york on the unemployed line. is it unemployed or retired? caller: i am retired. i'm not looking for work but i may start to look. you missed a very important

point in your very thorough analysis and that is that the nation's economy is regional and there are parts of the nation that are doing amazingly good. when you talk about north dakota and shell oil and a marcellus shale oil in the state of texas -- there are some areas of the nation that you should indicate are doing exceptionally good like a 3% unemployment out there -- i would like to comment on the regional aspect particularly here in upstate new york. we are in a depression because of the high number of public and the lowyees number of private-sector employees. guest: that is a fabulous point. north dakota, it is a question of what recession or what

recovery? things are great bear in the upper midwest was paired a lot of the facts of the recession. they did not have of foreclosures that many other places had. the housing bubble was big in some places and smaller in others. yorkints to upstate new and that is a prime example of a place that is still suffering. coming backr is not and manufacturing is having trouble coming back there. i would point to florida and nevada and california, detroit, as well, mich. -- places that either had major housing bubbles burst or are reliant on these areas of the economy that are not coming back like construction, manufacturing, and government and that is creating real problems and it means the recovery has been uneven. is a daniel kurtzleben reporter for "news and world report."

thanks so much for joining us. next, following a pipeline burst in mayflower, arkansas -- we will discuss the pipeline system in the u.s. and how it is regulated and who is responsible for its safety, and later, we will be joined to talk about the obama administration plus new initiative to map the brain. newsmakers"this week, larry pratt will discuss background checks and other gun legislation is that congress is considering and its support for adults carrying guns in schools. [video clip] >> well over a dozen of these states, close to half of the states now, even by the president's measure of 57, have bills before them to nullify a federal confiscation fire arms if that would be

unconstitutional which it would. they are even considering putting penalties on a federal agent who would try to contravene their state law. even beyond that, we have sheriffs who have been making similar statements that it will not happen in their county and that someone tries to do something like that, they will arrest them. >> do you see this going to the courts? >> it will probably go to the courts but who knows how they will rule. there's a misconception in our time that the court somehow is they are by tour of what is constitutional. that is not true. every official the raises their right hand and says they will ,dhere to the constitution that is something they are obligated to do and ultimately, it is the voters who will decide if that sheriff did the rice -- writing and arresting that federal agents or did the

federal agent do the right thing to grab somebody's gone? if the sheriff get reelected, it does, matter what the court says. >> do you think the sheriff should step outside of what the current ribble is if they feel it is unconstitutional? >> the current written law that prevails over all is the constitution. that is what the sheriff took an oath to protect as well as the state constitution. he is not stepping outside of the limits that are placed on him by the constitution. if there is a contravening law, he is not stepping outside, he is interposing itself between illegitimate authority at the federal level and the authority vested in him by the voters of this county. >> do you think the sheriff's office would be in their bright confiscating guns from individuals? >> we would immediately fly down and have a banquet in his honor.

host: federal and local officials in mayflower, arkansas continue to deal with what the environmental protection agency has declared to be a major oil spill in that part of the country. to discuss the incident. mayflower and the country's aging pipeline system, we turn to andrew black, president and ceo of the association of oil pipelines. bring us up to speed on the mayflower oil spill. what do we know about what caused this and has anything been discovered? a week ago morning, friday, this pipeline operating from blue a bill down to texas, in the control room, they noticed a drop in pressure and responded quickly. it turned out that near mayflower, arkansas, several thousand barrels of crude oil were released. the company notified first responders and commenced cleanup.

the oil was in a subdivision and entered a storm drain and was stopped from entering nearby lake conaway. the company is now completing cleanup and they have a plan with the federal safety regulator to excavate the pipe and try to learn the cause. we don't know yet what the cause was. we know the company and industry will be ready to learn the cause and try to improve the pipeline safety record by learning from this incident. host: give people a sense of what they are dealing with out in arkansas. this is a short video films out there. this gives you a sense of what people on the ground are dealing with. [video clip] that isouse is here seemingly unaffected but the smell is unbelievable look - incredible and that is oil. you say exxon is the company that was controlling this pipeline has responded.

what does that mean? what are they doing? guest: first you shut down the pipes to try to stop the flow of oil from the pipeline and you move into remediation. you used boom, absorbent booms to keep it from falling any further and get out with a vacuum trucks and absorbent pads and start to remove the soil. the pipeline safe industry is, you don't want to see what you just saw. i feel for the people that were affected. exxonmobil is making it right and the entire industry will learn from the cause to continue further improvements in the safety records. host: what is the association of oil pipeline? guest:aopl represents the owners and operators of companies that operate pipelines carrying crude oil and refined petroleum products and natural gas

liquids. we resent -- we represent them in washington, focusing on safety, communications, and advocacy. host: we are taking your calls for comments and questions. we are setting up a standard phone lines on your screen -- explain a little more about what and theaw in that video kind of oil we are seeing spilled beer. they call this the canadian oil sands oil? guest: that particular occurred was from alberta. i understand it was wabaska heavy crude but that is a line that has carried others. that was a heavy crude.

host: the environmental community is concerned with the oil sands. is there a particular concerns about how you clean up this kind of crude? does it make the process any more difficult? guest: heavy crews can be a bit more difficult to clean up and light crude. that was not crew from the canadian oil sands formation but it was, that's ok. it is no more corrosive or worse than any other crude we have been moving safely for decades. to the democratic line -- caller: good morning. that is some nasty stuff. the booms are useless because the oil does not flow to the top. the crude sinks into the groundwater.

exxon owns the epa. ask this gentleman what they pay in fines every year and ask them what they pay and profits. this is a small piece of doing business. it is really sad because a lot of people in the states don't understand that. that stuff coming to the pipeline does not really consider oil. they don't have to pay on that. it is considered another name because it is this oil sand stuff so they don't have to pay into the fund that helps clean up these oil spills. guest: the oil we saw on television there was stopped. exxonmobil and its contractors have cleaned it up working with the e.t. -- epa. the light did not ever see any crude oil. the heavy crude oil mostly fled. some part of it evaporate and

some part of that sinks and that can happen with any heavy crude oil. there will be since oil in the soil that will be rid mediated. they have a cash advance to governments and first responders to respond quickly after words to respond to a clean up. companies pay into this oil trust fund and a company that has an incident will reimbursed this fund for the cost of any spill. regardless of whether the particular crude oil is subject to the excise tax, and the cleanup activities will be reimbursed by the industry. host: talk about how this spell has impacted the debate over the keystone excel pipeline. guest: some are trying to draw a connection and i don't think there is a connection. we don't know the cause of it.

we know it was carrying crude from western canada and some crudehat blind carries from the canadian oil line. if you look at safety to statistics, there has been no accidents in u.s. pipelines caused by diluted crude-oil carried from the canadian oil sands. not one. from trans canada, the company that has proposed the exxon pipeline, a map showing where the pipeline would likely go, the blue being the proposed route. the red part shows the current keystone pipeline. what is the status of that pipeline? guest: you showed two project. one has been completed, the transcanada keystone which has cushing, eted to the oklahoma area.

the blue line is a product before the state department that would pick up crude in western canada, across the border near montana and pick up additional american supplies that -- of crude oil produced in montana and bring it down to cushing, oklahoma. there is a storage depot and a terminus of many pipelines and it would send it down to the gulf coast refineries or it can be refined. it is a cheaper and more stable option to offset crude oil supplies from other countries outside north america. the project is before the state department. in 2004, president bush issued an executive order that border crossing pipelines needed a presidential permit. this is in its fifth year of review and have had had several exhaustive studies. after the next comment. on the current study, there will be finalization on an

environmental impact statement and determination and i hope it is found in the national interest. i think it is an american people seem to support it. host: next week in the energy and commerce committee, there will be a hearing on the keystone legislation. it was announced friday from the committee. that will take place wednesday, april 10 at 10:00 a.m. next, john is awaiting from michigan on the republican line, good morning. caller: good morning, my name is john. i would like to get some information from mr. black. we hear all this left-wing rhetoric about all these oil spills and the seepage that is happening. what i would like to know if you have any information is how much natural seepage comes from the ground and from the ocean floor

that we never hear about that i am sure that this outnumbers all of the gallons that we see on this rhetoric coming from the left. i will hang up and take your phone calls. occur natural seeps do and that's how we found in the 1860's that we found oil in this country. pipeline transportation needs to be put into context. the pipeline industry is the safest mode. the reliable -- the reliable -- the reliability record is 99.99%. it is more likely to have an incident in a different transportation mode carrying crude oil. some of the other motor truck, rail, and the barge. pipelines are the safest. if petroleum projects are going to move from producing areas

torch refineries and towards consumers, pipelines of the best way to move. host: a question on twitter -- guest: it will be replaced when needs to be replaced exxon will determine the cause. the national transportation safety board chairman said recently at a hearing in west virginia dare that if a pipeline is adequately inspected and properly maintained, the age is not a critical factor. pipeline operators assessed the characteristics of the different times a pipeline was installed.

here host: statistics from the transportation department. do you know what the actual age of the pegasus pipeline is? it was built in 1946. that is showing several different types of pipelines. liquid pipelines, natural gas, and even the local natural gas distribution lines serving people's homes are included. host: this is a map that looks like a child scribble but it shows all of the gas and the oil across the united states.

brunswick, ohio, on the independent line. when a water pipeline breaks, the money does not have the money to upkeep the pipes but with record profits that oil companies are making, i don't understand why they are not constantly upgrading their pipes. there is no reason for 65 years with the profits they have for them to be in the ground. if the government to regulate them and stop them from doing it, it needs to stop. what are your thoughts on that? guest: the liquid pipeline industry is constantly inspecting and maintaining the pipelines. in 2011nt $1.1 billion inspecting pipelines and maintaining them and the tanks those pipeline's flow into. a pipeline in the 1940's is not necessarily too old.

steel by itself does not corrode and the pipeline is to be properly protected from the ground and clean from the inside. it needs to have been constructed right but also inspected and maintained well. it doesn't, it can have -- it does, it can have a long and useful life. host: what about a pipeline that goes in the ground today versus a 65-year-old juan? are there new safety mechanisms? guest: you learn more from decades of experience about steel and the seam better and the coating is better and construction techniques like welding are better. that's one reason why the keystone pipeline, the environmental impact said it would be one of the safest pipelines ever constructed because it is using modern codes and techniques. blog-a want to read this posting from the national resources defense council

against the building of the pipeline. it is concerned about the use of the tar sands, the canadian oil sands that would go through the keystone xl pipeline. this is from wednesday -- is there some reason behind this particular concern about the temperature of how this pipeline would operate? guest: no, first the oil sands

crude is heavy that has the ind, clay and water removed canada and mixed with a light hydrocarbon. this is so it can flow through pipelines as a heavy crude like we have been transporting from mexico and venezuela and even california. you don't need to take my word for it. u.s. transportation department safety statistics shows there has not been one transmission pipeline accident caused by diluted oil. you mentioned the california report and i will refer you to a government finding. the environmental impact statement looked at the california report mentioned and said it should be considered with serious caution. pipelines and california that there are speaking of were constructed differently than they are today. we are using a coating that is susceptible in higher temperatures and i know that in california but the temperatures

that might be found in keystone xl or other pipelines are 140 degrees which is well below the 400-500 agrees that is supposed to be a concern in the refining process, very different. host: let's go to joe from new jersey on the republican . line. caller: it has been very educational to listen to your explanation. i believe the oil industry is an important part of our economy. i want to make a couple of additional points that are worth noting. that the believe pipelines that we have thousands of miles of help provide low- cost energy to the country. the other point i want to make that is lost in the discussions about keystone was the fact that oil provides the raw materials

for a lot of industries including the chemical industry, pharmaceutical, farming, plastics, seems and coatings. a lot of that is missed in the discussion. i think that is something that should be brought to light to help educate the american public as to our important these pipelines are to our economy. guest: thank you for pointing that out. our modern american life depends on oil and products derived from oil and getting to work and dropping off the kids at little league like what is happening with my family today, to power in homes and flights. we are going to be using petroleum-based fuels for a long time. have that should petroleum-based fuel transported to spend the safest and cheapest mode. you mentioned the cost it might cost two-$5 per barrel to move the pipeline over a long

distance over a pipeline but maybe $10 or more to move in some of those other most of those costs can get passed onto consumers. we have the opportunity to use that network of pipelines that was displayed on the screen, to move those products in the safest and least costly manner. host: to your point on the use of oil pipelines, from twitter -- we are talking with ander black, the president and ceo of the association of oil pipelines. you used to work at the director of the federal government relations for the natural gas and pipeline producers. you also worked at the director of external affairs at firk. >> the federal energy regulatory commission, ferk, is the

regulator of liquid pipelines per day regular electricity, natural gas transmission and oil transmission, hydroelectric power plants. host: you also spent 13 years on capitol hill as a staff member for former house energy and commerce chair joe barwton out of texas. we will go now to lowry from cleveland, ohio, on our democratic line, good morning. caller: good morning, mr. black. said how youno one all are planning on cleaning up this oil spill when they do spill. you have no plans to clean this up. thank you. guest: i'm sorry if i was not clear earlier. i will do so now. the cleanup of those rare spills is very important. most of it is recovered rather quickly. in this particular incident,

exxonmobil was out with vacuum trucks, with absorbent pads, oil padsboom - anywhere the has moved into the soil, they are were mediating the soil. emergency response is important for the industry. we conduct drills with first responders and invite government to participate and observe. we talk about best practices in techniques and allocation of resources and spend a good bit of time preparing first responders. we have requirements to try and talk each year with first responders along the right of way to prepare them for the rare but possible instance of a pipeline release. emerges a response to something the industry does not overlook. host: this particular incident in mayflower, give us statistics on this bill -- is around an

estimated 200,000 gallons or so? the epa has labeled this as a major spill. guest: in terms of a barrel which is 42 gallons -- from a company, several thousand barrels have been released. it is a combination of crude oil and water that have been recovered and will be treated. host: what is the threshold for the epa to label this a major spill? guest: i don't know but this is a major spill. host: let's go to pennsylvania on our independent line, thanks for calling. caller: thank you for taking my call. i don't know what good remediation will do once oil gets into the aquifer. mr. black's seems to keep citing the reliability of the government and everyone has a short memory, sir. the bp oil spill happened

because safety inspectors from mineral and minds which got broken into in a couple of different agencies, they were doing everything except their official duties. they were socially involved with the people and a flag in critical inspection that had they gone through with it, the bp disaster would not have happened. the finesked about from the epa has a portion of the profits. got fined five modern million dollars in the pharmaceutical industry. they made $20 billion on their drug so it was the cost of doing business. we will not get anywhere until we get something going on and fight the corruption that has taken over our government, thank you. guest: i would like to respond to the mention of an aquifer. the city of mayflower's part of

the unified command and i have seen the statement that the drinking water supplies have not been affected. drinking water supplies will be monitored of their i hope the drinking water supplies are not affected. host: a question from twitter -- talk about that spilled he is referring to. guest: 2010 near kalamazoo, mich., another crude oil suffered a rupture and that water did enter the river. host: who ran that pipeline? guest:endbridge. the national transportation safety board that found a kind of crude oil being transported had nothing do with the incident. it was an external corrosion thatdents called by coating

had deteriorated. host: plane that more. the pipeline was not fueled correctly? >> there are different coatings and this coding was a tape that was rolled on to the type -- pipe and had separated allow moisture to get in. cracks developed on the outside of the pipe. hasonmobil -- embridge estimated that pipe and repaired it and it is better than before. host: old was the pipe in the incident happened? guest: i don't know but i believe it was before 1970. host: how big is that spell? guest: i remember 20,000 barrels. they are pursuing microscopic evidence, some of the heavy crude because of the time. that was in the river and a heavy rainfall. , did submerge.

the local epa authority is working with the company and the epa is making judgments about how many efforts embridge should make to get the last little immigrant -- the last little elements that are there. host: in your experience with this kind of oil spills, is mayflower looking at a two-year cleanup effort? guest: i have not heard suggestions on how long it will take. aost: we will go to teres from jacksonville, arkansas. caller: good morning and i want to first say that i am an advocate of the oil and gas lines. is it going to be safe for the small children to move back into this neighborhood. that is a concern coming from the families of this

neighborhood. also, mr. black seems to come across like this is no big deal. our newspapers are reporting 19,000 gallons spilled. is that not considered a lot to you? is that major? that seems like a lot of guest: the industry's goal is zero incidents, and works hard to get there. i mention $1.1 billion of spending in 2011. we have embraced a series of safety principles trying to continuously improve, making organizationwide commitments. the pipeline is safe. it's more than 99.9995% reliable.

pipelines have been operating nearby communities for years. but it is not without risk. no form of transporting energy and no form of energy is without risk. i have met many people within this industry that are working hard to avoid that risk for the children that you mentioned. teresa said she is an advocate of pipelines. there was a pew research center poll out this past week on keystone. here is the story from "environment and energy news."

that is the story from ee news.net. next, i call on our democratic line. our number one export right now is refined oil products. these are temporary jobs. creating a pipeline is temporary. it is a transfer of our tax dollars to wealthy corporations

and corporations that own this oil are canadian and chinese. we will pay for cleanup, we will pay for cancer alley and make it larger. we will pay for the health care of those people. we will pay for the protection of a huge terrorist target going the entire length of this country in order to ship the oil out of the country, refine it here, pollute this country, and we as taxpayers will pay the bills. it's just another take away from taxpayers give to the corporations. over and over again we see this. the hundreds of thousands of people who work at refineries many fracturing crude probably hope that their jobs are not temporary, and i think that they think those are

permanent jobs. we have a world-class refinery complex in texas and louisiana. it can make more products from crude oil than our current she currently needs -- country currently needs. exports of refined petroleum products help keep that world- class refinery arsenal in business. that's no cost to the taxpayers. the taxpayer benefits, because there is additional revenues the are made, brought into government from all this economic activity. exports are good. are whereoducts americans are adding value to this crude. a twitter comment notes -- can you talk about how that

process works? guest: the industry does not wait for a pipeline spill to replace a pipeline. the department of transportation implements laws from congress, in place.spections the pipeline company and the operator of the high-tech smart , whatssess the situation is the highest risk. the and operator will go and uncover the pipeline and determine whether to repair or replace a pipeline. pipelines are repaired and replaced all the time in a continual monetization program. host: how often does each mile of our pipelines get inspected?

guest: the government requires that parts of pipelines affecting high consequence areas are inspected no less than every five years by these techniques that i described as smart pigs, or similar product. if a pipeline segment has a greater risk, the operator is required to assess it more frequently. host: what causes a greater risk? ofst: you might find signs mental loss, where that part of wherepe -- metal loss, that part of the pipe is not as thick as it used to be. operators determine what schedule to review and reassessed these characteristics grea. the department of transportation visits with pipelines and asks aggressive questions about how the pipeline operator is using the findings

from its inspections. host: a question on twitter -- host: no. you don't want to create a potential for corrosion, moisture between those two walls. you want to make sure you have a great coating on the outside of the pipeline. and that you are cleaning it often so that there is no water or sediments, and you're using inhibitors that might help stop any corrosion from happening. we want to improve the technology, whether it is inspections or pipe making. we are funding research, as is the department of transportation. in other bodies, to push forward the frontier of knowledge on making and inspecting of pipelines.

host: we have a few minutes here. phyllis from lagrange, illinois on the line for independents. caller: good morning. in my township, oral refinery my 11 brand-new pipelines -- oil refinery was 11 brand-new pipelines. as large as any refinery in texas. but yet here we are, a lot closer to canada. that oil could come down through minnesota, wisconsin, right into illinois. 11 different pipelines through 11 states. i want to know what's going on with that. i'm not aware of the

specifics of that refinery, but there are refineries up in the midwest which are today refining crude from western canada and from the balkan region of north dakota, montana, and elsewhere. those refinery companies have to make decisions about the types of crude they're going to process. some of them are ready for the heavier crude like we have in the oil sands of canada to offset what is fun -- from mexico and venezuela. they are producing the product that you need locally. that refinery with the pipelines you mentioned is certainly connected with an extensive web of pipelines that can bring crude oil to the place where it can be refined best, and hopefully get the american consumer the cheapest option for its gasoline and other refined fuels. host: let's go to mike on the republican line.

you are on with andrew black. caller: i have a remark and the question. i would very much like to see the pipeline built for economic reasons primarily. i am not really worried safety. i see how safely they have been installed until now. broughtugh the oil down to the pipeline is eventually going to end up on the world market in the form of iner products, the increase supply in the world market can only have a downward effect on the ultimate price to the consumer. it's got to exert some downward pressure, and the consumer ends up paying at the pump in the long run. -- mys a question i have concern about pipeline is not something i have been hearing anyone mentioned.

there is got to be some eminent domain issues here. a lot of property i think is going to have to be taken. who is going to take that property from the people that currently on it -- own it? i'm not thrilled about the idea of taking property and handing it to a private company. i'm not excited about the idea of especially handing it over to a foreign company. the question i have for you is, is this property going to be taken and owned by the federal government and then leased to transcanada or is it going to be turned over to transcanada? guest: the question. an oil pipeline operator negotiates with land owners for easements.

they want to pay for the opportunity to have a pipeline through that property. property is still owned by the original owner but with restrictions on what can happen above that pipeline to maintain the safety of that pipeline. , and operatornes goes to estate to get permission to go through that state. tothe operator is not able come to an agreement with a landowner, if the state determines it is in that state's interest, eminent domain is available to the pipeline operator. keystone and most of the other pipelines being built today, the vast majority of contracts with land owners are done by mutual consent. the private property owner continues to on that easement. but just might not be able to plant trees or bills of the on top of it, because if they were

to build on top of it or even to , they're putting themselves at risk. danny on our democratic line. you're pretty intelligent, mr. black. i have two quick questions. obviously the keystone pipeline is made to save the refineries from importing oil, which you alluded to, from venezuela. oil goingry is that to go to from the keystone pipeline -- what refinery is that oil going to go to from the keystone pipeline? that needsater act, to be reinforced more, because you need treating water to live.

would you be willing to live with that? caller: they give for the nice compliment. -- thank you for the nice complement. the oil that would come down from keystone would go to cushing, oklahoma, would probably be moved to refineries in the texas and louisiana gulf coast. you mentioned the clean water act. it certainly applies. that hitoperators water are often in violation of the clean water act, oil pollution act of 1990 addresses what pipeline operators are doing as well. that has the requirements for operators to be prepared for incidents as well.

there are several government requirements that require operators to be ready. have not, arkansas, i been on the ground there. i would be willing to go. i know that anytime something like this happens, the oil pipeline operator wants to make it right. , imy way to work each day cross over liquid and natural gas pipelines. we ride our bikes over them. it is important to be safe. i agree. , appreciateu black you coming on to talk about the -- andrew black, appreciate you coming on to talk about the issue. the national institutes of health is one of three agencies that will receive initial funding for the project. we will talk to dr. francis collins next. we will be right back.

>> they had a very political marriage, much like john and abigail. she would lobby in the halls of congress. -- she waso all always very careful to say, my husband advocates this and that. but she was doing the pitch. one of her husband's opponents said he hoped that if james were ever elected president, she would take up housekeeping like a normal woman and she said, if james and i are ever married -- elected, i will neither keep house nor make better. politicallye most active and influential first ladies, sarah pulp. we will also look at margaret taylor. first ladies, live monday night at 9:00 eastern. also on c-span radio and

cspan.org. >> all of us in the colorado water basin are watershed. we're talking severed between 35 and 40 million people now -- about 35 and 40 million people now. we depend on the colorado river. we need it for everything. , oured it for houses industry, for mining. and most importantly, agriculture. we can't grow anything without .t there i it is considered to be the most litigated river in the world. laws.awsuits, complex it's collectively known as the law of the river. there's probably 13, 15 major the wholehave spent 20th century up until the

present time the talks about who gets how much of its water and who can take it, how much every year, how to share it, our relationship with mexico and the water as well. this weekend, the history and literary life of mesa, arizona. today at noon eastern on c-span two and "booktv." , we can identify galaxies light years away. we can study particles smaller than an atom. but we still have not unlock the oftery of the three pounds matter that sits between our ears. possess theists capability to study individual neurons and figure out the main functions of certain areas of

the brain, but human brain contains almost 100 billion neurons, making trillions of connections. it is like says listening to a string section and trying to figure out what the whole orchestra sounds like. we are still unable to cure diseases like alzheimer's or autism or fully reverse the effects of a stroke. computer inerful the world is not nearly as intuitive as the one we are born with. there is this enormous mystery waiting to be unlocked. the brain initiative will change that by giving scientists the tools they need to get a dynamic picture of the brain in action and better understand how we think and learn and her member. -- remember. that knowledge will be transformative. president to discuss

obama's brain initiative is dr. francis collins, director of the national institute of health. help us understand a little more, why do this? what are we trying to achieve by mapping the brain? guest: we know some things about the brain, but it is a sketchy pictured the spite decades of hard work -- despite decades of hard work. we can take pictures of the brain with cat scans and mri scans and pet scans, even some of which show real-time changes in activity depending on what your brain is doing at that time. and small that big picture there is vast territory we don't understand. we don't understand how the 86 billion neurons in the brain work together in circuits that enable us to do amazing things,

memories we lay down and retrieve, complicated and intuitive thinking, even simple things like motor activities. how do i move my arm? visual processing, listening to sounds or i. area ofa huge opportunity. the technology has come along recently to make it the right time to launch a major new initiative. we are very excited about this. the feel of the next great american project. ort: if you have questions comments about this $100 million brain initiative, you can call on the numbers on your screen.

dr. collins, the specific diseases this could help with, talk a little bit about what the end results could be for folks. 100 million are people in united states who are afflicted by brain diseases right now. ,hat includes schizophrenia bipolar illness, autism, alzheimer's, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury. the most part understand any of those well enough to know exactly how we ought to be developing the next generation of treatments and prevention. this brain project is not focused on any of those specifically, it is about building a foundation for understanding how the brain .ormally functions or i take autism. we know it is a problem with the connections in the brain, but we don't know what the normal connections are supposed to look like. here is a chance to learn a lot

more about that. this project is going to stretch over many years. the consequences of initiating this brain effort are not going to be immediately felt in terms of its clinical implications, but we will push hard to get these to happen. i'm a physician. this is why we try to do this stuff, to make these clinical advances become real. the brain is the most complicated biological structure in the known universe. for us to say we are going to try to understand it is pretty audacious. people say, maybe our brains are not complicated enough to understand our brains. i don't think that. but i do think it is going to be hard. a lot of sophisticated informatics, computational efforts to monitor what is happening. host: you worked on the human genome project. explain what that was and how this effort compares to that. this is sort of like the

genome project in 1988, where there was a lot of discussion about it, do we have enough boldness in our scientific community to tackle sequencing all 3 billion letters of the human dna instruction book? at that point we could barely sequence a few hundred. there was discussion as to whether it would lead anywhere. i ultimately ended up leaving the enterprise, and it did succeed. we read out that reference genome ahead of schedule over three years. this project has some of that same feel. in terms of what exactly the steps should be, very early days, but there is a big difference. with the genome project you could lay out a specific endpoint. done.ld say, we're we said that in 2003. hard to say what the endpoint

would be for studying the human brain. it will certainly not be the case that we will be done in orr lifetime or my lifetime our grandchildren's lifetime. host: a comment on twitter -- guest: it started when nih did. nih is having its 125th anniversary. it started in staten island. it studied infectious diseases mostly. 27 institutes and centers. several of them are deeply involved in studying the brain. the national institute of neurological diseases and stroke, for instance. the national institute of drug abuse.

and if budget institutes that are interested in technology. -- a bunch of institutes that are interested in technology. we spent $5.5 billion each year on neuroscience. what is being proposed here is not like, we forgot to study the brain. it is more like, we have an opportunity to do something special, something tightly focused, something that will empower all the rest of the research in this area. by developing these new technologies and tools and making them available to anybody who needs them. host: a comment on twitter -- no, but it is a start. , theresident announced is $100 million that has been put forward. $40 million of that goes to nih.

host: has each company been given a specific task to do with that money? guest: right now that is fairly open ended. that dream team at nih is going to help us figure out what exactly we should be doing with that money. that is the first year in what one might imagine will be a many year effort with perhaps a ramp- up in support for that once the momentum gets going. the genome project in its first year had $28 million. we are starting with a stronger kickoff than the genome project did. i don't know what the total cost of the brain project is going to turn out to be. that is yet to be determined. return on investment for human genome project, talk about that. guest: there was a study published to see, of the $3.8 billion the government spent,

what did we get for that? $6 billion of790 economic growth in this country -- $796 billion of economic growth in this country. pretty good numbers. can you get that for the brain initiative? i wouldn't be surprised. we are developing technologies and tools that are going to be enormously ambitious, innovative, and will stimulate small businesses and device makers to come up with new ideas to assist people who have brain diseases. this is going to be very important economic stimulus and one of those things the president highlighted in his speech on tuesday. if we are going to see this happen, let's make it happen soon and happen in america. dr. collins introduced

the president at that speech on tuesday. he is the director of the national institute of health, previously director of the human genome research project at nih and howard hughes medical institute at university of michigan and won the presidential medal of freedom and the national medal of science. a few calls waiting now. paul is from new york on the republican line. my response is not to the brain initiative. my response is to the last person who was on tonight. host: let's keep it on the brain initiative. caller: it's great. and really appreciate that.

host: will stick to the subject of the brain initiative. john is on our democratic line. i think it's wonderful myself. i had dyslexia and i still have it. i'm 67. when i was a kid, it's like you're too dumb to learn. but now we know it's dyslexia. and all the mental patients, we shooting have had that saidrth there if we had some people looking at the brain problem -- had some people looking at the brain problem. i hope they pass a bill where we can get the money for it. very much.k you

you make a good point about dyslexia as a condition that is extremely common but was not recognized when you were a kid. these days we have better ways of identifying how those individuals with dyslexia, many of whom are exceptionally capable and can be otherwise held back because of unawareness of what their specific brain situation is. i do think is brain project by laying out how the circuits work in the brain is likely to reveal something pretty interesting about what happens in dyslexia and give us other ideas about how to help people afflicted with it. the caller also brought up the idea of passing this president's budget. some reaction from capitol hill this week.

michael steele, the spokesman for the speaker. your thoughts on whether this funding will go through. is anyone's guess. we are trying to figure out how to get fiscal house in order in this country. the nih traditionally has been a very bipartisan organization. our mission of medical research has generally risen above the political. i'm hoping that trend will continue. it is certainly the case of we could do more at nih if we had support to do so. if you look over the last 10 years, we have lost about 20% of our purchasing power just from inflation acting on flat budgets. we have taken a significant hit in the last couple of weeks from the sequester, which are moved

$1.5 billion from nih's budget. i'm not sure everybody knows, but when you hear about a breakthrough in medical research, anywhere in this country, some university or institute, very high likelihood that was funded by nih. the largest supporter of medical research in the world. the major support of most breakthroughs comes from us. but we're putting our our investigators, our most critical resource, in a tough spot because of difficulty in host: areindiscernible] there areas that have been hit worse than others? were required to make equivalent cuts in each area. disease, asthma,

autism all took equivalent cuts as a result of this formula. our independent line. caller: good morning, dr. collins. i'm worried that brain research too muchto be giving [indiscernible]-- we have already started to blame certain behavior on parts of the brain. there's a certain part of the brain that's causing me to do .his trad this exacerbates this society where we don't take responsibility for our actions, it's because of a certain part of the brain. are there limitations to bring

weearch and how much weight give to brain research? guest: it's a great question. other people working in this field, there is no attempt here in trying to understand how the brain works to eliminate the notion of human , or the reality of free will. we all make decisions based on evidence in front of us. studying the brain may help us in terms of circumstances where diseases strike that clearly, we somebody hope to -- .ho has parkinson's disease that is the goal of this enterprise. the concept of human personality and behavior and decision-making is so complex and so much fraud with interactions between what is going on in the brain at the one needc level --

not worry that we're going to slip into a zone of of having everything determined by inecules flying around those circuits. the president clearly identified the fact that there are ethical issues associated with this new study, and charge his bioethics commission right whatto begin to lay out those issues are and what we should be doing about them. we will be paying attention to those individual and societal consequences of this increased knowledge of how the brain works. sharon is next on the republican line. caller: hello. i appreciate this program. how come nobody talks about huntington's disease?

i know that may is national huntington's month. but it is very rarely recognized. i know the postal worker do collections for food and that kind of stuff. i'll hang up and listen to your call. i appreciate the question very much. when i was growing up on a small farm in virginia, the person whose music i listened to was woody guthrie. he died of huntington's disease. realization that this disease was not getting enough attention back in the 1970's, nih began a program of research on huntington's disease. rose upfoundations -- rose up and supported research. my laboratory was part of the team that discovered the huntington's gene 20 years ago.

at nih and some of these foundations, we have a rigorous program to try to understand how that genetic glitch that causes the disease and gets passed from parent to child, does what it does to the brain and what we might do about it. it has been a very tough problem. there is encouraging progress in the last few years in terms of new ideas about drug therapy. but we're not there yet. i spoke three days ago at the huntington's disease society of annual meeting in washington, which is very much focused on 20 years since the gene discovery, where are we and where are we going. there is some effort here. huntington's being a relatively rare disease, you don't hear much about it as you do perhaps about alzheimer's or parkinson's. of us at nihthose are deeply committed to finding answers. brain initiative stands for brain research through

advancing innovative your technologies. jack writes in on twitter -- and another comment, "the daily beast." eric campbell is in favor of the program, saying it is an excellent hand. the human genome project is $3.8 billion. kendall said --

your reaction? he was at the white house on tuesday. now that we have laid out a bit more of the specific plan about how the milestones for this are going to be developed, he's become a big fan of this enterprise. he and many people in the neuroscience community were initially puzzled, what is this ? what are we promising? what will be the order of events? how much of this will be on model organisms, how much will be on the human brain? these things are being laid out. but they are not in place yet. we have this are marketable team led by a neuroscientist at rockefeller. they will be putting a lot more specificity into what is currently a fairly broad overreaching plan. host: let's go to michael from

brooklyn on the democratic line. caller: thank you for having me. i think the initiative is absolutely great. 100% supported. i believe the things we can learn from neuroscience research like this are on the same level as the type of things we know about physics, biological theory of relativity. i have two questions. first, i suffer from chronic pain. in 28 years old. at 201i injured my neck. 16 doctors probably in every field you can think of, best of the best at columbia, nyu. nobody can seem to figure out where my pain is coming from, the source of it, why i have

such bad headaches. i would like to know how this research could help people with chronic pain. rather than -- i know it is important to the cure the major diseases such as alzheimer's, but how could this type of research help with people who have problems that are not as severe but still debilitating, such as drug addiction and things like that. .uest: excellent questions in terms of chronic pain, certainly the brain is the way in which we perceive pain impulses coming from various parts of the body. a lot of the ways we try to manage pain work on the brain. there is a pain consortium that nih is had in place for some time that involves other agencies as well that is

focused specifically on the kinds of chronic pain questions you are asking. we are making some progress in getting a better understanding. that will intersect quite nicely with his brain project and will make sure that the kind of science going on in both places is well-connected. towardsresting pathway potentially the development of new and effective pain medicines -- we would love to have nonaddictive, very powerful analgesics and we still don't have a fold compartment of those. compartment of those. a rare congenital condition, individuals who cannot feel pain at all -- it is quite harmful to be in that situation. we discovered genetically what the cause of that is great it turns out to be a particular channel missing and those people. that would be a great target for drug development that other people to take to try to relieve pain when it happens. there is a big excitement there.

it's a good example of how studying a rare condition can lead you to new ideas about therapeutic. our 27 institutes is the national institute on drug abuse. they are very much a part of this neuroscience blueprint that is working on the brain project .r i we need to understand about how drugs affect the brain, how addiction changes the brain. host: going back to that $100 million price tag on my twitter comment -- guest: everybody is concerned about the way in which our government has been spending money and very his ways. i would argue that medical research is one of the best investments that you can make. people have looked very carefully at this. every dollar that has gone into

medical research results in more than two dollars on a return in investment in the first year to a local community. we are encouraging the economy to come back with this particular investment. when you think about the cost of health, just this week in the a paperand journal, describing the cost of all timers disease to society -- -- alzheimer's disease. if you add up all the additional costs from caregivers , it ise to deliver care somewhere between 157 billion dollars and $215 billion each year. if we could make a small advance in that, even slow down the onset of the disease, it would be enormously beneficial. moremically and importantly, to those individuals and their families. medical investment is a tiny fraction of what we pay for healthcare.

it seems like this is a worthwhile thing to do. to put it off means you are putting off the chance to do something about this long list of conditions where we desperately need better ideas. guest: on the subject of nih funding, i want to get you to respond to this article in "the scientist."

i want to get your take on that. concerned about any political involvement that would be improper. we try our best to remain a completely nonpartisan enterprise. medical research should not be in a political space. we have strict prohibitions to our grantees and their institutions about engaging in lobbying activity with federal funds. we will very much stick by those particular restrictions and make sure they are adhered to. host: anna is from illinois on the republican line. caller: good morning. i would like to say that i believe this brain initiative obama'spresident'

greater legacy, a greater legacy than kennedy ever imagined with his moonwalk. this is more important than investigating any black holes or dark space or any kind of space odyssey. this affects all people. the entire world. if it can even happen in my lifetime, it will be the that it investigation think the world has ever seen. guest: thank you for that inspiring description of the adventure where about to go on. of a unique sense opportunity, a historic one, in the same way that one might have thought of going to the moon. now going after what is the

most mysterious scientific frontier, understanding the brain. host: a comment on twitter -- guest: some of the technology has been emerging, but only in the last couple of years. the ability and an animal model to be able to engineer that animal so that you can shine a light on a neuron, it fires. you can see what happens. there are other things being done to develop nano science tools that would allow you to sample the activity of hundreds of thousands of brain cells, neurons, simultaneously. one has a sense that this is just a growing opportunity, and you can stimulate it to go this brain

initiative. we want to recruit additional engineers and nano scientists into this territory and set bold goals and say, can you develop a technology that will do that? whether it is something about looking in a living animal, the entire structure -- let's see what wele to could do. a lot of this will be technology developing just like the genome project, where we would not have succeeded without that as a flagship of the effort. a collar on her independent line -- a caller on our independent line from california. i'm excited about this. andpe when you're all done you get everything finished in years to come, you will find out that there is no such thing as a democrat in a republican -- a democrat and a republican and

independent neuron. they're just not there. i hope this thing stays humanistic and does the research, goes for helping people. to say, dr. collins, i'm very excited about this. i'm a person who has throughout i'veyears of grappling -- gone through things such as gamma knife surgery that cooked my brain. the brainthrough stimulates asians. -- deep brain stimulations. as a result, i have pain.

are you interested in having any campuses that would be able to offer their help, not loaning more orain out, but less giving you a live brain that you could study? host: are you offering yourself up? caller: yes, i would very much like to. i don't think we will be ready to offer that kind of volunteer. but there are many things going on in the field of euro signs -- neuroscience, if you're interested in being a volunteer in a study. it sounds like you've got a different, significant number of challenges.

you can go to clinicaltrials.gov, and there you can enter any particular medical condition you might be .nterested in looking at grea gt that is how we learn things. people are given the opportunity to decide whether the risks and benefits fit for them. that is going to be critical for all the things we need to learn going forward about medical research involving the brain and everything else. think were going to find red neurons and luna runs when we go looking into the brain more closely -- blue neurons when we go looking into the brain more closely. host: thomas is up next on the democratic line. caller: good morning.

, iut this brain research wonder why no one has ever understood -- studied why white people are racist. they have been that way for thousands of years. what research are you doing to find out why white people are racist and why white men are such pedophiles? that's not an area of research that nih is ain? do study health disparities. we recognize the stress of facing discrimination. i do not think anybody would argue that we have made it all the way there yet. we are interested in those kinds of issues as they relate to health effects, which clearly in some instances they do. not all groups experience the same level of good health. gardendale, alabama on the

republican line. caller: good morning. i'm pretty concerned over this. i almost agree that somebody's brain needs a little bit of study. you're going to allocate $100 million to bring study -- brain study. in the past 50 or 60 years i have not seen health studies that are doing any good. i would say if you want money, let's give them $10 million but not $100 million. let's look at the state our country is in. am a house painter and i go and give a doctor a bit on his house. he asked me, why is that so high? i ask him, you going to take out my liver. how much -- how come you want to take so much money for that?

the country is in such bad shape that we are in. appreciate your concern about the way our country is getting into a pickle as far as our finances. if you're going to try to get out of that, we we ought to identify areas where we can that willtments improve the human condition and nurture the economy. the last 60arch for years since world war ii has been a major part of the american success story. the amount of money we put into something like this, it sounds a lot -- when you think about the billions of dollars we are spending on healthcare, and the fact that this might be able to reduce that and make that curve that keeps going up actually flat and often turn the corner, this could be the best hope we have to get our fiscal circumstances back in good shape

again. if you look at the history here, it's pretty dramatic. it is been estimated that nih adds about $4 trillion each year to our economy because of diseases that are not happening. for instance, heart attacks. over the course of the last 40 years, deaths from heart attacks have fallen by 60% because we know what the risk factors are and what to do about it. deaths from stroke have fallen by 70%. .eaths from aids children who never had a chance to grow up down by 40%. i hear what you are saying, let's not waste money. places's look where the are the that money could be most beneficial, whether your household or whether our nation. medical research comes out as a very good deal.

colin is thencis director of the national institute of health. think you for coming in to talk about the new brain initiative. that's our show today on the "washington journal." john feeheorrow for ry and robert raben. we will also be joined by the national association of realtors, lawrence yun. and the latest development on the korean peninsula will be discussed tomorrow as well. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> today on c-span, greg smith talks about his time at goldman sachs followed by a look at china with former treasury secretary hank paulson. and later, iran's nuclear program. a look at ethics and wall street, with former goldman sachs executive greg smith. he resigned from the company last year and wrote a book about the culture of the company. from stanford university >> professor of political economy here at the stanford graduate school of busin