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American Morning

Toyota's Chief to Talk; NHTSA Overworked and Underfunded? Casinos Sprouting to Help Recession.

Aired February 24, 2010 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. And thanks for being with us on the Most News in the Morning on this Wednesday, the 24th of February. I'm John Roberts.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans, in for Kiran Chetry this morning. It's 8:00 on the nose on the east coast.

We're right at the top of the hour. That means it's time for this morning's top stories.

Toyota's chief is facing questions on Capitol Hill today. He is expected to say he's deeply sorry to his customers and admit that his company veered off from its "safety first" philosophy. Brianna Keilar is live inside the hearing room with a preview.

ROBERTS: A pair of powerful winter storms now bearing down on the northeast. Some cities could be paralyzed by blizzard conditions come Friday. Rob Marciano is in the extreme weather center for us. He's tracking both systems, their likely targets, and the snowfall totals that could be on the ground by the weekend.

ROMANS: And "Broken Government's" taking a big gamble. More and more states, like Pennsylvania, are now betting on casinos to close their budget shortfalls. But not everyone thinks that the risk is worth taking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a quick fix. It's a scheme, frankly. And it's teaming up with a predatory industry.

GOV. ED RENDELL (D), PENNSYLVANIA: There are some people who don't like gaming, but the overwhelming population in the state would prefer gaming-producing tax revenue than an increase in taxes that they pay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Casino gambling a sound idea in a severe recession or another example of broken government at work? A special report -- straight ahead.

But first, it's time for Mr. Toyoda to talk. In just a few hours, the namesake, the company's top man, comes to Washington and will face a traditional Capitol Hill grilling. Lawmakers, dealers and millions of drivers are hoping they get answers. They got something they didn't want to hear yesterday when a top executive said repairs made during the current recall won't guarantee an end to those sudden acceleration problems. Toyota executives also heard from a woman who shared her horror story with her run-away Lexus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RHONDA SMITH, FMR. LEXUS OWNER: I placed both feet on the brake after I firmly engaged the emergency brake and nothing slows the car. I figure the car was going to go its maximum speed and I was going to have to put the car into the upcoming guardrail in order to prevent killing anyone else. And I prayed for God to help me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: We spoke to Rhonda Smith earlier. She's sharply critical of this company and called for Toyota to, quote, "quit lying to the public."

We literally have this story covered around the globe. Brianna Keilar is live on Capitol Hill, inside the hearing room with a preview of what we can expect. And Kyung Lah is live in Tokyo with more on Akio Toyoda's expected apology and why he's never seen anything like the hearing he'll face today.

First to you Brianna.

Brianna, show us around. Who's sitting where? What's it going to look like there?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is the hearing room of the House Oversight committee that's having this hearing today. And this is going to be where Akio Toyoda will sit and face this committee. He's actually on the second panel, so once this hearing gets under way at about 11:00 Eastern, it's probably going to be an hour or so before we hear from him.

And then these are where the tough questions are going to come from, from Democrats like the chairman of the committee, Ed Towns, and some of other names that we're keeping an eye on. For instance, this is where Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland is going to be sitting. I talked to him yesterday and he said he wants to know what Toyota knew, when they knew it. And, you know, Mr. Cummings is in, I guess, TV parlance what you would say, "pretty good for a sound bite." He tends to really engage witnesses, so we're wondering if he's going to do that as well.

And then over here, you have Congressman John Mica, a Republican of Florida. In the last hearing before this committee, it was Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner who was up, and he actually accused him of having lame excuses. So, this is a bit of a contact sport, a congressional hearing in general. But certainly, before this committee, and certainly, it's going to be a type of questioning that Mr. Toyoda is not used to getting. ROMANS: Certainly, a culture clash indeed, because this is not something that a Japanese executive would ever face on their home territory.

Brianna, we understand that Mr. Toyoda will get a little special treatment as he enters the building and heads to the hearing. Tell us about that.

KEILAR: Yes. And actually, I'm going to take you outside of the hearing room right now so you can kind of see the media is already lining up. The special treatment that he's going to get, if it's unlocked -- oh, that's horrible. That's just what you don't want on television. Can we unlock it?

ROMANS: Bri, you did it so gracefully. That's all right.

KEILAR: OK, here we go. All right. So, this is what, even just, you know, I think, what, three hours ahead of the hearing, this is over here -- you can see members of the public are starting to line up. This is the route that Akio Toyoda will take. And over here, members of the media already lining up, including a huge interest from Japanese media.

So, the special treatment that he's getting is that all of us, members of the press, we are essentially going to be penned up. Normally, when a witness comes, they would walk down the hall and honestly, we kind of almost crush them in a scrum, trying to get a question in.

Yesterday, the head of Toyota U.S. was buffered by police. We expect that Mr. Toyoda will have the same protection. But we're going to be yelling questions at him from afar because we won't be able to sidle up to him as we did yesterday with the head of Toyota U.S., Christine.

ROMANS: But we will be yelling questions from afar, and I'm sure you will, too.

Brianna Keilar -- thanks, Brianna.

ROBERTS: She was like President Bush trying to leave (INAUDIBLE). Oh, the door is locked.

Akio Toyoda is called "The Prince" back home and as Brianna was saying, he certainly will not be used to the treatment that he's likely to get from Washington this morning.

Our Kyung Lah is live in Tokyo with more on the man and his plans for today.

Good morning.

KYUNG LAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

We did get a preview of his testimony, what he is expected to say. We are expecting early on that he will apologize on behalf of this multi-national company. He will say, quote, "I am deeply sorry for any accidents that Toyota drivers have experienced."

We're also expecting that he will admit that Toyota just grew too quickly, and as a result, we saw some of these recalls.

But something else I do want to point out -- is that I want to steal a couple of words from Brianna's live shot. She mentioned that in D.C., we're going to see a bit of a contact sport in that hearing. That's something that just doesn't exist here. It is so foreign a concept.

This is something that is going to be completely new for Akio Toyoda both in his own mind, but also, for the people who are watching here in Japan. The language itself in Japan is not a direct language.

So, everything about this is going to be very foreign. We are going to be watching this very closely because we are expecting that there may be a number of gaps. We are also looking to see, John, what kind of issues are going to be with translation that could benefit him because he is going to have time to think about some of these answers. But Japanese being an indirect language, lawmakers in the United States may read that as being evasive -- John.

ROBERTS: So, it might slow things down so you won't get that rapid fire back-and-forth. But if you got a question that is then translated, and then he have an answer that's then translated back, could that potentially work against him, that something, to quote the movie, gets lost in translation?

LAH: Absolutely. And when you hear Japanese translated, there is no subject in a sentence. So nothing about the language is very direct. So, it could potentially be very frustrating for lawmakers who, in English, we fully say, "I" "you" "we" and speak very directly. That's not the case with Japanese. So, it's going to be really quite interesting, John.

ROBERTS: All right. Kyung Lah for us in Tokyo this morning -- Kyung, thanks.

Whether you drive a Toyota or you just want to see some fireworks, CNN is the place to be for the hearing. See it live starting at 11:00 Eastern on CNN, and if you can't get to a television set, you can watch it on your computer. Just don't let the boss see you doing it at work, CNN.com/live.

ROMANS: Meanwhile, we are tracking a big winter storm system moving up the east coast. I feel like I've said this before. Last week? The week before?

ROBERTS: The week before that. Oh, going all the way back to the week before Christmas, right?

ROMANS: I know. I know.

Rob Marciano is tracking this one for us.

It looks like a big one is going to will bring some precip, as you say in your business, huh?

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, different kinds of precip for different people. So, that's the way it's going to happen.

Now, four -- this is the fourth major storm of the season and this one at least, for a lot of folks, will start out as rain. A lot of things coming together, we have to get through what's left over of today's storm or yesterday's storm and that's in the form of snow across parts of northern New England and Upstate New York. The rains will be coming to an end at least for the time being across the New York City area.

But, out to the west, we got to Chicago, some snow wrapping around this low, it will be traversing to the east, kind of the upper part of it, the root structure, if you will. And then this piece of energy which brought snow to Texas bringing some scattered light snow showers across the Deep South once again. I can't believe this is not shocking anymore. Anyway, this energy is going to ride up the eastern seaboard and bomb out really explode in intensity.

So, wind is going to be a huge issue with this. And it will wrap in warm air, rain to start, then turning to snow. So, that will limit snow in major cities, but away from the major cities, at least 10 to 20 inches of snow in the forecast.

Let's talk more details about this beast in about 30 minutes.

John and Christine, back to you.

ROMANS: All right. Thanks, Rob.

ROBERTS: Looking forward to it. I can never get enough information about weather when bad stuff is moving in. Thanks, Rob.

MARCIANO: All right, guys.

ROBERTS: Well, The Undertaker may have cheated death the other way. The popular wrestler whose real name is Mark Callaway is recovering from minor burns to his chest. He was entering the ring in St. Louis last weekend. Watch that there -- whoops! When, you know, he had his usual exploding fireballs there, little timing problem with the pyrotechnics caused his jacket to catch fire.

As you saw there, he took off the jacket, tossed it aside. He got checked out by a ringside doctor, and then went ahead and went on with the match.

ROMANS: That's why we put the pyrotechnics for AMERICAN MORNING, you know --

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: It's just too risky.

ROBERTS: Exactly. He's a tough guy, that Undertaker.

ROMANS: I think so. I think --

ROBERTS: I know a couple of people in rock bands who have had pyrotechnics go off at the wrong time.

ROMANS: And Michael Jackson, right?

ROBERTS: Yes.

ROMANS: He had the very famous injury, I think, in the '90s for that Pepsi commercial.

All right. Coming up, Toyota, still on this story. Incredibly important to millions of you out there who drive this or know somebody who does drive a Toyota.

The Toyota talks fueling some more questions about broken government, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Problems there? Solutions there? Is the government part of this problem with Toyota? We're going to check it out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Welcome back to Most News in the Morning.

Toyota executives aren't the only ones taking some heat over the safety of Toyota cars. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is also under fire. The agency is supposed to investigate potential safety defects. But many say it's just another example of broken government, overworked and underfunded.

Allan Kam was once senior enforcement attorney for NHTSA. He retired in 2000 and is now the director of the Highway Traffic Safety Associates. He's in Washington this morning.

Thanks for joining us. You were there a quarter of a century and there are some who are saying today, "Wait a minute, why did this agency -- you know, why didn't this agency come out sooner with these problems? Tell me what this agency is made of and why -- why maybe it might not be up to the task?

ALLAN KAM, FORMER NHTSA SENIOR ENFORCEMENT ATTORNEY: Well, it's a relatively small agency. I think it's understaffed and underfunded relative to its mission and vehicles have become a whole lot more complex in recent years with electronic componentry and software, and the agency staff has not grown to keep up with the complexity of the mission.

ROMANS: You know, like Ray LaHood, though, who runs this agency now. He says it is their urging, and it's their own investigation that helped prod this company into instigating some of its -- some of its own actions on the recall. Doesn't that show an agency that's being proactive right now?

KAM: Well, in the last few weeks, certainly, the secretary has been outspoken and I think set the priority for the agency and its staff to focus in on Toyota. But the last few weeks doesn't make up for several years when sudden acceleration was not a high priority in the agency.

ROMANS: Why wasn't it -- why wasn't sudden acceleration a high priority? Rhonda Smith, who we talked to earlier, said her Lexus was just barreling forward. She says that she -- its investigator basically said that she was, you know, lying, that they didn't believe her. Is there an internal bias against some of these claims?

KAM: Historically, yes. At least up until the last few weeks. About 20 years ago, in 1989, NHTSA commissioned a study done by the transportation research center in Cambridge, Massachusetts which then looked at sudden acceleration and could find no cause for it so they concluded that it must be pedal misapplication, which is to say that the vehicle operator was erroneously stepping on the gas pedal when they thought they were stepping on the brake. And it became sort of an institutional bias or culture among the defect investigators at NHTSA to say sudden acceleration means pedal misapplication and that consumers who claim sudden acceleration were mistaken, that they just erroneously stepped on the gas pedal.

ROMANS: In some cases, these are consumers who have been driving their whole life who have said to the company, to Toyota, and to investigators, now I know that this was something else. This was not a wandering floor mat. This was not me misapplying my. You hear that again and again from people.

Let me ask you about the internal sort of expertise then, I guess, on these very complex cars. I heard an analyst say that they are the equivalent of four high-end PCs in every one of these cars. I mean, really incredible complexity of the electronics. Even if Toyota says that maybe it grew too quickly to keep up with its own safety, that it got so complicated and so big to keep up with the safety, is NHTSA keeping up then if the company itself can't keep up?

KAM: The mission is very daunting for the agency and the agency's staff hasn't been increased sufficiently to keep up with these complexities, particularly in the electronics area. I heard yesterday's congressional hearing, there seemed to be some misunderstanding that the agency staff had told the congressional staff they had no electronic -- no electrical engineers and the secretary thought, well, the agency may have two electrical engineers. They don't necessarily work in the office of defects investigation. I think, realistically, whether there is zero or two, it is insufficient given the amount of electronic componentry on vehicles today.

ROMANS: And, when you look at the FAA, for example, there are tens of thousands of employees. I mean, look at the something that monitors the highways, which has just several hundreds. It's an interesting contrast. Allan Kam, former NHTSA senior enforcement attorney, thank you so much for joining us. John.

ROBERTS: Thanks, Christine.

We continue our look at broken government coming up in just a few minutes. This time around, national security. Is it broken and as a result is America at risk?

And what do you do when your coach tells to you change lanes? You give up a gold medal. Wait until you see this.

Eighteen minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.

Twenty minutes after the hour. That means, it's time for "Minding Your Business." The British government has granted protective status to the historic Abbey Road recording studios in London, it was made famous of course by the Beatles. Reports last week indicated the studio's owner was planning to sell the building. Now with its protected status it will be more difficult for any owner to make changes to that facility.

ROMANS: With fewer people eating out, many upscale restaurants here are trying to lure you in with cheaper booze and discounted appetizers. Places like the Cheesecake factory, PF Chang's and Morton's are all rolling out happy hours to fill those empty recession tables. The $85 billion casual dining industry saw sales dropping at nearly 6 percent last year.

ROBERTS: It's interesting, mid-level restaurants like that hurting, but the really high-end restaurants you still can't get a table. They say that breaking up is hard do.

That may explain why so many people are getting out of relationships these days using a technique called digital dumping. This is really disgusting and a cheapening of society. In a survey of 2,000 people, 47 percent admitted to breaking up with someone, either by sending them an e-mail or changing their relationship status on Facebook without telling their partner. The electronic version of the "Dear John" letter.

ROMANS: That's just wrong.

ROBERTS: Show a little respect! Even if you don't want to be in a relationship anymore, go there, break up in person. Come on!

ROMANS: Break up in person! Be a man. Break up in person!

ROBERTS: Come on! Man up! Woman up! Break up with somebody, do it in person.

ROMANS: All right, at the Vancouver games, no medal and a lot of heartache for Dutch athlete Sven Kramer. The long distance speed skater was on his way to a win and a gold medal.

ROBERTS: Oh, yes. He was just doing fantastically and then the coach says, hey! You're in the wrong lane! Move over! Following his coach's advice, Kramer skated the final eight laps, but he had been in the right lane. His coach told him to go in the wrong lane. Completely disqualified from the 10,000 meter contest. South Korea took the gold instead. The coach is like, whoops, my fault. He didn't even want to acknowledge that the coach existed. Can you imagine how terrible you would feel? Four years to get to that point! You've skated about 8,000 meters, then he says, oh, hey, move over.

ROMANS: The pressure and intensity of that moment, too.

ROBERTS: Now there's a person you break up with in person. Boom!

ROMANS: John!

ROBERTS: Couldn't do that in an e-mail.

ROMANS: All right, broken government. Can we gamble our way out of the recession? Carol Costello is going to have that intriguing broken government report for us, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Twenty-five minutes after the hour. That means it's time for an "AM Original," something that you'll see only on AMERICAN MORNING. And all this week we're focusing on "Broken Government," today zeroing in on broken state budget. Dozens of them facing staggering shortfalls.

ROMANS: So, what's the fix? In a lot of places like Pennsylvania, they are betting on casinos to close budget gaps. Carol Costello travelled to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Cleveland for today's report. She's back in Washington this morning. Carol, what did you find out?

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lots of tough question. Can we gamble our way out of a budget crisis? I mean, literally, casinos are popping up all over the place and paying enormous state taxes. That money in turn pays for all sorts of things for the state like education, property tax, fire departments. But some say it is an easy way out. Because our politicians can't think of anything better.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Life can be sweet at the Rivers Casino. Most come here for fun. But others come for cash.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Winning.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I won $250.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It actually helps the people in the recession if they get lucky enough to win.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Kind of hard. That's why I'm down here most of the time, to try to get some money. The most I ever won? $82 dollars.

COSTELLO: He didn't have to travel all the way to Vegas to win it. Rivers Casino is in Alexander's backyard -- Pittsburgh. Actually, there are lots of casinos now, or soon to be in the nation's backyard. 39 out of the 50 states, to be exact. But not everybody's feeling lucky.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No casinos, no way!

COSTELLO: In Philadelphia, some say the proliferation of casinos is a clear sign government is broken. With seven casinos already up and running in Pennsylvania, problems remain.

REV. JESSE BROWN, CASINO PROTESTOR: Housing still is broken. Joblessness, still is too high. Government has failed and now politicians continue to fail us.

COSTELLO: Reverend Jesse Brown and a dozen others were cuffed and thrown into jail protesting the construction of two more casinos on Philadelphia's waterfront. They accuse politicians of partnering with casino owners to convince voters gambling is the only way out of a bad economy.

PAUL BONI, CASINO FREE PENNSYLVANIA: It is a quick fix, it is a scheme, frankly, and it's teaming up with a predatory industry.

COSTELLO (on camera): Where will the casino be?

DAN GILBERT, CASINO DEVELOPER: If you look along this whole riverbank --

COSTELLO (voice-over): Dan Gilbert owns the Cleveland Cavaliers. He and his partner spent $50 million to convince recession-weary Ohioans to allow casino gambling.

(on camera): They would say that Ohio's economy is so bad, and people are so downtrodden right now, that it is easy to exploit them at this particular time to push through something they may not want in the future.

GILBERT: It is happening anyway. Ohio voters are leaving the state every single day, thousands of them, driving to Detroit, driving to West Virginia, driving to Indiana. We really see this thing as a revitalization or a piece of a revitalization of the urban cores of the cities in Ohio that we're going to be in.

COSTELLO (voice-over): And clearly casinos are money makers.

DAVID PATENT, THE RIVERS CASINO: January was our best month ever. The numbers are just going to get better and better.

COSTELLO: That's a godsend for Pennsylvania's governor. He says casino gambling has produced $2 billion in tax revenue and 8,000 jobs.

GOV. EDWARD RENDELL, (D) PENNSYLVANIA: There are some people who don't like gaming but the overwhelming population in the state would prefer gaming producing tax revenue than an increase in taxes that they pay.

COSTELLO: In fact, at the Rivers Casino, some bet the governor's right.

JAMIE GAWORSKI, SERVER, PENNSYLVANIA: I don't think it is a problem at all. I don't think it detracts from anything. I hope this helps us with our property taxes in the long run.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: As I told you, 39 states have or will have some form of casino gambling, but 48 states have some form of gambling like a lottery or horse racing. Can we reach 50? You tell me. I've been asking you to send in your comments to my blog this morning and John and Christine, they've been flying in.

ROBERTS: So, what you got?

COSTELLO: I was wondering if you were going to ask me what people were saying. I'm going to tell you right now.

This is from Mark. He says, "Oklahoma, the buckle of the Bible belt has nearly as many casinos as churches. We offer our citizens many retirement plans, including the wheel of luck, Powerball, Megabucks and the Hot Lotto."

And this one from Mel -- oh, no, my BlackBerry is malfunctioning and I can't read the one from Mel. Wait. I'm going to go back into it.

In the meantime, if you want to add to the blog, CNN.com/amfix.

This one from Mel, he says, "Alabama's one of those states that could benefit from legal gambling and/or a lottery. As it is, everyone in my area goes regularly to Mississippi to gamble or to Tennessee or Georgia to buy lottery tickets. We are spending our money on those states, so why not have it so Alabama benefits?"

So people are split on this issue.

ROBERTS: All right. Carol Costello on the blackberry this morning. Hopefully she is not going to get one of those break-up e- mails, right?

COSTELLO: I hope not. That would be really bad.

ROBERTS: Thanks, Carol. Good to see you this morning.

ROMANS: All right, President Obama wants to double U.S. exports over the next five years. That is a tall order by any stretch of the imagination. But can his plan level the playing field, fix America's trade deficit, and help American workers and companies compete with cheap foreign labor?

That's "Broken Government" tomorrow right here on AMERICAN MORNING.

ROBERTS: All right, we're crossing the half-hour. That means it is time for this morning's top stories. Toyota's chief facing questions on Capitol Hill today. He is expected to admit that his company veered off from its safety-first philosophy which led to a recall of more than 8 million vehicles.

ROMANS: It may not be long before women will be allowed to serve on U.S. Navy subs. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has notified Congress he is ready to end a policy that bans them. That means changes would have to be made, like adding his and hers quarters to the submarine fleet.

Female cadets who graduate from the Naval Academy this year could be among the first assigned to submarine posts.

ROBERTS: A billboard campaign in Atlanta has sparked a debate over abortion and race. The message, clearly meant to shock, says "Black children an endangered species."

The people behind the billboard say abortion is devastating the black community. Critics say the ads distract from more important issues facing African-Americans. Earlier on AMERICAN MORNING we heard from both sides.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARTIS CASH, NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK: These numbers depict a high rate of abortions in the Atlanta area. But now if you look at the numbers on the reverse side, we see that there are so many children that are being born out of wedlock, and that number is staggering. So I don't know how this group can come in and now change our agenda.

CATHERINE DAVIS, GEORGIA RIGHT TO LIFE: I understand that there are social justice issues that need to be addressed, but we are not demonizing black women. What we are saying that the abortion industry has targeted specifically the black community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: According to the Centers for Disease Control, Georgia ranks third in the country in the number of reported abortions performed on black women behind New York and Texas.

All this week CNN is digging deeper on signs of broken government. Our focus right now -- national security. Recently a new study funded by Congress found the nation's main counterterrorism center is struggling because of tensions between different agencies.

So how flawed is our national security system, and what can be done to fix it? Joining me now from Washington, former senior CIA analyst Paul Pillar and CNN national security contributor Fran Townsend.

Fran, let's start with you. This new study of the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center was conducted before the Christmas day bombing attempt, but it did find that it is struggling from flawed staffing and internal cultural clashes. How broken is national security and the national intelligence community? FRAN TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: You know, John, from the very inception of the national counterterrorism center, one of its challenges was, most of its staff is what's called detailed from other federal agencies.

What that means is, their core staff, hundreds of people, come from the FBI, Justice Department, other pieces of the federal government, and they are assigned there temporarily, maybe for 12 to 24 months. And then they go back to their home agencies.

And while it is a good thing to put people in those inter agencies sort of environments, what it means is it doesn't have a core staff that owns the mission, owns the success of the organization, and they don't shed their loyalties to their home agencies. After all the home agencies are the people who evaluate and pay them.

ROBERTS: Paul, you've seen the CIA from the inside. How big are challenges facing intelligence officials now? And if you were to end this detailing process that Fran Townsend just talked about at the national counterterrorism center, would that go some distance to fixing the problems there?

PAUL PILLAR, FORMER SENIOR CIA ANALYST: Well, I think that report about the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center, shows us that changing the wiring diagram, reorganizing, redrawing the lines and boxes on the organization chart really isn't a solution.

The NCTC was set up as part of the reorganization that the 9/11 commission came up with five years ago. Basically we're faced with trade-offs here and no perfect solution.

Fran's quite right about the disadvantages of detailing. But if we had a permanent core in NCTC there would be an offsetting disadvantage. This would be another separate organization and we'd probably hear more in the future after the next terrorist attack about how that core of people in that agency didn't communicate with other agencies.

ROBERTS: OK. So what's the solution?

PILLAR: There isn't a solution. I think the main problem we face here is a lack of understanding with the inherent challenges of the business.

We can reorganize, we'll continue to reorganize. And by the way, each time we do that there is a cost in disruption. But the inherent challenge of trying to find terrorist needles in a huge haystack of non-terrorists will always be with us.

ROBERTS: So Fran, do you have any solutions here? I guess before 9/11 the problem was we were using too much technology to try to gather intelligence. The human quotient was way down. They were trying to repair that post-9/11. Has that made a difference? What would you do to fix it if you were in charge?

TOWNSEND: I do think part of the issue we were struggling with post-9/11 was rebuilding the human intelligence capability at the CIA, which in the years of the peace dividend after the end of the cold war had been depleted.

And so we're seeing benefits of increased intelligence gathering in things like the increased predator shots against Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership. And so those things are all to the better.

I disagree I think with Paul. The think the NCTC was an important innovation in the sense of bringing together all the different points. But we need -- it needs to have the majority of its staff be a core staff and then bring others in around it to share information, bring their expertise, and then take that back to their home agencies.

I think we need to change the balance some to ensure both the expertise but the information sharing.

ROBERTS: Paul, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the other day that domestic terrorism is as great a threat to this country as foreign terrorism is. Are we adequately prepared to respond? Najibullah Zazi, that plot was uncovered, that was a domestic plot, but at the same time the army missed red flags leading up to the Major Nidal Hasan shooting at Ft. Hood.

PILLAR: I think there are a lot of additional challenges and vulnerabilities with regard to what the secretary was talking about. Our whole system of border controls and visa controls and that sort of thing clearly is irrelevant when we talk about homegrown terrorists.

And the needle in haystack problem in a sense becomes even greater because we are talking about people who are already established in, already blended in to our own society in a way that even the most adept foreign terrorist will less be able to do. So I agree with the secretary, that is a greater challenge.

ROBERTS: And Fran, I just want to challenge you on one thing here. We had you on talking about the cyber shock simulation last week and what an interesting exercise that was.

But you said that the government is woefully unprepared to address cyber terrorism in this country. But you were homeland security advisor for three and a half. Why weren't things fixed back when you were in charge?

TOWNSEND: You know, John, in January of '08, the last thing I did before I left the government was put on the president's desk a classified executive order that began the process of building the capability. That was January of '08.

The new administration came in. They did the comprehensive national cyber review. They adopted the initial document and the initial effort. They built on it, they've added more money to it, but it's going to take time to build that capability.

I think we're on the right path. But what that cyber shock exercise showed is how woefully inadequate what we've done so far is and how important it is that we build the capability even more quickly than we've done.

ROBERTS: All right. It's always kind of troubling to talk to you folks about national security, I'm sorry to say.

(LAUGHTER)

Fran Townsend, Paul Pillar, good to talk to you this morning.

TOWNSEND: Thanks, John.

ROBERTS: Our "Broken Government" series continues tonight. At 8:00 Eastern on "CAMPBELL BROWN," a number of President Obama's nominees are still being held up by congress. Are these vacancies contributing to our broken government?

And later on "ANDERSON COOPER 360," Toyota has a lot of high- powered friends in Washington. CNN looks at how that could impact the Toyota investigations.

ROMANS: Coming up, "Building Up America." Some people have found opportunity in hard times. And I'm telling you where it is. It's in Texas. Tom Foreman is on the CNN Express, and we've been looking at these economic numbers for a long time. There's something happening in parts of Texas, and Tom Foreman went there.

A Texas woman who starts over with her family's lumber company. That's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Today's building up America, a woman who literally had to rebuild her industry from the ashes. And she had to do it in one of the toughest times her industry has ever seen.

ROBERTS: Tom foreman joins us live. He is again in Austin, Texas this morning, a stop along the CNN Express. Still haven't seen the barbecue yet, Tom, though we are looking forward to that. Tell us about the story this morning.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, here's the thing. One of the things about recessions and hard times, you may notice in your own life, is that the rest of life doesn't wait just because you're having a hard time.

And one of the things we've seen all around this area -- not just in Austin but in outlying areas -- is many of the people who are doing well are people that not only face the adversity of the recession but other problems on top of it that made them say let me put this all aside and simply work on a solution.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: In all of central Texas, there may be no one who knows more about rebuilding than the woman who runs this lumber company out on the edge of Austin, because for the past few years, that's all her life has been about. A dozen years back, Laura Culin took over her dad's business. And even as a single mother, she was making a go of it until New Year's Eve 2005.

(on camera): So then calamity strikes. What happened?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A massive fire. Everything that Laura owned burned to the ground.

FOREMAN (voice-over): And $1 million worth of buildings, equipment, and inventory gone. Laura had no insurance, little savings, but she did have conviction. This would not defeat her.

(on camera): So Laura moved into a house on the edge of the property and day by day started to rebuild. Now, remember, while this was happening, the entire construction industry in this country took a nose dive, so she didn't have to just rebuild, she had to remake her entire business plan.

This is cotton insulation.

LAURA CULIN, AUSTIN LUMBER COMPANY: This is made out of recycled blue jeans.

FOREMAN (voice-over): To cash in on new construction trends, she began stocking more green products, recycled plastics, sustainable woods.

(on camera): By selling things like this, sustainable lumber, you're able to get a niche in the market that really nobody was serving quite that way.

CULIN: Yes, nobody.

FOREMAN (voice-over): She tapped into a government program that pays young people to learn trades, augmenting her small staff.

CULIN: You'll be working in the hardware store, learning retail sales.

FOREMAN (on camera): So you're also now renting out property.

CULIN: Yes.

FOREMAN (voice-over): She cut down on the space she uses, making some available to other struggling small businesses.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I'm doing right now is virtually impossible, which is a one-man shop.

FOREMAN: And she joined a business group and meets every few weeks with a mentor, John Braun, who owns a much bigger construction company.

(on camera): So the basic idea is it's better for the whole business community if more established businesses help out those that are just coming along.

JOHN BRAUN, BUSINESS MENTOR: Yes. You should always be willing to grow the next generation.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Laura knows the economy is bad but she's not afraid.

(on camera): Do you think you have fully recovered at this point?

CULIN: No. No. But I am on the way up.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Because each time she winds down from another day of building up her corner of America, Laura knows she'll be right back at it tomorrow.

CULIN: We are going to survive.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: You can see all the different elements that she brought together to overcome these problems. That's another thing we're seeing in this "Building Up America" search out here, is that many of the people who are successful are leveraging all of their assets. They're not just focusing on one part of it -- John, Christine.

ROMANS: Well, all right, so what are you working for on for us tomorrow?

FOREMAN: We're looking at we're going to have a town hall meeting tonight. We're going to talk to some people about the big picture from government, from business, from individuals about how they make it work.

And we're also going to visit a very interesting place today. We're going to go meet some kids who are involved in a program to make sure that people who are really having the hardest time in this economy, those who may not have completed high school, those who may have other difficulties in their life, stay on track and make things work.

And by the way I want to mention something to you John, as a guitar player.

ROBERTS: Yes.

FOREMAN: You may have noticed the guy in the guitar shop there? That's Ed Schaefer who makes the much-renowned Schaefer Arch top guitars.

ROBERTS: Yes.

FOREMAN: He's doing it right there --

ROBERTS: Yes.

FOREMAN: -- because he's a small business. And for all small businesses it's the tough time.

ROBERTS: A very renowned guitarist, there's also another guitar manufacturer there in Austin, the name of which escapes me. But it's also supposed to be terrific as well.

FOREMAN: Well, they make some wonderful ones down here. And you know what else they make down here that's wonderful?

ROBERTS: Barbecue, yes.

FOREMAN: Food. Gosh, has the barbecue shown up yet?

ROBERTS: No.

FOREMAN: You know, I've grown a little tired; I've had so much barbecue. That last night we went over at (INAUDIBLE) and look, I had a nice big plate of chili kilos there, it's pretty good, I went to Gyros (ph) the night before out of Rio (ph) there. John, Christine, you should have been there, it was great. They were looking for you.

ROBERTS: All about the food. Thanks, Tom. We'll see you again tomorrow.

ROMANS: You can have barbecue for breakfast for us.

ROBERTS: Yes, exactly.

All right, we're on the storm watch this morning and a double whammy about to hit the northeast. Two storms are going to batter the area, cause extensive travel delays, school closings, terrible, terrible commutes. And you know what's in store and we're getting used to it.

ROMANS: Sledding.

ROBERTS: Yes, well, you will get to be able to sled, yes. That's one of the benefits.

Rob Marciano has got the travel forecast coming right up for you. Forty-seven minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: New York City where it's cloudy and 36 degrees right now. Later on today, drizzle with a high of 40. And then the bad stuff starts coming in. We've already got some flight delays this morning. And nothing compared to what we're going to see in the next couple of days.

Rob Marciano is tracking the travel forecast; he's with us from Atlanta. Good morning, Rob.

MARCIANO: Good morning, guys. Let's run down what we expect to see as far as travel delays. First off today and then we'll go on to the next couple of days. Boston, New York and Atlanta, Charlotte, the low clouds and rain in this area; a little bit of snow in Chicago, you might see some delays there. And some rain and some wind across parts of San Francisco.

Check out some of the snow totals across Texas; five inches in Baird, Texas and Waco seeing 3.1. So a fairly impressive totals for sure. And then across parts of New England; Blandford, Massachusetts, seeing a foot of snow.

So this is just round one. Here it is still snowing heavily across parts of Massachusetts and northern New England. But rain is about to come to an end for parts of New York but winter storm watches have already been posted from New York City all the way down to D.C. and then back up through northwestern New York.

They kind of blanketed this. Right now we are guessing at about five to 10 inches of wet snow from Philly up to New York. It could be more. It could be less. A more sure bet is 10 to 20 inches and maybe more than that across parts of northwestern New York.

A couple things coming together: this upper-level low which is spinning some light snows across parts of Chicago. That's going to combine with the energy coming out of Texas and now spreading some light snows across parts of the south.

And that will get into the Atlantic Ocean and tap some of the energy from the gulf stream and with cold air coming in behind it, we're going to see this thing bomb out and just become an immense storm system. But so strong that it's going to really wrap in some warm air. So it will start as rain in some of the major cities and then turn over to snow.

And then -- so it will be a wet snow piling up whereas once the cold air starts to come in and that snow will be blowing around for sure, so strong winds are going to be the case. We may very well see power outages with this either way tomorrow.

The next three days really travel is just going to be ugly if you're going anywhere in or out of the northeast.

We'll try to pinpoint this forecast a little bit more but it's a -- it's a tough one to gauge and certainly going to be an incredible storm either way.

John and Christine, back up to you.

ROBERTS: All right, Rob. Thanks so much.

Hey, by the way, I remembered the name of the guitar manufacturer I was talking to Tom Foreman -- Cullings (ph) guitars.

ROMANS: Got it.

ROBERTS: Renowned in Austin.

ROMANS: Got it.

All right, it's about less than 10 minutes after -- until the top of the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Ok. Welcome back to The Most News in the Morning. Former Vice President Dick Cheney still recovering in a D.C. hospital this morning; tests show the former VP had a mild heart attack on Monday. It's his fifth heart attack since 1978. Cheney's spokesman says he's feeling fine and he could be sent home as early as today.

ROBERTS: With that we kick off your "AM House Call" this morning. We've been following a very brave 12-year-old girl who survived the earthquake in Haiti. Her name is Kimberly. She suffered a massive brain injury, you'll remember. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta was called in to perform a life-saving operation aboard the USS Carl Vincent.

ROMANS: So after a full month of rehab, Kimberly has since been reunited with her father. They were homeless, she had no medicine and she just learned her mother and sister died in the quake but now a bit of good news.

Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from Atlanta to tell us more about the continuing story of Kimberly and her family. Hi Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

There is some good news here. I tell you, a lot of people obviously touched by the story of Kimberly. I simply could not stop thinking about her after I left. It was so hard to leave her trying to recover from this operation out there in that situation, John and Christine, as you saw there.

What happened was there was an organization called Can Do. They had watched the coverage and they eventually came to CNN, came to us and started to help. They immediately took lots of supplies to this particular neighborhood which hadn't seen hardly any supplies. This was almost a month after the earthquake.

They brought tents, they brought water, lots of water and started trying to help this particular neighborhood. And then even better news, you see the smile there which we didn't think we were going to see again. They were able to create -- actually get Kimberly and her family and several others into housing as well. There are houses they started to make available, cleaned up. Made safe and they started taking families like Kimberly's into homes.

Again, a bit of good news there. Obviously Kimberly is one of thousands in this situation. But it is just nice to see that smile.

ROBERTS: You were there, thankfully, Sanjay, able to help Kimberly. I'm sure there are plenty of other Kimberlys out there, people who don't have access to the same aid, waiting for basics like water, tents. What's the hold-up there in Haiti? We've seen so much aid going into the country.

GUPTA: Let me paint a picture for you that you might find a bit interesting. You know, a lot of these big tent cities that you saw in the coverage for some time. Those are the places that most people knew about. That's where a lot of people congregated.

But what also happened, what we learned, is that there were people congregating in neighborhoods that might be just ten minutes away from those big tent cities. Problem was they didn't know those big tent cities even existed. There's been hardly any communication so that they didn't know that the supplies or more resources were available just a short distance away.

Also a lot of aid workers didn't know where these neighborhoods specifically were located where people were still waiting. It was just difficult to communicate.

But this organization called Can Do they have two organizations within Haiti now. This is sort of what they've been charged with doing. They're going into a lot of these neighborhoods. They've taken over 30,000 gallons of water -- as you can see there -- into some of these neighborhoods.

Their strategy, interestingly enough, get a lot of the neighborhood citizens who lost their homes to help in these distribution efforts. So instead of the aid workers doing this all on their own, they enlist the help of the people who have been displaced and they're getting a lot of stuff done there, this particular organization.

ROBERTS: All right. Some good news there anyway. Sanjay great to see you this morning.

GUPTA: You too.

ROBERTS: Fifty-seven minutes after the hour. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: These pictures just in to CNN; President of Toyota, Akio Toyoda has now arrived on Capitol Hill, he's going to be testifying before the House Oversight Committee in just a few hours' time. That hearing is set to start around 11:00 a.m. Eastern and we will hear from Mr. Toyoda himself at about 12:30 Eastern. You of course can see that live right here on CNN and online at CNN.com/live.

Continue the conversation on today's top stories. Go to our blog at CNN.com/amfix.

That's going to wrap it up for us. Thank you so much for sitting in this morning.

ROMANS: Yes. My pleasure, thanks John.

ROBERTS: Hopefully Kiran is on the mend. She's come down with same old respiratory thing that you've been spreading to everybody that you've met.

ROMANS: I get all the blame.

Here's "CNN NEWSROOM" with Kyra Phillips -- hi, Kyra.