heroic spectacular rar well done. the force is with you.iuáz well done. thanks to you at staying with us the next hour.> i did not see that coming. that part of our conversation, i will have for you in just a moment.uc$f÷ it was really funny. it's even funnier totally in context. but in this interview today, ]> senator reid made headline national news when he told me that he has a plan, before

today, was a secret plan, apparently, to try to confirm losh rhett lynch, president obama's choice to be the attorney general of the united states. this is the current attorney general of the united states. who the republicans don't like. as long as they refuse to vote on loretta lynch. eric holder is the current ag. and they made him wait for eight days, after his hearings for eight days on the floor of the senate. before eric holder, the attorney general was michael mukasi. before that was it was alberto gonzalez before that jan ashcroft before that jarrett reno dick thornburg.g;zx and one of the things about loretta lynch. if you take all the time the last seven attorney general nominees had to wait on the senate floor for a vote, if you take all their wait time combined, and then double it

loretta lynch has waited longer than that. she has waited more than five months without getting a vote in the senate. eric holder, eight days. loretta lynch, five months and counting. senate republicans will not schedule a vote on her. and republicans are in control of the senate so what can you do? today senator harry reid told me even though republicans are in control and democrats are not and he is a democrat he told me today that he has a trick up his sleeve which he thinks will let him and the democrats force a vote on loretta lynch. oh really? watch. one thing that has not been done and is now approaching a historic delay, is the nomination of loretta lynch to be the next attorney general of the united states. what is going on there? and is she ever going to get a vote? >> the first part of may, i don't know if it's the 1st or 2nd she will have been in limbo,

in purgatory for six months. this is a womimkr no one, no one can question her qualities, her educational background her experience. in fact, we had republicans mccain, mcconnell, lindsey graham, saying what a good woman she was. suddenly, they're not allowing her to have a vote. and they're basing it on such shallow evidence. i mean we're here trying to have a woman confirmed as attorney general of the united states and they're off on some abortion issue someplace, it's ridiculous. i want to say this to all your viewers. we put up with this far too long. and we're going to either have a vote on her very soon. that's created by mitch mcconnell. or i'll create one. i can still do that. i know parliamentary procedure around here. we're going to put up with this for a little while longer but not much. >> you have a way you think you can force a vote even if

mcconnell -- >> absolutely i'm going to force a vote. if we don't get something done soon i will force a vote. >> what will be the trigger nartfor that happening? more time passing? >> i had a conversation today with a number of republicans and told them really to get her done or i'll make sure they have an opportunity to vote against her. >> okay. that was a surprise.:u>bñ senator harry reid telling me today, i know parliamentary procedure around her, we're going to put up with this for little while longer but not much. we will have a vote very soon. this was new. what senator reid is proposing doing to get the loretta lynch nomination finally voted on to have a new attorney general in this country, what he's proposing is something that i think if he's proposing what i think he's proposing it would be a huge breach of senate protocol. it would be very upsetting to washington and to the senate. but it wouldn't technically be against the rules. with the republicans holding the majority in the senate, mitch

mcconnell decides what gets voted on in the senatewh' loretta lynch's nomination to be attorney general has been approved by the committee that held her confirmation hearings, hasn't been put to the full senate floor for a vote because mitch mcconnell doesn't want to. what harry reid thinks he can do specifically because loretta lynch did clear that committee and is waiting for a floor vote he thinks because of that procedurally he can break proto protocol and himself call for a vote on her nomination. it's not the way they do things. democrats are not in control in the senate. but technically he says it's not against the rules and would only need a schism majority vote of 51 senators to put her upr=g-u for a vote. now, there are 51 senators who say they support loretta lynch being confirmed as our new attorney general. it's always democrats in the senate and a small handful of republicans. i mean, this scheme though is not how the senate runs. but it is what he says he's now willing to do and when he told

me that at this interview today, we released the clip of him saying that today, it went off like a shot heard around the world. the democrats are going to force a vote we didn't know harry reid could do that. got covered nationwide. word came back soon from the republicans, well, we don't think he can do that. this was politico today, republicans scoffed at reid's threat. he can't force a vote on her. harry reid thinks he can. he responded to the republicans today with this with this tweet. "i want everybody to know that loretta lynch's nomination will not remain in purgatory forever." he seems to think he can pull this off. he seems to believe this plan could work. and he does i will tell you, he does seem to have the republicans a little rattled. they may be scoffing at him and saying this is nothing they're worried about to outfits like politico, but they doékékó seem a little rattled. i'll tell you how i know. there's a lot of nice things about going to the u.s. capitol

in person if you've never done it try to do it take a tour it's awesome. first, it's pretty. it's traelreally nice this time of year. look, it's lovely. also if you can get inside you might get a chance to get up close and fernlpersonal with lbj. that's me in the lbj room with the lbj portrait. i was tryingib&uu to do the i'm squeezing your head thing but it didn't work at all. one of the things going to the capitol in person means is you can pick up stuff like this in person, the printed calendar of business for today's day in the senate and it's out on all the desks and you can take one. i asked. it's okay to take. thursday political 16th. senate convenes at 10:00 a.m. and right there on the cover it says what today's business is. it's printed on today's schedule. pending business. senate bill 178, a bill to provide justice for victims of trafficking. this is the bill the republicans are using as their reason to not vote on loretta lynch. until this bill passes they say including antiabortion language

they put it in that democrats object to until this thing passes there will be no vote on loretta lynch. they had plans to go ahead with this this morning, it was on the schedule printed up and everything. it was today's pending business. this is what they were going to do, but then they yanked it at the last minute and nobody knew why. now, though after my interview with harry reid now we know that they yanked it right after harry reid told republican senators he was going to pull this stunt. that he was going to break senate protocol dump the silverware drawer all out the kitchen floor and subvert the republicans to himself force a vote on the loretta lynch attorney general nomination. he apparently this morning, told them that plan and shortly thereafter, they yanked their own bill which they had otherwise been planning on voting on today. senator reid's office today told us they don't know why exactly the republicans freaked out and yanked their own bill they

scheduled after harry reid threw this particular variety of hard ball at him. senator reid told us him threatening them and him pulling the bill, quote, is a heck of quens coincidence. is senator reid bluffing? if he happen will it pass? will the republicans who support loretta lynch to be the next attorney general will they be too afraid to support her this way because it would mean letting harry reid pull this stunt? at the end of the day does this mean we'll finally get a new attorney general after they force loretta lynch to wait longer? more than twice as long than the last seven attorney generals have had to wait combined. joining us now, nbc news capitol hill correspondent. frank, it was nice to see you today after my harryx

interview. we were trying to figure out the importance of what he just said. it's nice to have you here. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> after what happened today with what senator reid has threatened and the way it has been received are[qmay we any closer to loretta lynch getting voted on do you think? >> well i think this strategy might not be as effective as senator reid is hoping that it would be. i mean senator reid is known as kind of a jedi master of senate procedure to use a "star wars" term, but at the same time i mean, what he's effectively trying to do is go into executive session which would require a simple majority. there's five republicans that have already said they would vote for loretta lynch's nomination are really unlikely to go against republican leadership to force this vote. i mean this vote is eventually going to happen after they finish this trafficking bill so it's thilhighly unlikely you're going to see those five republicans vote with senator reid to try to force mcconnell's hand on this. >> although the case from the

democratic side of it i guess the counterstrategy on this would be looking at a guy like senator mark kirk in illinois who's got a hard re-election effort and is up in 2016 and is very much trying center center, tact to the left to appeal to a blue state electorate in illinois for a re-election effort, he won't want to be seen as6h loretta lynch and the democrats will try to hang that around him if he doesn't side with harry reid on this though he'll have to say as his defense, it wasn't technically a vote on the substance of her, it was a procedural vote to not vote on her at all. >> sure. yeah. i mean that's true but at the same time we saw these kind of tactics happen when the goia9l,$dñafz /uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu bring up some kind of procedural motion to force republicans' hands and force them to vote on whether or not to open the government back up or not. and it didn't really work. not only that, but working for republicans in the situation is just the fact that they seem to

be very close to a deal on the trafficking bill, which is the big holdup as you mentioned. and senator mcconnell said they expect to finish the trafficking bill early next week. trying to dot the ts and cross the is. but at the same time, we don't will materialize. if they do vote on that, mcconnell said it will take a day to consider and they will get to loretta lynch before they move on to the iran sanctions, the iran deal bill which they plan on doing next week as well. >> so if they move on that trafficking bill, if they come up with some way to move forward on that, break the impasse on that if loretta lynch was next that could happen as soon as next jktqqweek? next few days? >> if they come up with a deal and mcconnell stays true to his word, they could see it as soon as tuesday or wednesday. but the senate moves really slow. it's very hard to predict

whether or not they're going to get an agreement one way or the other. early next week could be what they -- when they can actually finish it up. but it could leak into the end of the week as well. i mean if they can't get an agreement, this impasse could continue for weeks. >> that's right. and mitch mcconnell did promise she'd have a vote on the week of march 16th before that republicans promised that if democrats didn't get this done in the lame duck they'd make sure she got voted on at the beginning of the session so the -- i don't trust anybody as far as i can throw them in this game. it's getting to be a more interesting game all the time. nbc news capitol hill correspondent frank thorp. thanks for helping us understand. >> appreciate it. >> we have a lot more to come up tonight. stay with us. >> i'll tell you what i remember about our vegas visit. i've never seen you standing. i realize you're more than -- >> i tell people that's my secret power, i'm secretly enormous. i'm ready to take on anything.

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in case you were wondering in the interview with harry reid/]lv

why he was wearing sun glass inside, it's not because john qm4úñ mccoin followed through on his threat to beat up senator reid, we'll have more on that in a moment actually. senator reid is still recovering from an exercise equipment zents accident on new year's day which left him blind in his right eye. that's why he's wearing the glasses. i asked him about the accident and how he was feeling and his response was more on less, could be worse. >> things happen. this was a freak accident and i'm not blind in my right eye. but i'm so grateful it didn't do any damage to my brain. almost got smacked in the temple there. and i'm -- accepted where i am and i look around, it's easy to do. people have a few more problems than i have. the main problem of not being able to see out of one eye, it takes awhile for my brain to adjust.

so i have trouble with depth perception. i stumble a bit. once in a while. i'll get over that. your brain will adjust to that and i'll be fine. >> i'll be fine. brain will adjust. we'll have more on that interview with senator reid just ahead in the show including his surprisingly elaborate take on why women are the best thing ever to happen to the united states senate. and why senators threaten to beat each other up all the time. stay with us. ♪ [upbeat music] ♪ defiance is in our bones. defiance never grows old. citracal maximum. easily absorbed calcium plus d. now in a new look.

look like this. feel like this. look like this. feel like this. with dreamwalk insoles, turn shoes that can be a pain into comfortable ones. their soft cushioning support means you can look like this. and feel like this. dreamwalk. this is catherine cortez masoo and is harry reid's pick to succeed him from his senate seat after he retires from the

senate next year at 30 years. senator reid runs the senate for the democrats in uc'x59 has been in washington more than 30 years. to a large extent he's also run the democratic3q( politics of his home state. it is interesting he's endorsed a woman to try to hold on to his seat for the democratic party. it's interesting and very deliberate. watch what he says about his home state but also about women running for office. watch. should we think of nevada as a blue state going forward in national politics or is it influx? >> i think it's a blue state. we had like a lot of states had this last terrible cycle. he had damage done but the party organization i helped develop is still there. and i'm -- one of the things i am happy that i was able to work toward is having nevada the third state in the union that's going to decide]ahúx who should be our president. i'm happy about that. it's going to be the case this time.

nevada is a blue state and hillary clinton likely will prove that without any doubt. >> in terms of secretary clinton and her candidacy, obviously it's a historic candidacy if she even just becomes the democratic nominee. there's never been a woman that's a major party presidential nominee. if she's elected, all the more historic. you said the greatest change in the senate over the time you have been here is the increasing number of female senators. they've improved the institution. what's different about female senators? what do you like about them? >> two things i want to talk about about my experience in the senate. one that is really positive and one isn't. and i've said when i came to the senate it was barbara mikulski, she was it. great senator from maryland. but now we have lots of senators and i've said and i repeat here on your show, the senate is a better place because of women. men and women are different.

>> i'm so happy, gratified that we have women who lead the committees.

i mean we had feinstein, head of intelligence works for environment public works. patty murray budget. she's going to label hhs. maria cantwell, small business. on and on with the women who are just so dynamic and prior to mikulski, and i can be here they weren't around. so the answer is yes. the country is ready for a woman to be president of the united states and of course the senate's ready for a woman being -- it's just a question of time until they will replace reid and schumer, there will be leaders that come from the ranks of women who serve so adequately here in the senate. >> in terms of -- i guess in terms of women and men being different and female and male ñbsh senators vrg having different

styles, you said something to my colleague john harwood about john mccain. senator john mccain you told john harwood, had threatened to kick the bleep out of you. he said it at one point about something that happened in the senate. was he kidding or was john mccain actually threatening to beat you up? >> this is so timely. yesterday on the senate floor john mccain came to me and told 6bcíuápá little incident we had j/ together where i said -- because you did this, i'm going to kick the [ bleep ] out of you, and i said to him, john if i were in your position, i'd do the same thing. he said, you know, i felt so sentimental when i heard you say that. that's what he said. john mccain and i are friends. i -- we came to the house together. we came to the senate together. >> so there is no actual threat of violence? this is just the way you guys talk to each other? >> yeah it's how we talk to each other.

i would like to be able to tell everybody here my female colleagues haven't said something comparable to me, but they have. >> the women and men maybe aren't all that different at least on that score. let the record show that i actually said bleep. senator reid did not say bleep. we had to add the bleep. to what he said. don't get mad at me. apparently senators threaten to bleep the bleep out of each other all the bleeping time. the women and the men. i had no bleeping idea that was part of the job but that's what they do. senator reid said there in the exchange there is one great thing that changed in the senate> i talked about what i thought was food in the senate since i've been here and that's women. what i think is bad since i've been here is the supreme court making this horrible, rotten awful decision citizens united. it has changed the country dramatically.

we have 15 people in the country who are making major decisions for all of us with hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.x j1x the koch brothers for example, already agreed to spend $1 billion in this election cycle. is that america? i don't think so. so if i can wave a magic wand, i will say i want the supreme court to reverse that decision so there is control on how much x money can be spend on the campaign. campaigns. >> is without the magic wand available for you, what can be done? i mean, i was surprised to see senator clinton puts that issue that you just described right at the forefront of what she says she wants to do with her candidacy. if that is what she runs on, that right at center of american politics. and the point of focus for a national debate. what can be done? does it have to be a constitutional amendment?

>> we can change the law and help things a great deal. when we had 59 senators and had a vote, it was the disclose act and the people had to disclose the money they gave. a lot of it is hidden money. you never know where the money is coming from and we lost that. not a single republican. not a single republican voted with us. we got 59 votes, every democrat voted for it so there could be disclosure. the best, a constitutional amendment. short of that if we had a law pass these people give all this dark money would have to come out of their hiding and tell us who they are. that would be a big help. >> senator harry reid speaking to me today at the capitol. former senator hillary clinton has said big money and politics is one of top things she's running for president to try to fix. she said this week in iowa it may take an amendment to the u.s. constitution to fix big unaccountable money in politics. senator reid today saying that short of that short of a constitutional amendment, if

there were more democrats]é in congress, they could at least pass a change in the law. they could at least pass legislation like the disclose act to not keep the money out of politics but to at least prevent the money from being anonymous. there's lots more ahead tonight. please stay with us. >> john mccain came to me and told me, he said that little incident we had together where i said you -- you did this i'm going to kick the [ bleep ] out of you.;n) new is being built into bounty. dawn. new bounty with dawn. just rinse and wring so you can blast right through tough messes and pick up more. huh aren't we clever.... new bounty with dawn. when it comes to good nutrition...i'm no expert. that would be my daughter -- hi dad. she's a dietitian. and back when i wasn't eating right, she got me drinking boost. it's got a great taste and it helps give me the nutrition i was missing. helping me stay more like me. [ female announcer ] boost complete nutritional drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium

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so minnesota's getting weird. earlier this week, we reported that the minnesota state senate decided to keep its longstanding rule forbidding senators from making eye contact with each other. they voted down rule change that would have allowed senators the radical change of being allowed to have water at their desks. but it turns out the minnesota state government has another controversy on its hands now. this one is about umlauts. the two dots above vowels in lots of languages i don't speak. the umlauts over the o in the town of minnesota were removed from highway signs by the state department of transportation. this is a townqx3d alls itself america's little sweden. the umlott is important to them and were not happy when it was taken down. to have the state unilateral take the umlaut away was shocking. well yesterday because state government is more heroic.

than you might think. yesterday minnesota's governor issued an executive order to give the umluat back. he has ordered the state department of transportation to reinstate the littlejqs dots on their road signs. saying as he did so, "even if i have to drive to lindstrom and paint the umlauts on the city limit signs myself i will do it." so lindstrom, minnesota, regained its umlaut. theren6qz it is on the brand new sign installed today. lawmakers are happy to have intense senate debates about eye contact rule and whether they're allowed to drink water. and governors will drive across the states to add umlauts themselves. right now in washington officials are finalizing rulges for something way, way serious than any of that. in that case nobody's talking about it and that's our big story next.

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just peachy...literally. ink from chase. so you can. here at friskies, cats are in charge of approving every new recipe. because it's cats who know best what cats like to eat. up today, new friskies 7. we're trying seven cat-favorite flavors all in one dish. now for the moment of truth. yep, looks like it's time to share what our cats love with your cats. new friskies 7. for cats. by cats. in the '80s, the federal government intentionally crashed an airplane. this is not a conspiracy theory ?s.:z from the comment section on a rand paul fan site. this actually happened. and the plane that the federal government intentionally crashed was not some experimental prototype or even a military

aircraft of some kind. what they crashed on purpose wasu< was actually a full-size commercial airliner. it happened in california. the idea was to test a new fuel additive that was supposed to make jet fuel less combustts>k) could this new fuel additive prevent planes from bursting into flames on impact when it crashed? they flew the plane by remote control. nobody was on board obviously. the crash test of the supposedly less combustible jet fuel in a passenger airliner. watch. >> 100. >> another view through a camera in the nose of the plane, right to the time the lens breaks.

>> yeah, so that didn't work. that was the supposedly less combustible jet fuel bursting into flames just like it wasn't supposed to. this is the view from inside the cabin of the plane. the test dummies handle the anymore impact of the crash but then the entire cabin justl< fills with flames and it's bye-bye to those poor dummies. when we think about the government crash testing stuff it's the cars with the dummies going head first into the steering column or whatever. it's not always cars. but sometimes it's a full sized commercial airliner with a camera attached to the tail so a government can see what happens when you crash a thing like that into the ground. sometimes it's planes and sometimes it's automobiles but sometimes what the government is crashing on purpose are trains. >> at a railroad testing grounds on the high plains of pueblo colorado, today, the department of transportation

sends two pass swrer cars at 26 miles an hour into a concrete wall. [ crash ] here it is again. different view. an unusual tes% h to learn more about rail car safety. >> that high speed crash test of a passenger train car was conducted by the federal railroad administration. about 15 years ago. there had been a spade of computer train crashes in the '90s. the federal railroad administration wanted to see how passenger trains could be made safer in the event of a crash. so they started crashing them into walls in colorado. the federal railroad administration. sounds like onetwz of those government agencies that we never got rid of from the 1800s, right? it's not as ancient as it sounds and it's supposed to make sure what happens on the rails across america is happening safely. which in the 21st century is now turning out to be a really freaking urgent concern. because this is what's been happening on the rails around

our country with increasing regularity over the last few years. this san oil train that derailed and exploded in glean thatalena, illinois, last month. 100 tanker cars filled if oil and when it derailed, the cars exploded and the fire could not be put out for days. a few weeks before that mt. carbon west virginia 109 car oil train came off the tracks. the cars full of oil exploded. it turned that area of west virginia into the and a few months before, lynchburg, virginia, a train packed with crude oil derailed and the cars full of oil blew up in that city of 75,000 people along the banks of the james river. this wasn't out in the middle of nowhere. this was right in lynchburg.g÷ it's the nightmare scenario that passed through your mind if you sat at a rail crossing in your

town attend saw the rail cars rumble by. in lynchburg, in addition to the fires and explosions a bunch of tanker cars full of oil also dumped their contents into the james river. it caused the evacuation of hundreds of people. incredibly, nobody was killed. this keeps happening. the trains seem fine on the tracks but one after the other we've watched as these oil trains rolling with increasing frequency through towns large and small all across the country one after another we have watched these trains full of oil jump the tracks for whatever reason they derail they erupt then we just hope they aren't too close to any major population centers and wait for days while local first responders try to contain the fires because local fire departments don't have the power to put these things out. so really they burn for days. but in that equation in that derail, erupt, burn for days equation, the erupting part is not necessarily a given.

trains carry all sorts of hazardous materials, even flammable hazardous materials aderail all the time across america but don't result in armageddon-like fireballs nobody can put out. trains carrying hazardous phenomenon in this country. what is a new phenomenon is where the particular trains we've seen in such huge numbers now, where they are coming from and what exactly they are carrying. this is how many carloads of crude royal were traveling on the railways at the end of the bush administration in 2008. this is the number now. this huge rise in the amount of oil moving by train is mostly attributable to the oil fields of north dakota. that matters because that particular oil is really freaking combustible. and as the trains have been going off like bombs one after another all across the country, there has been this really urgent policy question about what the government can do to make and the answer to that question is in part the federal railroad administration.

the administration that sounds like an old fashioned agency but it does things like /o+id+jj train cars into walls in colorado to see how to make them safer. now what we need are rules how to make the bomb trains safer.qñ=ça the federal railroad administration as part of the transportation department, they're working on doing that. next month we expect new rules from the obama administration to tell the oil industry and railroad industry what they've got to do to prevent more of this from happening across the country. this has been a fight going""jo@ for months now largely behind closed doors. honestly. i'm kind of desperate to know what they're going to come up with. i want to know if it's going to be enough to make otherwise normal news shows to look like outtakes from action movies about the end of the world. the beautiful sound of customers making the

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safe, including the oil trains that seem to be blowing up around the country. she joins us live in the studio in a moment. i'm so looking forward to this. please stay with us. i thought it was a six. i definitely feel the ecoboost in the ford escape. that's like a sports car. i just opened my trunk with my foot. i prefer, without a doubt, the escape over the cr-v. take the ecoboost challenge at your ford dealer. for a limited-time get an escape with up to two-thousand total cash back plus seven-fifty conquest cash with a qualifying competitive vehicle in your house.

in our house we do just about everything online. and our old internet just wasn't cutting it. so i switched us from u-verse to xfinity. they have the fastest, most reliable internet. which is perfect for me because i think everything should just work. works? works. works. works. works. works? works. works. don't settle for u-verse xfinity delivers the fastest most reliable internet. perfect for people who like things to just work. as we become a country that is more energy independent, this is one of the challenges we face. how do you safely move energy products like this, very volatile, flammable products across the country, from the ground to the refineries on the coast. >> that is sarah fienberg

acting administrator of the federal railroad administration speaking in february at the site of an oil train explosion in west virginia thatc evacuation of hundreds of people. that disaster in addition to being part of her remit at work was also a little bit personal from her because she's from that area. administrator sarah feinberg joins us on set. thank you for being here. i appreciate it. >> and thank you for having me and the reporting you have been doing a long time. >> i wonder what it feels like as head of the federal railroad administration, i wonder what it feels like to see the footagc5;:l of all those trains blows up. i mean, obviously, it's your job to fix it. do you feel like you have a grasp of why it's happening? is it just volume or are we doing something wrong? >> so it's a lot of things. it's volume. it's quantities. you showed the tank cars in the graphic. it's quantity like we've never seen before. it's a volatile energy product. it's not just your typical heavy

crude that has moved for a long time and it's moving more than 1,000 miles on average in either direction to the coast. it's a lot of product and moving a really long ways. >> and terms of what the product is, in this case, is that clear and does everybody on all sides of this agree that the oil from north dakota, the shale oil, is a more combustible material? that it is something that's more dangerous to ship? is that contested science? >> i think everyone agrees it's very volatile. very combustible, very flammable liquid. there are those in the industry say crude is crude, they're all the same. there's risk in the system, you can never get it out. there are others that believe you can lower the volatility. right now, it's an on going debate. the department of energy is teaming up with the department of transportation to do research to figure out, we know if you lower the volatility you're inherently making the product safer but how far does it need to come down? what all do you need to do to

the product to make it safer for transport? >> is it a hugely untested brand new process to make the oil less volatile? my understanding, a layman's understanding, it's my understanding that there's a lot of experience with conditioning the oil basically to make it more stable so it's safer to ship. >> i'm not an expert on physics and taking volatility out of products. and taking light -- it's done in texas. it's done elsewhere before it's put into pipelines and before it's shipped. it's certainly a possibility, it can certainly be done. but the science is still out how the best way is to treat this product before placing it into transport. >> i want to play the footage from you at mt. carbon in part from that spill and explosion in part because there weren't a lot2z of reporters at that site. there wasn't -- >> my hometown reporters. >> yeah. it was -- some of these things happen in the middle of city center, some in the middle of nowhere. it's hard to get the footage of what happened.

having been there in the immediate aftermath, a sense of how big of a conflagration it is? >> if you have a smaller incident, the firefighters have a chance. but the reality is, this product is explosive. it's reacts violently. the best thing for first responders to do is be trained in how to respond to these incidents. in mt. carbon for example, the montgomery fire department did the right thing. they got everybody out of the way. they didn't try to treat the fire or put it out. they got everyone out of harm's way which is what they should have done. >> doing harm reduction. they're not stopping the problem but stopping the harm that's happening. >> you're evacuating, trying to buy time. >> the energy industry is the most profitable in the world. when we look at the rules to get safety standards improved, should we look at the energy industry or railroad industry as partners who want to work on

this because this affects their bottom line, too, and they're prioritizing safety or are they really trying to stop new rules? is that part of the reason it's taken so long to do anything about this problem? >> i don't think anyone is actively trying to stop it. we need more people working together, more industries focusing on this problem not trying to block anything but coming to the table and trying to be helpful. look the rail industry has taken a lot of steps? recent months mostly at our urging at the department of transportation's urging. more inspections. more braking systems. >> slowing trains down. >> slowing trains down. speed redictions. those are good steps in the right direction. i think they're at a point where they are welcoming new rules. they want the rules to come out. frafrgly we're hearing the same thing from the energy that they're welcoming new rules and want a new ten-car standard too. >> honestly, when there can be a new federal standard and applies to everybody, everybody knows what it is and the time frame, it eliminates competitive

disadvantage anybody could have in the energy for being compliant or safety conscious if everybody abides by the same rule. >> that's right. the rule is not going to be a silver bullet, right? so we're all very focused on the rule. i'm anxious for the rule to come out. i think everyone is. that said, it's important to remember when the rule comes out it still has to be implemented, right? it's not going to come out on monday and solve the problem on a tuesday. that's why we continue to look at everything we can do energy orders, safety advisories steps we can take in the short term to keep our eye on the ball and make sure we're making this as safe as possible. >> thank you for being willing to talk with us about it. this is something that freaks me out which is why we cover it so much. nice to talk to you, who's actively involved in trying to fix it. i appreciate it. sarah feinberg is acting administrator of the federal railroad administration which is a thing your tax dollars pay for. aren't you glad? we'll be right back.

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this is not a story about football but this is one of the best newscasts about football that i have ever seen. >> the chicago bears have one of the worst records in pro football. one win, five losses so far this season. the low point came last sunday when had he lost to the previously winless washington redskins. the paying fans expected a better product. even the players who are the product admit it's not much good. >> they deserved every single boo that we got. >> one disgruntled bear fan who is tired of getting mad decided to get even with the bears by suing them for damages. jim tully, a salesman filed a small claims suit charging the chicago bears with consumer fraud. asking a judge to award him and his wife the cost of two game tickets, transportation and a baby-sitter for the last game. $58.40 all together. >> october 1981 jim tully and

his wife paid 16 bucks each for two seats on the 40 yard line plus 18 bucks for gas plus $15 for a babey-sitter plus $2.40 for tolls and he wanted it all back. his small claims lawsuit claimed the chicago bears were lying to customers when they tried to pass themselves off as a professional team. he did not get his money back from the bears but he tried. and this week, another disgruntled illinois man on the sidelines is trying again. except this time he doesn't want his money back from a terrible illinois football team. this time he wants his money back from a terrible illinois congressman. the man is suing recently resigned illinois congressman aaron schock for fraud. howard foster says he donated willingly 500 bucks to congressman schock's campaign in 2012 because he believed aaron schock was an ethical man, a breath of fresh air in illinois politics and that he had a bright future in congress. but the lawsuit says "the opposite was true and

while aaron schock may have been a new young face in congress, he willingly followed well tread paths of political sleaze for personal gain." and so the dude wants his donation back. he wants to make it a class action lawsuit where all of aaron schock's donors can get their money back because he was such a fraud. congressman aaron schock resigned last month after an ethics probe started to digging into his handling of campaign money. as he announced his resignation from congress that congressional ethics[c+i ujtt-&ñ eéppmlw

and this week that happened. four of aaron schock's former stafxídlñr(s& still work for congress if not him, four had to officially report to congress that they got subpoenas to testify before a grand jury in illinois investigating aaron schock.#b0.d3ldz÷a@tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu:u%ú)en a special election to replace him in congress now that he's resigned, one county in his district is so annoyed with having to replace lim under the circumstance they have just sent aaron schock a bill for how much it will cost that county to hold the special election for his seat. an invoice for $76,000. payable upon receipt, please. latest fec filings out yesterday show the former congressman's m"j/iulq>ñtcmi:z+( inverse relationship between how

much fun he had while in office and this opposite of fun that is piling up on him now since he quit. watch this space. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." thanks for being with us. >> former senator jim webb is here tonight to tell us why he'ssxsi:sbúi xohqhtof.'@n8m1g 9uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuxr7>?