my team members here are jim kennedy and keith kennedy. commissioner mirkarimi: i'm going to ask you to speak directly into the microphone. thank you. >> sorry. just to refresh your memory is about the three functional areas that you chartered in the audit, these are the three. they are important for a couple of reasons. one, we want to focus very much on the questions and issues that you presented to us. we have also had some differences with mta in terms of setting up meetings and perhaps trying to limit the scope of the meetings and the coverage we can do with any individual to a preselected items on this list. we do not consider these three areas -- they are interlinked. they're not stand alone. that is an artificial kind of separation. one of the first tasks that we had was to focus the audit on particular areas of interest. that cost us to make these items in scope. when we had our entrancts conference, we wanted to make sure we had but central subway project included. one of the other themes that we heard in the meeting is getting v

. >> jim, kennedy jinx consultant. i think from california stance point the low angle thing here is to make sure that the rules being written and regulations as to how we're going to establish eligibility criteria and ranking for infrastructure some 37 billion dollars and bonds being proposed is a real opportunity to make sure these considers are included. considers like that were they included in water bond, state water project we might have an outcome for this. >> thank you. one more. water assignment campaign. [inaudible] one part of this is politics. maybe we're a little too gentle, maybe you think of rational ideas of things happening. the 4 point 5 billion dollars for reservoirs and conservation and that's politics. so - the same applies to public engage meant. it's messy. we can't possibly expect to not have to deal with the rudeness and everything else. >> i think that's certainly true, although i'm not sure participants are incapable of dealing with that. they don't look like they would be steam rollered over

let's call it the harry truman, john kennedy, scoop jacksons. if you think of jim'saccount to the kind of coalitions you can build up was stronger than the democratic party's welfare state which has lopped off a large chunk of the economy that do depend on military matters, which don't have any great investment now in that party's control. i mean, there's quite a lot of people who have served -- do serve in the military, are fond of the military, who feel that that party doesn't pay attention to their well-being. and i think as a practical matter it's an opportunity for those who want to resist the -- i mean, it's not just, as jeremy said, that being pro limited government is not inconsistent with being pro strong defense as a practical political matter. the george mcgovern-barack obama welfare state is weaker than the f.d.r.-scoop jackson welfare party. >> i want to make one point about that. if you go back to the 19th century, instead of welfare spending we had civil war veterans pensions. and huge amounts of money were shoved out to reward people who had fought fo

jim moran, a democrat from virginia. that's one thing about these earmarks is we now know who they're from. $8 million for the ted kennedyor the u.s. senate requested by ed marky in massachusetts. >> and $800,000 for the audubon conservation curriculum in new york and virginia. that's requested by congressman steve israel, democrat of new york and james moran again of virginia. these are some of your favorites, tongue and cheek. >> yeah. i guess they are. they also have $4.8 million again for wood utilization research. we spend $105 million on that research since 1985. 25 years of research and they can't figure out how to use wood. so -- and the problem -- problem with the alternate engine is that it's anonymous so we have a list of 6,631 projects so far, $8.6 billion, about half of what it was in 2010 so there's progress being made but i think the message on november 2nd was zero earmarks, not just 50% reduction. >> back track just a second, though, how can that half a billion dollar engine be anonymous? i thought that's one of the things is every one was going to have their names on stuff. >> well, in the last congress