senator hutchinson mentioned outreach. we think that's critical in the development of our guidance and as we continue to move forward with the national rail plan, we believe that's fundamental, that we need to reach out and engage the very stakeholders right from the inception of all this. particularly pleased that in the seven outreach sessions we've conducted so far, nearly 1,200 people participated with a high level of enthusiasm and with a great deal of very, very beneficial comments that were in fact incorporated into the guidance that we just released. our success is going to determine -- be determined by these partnerships. and like the construction of the highway system, states are going to play a very critical role. we're on track, and we're using essentially the same model that the europeans did in their rolling out of high-speed rail. our near-term strategy seeks to advance new expressed high-speed corridor services that speeds over 150 miles per hour in corridors of 200 to 600 miles. and then for corridors of 1

and we have had the good fortune to work with senator hutchinson over the years.i must say she was a light at the end of the tunnel on a few -- really tough -- really tough moments that we had. it's a pleasure to work with you. thank you, mr. eckels. please. >> we have enjoyed with working with senator hutchinson on high-speed rail in texas and into our current process. before you -- i want to thank them for their help with me as a party person getting in my testimony today on airplanes and i appreciate their support and assistance. i also want to thank ranking member -- there we go, ranking member thune and all of the senators for being here today and the interest that you have in this project in our state and these projects across the country. i believe this it technology will support transportation immobility in the united states, and i know am by no means alone. governor rendell made the good point about high-speed inner city rail to find $185 miles an hour and higher is we think the most important thing to remember is when you talk about high-speed rail is ev

in january, 2003, representative hutchinson was confirmed by the u.s. senate to be the first undersecretary of the newly created department of homeland security. where he served until 2005. he subsequently found the asa hutchinson law group in 2008 with his son, asa iii. andrew grossman is the heritage foundation senior policy analyst. before being named in january 2008, mr. grossman was a writer, editor and general analyst at heritage. contributing to the think tank program on economic policy, foreign policy and legal affairs. mr. grossman is a graduate of george mason university school of law where he served the senior article of the george mason law review he received his master from the university of pennsylvania in 2007. in 2002, he received his bachelor's rieg in economics in anthropology from dart -- dartmouth university. he's litigated several post-9/11 civil liberties cases in which the government has invoked the state secret privileges including al-massry vs. united states a challenge to the abduction, and torture of an innocent german citizen

. >> congressman hutchinson come those who oppose often argue that it is the president of the executive branch, not the court that has greater expertise and responsibility for safeguarding national security. did you underestimate the responsibility of the courts in our cost digital scheme, your testimony says york times to overstate to avoid exposure, does the argument also overlook the potential conflict for the government in the case with the information that seeks to withhold information that might be embarrassing or provide information about illegal conduct? >> the key point is that we have to give the courts but tools and a guidance to ensure an independent review. any language, such as substantial deference would undermine that independent review in terms of the ability of the courts to wait expert testimony, that is what is marvelous about our judiciary and our rule of law in our country, is that you can have a judiciary -- they don't have to be experts on patent law to make of decision, or an expert in the engineering to make, i would trust the expertise of the courts, under nor

asa hutchinson back to the committee. i would like to ask, as i was able to hear most of the testimony and review some of it in print and look back over the history of this country and wonder when it is that i have been alarmed that the state secrets doctor nor executive privilege has caused some want to lose their rights or privacy or made the nation less safe. is there anything in history we need to know about that we were not able to learn from because it was ruled in executive privilege? my question is, what are we trying to fix? >> i am not coming to this hearing in a critical fashion. others have had different experiences. i am coming to this from the standpoint that regardless of the history of it, we have the responsibility to make sure the potential for abuse is minimized by a system of checks and balances. and come to this as a conservative. i do not believe in the executive branch anymore than i believe in the judiciary branch. we all have checks and balances. to say the executive can assert a state secret priv

hutchinson, is back. mr. wisner, you are a relative newcomer here, but we welcome you, and is no secret that what we are going to see and do here today is going to the information for everybody to help decide how we resolve this situation. thank you for your indulgence, chairman nadler. >> thank you. mindful of the schedule, i would ask that other statements submit their statements to the record. the chair will be authorized to declare a recess in case there are folks on the floor. we will alternate between majority and minority. members who are not present will be recognized to ask their questions. i would like to introduce our panel of witnesses. the honorable patricia walsh, who is it has had a distinguished legal career. see served in the d.c. circuit, serving as chief judge until 1991. she was also the judge with the international criminal tribunal and was a member of the president's commission on intelligence capability regarding weapons of mass destruction. she clerked for judge frank and received a b.

and there was ann hutchinson, of course, but there is no paper, there are no archives left by ann hutchinson in her own words. everything that we know about her has been written by men. and then, there was abigail adams, and she left letters, and as i started reading her letters, it was love at first letter. and i realized, i could work on abigail adams and there were at the time very few biographies of her. that had been written in recent tim times. there had been biographies around world war ii but no contemporary biographies of abigail adams and i started out writing a biography of abigail adams and this was a good 30 years ago and finished it and it was a chronological history of her life from birth to death and just about the time i was ready to publish, a couple of biographies did come out about her and a realized that my biography was not different than the other biographies, that came about. came out about her and the salient thing about all of them was that all of her biographies had as its protagonist, main character, its hero, john adams. and the reason was that john was

thank you. >> senator hutchinson. >> thank you, mr. chairman.et me start with judge eckels and just ask that -- well, let me first state that i hope there will be funding tore projects other than those that may be further along than the texas t-bone, and if you could apply right now for federal funding in part of this stimulus, what would you ask for it to do? >> today, our biggest need is the market and environmental engineering studies. before we go on the ground with a system we want to make sure that it's a system that will be viable, will have the market that will support the system. unlike the east coast, we don't have regular service between houston and dallas today. so to develop one we need to make sure that we are building a system which can be priced so we can compete with the automobiles, with the aircraft and also to keep an operational system. i do think bringing the discipline of the marketplace to the system can help set a fair schedule and construction, you know, of the technology that will make sense and would be viable for the

in january 2003 representative hutchinson was confirmed by the u.s. senate to be the first undersecretary of the newly created department of homeland security where he served until 2005. visas supinely founded the asa hedges and law group with his son, asa the third. and your grossman is the heritage foundation senior legal policy analyst. before being named as senior legal policy analyst mr. grossman was the writer editor and analyst at heritage. contributed to think-tanks research program in domestic and economic policy, foreign policy and legal affairs. mr. grossman is a graduate of the george mason university school of law resurgence in your article editor to the lardy. receive his master's degree from the university of pennsylvania. in 2002 he received his bachelor degree in economics and anthropology from dartmouth college rate edited the dartmouth review. ben wizner has been a staff attorney at the aclu since 2001, specializing in national security human rights and first amendment issues. u.s levigate several civil liberties cases in which the

senator hutchinson, i have great respect for the leadership you bring to the committee and i

senator hutchinson and then it's all up to senator udall from new mexico. he's going to fix the whole problem. >> senator lautenberg, on your way out the door, i just want to thank you very much for this hearing, sir. and high-speed rail is critical. it's just really critical. i want to pick up on senator thune's comments about the funding. senator thune, i just wanted to pick up on your points about the funding because it's very critical. this $13 billion standing alone just can go so far. but in my state we had an election about putting in $9 billion funding package, and the people voted aye which was kind of remarkable given the latest votes that we had. so, you know, the people there really understand it. and our system, and i think -- i bet most everybody in this room has been to my state. it will eventually connect sacramento, our state capital, to san diego in the south. that is the first phase will be between los angeles and san francisco, points in between. i also want to point out the private sector has to be leveraged into this too. in california

hutchinson. >> thank you, chairman nadler. it is good to be in your courtroom again. chairman conyers, it's good to see you. thank you for your distinguished leadership on the full committee. my good friend ranking member sensenbrenner, thank you for your leadership as well and all members of the committee. it's good to be back to a committee that i hold in fond admiration. as you know my background but my background has been principally in law enforcement and security. as well as in elective office but both as united states attorney, as head of the dea and then at homeland security, obviously, we handled national security matters, sensitive matters at the highest level. and i bring that background to this committee and i would emphasize certain principles that i think should be involved as you address this important legislation. first, as has been acknowledged this morning already, there is a national security interest in protecting state secrets. this is not a figment of anybody's imagination. there are state secrets. there are things that we don't want the public t

chairman, ranking member thune, ranking member hutchinson and members of the subcommittee, thank youor the opportunity to discuss high-speed inner city passenger rail and the american recovery and reinvestment act. the $8 billion provided by the act for high speed and other inner city passenger rail projects have focused more attention on and generated a great deal of anticipation about the possibility of developing high-speed rail systems in the united states. my testimony has two parts. i will discuss the factors that we have identified that affect the economic viability of high-speed rail projects and how f.r.a. strategic plan incorporates these factors. first, while the potential benefits of high-speed rail projects are many, these projects are costly, take years to develop and build and require substantial upfront public investment as well as potentially long-term operating subsidies. determining which, if any, high-speed rail projects may eventually be economically viable will rest on the factors such as ridership potential, cost and public benefits. high-speed rail is more lik

senator hutchinson, i have great respect for the leadership you bring to the committee and i look forward to working with you on the vital issues in the communications area. i would like to thank senator schumer for taking the time to introducing me and for his decision 24 years ago to give a young college graduate his first job. thank you for the chance to introduce my family. mr. chairman, it's a tremendous honor to have been nominated by president obama to serve as the chairman of the federal communications commission. and while this hearing is an honor for me it's even more so for my family. it's a celebration of the hopes and dreams that brought my parents to the united states about 50 years ago. my parents are immigrants. my father fled the nazi terror and ultimately came to the united stas. my mother joined him and together they raised a@@@@%7rrrr but the core lesson has remained with me. communications technology has the power to transform lives for the better. we've all seen and lived and many of the members spoke about it in their heap oeping statements. the i wemplications of t

i would like to echo also what the ranking member, senator hutchinson said about broadband a and. it is so important, i think, that we get the country connected. and as you, you know, if we look at the various points in our history where we weren't connected, with the railroads in the 1880s, we made a major investment, and we encourage railroads to serve the swier country. and when fdr in the 30s and 40s, we real liz looized we weren't connected with electricity. we brought electricity to rural areas with rural electric co-ops. i really hope that your tenure at the fcc shows the leadership to lead out on broadband. i applaud senator warner for the bill in thinking through how we put this in. one of the areas i would like you to think about and address in your opening statement is indian country with we have some real problems out there in terms of not only broadband and telephones. i remember when president clinton was trying to demonstrate the digital divide. and i think i told you this in our meeting. he started out in the silicon valley and ended up in ship rock, new mexico. th

senator hutchinson was asking him whether or not, in these difficult times, we might be able to allow some more consolidation and save some of our jobs. if you can tell, the very charmingly talked about his experience in the media, and it one of these on the one hand, on the other. we have to be careful about the marketplace. we're going to see a lot of that coming from him, trying to balance the needs of the advocates who have supported him greatly, and the businesses to say that we can't handle more regulation. >> i think he is a very good dancer. newspapers, the news business is good. i don't know if business is good, but i think the issue that the senator was raising speaks more to republican fears or worries about overreaching sweeping regulations that are going to be the anti market -- the anti martin administration. she was one of two republicans that came to the hearing. >> the senator was there briefly from south dakota. there was not a whole lot of republicans there. >> i want to go back to the media ownership before we move on. she was very clear about her position on this

great to have you back and senator hutchinson, thank you for your amendment on the floor that i think provided -- that tried to provide a more orderly process to dealership closings. we need to ask tough questions regarding geel dealer closings. there's no doubt that it's become an integral part of the stroir. if you ask any american, they'll remember fondly their first car, even if it's just the old family truck. it's tough for me to believe we're here today with two of america's automakers in bankruptcy. for folks across the country, jobs depend on chrysler and gm. because of the workers and thousands of others who depend on the auto industry, i support efforts to get the auto companies back on their feet. but i'm concerned about the process. i want to make sure that we're going to save as many american jobs as possible and taxpayers are going to see a return on their investment. there are towns that depend on local dealership for jobs and economic activity. we need to keep those communities in mind as we move forward. i hope today we can look into dealership closings in mind. i loo

thank you for your encouragement senator hutchinson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am pleased to be at this hearing and also to have the opportunity to have a texas presence at the hearing because you and i, mr. chairman, have worked a long time on amtrak keeping amtrak viable and i will say we have had a very productive partnership keeping the national part of amtrak also valuable, and i think it is essential and now that we are beginning to see the possibilities for high-speed rail and fink eight becomes even more important to have the national part of the system also have the opportunity for high-speed rail to connect into amtrak and therefore provide a better synergism and ridership and service both to amtrak and the high-speed rail i think will help ease the traffic congestion ekstrand in many parts of our work country. i was very pleased you mentioned the amtrak reauthorization bill last year. the first amtrak authorization bill before this last one was 1997 and i sponsored that one as the chairman of the surface transportation subcommittee and i think we di

she's worked tirelessly to bring it to the floor and i compliment the lady along with senator hutchinson for the outstanding job she has done as well. i encourage my colleagues to support this legislation and i continue to reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman continues to reserve. the gentlewoman from florida. ms. ros-lehtinen: thank you, mr. speaker. i'd like to yield five minutes to the gentleman from texas, mr. conaway, who's district covers -- whose district covers sweet water, texas, which is home to the wasp. this is where they train and where their museum is. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for five minutes. mr. conaway: thank you, mr. speaker, and i thank the gentlelady forgiving me some time to speak. it's my great pleasure to rise it to recognize the invaluable service by the women's air force service pilots during world war ii. their history is one of many surprising and impressive stories that helped define a generation. the early 1940's, as it became apparent that the united states could not avoid the wars that plaguing europe and t

this is about local communities as senator hutchinson described as senator rockefeller described throughout locally owned businesses as well as the employees and customers to depend onç them. gm and tom letter to are here today are co-owners of. josh chrysler, the business unlike, for decades with 40 workers of the largest employer because of what was going on, they actually had a rally this saturday, 400 people showed up here and i received a 1200 letters from people in this community that what this dealership to stay open. and the things that we are most concerned about the minnesota is, first of all, why there is in some kind of internal appeals process, chrysler cited, for those that think they have been wrongly targeted. when listing seven made in and knowledge by the auto industry in the past would lead one to believe there could be mistakes made in decisions about which auto dealership should beç terminated. we are concerned as one of the early co-sponsors because concern about the timing. some of these dealerships have been in business for decades and are given 26 days. on the gm

congressman hutchinson those who oppose government secrecy claims often argued that it is the president and executive branch, not the courts, that have the greater expertise and responsibility for safeguarding national security. this view in my opinion underestimates the ability of the courts and our constitutional scheme and seems to overlook what you describing your testimony as "the natural tendency on the part of the executive branch to overstate cleanse its secrecy and avoid disclosure whenever possible." doesn't the argument regarding superior expertise in the executive branch also overlooked the potential conflict for the government in the case of information that seek to withhold embarrassing, politically or otherwise might provide evidence of unlawful conduct can't or otherwise-- >> a key point is that we have to give the courts and that tools and the guidance to assure an independent review. any language such as substantial deference would undermine that independent review. in terms of the ability of the courts to wait expert testimony, that is what is marvelous about our judi

chairman thank you andç thinking ranking member hutchinson for holding this hearing at an importantemarks of so many of my colleagues about the importance of dealerships to kinase and also the very? that senator isakson just asked without a sales force had we remain viable but where i want to zero in and the questions i want answered are very specifigç which are two examples of dealerships that are closed in the san of florida. one is inç crisis and cheap doe and his dealership was perhaps a top seller and one ofçç the tp 100 in the country. and seems to me the kind of dealerships you'd want to see continue. the other one is central florida, holler chevrolet i have grown up in central florida on my life and it is synonymous with chevrolet in this central florida region. until chevrolet and ceased to exist the remember to and there would be the number one dealer in the central florida region. how in the world doesn't make sense for a dealership like that two also be on the list of closures. in addition to the fact there are one of the top sellers you have to have on florida they a

senator kay bailey hutchinson was in my class at law school at the university of texas and we've been friends ever since. and senator john corn anyone is on the senate judiciary committee. he could play the key role in helping move us to a new approach on judicial selections. i understand they've met with the president's counsel about judiciary vacancies in texas. i hope i can persuade them to play a broader role in putting an end to the current way of doing business. currently 67 vacancies in the federal courts and 22 of those are characterized as judicial emergencies. based on the size of the caseload and the amount of time the seat has been empty. short-handed courts cannot function properly, and many litigants who face lengthy delays and crowded dock et cetera are ultimately denied the justice they seek. the d.c. circuit has two vacancies, including the seat vacated by chief justice roberts. the district court has three vacancies. judge kessler's slot from two years ago, judge holden who -- and judge robertson who took status on december 31st. our court is swamped with guantanemo

chairman, you along with chairman committee rockefeller, committee ranking member hutchinson and said committee member demint requested our office began an extensive investigation into some of the issues brought to light during the hearing. we have already begun work on this review. today, i will first address to a major weakness is related to faa oversight of the aviation industry and then move onto operational differences between main line and regional carriers. first, the subcommittee hearing in april 2008 how late it weaknesses and faa risk-based or sipe system and air carrier compliance. wahler were identified save the lapse in southwest airlines' compliance, many stakeholders were concerned that they could be symptomatic of much deeper problems with faa's air carrier oversight on a systemwide level. for example in 2002, we reported faa needed to develop national oversight process is to insure that it is effectively consistently implemented. in 2005, we found inspectors did not complete 26% of plan inspections. last year we reported that weaknesses in faa implementation allowed c

. >> the ranking member of the full committee, senator hutchinson. >> thank you. of course i have been the chairman of this great subcommittee in having been a vice chairman of the national transportation safety board, safety is always going to be the highest priority on my agenda. and i will always remain interested, so get ready. i am going to be an active member of the subcommittee. but, seriously, having had the ntsb experience, we have made some great strides. as you know we still have two standards. for the regionals and the air carriers. but we don't anymore. we are now all together in the 121 category. but the fact is that some of the largest airlines have larger, also a safety programs and they have higher standards than even the minimum in 121. i know that is something you are going want to get, it is do we have the right minimum standard, or should we start stepping it up to be more in line with some of the larger air carriers? the troubling thing of course is that, four of the last five accidents that we have had in our country have been regional jets,

thank you, senator pryor and hutchinson. it's a great honor to accept the president's nomination. with your permission, i would like to introduce members of my family. first o all, without their love and support, i couldn't do this job. it is they who support the brunt of supporting an f.c.c. commissioner. so my love of my life, the wind in my sails is my wife jennifer. and also my wife griffin who is suited up to play in the beginning of the vienna little league town championship, their tournament. so he's been hitting in the .700's all season. applause is welcome. he pitched a no-hitter. and as you can imagine his coach is very eager to have him time tonight for the start of the championship. he came in suited up. he will leave shortly after my opening statement. my beautiful daughter mary shae. our youngest son cormic who calls himself coco. my sister, and my nephew clewiston. and my brother-in-law donny motes. >> sh and of course i oh everything to my parents. my father passed a way this february. our thoughts and prayers are with them but, especially today. i would also like