inez tenenbaum is the former superintendent of schools in south carolina. this is a little less than an hour and a half. >> i'll go ahead and call us to order here. i want to thank miss tenenbaum for being here and i also want to thank senator rockefeller for asking me to chair this today. we are on a relatively tight time frame here because we have a vote scheduled on the senate floor at 11:45. so what i propose with my colleagues's indulgence i'll do a very brief opening statement, senator hutchenson is on her way and if she wants to do an opening statement and i'll introduce our brointroducers an we'll let our nominee speak and we'll try to keep our questions to five minutes. we understand there's several senators on the way but they've encouraged me to get started given our time frame this morning. i'm very delighted to have miss tenenbaum here. she is a real breath of fresh air. i'm glad that the white house saw fit to nominate her. i knew that we were in pretty good shape when the day she was announced we had several consumer groups as well as busines

thank you very much. >> inez tenenbaum you come very highly recommended. we appreciate your interest in public service in your willingness to take on this agency and all of its very, very important tasks and responsibilities that it has to be would be delighted to hear your opening statement. >> good morning mr. chairman, ranking member hutchison's members of the senate commerce science and transportation committee. first of all i want to say thank you to mighty senators, jim demint and lindsay graham. it is an honor to have both of the senators from myte sta support me and i want to say that i appreciate so much your being willing to step forward in endorse me to this committee so thank you. i am honored by president barack obama's nomination of me to serve as the consumer product safety commission. i thanked the president for this tremendous opportunity and if confirmed by the senate i will do my utmost to ensure the safety and the well-being of america's children and families. i want to introduce my husband, samuel. he and i just celebrated our 20 that

this morning, this committee had a hearing on inez tenenbaum and her confirmation process. and she had real good ideas about how the cpsc can better communication dangers and recalls and safety and all this stuff to the general public. but one thing that struck me is most of her ideas -- not all, most of them dealt with people having broadband capability so they could receive this type of information from the cpsc. i would like to ask you about the broadband technology and opportunity program in the stimulus package. do you know much about that? and do you have a sense about how that's going to be administ administered? >> my understanding is it's the commerce department and the agriculture department that have the grant-making authority, the sec as i understands it has p s responsibilities to consult with those agencies as they put together the plans for distributing the grant. >> is your understanding the sec is involved in that process? >> my understanding is there's been consultation, yes. >> and is it -- are you happy with what you hear on that? or do you think the fcc

of a better person on a host of these issues to take them on in this new important role than inez tenenbaum. great to see you. >> thank you. thank you, chairman. hiking for three reason. everybody is going to inez. i will also. first, is both you and your husband are georgians and we're very proud of that. secondly you are a graduate of university of georgia and we're extra proud of that. but thirdly, i had the privilege of cheering the georgia board of education in the late 1990s when he became superintendent of education in south carolina and watched what you did in south carolina and i want to say anything that senator demint was absolutely correct. you get an absolute marvelous job and demonstrate the kind of attitude summit at the cpsc should have to deal with difficult problems. i really don't have a question. i want to do to endorsements. first, is what senator warner said. this is the chinese drywall situation is one of any number of product problems coming out of china. we obviously can't pass laws that regulate production in china, but we have gateways which are our ports and we h

i will try to give my to less than five minutes of i can inez tenenbaum, let me ask about your background. i think one of a very significant things you have send in your life is taking on this challenge there in south carolina with education system and. can you tell the committee how you think that as some to prepare you for the task that you have a this cpsc? can i thank you mr. chairman. as state superintendent of education and managed an agency with over a thousand employees. of that agency were to implement policy and regulations passed by the general assembly and we also work with the school district to provide a transportation, food seven less, to provide textbooks, to train teachers in an area of teaching and learning that it had i think what i wanted to know about that is that i had multiple projects going on at the same time paragon had various positions and we regularly had to implement legislation that was passed by the general assembly many times in a very quick fashion. i never tried to find legislation passed by the general assembly. if it wasn't perfect at the moment than a