daniel weiss is a senior fellow for the center at american progress. you touched on this earlier with regards to the solar panels on the white house. from twitter, "i'm not hearing anything about solar fuel." guest: the first concentrated solar thermal plant is under construction right now, i believe, in nevada. it concentrates sunlight on the one place using mirrors and it warms up oil or some sort of saline solution that is used to than generate electricity. that is a kind of solar electricity that can be effective even when the sun is not shining because the heat and energy is stored. i do not know that is what they're mentioning, but those first plants are under way here and there are some like this in europe. host: sarasota, fla., on the democratic line. caller: i would consider using ethanol to replace 85% of our gasoline in the passenger cars. it can be derived from two renewable energy sources like biomass. the amount of energy that you get in using biomass to produce ethanol is substantially larger. second, renewable energy sources and artur d

daniel weiss, explain for us as concisely and clearly as you can, why we have seen the prices go up so steeply so quickly and whether it has anything to do with what's happening in libya. >> absolutely it has to do with the instability in libya and the middle east. only a small portion, maybe about half of libya's oil production has been disrupted which is about 1% of total world oil production. what the market is worried about is that this is not going to be the end and that there will be unrest in other oil-producing countries like bahrain and particularly saudi arabia. so some of these high prices are based on speculation, fear that prices will go higher still. that's why we believe that when price gets a little bit higher and gasoline prices get a little bit higher, the president needs to act to pop that speculative bubble by putting oil into the market from our emergency reserves. >> ifill: yet we just heard that the white house, they're making the distinction between taking some sort of government intervention because of price hikes and taking it because of disruption. explain wh

daniel weiss examines the obama administration's energy policy in the aftermath of japan's earthquake in nuclear prices. claudia rosett discusses the role, composition, and effectiveness of the united nations and its relationship with the u.s. "washington journal," live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> we were writing off urban america. >> major business leaders, working to keep this city the center of the business world, on how york bank that position. >> with wall street reemergence, new york city was really pulled into the global economy and became america's gateway to that economy and has really prospered ever since. >> watch the rest of the interview sunday night on c-span q&a. >> the gerald ford presidential museum in michigan recently held its first annual symposium on ethics in america. the discussion focused on how public officials handle ethical issues, from the intent of the founders of the constitution to the use of e-mail but today's public officials. stephen for talks about how his father dealt with the dilemma of whether to pardon richard nixon after watergate. this e