mr. alexander: thank you.n 1980, the republican leader, howard baker, became the majority leader of the united states senate, and robert c. byrd became the minority leader. according to senator baker, he went -- walked to senator byrd's office and said to him, bob, i'll never know the senate rules as well as you do. so i'll make you an offer. iecall a n surprise you if you'll -- i'll not surprise you if you'll never surprise me. senator byrd looked at senator baker and said, let me think about it. and the next morning senator byrd called senator baker and said, it' a deal. and that's the way they operated the senate in those four years when senator baker was the majority leader and senator byrd was the minority leader. they operated the senate during that time under an agreement where senator byrd was careful to try to give every senator the right of amendment. he thought that was very important. in return, he got back from senators who had amendments that many senators thought were frivolous or unnecessary, n

mr. alexander: thank you.in 1980, the republican leader, howard baker, became the majority leader of the united states senate, and robert c. byrd became the minority leader. according to senator baker, he went -- walked to senator byrd's office and said to him, bob, i'll never know the senate rules as well as you do. so i'll make you an offer. iecall a n surprise you if you'll -- i'll not surprise you if you'll never surprise me. senator byrd looked at senator baker and said, let me think about it. and the next morning senator byrd called senator baker and said, it' a deal. and that's the way they operated the senate in those four years when senator baker was the majority leader and senator byrd was the minority leader. they operated the senate during that time under an agreement where senator byrd was careful to try to give every senator the right of amendment. he thought that was very important. in return, he got back from senators who had amendments that many senators thought were frivolous or unnecessary,

. >> and i thank you, senator alexander. >> mr. secretary, we'll turn it over to you now. please take whatever time you require, and then we will hear from mr. bromwich. and then open the floor for questions. >> thank you, madam chair, and ranking member alexander, as well as distinguished members of this committee. let me say that, the way i look at this challenge facing the united states department of interior is that we -- there is a problem, and of obviously we have seen that problem and we have been living that problem, and working at it very hard since the deep ter explosion occurred on the evening april 20th. the president directed -- be relentle and work on this matter until we get it resolved. secondly, our job is to make sure we are learning the lessons of this horrific incident which happened in the gulf coast, and we will learn those lesson. and we also say, senator feinstein and distinguished senators, that today i'm confident and resolute that we will get through this, and at the end of geing through this inquest, i see happening the creation of a catalyst th

andy alexander for the "washington post" mrs. sah, the wife of dr. rajiv shah for improvement for the best part of education. andrew snyder, associate editor to plunder and chairman of the speaker's committee. donna leinwand, speaker committee member who organized this event. >> sean carroll chief of staff for usaid and guest of the speaker. kathy bunk of communications consortium, and skip, and in a writer for the international bar association among others. he's a member of the press club foreign corresponddnts and photography committee. thank you. [applause] two weeks after today's speaker was sworn in to lead the u.s. agency for international development a devastating earthquake struck eda. president obama instructed dr. rajiv shah to take charge of the u.s. response to this disaster just a few hundred miles away from the u.s. mainland. since then the u.s. government has committed more than $1 billion toward relief efforts in haiti and pledged another $1.15 billion at the donor's conference in april. of this funding usaid contributions total more