rhode island will be their advocate. . everything toward helping those small businesses and we will get the state moving. >> mr. moffitt, how you address the two wanted million dollars shortfall in 2012? >> we will have to cut back. suggested that all departments in the state cut back 10%. some departments can cut back more than that and there are other departments that may not be ble to cut that much. i want to comment on the jobs. several of my opponents up here have talked about putting money into a loan fund. they have not said anything about where the money will come from. i put in a jobs bill about a week ago. i can say at least where i would get my $10 million. i would take it from the rainy day fund. my opponents say there would come up with $50 million but would like to know where the money will come from. >> we are running out of time. mr. chafee, rhode island is the worst day in the country when it comes to structurally deficient bridges. we are about to run out of stimulus money. how do you expect to tackle suc

in fact that is exactly what rhode islanders have done. john torgan, thenary gans et bay keep for the rhode island urk submitted a letter catalogging the legislative and other reforms put in place after the north cape skandia oil spill off the coast of capetown. we know how important penalties and fines are to keeping sea farers safe and marine ecosystems healthy. like my fellow rhode islanders, i insist that in the future oil companies do everything they can to prevent needless deaths whether in the gulf, of the coast of nonge or anywhere in our great country. today's hearing is an important step toward that goal and i applaud you for holding it, mr. chairman, thank you very much. >> thank you very much. our first witness is christopher jones. mr. jones is currently a partner at the law firm in baton rouge, louisiana. more important than his professional background, he's -- he's the brother of gordon jones who is one of the 11 rig workers who lost their lives the day of the explosion. gordon jones is survived by his wife michelle, two you

in rhode island are small businesses.can you give us again and update on the current state of lending to small businesses in particular and can you also give us an update status report on the term asset-backed lending facility as it relates to small business lending, and in your estimation to small businesses now have access to the credit they need to begin expanding and adding jobs. what do you believe the most effecte way the federal government can spur small-business growth and job creation? how do we jumpstart job creation and small businesses, which is the backbone of our economy at least in particular rhode island? the other thing is i would like you to get to, as i mentioned before, the deficit and are mounting federal debt is a larger concern for all of us especially given the recent volatility in the european market. do you believe our economy is stable enough to enact immediate deficit reduction measures and is if not what are the risks of a double-dip recession? finally what is the most effective way two of-- d

rhode islanders know what an oil spill can do to an ecosystem. how important penalties and fines are keeping sea farers safe and marine ecosystems healthy. i insist in the future oil companies do everything they can do prevent needless deaths and catastrophic harm whether in the gulf, off the coast of new england or anywhere in our great country. today's hearing is an important step toward that goal and i applaud you for holding it, mr. chairman. thank you very up. >> thank you very much, senator whitehouse. our first witness is christopher jones, currently the partner at keough, cox and wilson in baton rouge, louisiana. more important than his professional background, he's the brother of gordon jones, one of the 11 rig workers who lost their lives the day of the explosion. gordon jones is survived by his wife michelle, young sons stafford maxwell. one of the sons i understand was born very shortly after the accident. is that correct? >> yes. >> mr. jones, please go aled. the floor is yours. >> chairman leahy, ranking member sessions and other me

. >> reporter: rhode island democrat sheldon whitehouse tried to get at that point, asking about high-profile split decisions, driven by conservative justices. >> i want to ask you what you think about all these five to four decisions and what effort the court should make to return to a collegial environment that the court, where even these highly contentious decisions, like "brown versus board of education" and "roe versus wade" are driven either by unanimous or massive majorities of the court rather than the slenderest possible majority and to try to reach across the partisan divide on the court so it's not just republican appointees acting together. >> senator whitehouse, it's a hard question you pose, because on the... on the one hand, every judge, every justice has to do what he or she thinks is right on the law. you wouldn't want the judicial process to become in any way a bargaining process or a logrolling process. >> but by definition, if the court were to reach beyond the group of five that has driven so many of these recent decisions, they would be less able to move the law as drama

." >> logan: today, his idea is just coming to life here at the university of rhode island.rking with noaa, the federal ocean agency, created what he calls the "inner space center"-- the first-ever command and control center for ocean exploration-- that will stay constantly connected to three research ships at sea. >> ballard: our budget to explore our planet is only one- thousandth the budget of nasa. we're $18.7 million; they're $18.7 billion. >> logan: we had a chance to speak directly to one of the research ships, the "okeanos explorer." >> ballard: okeanos, inner space center. over. >> logan: the ship was in a remote part of the pacific, mapping american territory there for the very first time. can you tell us where you are right now? >> we are currently 1,000 miles northwest of the hawaiian island oahu. >> logan: in the middle of nowhere? >> in the middle of nowhere. >> logan: ballard believes the deep sea is rich with things we can't even imagine, and full of human history he hopes can be found and protected before it is plundered. >> ballard: the deep sea has more hi

coming up in rhode island for the vacancy of patrick kennedy, who is leaving the congress, we have a genuine progressive. david segal in the state legislature is going to fight for productive principles against basically a couple of corporate democrats.+ these are battles that have to be fought around the country by progressives, including in the primaries. the comments coming from the white house about how we were told a few days ago from the obama administration, that $10 million in arkansas was less down the toilet, we are going to ppsh back and say no, primaries exist for reason. we are born to do what robert kennedy did, what eugene mccarthy did in 1968. we are going to speak up and speak out. host: another comment, the elephant in the room is the military complex. andy is joining us from oxford on a republican line. caller: thank you for taking the call. i have one question and then i will hang up and wait for the answer. here in oxford,,we find our local school with property-tax is. if someone in trenton, new jersey wants to lower people teacher ratio and not raise pretax is t

pin: i yid two minutes to the gentleman from rhode island, mr. laevin. e sak pro tempore: th gentleman from rhode island is regnized for two minutes. r. langevin: i a unanimous consento revise anextend the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. langevin mr. speke, i thank thgentlelady for yielding and i re in strong suprt for thile and the underlyinlegiion that provides relief to small businees by exndinlendin opptunities and offering tax incentiveso help them grow small sinesses he absolutelthe backbone of the american econo, and the especially importa in home state of rhode islandre they make up of our employers. now, more than ever we have to assume ery poiblenu createoband gethe -- get none of us can be satisfied that our economys rforming where it shou be, espially in my ho state where we havehe fourth ghes unemploymentate inheation 12.5% none of us can aept that status quo right now. anongrs st absoluty support the owth othe small business and help stimate e re eine of our nation's economy. american prosperitabsoluly depen on the success of sm

. -- rhode island has one of the later primaries.ly not until the timber 14. -- september 14. but they really took a different turns in how they would deal with the state budget crisis and trying to distinguish themselves from one another. host: in last night's debate, how did they differentiate themselves? guest: the treasurer is the democratic front runner right now. he's came out with a small business plan. -- he came out with a small business plan. what is interesting about this race is that someone that good stuff in the wind is the independent candidate, lincoln chafee. he is a long time named in the state. his father was a senator there, too, and was defeated in 2006. he is now trying to see a resurgence and get back into the governor's mansion there. he is proposing to do with the state's budget crisis -- to deal with the state's budget crisis, a 1% tax increase. in this economic climate, it could be interesting to watch to see how proposing a tax increase could work. host: what do the latest polls say? guest: the latest poll

with this oil being depleted, you are going to end up with a big cavern, maybe the size of rhode islandwe don't know, and i'm wondering if some day that roof will fall in causing more sue nammies -- tsunamis, more earthquakes. guest: the plastic bottles, i think it raises an important ge about whether the -- important questions about whether the solution is going to be worse than the cure. there are a lot of -- particularly from the audubon society's perspective and think ing of the impact on wildlife and birds and habitats, bringing in bulldozers, heavy vehicles, untrained volunteers, there is a lot of potential for disturbance of basically the nesting season for the birds down there right now. host: what is your concern about the chemical disbursement? guest: we have a toxic science speerment going -- expeerment -- expirament going on in the gulf of mexico. so it is a concern about impacts on individual wildlife species, but also it is really about the health of the ecosystem with this experiment we're doing with that amount of a toxic chemical being released in the ecosystem. caller:

host: next question comes from riverside, rhode island. allen on the independent line. caller: when they take a will in louisiana, do they have a royalty per barrell? how does that work? guest: if you are a few miles offshore, that is waters that when an american company applies for a lease, they have to pay certain royalties to the u.s. taxpayers. unfortunately, which is why i say this disaster is a decade in the making, in the past, there has been a slow motion decline in the oversight of oil companies and drilling especially in deep water. there has been a loosening in the amount of royalties being paid to the american taxpayer. one of the items involved in our legislative agenda is to increase the amount of royalties that big oil paid to the american people for drilling in our oceans. host: in support of bp, duncan tweets -- guest: gee, had a heart -- have a heart out there. these are fishing vote captains, small mom-and-pop restaurant owners. in florida, we have chosen not to industrialized our coastline. we rely on tourism, clean water, clean beaches. folks are an

. >> the senator from thod rhode island. point where it has again -- we have a long way to go before robust recovery takes hold and becomes self sustaining. the measure is a vital part of our continuing effort to strengthen our economy. principles of transparency, accountability and fairness to wall street. fundamentally transformed how we protect consumers, families, and small business from reckless and abuse of financial practices. under these measures, previous measures, that we are changing now, big banks cannot continue to specclate and take thhs risk, ripping billions of profits while counting on taxpayers to bail them out. they will not be able to make loans they know cannot be repaad. they will be robustly regulated. i look ffrward to crafting the best possible bill from all the different provisions in the senate and house bill. let me briefly mention a few points that i think are worthy of note. first this legislation establishes a new office of financial research. there represent an important step toward understand

from this rhode island center and the oklahoma senator, both members of the judiciary committee. >> my hope is with your stiller academics and still intellect that your patriotism will be just as stiller. that in fact, you will set a new course to set a new president for the committee -- precedent for the committee, so that the american people can find out what the justice is all about. this is my fourth hearing. it is obvious from what we have heard in the previous hearings, that they're not predictive of the decisions of nominees. that is schizophrenic. why should we have this dance of we're not going to find out really answers about real issues about what you really believe? >> so lead the supreme court seems to be buying what corporations are selling. the exxon v. baker decision rejected a jury's award of $5 billion in punitive damages, only one year's profits for exxon. and reduced the award by 90%. anything more than the compensatory damage award the court reasoned, would make punitive damages too unpredictable for corporations. the judgment of the jury and the wisdom of founding

it is the equivalent in terms of size of delawe, rhode island nd connectut combine think of that geography. hundreds of square mile that's what this is. just rectly itwas announced at uerwater umes, not just the surface plume picted here, have been detected 150 mes away in distae from the original site of the oil spill. locall what that mns is essentially we ve an oil spill, a surface oil spill, that covers the terriry that uld be the equivalent of the distance between washington, d.c., and newk city. that's as of today. in my district, th 11th virginia, that wld mea starting at dale city and going as far as wilmington,delaware, that's the ick oil spill. the broader oil spillas i said wouldo all the way to new york city. that's an extraordinary stretch in terms ofhis oil spill. this oil spill could have been preeventualitied. in 1969 an oil well spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil on a lifornia coast. in respons, like -- to this and other environmental issues like the burning of th cuhoga river, congress passed the national environmental picy act in9. act in9. epa requires companies to pl

also, senate armed services committee jack reed, democrat from rhode island, and georgia republican,bliss. you can listen to all of those talk shows starting at noon eastern on c-span radio at 90.1 f.m. in the washington, d.c., area. you can listen live on the web at cspanradio.org. you can follow us on facebook and on twitter. >> tonight on c-span2's "book tv," sarah ellison. after that, the discussion with the reporter who was caught for 45 days and kept in a cell. after that, bill bennett -- the author of more than 20 books for adults and children. you can run the entire schedule at booktv.org. join us on twitter. more than 30,000 viewers already have. >> what is the internet? monday, a look at the fcc's efforts to reclassify the internet with two members of the house communications subcommittee -- john shimkus and mike doyle. that is on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> this is a change in personnel, but it is not a change in policy. general petraeus fully participated in our review last fall. he both supported and helped design a strategy that we have in place. >> learn more ab

i want to say to the gentleman from rhode island, wall street is going to be fine. for years to put on mr. rate that this is about wall street? come on. wall street is up. they are loving it. they've got people to work with regulators. they're going to be fine. is the community banks around this country that are going to be heard. many banks do not have teams of compliance officers to deal with the thousands of pages of regulations they are going to be dealing with. i have been pretty mild mannered but that is absolutely, categorically untrue. and senator bennett, i wonder if he is aware that you were taking $10 billion of the legislation to spend some place else, and some of the republicans -- were you ever created a class act of pay for it. we have created a long-term insurance policy that we knew was never going to be funded and we use that money to pay for a bill, and that is the same thing we're doing with his fdic fund. mr. chairman, i have deep respect for the way they view from -- you and its chairman from house i have conducted this conference and i appreci

then the governors' debate at the university of rhode island,, kingston. this sunday, c-span takes you inside the supreme court to see the rarely seen spaces. hear directly from the justices. the supreme court, hold it to america's highest court, this sunday at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> federal reserve chairman ben bernanke says he expects the u.s. economy to continue to grow through next year but worries that federal funding appears to be on an unsustainable path. he testified before the house budget committee for a little more than two hours. >> one, two, >> we need to discuss -- still lie ahead of us. we are pleased to have as our witness the chairman of the federal reserve system, ben bernanke. when the 111 congress began the current administration took office the economy was shrinking at an annualized rate of negative 45%. a year-and-a-half later the economy has experienced it straight quarter of economic growth in putting 5.6% growth in the fourth quarter of 2009 and 3% in the first quarter of 2010. the chart will illustrate that. a year and a

we look at a prime pick up opportunity in rhode island. a republican senator -- we were going to take him out. next thing you know, the environmentalists were backing him. the women's groups were backing him because he votes with them on certain issues. that's fantastic, but we won that set up by a single seat. had he won, if half the progress of and had tried to win, james and half would have been chair the committee in the senate. -- james ibhofe would have been at the chair in the senate. it was not just the republican party. the gauge in the primary in connecticut that year. joe lieberman, list of the progressive movement back him because he has been good with us over the year. how did that work out? i don't think any to tell you guys. [laughter] in illinois, another congressman represents the chicago area district, we tried to primary him because he was terrible on the issues. but labor back into the hill and we don't have the ability to single-handedly go against a heavily labor-backed candidate. it turns out he was the only democrat

nuclear plant or one -- or a couple of coal-fired plants, you would have to have the space of rhode islandthese are things that we should do, but it is going to take 25 to 50 years to do these things. host: the opinions of: on which it appen with the legislation in the country. -- the opinions of glen. we also have mike. what would you like to talk about? caller: i want to talk about two subjects, and don't you cut me off because i know in the past when people bring up these two subjects, you limit their conversation. and the subjects are [unintelligible] and when someone has the opinion against israel. don't you shut me off. i want to know why as americans we have billions of dollars and we still do not control our borders. is this because they want to replace the americans with mexican workers? host: what is the way to control the border? you you caller: is, drafted means like every other -- caller: you use, a trusted means like every other nation. the unmanaged and line it. but let me get on to israel. [unintelligible] i wish you would have more conversation, pros and cons, because you

and in fact he mentioned in 1790 , in less letter to the hebrew congregation in new rhode island, the children and the stock of abraham continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of the other inhabitants. everyone should sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there should be none to make him afraid. may the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness on our path and make us all useful here and make us everlastingly happy. this is a book that was put together by presidents, inspiring faith from leaders of the past. these are direct quotes. just finish with a couple of things from lincoln. this is from august 12, 1861, the first year that abraham lincoln was president, this is his own words, whereas when our own beloved country once by the blessings of god united, prosperous and happy is now afflicted with faction and civil war it is pe kuhl yarly fit for us to recognize the hand of god in this terrible visitation and in remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals, to humble ourselves before him and to pray for his mercy, to pray that we may

under his leership on these issues for years, i yield two minutes to mr.angevin from the state of rhode island. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. langevin: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. langevin: i want to thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker, i ristoday in strong support of h.r. 5026, legislation to protect our national electric grid system. i particularly like to thank chairman markey for his outstanding leadership and dedication on this important national security issue. i know he's given great time and effort on this and i thank him for that. i'd also like to ank chairman waxman for his attention to this issue. and let me also mention, i'd like to recognize and thank my good friend, mr. thompson, chairman of the full meland security committee who worked with me in 2008 to hold hearings and to close examine actions our country must take to prevent attacks on our national electric grid. two years ago i testified before chairman markey's subcommittee about the threats t

we look at a prime pick up opportunity in rhode island. republican senator -- we were going to take him out. next thing y kw, the enronmentalists were backing him. e women's grps were backing him because he votes with them on certain issues. that's fantastic, but we won that s up by a single seat. had he won, if half the progress of and had tried to win, james and half would have been chair the committee in the senate. -- james ibhofe wld have bee at the chair in the senate. it was not just the republican pay. the gae in therimary in connecticut that year. joe lieberman, list of the progressive movement back him because he has been good with us over the year. how did that work out? i don' think any to tell you guys. [laughter] in illins, another congressman reesents the chicago area district, we trd to primary him because he was terrible on the issues. butabor bk into the hill and we don't have the ability to single-haedly go against a heavily labor-back candidate. it turns out he washe only democrat in a blister to vote against the health

kind of know where you're drilling, tankers can one of in laska, ce, whether it's a california, rhode islandw jersey. tankers will be all over the place. france.t of now, i think w need to realize, if we as a country decion stop drilling in the gulf, we are e decision to import more o, and statiscally, imptation via times more ee likely to result in a ill. now, folks have to adjust their thinking, but in reali, illing is safer than transporting oil by tankers, an thas historil statistics. so i don know the partirs nathan, but i can commenin gener regarding the environmentaconcerns. host:ne more call. cary, cinnnati, republican line. the : m wonderinwhy he relief well at they're going to have august, isn't a retirement before they drill the in wel guest: that's one of the suggestions that is oating tre, which is y simultaneously drill two wells. clearly that increases your leaking, o so it increases you chance of problems by two. on the other hand, if there you wou cross and be able to interrupt the flow in the leaking well. that's one of f the things bein >> during the exxon but these will s

we look at a prime pick up opportunity in rhode island. a republican senator -- we were going to take him out. next thing you know, the environmentalists were backing him. the women's groups were backing him because he votes with them on certain issues. that's fantastic, but we won that set up by a single seat. had he won, if half the progress of and had tried to win, james and half would have been chair the committee in the senate. -- james ibhofe would have been at the chair in the senate. it was not just the republican party. the gauge in the primary in connecticut that year. joe lieberman, list of the progressive movement back him because he has been good with us over the year. how did that work out? i don't think any to tell you guys. [laughter] in illinois, another congressman represents the chicago area district, we tried to primary him because he was terrible on the issues. but labor back into the hill and we don't have the ability to single-handedly go against a heavily labor-backed candidate. it turns out he was the only democrat