mr. collins, mr. dickerson, thank you. we look forward to sharing information to the extent that at's possible in the month ahead and learn from what you're doing and encourage you to do more of it. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> we are going to take a 15-minute break. we'll be back here at 3:30. we expect senator landrieu and congressman scalise to open the conversation at 3:30 and then at 4:00 we're looking forward two hours of public comment. so back here at 3:30, please.un somehow recover from this disaster emotionally, that's affecting all of us. >> thank you for this opportunity to speak. shortly after may 28th when president obama ordered the suspension of deep water off shore drilling, lieutenant governor scott engel formed a grassroots initiative to bring together the many voices you'll hear today and tomorrow. these are local leaders. these are trade associations, economic groups, chamber of commerces, business leaders, and the people of the gulf coast that will be drastically impacted by the

mr. collins, do you have anything to add? you thought you would be able to leave without answering a question, but i'm going to try to remedy that. you mentioned the vessel calms it down. can you elaborate on that? how far down? you said you can't pinpoint the exact cause, but do you think there is a connection? i do think there is a connection although it is very hard to quantify. i know two weeks ago through the statistic report and on the mississippi river there were 157 vessel calls for that time of year compared to 2009. i also know that the port director or a suftant port director at the port of mobile estimated they were down by about 25%. those were the only two numbers that we have a handle on. i have seen things that i'm always careful and would assume that's correct and i've assumed grain companies in the midwest and maybe sending grain and rail cars to either east or west coast ports out of fear that the mississippi river would be closed. i'm not sure if that's accurate, but it was advertised by a grain consortium

mr. collins, mr. dickerson, thank you. we look forward to sharing information to the extent that that's possible in the month ahead and learn from what you're doing and encourage you to do more of it. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> we are going to take a 15-minute break. we'll be back here at 3:30. we expect senator landrieu and congressman scalise to open the conversation at 3:30 and then at 4:00 we're looking forward to two hours of public comment. so back here at 3:30, please. what's the national commission will continue its next public hearing with the bureau of ocean energy management, local elected officials, have the economical and social effects of the bill. you'll be able to watch that at o'clock eastern. we spoke with the protesters outside of the hearing today. c-span[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> what are you protest and? >> this is a huge environmental disaster, and bp has been censoring the truth and is re

collins. >> thank you, madam chair. mr. metzler, was mr mr. higginbotham responsible for the management of the information technology efforts at the cemetery? >> yes, ma'am, he was my designated person to work on that program. >> were you aware that at least $200,000 had been spent for the development of an internment scheduling system even though a product had never been developed. >> i was aware that that program was under development, yes, ma'am, i was aware that that was almost completed and it was stopped -- i guess i shouldn't have used the baseball analogy but that's what i was referring to that program was being updated and almost completed when the investigation start and that stopped everything dead in its tracks. >> what is your assessment of the information technology contracts that the cemetery entered into? >> i'm not very familiar with that, ma'am. that's really the contracting officer's responsibility, i just have a very general knowledge of it. >> were you aware that millions of dollars were being spent on the i.t. contracts a