dr. mcnutt. and thank you, mr. chairman. thanks very much. i really appreciate your consideration. >> again, thanks for being here today. we appreciate it. i think as our opening statements and our comments suggest, there are areas even in this climate of trying to reduce budgets, republicans and democrats agree and one of them is that the value of the usgs is one of the valuable science agencies in this government. and we have some real concerns about the direction that is -- that the budget is heading, whether it's from omb or whoever. it causes us is great deal of concern when we're reducing the resources for water management and water science. and for them to suggest that -- and i guess what they were saying is, your budget would have taken these cuts regardless of whether landsat went over to usgs or not. i have a hard time believing that, but -- and as we put more -- and i think the usgs is probably an appropriate place for landsat to go. but when you shift it over there, you need to take the money that goes with it and shift it over th

dr. mash sha mcnutt, director of the u.s.st and social research professor at columbia university. great to have both of you back with us. marsha, let's begin with you. this is a very real scenario playing out in japan. what is the likelihood we will see it play out here on u.s. shores? >> well, i think that every time an event like this happens, it's a wake-up call for us here in america that we need to be prepared. now, the exact scenario that we saw happen here in japan could happen, actually, in the pacific northwest, because we know it did happen. brian atwater, who's a specialist at the u.s. geological survey, has looked back into the geologic record, and seen evidence that on the 26th of january, at 9:00 p.m., in the jeer 1700, there was an earthquake that generated a tsunami in the cascadeius subduction zone offshore oregon that generated a tsunami that was historically recorded in japan. and it was the same magnitude as this event. it happened then. it could happen again. >> james, this was almost 300 years ago that t