>> toyoda toll the committee that the company did not follow3 poctor..%+++ on march 8, toyota released a report criticiziig his work. two days before he press conference, the vice president of public relationssnoted in an e-mail to the colleagues the importance of finnshing the poll bbfore the event saaing, "we really, really need to get this donee especially with elites. we have a press conference on monday and ttey need our daaa to know what to say." at that press connerence, before exponent presented their findings, the spokessan for t they disparaged the doctor for the faults he identiiied, even though exponent it never did this analyyis either -- exponent never id this analysis either.3 buzzes there. [buzz] exponent added new steps to the experiment and is characterized others, all in an attempt to make his outcome seemed unlikely and to invent flaws in3 independent experts have defended dr. gilbert's approach, professor who reviewed the report at toyota's request and describe the experiment as a perfectly reasonable starting point. i do nottunderstand why the company is attracting -- to ind the root cause of%+ryin- ssdden, unintended acceleration+ ttey ought to be encouraging automotiveeexperts to come cause the problem based on ouu review, we remain concerned that this is not occurring. the committee asked ttyota and exponent to report all of their anallses describing their reports and research related to unintended acceleration or3 we skeddfor all contracts, agrrements, etcetera. it appears that they're only reggon work to date is the report attacking drr ilbert's the credibility. this is extremely troubling, given the fact that they have both informed the committee they at the issue of suddee, unintended acceleration. they have completed 80% of the sticking pedal recalls.. format recalls.eted 30% of thei- -- floor mat recalls. one significant improvement they could make would be tt install break override technology to accelerator and the break are priced at the same time, the break will -- are oppressed -- are pressed at the same time, the brakes will override the pedal. % toyota does not plan to oofer this option, even t the owner's expense. toyotaawill ot offer this to vehicles, even if the customer pays for it. since ourrfebruary hearing,%+ nntss and toyota appear to have improved their working relatiinship. they teel us toyota has beee working to address issues of poncern. they had commissiooed it wo%--d acceleration in vehicles. one study will be conducted by%+ nasa scientists, searching for possible problems associated with their hardware aad-psoftww. it will be completeddby the endd of auuust. phe second studd will be conducted by a paael of independdnt scientists selected+ by the national academy of sciences. it will ffer a comprehensive examination of unintended acceleration and a loo stronger manufacturers.s across all thii will be completed by who the fall. i would like to thhnk you both for yyur testimony and your pngoing cooperation. canceled -- outside counsel for itt responses to our request for pubsttntive briefingg. i wish we could say we received the same levvl of cooperation froo exponent. unfortunatell, exponent has they have modified it documents before producing them tt us. thht is in direet violation of toyota has hired to conduct an indepennent investigation haa hide from this committee.hing to mr. burgess, your opening statement. >> thank you for convening this important hearing. we welcome our wiinesses who are here today. our first hearing on the toyota's problems wwre almost three months ago to the day. we had a lot of questions, but was caussng the sudden,+% unintended acceleration eventt we're here for answers,,but it+ appears we will not be getting those. i was hoping tte hearing wws called because there was new information coming to the floor. in fact, we may be having this -phearing because ww found out that oyota did a poll. mr. chairman, if pulling iss found to be at a level of a high crime or misdemeanor, this would be suddenly and irrevocably silentt we're not going tt get those answers today. i am concerned that we continue to have hearings where wee phis is an important issue aad it needs to be resolveddfor thee safety of toyota's customers and it needs to be resolved ffr the future of automobile sales by that manufacturer. this hearinggssems prematurr.. toyota has commissioned exponen3 do a rrview of their vehicles to pead -- to find the cause of these events. -pthe nhtss has askeddfor nasa's failure anallsis by expprtt to take a look at the faiied electronics. that is a good hhng. we do ot have answers yyt. exponents has not found the answer to what is ccusing these even -- events. nasa is just beginning their study.. they asked nhtsa to not juut finn car is in question, but to tear it apart to find out nhtsa has founddtheir car aad has had it for almost three here is what they found, "%+to mr. chairman, i would ask these e-mails from nhtsa nd the minooity staff be included in the record. the car was delivvrrd on february 26. ttree months later, we do not- know the reason that sommthing went wrong, never mind answers to the other events that are so that is not surprising. ttese are very complicated involved electronics, software, and meehanical issues. finding the right answer is theeimportant part is finding the right answer and not rushing otherwise, it will be impossible to identify the riggt solution. if we do not find the right solution, the cars are not ssfe. toyota's reputation willl cootinue to ssffer.%+ we are in the investigative3 we should not draa conclusions about the nature of the comprehensiveness of these investigations while they are %+going. nasa and exponent have laiddout a nuuber of areas to examine and magnetic in their parents. my understanding -- magnetic my understanding is that they're looking at both of those ssues but it is calledd-- looking at it is called scientific3 exponent has recentll provided+% the committee with a working draft of their work. i will accept that this drrft is innomplete, that the information has not been thoroughly tested, and that exponeet has not events. that is fine. whee it comee tt the scope of their work, we have seen test results and broad dataa but noo paper that set up their plans for testtng toyota vehicles. pe have been told tootake their+ word for it assto whaa exactly speak for thhmselves. since our last meeting, we have met with one offthe engineers perhaps e still not have a full picture of their work. mr. lentz, what i hope to hear from you today is what toyota's strategy is to solving he committed to working and sharing with the committee and the public whatever york companies find when they find it. i would -- whatever your companies find when they find -pitt i would aaso like to welcome %-nhtsa is also penalizinggtoyo- toyota of with respect to the fine was paid yesserdaa without admitting toothe underryyng charges. mr. strickland, recentlyy traveled to japan to meet with toyota. secretary lahood went with you. he also said toyota is now listening and payinn attention to nhtsa's warnings. ttat is quite aaturnaround in mr. strickland, i would like to assessment and whh you are now confident that tooota has gotte+ the message that before seemed not to get through. i would also like toolearn roo you how toyota's working relationship with nhtsa has improved since our last hearing, based oo seeretary lloyd's hearrng nd on your testimony -- secretary lahood's3 your testimony from before. was the only proolem toyota? are you still confident today assthorough as they shouud ave -pbeen? do you have he necessary skills and expertise to perform this?+ are you doing other reviews of recalls to assure yourself that other manuffcturers are being responsive? mr. lentz, i want to make sure ttat recent iiprovements that toyota has announced are not aa matter of form over substance. i hope youucan offer us some+ specifics about how this has to its consumers, ourponsiveness committees and to nhtsa. >> chairman waxman. >> chairman sttwpot, i want to%t to thank you for holding this hearing. ww have high consumer complaint3 aaceleration. one -- we have had consumer unnntended acceleration. we have been asked whether this could be linked to a chronic eleccronic defeccs in the- to%- vehicles. that is the subject of our february.oday as t was in in februaryy i askeddjames lentz wwether he was certain he recalls that toyota had ordered which revolved round repllcing accelerattr pedals would solvv of control.+ he repliedd,"not totally." moment of corporate candor. sales issued a press releaseor+ entitled "clarification of testimony regarding which he company reiterated that exttnsiie testing made a confident that no problems control ystems in its vehicles. the same day, before a different house committee, the resident of toyota motor company, akio toyoda, testified that hh is absoluttly confident there is no problem wiih the design of toyota's electronic throttle control system, because very rigorous testing dentified noo problem or malfunction. a few days later, toyotaaran a full-paae advertisement in other papers, including the "washington post," declaring ttat solutionsswere effective and durable, and at toyota was%+ confident that no problems exist with the electronii thrrttle control syytem. in preparation for our laatng. hearing, we have received over 100,000 pages offdocuments from toyota and nhtsa. what was most notable about those documents, was what was there was no evidence that3 electronic defects could be caassng the prrblem. in the months since that hearing, the ccmmittee has tooota's repeated assertions. hearings the eegineers who were- most familiar with the testing of the throttle system. we did a leegthy, transcribed interview with these offiiials. personnmost knowledgeable with the testing in the united states. phis is thrrugh firm called exponent.+ we reviewed many more documents. what we have learnee is deeply troubling. therr is no evidence that toyotr rrgorous testing of its vehicles for potential electronic defects that could ccuse sudden, unintended accelerationn therr is a top to bottom review- and that we should noo jump to conclusions. conclusion over anddover agaan that they have ruled out any problem with theeelectronics. we asked toyota for the basis of not have electronic defects. they pointed to two primary justificctions. one is the tesstng that is done -- has been done byythe consulting firm, exponent, here the other is the pre-market testing done by its eegineers in japan. we focused our attention on we looked at eeponent's work, which is claimed to have been comprehensive and independent. the documents reviewed by the committee do not support these aasertions. on the screen, i hope we will see, there is a record that+ neither toyota nor exponent -pproduce to the committee that expllii thh relationship bettwen the comm maltiig ---anything that explained the relationship between their work ann it is just a contract. enggneering consulting services related to class actions filed againnt toyota." lawyers asked exponent toto the- conduct a comprehensive eeamination of a suuden, in fact, the words sudden, uuintended acceleration dd not even appear. our committee interviewed a who oversaw the work. what we learned from him waa -pastonishing. exponent has no written work for the pllaned for this project.%+ the expeeiment. thee havv no wrrtten lists of the potential causes of sudden, unintended acceleration. for the hardware, software,e%- testing, e has no written notes on exponent's wook on this. we asked them to explain the spirit how could there be this rrmarkableelacc of documeetation? he exppained that writing down what exponent does woulddlimit the creativity of the eegineers workinn on the project. thattis preposterous. but for exponent engineer told us that -- a former exponeet engineer told us that the reason they did not write anything down laws to avoid creating documents thht might ave to be produceed in a llwsuit. toyota's laayers appear to be involved n every aspect of with the rightk, to approve publication of the work. have counsel present. the two reports thaa exppoded have been fewer -- that exponen+ prepared to assist in the they're not a comprehensive examination of seven, uninteeded the first one was an interim -- a sudden, unintended -- of a acceleration. the first one was an interrm% report. work.had not commleted their%- outsiie experts crittcized the report because there is unclear methodology end p overly narroo focus. they had a second report that was even narrower, esigned only to rebut that testimony provide+ by our exit -- our expert witness. it did not offer anyydissussion of exponent'ssinvestigation of sudden, uniitended acceleration, other than its replication of a laboratory experiment conducted by the committee's witness.+ close to supporting toyota's conttntion that exponent as thoroughly examined oyooa's+ electronic throttle control systee. the otter bases foo tteir assertion ii that they did pre- maaket testing by tteir own engineers in japan.. they told us that they are -- that they're testing is done before mass production. once theedesign is completed, they did not o any additional testinn. %+gniiicaat limitatiins. the company's duuability esting as don't -- is done only on components, not ars and parts3+ drivers. thh sample size s very small. tested. independent experts ccnsulted bb our committee have told us thht toyota would need a much larrer sample size to rule out potential causes of iran air and unintended acceleration..+ -- of a bad and prayer and intermittent event like 7, -- of a rare and determined to an event likk sudden, unintenddd acceleration. tooota has no ddcummntation to3 that their suppliers chose to suuport -- chose to perform. no3 could be a substitute for our rigorous examination to -pidentify a poss-manufacturing defect. there is nooevidence oyota has donn this post-manufaaturing testing. raissd serious questions. toyota has repeatedly told the%+ public that it has conductee extensive testing of it to be a close -- of its vehicles. assertions. they do not appear to be ttue. toyota has not done mmre. if they are serious abouu they hire a litigationwhy would -pconsulting firm that takes no written notee to lead them into potential defects? the public has the right to everything possible to find any potential electronic defect. toyota diddnot do that. instead, they asked their whose mission appearr to be the exact oppositt -- to obfuscate, and find no roblems. and do not know. i am not an engineer or scientist. i do knoo that dozees f people have died in accidents linked to run away toyota vehicles. many of these have occurred n%+ floor mats orrsticky gas pedals. -pthe priority should be to do out what is causing these+ i do not believe that we'll de hazmat this obligation. i look forward -- that toyota -phas met this obligation. i look orward to heering your >> thank ou. >> thank you. i think he tookkhis time and my time. he certainly gave an extensive statement. i will submit my statement for thh record and make a few extemporaneous remarks. i share the chaarman's concern about findinggthis problem. i am not on the -- it is comppicated. it is easy to sit here on the podium and point fingers and ddmand results and act as if we know what the nswers are. but hat is not how life is. it is in the best interest ofs. nhtsa to solve thissproblem as quickly as possible.+ it is obviously in thh best interest of toyota and tte %+ttre industry. p do not+ elieve this is a sticking paddle or a floorrmat problem. -ppedal orra floor mat problem. having said that, ttying to find a proolem in softwarr or in the i am happy that nhtsa bought the vehicle that -- obtained the vehicle that had the runaway smith's talkeddabout in thise hearing several months ago.. nhtsa engineers haae been tryiig to evaluateethat vehicle aad have not yet found the problem. involved.sed that nasa is%- iiam pleased that toyyta has hired an independent firm to try hopefully today we will get some answers from ourrnhtsa administratorrand thh president of toyota. this is a serious problem. that people have less confidence innthe toyota vehicles that have experienced the oot problems.3 -pgovernment to solve that probm as quicklyyand expeditiously as %pit is very difficult in the rl world. we have o keep iving it our best effortt. under the lladership of mr. , an ranking membbr burgess and myself, we will do what we need- if there is ommtting we neee to -pdo legislatively, we will tryo do that. i thank you for cootinuing this -ppnvestigation. the facts are put on the table%+ what they arr. i yielddback. >> thank you.3 >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank yooufor your continued vigilance related to this sudden, unintended acceleration. witnesses today. i commend you, mr. chairman, for your insistence on a fair and vigorous oversight over this matter. this subcommittee -- complete oversight leads to efffctive leggslaaion. theesubcommittee on commerce, trade, and consumer protection, wwll mark up the vehicll safety one section of that bill transportationnto ppomulgate a motor safety vehicle standard on electronic systems, which should enable him to determine whether such sttndard is reasonable, appropriate. our hearing today affords ussthe opportunity to exaaine the state of research by government and3 systems and to aasess the feesibility of promulgatiig and implementing a federal motor vehicleesafety standard for3 i intend to ask candid questions of our witteeses about the progress of their respeetive organizations that has been made in determining what if any defects surrounding environment have on electronic components in vehicles. while i elieve that section 101 is written wiih sufficient administrative discretion for the secretary of transportation, iiwant to be able to be certain thaa the epartment wiil be able to perform the research necessary to commly with the requireeents of that ection. that is an important question to be addressed. -pi woold also note that the surrounding environment have, in the past, affected motor vehicle ssfety. -pi would remind that electrooic locks was one sourcc of one source of potential danger in times past, someehing which caused injury and death to american people. is taking seriousll these interference maa haae caused a sudden, unintended acceleration eerly thii year.st year and as toyott works diligently to i waan toobe sure that they are doing he necesssry research on the questton of safety as opposed to justtdefensive measures. ponversation today. poouctivv i thank you for your courtesy, mr. chaarmann i observed again that your ork ffct-finding, and far betterood- thank you. >> thank you.%opening statement. >> thank you. today's hearing on toyota and nhtsa's responseeto the problems of sudden, unintended important, this hearing will answers. many of the fundaaental questions that members of this ttday as both toyota and nhtsa discussed the onnoing status of connection between unintended, electronic throotle control- system. deserve answers about the safety whaa the american people do not3 legislative response innthe forr pnd nobody understands, and that bears aa unintendee consequences much worse than the consequences of iiaction. once nhtsa and tooota actually complett their various reviews+ of the potentiallfor loss off automotive electronics systems, i believe -- fo vario reviews of the -- once nhtsa and ttyota actually complete their riiht for flaws inews of the potentia- electronics systems, i believe we can come to some agreement. we need to conduct diagnoses and askkthe right questions to flesh out he potenttal imppct of this information.. i thank you and i yield back. >> hank you.+ >> it thank ou, chairman.%+ given that my daughtees, graadchildren, and i drrve in3 we'reehaving this hearing to monitor the response of poyota's o hese accidents and the unintended acceleration off their vehicles. i look forward to your testimooy on whaa the testing has shown phus far, what response is andd remedies are beinggemployed, -- what responses and remedies are being employed. i yield back. mr. griffith? >> thank you, mr. haaiman. the ranking member for callinn this important hearing. in the middle of my district, toyota employs 777 people to%pbs we will employ -- toyota will employ approximately 1000 people in this districc. they have done more than just they have given ack to the community. it uring the reeent slowdown -3 did not laa off one permanent they sent some employees out -pinto the community while othes stayed at the plant to work together to streaaline it and improve tte daaly functiins in+ both quality and safety. sinne thisssubbommittee has met recall remedies is nearly 3.5 of %+llion. thhy have worked to deal with north america and japan andd3n%- unintended acceleration issues. they have shown a good ffith effort to fix problems anddllarn to better serve mon-khmer -- better seeve consumees in the future. i would add hat the chairman of the committee seemed uuset that ttere as no aggeement from toyota with dr. gillert's i find that, not nly acceptable, but weehave had no one corroborate those findings either. ii we're going to base our discussion on a single single individual'')s experiment anddnot the scientific method, i did nnt hink there is aayone -pmore interestee in making sure tteir vehiclls aae safe nd high-yield debt -- safe than toyotaa it seems that there is an3 here inngood faith to do what i3 i think we need to examine our attitude and maybe take a different approach. i yield back the balance of my -ptime, mr. chairman. >> mr. bareilly -- mr. raley? >> ask unanimous ccnsent to submit a written statement and make some brief extemporaneous >> aal right. >> house asking for unanimous+ -- i was asking for unanimous >> go ahead. >> mr. barton challenged both toyota and nhtsa to get to thee bottom of this proolem and to do so with a sense of clarrty and in toyoot's approach tt the sudden, and anticipatedd of%- acceleration. when the ranking memmer stated at the conclusion of his remarks today that he waaspleased that they had hired an iidependent the representations they made thattit had hired exponent and given it a mission to et to the bottom of this problem with an unlimited budget. the ooly proolem with that perception is that it is contrary to the documents that i information that were ade atprr our last hearing. the documents that we have been provided with show that toyota's trial lawyers, not toyota, work on december 7, 2009,,and did not engageeexponent for the purpose of getting to the bottom -pof this problem,,but for he purpose of defending class-- action claims filed against toyota. that is the probllm wwth toyyta's response since our last hearing. if you ookkat what has been of the sole witness whoedibilit- testified on the possible problem of sudden, and anticcpated acceleration in tooota's vehicles. we need answers to that questii3 we need to look at the financial relationship etween exponent ann tooota, and trr to gettto the bottom offwhy so much time has been spent focusinggon the attempting to -- ocusing on the attempt to discredit dd. gilbert, instead of getting to in determining once aad for all whether electronic failure is a posssble cause of the problem. i look forward to your testimony. i hope that, eventually, everyooe innolved in this innestigation gets to that3 i yield back. apologize that i did not heari%- pou before. all opening statements will be made part of the record. our constant reminder will be made parttof the record. %+thout objection, so be it. we have the rrsident of mexxco speaking around 11:00. we need to gettour opening stttements done before we have >> thhnk you very much. today.rgess, thank you foo it is impprtant that these%+ heaaings are hhld to get to the facts regarding thh sudden, uuintenned acceleration. tragically, 52 people have died sudden, unintended acceleration nhtsa has initiated sveral queries into toyota recalls. theyyhave leveled a 166-- they pave levied a $16.4 million fine on the company. has been enlisted to undertake a study of the issue, specifically, nasa will examine it and the national academy oo acceleration in the role of the eleccronic vvhicle systems across the industry. neither studd is complete at this ime. through its recall and deployment offswift market analysis ressonsee, ttird-party safety features being added to new models, toyota is working to improve its safeey..safetyyis e, industry. that the government -- any%+ precedent that the bear and it3 good desiin. -- that the government knows what is best when it comes to -pgood ehicle design. our represent -- i represent a large manufacturing district in ohio that is home to many automooile suppliers. tte technology involled in the certainll changed and advanced over the years. it is important that toyota customers, the american public, -pand consumers, understand the3 while it is not yet a member of+ the energy and ommerce committee, i look forward o witnessss on the panel. i yieed back. thann you. >> thank you.+ miss schakowsky. >> many questions+ remain unaaswered.. in particular, we are still+ pedals and flawed floor mats were ruled out as possible causes. one of the few people who ppoposed a possibbe answer was technology at a university in my home state. he testified about research in tte situation in which sudden, unintended aaceleration was caused by the electronic system, but was not recorded on the3 we asked exponent to conduct + copy of its independent analysis for the ystem, with an unlimited budget. what did exponent ome back in march, they released a report that did not conduct aa system and iis possible problems. critique of dr. gilbert and his experiment. scienttfic research can be find out whht the people want to know. our constituents want answers and theyywaat a complete investigation that identifies the causes offpotentially fataa malfunctions in their vehhcles.3 forward and asked both nasa and the national academy of sciences to help conduct an investiiation that enccmpasses not just with a, but all vehiclesswithh3 vehicles with electronic >> ttank you. ms. lackburn. >> thank you. welcome to you, our witnesses.3 ann the tone of this hearing. bit premature in convening this today. for the reccrd, mr. chairman, i would like to submit aaletterr that i sent to chairmannding ell in october, 2007, asking for a hearrng to look inno serious concerns over sudden, unintended acceleration in the toyooa ttis issue threeeyears ago, we would not be in the position that we are now. all too often, congress is reactive, instead of taaiig action in a timely manner when sooething is brought to ourr aatention. have definitive answers as to what precisell aussd the suddee, unintended acceleration. %pputting the cart before theis many of our constttuunts look at these hearings and they see this as grandstandinggin annattempt%+ to try aad vilified a corporation. i have heerd from constttuents who are employees of suppliers to toyota, who are very -pconceened ttat ttis is being done to vilify and score political points, instead of moving productively forward in an effort to actually fixed and effectivvly address the serious issue that was first brought to the attention of this committee in october, 2007. from what unnerstand from eeen a viable hypothesis ttat has been put forward as to this issue and its resolution. that being said, i want to welcome our witnessss. from them. p> thank you. it should e noted that a membe+ of the committee is here, but cannoo give an opening statemenn. he will be allowed tooanswer+ questtons and ask questions. thank you for being here. that includes the opening statemenn by all of our subcommittee membbrs. weewill move to our first panel including the honorable david strickland, administratoo of nhtsa. it is the policy of the subcommittee to take all policy please be advised that you have the right, under the rules of the committee, to be advised by counsel during your testimony.%+ do you wish to be rrpresented by counsel? >> no, i do not. >> please rise and raise your%-e testimonyyyou giveewill be the truth, the whole truth, and nothhnggbut the truth before >> i doo.%%+++ >> let the record reflect that he replied in the affirmativv. we would appreciate yourropening statement. >> thankkyou. we appreciite this opportunity to uudate you on the activitiee of the nhtsa with regard to pnvolving toyota vehicles. we have been very active siice%+ secretary lloyd testified in february. secretary%+y lahood -- lahood testified in february. tooota officials haae said that they have changed processes to ensure ttat u.s. officials in their company haveedirect roles in calling ffr ecalls when necessary.3 the value of these orgaaizztional changes will be determineddby the company's future safety actions.. nhtsa and the departtmnt of transporration will be watching. as you know, we initiated three separate actions in february.. aatime wwen this query related toothe rrccll -- at timeliness therr wereeother problems.y for toyota agreed to ppy over $60 million in civil penalties -- the $16 million in civil peealties, which is the aximum amount weekend -- we can request.. we continue to review the large number of occments that have been submitteddby toyota in3 query. weren'')t a penalty. -- they we are reviewiig a large nuubbr of documents.3 department of justice to help us categorize -- we have contracted with the department of justice to helppus ategorize thoss documents. that task will take a long time, but it is under way.%+ sciences, the most reepected body of top iidependent experts, will eeamine the broad subject of unintended acceleration and+ electronic vehicle controls across the entire aatomotive industry. the academy has begun the members. the panel will be established months. the result of that work wiil be important to nhtsa, not only because of uuintended%+ -pacceleration, but also to provide advice on a range of affect motor veeicle safety as fleet.erating within the vehicl- separately, we have been listed nasa scientists with expertise -pin areas such as computer- controlled electronic ystems, electromagnetic interference, address the issue oo unintended acccleration ii toyota vehicles+ theirrreview will be comprehensive and it will assist vehicles may contain safety defects that would warrant a3 instrumental in brinning about aal offthe rrcalls that toyota+ unnntended accelerationn we will go herever the evidence leads us to address the root causes oo what -- of unintended accelerationn we will push for recalls wherever they are warranted. it ii our hope ttat toyota's recently revamped approach to more effectively deal with safety defectsswill reveal a toyota that is quick to resppnd to all vehicleesafety issuess including sun and, unintenned acceleration. -- a sudden, unintended acceleration. nhtsa will continue to work with these committees on legislative approach -- legislativv propossls that would address industry.ssues across the%- if enacted, thhs llgislation would significantly innrease and a danceeour authority -- and enhanced our authority to eal with manufacturerr. thii leverage would be important in cases here manufactuuers are necessary safety reealls or who are not completely truthful in i lookkforward to answering your questions.%+ >> thankkyou. we're going to stand in recess the presideet of mexico is heee. the are gathering on the house floor. we must ecess -- they are gatherinn on the house floor. then we will eeurn for quustioning. we stand in recess for one hour. [captioning performed by national captiooing institute] >> the committte wiil esume. strickland ad testified. in our first hearing on sudden uninnended acceleration, dr.3+ experimeets he had conduuted on toyota cars and trucks. he reported that e haa been+ having the vehicle commuters+ detect any problem.. severallacademics and+ independent engineers have described his work as sensibll, reasonable, and legitimate as a starting point for an investigation into potential acceleratton. they have discussed with the committee a variety of real-%-wo this sort of thing that he induced in his laboratory. testimooy was not to his attack his credibility and -pmooives. nhtsa has taken a different approach with dr. gilbbrt and discuss hii work with feeeraleer investigating sudden, unintended is that correct? >> that is orrect.. engineers in nhtsa have bben in it is my understanddng that he3 within the next tto weeks, where he will be given accees to our engineers and others his work. it is importtnn to ggt tooan answer. we welcome his participation. >> oyota has described hhs work as beinn phony, parlor trick, i suspect you would not invite him to participate unless you thought he had something to offfr to this discussion. >> absolutely not. you describbd, he coold have an+ incident of unintended acceleration without theee being a code put out in thh ecm. thattis the core of thee question. we takk his work seriously. you were in the have you hired more eegineers? we are recruiting several. we're beginning the intervieww process and we hope to get a electrical engineering, software engineering, and other veryysoon.s issues come on boar- >> the white house put out n initiative whhch you are trring to speed up, if you will, the -phiring ppocess. you're trying to move it from have you found that to e a burden innachieving this? >> we are executing this process. we would definitely appreciate the new reforms. we're using them to get folks n board s quickly as we can. some energy and the rrforms are very hhlpful. >> let me ask you this. toyyta thht indicated it would+ recall llxus ls veeicles. as tomorrow. has it been issued? >> they wwll under -- my understanding is that they will issue he required documents on friday.3 aanounced a recall to nhtsa. my understanding is that thatt will happen tomorrow. >> the issue rose n japan. leeus vehicles, whiih are also sold in the unittd states. >> that is corrrctt >> have you worked with them on% this recall? ministry in japan.with the they found that there was a defect regarding the steering mechannsm. repprted to nhtsa about their tt ttke the step -- andbout her plans n japan and their take the same steps here in the - nited states. those plans? ls from 2209 and 2010 -- 3800 vehicles here in the united states. the office has gone through tte database to see if there were similar steerrng issues. as of yee ppeared we continue yet. we continue to search the database. we ill take action. we're looking to make sure whetherror not we have simiiar issuee. there were only 12 o these incidents in japan, if iiam ot mistakkn. >> when i asked the question of thh witnesses, r. lentz in particular ndicated hattthe floor mats and this pe candals ccmee tt bout -- the sticky+ pedals comes to 16% of these incidents.+ >> we are working on 30se%for looking at the span ooigations toyooa's sudden, unintended acceleration issues. we're leaving no tonn unturned. we have found no evvdence of additional causes oo the facts. -- causss f defects. . o rg with a tnamy >> thank you, mm. chaarman.ns?%- ww had, secretary lahood saidin+ improvementssand was coined to be -- toyota sttted they would did that give yoo an ability to eealuate toyota's responsiveness tt the problem with thh alexis as opposed to their arlier -- with the problem with the lexus ps oppossd to the earllerr problems? >> i made a comment with the %+ntrol issue. iihave found that ttyota has been much more responsive. >> i do not mean to interrupt. this equality officer make a difference? >> i wassjust informed of his firing.3 have seen better responses.. toyota is working to the organization issues. response. give us a real world -- was givvng us a reallword scenario. how would you get the correct amount of rrsistance placed acrosssthe two wires.%+ in what you ave seenn is ttatta quession that has been anssered in yourrmind? what is their rewarddsituation ttat would have to occur? -- their real-world situation that would hhve to occur? >> i will have my staff and technical response, but we area- inviting dr. lambert -- and dr. giibert out to conduct these tests. it is something we want to talk to him about. >> we wwll ntsa he does with that scenario as well? >> a sslly. all of the work will be made public -- absolutely. all of the wwrk will be made public. be contacting exponnnt. -pweewill be making conversstios conversations yyt.e >> your conttact says it will provide all courttnation with independent groups offering opinions.+ havv any of the indian --%+ indeppndent groups asked too meet? >> my understanding is said to have been numerous conversations. i would be happy to get back to have happened. hassntsa refused any means? >> no. >> you ay get permission available to us. >> absolutely. >> i did nnt have the data in front of me in. ii we look at that time line, %+celeration, and the introductton of the electtonics throttle control, the two seem to be superimposed eveets that " occurred in 2002, but o thh all of your work, there hha not electronics throttle control,%+ other ttan the testimmny e have is that the only avenue f now? -p>> we are looking at the entie total fllettregarding this issue. haveenot t thhsspoint. that is the reassn why we aree investing so heaviiy innto aae every answerr >> was my e-mail correct about theerhonda smith caa? you did it look and, right now, nothing remarkable -- is that still the answer? >> that is still correct. the smith vehicle is one of oor test fleet. there are overr20 vehicles -pwe have beggn work looking at3 fleet. >> as i recall, miss smith put compelling. compelling. one oo her complaints was thatt no one at ntta anddleoowould liiten to her. in light of what you have ffund, are yyu comfortable that ntsa's previous evaluation of it needed to be and that the consuuer'sscompllints were adequately ddressed, orrshut more care have been taken at the time the complete actually occurred?%+ did. investigators.e of our best%+ his work and conversstions. i have reviewed it.3 not happened, did happen. >> that was the work -- had everythhng that should have happened, dii happen. >> when secretary lahood was here, i have a copy f the publicly available ntsa report onnthe inspectionnof a lexus that was damaged in a patastrrphic accident in san diego. ttere is a portion of this -- paragraph 5 -- i asked the on rejecttd report. -pi'm going to comeedoon o the department of transportation to3 i understand there may be sensitive information ttat the publlc domain.ot want in the i think it is important that member of -- that memmers of this commiitee e able to review in on redacted report. will you help e get that information? counsel. iibelieve there rr prrvacc act implications, but as long as we are doing anything which >> i willlremind you that the+l- >> thank yoo, mr. chairmmn. . ms. christensen >> thank you, mr. chhirman. testimony, and we have heard from several members, toyota -ppaid $16 million in penallies. in your testimony, you said tha3 do you think it is adequate? i belleve ttat the sizz of thh regulated manuffcctrer under nnsa's regimee and soom of the -plargest on the planet, n occasion, i think a $16 million necessary deterrent effect i've testified thatti believe the cap -pi know in the motor vehicle safety act of 2010, the cap, and alllw ntsa the -pdiscretion. thank you. yyu also ssy that you have not new defect investigations on uniitended acceleration. what is the threshold?+ what would trigger a reopening of the invvstigation? >> two on -- wo innestigations3 we are looking for docuuents that suggest that toyota in new. pf they did not been formed ntsa, they are in violation oof the safety acct nd we would we are rrviewing several hundred thousand documents. if we have made a finding thht there might be annissue regarding the violation of thh time limit, we will take action once again. we have made no conclussons. the work is ongoing. >> one other question. aa i rrcall, ii the+ last hharing, a lot of tte deciiions were being made in japannat poyota in japan. about meeting with counnerparts , yyurr ounterparts in the+ how would you assess their effectiveness, their iidependence, their commitment >> the road ransporr bureau and the japanese ministry of land transpootatton is a very different approach and mandate under japanese law. they are vvry committed to safety. they have a different3 manufacttrers. collaborrtive ttan+ ntsa's in he united statts.ufacturers however, they are great public servvnts. they are great ngineers. making sure they create a afe environment in the andling of pheir veeicles. i have every confidence that our counterparts are just as involved, and jjst as intense and makkng sure thht the fleet+ toyota puts on the road is safe. thank you, i do not have any other questions. >> thank ou, mr..christensen.3 >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome back, mr. strickland. >> thank you. left ttstified. -pa while since you testified. i will start with a llttle house for. information on complaints byce3 toyota owners who have said that they had experienced sudden, unanticipated accelerrtion, evvn after their vehicles went under replaae for mets. i also asks aboot the steps nts3 to this date, i have yet to peceive a response from you or yourrdepartment. can you give me some indication as to whee i can expect aa monday or tuesdayy%+++ if it is uesday, you will get3 mr. braley, it is my responsibilityythat you, or aay -pmember of this committee getsa timell response. it is y responsibility. i apologizee immeddately. >> thank you.% i appreciate that. do you ave a sense of how many in previously-service vehicles? tteefebruary, conducted numerous intervieww and field investiiations. i will gee back to on the record with a specific number. number of hose remedy repair complaints had decreased since i know thattour staff has worked them of our findings. there were some issues with how dealers were applying repairs. i know toyota made several modifications upon our requests. we have seen a market incceass we are mmking sure tt havents.%- remedy properly applied. >> are those complaints, and previoosly erviced vehicles entities, such as exppnent, the nasa innestigators, looking to the potential link btween it >> i cannot speak to exponent getting direct access. their position, as any priiate citizen, we are not collaborating with exponent.3 we have with regard to our work, including the remedy repair issues. i do nottknow f exponent hss+s made a requeet. >> have you been provided ith copies of the materials that exxonent has submitted to the committee in response to pequest for information about their work producc in connection with this investigation?%+ >> i have not, but i have been responses. of some of he committee has een rovided%+ with aadocument entitled evaluation of doctored gilbert's >> yess i am ware f that. >> have ou seennany other reports,,inneither a form from exppnent, and in the potential problems of sudden, unanticipated accellration in toyota vehicles? >> nn. wereeyou aware that exponent has built a 11,0000hours f work on thhs particclar investigation? >> i was not aware of that. it surprising or disturbing that the documents that e have rrceived are limited specifically to one witness? >> that would not be ntsa's approach. our work woold be innredibly i would imagines that the committee woull have the ssme expectatton of exponent. i would imagine hat not having it would be troubling to the3 -p>> thhnk youu >> yes, mr. strickland, following up on that line of is possible to conddct work if you do not keep a written record? >> it would be my expectation of ntsa, tsa's engineers that we have a prooer workflow plan. docuumnted. in terms of ourrwork with nasa, we have to be prepared for peer reviews to bb conducced by our center in massachusetts. that would be a differenttpath expectation. >> we have learned that toyott's defense council cootrols they have the right to revvnt unfavorable results does this ccncern you? if they're relying on exponent, and they are being directed by toyota's defense council, is this the way you think an3 handled? >> not to sseak for toyota, hhy can speak foo themselves, butt there is preparrtion for tte%+ additton, and also a scientific investigation into the cause of a problem. those could be mutually+ that additional work. prom what i have understooo, al3 litigatton, but it is not a they are dealing with a hyppthesis.+ >> i would say that, at thii ppint, they have not fulfilled+ thhs part of the solution in terms offtrying o find the answer from whht you have just breakkoverride is what many problem. the ddiver applies both the same time.rrand the break at th- i understand that ntsa is currently evvluating the brink3 -pyou considde is to be aassaety %+ature?+ >> we believe that it has huge implications for safety. it isssomething that we bellevv has great promisee we are doing ur research. we anticipate thht t could hav+ great value. feature. course of discussing complaints retrofit some of ts models.ota tooota addised the committee thatt t has decided to ake3 feature from 2011 forward ann upgrade theesootwwre. after 20111 when oyota is done with retrofitting, will therr be toyotas on he road that will >> to support making the a%--ps? >> the one goal we want tt have to stop the car. conclusion ttat thhy want thhs. they think it is important is ttere any reason why if they decided it is important foo want to make it available in all -pcars that are compatible >> i will ask them that mmself, but why they would not want to do%+ >> fromma consumerrstaadpoint, i to appoint a decision making in terms of how they implement it is an ongoing question. i think it would be a positive%+ mmve for safety and they're driving publlc.3 hearing jim lentz's exxpanation for why it would not be thannable in all toyotaa.%- p> thank you, mrr waxman. >> thank you, mr. strickland.%+ twitter relies on two primary justifications for its -- toyota of allies and two primary justifications for their findings. ttey rely on the pre-market testing that toyota's own engineers do before manufacturing vehicles for sale3 ourrcommittee staff conducted a transcribed interview from 2 to+ a engineers,,asking the multiple we learned that the pre-market testing has a significant toyota only cooduct these tests durrng the design phase. one of the eegineers told the committee wwll call -- tte committee "we do not conduct+% annthing additional." -padequate? >> rep schakowsky, thhre are two components that ntsaais concerned about. stream of commerce, it has to be vehicle ssandards.eral motor%+ vehicle is on the road, we worry pbout any defects. >> i understtnd what you are -psaying. this issbefore mass production. let me go on. toyota engiieers also told us that the rea that does not+ perform these tests on a large number of vehicles, anddas a result, itt amppes might not be large nough to test for a rare event. sooe of the tests that toyota relied on for its claim that%+ electronic system hhd undergone "extensive testing" involves sample sizing of just onn or two you as adequate? >> every manufacturer has a different approacc. what happens on hh road.ut is%- he said there is a pre-market phase. in the desiin phase, in your view, sufficient? i would have o comparr that withhother manufaccurers ok.ols. sudden, unintended acceleration+ occurs intermitttntll. furthermore, we learnee that%+ pafee-- fair-saae mechanisms are pesigned to addresssfalse and occur ii isslation. toyota is testing critical components of the throttle control system, reflecting that they do not ttnns -- teet for multiple component fault.%+ pumeeous academic experts say sudden, uniitended aacclerrtion. >> ii seems to me, a toyota is try to identify all potentiil identify them.velop tests to take a ccmprehensive approach to -ptest for potential causes? comprehensive approach. nnss') work with nasa is going to take into account possible pultiple, intervening in ance.. that is our ssudy. that is our approach we would have tte exxectation that ii we doofinn a vehicle defeet, thht could be parkkd of our response. ntsa's approoch is in mas -- multi-cost analysis. >> bbsed on the description of what you heaad today, the pelieve the pre-markkt testing provides aasufficient bbsis to potential electrooic causes of sudden, unintended acceleration? >> i do not think you can use it premarket analysis as a+ determining factor. yoo have to do pre-market ttsting and long-term studies of real world.hicle reacts in the+- i do not think of that night so what say that a pre-market test validates and long-term answer of the possibility of there been a favorite pair -- a failure. >> i am concerned about theepre- -pmarket testing tself. it seemssto a debt is not ann adequate substitute -- it seems to me that toyota is not an they do not have thh+ comprehensive testing o back it up. thank you, mr. chairmaa. >> mr. ttipp -- mr. strickland have a couple of questions the first is a letterrdated february 22, 22000 sent to%+ secretary lahood bb myyelf aad mr. waxman.+ on page four, it asks ttat ntsa reopens its inveetigation of3 hich had 37 consumer complaints. thaatwas the we have yet to have a response. will you open ttat investtgation? in terms of a ddt pnvesttgation, as part of the nasa study that is ongoing, that will have to be done by the enn of the summer. the short answer to your question is we arr re-evaluated all of this. we will definitell get back too you oo theerecord. and in response to mr. waxman's question, use of the break override system is a huge safety issue. why would nixon not not require toyota to have he system in -p2002-2003 toyota camry, sincee added llast 37 complaints. why would you ottrequire the preak over rise system o be put in all toyyta mooeratt force of this vehicle?++% >> -- toyooa models of these vehicles? >> if we identify comments at there is aaremedd, we would. in a position to makeethat. >> its total work to put it in some of the vehicles now, nd then all of the vehiclee in 2011, by putting it in the vehicles now, issit an admission that you have a defect? >> that is not an admission.+ made inddpendeetty. from its a') perrpectivv, we ca+ only force a mandaaory reccll if the fact that toyota feels the3 vehicles, might be indicative oo what they feel the solution is paired. llt me ask you about the other%+ -pdocument i.+ -pit is dated may 5, 2007 -- may thh llst says discoloration, rust and service damage s the -- is visible through all four. this goes n on the second pagee it is inconsistent with the pndicaaee vehicle mileagg pystemm they have a number of photographs that shell debris speed applied vvgoroussy. the smith vehicle, while every find seven acceleration, obviously there is ssme damage their aaseminal work and their.+ is that correct?? >> you have never fouud any vehicles set have sudden, uniitended acceleration you have %+t been able to find it in 20%? >> we have not haa an event let our -- where thh engineer turned replicate the faults, simply becauseeof something out et the parameters of he format entrapment issue. >> we do not know hen it is -- when it occurs, so that ii why? >> it could be multiple causes. it is the reason why we're headed our long-term investigation and hhvingg nasa look at the throttle system. bu. and the order of the break overe -pmentioned to install and it wwuld be a posittve move.%+ does thaa correctty state you're >> yys, sir. installed such a system on their carr? >> if there are several manufacturers that have brrak -poverride systems. >> why -- there are some that3 >> why is that? amount of problems. we are undertaking ur preliminary rrsearch. fleet, thattwiillbe part of thee -pstudy. one of the answwrs will be a possible, long-term solution whichh ight include -- %+ as it now? >> that, i am not sure of. >> why is t not more widely used? what of the barriers? -pconfiguration and mechanical linkages. might lead to differenturer has deeisions. rule making, presumably, you're looking at cars with electronic from control -- -pthrottle controll so if that is good foo toyota, it is good for a percentage of the fleet thaa doos oo have the system? >> the goallis for the safety of the entire fleet, not ust one manufaccure code >> when we had the other earing, there as a list, a numerical list oo%-commr aaency abouttcars and toyota showed up on the llst, buu they were 16, 17, 18. pt that had more omplaints. yet, here we areeinvolved in a series f reedings over toyota. paae you looked at the cars at compllints that scored lower then toyota? >> ntsa looks at all trends acroossall manufacturerssbetter in terms of how the foous on toyota -- there is clearly ann anomaly in accelerationnddfense talking about, which is the reason why ntsa has opened up to this point.+ i believe we opened up 8 -- 8%+ investigations to thii ssue.+ would treat any mmnufacturer. yes, there are complaants.rs with similar we look at them just as vviorously in terms of the3 annlyyis, toyota had a highee tendency toward the later years >> was it all related toomotta said at the electronics phrottle control? %+ yes, sir. >> let me ask you about nasa. plan for nasa's ork?research%- >> ww will be meeting with nasa next wwek. it has required a huge amount of code. there has been a tremendous amount of documents that nass our hopee s to have a test planned done fairly soon, and hooefully, we will be submitttng a call once it is finalized, ffr a peer review. we're not finished our plan yet anaaysis for evaluation by this committee when you haae it inn+ >> absolutely. >> the timeline f the review is >> we do not have a plan yet, but they're going to get one. ii that ccrrect? >> yes. >> what happenss f we get to th+ end of august, nd we are not%++ gone there. >> we have a timeline and a goal po make triply get results. -- to get results. if there were some issues that requiie mooeetime, we will helpp the committee as they arisee to do what you need to do?ding year. are you going tt be is tt pay that confront s, we will inforr >> thank you, mmr burgess.+ ms. christensen techs and questions? ---christensen ann questions? >> mr. strickland, and caress aboot the word your ageecy is%-f analyyis. looking into the prrbbem of evaluatiig electronics for a %-are you aware of any oo the wk that is beinggdone by eurooean%+ education and trainer the training to analyze potential >> i am not, but i am ccrtain .hat myystaff is more tha -phave them speak to your staff about the differences between -puu and a european union, the%+ >> i would encourage your staff to also look at what is happening with those other manufaattrerss wwat lessons the+ hhve learned, and what their safety ecord is on the issue of sudddn, unintendee acceleration, after those >> absolutely. >> one of the other questions i wanted to ask you abouu is throughout this ppocess, toyota that it retains exponent to invessigation of the underlying causss rellted to these probllms with suddee, unintended acceleration. you have been here ooe we talked the company did they have exponent, do you know much about thhm and what they do? >> i am fairlyycoomitted -- i am fairly familiar with the de graaff. and ts prior named. >> are you aware of any been retained to do annt has%- a defective automobile?njured in >> y recollectioo probably goes back to 1993. that is the window i have -pknowledge of. i am not awwre of them doing work for n injured consumer or a victim of the product. >> thank you, those are all of the questions i have. >> that coocludes the questions for this wwtness. the minister, ttank you. i would like to enner into the recooddthese wo documentt. there is a letter from chairman -plahood, and also the memorannm dattd may 2, 2007, concerr investment vehicle we ask questions from. withouttobjection, they will be entered into the rrcord. thank you, mr. cabal -- mr. strickland. >> thannk ou, mr. chairman. >> mr. jii lentz, thank yyu for we have james lentz, the officer of toyota motor ales u.s.a. inc.. it is thh policy to take alll testimony under oath.+ you have the right to beat and that - advised by counsel. >> do you wish to be represented by counsel? p> yes,,ted hester issheee with >> i ask you please riss, raise oath. >> iido. p> let the record reflects a %-if you like to begin with a statement, to five minutes. >> thank you, chairman stupak, rannkng member burgess, and+ members of the subcommittee. thank you for invitinn me today. and chiif operating officer of toyota motor salee usa. i am honored to return here to represent the 30,000 americans who work for toyota, and thee many thousands more from our bring great dedication to their jobssevery ddy. three months ago, i told this committee that toyotaawas committed to ensuring safety and quality. in subsequent hearingg, four of my eniorrcolleagues, including akio toyyda aaso pledged -- lso pledged o improve on safety issues.. today, iiwould like to update3 progress we'vv made. %+'re takinn major steps to become a more responsive, 60- focused organization, -- foccsed organization, istening more closely to our customers, and taking concrete actions to ensure that we are among the industry lladerr in safety. akio ooooa has made quality assurance is op priorrty. our company has mobilized to pake sure that toyota vehicles are saff for oor owners. under akio toyoda's personal leadership, we are unddrtaken a operations. importantly, toyota has a pointed a new chief quality heeis a u... executive ith more than three decades and as the voice of the customer inn this region. north america aad not as a greater say and recalls and affect vehicles sold in the united states. the chief quality officer has a direct line to akio toyoda when pustomer's safety.ng our thhse changes aae having an and packed, as first -- as reflected in the speed and decisiveness of control in the 2010 lexus. pur rocess has significantly approve -- immrove the speed of our respoose. swift market analysis response team -- at its core, part 200 higgly trainnd engineers andd deployeddanywhere in thh west to investigate customer reports. under ttissnew evaluationn completed more than 600 on-sitee veeicle inspections. our technicians have completed an additional 1400 inspections. these examinations are givennuss a better understanding about the reason for unintended acceleration complaints.3 eleetronics throttle control syssem was the extraordinary effort to service our recall the vehicles, and pquipped all new trucks with more advanced technology including data recorders that will read both pre-and post- crest that. nearly 3.5 million reeedies. we will continue to each out t+ the effected owners, to make sure thhy bring theiirvehicles to their dealer's attennion. we are grateful to our customers,,for thh way they are sttading by toyota. consistent with our pledge to congress, we now have water ann 50 edr readout units in north america. line manufacturer to feature brake override technology and all of the vehicles sold in the united states. ii wiil bb abouu all across our entire line of by thh end of -p2010. we are also taking thh sending overrides on sevee existing models involvvd and the recalls, as an additionall measure f confidence for our ccstomers. we remaan onstant that our unintended acceleration.of toyota's lexis vehicles aae occur.++%so thaa real wwrld com- extensiveey. are making a major sccenttfic effort to urther evaluate the indepeedent review. the engineering nd scientificc has already completed much of, 11,000 hours of testing. a compreeensiveeevaluationn sson going. i have been advisee thht the quality advvsory panel that seccetary slater shares will provide a rigorous reviee of that process. it will bb one oo thh topics of discussion when the panel meets papan. lahood, we are pleased to an evaluation.. we also corporate with he national aaadeey of ssiences on pheir evaluation of the lexus vehicle, as they study thh industry-widd issue of automotive safety.3 than just correcting mistakes we are learning from them, and we are making major steps to i woull like to take the words it s writtee by the teamm memberss toyota makes mistakes, but we are expected to.%+ take ownership to find out why, them, and prepprr a-preoccurren. we cannot just say that, we aatually do that. thattis the natalla awaa for 70 yearr. by reacting and safety issues, we are determined for setting a road.tanddrd or vehicles on th- -pour gool is to lead the way fr our ancestry. -psee why that much, and i haveo annwer any of youu questiins. >> thank you, mr. lenz, and thank you, aaain, for being here mr. strickland, the last time -- mr. penn, was? the squat -- i assed mr. strickland this questiin. out about the 84% of the%sudden acceleration cauues? >> it ddpends oo the databases you're looking aa. it is clumpee together s speed control.+ it includes not only event of pudden, uninnendeddacceleration, of searcc or hesitation event.%- when we spoke last, -- i am conffdent of three things. i am onfident thht theesticky pedal is being repaired. i am confident that we are goin3 formats. >> eeen if you have a hundred%, ww still haae 84%+ sudden aaceleration reports of the have n answer for. you ell us that you have 11,000 whht did they concludd? whatt o the 11,000 hourssof testing ---whattwas it about? p> well --3%+ electronics, was it on the we do not know.?%- >> there were a lot of uestion% in thhre. first oof, in terms offsurges and hesitation, the possibility of a panel misapplication, evee though we will do thess two still exist, anddthey ssill can be reported to nhtsa has speed controll because it is such a%+ broad categgry. %+ is innluded. terms of the experiment, they provvde tte ommittee, back around the time i testified, a preliminary, smmll portion of what they were testing. i believe, yesterday, they provided a second report to you all. ii had more information. vehicll electrooics, they are testing emi. could ppssibly create unintended acceleration. >> i ould agreeewith you.+ pxponent has this ooen-end it the ability to do what has to be -pdone. -phe testified theee are 11,000+ hours. exponent says it is important 3 have looked at all issues, nor opined on the causes of the incidences of uuintended to be performed, and further work is underwaa. peports. is this all in the engineer's+ had? how do ww pay them? know if >> i am convinced, that in the end, when we see the file report, whicc will beemade public and thh peer rrview, and secceearyyslater will also3 i'm confident with what they are doing, we will see aavery phat is number one. final reportt of august? can weehave it by the end of i can tell you this. in the past.ned to the comments- they were reporting to product %+ability attorneys. that changed ttis week..%--pas e -pquulity ffiier'')s job in next week, as we do every week i am sure, been that he is from the manufacturer side, he will demand that weehave a work as soon as we have that, you wwlllhave hat. >> your counsel has indicated that exponent's contracc has not changed at all. will this be newwchanges that pevvn brought about? >> a letter has already gone to exponent. >> could you get that letter to+ the committee? >> let e ask this questiin. will thhrr be a recall on a lexus ls vehicles? >> i o not know the ttmiig. >> it s because of the creates this is standard in >> t issa computer-drivenn issue? >> t s commuter-driven. >> we have not, but we are -pcoobing through our filess it is on roughly 50% of the lexuu ls car in the united states. we have 500 that have bben+ sold ann about 1400 that are in dealee stock that couud be impacted. >> mr. burgess. >> hank you, mm. chairman. mr. lenz, thank you for being thh opening statementtmadeon. reference to polling. wouud you care to respond tt some of the statements that werr madeein the openiig statement b3 subcommittee? >> we have the polling coopany, about three ears. they hhve done polls for us forr about the last three years. they have probaaly done at least two dozee polls in the past. the poll that is in question was done soon after my ttstimony, soon after the aac+ expos they ran. that that raise questions about dr. tolbert,,sean gilbert -- dr. gilbert,,and abc. >> if it is not proprietary, can you give us an idea of he polling sample size? 1000.believed t wassaround%- i want o say it was not hundred 80, or nine and 90.. >> you would have no reason to doing a poll. >> correct. to is it unusual for your company to do polling related to othhr >> i think it is, but i think the abc news piece was very unusual as well. it was a clear ttack on the c't really cast doubt bout ellctrrnics throttle control -- and ii really cast doubt about electronic thrrttle control systtms. >> for you to make it public, and it was obviously in hh best interest not to go public, who ddd it? >> made what public? >> the pole. >> your ompany did not ? >> it was leaked?? >> i do not kkow. been done. >> quite frankly, the results of that the puulic did not care a lot about+ it. we did not end up doing anythhng . , ,> waa thattdecision made before you received that pole? >> that took place the vening3 when we found out hat abc was running that, exponent worked at pollinn. >> did youurunnany%+ from that datt? some of our advertising, ii terms of toyota innamerica, has3 pulling informaaion. to my unddrstanding, with we have. >> we have had sooeetalk about the break overridee and fixes ffr the sudden, unintended and fixes for the sudden, in su, unintended acceleration. use of thht you would -ppetroactively install a systtm -- ou have said that you would+ retroactively to installla %+stem. >> not on every single vehicle. -pww would put them on the vehicles thaa haae the push-%+ button start/stop.%+ camry 0-- we put it across the entire line. the same with the avalon. weetook a second cut o look at %pincidenceeof sudden, high accellration. -pwhat other vehicles might we addeddthaa foor additional consumer confidence?3 to that for additional consumer confiience?+ >> why would you not add it to all of yyur vehicle's? >> it is not the same across all vehicles onneither sidee part of it is that there is tremendous amounts f eegineering resoorces and ime >> if yoo are trying to rebuild consumer confidence after a ver+ damaging series of events, it seems ike it would make sense, if that issthe waa to do it. just add that eature and then none of the est of us have to will that system prevent every suuden, unintended acceleration+ >> it only works if ou step on >> ok. let me ask you this, if i could. you have been very indulgent. i jjst want to ay, at least ii my part of the world, you're dealerrhips have done aa excellent job - opening early, stay in ate -- as have multiile -- i have heaad multiple anecdotal experiences, and have my own experience as well. by yoor company. it was a pretty tough time.%+ they stepped up and met the they have taken it -- they have met it head-on. we apppauddyour dealers in that area. they are doing a great job. -p>> ttank you. they are tremendous pprtners f ours. taking care of customers..of thank you. >> thank you. i am still onfused. as i hear what you're saying, exponent s continuing to do ressarch for youu,but they are not going to do it for tte trial lawyers, but one of yourr ccoporate executives. >> i do not think there mutually exclusive. i think it haa evolved. -- i do not thinn they are mutually exclusive. i think it has involved. >> you have told ttem notttt ppare aay budget. havinggcompleted their research? >> no. pot tell us much. yet, some people assured the american people that it is not+ the whole lectronic syssem tat could possibly be the cause of a sudden acceleration. 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 customers that they have the confidencc that independently, scientificallyy >> former secretary.having the well, we heard from the head of does not feel that he can rely has been. they seem to be working or the lawyers. exxlusive for doing work for corporations. they have shown us, by way of documents, that they hhve not come to any concclsions. we have no reaaon to look at the issue, because thee did not even have it on the list of things if xponent is doing the ob that you describe in your testimonyy providing a it mmltidisciplinary, numerous-%+ rounds testing and analysis.. on the project, but there is no written communication between these people. there is nothing by way of weeneed science to be evallated. i just raised that issue. i am still not satisfied. -psomething other than exponento give you that certainty. i will sk you a different question before y ime has expired. i want to tall about the overal+ system. what is the purpose of it? oveeride syssem.3 is it for safety? >> i cannot speak for all of the consumers. i annot say that all 100% of the consumers willlsee it as%+ being for safety. >> will t make the ars safer? >> there are other eeuudancies within the cars today that will make the car stopped.. p> you do not believe there is any need for it? >> i believe there is, otherwise models. consumer confidence. will make are you willlnggto say that it is goong to make the cars saaer? >> i cannot say necessarily makes caas safer. they are different. >> they say it costs around $50 to do thiss -pyou are not willing to do it 3 phat hhve you maae that decision? do you not feel that those who tooota vehicles should have that brake override to protect ttem?3+ peopll ay for their ars.+ we started with the four vehicles that had pushed-button start. other veeicles? >> we went to tte other three moddls that were highhon the%+ nets of the ago comppaint list. we will not get too-- on the nhtsa complaint list. we will ot get to all of them. my son does not hhve it in his vvhicle. %+++. >> as an owner, ii car? most of he vehicles. >> it is nique to each vehicce. >> you're gging to put it in all the future vehhcles. >> but it is nique -- >> you are retrofitting it for-f >> it is unique for every time it would take to be able to do with -- what i hear you saying is good, so yyu tell them exponent+ has said that hey should be assured,,but i do not believe pou can say that. you are saying people ouuht to feel good about the bbeak override -- brake override, increase safett. i did not see assurances oon safety. it seems o me you are workkng around attitudes. tte attitude that you wann to develop is that people should3 i want people to feel good aabut their safety. it s an extraordinary effortt%+ i do not know of annthee3 to retrofit vehicles with any type of safety like this. even toodoo3 million going back on these seven models is an extraorrinary effort for any manufacturee to do. >> my time has expired. i do not want to interrupt you. letting me go over. thank you. >> miss christensen.+ >> thank yyu, mr. chaiiman. mr. lentz, in the prior hearing, it seemed like all the major ddcisions were being made phere seemed to be a disconnect between what was happening with toyota-made cars inndifferent parts of the worll. there was no communication with what appened in europe with pxample. committee have made a differenc+ if thhss offices existed back then?+ >> the biggest difference ii global quality officer, but we have an individual who is responsible for recalls now in the world has bben divided uu now into, i believe it ii six different regions.3 -pchhna has a represennative, te %-basis.ion andddata on a globaa >> that did not happen before. the decisions were made in now, that inforration ill be%- visible to this iidividual. this individual will wook with one other person in japan too pake that decision whhther or if he is not satisffidd he as theeability to go diiectly to akio toyoda -- he has the ability to go directly to akio toyoda and discuss the not only do we have input, but president f the compann if we're not satisfieddwith that decision. that is very different than it was before. p> it you have the north america quulity advisory ppnell-- >> yyu have the north ameriia quality adviiory panel that is appointed and paid byytoyota? >> yes. slater was initiilly selected by toyota aad he basiially hand-picked the other >> other than a igh respect we have for his stewardship and integrity, who may not aaways bee-- for ny number of reasons he may leave -- how do we ensure indeeendence in this advisory panel? but you have to look at the results over the next few yeers -- >> i ttink you have to look at the results over thhenext few years. we're confident in the memmers of that panel.3 they have already spent time with exponent.+ ttey seemmto be veryy very independent. very up front. they are asking tremendous questioos. organizatton.lue to our overall- >> my last question -- the initiatives such as smart -- are we have a big toyota market in+ theevirgin islaads. >> i cannot tell you islaads.3lly in the virgin after your comments today, i'm understands that if they need technicallexpertise, we will on the engineering side, they do cover the caribbean. our teaa doos not. pr ii nder -- puerto rico is under tm controo. >> mr. lentz, welcome back. >> thank you. >> i want to explore toyota's relationship with exponent. when you appeared in ebruary, you submitted a wrrtten+ statemmntt on page two of your written statementt you said, "ww asked3 consulting ffrm -- to cooddct a analysis offour electronic+ throttle control system with an do you reeall that? at the conclusion oo hat hearing, i requested a cooy of aay documents thht would verify+ the ature of the reeationship in responseeto that request, we copy of a document listed as attachment a,,which we will put+ up on the screen, and which you have in front of you. this is annagreement dated firm in south carolina with expooent.. would you agree? >> yes. "subject to," action." that is a group of claims against a manufaccurer which have been pursued for the purpose of achieving relief. did i state that ccrrect? >> yes. >> in the first paragraphh it outlines the scopp off ervices in the agreement.3 in it -- is antiiipated to include serviccssrelated to class actions filed against toyota." actions filed against toyota are separate and distinct from an -pindependent analysis of what s pausing this probbem. >> i understand that. of this letter. doon in the third paragraph it says, "this is an agreement california -- it is our+ understanninggthat exponent's retention on this project is thh organization that exponent is referrinn to is that law firm." you would aggee with that. -- you would agreeewith thatt all charges incurred by this projeet, the toyota class actiio prrject, will be the3 independent of other arties involved. do you see that? >> yes. when exxonent waa first agreement iih a law firm in pouth carolina, not with toyota directly. the subjeet of that agreement was to investtgate class-action claims againnt toyota. we heard from administrator ted perspective whennhe said there is preparationnfor litigation and here is scientific analysis consisting of a detailed%+ analysis of the cause of a ppoolem and liminating it. what exponent had been paid byf- toyotaaover the years. it says that betweenn2000 and paid exponenn about $11 illion for consulting froo 2004 to 2009, it was $9.1 %+llion. theee is a statement here,3 reeult of this search provides a reesonable estimate that --+%+ exponent believes the result of this search provides a reasonable estimate of what has been paid by toyooa.. it is cleaa that toyooa, in that decade, had paid a suustantial amount of money o exponent.+ my questiin is, how can you claim that exponent was retaiied indepeedent investigation, hen this agreement that we have been provided with makes it clear that they were retainee by your defense law firm nd it was for -pcontested itigation, which is in no way ccnsidered an indeeendent analysis? >> before you came here, ouhip- testified that thee were reporting through product liability attorneys. we also ass questions ffomm toyota. pe received responnes. i would like those put up on the screen. amount that hass eee billed, since they were retained on december 7, 2009, was $3,030,000." ptatement toddy that exponent has already completed more ttan p1,,00 hourr of testing and analysss. that means that at 11,000 hours, hourrfor ttis incredible ammunt of work thhy have done. >> i do not know what the specific contract is. that the perception is that this is not a very transparent >> do you havv also provided as, in yourrwrrtten statement today, thhre is informationement aboot staff -- a bunch of -pinformation about staff, which this does not cooe -- which they said is not changed their relationship with exponent and y say as nottchanggd the relationship with exponent and the law firm. will you submit to as documents that changes that relaaionship -- will you ssbmit to us any documents that chaage that relationship? >> yes. >> my time has expired. >> thank you. we have to go to a vote on the floor. the vote on the nhtsa bill text is a 2:00. -- the vote on the nhtsa bill takes place at 2:00. we cannot be in two places. whee you were here in february,+ asked you about - we ask you we have received no iiformation on anythiig from those. novvmber 27, 2009, accideet york. we sked about this is a big we had asked an question you on3 "washington post"article about the 2005 camry is not subjecttto suuden, unintended acceleration, even though it looks llke it in these accidents. you're looking for information i wiil follow that and other questionssuu ii riting. >> i apologize if we have noo -psubmitted back to you. thh black box recorders -- we have lived up o the commitment that we made that we have 150 oo those devices and their data retrieval devices on thee say. be made commercially availablew- by about september, 2011, to avaiiable for police across the united ssates. bamut and consumers, i hopp. -p>> consumers, too, hope. we'll follow that up. i woold sk that the rrsponse we received with the rellvant attachments and e-mail that we hhd up oo tte ssreen, atedd3+ answers to those questions, be >> i have no problem. we will need some reductions on i insist upon that. redact >> that has been our policy in the past.. their names do not need to be in theepublic record. requust is that there aae since he has been subject of %+ -pwitness has provided, that hi+ that wiil be included with the >> i have one observaaion. you are going tt marrkup. -pi'm no longer on that subcommittee. you're going to mark uup legislltion,,and we have not%+ supposed to inform the legislation. there were huge discrepancies filled ---hooes that need to be >> ttis legislation does not pitnesses have testified. i know yyuuare not n the subcommittee. again.do this time anddtime we did it with clean water. we aae doing it now with this bill this afternnon. it seems like the committee -pshould take things in the methodical wwy, not haphazardly, though that seemssto be prevalent. with yoor iidulgence,,i will yield back. >> you have a chance to place those objecttons when it comes to the fuul committee. yoo will have a chance to that concludes our questioninn appeared thank you tooour questioning. thank you to our witnesses for coming today and for your+ testimony. we mayyredact any information as relates to privacy concerns. withoot objection, the documents beeore i close, lettmee acknowledge two of our key staff persons. 3 children very soon. put in for this committee andav- there subcommittee. subcommittee.. anddweeks ahead as they transitiin to childbirth that will conclude this eetingg phe meeting is addourned.+ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> many of these attacks can be things. by people doing simple%+ >> today, "preparing for cyber attacks," he talks about how government work toward protecting feeeral and private+ security networks. that s on "the communicators" on c-spann >> today on aaerica & the courts justice anthony kennedy on why for nominees. he talked about the u.s.'s overcrowded ppison system nd the rule of aw in hird world+ coontries. this event was hosted by the palm beach county bar association in florida. that airs today at 7:00 eastern on c-span. after that, c-span's campaagn 2010 coverage cootinues. their sseeches by connecticut aad colorado demooratic senate candidates.+ -plast niiht, thh connecticut attorney eneral received a spot on heeaugust 10 primary baalot, in the race -- the race to+ -psucceed incumbent christopher dodd, who ii retiring. michael bennet is now sseking a full u.s. senate term aater replacinn kenneeh sallzar, who became the interior secretary. llter today, the colorado pemmcrrtic partt convention will decide whether he qualifies for phs party's august 11 ppimaay. see that tonight starting at 8:00 eastern. >> supreme court justice sonia sstomayor on the confirmation >> questions, even over three days, are not going to tell you much about prospective judge you have to look at their life's work. that will be clear reflection of who they are, hhw they think, and what they will do. >> with the new nomineeeheading into the confirmation process, learn more abouu ur nation'')s highest court in our latest bbok, "candid conversations justices." but in some wayss it givvs ou sense oo what the country s thinking at that moment.. >> he looked behind the%+ institution of the u.s. senate, the upper house, sunday on c-3 >> noww a discussion on the electronii communicatioos privacy act of 1968. in the coming months, congress hearings on how best to update that laww posttd byythe cato institute, this is one hour. been a good afternoon. pwlcome to our panel this afternoon. i am the manager of the caao i would like to war in thank -- if you are not already ffmiliar foundatiin that is dedicated to+ incceassng tte underssanding of public policies based onnthe principles of limited government, free arkets, a trrly non-partisan organization,,some scholarships the left, some from the right, and some from elements within both. the issue before us todayyis one electronnc communications school. pe're here to talk about why and howwto update the 1968 elecctonic communications privacy act. after our ppnelists remarks, we willlmove into some q&aa julian sanchez, a research fellow at he cato institute, focusinngon technology, civil libertiess and nnw medda, s well asspolitical and social psychology. he served as the washhngton editor for the technology new site where he covered -- news sste where he covered a number of policies. hh was aaso an assistant editor for a magazine, and is still a he has studied phillsophy and political scienceeaa new york universitt. juuian sanchez. >> thaak you. i wanttto walk you through my not because therr is anything that iiteresting, but because it is ppobably not that different from yours. i wake up to "morning edition." i put the kettle on for tte coffee. i checked a morning ews. i read my morring news. 200years ago it would ave been i do it in my rss readerr. --heck my e-mail.%+ my wwrk e- my ersonal e--mil.. shower, un back, send some im's. run back. i set the lert in my google calendar. that beeps. i realize i need to finish editing my notes. save ii to myydrop box. it goes to my pad. i check my gps for the shortest route toothe hearing room. none of thhs is particularly remarkable. about the compared to the pgo is that aamost every aspect, except the showwr, left a traae on some kind of third-party3 but a few dooennor affw hundred,,someone withhaccess to that data, with the ability to abrogate and analyze that data, and compare it to dta bout other people, could compile an almost eeerr aspect of my daily+ life -- what i read, where i am, who i am with, why talk to. you mighttthink that alllof thaa is protected from overnment collection by the fourth++ amendment. the fourth amendmmnt requirement pupported by a possible causeeto will be found beforr they can records, thrrugh thii incredibly detailed digital biography. wrong.unately, you would be%- most of that acttvity enjoys pether uuclear or no prrtection. in 979, there was a case -- th+ problem is thht, the fourrh amendment proteet the reasonabl+ expectation of privacy thatt the problem is that,,because that is inception of privacy. it is called the secrecy of3 that information conveyed to a third-party -- in that case it telephone recorr -- who had i palled and who had cclled me? that infoomation, because it has -pbben conveyed to the phone company, which have that3 rate, i haveethen lost my expectation of privacy. ww had been exposed to the world, as far as the court was concerned. this was only a few years from when making phone call across state lines typicclly involved talking to an operator and telling them what number you wanted to be connected to. at the mmst, the resuut was ver+ unclear what kind of ppotection all of that data,,not jjst e- maillmessages and instant messagess but all of the et adata and the transactional data. portunately, congress did try to addrrss thii by passing in 1986 -pprivacy act. you may have noticed that technollgy has changed a bit3 the categoriee of tte statute do not very well track the teccnology we actually use now ordinary people aboot the llevl communications are going to enjoy. this is a problem for users who their information is, and for the companiessto store that is so convoluted and complex. even in the eyes of thoseewho+ how the categories f theense o+ statute work. supposs the governmmnt thhnks i am up to something shadyy they want tooget ahold of the e- mail that i sent this morning. how do they do ttat? the copy store on my home pomputer, they need a sort -- supporteddby possible cause -- probable cause. if they ant to ook at the draft which has not yet been+l sent is a remote computing service provider. as such, that mmanssthat can be obtained with a subpoena orrwur. they do noo have to be inttreeted in what i am doing.+ they just have to think my communications would tell them then, i send the draft e-mail and it travels over the wire. it is not covered by one act, buu tten it s covered by the wiietap act. it requires more than aasearch it reeuiies whaa some scholars call a wiretap act super3 requirements, including that3 methods before using this.. it lands on the server of the is anerson's ispsenttit.%- electronii communications3 to read it while it is here, they need a search warrant. then, someone opens the e-mail appeared once it has been oppn, once gain, the e-mmil stored on that foreign server is being unless you re in tte ninth circuit -- it has interpreted this in a diffeeent way. once again, a search warrant is required, even if it has been opened, until it eepires in the normal course. i ave no idea what this means and iiwwrk on this for a living. if you do,,give me a hint.. i am not sure. anywhere else, the lower standarr applies where they have there foo more than 180 days.ts that is all assuming thht these if i am reeaing my work e-mail, i may not even know whether 'm reading my work e-mail becaase it s all in the samm in box, disclose withoot these compulsory proceeses nything that they want when the government comee asking. are unclear and inconsistent.ds intuitively,,what most people information about -- the ontent of the communication use and consistent way, whether it is on server, trrnsmitting n the ire -- it really should not matter. the wwy that the statute is set up, these seemingly trivial distinctions in where a docuuent is stored orrwhether it has been opened as influence, to an%+ of evidence apppies. i think there is similar trouble with location. i mentioned that i checked my phone gps. there is no clear stttutory3 goveenmmnt has to do if they+ my phoneekent check in and make+ full calls while and move arouud the city. the different courts haaee%+ -pdecided different things. they say they cannot adjust to 2-from location information.at%- -pit does not say what they can use. depending on whattthey'rr lloking for is perspective or retrospective, how detailed iss -- thhy just want a eeeral+ area?+ to he want somethinn very%+ precise? -- do they want something very some ave been abll to use those ii combination. they coull use the plussa writ -- register%plus a writ. one of those super warrants.. it leavessinnonsistencies. individdals and companies are radically unclear about what at the end of the day, it does not make much sense. there is a similaa problem with transactional datt. offfcially unprotected. sufficient to get most of it. although we're not dealing with that dealing with rrles thh court creattd by the tiie when third-party records f data about everyyne's daily activities, whatever reading and exception, rather than the the rule, where the indefinite storage of records of that+ transactional informaaion was the exccption, rather than the rule. space cost about $100 each.age%- thht is close%to $1800in current dollars. the price of a gigabyte is of out -- is about 1 per consumer and it is decreasing. increase in storagg capacity at the same pricing point. typically, it s cheaper to save ben to deleee. the transactiinal data and the stored on omeone else's+ computer indefinitely -- for 180 days and often mucc llnger. in the way that the statute did not anticipate. therr is also way that we use this technology3 anticcpate. most oo us aae now on one kind of othhr netwwrk website. these are intimate draff of the kinds of groups we are members of. -- these are intimate kinds of birds wherremembers of. of grouus people are embers of. some groups have politically%--s also, when we ccnsider that more and mmre people aae in the fact acting as members of the press3 or sending tweets -- blogginn or tweeting, the people they are in contact with our journalist as -pthat information is much more the address is not just a phone number. it is much more identifying. oftte been sainsburr --ion for addrrssinn information for communicaaioos with websites+ often contains very detailed inforration. law enforcement has sought the path of llast resistance,,as we've seen aa enormous uptick in the requests forrthese kinds of less-regulated user informatiin. reportinggon this kind of requeet is very spottt. we do know%that sprint alone play surveillance platform for paw--nforcement, dessgned to make a quick and easy, somethinn like 8 million discrete pingss for geolocation information in the past year alone. get tens of thousands of that information is now a full- as this information exxlosion has happened, we are operating under rules that were made for a time when the only computee you use, if you had one, was a sort of clunky box on a desk. it was a fairly limited portion3 interactions have moved on line, morr and more are in this unregulated space.+ and the of motion to provide claaity and protect privacy, they need tooprovide new wayssto uue these platformss we need to seriously consider it a major verhaullof this now 25- year-old law. some detaal about what kind of%+ changes might be appropriate. i will take your leaae and start from here. at the end, i will demo a couple of things using ourragency equipment. mei introduce you first? p-- may advertissng and governmentonline access to records. -phe teaches e-commerce law at e washingttn university law school. he worked in the communications, ppivacy, aad information law graduate of%+a princcetn university and palifornia's berkeley school of law. will devries. >> thank you so muuhhthank you for all of the work you are poing in the senate and house to move this issue forward, including makiig space available for us today. i see many people here that i3 interested in this effort. i'm excited to see it move forward.. googge is a proud member of the we will ppak morr about whaa it has been up to as it has een led by cdt. see in it are products.3f the that thheoutdated rules present i will show you a coupleeof%+ things to break up the monotony a little bit. i will hold up until the end,%+ while i connect the quipment for that. there will e a perfect egge. let's talk about technologyy julian said. in 1986, a 10 mb hard drive cost about $60 and it would ssore+ photographs. you can now go out and buy a 1.5 terabytee hard drive that would3 transfer rates,,and it has revolutionized our exxectation of how we inneract withhdata, what data we should have available to us, and how we produce dataa lettus be clear that while thhs poses some risks in terms of privacy, it has also delivered ww')e not looking bacc. -pwe'rr moviig forward.3 ccntinue. seen enormous benefits from these increeaes in the3 dataastorage. let's looo aa three services that google offers and show you how the nottmap well to where3 privacc act was when it was we have a web service thht is products hat i first fell in love with. since i started using it, how i have only used 15% of my storage i havv never eleted, with the never deleted anne-mail. that is the point. you can have it forevvr. youucan access it from nnwhere. there has been aachangg in the seee as e-mail existed in 1986, -- seeing as e-mail and existed in 1986, we have other things that have no comparisoo aa all to what existed thhn. people walk around with their mobile phones. -pmy colleagues are annoyed tha i can share my locatiin with my friends and they can share it is a private network. it shows me wheee i m at any given time. p have level of speciffcity. 340,000 people in the united states had anythhng resembling about coomunications device, fo+ voiceecommuuications on annlog. messaggs orraccess the internet. also, i want to focus on online word-processing syssems.%+ in 1986, buttyouuprrbably hade%- something for it. and printeddout and store it. it was a completely cloud-based+ word-processing system. it allows you to collaborative lee, in real timee work on documents with other people in a warehouse in the world --+ anywhere else in the world, as long as you have an internet connection. this is not what a remit -- this is nnt what a remote computing service was at that timee we'll talk abouttback business processing of the kind that -- we were talking about a batch business processing of the kind that businesses would use to% process data at that they could the documents exist only in the cloud appeared people really down ulled them. access thee from anyyhere -- the ddcuments exist only in the crowd. frome access them anywhere. we're talking about some of the proolems that we may faceewhen i think that we have some ddd up by saaing that ecpa is difffcult the confusion and%+pplyy associated with us s serricee and the growth of the -pthat is a rral concern.. when our sers look at ecpa, if they ook at the procedural steps that are in he language, do not make sense.tand and ttey- i do noo date -- i do not think nebraska e-mail they use is just as private to thee as -- any e- mail hey use is just as prrvate to hem as ny conversation on the telephone or that they would maii.%+ i do not think users understaad or know what the rules are.+ thee doonot understann there is a diiferenttproccdural level depending on what service they are using and how they use it. this is very common as a complaint. people said they want to move to the cloud, but they are not sure how ittwill work when we get requests for their recordd. will ttey be in civil how will you deal with that?ion, many of them, ven those wwo are sophisticated, do not know hat the standards are for acccsssto for example -- there are still a protectioo -- enormous amount o+ connern for prottcting their own when it is under their control, request they do not -- thee can go to their counsel and conteet thht information, theyyare going tt have to trust what we're3 and not only trust what we'res, standarrd in ecpa are going to satisfy their needs. that is a big issue. we have seen ii from our %+stomers. no that ooherrcompanies -- we know that others have complained about similar processes when they complained about their own serrers. part of the problem -- this problem is part of why we developed our government request transparrncy tool. we're trring to bring somee clarity to a process hat has not had verr much in the past. we thhnk this is really going to users, worldwide, heee is what with gooernments who are requesting information about or from you. you should see that and have we hope otherrcompanies will follow suit. you can haveean educated dialogue on this. until thaa happens, it issgoing to be a struggle to explain whaa the need ii for hange in law. thh second part of the problem is the fact ttat it is murky and difficult for google to apply -- libbrties oncerns of any kind. as aacost burden for us too is a cat -- it is a cost burden for us to figure out how too comply. the onfusion that comms out of this creates both waste nd spend in turring it -- it wastes resources that we have to spend in turning it and it enforcement might have the wrong interrretation. i want to point at that almost all of the requust that we get from law enforccment are important in tracking down -preally bad actorr. -- and extremely important in tracking doww rrally baddactors. with law enforcement are within that mold. we're happy to be part of doing that. we haae had good interactiins. that is at ll levels, federal, local. ensuringgthattwe get tte answers right and complying with these of what ww're talking about.3 nnthing except receivv, process, and interpret, these requests to ensure that theyyare valid and spirit and letter ala. sometimessthat is a difficult call. -- letter of the law.%+ sometimes that is a difficult call. i do nnt think ny court has ruled on the issue of what happens when you haveea docuuen+ in the cloud that has been edited over imme where a communication woull drop from a warrant standard to a lower set of warrants -- that has bben contteted. it would drop down to aasubpoena after 180 ddys. . the time at which aa+ changes the procedural access -pdocs pose a problem. work thhouuh with law but we wwuld like some clarity to the law. it is a civil libertiis issue. we waat to know what standard we request or this information. i want to 0.1 example that brings this in clear light. yahoo faced a requust along these linns. thee had a request from the oj was less than 180 daas olddbut oo the e-mail. they used less than a warrant standard to request that informationnand yahoo contested that in court, in an amicus brief joineedby google and other members of the due process coalition.3 proper reading of ecpa and not a proper reading of the fourth amendment. the doj retracted the request3 wwat we think that is the right involves the time offthe providers, of prosecutors and officials thattcould be better served going after thht. it also took up the court's time. that is time and resources we would rather have spent on doong actual work.. part of that iiterpretatiin was+ whethhr the ninth circuit iiterpretation of what an e-mail anddelectronic storage is -- mooe broadly. that is an interesting qqestion. pell yyu what it actually means. that is a question i would like not only are these ddsputes a waste of provider, llw enforcement, and court rissy. if the provider grant access under what turned out to be an improper view of the statute, they face litigatton and potenttal penaltiis. if it deniis tte request that it shoulddgrant, ii could not onll law-enforcement but could let a criminal perhaps escape, or+ impede an investigatiin. none oo those outcomes are ideal. we want a solution thaa is going to allow a more clear and coosistent interpretation of -pecpa. if you forgive me, i am going to set up and show you a quick video that i think introduces% ecpa. you can introduce ggeg. >> while he is setting up, let greg nnjeim is aasenior counsel at theecenter for deeocracy and its project on freedom,ector of cdc is a wassington nonprofit dedicated to democratic values and constitutional libeeties in the ddgital age. in this capacity, he conducts mmch wookkinn he areas of national securiiy, terrorism,3 protections, and woosttto limit the threat to privacy by3 monitoring of internet communicatiins. other areas of expertiseeinclude government data mining, the patrick act, the state secrets pariiian -- privilege. -phe is also the co-chair of he ccordinating committee on american bar associatton. union for 12 yeers, where he analyzed the civil liberties imppications of federal legislation relating to terrorism, national security, immigraaion, and informatton policies. he studied political science and earned his jd frommthe university of virginia. back to you.+ >> unintelligible] the rights of individuals. under ouu constitution, they get guaranneeing due rocess to all. p00 years later, technology is creating new jobs, new challenges. unfortunately, merrcan law has innovation.. the rules for online privaay were written in 1986, long before most people had even hharr of the inttrnet.. as a result, legal protecttons onllne world. thissis what privacy advocates, technology companies have joined together to call for digital due process.. pogether, we are aaking information you store online is3 as information stored on your computer at home. we want to reserve both law enforcement and he internet. >> hy don't we leave it there. yes. i lovv that video. -pit is a lottof un. pe s ssowiig is what cell%--pp. they looked like bricks. thhy eighed like bricks. not mmny people had one back in ss my position on this panel -pfollowing julien and will -- julian made the case that ecpa poes ot make sense today. its standards are inconsistent or nonexistent. will makk the case that those problems are a big problem for it is difficulttfor them to apply the statute. my role on the panee is to explain what ould be ddne bout we have been involved in a proccss for about three years to arrive at some ideas and privaay act to deal with these advances in technooooy that will ann julian have talked about. i m going to describb the+% proposals..t led to thhse i will describe the proposals. i will wait for wwat we think will happen going forward. we were meeting probably every otherrweek for -- or every+ week, first with a small grrup, to talk about what we thought ought to be done to ecpa. and we identified at he front end about 14 different changgs that we thought ought to be madee we talked about them. we tried to reach consensss on them. some of them dropped out.3 othee oness some of them were jjst too harr, figure out a clean solution foo. hopefully, a solution will come, but we wwittled it down to four proposals. and i will talk about those our coaaition, digital ue prrcess, you can reaa more abou+ it at www.digitaldueprocess.org, involved technology companies, -pprivacy advocates, academics, including a number of lawyers that used to work with the computer crime section at the i think it is fair to say that there were a lot of polls different directions. and i think we came up at a good place. we tackled some oo the biggest issues, but not all of them. overarching thhmes of balance. we wanteddto achheve a balance communications information tonic prosecute crimes. it needs those tooos. and for cussomer trust. one of our founding principless pas that there should be neutralityyand platform+%- it should not matter whether you are working on your computer to ssve a dooument or ssving it in the cloud. important to preserve the building blocks of law pnforcement investigatioos, a sliding scale so that laa eeforcement can escalate its efforts.3 now traditional review. subpoenas -- no judge has seen this. information thattis not parttcularly sensitive, information ttat the company mighh store about where you live, for exxmple. standard for more sensitive information -- ttansactional who emailed you. you emailed an- it should have to get a arrant, probable cause, for the most sensitive informatton, for content. we preserve those building blocks.+ law enforcement can escclate its about the criminal activiiy that is afoot. -pwe alss decided we needee to preserve the structure of the staaute. i think julia made a good case that there is a lot of issues in that structurr. one of ur members said3 let us not boil the ocean. we are not going to be able to we do not want to rewrite the whole thing. and a lot of the former prosecutors involved said, "we have to worry about unintended let us preserve the structure of the statute and make the changes that we need to make." ii was ammnded just last year. it needs to beefixed. it was -- we excluued it from -pour disccssions early on. we also decided we needed to preserve tteeexxsting exceptions of ecpa that allow for law enforcement ann for companies to pave fleeibility innsome areas. so for example, ecpa has enforcement, when ittis trying33 to get the court order ahead of3 it can go to the rovider right away ann get the couut order later. -ptheee is other excepptons bot child pornography that permit providers to disclose a childd -ppornograahy that they become aware of to the national enter for missing and exploited children. weepreserve all of those existing exceptions. simppicity and clarity -- those were buzzwords that came about a lot. they are reflected in the+ we said we ave to have consensuss we arrive at consensus early this yearr rolled up the companies on bbard iiclude googll, microsoft, ebay, sales computing providers for business, aol, intel, and more. among the advocates, we haa a great left-right group. aclu, americans for tax reform, progress, and freedom some o ur members are in the room now. ann other members wann to stand up? ted kingsley from at&t. thank yoouall for coming. of coursee will from google.+ at some level, the reforms ttat pe agree on are mmdest.3 rral quick in the time i have peft. the first princcple to which we agreed was ttat ttere should not acccss tt content of communications -- thereeshould be a requirement of robable+ cause and warrant. a judge shoull have to sign off on ii.+ ppobable cause is a relatively high level offcertainty that the relevant to a criie. as julian poonted outt there are strange rules today that we would do away with.+ this notion that tte e-mail that was so ssnsitive, that you saved it for morse -- said it for more than six months, ought o be at a lower level of rotection?3 to be ppotected t the probable- cause level. stored photos, photos that you3+ probable cause, unless you make -pit public. if yoo make it public, law process. -pthey ccn read it on the intert just like they read aanewspappr. the private postt that you put on facebook, the documents too share on google docs, for those things we would say prooable cause. it is content. this is not a new idea. in fact, it was in legislation, bipartisan legislation, that senators ashcroft and leahy introduced in 1998. we wwuld codify it today. the second major proposal that be a search warrant based on level of suspicion for getting location information. and it shouud not matter whether the location information that this fund generates and that my -pprovider stores -- it shhuld t matter whether it wws based on the ggs or ssll upside to our and more accurate. location information is takkn frrm storage or in real time. -pboth arr very revealing. and in that sense we distinguish non-cootent. we determined it was more revealing and thaa a fire3 warraated.r protection was brand new. it was part of the ashcroot- llast for real timeelocattoo was actualll approved by the hhuse judiciary committee in legislaaion in the year 000, on a 20 to 1 vote.+ judiciary, house. you ever hear that before? it is a divided committee and we also made a change. standard for what issknown as pin register and trap aad trace devices. when they werr first conceeved of, they were devices that record numberssdialld to or from now, you an get trrpped orders for e-mail 2-from informaaion as well. the standard for that ii law-enforceeent merely ertifies that the infoomation sought is the statute does not call on the -pjudge to make a determinationf relevance. we would change the statute tt make it so that the judge pecides whether the information law ennorccment hasspresented relevance. again, this s not a supee change in the standard. it really is a change that gives the judge a role in making this pensitive transactional - he fourth proposal, anns our last one, woulddmake it so that for both requestssfoo transactional information, court approval is required. prght now, some bulk requeets for this informatiin, even no judge is to look at it. so what we are talkiig about is noo when law enforcement gges to the provider and says, "give us information about so and so, this target of our investigation." about. we are talking about law enforcement goes to the provider and sayss "we do not have a ttrget that. ggve us, for example, everyone who vvewed this web site paae." -pthe data of a lot of innocent people. for that kind of request where there are noo specified targets, we woull say a judgeehaa to ssg% off on that. it is going to be a relatively low standard -- relevance and speciffc facts -- but we want you to show approval. so, where have e ggne nd where i swear theee proposals -- they they are at some level simple. and we have briefed them to the+ world. we have discusssd them with six entities ithhn the ddpartment of justice, inccuding the national seeurity division, computer crime seetion, the fbi, the office f legislative affairs, the officeeof legal policy. we have briefed them to he feddeaa trade commission, toothe pepartment of commerce, to the white houue. we are breathing lawyers from week. phere arr o secrets here. we want to get people's reaction.3 connerns might be. we want to be aall to respond to themm there ere sooe hearings ii the house, to the credit of the chairman. he said that this is the kick pff and we're going to have more senator leahy has inddcaaed he would like to hold hearings this year in the senate. session of congress, where we get a channe to ttlk about it witt law-enforcement. and void unintendedight and we- -pconsequences. thank you very much. >> thankk, greg. before we go to q nd a, is there any quick comment anyone wants to make on anyone else's presentation? >> i just ttought they were ggeat. >> i want to just think grade a andd-- greg for the lead on this work. recentty. it is amazing how much effort and time has gone into this. builling a coalition like this is no easy ffat. anytime that you have the acll and at&t and microsoft andd done a it heroic task. i hope that as this prrpossl goos out of our hands and into the hands of you all on the hhll and other bodies that wwll appreciate thattthe people who much and we agrre on this. >> the floor is now pen. please raiseeyour hand.+ we willlcall on youu i will repeat the questiin priefly for the beeefit of the cameras here.3 identify yourself or your affiliatton. not have to.+me to but you do%- yes, sir. >> [unintelligible] provvders, in termssof ssrvers, they give the right to read and there is no -- you cannot read those terms of service and conclude there is any reasonabbe service, which can be reaa byha- your proposal says the government needs to get a search warrant. there is a reasonnblee expeetttion of privacy. focuued on ndividual privaay- with respect to thh ggvernment, privvcy with respect to private3 >> actually, i think that was not quite the question. i think what he is saying -- correct me if i am wrong -- is that -- shouldn't it be the case phat if you ddsclose it to -panyone, then law enforcement should ot have to get a wwrrant to get it? is that -- i ttink thaa is the here is what we are trying to address. theething we are trying to address is a situation where a+ provider -- i will just pick one and use it as an example -- ggogle. pay the provviee is using your it is not that there is somebody a google whoois reading the e- -pmail. there is a cooputer program figure out what you are interested in based on thh content of your e-mail. -pwhat we haae saad in the proposal is ttat that is a business practice that ought not privacy against the government. should your e-mail thennbe disclosed to a third party whh -pis not your provider, i do not i do not think we address that. so what we are after is ttis using e-mail, accessing e-mail to advertise to people. ww're trying to makeeittso that and i have to add one more thing. cd. we do not have a spokesperson.3 that we made. >> a more general point. problems is we ave thisscentral operative concept of the reasonable operation of privacy. it is a binaayyproperty that+ information either has or does it does not really mmp very well with actual physical practicess where we will share purposes withhparticular other entitiess maybe we even understand that wiihin some institution that information will be widdly disseminated. but it is noo thattwe then do not care what happens to it at all. privacy is not just a question-r is inffrmation beiig used in a expectations about the purpose+ look.% if you rr -- yoo go to the pharmacy and by prophylactics. why? you weee surrounddd by stranger+ who are not going to remember. feel it was a violltioo of privacy if a photograph was taken of that and mailee to your pareets or your souse. the point is what we're talking about in prrctiie is the interesttthat we are providing under the rubric of privacy. they do not actually track very well, this sort of oo-off switch that the courts typically use as the standard. >> additional questions? all riihh. thank you all for coming. i think thii has been a revealing an important debate or discussion.+ aad if you want to have discussionssonce the cameras are off, we will be round for a coople of minutes. panelists.n me in thanking our%- [applause] "washington journal [cappioning performmd by p pcaptioos copyright national cable sateelite corp. 2010] >> the senate will begin work on a 010 spenddng bill fuuding mmlitary operations in iaq and afghanistan.3 billion to fund $30 thousand additionallttoops in afghanistan, as welllas $913 miilion to help haiti recover from january's earthquake. the chamber also akes up conferees. follow the senate live on c-span -pto. the house also returns monday at 12:30 eastern ffr morning speeches and legislative business aa 2:00. on its agenda, a bbll to reauthorize defense department programs in 2011 and aameasure that extends tax credits forr pusinesses and unemppoyment hhuss coverageeon c-spann >> on jne 28, suprrme court justice nominee elan occasion -- elena kagen testified.. you can find previous hearings on line at the c-span viieo library, every program since 1987. pt ii washington your way.. >> tomorrow on "washington journal," the report discusses politics and the 2010 midterm elections. donald kerwin from the migration policy instttute looks at immigration policy, with a ffcu3 issues. victor cha, from the center for strategic internationnl studies, oofers his views on how the u.s. attaak on a south korean warr ship.3 >> when voters say to the republican candidaae, "what arr you going to do aaout the economy?" same pplicies that created the- mess toobeginnwith. >> theehead of the democratic campaign committee on the voter sentiment in tte upcoming midterm elections, unday oon "newsmakers." environmental impact f the gulf pf mexico ool spill and its and wetlandd oo looisiana. from this morning's "wwshington journal," this is 45 minuues.+ host: to conninue, the gulf war oil spill, joining us ffom boston is peee spotts, the scienceereporter.e monitor"'s there was a viieo released that shhwed in real timm the release of oil going into thh gulf. your opinion on not only what is currently happeninn to tte water there, but tte recovery efforts that will take place after this leaa is stopped? as you an see from the video.%- one of the challenges, of couuse, is trying to figure out exactly how much oil is coming out. early on, yoo may recall, both+ the federal goveenment and bbitish petroleum were using an estimateeof about -- i think it was about 5,000 barrels a day, ssnce that time, independent experts have taken a look at videos liie thaa. spoke with that does a lot f hydrothermml vents that are spewinggmaterial at aaprodigious rate, nd uusng techniques they have honed to estimate the flow+ out of those, he was trying to apply those to the oil spill. and essentially his sort of middle of the road estimate was3 barrels day, 10 times what bp and the overnment have been he is very candid abouu the uncertainties involvvd in those estimates because here are a lot of detaals about the physical size of objects down there that make it a little bit harr to estimate. even with those uncertainties,, he is confident it is far more than 5,000 barrels a day. host: there are storiessabout a maneuver that might be tried this week. could you expand on what that is, and is there any evidencee+% that this kind of procedure works? guest: i have to sayyit is hard to say whethhr we have got ny evvdence that this works. crass but this whole ncident is in effect one large, unplanned oil spills at depthh that folks have not had to deal with them theeidea is just to tart trying to cram that leak with just -- for lack of a better ord -- leak.am down there to plug the- whether or not it will work -- wwo knows? as you may recall, they experimented wwth this four storr containment dome a couple that had only been tried once+ before in 1979 with a blowout in the gulf of mexico. it did not work tten, which was understandable because it was they ran into proolees with this one as well. it is certainly great they re as someone who would llke to see this week stopped, i am rooting for them to plug it. put again we are dealing with so many unknowns it is hard to know whether this will work or not. host: there was also an effort to do additional drilling to what is the status of theure to- project? guest: that is under way. that started, according to bp -- thattstartedda couple of days after the blowouu occurred. it is a long proccss. it takes a couple of months to try tt drill that well to not only relieve the pressure but plso just to plug the well. frrm what i have reaa, it seems -pthht bp is ultimately going to plug this thing and walk away from it, from that particular wwll head, and not try to exploit it aaymore. eventually, that is the only thing that experts say is sort of the siiver bulllt that will stop this. all offttese other measures that bp has been trying to takeehave been trying to at least slow leak, so we do not have a+ continuous flow of oil. at the same time, they are doing the one thing that will actually stop it, which is o drill this will leave well. host: pete spptts will e our guest for the remainder of our time, until about 8:15 or 8:30. here are the numbers to call. you ccn send an e-mail. you ccn allo send us a twitter at #twitterwj. thii morning, pictures of oil -preaching the shoree of can you ell us a little bithes. about what louisiana faces as far as clean up in the short term, and then what really has far as the effects of the oils ggest: arr concerned as far as workinn very harddto surround -3 prevent oil from coming into the most ecologically sensitive areas. and f couuse overtime, ddring the past several weeks, when possible, the have been skimmin3 burninn it off the urface of the water to prevent as much as possible this from reaahing one of the real concerns, of course, is over the long term. let me preface what i am about to ay by -- like eal estate, it isslocation, location, location. ittis also the kind of oil andd that makes things very from one site to another.+ -pwe have had a couple of spills uu here at come off of cape cod3 years ago, that have repreeented of marshy areas thht have been involved with oil spills. there is one place thht reseaachers have been studying forr40 years. and when you look at the march that waa effected -- that was+ affected, from the surface, it looks great. it would fit into any tourist photograph or postcard. if you dig a shovel into the sediment a couple of inches and% wiggle it around, you getta verr this case the pperoleum products that leaked. that is still there and biologicclly active nearly 40 pyars after it first arrived. looking marshlands on thh3 are interesting studiee done by a marine eeologist, jennifer culbertson, who is down attthee university of north carooina. when sheewas up here n the boston area getting her doctorate, she was working on studying ttese bills. at this one location that looks really great, again, even with animals like fiddler rabs that are still very clearly affected they will not burrrw into the -poily sediment, which is probay a smart idea. but the reeidual product -- the oil produccs -- are still affecting their behavior.+ of rapid escape response that you would expecc from normal fiddler crabs. of course, one of the advantages of thhs locction is that there are uutooched marshee nearby, so you have a very ggod ssrt off baais for comparing beforeeand after. so there are organisms that are still, this long after the -pspill, thht are till affecte. these form kind offimportant linns in the human-marine food chain down there. the other consequence is erosion. if the oil kiils off the grass,+ the sea grass and the marsh grass, the roots of that grass are holding the march settlemenns in place. if the plants die, the roots go all of a suddee, you lose sediment. that is a particular problem for -plouisiana. they are alreaay lossng sediment evvry yeaa because of a range of the mississippi river that have prevented floods rom substance that is elated to both natural gas and oil development innthat area, but also just spreading cities nd neighborhoods. used to bb marshlaad, they get the piece that is lying compressee.that driis out and+ there is ust an awful lot of natural substance -- subsidence+ going on. the cannot afford to lose sediment much fastee than the already are. host: on twitter,,if you're asked the 5000 or so barrels a day that are being retrieved -- ken his will be used by bp? guest: that is a good question. i o not kkow. that is something worth looking up. there are people wwrking on technologies that will try -- -poil and water have different densities.3 that try tt separate the il frommtheewater in wayy that -pmight make some of that oil recoverable. dome. to be able to pump the oil p, and when it is coming out of the ground, it is eally a mixture they were hopinn to ring that up and separate the oil nd the tte oil, in the ocean. there would till be a little bit of sheen to it, but ittwould be nowhere near as bad as what is coming out. conceivably, you could do sometting with that oil. so it would not surprise me if the siphon approach they have bringing oii up and trying to with that. tte oil that is recovered -- thank you forrgiving me an+ additional story idea. i will look into that. special line this morning for+% gulf coast residents. ii you want to call in, 202-600- 0184. on our deeocrats line, go head. callee: i do not have a question. i wanted to expresssan opinion as aademocrat. this particular administratton, evennwith one disappoinnment at this point, as a native of louisiana, i am fearful and government ould be a little more ssift to act. our state has suufered one very little attention has been given to anything. it has affected our economy, our lifeetyle here. urgency to come aad help us. this is going to greatly affect and years down the line, the+ lives of people who liveein those marshy areas and deeend on therr to jjst exist. theseepeople's livessare already being devastated, and that is being greatll under reporttd here. i just believe i am tired of listening to presiddnt obama i am ready to see somebody actually act. be able tt reduce the oil they that is why i do not believe there is a sense of urggncy. -pthere is still some gain in it for the coopany that is guys -- they are still benefiting from what is going on aad there has beee very little attention given to how it is affeccing us aaready herr. host: mr. spotts?? guest: she has my sympathy.3 environmental insults imposed on it. this, he fisheries source of hhvv been recovering from katrina. nnw they re facing this situation. others have reporters doonnon%- the scene. people are laying out just thousands and thoussnds and interccpt this before it gets too far into the wetlands. i think there is a lot that iss3 minute steppit on television.%- p- a 30 second to 2 minute ssgment on television. picture, but a lot of people are working hard to get this uuder control. one of the challenges in something like this ---i know this is not a sattsfactory answer to everybody, but one of theechallenges with this i that nobody dealt with the spill of ggp this lose toming from this environmentally sensitive areas before. and tried to deal with it in a timely fashion. of course, ww had the horrible spells in the persian gulf during the first gulf waa, the were intentionally see by the iraqi arry. but nothing in ppacetime this seems to match the scale. everybody is in a senne puzzling they are certainll rying things, at least in terms of capping the well. nothing is working. if this does not work, we are going to pick something else up and try that. that is regarding the techniiue we were talking about a little it is -- it does seem like just3 thhre. thaa is oneeof the reasons why i think -- we heard the head of bp say a llttle bit earlier in the week that this is a problem, but remember it is a big ocean. compared to the size of the pol. we at down and raa he numbers+ an calculated all that stuff out. you cculd probably in a sense do it back of the envelooe with junior high school math. the fact f the matter remains that the oil is thheetennng not the entire ocean in a way that will not haae a significant effect wherever it faals. ttere are environmentally sensitive areas along the coast. of course,,we have not talked about at all the sort of mid- water fish that could e i affected.. prrive on the florida shelf, the ocean.nntal shelf under the%- pegiining to report some of theee sheens appearrng 45 milee off theewest florida coast. these are important breeding prounds for a lot of economically important fish -- things like tuna and others. host: it goos along with the somebody asked, "are there+ concerns abouu human beings and crude oil creeping into underground water?" guest: i m sure thhre is moment thh biggest concern s to tryyto deal with the question of preventing the ool from reaching the environmentally sensitive areas where that would then become a problem. frrnkky, we saw the national oceanii and atmospheric -padminiitraaion grratly expand its no fishing zone because of that is clearly a concern.spill- but at tte moment, as i say, focus on -- particularll for th+ marshland and the wetlands, tryiig ttoprevent thhm from encroaching on thooe as mucc s possible.+ hhot: new york city is next. calvin on our independent line. questions. i wanted to know -- i wanted know?ne just to be honest, you%- juut to level. is thhs almost as bad s%--pchen its ecological ddsaster? nnmber two, is it really3 to get its oil from oofshore platforms, coopared to how much will we actualll consume in thhs countty? host: mr. spotts. guest: let me take the firstt3 a little bit ecause i am not an there is an argument that many people will make that we dooneed that oil, particullrly -- you+ remember hat recently presideet obama included some expansion of offshore exploratton as part oo the enerry and climate bill, in part i think to tty and bring some repubbican vooes on board. i think there is an argument that could be made that we do need that oil, at least for ow. as far as whether this is as bad as chernobyy environmentally, we are talking decades,ou know,- basically, or after ddcades. certaiily is that there are potentially o many people and fishing interests and very are going to be affected by this. you know, ttere is a certain kind of self healing that takes hold in these wetlands over long perrods of time. one researcher was tlliig me that on the sea surface itself, unner normal years, bacteria aaone at gobble p on the ooderr of about -- i think it was on the order of about 700,000 barrees of oil a year. that is not because it is leaking. seafloor that leaked just naturally. out in l.a., but down at 5,000 feet. so there are microbes and natural processes that can break the queetion is to what extent.. to what extent is the sheerr+ volume of oil a have the potentiil to overwhelm those processes? some researchers have -- you may have heard of theedead zone off the gulf that starts up every spring ann into midsummer, cominggdown the mississippi river feed plankton in tte gulf+ they have one big party. they all basically die from over partying. after they have dded, they sink as they do, they decompose. that process robs the ater column of oxygen, which fish need and whiih bottom dwelling things like shrimp aad crab and things need as well. the coocern is -- the concern -- of test these ideas -- is that tte additional nutrients the oil represents in the water may, at least this year, mmak that ead zone problem a bit worse.. so there are certainly some+ short and medium term harms. overrthe long term, they will reccver to some extent. the qqestion is what will they look like after they do recover. will there be the same mix of organisms and the same mix of -- the ssme mix of plant life?? the experiment -- if the observations herr off of cape pod are any observation, a lot pf ttht will come back over long periods of time. but in the meantime, a lot of folks livelihoods are being affected. a republican line. there is a clam that would sliie over the ase in thh oil ii being discharged from. you can put a valve on thh other end of the clamp and leave it pen while you are installin+ is to charginn from. after the clamp is secured, you can close it down but attach a hose o another pieceeof pipe to it. clamp. both could be used for thatps,3 applicatton and have successfully been installed in of oil. an oil company about 15 years agoo sed it foo n oil spill. have starttd drilling the relief well yet? i think bp has probably sacrificed afety for profits, oil spill since ii happened,thi- trying to sse what we can do to there is also a plant calledd thee[unintelligible] clamp. there are microbes that are derivee from this that attract oil instead of dispeesing it. my uuderstanding is that it is usda bii-preferred. why that is not beingginstaaled -- host: you put a lot out there for our guest. mr. spotts? guess: it is gratifying to hear3 be used. wwy they have not tried it i o not know. that is a ggod question we ought to beeputting to bp. as far as the plant remediation -p-- the use of the plants iss concerned, that is an important tool in the quiver. again, why ttat has not been that i thinkkthat tooches on is sort of the hallenge -- and this is true of almost any -- i hate to say it -- but almost an+ technological enterprise, up to -pa point, that is involved wit+ you know, they try what they know, and onll after they have exhausted trying wwat they know -- hat they have previous experience with -- do they then go for some of the less well tested approaches. aa thh caller pointed out, the quite promising. it ii interestinn that bp has it is not cllar whethee thee have thought abouttit or not. they may have, aad for that trying to install it, they may applicable. iido not know. but hey have bbee workingg as i mentiooed earlier. they have been working on the relief well almost since a couple of days after the spill so that is unner way. as i say, the folks i have spoken with on this have said3 bbllee. everything else is just trying -pto keep a lid oo the amount of oil coming upp so i am sure there are some good solutions out there, bbt part of the challenge isshow well tested arr they. the valves may be fairly well tested, but some of these try to get them frommthe lab or from someekind of a field scaae experiment to a eploymenn in a real situation. host: are robotii the only way to manage something like this at phe depth we are talking about? possible? guest: robottcs is the least pxpensive. there areesubmersibles that can carrr -- sort of many submarines -- the researchers have used at far greater deeth than this for hydrothermal vents i mentioned earlier in the program. thee are extraordinarily expensiie to operate. so it would be interesting to see if one could -- could get one of those invvlved down here+ it is not clearr these submersibles have to have enougg dexteritt to be able to pick up samples frrm thh sea floor that the researchers are3 i do ot know if they have the dexterity to be able to manipulate -- i do not know what the size of these valves are. it ii not cllar they have the touch and ontrol, hat would allow thee to be used o ither install or turn these valves. i just do not know. host: llng island. anthony, on our democrats line. caller: i appreciate oorr allowing me to ask aacouple questions. tte dispersals they are using in mmke it harder to reclaim the oil? more environmental problem? killed the atlantic ocean,, basicalll? i mean, what they have done, as far as theer hodgepodge of phemicals beeng directed to the gglffstream as well as the oil the atlannic ocean? as weel as i mean, ultimateey, it hhs become a hodgepodge cesspool of chemicals and oil that the fish are going to swim right through, eat -- not to mentiin what they+ are sinking to the bottomm from what i undeestand, biilions of allons of this oil have bee+ mmde to sink to the bottom o ii seen. host: mr. spotts? guest: let me take the last one first. at the moment, tte latest -- aad this comes also from maaine studyycurrents and have studded the gulf current system very carefully. killing the atlantic ocean? no. actually is happening to a certain xtent now is he oil -- some of the oil -- is being caught up in a aaor circulation loop current.there known as the- that is part of a much llrger -- as the caller has rightty implied, that is currently partt of the larger current system editorial brazil, moves to the caribbean up intoothe gulf, up the traits of floridd,,and up the east coastt tte reason eople do not think it issgoing to have an enormous because as this surface oil is moving it is also weatheriig. as it weathers, it gets more dense and begins to sink. so ttat is bad news foo the bottom, but in terms of itt reaching the east coast, a lot pf that oil is not going to make it.+ there are expectations that you might see some patchy oil sheens -- oil sheen areas -- eventually perhaps up around -- around the coast of fllrida up to maybe palm beach and a little bit higher. the moment is that the oil on%- the surface is likely to -- is significantly. it takes eitght to ten days for the oil to come to the surface. days for that to move into thee- gulf stream. the current occurs at the pace of a fast walk for a uman. thattissslow. we are tooling round thee interstate. from an oceanographic rapid ccip.3, that is a pretty . --en thepind one ov n ofa sororms baifou wdoop ca star they can cut back through its so thht the urrent becomes its own normous eddy swirling around, almost 60 miles across. thhre is evidencc hat is what is happening right now. there is an eddy north of the if it does break off in the righh way, it willlbecome a ree standing eddie. thattcoold start moving west, and mexico.he easttrn part of-ps there are some scenarios in phich the aneddy can help to there are other scenarios wheee it can opeeate like a bulldozer could be more affected along the texas gulf coast and parts of mexico. there is so much in flux at the moment. host: of yourrasked about trying to change it into solid state what would be the short-term effects? guest: that is an interesting+ idea. you might be abll to do that if ttere were a way to get the oil on the surfaae. i am not sure how you would inject liquid nitrogen into the plume without the itrogen itself warmmng up so hht it loses tte properties that you be bill.g o employ to control thi- rrmember that the oil is rising3 the water ii pretty cold, bbt it warms up closer to the surface. i am not sure how that might affect things during the course of the travel in ways that would be a benefit. it is an interesting idea. i am not sure how workable if it would be. as thisswill solidifies -- as this oil solidifies, it gets more dense because it is losing+ a lot of the lighter elements. as it gets more dense, iis heavy and sinks back down. -- it gets heavy and sinks back downn woulddpull it off.he end it ittissinteresting idea. -- it is an interesting idea. host: dave is on the republican line. caller: this is a lot of smoke the president is looking at opening up the attantic drilling.3 wondered what changed is mind and a week later, thhs blows up. we're not worried about why it happened, we're just worried about the cleanup. we have so much government right now that we do not knoo who to3 guest: in congressional heariigs this past week, and even the week before, it is clear that bp is taking the responsibility for that. they do late it out to a faalure of the redundant fail- safe method systems on the blowout protector that was initially put down their to revent somethiig like this from happening. i do not know ii it is as much a conspiracy as it is a little bit ttchnology. we have seen the same kknd of situation over the years with shuttle accidents, particullrly the challenger incident where people were writing exceetions to the flight rules that they had in place to try to act as have been what was going on here. there were environmental waiver+ i have heerd that there are some countries that require two blowout protectors on exploratory wells like this. if all of the fail-safe ystems on one fail, you have a second blowout protector beekon presumably still keep things underr ontrol.. i tink there are a number of addinistration's willingness to open up some aaees of oor coastallwwters for additional pxploration was ah nod tt republican concerns about the need for energyyindeeendence and that il and natural gas have to be part of thattequation. in that sense, this could not haveehappened at a worse time. there has been a substantial backlash. it is eevn been among some republicans would be p... this incident. from what i have heard of the necessarily wavering in their exploration. but they are keenly interested in seeing if there are not ways to prevent something like this from happening again. guest. caller: thank you, c-span. mr. spotts, solar, solar, solar. bp ask our government to undermine the pressdent offiran because he wanted to nationalize the oillfields. there are corrupt oil companies. we have two waas over oil. how many thousands of men and women have been killed over oil? herr we are going through this disaster. all we do is down play and talk. this is terrible. this is absooutely terrible. we eed to go solaa. the geollgists have lled to us about what is going on with the oil spill. we need to go solar. thank you. host: a lot of people would agree with that.. the challenge was solar is trying to get enough of it out there. there arr people who are willing to pay a premium on their electric bill to embrace more reneeables. the varioussforms of solar can let's also remember that solar is way of producing electticity, but it does not+ solve the problems for the millions of fossil fuel vehicles on the road today. our airliners flying to the air of the mommnt need somm portion of the petroleum-based ffel. i have no doubt that is a very -psmart direction to be heading for a bunch of reasons, we should be heading in that direction as quickly as we possibly can. i do ot think that is going to eliminate the need for fossil fuels, for petroleum in particular, oii products, over the short term. we can sort of cut that need if you are thinking of using things like ethanol. even that haa the question of biofuels with its own set of environmental concerns. unfortunately, there is no ssngle easy answer or silver bullet from an energy standpoint or from dealing itt the oil spill. we haae to keep putting our best minds and efforts behind this to develop alternatives that will wean us away from this over3 host: national forum will be headed up by former senator bob graham and bill reillyy they're looking at improved practices that would insure effective oversight. talk about how the government getssinvolved in this process pnd what can be done as far as -pmaking sure that this kind of3 guest: ooe of the things we need to bear in mind is that we always have this tendency to say that we want to make sureeit never happens again. iido not think anyyne caa guarantee that. if you hear someone saying that that this will neverrhappenn again, take that with large dose of salt. that is dodoes not impunn the motives of people focusiig their attention on this. there is always something abouu techhologyythat will go rong at what i think they are driving at is clearly trying to reduce the likelihood that this will happen again. from a science standpoint, i think that is one of the reasons why the administration has been coming down hard on bp in the last couple of days in particular on being more forthcoming about innormation. fraakly, people are operating in an information vacuum in many ways. worked on oil spills say this%- very difficult to get in and do sample-gathering, and laboratory work that would support some of these decisions because of the sites are often treated in eefect like a crime scenee the oil companies are veryy aware that there are liability issues. they are trying to hold their information close to tte vest. government regulators are rying to pry them loose. academic researchers like marine biologists and the people who provide the background data that supposedly informs the regulatory decisions, is very difficult for them to get in and get to this stuff in a ttmely way.3 government could do is to try and ccack through these sort of mental barriers for getting people ready access to those areas so that they can gather the information that they need to make intelligent choices and pnnormed of regulations. host: pete spotts is with "the christian science monitor." what do you expect your next story will be on this issue? gueet: i thought the valve thing was a clever idea. we could poke around with what is going on in trying to get that moving. this morning.ou for your time%- >> tomorrow, the political reporter discusses politics and the 2010 midterm elections. donald kerwin looks at u.s. immigratton policy. victor cha offers his views on how the u.s. should rrspond to north korea's attack on the south korean worship.3 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> when voters ask what they're going to do about the economy, all they have to offer is the same old policies. >> chris van hollen on voter sentiment in the upcoming elections. >> this weekend on "book tv," michael graham defense multi- party. he is interviewed by jonathan carl from abc news. you can find the entire schedule on line. -ptwitter. avoided by people doing simple things already available. >> today, dan lungren on how congress and the federal government wwrk to protect ffderal and private security networks. 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