My visit to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana this week turned out to be even more interesting than I had expected. We went on this trip to investigate the progress of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup and the ongoing claims process for those affected by the disaster. However, shortly after the Army Black Hawk helicopter touched down in Grand Isle, Louisiana, right on the Gulf of Mexico, we were greeted by news of an oil platform explosion some 135 miles or so to the southwest of us out in the Gulf. Thirteen men went over the side of the platform into the water following the explosion. Fortunately, all of them survived, apparently without serious injury. They were luckier than the eleven men who perished during the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig more than four months ago.
While this latest oil platform fire raged, back at the site of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy another important step in permanently plugging the well was just beginning. Surface support ships and deepwater submersibles were moving into position to remove that well’s malfunctioning blowout preventer and prepare it for a new, functioning blowout preventer to be installed the next day.
Once that step was completed, work would continue on the relief wells that – when finished – would allow the “bottom kill” to proceed by September 20, effectively driving a stake through the heart of the well that has caused so much heartache and set off a multi-billion dollar Gulf cleanup and restoration effort.
Ironically, this latest explosion occurred as Louisiana’s governor, along with other state and local officials, were calling on President Obama to lift the moratorium on deepwater drilling that he imposed three months ago. Both explosions serve as graphic reminders that drilling for oil thousands of feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico remains a very risky business.
This week’s accident also reinforces the need to create a culture of safety in this industry, much as the culture we have endeavored to create in our nation’s 104 nuclear power plants.
With the goal of safety in mind, a new cop has been put on the beat. It is called the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement or BOEM, and housed within the U.S. Department of the Interior. One of BOEM’s first responsibilities is to create a new regulatory framework and enforcement structure to replace the abysmal efforts of the former Minerals Management Service to regulate the offshore oil industry.
Let me hasten to add, though, that all was not cause for gloom and doom in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration briefed us that the trillions of oil-eating microbes that Mother Nature has deployed throughout the Gulf of Mexico continue to provide by far the most cost effective cleanup work that’s being done in the Gulf. Just a few months ago the water was teeming with oil, now the presence of oil is measured in parts per billion.
While the skimmers there still skim occasionally, and hundreds of miles of boom remain deployed to protect beaches and marsh land, the tide has turned in this battle. As further proof, on the day we were there, the federal government reopened several thousand square miles of additional federal fishery waters to fishermen.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t still plenty of work to do in the months ahead. There is. But a lot of good work has already been done. It’s still being done by a large and dedicated team led by the Coast Guard, and includes – among others – the U.S. Army, the National Guard, NOAA, EPA, local fishermen and their “vessels of opportunity,” some BP employees, and private contractors like Miller Environmental from Corpus Christi, Texas, whom we met.
The battle is likely to rage for some time over whether we should continue to remain dependent on hard-to-recover fossil fuels like the oil that lies thousands of feet below the floor of the Gulf of Mexico and whether we should remain dependent on the enormous quantities of oil that we import from undemocratic, unstable countries around the world, oil that now comprises a third of our nation’s huge trade deficit.
While that battle rages, though, America has got to be smart enough to put the pedal to the metal to hasten the day when we harness the power of the wind off our coasts to help power millions of flex-fuel, plug-in hybrid vehicles like GM’s Volt and Fisker’s Karma and Nina that will be built right here in America and my home state of Delaware. And, we’ve got to make even bigger strides in harnessing the energy of the sun and other clean energy sources to meet more of our energy needs. Finally, we need to adopt energy conservation policies that affirm our country’s belief that the cleanest, most affordable form of energy in the world is the energy we never use.
Sen. Carper is the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management and recently returned from a visit to the Gulf coast where he toured impacted marshlands off the coast of Louisiana, visited a beach cleanup site and was briefed on the cleanup and recovery efforts from the Coast Guard.
The trip was part of Sen. Carper's ongoing examination of the Gulf coast oil spill cleanup and claims process. Sen. Carper held two hearings this summer, "The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: Ensuring a Financially Responsible Recovery Parts I and II," which focused on the costs associated with the response and recovery operations relating to the oil spill in the Gulf. As part of these hearings, the subcommittee heard testimony from representatives of BP, Transocean, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, MOEX Offshore 2007 LLC (a subsidiary of Mitsui Oil Exploration Company), the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Coast Guard, and Kenneth Feinberg, head of the BP claims process.
Those of us who grew up before the Internet age can remember hearing stories about bank robbers that made them sound more like legends than the criminals they were. Outlaws like Jesse James, John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde were idealized with a Robin Hood-esque persona. One of these infamous bank robbers, Willie Sutton, was allegedly asked why he robbed banks.
His reply? "Because that's where the money is."
Unfortunately, criminals today still prey on the innocent and cause chaos, but instead of busting into banks wearing masks and carrying guns, criminals carry a laptop and look for Wi-Fi "hotspots" to wreak havoc. No longer do the bad guys have to spend countless hours developing a plan, staking out targets and physically infiltrating a store, a bank, or even a top-secret government facility. Instead, hackers only have to use a high-speed Internet connection and a little bit of knowledge to steal your money, your identity or government or industry secrets halfway across the world.
If you think cybercrime and cyberterrorism aren't real, think again. According to the FBI, in 2008 a wave of thieves fanned out across the globe and almost simultaneously walked off with more than $9 million within 12 hours, using cloned credit card numbers they got by hacking a major credit card company in Atlanta. Further, in 2009 Lockheed Martin and the Department of Defense lost plans to America's future advanced jet fighter, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter -- one that isn't even mass-produced yet -- to suspected Chinese hackers.
Why is this happening? According to Jim Gosler, founding director of the CIA's Clandestine Information Technology Office: "There are about 1,000 people in the U.S. who have the specialized skills to operate effectively against these criminals at a world-class level in cyberspace. To be effective, we need 10,000 to 30,000."
That's why we are excited to join the Department of Defense, the FBI, the SANS Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in hosting the nation's first-ever U.S. Cyber Challenge Summer Camps, located in California, New York and right here in Delaware.
Like a farm system in baseball, these challenges are the training grounds for the next generation of cybersecurity experts. Selection isn't based on what degree you have or what school you went to. Instead, it's based on how good you are in the field of cyberspace. The summer camps serve almost as a preseason camp to see how well you can learn, adapt and, more important, defend America from cyberattacks.
The goal of the U.S. Cyber Challenge and the summer camp in Delaware is to identify, train and recruit "cyberguardians" whose skills are unparalleled in the world. These highly trained individuals -- all college students -- will compete in a series of challenges on hacking, digital forensics, cybersecurity and reverse engineering to see who the best and brightest are among them. Then we will train some of them to be world-class cybersecurity experts, with the help of volunteers from Wilmington University, the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical & Community College.
Graduates of the summer camps will be some of the most sought-after professionals in the country.
They will be recruited for internships and jobs in agencies like the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Or, they could end up working in the private sector defending critical parts of our infrastructure, like the electric grid, our telecommunications network or our financial system.
This week, individuals in Delaware will be among the first class of cyberguardians to graduate from one of the country's most competitive cybersecurity summer camps. In the coming months and years, the program will be expanded to more students, from more schools, in more states.
We are thrilled that this idea that began more than a year and a half ago has developed into one of the country's most exciting and important summer camps. When asked, "What did you do this summer?" not many students can say that they learned valuable skills that not only will help them get a high-quality job but will also enable them to safeguard some of our nation's most valuable assets.
And it is a special point of pride that once again the First State will be leading the way in this critical national security effort. In order to keep America on the cutting edge in the 21st century, we need to invest time and money into programs like the U.S. Cyber Challenge to foster the kind of talent that can thwart the Willie Suttons of today's world.
Aug 10 2010
Video Blog - Reducing the National Deficit
Listen to Senator Carper discuss what he's doing to help reduce the national deficit. Senator Carper explains his work on Improper Payments, the Tax Gap, the Line Item Veto and Defense Department spending reduction.
Listen to Senator Carper discuss what he's doing to help reduce the national deficit. Senator Carper explains his work on Improper Payments, the Tax Gap, the Line Item Veto and Defense Department spending reduction.
May 24 2010
Video Blog - Health Care
Listen to Senator Carper answer some commonly asked questions regarding the new comprehensive health care law.
Listen to Senator Carper answer some commonly asked questions regarding the new comprehensive health care law.
May 18 2010
Averting another economic debacle
When the once venerable Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy in September 2008, economies around the world went into a tailspin, and the ensuing panic nearly plunged us into another Great Depression.
When the once venerable Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy in September 2008, economies around the world went into a tailspin, and the ensuing panic nearly plunged us into another Great Depression.
Delawareans quickly learned that the unregulated, overleveraged institutions on Wall Street were so intertwined with each other and the broader economy that more failures threatened jobs, businesses, and retirement funds on Main Street.
As a result, the federal government was forced to make a heretofore unimaginable choice: Either allow the sickness on Wall Street to spread, creating a second Great Depression, or ask taxpayers to rescue Wall Street to prevent an economic disaster?
As federal officials weighed that decision, millions of Americans began to ask, "How did we get into this mess anyway?" By identifying how our economy came to the brink of collapse, we hope to avoid repeating the mistakes that led us there. So let's take a moment to do just that.
The 2008 financial crisis was rooted in the failure of market discipline. Financial actors -- from mortgage brokers, banks, rating agencies, to investment banks -- bore relatively little risk. To put it another way, too few of them had any "skin in the game." For example, imprudent mortgage lending standards, combined with appraisals often not worth the paper they were written on, allowed many mortgage brokers to originate home loans for unqualified borrowers without verifying their income.
Banks then loaned money to those borrowers to purchase homes and oftentimes turned around and sold those mortgages to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or to investment banks, which bundled these mortgages into mortgage-backed securities. The major credit rating agencies stamped a AAA credit rating on these investments, which were "sliced and diced" and sold to investors around the world.
As long as housing prices continued to rise and homeowners met their mortgage payments, this house of cards continued to stand. But when housing prices began to drop, interest rates for adjustable rate mortgages began to climb and unemployment rates began to rise, our housing bubble burst.
Many of these mortgage-backed securities became illiquid, and credit markets began to freeze up. Panic set in. Wall Street was on the brink of collapse.
It soon became clear that without bold action our entire economy could fail, causing unemployment to skyrocket. Congress took the extraordinary step, at the urging of the Bush administration and many economists, of authorizing a $700 billion emergency rescue package called TARP -- or Troubled Asset Relief Program -- to prevent the crisis on Wall Street from causing a depression on Main Street.
Eighteen months later, our economy is beginning to recover and taxpayers are starting to see returns on our emergency investments, but I have no interest in ever facing again the difficult choice that we faced in the fall of 2008.
What are some of the steps we should take now to dramatically reduce the chances that it might happen again? Enacting financial reform legislation that protects jobs, and strengthens our economic recovery is essential to achieving that goal. The legislation being debated in the Senate creates a powerful regulatory council, called the Financial Oversight Stability Council, to better ensure that the collapse of a single, large financial institution won't bring down the entire economy. This council will identify risks before they grow out of control, while requiring institutions to increase capital and liquidity to serve as cushions. In addition, this new council's job is to proactively monitor the overall financial stability of the United States to prevent threats to the economy from spiraling out of control.
If the failure of a large, complex firm does jeopardize the broader economy, a mechanism is needed to safely "wind down" such companies when bankruptcy is not an option. The Senate reform bill authorizes the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to unwind complex institutions through an orderly liquidation process. Financial institutions -- not taxpayers -- will bear all the costs associated with failure.
We also need to modernize financial rules and oversight by providing transparency and oversight with respect to -- among others -- derivatives and hedge funds. We ought to make sure that all the relevant players have skin in the game, too.
Additionally, ending our patchwork quilt of regulations and drawing clear lines of responsibility for regulators will help prevent financial institutions from "regulator shopping," a practice that allowed banks like Washington Mutual to escape more rigorous oversight by opting to be regulated instead by the more lenient Office of Thrift Supervision.
Finally, the Senate measure will establish a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to empower consumers to make better-informed decisions, create a level playing field for all companies offering financial products, and make sure other regulators don't fall asleep at the switch.
In the days ahead, my colleagues and I will continue to work to strengthen and improve this critical legislation. If we send a financial reform bill to the president that re-establishes market discipline, creates a 21st century regulatory framework, and improves transparency, Congress will have taken a big step toward restoring the American public's trust in our financial system and in our government.
More important, we will protect thousands of jobs in the First State -- and millions of jobs across the country -- by ensuring that the mistakes on Wall Street won't be allowed to wreak havoc on Delaware's -- and America's -- Main Streets.
Apr 01 2010
Census Day
Every day, people get in their cars, trucks and vans to drive down highways to their destinations. Every day, many of us send our children to schools close to our homes. And, every day, most of us take for granted that the hospitals in our area will be able to help us when we need it.
Every day, people get in their cars, trucks and vans to drive down highways to their destinations. Every day, many of us send our children to schools close to our homes. And, every day, most of us take for granted that the hospitals in our area will be able to help us when we need it.
But, what if we didn’t build enough highways to get us where we needed to go? What if our schools weren’t large enough to accommodate our children? And, what if hospitals were hundreds of miles from our homes and didn’t have enough nurses or doctors to care for us and our families?
These are important questions that shouldn’t be taken for granted; so are the questions on the 2010 Census form. Today is Census Day; today is your day to stand up and be counted. Today, the Census Bureau will officially embark upon what many have described as the largest peacetime mobilization in American history.
I think it is safe to say that most Americans are not aware of the importance of one of our federal governments’ largest and most complex tasks -- the Census. As Chair of the Senate Subcommittee that oversees the Census Bureau, one of my jobs is to try and make sure that the Census is conducted properly and that – to the best of our ability – everyone is counted.
Every ten years – since 1790 – the federal government attempts to literally count all of us. With a $15 billion budget and an army of 1.3 million census takers, the Census Bureau has the great responsibility to ensure that the overwhelming majority of our nearly 300 million residents are correctly counted.
Why does the federal government need to know how many of us live in communities across the country? Well, there are several answers to that question. So we’ll know where to build highways to ease congestion. So we know how many schools need to be in your community and how many teachers will be needed to give our children a quality education. And, we need to know how many hospitals should be built and properly staffed to care for us and for our loved ones. Your forms will be used to not only determine federal funding for your state, but also to determine the number of United States Representatives each state has and the number of local elected officials representing you.
Census forms are easy to understand, important, and confidential. Please help the government help you by filling out the form and sending it back to the U.S. Census Bureau. We need your help to ensure that this process is accurate and cost-effective.
Finding and counting nearly 300 million individuals in the correct location is a daunting task. Census taking has become even more challenging in recent years as our nation’s population has grown steadily larger, more diverse and increasingly difficult to find. These challenges are compounded by the fact that, for any number of reasons, people may be more reluctant than they have in the past to participate in the census.
Reaching out to those who are historically hard to count is even more important when you consider that for every one percent of the population that does not respond to the census, the Census Bureau will have to spend about $90 million to go door-to-door to get everyone counted.
During the last census, in 2000, significant progress was made in improving response rates and reducing the number of Americans who went uncounted. Despite this success, undercounting remained a problem in some communities. The Census Bureau’s own data revealed that, in 2000, 6.4 million people were missed and 3.1 million were counted twice, producing a net undercount of 3.3 million people.
We can do better, and we need to.
By the time you read this, the Census Bureau will have delivered forms to virtually every home in America and I am asking you to take the ten minutes necessary to fill out the form to make sure you and your family are counted. Today is your day. Stand up and be counted.
Feb 18 2010
Putting Americans Back to Work
A year ago, the U.S. economy was in free fall, shedding jobs at a rate of 600,000 a month. Our gross domestic product (GDP) plunged by over 5 percent for two quarters in a row for the first time since the Great Depression. And, there was a $1.3 trillion projected federal deficit for fiscal year 2010
A year ago, the U.S. economy was in free fall, shedding jobs at a rate of 600,000 a month. Our gross domestic product (GDP) plunged by over 5 percent for two quarters in a row for the first time since the Great Depression. And, there was a $1.3 trillion projected federal deficit for fiscal year 2010 before any Administration - Republican or Democrat - passed a single piece of legislation. These challenges were handed to President Obama the day he took office. A year later, our economy is no longer falling off a cliff, job losses have largely stopped, and GDP expanded at the fastest pace in six years last quarter to exceed five percent. This is good news.
Not so good news is the fact that while we have stopped shedding jobs, the economy has not started adding them, despite strong growth in GDP and strong worker productivity.
And, while employers are not hiring new full time employees, they are hiring temporary employees, which is generally seen as a step towards full-time hiring. This, too, is good news, but it’s not as good as it could be.
So the question that my colleagues and I are facing is: What steps can we take to ignite hiring among American business, especially small businesses?
One of the things I have heard repeatedly from the President is that the role of government is to provide a nurturing environment to encourage small businesses to grow. In other words, small businesses play an integral role in our economic recovery, and the government can harness market forces to incentivize businesses to expand and hire more full-time employees.
How do we do that? Well, a major reason why our businesses are not hiring right now is uncertainty or a lack of predictability. Businesses need some certainty when it comes to health care reform, financial regulatory reform, expiring Bush tax cuts, the estate tax, the future of energy policy and climate change, and the unsustainable growth of budget deficits.
Unfortunately, inaction on Capitol Hill – where recently we have been good at fighting with one another but not as good at working together to get things done – is the cause of this uncertainty that is paralyzing many businesses.
Congress – Democrats and Republicans – and the President need to work together in a bipartisan manner to address those uncertainties with commonsense solutions. That will go a long way toward bolstering our economic recovery.
In the meantime there are other things we can do to create an environment where business will begin to grow and hire again.
So, what are they?
First, small businesses need better access to credit. That is why the president has called for allocating $30 billion from the financial rescue package, or TARP, to smaller and community banks to increase lending to small businesses. The President has also proposed increasing Small Business Administration (SBA) loan guarantees, and extending provisions from the Recovery Act that improve access to credit. Combined, these efforts will enable the federal government, through the SBA, to give private lenders the certainty they need to lend, which will result in business expansion and, in time, the hiring full-time employees
We also need to take a close look at beneficial tax cuts and tax incentives that can encourage small business growth and hiring. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) have proposed a plan in which employers that hire folks who have been unemployed for at least 60 days would not pay the payroll tax for 2010, and if the employer keeps the worker for 53 consecutive weeks, it would receive a $1,000 tax credit in 2011. This is direct tax relief and a tax incentive for employers to begin to hire back employees who may have lost their job during the recession.
My colleagues and I are considering this and other options, like the job creation investments in infrastructure projects that also increase economic efficiency, improve our national security, and reduce our reliance on fossils fuels.
In the end, I believe the people of Delaware and the nation care very little about whether an idea is Republican or Democrat. They want common sense solutions that work, and for the partisan stalemate in Washington to end. I will continue to encourage my colleagues in Washington to come together for the good of the country. The stakes are too high. Congress must rise to the occasion, put partisanship aside, and continue to put America back to work.
Jan 15 2010
Teaching Kids About The Census
The 2010 Census is less than three months away. So earlier this month, I hosted a kickoff event for the "Census In Schools" program created by the U.S. Census Bureau. This program aims to provide educators with the resources they need to teach students about the importance of the census, so they in
The 2010 Census is less than three months away. So earlier this month, I hosted a kickoff event for the “Census In Schools” program created by the U.S. Census Bureau. This program aims to provide educators with the resources they need to teach students about the importance of the census, so they in turn, can help deliver this message to their families and improve the response rate.
I was joined by U.S. Census Bureau Director Dr. Robert Groves, Delaware’s Governor Jack Markell, Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Education Mr. Tony Miller, Delaware Secretary of Education Dr. Lillian Lowery and others. We also had two very special guests – Count von Count and Rosita from Sesame Street, who went with us to visit the students!
I invited this group of very special people to Delaware to talk about one of the federal government’s few constitutionally mandated functions and one that the average person may take for granted. In fact, I think it is safe to say that most Americans are not aware of the importance on one of our federal governments’ largest and most complex tasks - the decennial census.
Every ten years the federal government brings together an army of workers, spends an enormous amount of time and billions of dollars gathering information about the individuals and families that live in the 105 million households in the United States. In Delaware, we have 325,746 of those households.
Date collected by the census is used to provide vital information to help determine things like how many seats each state gets in the U.S. House of Representatives and how hundreds of billions of dollars in federal assistance gets allocated to state and local governments.
As a small state, Delaware has to make sure that we count our population exactly in order to get the maximum representation in Congress we deserve and bring back to Delaware every federal dollar we are eligible to receive from the federal taxes we send to Washington. In other words, getting our “fair share” depends on the census.
As Chair of the Senate Subcommittee that oversees the Census Bureau, one of my jobs is to make sure that the Census is conducted properly and that everyone is counted. And to count every child in Delaware, we must involve parents, teachers and administrators to increase awareness about the importance, confidentiality and simplicity of the 2010 Census.
Delawareans need to know what this means to them! We have to make all Delawareans aware of what the census means and why it is vital that we get this right.
See pictures from my visit here.
Jan 13 2010
Video Blog - Looking Ahead
Listen to Senator Carper give a preview of his priorities and other important issues facing Congress this year.
Listen to Senator Carper give a preview of his priorities and other important issues facing Congress this year.
Jan 12 2010
Keeping Kids Fit And Healthy
As most people know, I am a huge advocate of physical activity and I work out every day. I think one of the best things we can do for our country is to teach children the importance of taking care of themselves, like eating healthy meals and exercising regularly. If we teach children at an early age
As most people know, I am a huge advocate of physical activity and I work out every day. I think one of the best things we can do for our country is to teach children the importance of taking care of themselves, like eating healthy meals and exercising regularly. If we teach children at an early age to make these things part of their lives, they are not only likely to do them, but they will encourage others do the same. To help stay healthy, I always try to follow the Nemours formula for a healthy lifestyle: “5-2-1-Almost None.”
The 5-2-1-Almost None calls for:
- Eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day,
- Watching two or fewer hours of screen time a day,
- Getting one or more hours of physical activity a day,
- And drinking almost no sugary beverages.
In January, I visited Downes Elementary School in Newark to highlight a recent federal grant awarded to Nemours Health and Prevention Services aimed at increasing physical activity in Delaware schools. During my visit, we used a hula hoop, we galloped, skipped and danced. It was a lot of fun for me and I know the kids had a great time, too.
In spring 2009, Nemours Health and Prevention Services received the U.S. Department of Education - Carol M. White Physical Education Program (PEP) grant. The award is for a total of $1.2 million over three years. Through the “Make School a Moving Experience” program, Nemours plans to promote 150 minutes per week of school-based physical activity for all elementary students in Delaware by providing a combination of materials and equipment, teacher training and online resources.
A secondary goal of the initiative is to help afterschool providers offer additional minutes of physical activity outside of the school day. Physical activity has a number of benefits for students, not the least of which is improved academic outcomes. Mounting evidence shows that students who are physically active achieve better grades and higher test scores, are more attentive during class, and have fewer disciplinary problems.
All elementary schools were invited to participate and of those, 26 signed up and agreed to the 3 year commitment.
See pictures from my visit here.
View Senator Carper's C-SPAN video library for recent appearances
Facebookvisit page