you work with the people, whether you think so or not. >> the next year, 89-year-old frank lautenberger that same year, bill baroni testified about the george washington bridge again. >> who told him to put the cones out? >> on september 5, mr. wildstein requested a one-week study be conducted. and then that began -- b conducted the following week and that began that monday morning. and the bridge folks and the port authority police department began putting the cones out. and as opposed to creating a three-lane special lane for ft. lee, it was a one lane special lane. >> bill baroni was not under oath during that testimony, but the next time he testifies about the george washington bridge, he will be. joining me now is the author of "empire on the hudson" a book about the history of the port authority. he's a visiting professor from dartmouth college. and martin robbins, a former port authority official and now with rutgers university. professor, how far have we come from the creators' vision of what the port authority should be to what we find the port authority to be now in this age

given me to walk into this hall, to stand, frankly, right in the area that the great senator, frank lautenberg, stood, to work here in this hall which is filled with such history, have the privilege of sitting there at the desk where you are sitting, mr. president, and even touch things that seem like they should belong in a museum, like a gavel from hundreds of years ago. to walk in here and see over our heads words like "courage," and "wisdom" and "patriotism." but most importantly, it's a privilege to walk here amongst my colleagues, all 99 of them, every single one senior to me in months and years served, in wisdom and in experience. it's my prayer, first and foremost, that i prove worthy of this incredible honor. but with all that said, i also realize that i joined this body at a time when congress isn't really thought that well of by the american public. in fact, this institutional -- institution's approval ratings are at an all-time low. i find that not surprising. even when i was running for this office, i encountered so much frustration in my days before i came down here, people who y

i'm proud to introduce the first-ever bipartisan reform bill with the late senator lautenberg. as many of you know, that's currently sponsored by 25 senators from both parties spanning the entire political spectrum. for the last six months senator udall and i along with other members of the senate worked tirelessly to improve that already bipartisan agreement. and we have made significant strides in this regard. the bill we have now is not the bill that we initially introduced. because we have carefully listened to stakeholders and made significant immeasurable improvements. a vast majority of states, west virginia included, have resource constraints and need the certainty of a strong federal program that develops risk assessments and regulations based on sound science. it's important to explain how they unequivocally help states and the american people with greater access to information. aiding in the understanding and response to such an incident as this. i guess the bottom line in that regard is that the lack of health and safety data on any of the chemical compounds, which

a cold and calculated move when he chose the date for new jersey's special election after frank lautenbergassed away. mr. christie was defiant in announcing his plan, scowling when reporters asked him about the cost of a special election. i don't know what the cost, and i quite frankly don't care. he said i don't think you can put a price tag on what it's worth to have an elected person in the united states senate. he repeatedly denied political calculations were at play. but advisers quietly conceded that adding it to the general election risked energizing democrats who outnumbered republicans by 700,000 registered voters in new jersey. so at the time, he had his own traffic study excuse. oh, the reason i'm having a special election in october rather than having them both the same day, saving people's time and money, especially people's time to vote, i'm just going to exploit this and have a separate vote for senate because i don't want all those minorities coming out and voting against me, right? >> that was part of it. but also, this money excuse is something that got him into trouble w

senate race had just finished in new jersey, lautenberg had beaten forrester. i was writing a piece on the next big election in new jersey, 2005, gubernatorial race. i got a phone call from bill palatucciless than a year after chris christie has been named u.s. attorney. bill palatucci wanted to make sure i knew as i prepared this piece there were republicans who were talking about chris christie and his potential gubernatorial future. it goes that far, all the way back to the beginning. his first major takedown, how it gets in this piece, it's an important to understand, was a guy who was a rising republican star in new jersey politics who had been running for the senate in 2002. the fbi raided his office during that primary and that fall chris christie as u.s. attorney sent agents out to arrest him, ticked off the "star-ledger." they have this picture of agents arresting jim trettinger. the power of that was that every reporter in the state over the next few years was going to hear from democrats that chris christie was using his office to go after democrats.

radio talk show host, and julie roginsky is former political adviser to new jersey senate frank lautenberg both of you. you know, there was a time, julie let's start with you, where you would not have expected to hear the words "fix," "disastrous," and obamacare in a democrat's ad for election. >> first of all, i agree with him, and i think i have for a long time that the rollout was disastrous. they seem to have gotten it under control. and in terms of fixing obamacare, that's something that democrats have actually been saying for a while. certainly, nobody's claiming the president was right to say -- maybe some people are, i certainly wouldn't claim the president was right to say that if you like your insurance plan or your doctor, you can keep it because, obviously, that wasn't true. if you look at the second part of the ad, he's actually not running away from obamacare. he's holding insurance companies accountable, not allowing them to get rid of you if you get sick. that's a major plank of obamacare, and he's on record, joe garcia, as supporting obamacare and opposing its repeal, so i

president, your predecessor, senator frank lautenberg of new jersey, was a leader and i was happy to be his partner in trying to get to the bottom of the danger of many of these chemicals. most americans mistakenly believe that this government reviews the toxicity ordaining of all the chemicals in use in this country. in fact, only a small sernlg are ever reviewed by -- small percentage are ever reviewed by the government. we in fact trust those who make and sell these chemicals to do the right thing, and many times they betray that trust and sell something dangerous on the market which we discover later after the damage has been done. so again, the role of the environmental protection agency, the center for disease control, the role of the federal government in monitoring these chemicals for the safety of businesses and families and individuals across america is essential, whether you live in the city of newark or chicago or coal country, u.s.a. so if we're going to go to war against the environmental protection agency, let us at least be honest about the critical role they play, an