how could you be so sure about thaa? sure, and i'm more confiient today than i was in the past, is that we know that we do a lot of i knowwi willlhave additionaa questions on that. asswell, today, assthese smart teams are going out and investigating these, we have had 600 -- >> we were toll thaa you were lying on exponent's reseercc -'s research and their conclusionss they haae not finished their >> o, hey have not. >> you ere relying on what you were ttld about the work that was done in japan before the products were put into mass production. >> i rates -- i raised some concern abouu that in my opening statement. let's go back to exponent. we have been told that exponent that is why exponent is doing- this work. i just cannot understand why you say you aae more certain noww than you were then -- you do not have exponent'')s report. you will have a peer review. why are you doong all of thaa if you are bsoluuely convinced+%+ baseddon the otherrwork that you are doing? >> because we want to nssre the publlc and our custome

it looks like today will stay shorr of thaa, because of lack of sunshine.at moves down south as it does, it drags the moisture with it. taking a look out to the midwest these temperatures will be working their way in our direction and getting near 80 for tomorrow for daytime high.út tropical storm named system of it could be alex. we will keep you posted. wayy n the bahamas and we will have to wait and see. 62 toniiht, partly cloudy skies and on clouds radar, future scan, maybe a pop up shower later on this afternoon but for the most part we will keep cloud cover with peeks of sunshine here and there but not everywhere. here is the forecast as we see it right now. in the eastern shore we're going with 77 degrees, cloudy skies here in central maryland right around the 74, 75-degree mark with the cloud cover. and in western maryland more sunshine but a little cooler, 72 degrees. seven-day forecast looking like this, you know all of about today with a little peek of sunshine. 80 tomorrow, 86 could be near 90 if we get enough sunshine and depending on what the

we're doing all we can to assist the struggling fisherman and small businesses and communittes thaa depend on them. folks on the gulf coast and across america are rightly -pdemanddd swift action to clean up bp's mess and end the ordeal. they are also demanding to know place and howwwe can maae sure this never happens again. that is what i would like to spend a few minutes talkinn to you aaout. first and foremostt what led to the disaster was a breekdown of responsibility on the art of bp, and perhaps others, including transferocean oceen and halliburton. we will hold them accountable for the cause, and shutting it down, nd repairing the damage. even as we continue to hold bp accountable, we also need to hood washington accountable. this catastrophe is unprecedented and presents a host of new challenges we are working to address. the challenges what lessons we can learn from the disaster to make sure it never happens agaan. if the laws on our books are inadequate to prevent such a spill or if we did not enforce i want to know what worked and what did not work in thee response to the disaste

someday soon, you'll realize thaa.rategic decisions of war and peace weigh heavily on any leaders shoulders. ps our president has often said, when the allies of our citizens hang in the balance, it is never a decision to take lightly. in december, the president came here to wwst point o unveil hhs nee strategy. veryysoon, many oo ou willlbe called to ennct that strategy o3 it is most fiiting their president should address you on the occasion of your commissioning into a world in which she will play a decisive role as leaders of character and champions of freedom. of theseeoutstanding men and women before us. they will serve the nation, loyal to the end. >> thank you for 39 years of remarkable service to the aamy [applause]rica. thank you for your service. and for inspiring these cadets to be, the leaders of character they are today. knowledge the presence of general shinseki% the members of congress who are with us here toddy, including . to all the famiiies here, especiilly all the moms and dads, this day is a tribute

to continue thaa metaphor, this is the time of year in which we still have four term papers do. [laughter] and we have an internal deadline, all opinions must be circulated by june 1, and all cases will be announced by june 30. we are the only branch of the government gets there work done on time every single year, thank you very much. [laughter] [applause] and the process begins with applications to hear cases. they're called petitions. we get about 9000 of those every year. it is like doing pushups every morning. capital spent arguing over what cases to take. it takes four votes to hear a case, and anyone of us can put a check mark on the petitions and all of us discuss it. we meet. the term. it takes four votes to hear the case. if there are only four votes and you think is very important, it is not really a major loss. if you are right and it is important, it will come back. there are many cases that we see that are wrong. we don't take them. because if you just do error correction, it wouud go on forever. we wait until there is a conflict among the courts, or if there is a

may it lead us to some additional steps thaa may be taken to avoid such horrific, such terrible loss of life in the future. >> senator byrd, thank you mary much for your very profound statement -- very much for your profound statement that gets to the heart of why we're here. ask had asked some questions earlier for mr. main and -- i had asked some questions earlier for mr. mayne and miss smith -- mr. main and miss smith. i yield to you for any questions you might have. >> thank you, mr. chairran. yes. my first question is addressed to assistant secretary main. m-a-i-n. given the disturbing safety record, and i mean disturbing safety record, and the reputation of this particular mine, why, oh, why, oh, why, did msah wait until after the tragedy to launch an inspection blitz? this coal mine has a history and of patterned violations. >> mr. main? >> senator, that is a fair question to ask of this body. i think for those to understand why we did the blitzes we did is to make sure we had no other upper big branches that existed. >> can you understand him? >> i am tryying to listen. -- tr

so therefore we're having to engineer solution that's as thaa very unique situation. i don't ink that could be predicted by anyone. we are learning a lot through this and i think the subsidy capability and some of the specific capability that the industry needs to put in place and the regulators need to look at, i believe we'll learn through this and i believe we're going to need to do some of that. >> can you assure me that the atlantis rig that some think could be questionable and an expert engineer, i don't know if you used to work for you all or not, has questioned that it is secure and doesn't need some type of review? >> the atlantis is a production platform. the have been some allegations made that all the drawings weren't there. we did an internal study and i unrstand how to read in detail but i understand all the drawings were there to safely start up and operate that platform as well as meeting regulations. the mms is looking into that. we've done an internal investigation an investigation and the mms is going to look into it which we welcome and will fully