as we said at the outset, gao a spotlight on this.s is a case where putting the spotlight brought some heat, and he brought some change. >> let me go back just a little bit. you believe that the guidance that omb now provides is appropriate? are there some aspects -- >> for dod? >> for dod or the awarding of the award fees? >> what this has shown, even this most recent report, the word has not gotten down to all the different agencies. as you pointed out, some of the agencies like hhs and doe have not incorporated all those attributes into their own guidance. i think there is room for improvement there. dod has taken steps were we see improvement. it is not across the board yet. there are initial steps. you have to ensure the steps are taken and pushed down across the agency. >> omb's guidance is generally pretty good? and better over time. some of the agencies, including dod, maybe nasa, are doing a better job adhering to that guy is. we have the obligation to try to back you up. when you point out activities that are really defendab

i have worked closely with the gao come up with the amortization schedule that i proposed. as i indicated under sinner harper's proposal, it would -- under senator pop -- under senator harper's proposal, it would still increase, but it would be $500 million as opposed to $4 billion. big difference. i want to turn to the second issue, however, and that is whether it is realistic to expect the postal service to be able to pay far more between 2015 and 2019, that second five years, then is the case under current law. under senator harper's proposal, the postal service would have to pay $6.3 billion more into the retiree health benefits fund then is required under current law in the second five years. under the bill the committee reported, it lowers substantially the payments for the next five years, but then ramps them up to the tune of $6.3 billion over the current law schedule. how optimistic are you that the postal service's financial situation is going to improve so greatly that it will be able to pay $6.3 billion in payments above what would be required by current what? >

we are very committed to working in partnership with the gao.g to create a culture where there is a real responsiveness on these reports, we find it very helpful. these are very strong road maps and we can improve these on an ongoing basis. we want to be able to change that answer and be at the top end of the responders. >> miss clark? >> thank you madame chair. thank you for holding this hearing. thanks to you, administrator mills and mr. sherr for your attendance and your testimony. i look forward to working closely with all of you to insure that waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse are reduced and ultimately eliminated. we want to be able to maximize on the effectiveness of these programs that serve america's economic engines. administrator mills, my first question is for you. today, i would like to focus on women and minority-owned businesses and their ability to access credit, typically women and minority-owned businesses tend to employ a more diverse work force and this is especially at issue today as minority employment is at a high leve

i have worked closely with the gao come up with the amortization schedule that i proposed. as i indicated under sinner harper's proposal, it would -- under senator pop -- under senator harper's proposal, it would still increase, but it would be $500 million as opposed to $4 billion. big difference. i want to turn to the second issue, however, and that is whether it is realistic to expect the postal service to be able to pay far more between 2015 and 2019, that second five years, then is the case under current law. under senator harper's proposal, the postal service would have to pay $6.3 billion more into the retiree health benefits fund then is required under current law in the second five years. under the bill the committee reported, it lowers substantially the payments for the next five years, but then ramps them up to the tune of $6.3 billion over the current law schedule. how optimistic are you that the postal service's financial situation is going to improve so greatly that it will be able to pay $6.3 billion in payments above what would be required by current what? >

he is congressman joseph gao of louisiana. he told his constituents at a fairly civil town hall meeting yesterday that he is leaning toward voting for the house health care reform bill with a few caveats. he is also taking the president up on his offer to meet with any member of congress who wants to get together to talk about health care. congressman gao represents a district in which two-theirs of the registered voters are democrats. his seat was previously held by richard jefferson, who you might remember as the cash in the freezer congressman. joining us now from new orleans is republican congressman joseph gao. thank you so much for coming on the show. i appreciate it. >> thank you very much. >> at your town hall meeting yesterday i understand there were no major disruptions but there was a very dramatic moment when one of your constituents presented you with a stack of medical bills and then walked out. what did you take from that? >> well, i appreciate people expressing their opinions concerning some of their disagreeme

i have worked closely with the gao come up with the amortization schedule that i proposed. as i indicated under sinner harper's proposal, it would -- under senator pop -- under senator harper's proposal, it would still increase, but it would be $500 million as opposed to $4 billion. big difference. i want to turn to the second issue, however, and that is whether it is realistic to expect the postal service to be able to pay far more between 2015 and 2019, that second five years, then is the case under current law. under senator harper's proposal, the postal service would have to pay $6.3 billion more into the retiree health benefits fund then is required under current law in the second five years. under the bill the committee reported, it lowers substantially the payments for the next five years, but then ramps them up to the tune of $6.3 billion over the current law schedule. how optimistic are you that the postal service's financial situation is going to improve so greatly that it will be able to pay $6.3 billion in payments above what would be required by current what? >

the other example i would like to highlight is the gao. after september 11, the gao had to vacate its building because of the anthrax attack and as a function of that they had to come up with a solution of how to continue operations of the united states government in that environment and the employees actually turned to tele-working and from the forest service to nasa to the department of defense, as government consumers of the technology that is deployed out there in the consumer space, and it's very important for us to be able to leverage that in times of need as a matter of fact as a policy as we think about the of the nature of work in the 21st century. i would like to close with talking about the huge opportunity and importance of the great work that you are doing today. as we think of health care and education and we think about fundamentally changing and introducing disruptive technologies across the board we have an imperative to make sure communities that are not able to access broadband or are not able to access the global econom

i have worked closely with the gao come up with the amortization schedule that i proposed. as i indicated under sinner harper's proposal, it would -- under senator pop -- under senator harper's proposal, it would still increase, but it would be $500 million as opposed to $4 billion. big difference. i want to turn to the second issue, however, and that is whether it is realistic to expect the postal service to be able to pay far more between 2015 and 2019, that second five years, then is the case under current law. under senator harper's proposal, the postal service would have to pay $6.3 billion more into the retiree health benefits fund then is required under current law in the second five years. under the bill the committee reported, it lowers substantially the payments for the next five years, but then ramps them up to the tune of $6.3 billion over the current law schedule. how optimistic are you that the postal service's financial situation is going to improve so greatly that it will be able to pay $6.3 billion in payments above what would be required by current what? >

the insurance co-op which the gao and most democrats say will not lower consumer prices nor will it be able to muster any leverage against the private insurance giants, in which the republicans today say, still counts in their books as a public option, a government takeover, socialism, fascism, despotism and pulling the plug on grandma and the sinking of the "titanic." on healthy hair? ask the experts. [ male announcer ] best smoothing shampoo, pantene smooth vitality. experts at good housekeeping agree. they gave it their seal. [ male announcer ] pantene delivers damage protection results leading salon brands can't beat. [ stacy ] it's just a tiny little transformation from dry, damaged hair, to shiny fabulous hair. women like you agree. [ male announcer ] readers' pick, pantene ice shine. [ stacy ] no wonder pantene's won more awards than even the leading salon brands. you be the expert. experience pantene. healthy makes it happen. >>> conservative democrats vote the idea of swapping in insurance co-ops for the public option. insurance co-ops that the government accountability office

let me ask the gao on the report that two people to inspect water industry, and four years ago the fda change the risk assessment from low risk to high-risk for bottled water. how many inspectors should be required, if you are not enough, what is our limit? -- if two are not enough. we will be doing the bill this afternoon that will have funding for the food and drug administration ended. had we know we have got the right number of inspectors so we can know we have the right appropriation attached to the fda? >> that is a good question. we do not have a precise number just for this segment of fda's overall responsibility. we have set a high risk area that the resources are inadequate to do the job right now. we have pointed out from a broader standpoint that to say the spread over a number of different agencies. of those agencies, fda seems to get the smallest proportion of the budget, yet it has 80% of the responsibility. i do not know if two, four, six are right. we are just dating a fact that that is how many are currently dedicated to inspecting bottled water facilities. >> and tha

gao just did a study said that imogene is rising, excess utilization, and ought to adapt a technique that the private plans have. but a number of members of congress have said, over their dead body. government has a difficult time getting to the politics. during patient protection, we brought health care costs down to zero in some cases below zero. the message we got from politicians was that we were too aggressive in using utilization review and networks, and the kinds of things that people now seek to replicate in accountable health care organizations. so what we did was send a message that if we take out all of these tools, health care costs will soar. we were right. now we began to reintroduce the tools. if you look at their rates of increases of health care premiums, you see them coming down gradually. we've taken pharmaceutical expenditures from 15% down to four percent. that is a very significant rate. we're not taking options away but letting them learn the consequences. care coordination -- the importance of doing care coordination in medicare. i can say now that we are abou

>> reporter: well, the government accountability office, the gao, has said no. looking at some of the co-ops that exist around the country in something like 20 states, they say they simply don't have the bargaining power that's necessary to compete. they compare it to being like somebody that's trying to build a generator in their garage, trying to compete against the local utility. or, more like a credit union, competing against a bank. you may join a credit union, but not going to drive the rates of bank of america down. the judgment so far has been no, however, it's never bee tried on a national scale, and those who propose this kind of reform say that if it were done on a national scale with the right regulation, it could work. >> all right. david wright, thank you. >>> still ahead on "world news," new controversy about a cancer vaccine recommended for young girls. do the risks outweigh the benefits? that will be our "closer look." >>> he's back. brett favre puts on a new uniform so he can throw for a new team. ngraand, spips in t. to ci sert. racing to get

the other example i would like to highlight is the gao. after september 11, it had to vacate its building because of the anthrax attack at the senate hart building. as a function, they had to come up with a solution in terms of how to continue the operations of the united states government in that environment. the employees actually turned to teleworking which is really important. across the board, from the forest service, nasa, department of defense, we are also as a government consumers of the technology that is deployed out there in the consumer space. it is very important for us to be able to leverage that in times of great need. as a matter of fact, as a policy, as we think about the very nature of work in the 21st century. what i would like to close with is to talk about the huge opportunity and importance of the great work you are doing here today. as we think of health care and education, as we think about fundamentally changing and introducing technologies across the board, we have an imperative to make sure that communities that

it is amazing to me that there is a sentence in a gao report that reads as follows.the department of defense now prohibits payment of award fees for the unsatisfactory performance. where i come from, that would be a head-scratcher. how did we get to the point where we began paying award fees for the unsatisfactory performance? how did that happen? >> it is difficult to generalize, but one thing that we noticed in our recent work is that, at some level, it becomes a way we do business. at one particular location, an air force contractor dock fees. then they said that we're not going to give you the fees and we are not to roll it over to the next evaluation period. and the contractor came back and said, can you roll it over? and they said no pig in part, there's a culture change with respect -- and they said no. in part, there is a culture change with respect on how the vehicle is applied. >> the culture change would never have happened in the private sector. i remember my first encounter with this was in the armed services committee. there was a very long hearing wher

what was the basis for the gao protest?o many of you have a recollection as to what the rationale was? >> yes, sir. i believe it was an improper cost evaluation. >> final question. i know this is not a small-business hearing, but we raised the issue once and i just want to raise it one more time. we have about, according to your testament, director stephenson, about $1.6 billion over the course of the life of the contract is attributed to small business contractors, and we understand that there's a regulation that says that you don't have to contract with small businesses if the work is performed entirely outside of the united states. now, i understand that 63 of the total, about a thousand, 7000, linguists are going to be performing stateside or are performing stateside, but obviously the overwhelming majority of them are performing in iraq, as you would expect to be the case. that being so, just a quick judgment as to whether under these circumstances we really had to contract with small businesses for this. >> sir, in or

report on co- ops. -- gao report on co-ops.valuate, definitively, we will certainly come to that opinion. >> is it safe to assume that the president considers what is in the house committee, products that contain a public option, not only preferred that the best mechanism to achieve the goal he has stated? >> the president has said the public option is his preferred option to competition, but is open to other ideas. >> was the flag at whitehouse.gov a good idea? why was it removed? >> yes, it was. it was consolidated with realitycheck. if anyone hears a rumor or anything else that they are concerned about, it is their opportunity to speak the truth. we consolidated two platforms into one. >> one other item on internet privacy. omb announced a plan to remove cookies for visitors to government websites. you could be tracked in ways that you cannot be now. what is the status of that? have you learned anything from public comment on this? >> i have not talked about the comments. i know the policy of this government is not to allow

. >> there is a gao report a about nine years old that says it cannot -- >> i would not look any evidencers old. >> it looked at co-ops and whether they could get a a sufficient market share. >> i hate to surmise about a 9- year-old gao report on health care coops. you obviously have different parts of congress' continuing to work on different alternatives. when there is enough information on those to evaluate defensively, we will certainly evaluate those and come to that opinion. >> it is -- is it safe to assume that the president considers the house bill committee to contain all threeroducts to achieve the goals he has stated the exports of in the president had discussed that a public option is his preferred method to provide towards and competition, but he is open to discussing other ideas. >> is the flag idea still a good idea? >> yes, it is. it was consolidated on a reality check. the people of questions or concerns about some ruling that they're hearing on health care reform, there is a mechanism to get the truth. >> so, it has just been put together. >> consolidated from two platfo

it is amazing to me that there is a sentence in a gao report that reads as follows. the department of defense now prohibits payment of award fees for the unsatisfactory performance. where i come from, that would be a head-scratcher. how did we get to the point where we began paying award fees for the unsatisfactory performance? how did that happen? >> it is difficult to generalize, but one thing that we noticed in our recent work is that, at some level, it becomes a way we do business. at one particular location, an air force contractor dock fees. then they said that we're not going to give you the fees and we are not to roll it over to the next evaluation period. and the contractor came back and said, can you roll it over? and they said no pig in part, there's a culture change with respect -- and they said no. in part, there is a culture change with respect on how the vehicle is applied. >> the culture change would never have happened in the private sector. i remember my first encounter with this was in the armed services committee. there was a very long hearing whe

gao found that post-fta average annual growth rates for u.s.ts were all higher than pre-fta annual growth rates and several sectors of the u.s. econy, little sectors like manufacturing and agriculture, made substantial gains in market share versus suppliers from other countries. i can tell you that firsthand that the business community has found them extremely helpful. to close, i'd like to offer just three brief recommendations for a trade agenda that i think the obama administration can embrace. earlier this year the chamber issued a report entitled international engagement. it will be on the website. this is a much more extended version but i'll stick to my three points. first, go on the offensive. the administration will be stuck playing defense against protectionist measures like buy american until it devises a forward-leaning trade agenda of its own. as prize fighter jack dempsey used to say a best defense is a good offense. if the administration had already done that, would the absured trade act put forward by congressman mike michaud an

. -- gao versions. >> do you realize what a politician you could be with all those different places. >> i do speak out of this side and my mouth and go to this one. >> first impression you ever did, who it was? >> jay leno. it was in college. i said hey, how would you like nacho cheese flavored dorough toes. >> what did he think when -- door doritos. >> i should go to the audience. hey, what's going on in the audience. >> what did jay leno think when you did him? >> i'm out of breath. hold on. give me a second. i have a weight problem. >> check your pulse. >> all right. >> he was very nice to me. >> one of the nicest people in the whole world, isn't he? >> second to you. >> you are good. >> very good. nice prompting, huh, very good but you. huckabee, huh? i like this guy. you, you are very good. >> all right. robin williams comedy, my friends, if you don't have a joke, just switch voices. >> robin williams got a lot of his stuff from jonathan winters. >> one thing the impressionists grew up, a little older school kind of thing. i watched jonathan winters. when they switched from the

we -- gao performs those functions currently. >> i'm sure l-3 is not so modest about the services they provide. was it the case -- now, you know the forbes article that i've been mentioning, right? >> only from your testimony. >> you're kidding me? you're kidding me? you mean when forbes writes an article about your parent company -- >> i'm not aware of it, sir. >> you don't bother to read it? that's an insult to the media. you're not being read over there. you've got to work harder. so you don't know whether it's true as forbes says that mckown is chairman of the board and owns a car roughly of dyncorp? >> yes, i do not that and that is the case. >> oh, okay. and that it helped -- that this linguistic contract helped to boost dyncorp's revenue by 45%. >> i believe that's true, yes. >> okay. well, you don't have to agree with me on this characterization but i'm just going to say the contract and the taxpayer became a cash cow -- sort of a great big juicy steak that two companies with thick slabs out of this cash cow. poor taxpayer. let's get to -- let's get to l-3. and i'm far from def

. -- gao versions. >> do you realize what a politician you could be with all those different places.one. >> first impression you ever did, who it was? >> jay leno. it was in college. i said hey, how would you like nacho cheese flavored dorough toes. >> what did he think when -- door doritos. >> i should go to the audience. hey, what's going on in the audience. >> what did jay leno think when you did him? >> i'm out of breath. hold on. give me a second. i have a weight problem. >> check your pulse. >> all right. >> he was very nice to me. >> one of the nicest people in the whole world, isn't he? >> second to you. >> you are good. >> very good. nice prompting, huh, very good but you. huckabee, huh? i like this guy. you, you are very good. >> all right. robin williams comedy, my friends, if you don't have a joke, just switch voices. >> robin williams got a lot of his stuff from jonathan winters. >> one thing the impressionists grew up, a little older school kind of thing. i watched jonathan winters. when they switched from the voices. january on this winters. i did something a little we

come, but what we are realizing is that that is not working because of different aspects from omb and gaowhat are they trying to blame health insurance problems on? it is these large companies. shepard: the office of management and budget has come out and said that the numbers just do not add up, and they do not. i have been surprised that the administration does not talk more about the baby boomers who are about to need a lot of care that right now is not available, that something has to change and the status quo is not going to work. >> americans are not used to making a sacrifice, whether it is higher taxes or worse health care. the administration is realizing that they need to find a bogyman. that is insurance companies. they are in many ways becoming the new tobacco companies. shepard: one of the things that the white house has not been able to effectively do is draw some sort of parallel between this fear of the government between you and your doctor and the reality now of the insurance company between you and your doctor. they just have not put it all together. >> it is a confusing

john, you know -- [ impersonating jo lennon ] "he could be greta gao. he can be groucho marx.ock group. we could be anyone. we could be rachael ray. we could be burt bacharach, u know. >> jimmy: "yeah, we could be anyone. weould be jae -- jimmy stewart. " >> "we could be jamie stewart, we could be liberace. it doesn't matter, you know." >> jimmy: "it doesn't matter." >> "it's 'war and peace,' you know." >> jimmy: "yh, we could be anyone. we could be curious george." [ laughter ] >> "we could be captain kangaroo, you know." >> jimmy: "we could be cap'n crunch." >> jimmy: you love ringo? >> "it doesn't matter. charlie chaplin." >> jimmy: "we don't get soggy in milk, in what we're saying." >> "n exactly." butt's an idea -- >> jimmy:, oh, you do ringo, as well? >> i love ringo. to do ringo, it's kind of like -- [ impersonating ringo starr ] "hello, peace and love, hello?" [ laughter ] "hlo?" >> jimmy: he always comes out like this. ello." >> "hello." i can do him drumming, too. like, he's always, like, really, really happy when he drums. he's like -- [ laughter ] thank you. [ laug

he won 19 gao games a cup -- games a couple years ago with a e.r.a. of 303. he can pitch. he has a good change-up. curveball reminds you have roy halladay. you made a great point. when he needed a strike out he went to the the high fastball. again. nick didn't have a better at bat. we know how good a hitter he. you look away. pie hits for the cycle. he strikes them out inside. the guy with 98 wins coming into the night against a guy in his third major league start. lackey will pitch well. brian matusz. for a young pitcher to give up 5 runs and get into the 6thinning that was a testimony tonight. >> we go inside to dave trembley his postgame conference. >> he threw a lot of strikes. 100 pitches he threw 30 some balls. kept the ball down, a lot of ground ball outs. we needed a couple hits to get us back in it, and you know, had good at-bats but the hits didn't fall. so that's that. >> you guys had guys up in the pen early, was it important to let matusz pitch out, attempt to the pitch out of that. >> my thoughts were, as long as he was throwing the ball well, you know, his d

the insurance co-op which the gao and most democrats say will not lower consumer prices nor will it be able to muster any leverage against the private insurance giants, in which the republicans today say, still counts in their books as a public option, a government takeover, socialism, fascism, despotism and pulling the plug on grandma and the sinking of the "titanic." reading about washington these days... i gotta ask, what's in it for me? i'm not looking for a bailout, just a good paying job. that's why i like this clean energy idea. now that works for our whole family. for the kids, a better environment. for my wife, who commutes, no more gettin' jerked around on gas prices... and for me, well, it wouldn't be so bad if this breadwinner brought home a little more bread. repower america. i hope our senators are listening. >>> conservative democrats vote the idea of swapping in insurance co-ops for the public option. insurance co-ops that the governmentingability office reports could never be big enough to force insurance prices down. insurance co-ops that republicans brand as evil, so

there's a 2000 gao study on co-ops, a variation of co-ops.ons were very sour on the idea. essentially co-ops don't have the purchasing power to really create systematic reform that the president has talked about since the very beginning. they're limited in their scope. in terms of how many people can actually get under the umbrella. they're very ineffective in terms of lowering administrative costs. as you mentioned private insurers would be involved in the process and they're doing everything to protect their profits. in terms of policy ideas i'm not sure this is much of a smart compromise for progressives or democrats to make. in terms of politics maybe it's good to get the votes. keep in mind the votes you need to get aren't republican. the rnc came out and said they oppose co-ops. the democrats are essentially working against themselves on this. party leadership like harry reid and the president himself need to say, listen, this is what we want and this is how we're going to get it. >> ron christie, you identified yourself as a health car

google news add verdes 25 gao's and daly, 25,000 books and magazines. youtube has 100 million visitors a month. it is the largest video site on the internet. if you live in the third world and you cannot afford to build an infrastructure, if you have access which they will increasingly you can google information in classrooms and instead of not being able to afford to textbooks if you have a little cheap net books and navy are subsidized by the aids foundation or someone else, you have an ability to bring learning to those classrooms in the third world. google and the web inevitably democratized information. they take the choices out of many of your hands and out of the hands of network programmers are newspaper editors. and put the choices in the hands of consumers this grants enormous power to silicon valley engineers. this can be scary because as i said that they may be brilliant but they are not always wise. in and approve of that are the needless battles that a company like google and many of the silicon valley companies have had it with traditiona

public alert and warning system, a modernization act, along with chairwoman norton and representatives gao, guthrie and graves of this subcommittee. i also introduced a safe building code incentive act. both of these bills are intended to help prepare for a big storm and to mitigate against disasters. providing incentives for states to enact building codes is, frankly, a very effective, common sense way to minimize damage and the loss of life that a catastrophic disaster could entail, and we've seen that it does work. and developing a truly integrated public alert warning system is, obviously, critical to saving lives. now, with countless methods of communication available today, you know, twitter, facebook, e-mail, etc., etc., we're still using a 1950s model which is that little beep on our tvs and radios and, frankly, that's not enough because there are more ways we can communicate, and we need to do that. so the issues i've raised disasters of all sizes, but the catastrophic disasters magnify, obviously, their sentence and -- significance and importance. should there be more capabilitie

we had anticipated hearing from the epa corps of engineers, general services, fema, coast guard and gaos morning. happy to yield to my friend and ranking member, mr. mica. >> thank you for this hearing on the stimulus money. it is something we all pledged to do as the legislation moves forward and very well intended legislation to improve the nation's infrastructure and get people working. the chairman has pointed out that we do have some concerns about the rate of which some of the money actually is being put into projects. i also have some concerns i want to express this morning about that. we saw the amount of obligated funds and that has increased now to over the 50% mark. the problem is that as of july july 27, only 919 million, that's not billion, 919 million of $48 billion of d.o.t. money has been spent, given the calculation and, you know, we estimate for every billion dollars in transportation infrastructure spending we can create 28 to 32,000, and if we use an average of -- welcome even take the high number it's less than 32,000 jobs have been created so far by the money that

and based upon the concerns that have been raised by the commission on children and disasters and the gaoeports and the issues youe raised, we've decided to take a different approach in fema and instead of writing our plan for the adults and then try to figure out how we deal with everything else, let's write plans that actually reflect the communities we live in. they have children. there is people with disabilities. there is frail elderly. but let's quit putting all these populations in a special box that we'll get to after we get the plan written and let's do this from the beginning. so we're going to start with children. as you point out, there are cross-cutting issues not only when we talk about disasters but just in the daily delivery of service programs that oftentimes we do not take advantage of when disaster strikes. there are many things that i think if we looked at children up front at the beginning, across all the areas, and we're starting internally with fema but we also want to look at and work with our partners because again, as we continue this journey as i completed my se

and based upon the concerns that have been raised by the commission on children and disasters and the gaoeports and the issues you've raised, we've decided to take a different approach in fema and instead of writing our plan for the adults and then try to figure out how we deal with everything else, let's write plans that actually reflect the communities we live in. they have children. there is people with disabilities. there is frail elderly. but let's quit putting all these populations in a special box that we'll get to after we get the plan written and let's do this from the beginning. so we're going to start with children. as you point out, there are cross-cutting issues not only when we talk about disasters but just in the daily delivery of service programs that oftentimes we do not take advantage of when disaster strikes. there are many things that i think if we looked at children up front at the beginning, across all the areas, and we're starting internally with fema but we also want to look at and work with our partners because again, as we continue this journey as i completed my

the gao estimates the u.s.government spends one or $4 billion a year on energy research and development. -- spends $1.4 billion a year on energy research and development. how much should our government spending? >> in the past, our government has under-invested in energy research and under-invested dramatically. at this is a focused to increase our investment in this area, in bringing the best lines and to clean energy research. if we do that, we can solve these problems. >> mr. wellinghoff? >> in addition to research, we need to do development deployment. that is what we are doing to get these things in place. both are important. @@@@@@@ " not just somebody's fictional view of what's happening in our world. thank you. >> thank you, senator lautenberg. senator alexander is next. >> thanks, madam chairman. the chairman mentioned the relative cost of nuclear and wind. the national academies made a very interesting report this week on our energy feature. they said that the relative cost of building a comparable am

and based upon the concerns that have been raised by the commission on children and disasters and the gaoreports and the issues you've raised, we've decided to take a different approach in fema and instead of writing our plan for the adults and then try to figure out how we deal with everything else, let's write plans that actually reflect the communities we live in. they have children. there is people with disabilities. there is frail elderly. but let's quit putting all these populations in a special box that we'll get to after we get the plan written and let's do this from the beginning. so we're going to start with children. as you point out, there are cross-cutting issues not only when we talk about disasters but just in the daily delivery of service programs that oftentimes we do not take advantage of when disaster strikes. there are many things that i think if we looked at children up front at the beginning, across all the areas, and we're starting internally with fema but we also want to look at and work with our partners because again, as we continue this journey as i completed my

four if you include an agency action during the course of the gao protests relative to the -- >> i'm not talking about the reconsideration, no. >> there are other protests that took place that l-3 was not a part of relative to the linguist contract going back to 2004. that is perhaps where your number comes from. >> yes. but the 2004 contract -- >> well, we were not part of the protest, sir. >> okay. >> in fact, in 2004, we didn't have the contract, sir. >> okay. so it was just one or two protests. it was part of the consideration that made them make you a subcontractor was the resolution of the protest, wasn't it? >> i am absolutely positive of that, sir. >> okay, just one or two, not more than that, huh? >> three, just three. two successful and one unresolved because it was dismissed. >> they're easily framed. >> unresolvable but withdrawn. >> withdrawn. >> because of the negotiated subcontracting agreement? >> that is correct. >> you bought titan? >> that is correct. >> and so -- and it was titan that had a linguist who came under investigation at abu ghraib because of the scandal

i appreciate gao's honest assessment here today, too. so i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you. that's very, very important. now i committed to ms. norton that she could pursue her line of inquiry. >> i appreciate that, mr. chairman, 'cause i did not yet ask mr. ashley a question. i do want to associate myself with the remarks of ms. edwards and the ranking member, although, i promised the ranking member we will not buy a building in noma. if that's what he's really talking about, and he's still working on it. the fire sale is exactly correct. in light of the billion dollars. >> because we made progress payments, that's exactly right. >> even so if there's a billion dollars and somebody is being paid to do work you'd expect more than $34 million to show up at this time. if you want to explain that to staff, we'll be glad to hear it. but that is an important point. i wanted to ask mr. ashley something that has been on the mind of this committee especially the chairman and on the mind of me with respect to my work on the homeland security committee. i'm not sure it applies to stim

number two, it's the gao study that mr.adegg mentioned making certain that they look at the changes to the five-year survival rate. it would require, number three, the secretary of hhs to annually certify that no decrease in those rates has occurred, and number four, if they do find a decrease, the amendment allows women and their families with female members to purchase benefit mandate free coverage of their choice, something that would meet their needs and also address their fears. and, fifth, it would make certain that they are not forced to buy expensive essential benefit insurance that would include items they do not need. i thank him for his leadership, and i yield back. >> i thank the gentlelady for yielding back. my oldest sister is a 20-year breast cancer survivor. i praise the fact and am thankful every day that she has survived that disease. i think this is a reasonable amendment, i hope we'll adopt it, and i urge can committee to do so in the strongest possible words. >> would the gentleman yield? >> gentleman's

the gao estimates the u.s. government spends one or $4 billion a year on energy research and development. -- spends $1.4 billion a year on energy research and development. how much should our government spending? >> in the past, our government has under-invested in energy research and under-invested dramatically. at this is a focused to increase our investment in this area, in bringing the best lines and to clean energy research. if we do that, we can solve these problems. >> mr. wellinghoff? >> in addition to research, we need to do development deployment. that is what we are doing to get these things in place. both are important. research and development and d & d is important as well. >> are we far short of what we have to do? >> absolutely. >> madam chairman, at least we are discussing global warming like it is real and not just somebody's fictional view of what is happening in our world. thank you. >> thank you. senator alexander is next. >> thank you, madam chairman. the chairman mention the relative cost

i would just like to point to a gao report that came out on monday, excellent timing.rcial benefits of these agreements have exceeded expectations. growth in two-way trade ranged from 42% to 250%. gao found that post fta average annual growth rate for exports were all higher than pre-fta growth rates in several sectors of the u.s. economy, the met like agriculture and manufacture made gains in market share versus suppliers from other countries. i can tell you that firsthand that the business community has found it extremely helpful. to close, i would like to offer just three brief recommendations for a trade agenda that i think the obama administration can embrace. earlier this year the chamber issued a report entitled international engagement. it will be on the website. this is a much more extended version, but i will stick to my three-point. first, go on the offensive. the administration will be stuck playing defense against protectionist measures like buy american into it devises a forward leaning trade agreement of its own. as a prize writer jack kinsey used to say

the gao estimates the u.s. government spends one or $4 billion a year on energy research and development. -- spends $1.4 billion a year on energy research and development. how much should our government spending? >> in the past, our government has under-invested in energy research and under-invested dramatically. at this is a focused to increase our investment in this area, in bringing the best lines and to clean energy research. if we do that, we can solve these problems. >> mr. wellinghoff? >> in addition to research, we need to do development deployment. that is what we are doing to get these things in place. both are important. research and development and d & d is important as well. >> are we far short of what we have to do? >> absolutely. >> madam chairman, at least we are discussing global warming like it is real and not just somebody's fictional view of what is happening in our world. thank you. >> thank you. senator alexander is next. >> thank you, madam chairman. the chairman mention the relative cost

the gao's and mes patrick fitzgerald who has been general and the war on tariff metaphorically speakingse them across from the state house and says i love bin laden, he has a bunch of sleepers taken make operational and everytime and he walks out. the audacity of this guy and he turns to him and says he is the most dangerous man i've ever met, we cannot let this man on the street and that's exactly what he.com he left them on the street for 10 months to have the bombs go off in a plot that not only began in 1993 but literally was one of the principled practitioners of. 224 dead and 4,000 injured, took a month to arrest ali mohamed. he is held under a john doe one. i think they wanted to keep him a secret and didn't want them to know. they finally cut a deal with patrick fitzgerald to avoid the death penalty, he is now in custodial witness protection summer person and nobody outside the federal government knows where this guy is, he is a one man living 9/11 commission. when you cut a deal with a win is to get something in return. he gets five years, he is a star witness in of a mock case

i hate to surmise event -- about a 9-year-old gao report on co- ops. you have different parts of congress working on different alternatives. when there is enough information on those to evaluate definitively, we will certainly evaluate those and come to hear. >> it is safe to assume that president assumes -- seized what is in a house bills as the best option? >> the president has discussed the up public option is his preferred option but he is certainly open to looking at and discussing others. >> was flag@whitehouse.gov a good idea? >> yes. >> why was it removed? >> it was consolidated with realitycheck.org. it was consolidated from two platforms. >> one other issue the white house announced a public comment period on the removal of a nine- year ban on persistent cookies, the idea that you got a web sites and you can be tracked. what is the status of that? as it learned anything from the public comment about this? >> i have not talked to anyone about the comments. the policy of this government is not to allow web tracking technology. we are continuall

he is a member of the gao's expert panel that makes recommendations to the obama administration on security issues. >> thank you for inviting us to have this hearing. we are delighted to participate. virtually our entire economy, our defense system, depends on the electronic medication systems that are extremely vulnerable and under constant attack. the vast majority of the systems are owned and operated by the private sector. unfortunately, virtually all the economic incentives regarding cyber security favor the attackers. the area to defend is virtually a -- limitless. defense is difficult to coordinate an expensive compared to the return on investment. the good news is that we know a great deal about how to prevent and stop these attacks. the bad news is, we are just not doing it. price waterhouse coopers study of over 1000 companies found that those who follow the industry best practices could prevent almost -- and almost entirely mitigate the attacks against him. the 2008 date of age in the database breach report studied and concluded that 87% of the bridges could of been avoided if re

shortly thereafter, we were put on the high-risk list by the gao.rd to get off that list, and you can see we actually got to the point where we had zero debt. since the paea has passed, as well as the recession, which for us started back in 2008, you can see that our debt has increased as a result of both the economy and what has happened with the recession. just as a comparison, what would have happened had we not been paying $5.4 billion in debt? i think you each have a chart that shows in 2007, we actually would have made $3.3 billion. in 2008, would have actually made $2.8 billion versus hefty losses in both years. this year the gap would be only $1.9 billion. i focus on that only because this payment is very unusual. if we were part of the federal government, and treated as an agency, we would not be paying refunding retiree benefit trust. if we ran the private sector, we also would not be refunding these retiree health benefit payments. there in lies a dilemma. the postal service is a bit of a hybrid. some people call as a government corporati

>> you said you were from gao -- >> the question was the $87 billion estimated for medicaid, state stabilizationaintenance of the medicaid program. was that well done, poorly done? i'm just sort of shocked that it has not been brought. >> i don't have much. >> it comes in the category of the income stabilization, so it has been referred to in generalities. >> again, most people, at the state level, medicare and medicaid is the biggest chunk of the state budget. i know there was talk about fat in state and local budgets, but a lot of the growth or cost of state and local budgets come from things that they cannot control, like health care costs and pensions and the rising prices of gasoline and other things. the increasing match in medicare and medicaid has been incredible physical relief for states at a time when health care costs and needs are rising. the demographics are increasing. it allows them to, in some ways, plugged those deficits and think about where they spend elsewhere. it was very important. >> the second question, to the extent i understood it, was whether or not the program that w

going on in in the midst of things like the inspector general looking at things we do, the omb, the gaothe "new york times," "usa today," brian williams, first-class passengers complaining we are seven minutes late and why can't i fix that, it is easy for a sometimes to forget something that has become very close to us and that is the issue of professionalism and the fact is that we cannot simply cannot regulate professionalism. no matter how many rules, now many how many regulations mandatory training sessions, you pull them all together. the ended the day it still comes down to one thing it is the us and isi mean every pilot. each of us has a responsibility here. and each of us knows as professionals is up to us to earn their respect and to operate the aircraft professionally. the tools are there. we have spent a long time building in refining those tools, cockpit resource management and other things we have of our disposal but the chief pilot can't make you use them, the air safety inspector the line check pilot can make you use them, i can make use them. only you can make certain th