reviewed drafts of the report, e-mails exchanged between the department departmef interior and the white house and interviewed peer reviewers, as well as department of interior employees involved in the editing. the conclusion? there was no evidence of wrongdoing. not satisfied with this conclusion, the committee majority has responded by turning its investigation to the acting inspector general, mary kendall. but the majority's problem is not really with ms. kendall and it's not with the white house or the interior department, either. the majority's problem is with the facts. the facts don't show what the majority wants them to show. so now, all that's left is to investigate the investigation i want to close again by reminding the majority of what was happening at the time. look at the monitors. this is what secretary salazar and the others in the administration were trying to stop. this is what they wanted to prevent from ever happening again. and this is what we in this committee should be working to prevent. this is under the just distinction of this committee, to put the safety meas

from the department of interior, is that now? >> also to improve the operation. >> primarily to investigate anything fraud waste and abuse, any legal obligations going on. you have investigators on a good indications. >> and improve operations of department of the interior. >> ever see the answers are unsatisfactory. >> the time of the gentleman has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mrs. kendall, i'd like to focus on the climate basis studies. according to your letter, used a quote given the comprehensiveness of the governing agreements, the transparency given to the process and the complete absence to date of the manner in which the effort is proceeding, the oic does not have plans to conduct reviews at this time. >> correct. >> we have not received any. >> the scandal, on february 24, 11 page complaint complaints out of the loop executive secretary and regulatory affairs and department of interior. the simpleminded, scientific and scholarly misconduct relating to river dam removal. secretarial determination process. it was dr

two years ago members of this committee called on the department of the interior's acting inspector general to conduct an investigation into the departments may 2010 drilling moratorium report executive summary that was edited to appear as though the six-month drilling moratorium was supported by ancient experts when it was not. after initially declining i.t. ultimately agreed to conduct an investigation. in a page report was issued five months later that come from the white house officials were responsible for editing reports executive report's executive summary but the ig was unable to independently verify whether the authors intended to mislead the public. since becoming chairman this committee has been conducting an investigation into the editing of this report and how the moratorium decision was made. along the way troubling questions have arisen about the thoroughness and independence of the acting ig investigation as well as the igs unwillingness to fully cooperate with the committee's investigation. the inspector general act of 1978 requires the ig to be independent, to cooperate wi

. >> thursday, the house natural resources committee held an oversight hearing on the interior department's inspector general's office. mary kendall testified issues including the drilling moratorium and acted after the bp oil spill. this is a 10 minute portion of that hearing and you can see the entirety on our website at c- span.org. >> if there is any member here who has constituents affected by the moratorium because we have many who have been inspected by this bill, if anyone has been affected more by the moratorium, it is my constituents that i serve. you hear a lot that there were no layoffs. the reason there was not as many layoffs as you would think is because people down in south louisiana are not lazy. they don't want the government for anything but to get off their backs. when you kill their jobs in the gulf of mexico, they have to leave their families and travel to africa, to the north sea, to montana because they know one thing is that the country they grew up in it is god, family, and work. they don't sit there waiting for the government to give them a check or feel sorry for

phil -- paul hauser. >> has the department of interior received complaints from that individual or othersg and scientific integrity complaints? >> i would not know what the department has received. usually, things are referred to us. i would have to check. >> one of the concerns addressed here in this hearing and elsewhere, ms. kendall, is a complete lack of focus on the principle responsibilities in the inspector general. these allegations of the falsification of scientific data would not -- they were not exactly a secret. they were widely reported in newspaper articles across the pacific northwest. mr. chairman, i would ask for unanimous consent to insert into the record articles on this subject. >> no objection, it will appear in the record. >> did you not consider -- you have said that you would consider this of interest to the inspector general's office, but you have not looked into it? >> i do not know that we have looked into it. i think it is something that we should look into. >> why have you not looked into it? >> i am not aware of it sir. it, sir.ot aware of >> have you, or any

was faced with a critical confrontation with the bureau of land management an agency of the interior department they had authorized more than fifteen hundred new gas wells on the rhone plateau one of the last pristine areas in garfield county we just started with a very modest request a hundred twenty days for a new administration and we were turned down and we don't think twenty four days is enough for us to be able to really have a thoughtful and. prove the response there's too much that we don't know for us to be able to really respond in a very short amount of time so that's why i'm going to push very hard with secretary kempthorne and i asked him to grant the governor the request the governor has made of him. in the summer of two thousand and eight in spite of protests from governor ritter and colorado legislators the bureau of land management went ahead with the federal auction of leases on the rhone plateau. the entire top of the plateau fifty five thousand acres it was leased nearly fifteen thousand citizens sent protest letters but the bureau found the protests to be without merit and

in june, the interior department held its first lease sale since the deepwater horizon explosion. bids totaled a much better than expected $1.7 billion. andrew schneider, "n.b.r.," houston. >> susie: regulators want to make it easier for you to comparison shop for a mortgage. the consumer financial protection bureau offered up new rules for mortgage lenders today. nine out of every ten new mortgages now come from federal agencies or the federally- controlled mortgage firms fannie mae and freddie mac. to make sure fannie and freddie can keep those loans flowing, the government is changing the terms of the deal it struck when it took control of the two mortgage giants. as darren gersh explains, the move is designed to reassure nervous markets. >> reporter: the federal government has pumped $190 billion to keep fannie mae and freddie mac afloat. but that money came with a price, a 10% dividend payment. the only problem is, fannie and freddie have been borrowing from the treasury to pay the treasury back. >> each year, they have to come up with $19 billion in dividends. which, when yo

they're reviewing 137 pages released by the interior department.0 permits have been drillingfor offshore since a tragedy. of bumbo baby seats are being recalled. and johnson and johnson is safer.more products ellen braitman explains from bloomberg headquarters in new york. it planning to remove cancer dangerousd other from its adult toiletries and cosmetics. the company had remove chemicals of from its baby products after being pressured by a large coalition of groups. as within the next greenback years you can expect peace of mind. include everything to m johnson baby lotion i adult cleansing products. recalling 4eats is because babies can maneuver out of them or fall out. there's been 50 reported on raised surfaces and fractures have been reported. withhere's a seat belt warning labels and instructions. braitman and reporting for abc 7 news. >> it 5:51. >> a beautiful start to the day. hardly any clouds. a little foggy to the west of us. wonderingeople are what the weekend looks like. a little cooler. about that in a second. it's a brighter thurs

friction -- for instance, the max fine the department of interior could levy against b.p. for the oil spill would be $21 million. the former director of the agency and the director of b.o. e.m. have said congress should increase these penalties significantly to provide a sufficient financial deterrent to companies that violate the law. would you agree that congress should look at raising these penalties significantly as stated in the report? >> yes, our recommendation was to work with congress to review how these penalties are imposed and what the caps are. if i recall correctly, and i don't have perfect recall at this point, but that there was some restriction that the department. could not do this unilaterally and needed help from congress. >> thank you. i yield to the gentleman. >> thank you. i'd like to bring this discussion back to earth. >> 11 om a.m. advisement -- >> the other side said the question is did the department of the interior deliberately agree that there should be a moratorium. well, there's no question she -- they said there should be a pause. we could

the interior department is in charge of salmon and fresh water. the commerce department and saltwater. i hear gets even more comforted once there is smoke. everybody laughs and there is applause, but they still haven't gotten rid of that craziness. >> these regulations almost never go away. even if they do, and congratulations that our family farmers no longer have to wear hazmat suits clean up a spill. huge in american history. we are still spelling this out in an astonishing pace. the net burden is huge. some of the new ones make as little sense as the old ones. there is one now about clean energy. it was a new kind of ethanol. a couple of years back, everyone was hot on its future. the trouble is, it doesn't exist. now we have mandates for product that does not exist -- the president should work it out. stossel: thank you, douglas. washington regulators make me wonder if some of them want america to fail? coming up on the story behind a surprisingly popular video that asks that question [ female announcer ] they can be enlightening. hey, bro. or

i asked the department the interior, the ceo, last year t hat very question and was given no satisfaction that the department accepted an irresponsibility that it failed after you knew you had a problem, that there was no responsibility, no personal responsibility, no responsibility for the department. clearly there should have been one. we have seen webster's dictionary. the definition of incompetence is lacking the qualities needed for effective action. inapt, unqualified, and abel, yet we have a department that i think has demonstrated that to perfection. 700 citations and we have an i.d. department that has not done an investigation. that is the very definition, according to webster. we tried. we brought in the ceo of the interior. that is not a smoking gun for this body. i find that i agree. they're not concerned. at no time when the secretary of the interior was here, not in one question from a minority looking into that issue and undermine the validity and the purpose of trying to understand. we're not catching anything there. there should be more examination. that is your role. wh

on thursday, the interior department's said shell concerted operation, but must stop short of the actual drilling. the white house had said -- set a deadline and thursday's move suggests it will be approved. and do your report says iran may have expanded its stockpile of nuclear material of uranium enrichment. the international atomic energy agency says iran has doubled the effort of enrichment machines in stores in an underground bunker. in washington, jay carney said iran is violating its international requirements. >> we are closely studying the details of the report, but broadly speaking, it is unsurprising iran is continuing as the report illustrates, we're in a position to closely observe iran's program and to detect any effort by iran to begin production of weapons-grade uranium. to reiterate, the president has made clear frequently that he is determined to prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and he has led an unprecedented effort to pressure iran to live up to its obligations. >> the iaea report comes as iran continues to host a meeting of the non-aligned movement in te

obama's own interior department and his, well -- >> steriling. >> the hang on, sterling, what about alternative energy, solar and wind -- >> they have nothing to do with running our cars. >> that's not true. >> transportation, we're having a growing number of electric vehicles over 11,000 volts have been sold this year, and e lick tress ti is generated by power plants and natural gas, right? coal? >> it doubles -- >> one at a time, gentleman, dan first. >> mitt romney would take us ba backwards by undoing existing fuel economy standards. second of all, putting oil platforms on the east coast, there have been hurricanes too, maybe you remember irene that caused billions of dollars in damage last year. third of all, we need to diversify and reduce our oil use to we're not dependent on this one single fuel. that means investments in natural gas vehicles. investment electric vehicles, romney is against. romney has an oil above all strategy, not an all of the above strategy. >> sterling? >> what romney is against is subsidizing ineffective technologies, i'm in favor of that. >> why are you against -

these are the latest figures now from the interior department, 78% of offshore oil production and 48% of offshore natural gas production now off-line as a result of precautions due to tropical storm isaac. and andy, our friend in houston, says 1. 1 million barrels of refine sing offline. here is something that just came up that could affect the trade tomorrow. that is the cap line pipeline which companies ghost from the gulf of mexico up to memphis, where there is a refinery with about 195,000 barrelling per day of capacity. that's their sole source of crude oil. that could cause another problem with refining and more upward pressure on gasoline prices. heading to new orleans tomorrow. deja vu. back to you. >> be safe. thanks, scott. we will see you later. we want to highlight the fact that isaac is put thing strategic petroleum reserve front and center with many reports suggesting that the white house is thinking about releasing some of the reserves there to bring down oil prices but not everybody agrees that that's needed. >> no, absolutely not. international energy agency actually

natural and cultural resources, the department of interior is the lead on that.environment, and everything else as we move forward. we're going to have the four breakout sessions. we will go into this later about how we will integrate systems. these six recovery support functions are not stovepiped. someç of you mayç think you nd to go into each and every break out. theyç do cross over. that all depends on each other. çremember that as we workç toe integrated and move forward. they all work together. when we go out and to the fieldç using a presidential declaration as the starting peace -- piece, when we go and setup a joint field office,ç last year we haa record 98 disasters declared in the united states. about 0.5% or five of those, we deployed in federal disaster recovery coordinator to work with the communities and works through the issues. we still have folks out there from hud and other agencies providing recover its support functions. whether it is presidentially declared or not, who do you need out there immediately to have your communityñr and the

i think the interior department, and i used to be an associate director of omb, and that was 30 years ago, but i'm saying today, in the modern high-tech era, there's some -- so many things to be done in a small way without a federal government. mitt romney, the ultimate turn around guy. he knows how to do this. romney, you know, taking over sick companies and turning them around best he can. we have a sick company right now. it's called usa government inc and it needs to be turnedded around which is why i'm in favor of governor romney because he has the skill set to do this. we have to root out unnecessary spending besides dealing with the entitlements and so forth. i think the goals of achievable. 20% of gdp is achievable, and if the economy grows at 4%, the romney target, it's an ambitious goal, but not unrealistic, revenues pick up as a share of gdp. whether they are up to 20%, i don't know, but the revenues will pick up. >> host: talking with larry kudlow of cnbc's kudlow's report. contrary to what supply ciders say, people who make a lot of money are not necessarily job creators.

interior of two of the buildings. after reviewing all the documents on file with planning department, hearing public testimony, and reviewinghe final eir, the hpc approved a certificate for the proposed project, determining that it was in general conformance with the secretary of interior standards. in reference to the appellant first issue that the fact that the entire 55 mixed unit project -- 55 laguna mixed project was not fully considered under the cof a, only the three buildings that are landmark under plant -- article 10 or under the hpc's jurisdiction. under the conditional -- condition of approval, they folded and all of the mitigation that was all lines under the final eir report, which was adopted by the board of supervisors and the planning commission. the second issue raised by the appellant is that the certificate of appropriateness did not incorporate or was issued prematurely because it was not taking into consideration any mitigation that could be applied subject to the project review. it is required because the proposed project may receive federal funding. therefore, under section 106, the review would be r

that's the same -- that's bigger than the combined budget of the departments of commerce, education, energy, homeland security, interiorjustice, state, plus the federal courts. so how is it that we're able to borrow so much money and pay so little interest on it? why aren't we like spain, or italy or greece? it's certainly not because we well manage our finance or have a political system that seems ton marvel of e efficiency of comprise. it's the rest of the world looks even worse. the united states is the world's tallest mijtd when it comes to borrowing none. [laughter] if this could go on forever, it would be fantastic. it is not going on forever. i have no clue when it's going end. it is not going go on forever. last -- in -- as interest rates return to normal, the share of the federal budget, the ghost of interest is going to rise and that crowd out spending on other things. it'll mean we'll pay taxes, and we'll borrow money and some of the money we borrow will pay interest on the money we borrowed last year and some of the tax we pay will pay interest to our creditors. and those credit or its are increasingly over

it is the same case for a number of agencies within the department of interior. i would suggest this group thinks seriously about looking hard at the reconveyance of forestry lands. you will get better economic development, and you will create a lot of jobs. originalon the amendment, and are we ready to call the question? if somebody wants to speak, raise your hand and i will acknowledge you. >> thank you. i have discussed this, and i understand the impulse behind this, having the mark twain national forest in the state of missouri. i think -- and i will have to get this distributed -- to make it consistent with the language we already have on page 4, it should read, lands managed by the forced service available for harvesting, because there are lands that are managed by the park service. they have no capacity to let timber contracts or anything like that. that is the amendment i would like to see, and i am happy to write it up and distribute it. >> my understanding is it would have to be written up and present it, but i will ask the parliamentarian. all right, i

polluting our skies the total a limitation of the departments of agriculture education homeland security housing health and human services energy interior labor and gummer's the t.s.a. the e.p.a. the f.d.a. the a.t.f. the n.e.a. courtesy of the iran libertarian whack a doodle zx who support by corporate fat cats instead of our country being run by the will of we the people another platform is an end to the federal income tax courtesy of rich guys like the koch brothers mitt romney who want you and me to pay the entire cost of running our government and opposition to hate crimes laws courtesy the far right who want to demonize gays african-americans and latinos they have more stand your ground shoot first laws courtesy of gun sellers like wal-mart who want legal cover when one of their guns is used to murder a member of your family. they want to reject a rejection of multicultural teaching in our schools courtesy of those like pat buchanan who believe that only white european history has any significance they want the promotion of creationism over evolution in our schools courtesy again of the religious right who thinks the earth is only

they believe there is a political correctness encroaching into the part of justice and the department of interior and justice and the fbi. it was said during the same thing with regard to the final years of the bush administration. what does that mean to you? washington is not san diego. >> i am aware of the comments you are making and the report did not find political correctness was in any way responsible for his lack of going forward with the interview. that is a snapshot of a conversation that took place. the agent on the receiving end did not recall that conversation. it is very hard for me to get into the minds of the one agent that did it. i did not believe political correctness had anything to do with this determination. i laid out the facts the way the agent did in the washington field office, what he used to make those decisions. again, it is easy to go back and second-guess. i believe an interview would have been prudent in this case, but i do not believe political correctness was the reason for that. >> sometime during the recess i would like to have the opportunity to speak to the wa

interior of the space. in terms of vacancy rates, there are approximately 11 other vacant storefronts throughout the district. the department has not received additional comments since the packets were published. there are approximately four people with concerns, however, they are predominantly about the renovation is occurring on the residential floors, which are not the subject of the conditional use. the project has been found to be both necessary and desirable, since it would serve a retail pharmacy back to the neighborhood. the project is well-suited for a formula retail tenant. it would improve active use. it would not increase the concentration of formula retail uses within this district. based on these findings of those articulated in the case report, the department recommends you approve. president fong: the weaker the project sponsor next? >> the project sponsor, and then the variance. >> thank you. andrew junius for the project sponsor. foremost, it is obvious we would like to get a pharmacy and reopened here as quickly as possible. there is not one in the area. the closest one is at market and church. the reside