military branch, talk about stopping illegal immigration, illegal drugs, and criminal narco networks, and then say we re going to cut the military and cut the coast guard? it just doesn t make sense. the way that you stop bad things from happening here is not directly on the border necessarily. you ve got to push out. it s called defense in depth. you ve got to push out beyond our borders into south america, into central america, and his what s out there to stop it there so it doesn t come into the u.s. that s what the coast guard does. this is nonsensical to me. nonsensical. an important note for all of our viewers, congressman, you were one of the earliest and most fervent supporters of the president on capitol hill during the election all the way through. and i still am. and you still are, sitting right next to the president when he had you all to the white house after the inauguration. have you talked to the president about this yet? no, we haven t talked to him about this
safety lessons for the u.s. reporter: fears of a nuclear meltdown in japan threaten to take nuclear power plant construction offline. reactors on the west coast south of los angeles are attracting the most attention from those worried about potential earthquakes. they ve been designed to withstand this type of event. but so were the japanese reactors prior to the event. reporter: even nuclear supporters concede safety lessons must be learned from japan s crisis. especially true because u.s. plants rely on the same backup power for cooling systems that failed at the fukushima daiichi plant, diesel pumps, and battery. the nuclear industry says it s well-prepared for the threat of earthquakes and tsunamis. what we do is practice defense in-depth. so we have a series of systems or procedures that will protect against this or any other scenario that we re prepared for at all times. reporter: in the 32 years