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Could Oil Spill Have Been Avoided?; BP Asked to Release Video of Spill; FCC Working to Alert Consumers of Cell-Phone Charges; Britain's New Prime Minister; Drawing Hope From Memories; Planet- Friendlier Plastics
Aired May 12, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Ali Velshi and I'm going to be with you for the next two hours today and every day - ever weekday, taking all of these important issues that we've been covering and taking them a step further. I'm going to try and give you a level of detail that will help you put your world into context. Let's get started on this. Here's what I've got on the rundown.
New evidence is pointing to what may have caused that disastrous oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. We've got the very latest for you. Plus, we're going to show you pictures of the oil leak you definitely haven't seen before.
Plus, he's healthy; he's active. He's 41 years old. So how did Beau Biden suffer a stroke? Dr. Sanjay Gupta says a case like this is not unique.
And how often have you looked at your cell-phone bill and said, "Was I calling Mars?" If you've ever been shocked by how high your cell-phone bill is, the government wants to ease your pain and it wants to hear from you.
But let's start off with the big story today, and that is that oil spill. Let me tell you a little bit about what's going on right now. It's the second day of a hearing in Washington of the House Energy Committee. They are interviewing or hearing testimony from four people involved in the company's -- four of the companies involved in this oil spill.
Now, the first one is BP. You've heard about them. They were the company that was leasing the oil rig. Right? That's the one on top.
Then you've got Transocean. Take a look at that. That's the top one on the list. Transocean actually owned that rig that they were leasing to BP.
By the bottom, you can see Halliburton. Halliburton was involved in the structure that was right around the seafloor, right around the well.
And the fourth company -- this is one you hadn't heard from yet. This is a company called Cameron, and they made what's called the blowout preventer. Now, we understand that the blowout preventer may have been at the root of the explosion that caused the oil rig to explode and sink and caused this rupture in the ocean.
But here's something new. Henry Waxman, the congressman, he's the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee -- said today that they have evidence that Cameron knew about a problem with the blowout preventer the day before the accident happened. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D-CA), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE ENERGY AND COMMERCE COMMITTEE: In the test, the pressures measured at any point from the drill rig to the blowout preventer should be the same in all three lines. But what the test showed was that the pressures in the drill pipe were significantly higher. Mr. Dupree explained that it could signal that an influx of gas was causing pressure to mount inside the well board.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: All right. So this is now a new area of focus that we are going to be focusing on to try and figure out whether something was known about the pressure.
Remember that when you drill for oil in the ground, a great deal of pressure sends this out, and the blowout -- blowout preventer is part of what regulates that pressure and is able to close valves in the event that something goes wrong. We'll be looking into that line of questioning.
But meanwhile, Ed Lavandera joins us now from Miami. He's been following the developments on the efforts to try and contain this oil spill that keep on going and keep on not succeeding -- Ed.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, you know the battle to kind of get that oil leak under control is just as intense as the public relations battle that BP is waging here onshore.
You know, we did a story yesterday, essentially questioning why BP has not released extensive video of the actual oil leak. It's now more than three weeks after this explosion, and we still have not seen exactly what we're dealing with at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
This is an issue that is now starting to gain some traction as senators are calling into question BP's efforts. And critics are saying their efforts to control the message here and control the images emanating from this story. We did that yesterday, late yesterday, buried on BP.com.
If you go to the Web site there and you search through some of the pictures, you have to scroll down to the bottom of where they -- a little area they call "Response with Images." And way down there at the bottom you see these two pictures. These are the clearest images we've seen so far of the actual oil leak at 5,000 feet underwater there in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. Of course, these are not video images. These are still pictures. And according to the information there on the picture, this is the main oil leak site that we're seeing. It was -- the picture was taken at 12:40 yesterday afternoon.
There is still a great deal of pressure, though, on British Petroleum to release the pictures, the video images. We're told by government sources that these robotic cameras that they have underwater there have recorded extensive, extensive hours of video images of exactly what we're dealing with.
Environmentalists and many scientists we've spoken with say that, essentially, what BP is trying to do is to control the images, control the information about what we're dealing with here. And a lot of critics say that they would like to see these video images, that it would help independent scientists and environmentalists get a sense of what we're going through.
I think we have sound from Senator Barbara Boxer yesterday, questioning one of the BP execs on Capitol Hill yesterday about this very issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: Mr. McKay, we have heard from the media that there is a lot of BP video of this spill, and there have been requests to see it, to look at the spill volume, because it seems we can't get a true picture but we've heard 4 million gallons. Is that who you estimate we've spilled so far?
LAMAR MCKAY, CHAIRMAN, BP AMERICA: I think the estimate is 5,000 barrels a day for the last 20 days. So if that, doing the math, if that's right, 42 gallons per barrel. So you'd have to do the math.
But as far as videos, there are some videos and pictures that are on the united -- Unified Area Command site, and I believe they're actually trying to add to that in terms of...
BOXER: Our understanding is there's far more than has been released. Would you get back to this committee? We would be interesting in viewing those and making those public. Will you get back to us on how many of the videos have still not been shown to the public?
MCKAY: How many of...
BOXER: Will you get back to us on how much footage there has not -- that has not been shown to the public?
MCKAY: OK.
BOXER: And make that available to us.
BOXER: Yes. Everything goes through Unified Area Command, yes.
LAVANDERA: So Ali, clearly this pressure is starting to mount. BP has told us that their No. 1 priority is stopping the leak here and that they do feel that they have been extremely open throughout all of this process dealing with this oil spill disaster. So we've been told by a BP spokesman earlier today that there is a chance that this video be released at some point today, although we've got to be honest here.
VELSHI: Yes.
LAVANDERA: We've been asking for this video for almost three weeks now. And we've been told "we'll look into it" repeatedly. So...
VELSHI: He just said something about it going...
LAVANDERA: ... I'll kind of believe that when I see it.
VELSHI: ... he said something about it going through Unified Command. And this is the -- this is the Coast Guard; this is BP. They're going to do this. He was talking about 5,000 gallons -- 5,000 barrels a day of leakage for 20 days, which would be 100,000 barrels times 42. So it's 4.2 million gallons is where we would have been as of yesterday if that estimate is correct.
LAVANDERA: Right. Working the math on that, as well.
But the bigger point here, too, is why critics have been intense about getting this video and looking at it. They really want to use it as a marker to get a sense of where we stand...
VELSHI: Yes.
LAVANDERA: ... where we are in battling this disaster. They say if they had been able to see this two weeks ago they'd have be able to get a chance to say, "All right. What we're doing is either getting better, it's getting worse." It's not getting better. This is really the first kind of clear picture, albeit a still picture of what the situation we're dealing with is.
VELSHI: Yes, but surprisingly clear for that far under the water. The reality is if we have images you can start to the least see, is it more today than it was yesterday? Is it getting worse? Good point, Ed. Stay on that for us. And if we do get more information or that video, we'll put you right back on here talking about it. We're all eager to see that.
Ed Lavandera following the story for us very closely, as well as other members of our team.
I want to bring in a few people who are going to know a little bit more about this than just we journalists do. An engineering professor, Peter Scarlatos is the chairman of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at Florida Atlantic University. He's joining me from Miami. And on the phone, Brent Clanton is the energy reporter for the "Houston Chronicle." He's in Louisiana right now.
Brent, let's start with you. What are you hearing about -- about the efforts right now and where they might actually be going? BRENT CLANTON, ENERGY REPORTER, "HOUSTON CHRONICLE" (via phone): Well, I'm actually listening to some public hearings today about the federal investigation that are really probing the response by the Coast Guard in the earliest hours of this accident. And also taking a step back from that and looking at deep within the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which is part of the Interior Department that regulates the offshore oil and gas industry. Really looking at their permitting process and if there may have been weaknesses in their permitting process that may have contributing to this factor.
VELSHI: And they just changed -- they just announced, the Department of the Interior, that they're changing that whole system around, that it's not just going to be one organization, one government agency that licenses and collects revenues for these offshore oil leases. But they're going to split that into one that does the licensing and revenue and one that inspects and makes sure that everything is actually working the way it's supposed to be from a safety perspective.
CLANTON: Correct. And there's been those criticisms about the Minerals Management Service for years now, that they are too close to the oil industry and that they don't, you know, don't -- don't have the adequate oversight that's needed there.
In these hearings here in New Orleans, you know, we're hearing about, you know, some weakness, a little bit, along the way in that system of approving permits. Even the one that was approved for this BP well off the coast of Louisiana, that there were some requirements in there about the integrity of this blowout preventer that's at the center of this whole discussion right now.
VELSHI: Yes.
CLANTON: And whether those were included. And it looks like they were not.
VELSHI: Professor Scarlatos, let me bring this over to you. And now we've got sort of two issues that those of us who are not engineers need to try and understand. One is word that this blowout preventer may have been faulty before -- the day before the explosion.
And No. 2, they're -- they're trying something today called a top hat to try and contain this oil spill. These are -- blowout preventer and top hat are both expressions most of our viewers are not altogether familiar with. What can you tell us about -- about how you see this working?
PETER SCARLATOS, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY: Can you please repeat the first question? I heard it, and -- I don't think it's excusable that this explosion and accident happened. I believe it could have been prevented. But now it's too late, and we need to look forward, you know, on how we can take care of the spill.
The second, I couldn't hear your question. Can you please repeat it? VELSHI: Tell me about -- do you know about this thing that BP is going to deploy that's called a top hat, that they're trying to contain the spill with at this point?
SCARLATOS: OK. I believe it's the same concept as before, but at a much smaller scale, so they hope that it will be much easier for them to fit it over the well.
VELSHI: Is it your view that we know enough about this, or are we just trying things out now because we don't actually know how to contain this spill? Is it your view that we can actually fix this properly?
SCARLATOS: We may. We don't -- I don't believe, you know, that anyone knows beforehand whether anything will work. We never have an experience with such deep well. It's 5,000 feet below the ocean surface -- surface, so we don't know whether it will work or not.
VELSHI: The last thing I want to ask you about is about this blowout preventer. We heard testimony today that the company that -- that was responsible for the blowout preventer may have tested it the day before the explosion and found there to be a problem. What is a blowout preventer supposed to do?
SCARLATOS: If -- if the pressure increases to a level which is dangerous and may cause damage to the well ring, it shuts it off. It's like a security valve.
VELSHI: All right. Professor, thank you for bringing us up to speed on this. Professor Peter Scarlatos is the chairman of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at Florida Atlantic University. Brent Clanton is an energy reporter with the "Houston Chronicle," joining us from Kenner, Louisiana.
Now, this energy story, this -- this explosion has prompted a number of people in Congress to get the energy bill back on track. It's sort of got a different focus. It's dealing with offshore oil, but it's really going after greenhouse gas emissions, CO2 emissions. Lawmakers are actually getting set to reveal it in just a few minutes. We're going to tell you what it's dealing with and how it's going to affect you when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Big energy bill released in about 15 minutes or so. It was supposed to be a tri-party bill. It's called the American Power Act. It was supposed to be tri-partisan, which means that it was Republican, Democrat, and Joe Lieberman. The Republican was Lindsey Graham; the Democrat is John Kerry. But at the -- about a week and a half ago or two weeks ago, when everything got crazy in Arizona about immigration, Lindsey Graham backed out, because he said this administration is going to focus on immigration and not on climate.
So now it's Senator John Kerry and Senator Joe Lieberman introducing this bill. Let me tell you what it's all about. The major goal of this bill, the American Power Act, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, CO2 emissions, carbon emissions, if you will. Now the reduction is based on 2005 levels, because that's how the world is calculating it. We decided to use 2005 as a base. So the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by 17 percent by 2020; by 42 percent by 2030; and by 83 percent in 2050. That is the goal.
Now, there are other things in this bill, as well. Some of them are sweeteners to get others to support it. There's a lot of opposition to this kind of thing, greenhouse gasses, from corporate America. Part of the reason is, in order to limit greenhouse gas emissions, you have to tell industries and companies to not pollute more than they do now or even cut their pollution. And a lot of companies say, "Well, we can't do that, because other countries don't limit their carbon emissions, so it's going to make American business less competitive." We'll discuss that later on.
But some of the other sweeteners in this bill to get greater support are nuclear power, incentives to create new nuclear power in this country. You may or may not know that it's been more than three decades since a new nuclear power plant has been built in the United States.
Natural gas, that is a resource, a natural resource that is more abundant in the U.S. than elsewhere. The idea is to get commercial and fleet vehicles to start operating on natural gas, thereby reducing the need for oil to make into gasoline.
No. 3, oil, of course, offshore drilling. It's got some restrictions on offshore drilling. It's a surprise that anyone is continuing to talk about more offshore drilling in this country. But it will give states where there's offshore drilling a cut of the revenues for the first time.
And No. 4, the bill also involves, includes some consumer relief to allow consumers who are facing high energy costs to manage to pay their billions.
So these are the things that will be in it. We will continue on this show to discuss this bill, the American Power Act, in greater detail and each one of these parts of it.
Now, listen, the -- here's one that we all deal with: your cell- phone bill. Sometimes you really get a shock about what you paid. So the government wants to hear about your cell-phone shock. Christine Romans has been following that very closely. She'll be with me in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. My good friend Christine Romans is with me in New York.
Christine, I think you and I are both believers in the fact that you should pay for the service you get and, if you borrow money, you should -- you should pay it back. But -- but I think the frustration with cell phones that you and I have and everybody has is, when you end up paying for something you didn't know you were going to pay for, or something unexpected happens that you didn't -- you know, you kind of feel cheated out of it.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, you know, it's all about transparency. I want to know what I'm using and what I'm going to pay for. And I want to know what my cell-phone bill is going to be. And there's something that the FCC calls bill shock, where you think your cell-phone bill is going to be a certain amount, and suddenly it's double or triple. And that's something that the FCC says it has received hundreds and hundreds of complains about, bill shock.
And they're trying to figure out a way to maybe make sure that doesn't happen and protect consumers. And they're considering things like this. An alert, a text alert potentially, on your -- on your cell phone or a voice mail message that's going the tell you...
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: ... when you're almost to the end of your planned minutes or your data transmission capabilities and that you're going to get more -- you're running out of space, basically. This would be for voice, text and data. And they want your comments on this proposal.
They also point out, Ali, that in Europe, it is the law, quite frankly, that if you're going to exceed -- you're going to start incurring some roaming charges or something...
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: ... that you have to get a text message from your wireless provider...
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: ... telling you, by the way, you're about to start accruing this much, and that maybe can stop people...
VELSHI: And I had that. When I traveled in Europe...
ROMANS: ... from using the service. Have you?
VELSHI: I've had that. You -- I arrive. I put on my phone, because it works around the world. And a text shows me how much per minute I'm going to charge -- I'm going to pay.
However, here's the personal responsibility side. I'm glad the FCC is looking into it.
ROMANS: Sure.
VELSHI: I think some of these wireless companies are better than others. I've often called up and said, you know, based on what I use, should I be on a different plan? And sometimes you have to prod them for it, but they'll tell you.
But you've got some advice for what people should do on their own.
ROMANS: And that's incredibly good advice. You need to talk to your carrier, right, your provider. And you need to make sure that you have the plan that is right for you.
Infrequent users should consider using a prepaid plan and the right one. Understand about roaming. Know the charges for use abroad.
And the FCC says if you notice, for example, that what you think you were signing up for, what you think the advertising was telling you doesn't appear to be true in reality, then try to deal with it with the wireless carrier, and then call the FCC, 1-888-CALL-FCC. They want to hear your complaint and who that -- and who that carrier is.
But look, a lot of this has to do also, you're right, with personal responsibility.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: If you've got teenagers, you need to make sure you have the right plan. Because we all know -- you know, Ali, 3 1/2 million text messages are sent every single day just in this country. And I'm sure that many of them are from people who are not paying the bill in the first place.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: It's their parents. So all of this -- all of this goes together.
VELSHI: All right. Christine, good to see you. You will see Christine and me here every day at this time. You can also see us -- you got seven days of Christine and Ali if you happen to like us. If you don't like us, that's a bad plan. Saturdays at 1 p.m. Eastern, Sundays at 3 p.m. Eastern. She's my co-host on a show called "YOUR $$$$$," where we deal with matters relating to your money.
Hey, listen, we've been following tornadoes all week. Wow, this is not great news, but round two of the tornadoes could be next. We're going to check in with Chad at the severe weather center when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. We are at the brand-new severe weather center here at CNN with our expert Chad Myers who, you know, is continually ahead of this whole tornado issue for us. I don't like it, but the fact is you're telling me there could be more.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: A slow start to the season.
VELSHI: Yes. That's right.
MYERS: I mean, it really was. Holy cow, it's already May.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: May, tornados should be kind of moving out into Iowa, Nebraska, because that's where the Jet Stream is.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: Severe weather is always right under the Jet Stream.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: So in the winter time, the Jet Stream kind of does this.
VELSHI: Right. Which is why we saw all that snow in the southeast, in the south, but it moves up.
MYERS: Exactly. Tornados in Alabama and Florida.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: And then by -- by March, kind of does this.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: By May, June, like this.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: And then by the middle of the summer the Jet Stream is up across Edmonton.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: And there have been tornados in Canada...
VELSHI: That's right, yes.
MYERS: ... when the Jet Stream is up there.
So if you get rid of all of those lines today, that threat is anywhere from about Kansas City and back to St. Louis, down into Oklahoma, again missing mainly the areas that had the tornados a couple days ago.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: That's good. You don't even need rain. When you don't have a roof, you don't want rain, let alone a hailstorm or something like that.
So this whole system is going to move on by. We're going to get some tornados today. I don't think we're going to get 30 like we had over the week. VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: But also, because of the cloud cover, because of the rainfall, we're actually seeing some airport delays. If you're out there, out and about, a little bit of patience. Not bad. Philadelphia, the worst at about two hours. Chicago at 55 minutes. LaGuardia, about the same story. Everybody else, you can deal with 30 minutes. And think you win. Thirty-minutes delay is a win.
VELSHI: These New York airports, you spill your coffee and they delay the plane.
All right, Chad. We'll keep on checking up with you. And if you see any of these tornadoes getting close to touching down or we hear about them, we'll come right back to you.
MYERS: Of course.
VELSHI: All right. The conservatives are back in power in Britain after 13 years. It's a coalition government. Can it survive? And what on earth does it mean to you? We are going to 10 Downing Street for a live report from Max Foster when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right, Conservative Party Leader David Cameron is the new prime minister of Great Britain. Now his part, the Conservatives, got the most seats in Parliament, but they didn't get a majority of seats, which means they could either run as a minority or form a coalition government with a rival center left party, the Liberal Democrats headed by Nick Clegg who is on the left.
Now in this picture, Cameron on the right. He was a former Labour Party -- well, what we saw yesterday was the former prime minister and the Labour Party leader, Gordon Brown, he didn't win enough seats, he resigned yesterday as prime minister and leader of the Labour Party.
Now, here is what David Cameron had to say about Gordon Brown's Labour Party government.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We understand that we're not going to beat these problems overnight, and in particular, no government in modern times has ever been left with such a terrible economic inheritance. Today's unemployment figures are another sign of the human cost of the economic mistakes of the past decade.
So we know there will be difficult decisions ahead, but working together, I know we can take the country through those difficult times to the better times that I believe lie ahead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Who is David Cameron? You can see that he's young, very self assured, he's got a relaxed manner, he's a graduate of Eton, which is a private school, and Oxford. Critics say that he's all style and no substance.
And now, his family life, he's experienced some tragedy. He and his wife Samantha opened their family to public viewing, which is something very unusual in Britain. It's not like that there. But their son, Ivan, was born with a severe form of cerebral palsy and epilepsy, he died last year at the age of 6. And for a lot of people that gave him a human touch. It added a strong component of humanity to David Cameron.
Now that's about him, that's a guy you're going to see a lot of over the course of the next few years, but what's it got to do with America? And for that, let's spin the globe around to Great Britain and let's visit with Max Foster who was with us yesterday telling us about what the implications are of this whole thing.
And, Max, you did such a fantastic job last year of -- sorry, not last year, yesterday, of telling us why this mattered to Americans, but that was in the context of breaking news and what's happening. Tell us again what we need to be thinking about on this side of the pond about your new prime minister.
MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the interesting thing today really, Ali, was about a personality. We had Nick Clegg and David Cameron holding a joint news conference. They were fierce rifles last week and they were best of buddies today. It was incredible seeing them laughing and joking with each other and apparently no differences between them whatsoever.
Of course, there are massive differences between these two parties, particularly on Europe and immigration and things like that, but they managed to sort of gloss over a lot of that. The big test will be whether they can keep things together. They seemed to get along personally. It was amazing to see them together to get on so well.
But you mentioned there about David Cameron going to Eton College, which is probably the grandest of British private schools. Prince William went there and a series of prime ministers have gone there. But also, Nick Clegg, you've got to remember, went to Westminster School, which is just here, and it's also one of the top five schools in the country. So he's pretty well heeled himself. So I think, on a personal level, they get on pretty well.
VELSHI: Let's talk a little bit, Max, about the war in Afghanistan. Britain's got a very active role in that, so does the United States. What might come of this new prime minister with respect to that?
FOSTER: Well, we were expecting clashes between Clegg and Cameron on conflict because Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats famously voted against the war, the invasion in Iraq. They didn't want to back America on that. But David Cameron did back Gordon Brown on that, so he was pro that war; Nick Clegg was against it. On Afghanistan, there is agreement. They do think that Britain needs to stay there with America until the situation there is resolved.
Looking ahead, one wonders what they will do when it comes to foreign conflicts. Both have suggested that they're less likely to go into foreign conflicts without a lot more consideration.
They're also going to have a lot less money, that's the big challenge going ahead. Domestically, the economies are in pretty terrible state. Government finances are in an appalling state. So that's what they're going to focus on. They're not going to be investing in any foreign conflicts that they think, unless they really have to.
VELSHI: But this is -- this is -- it's an issue that we have, it's a cleavage that we have here in the United States. But the reality is you have a center left guy in Nick Clegg, who is now the deputy prime minister, and you have got a conservative prime minister who campaigned on spending less in the economy. How are the two of them going to square that circle?
FOSTER: Well, it's really tough. Both agree that there do have to have massive spending cuts because if that doesn't happen, then the government just isn't going to be able to raise any debt in future. A hedge fund manager recently told me, the way we're looking at it is that Britain will be in Greece's situation in just two years.
So both leaders know that they have to deal with this in the next two years. The question is, really about timing. Nick Clegg wanted to leave any spending cuts until next year, David Cameron wanted them this year and David Cameron seems to have won out on that. He's going to install something like more than $10 billion worth of cuts this year in the United Kingdom. That's going to be extremely painful for Brits because the health service, for example, might suffer, education. Everyone is going to feel it. That it's going to be very tough and it's going to be tough for the Lib-Dems, I think, because they're more about bigger government than the conservatives.
VELSHI: Max, good to see you. Thank you very much for keeping us up to speed.
Max Foster outside of 10 Downing Street, by the way, the prime minister's residence in London.
Listen, this is a remarkable story. Coming up next, "Crime & Consequence." Back in 1978, right here in Atlanta, a baby boy was snatched, not a week old, from his home. Now that baby boy is a grown man and there's a sketch that tells us what he might look like. His mom is searching. We'll meet her after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: One of the segments we're going to be bringing you every day is "Crime & Consequence." This is a remarkable story. Raymond Green, born in 1978, brand new, didn't even have a picture taken of him back then. We're going to just slow this down for a second because I need to show you what's going on. I don't know if we can go back to that sketch.
There was no picture of him. He was taken from his home when he was 6 days old. So what happened is his mother, who has been looking for him all of those years, sat down with a forensic artist and came up with this sketch, from memory came up with this sketch of the baby. That sketch was then turned into the photograph you just saw of what Raymond might look like today.
And the search for Raymond continues. I'm joined now by Donna Green, Raymond's mother, live in Nashville. Raymond was taken from her in Atlanta. And Diana Trepkov who is a certified forensic artist who met with Donna and came up with this sketch that eventually was aged to look like Raymond.
Donna and Diana, thank you for being with us.
Donna, let me start with you. This happened in 1978, you were at the hospital, you met a woman there. She ended up -- you were young. She was young. A week later she was at your house. You went for a shower, you came out and Raymond was gone.
DONNA GREEN, SEARCHING FOR KIDNAPPED SON: That's right.
VELSHI: And so how did you meet up with Diana and how did you come up with this picture?
GREEN: I met Diana at the CUE Conference in Wilmington, North Carolina. She was there. I came there. I didn't know why I was going there but I felt like I was led to go there. When I got there, the next day, I saw Diana pass by and I just had to go talk to her for some reason. And when I went and talked to her, she asked me what my story was. I told her, and she said I could help you. And that's how we met.
VELSHI: Diana, how did you help her? What did you tell her you could do and what was that process to get that sketch of baby Raymond?
DIANA TREPKOV, CERTIFIED FORENSIC ARTIST: Well, we were sitting there, as we were having breakfast at the Holiday Inn. And when she came up to me, she said are you with the CUE Center, I said, yes, I'm teaching three of the classes, I'm the forensic artist. And I said, what about you? She said, I'm here to find my baby. He was stolen 31 years ago. She said, can I sit down? I said yes.
So she sat down. Within four minutes we had -- she told me the story and I said, was a composite ever done, a suspect -- of the lady, was there a composite done for the police? She said, no. I said was there ever -- do you have a picture of Raymond? She said, no. I said, was there a drawing. She said, no. I said, I can help you. That's what I do, I'm a forensic artist.
VELSHI: That sounds like something I watch on TV. What do you mean that's what you do? You draw pictures where no one had a picture, no one had -- I mean, Donna had seen her baby for six days and you can draw that out of somebody's mind?
TREPKOV: Yes. It's cognitive memory interviewing technique. It's just like when Princess Diana died, I'm sure everybody remembered where they were at that time. I can remember clearly, it's the shock. So she did have so many indents with the suspect, Lisa Morris. And when Lisa came to her house --
VELSHI: That's the picture on the right -- we're just showing that on TV right now. That's the picture on the right, that's suspect. On the left is baby Raymond.
TREPKOV: Yes. And because it was a shock and probably one of the most horrible days of her life, she'll always remember that. And she said she can remember the suspect, what the suspect looked like. And she goes, it's in this bits and pieces. And I said, we can do the drawing.
The manager at the Holiday Inn actually gave us the assistant manager's office. We needed a quiet space. Everybody pulled together and I did the drawing. She said she was a bit nervous and she prayed to god she wasn't going to let me down. I said, no, everything happens when the time is right and I believe the time is right. You're doing great.
VELSHI: Donna, let me ask you where this takes you now. First of all, that first picture, the sketch, does it look like what you remember Raymond looking like?
And secondly, the Center for Missing and Exploited Children was then able to age Raymond. Is that the man you're looking for, the man in the picture that looks like what Raymond could look like today?
GREEN: Yes. The baby looks like -- exactly what I remember. Diana did a very, very thorough job. She had me thinking and she had me calm and we were just talking. And every time I thought, you know, when I thought that it -- she showed me the picture and I told her what the changes was and I mean, she did a wonderful job. That's exactly what we looked like when he was a baby.
And as far as the other picture is concerned, that would be -- that picture there looks just like my children. Looks just like my children.
VELSHI: Donna, this is excellent. We hope that this does help. You've been on this case for so long. We hope that this advance helps you find Raymond and we would all like to celebrate with you when you do.
Diana, what a great idea that you can get people to go deep into their memory and find this information out. Thank you to both of you, Donna Green in Nashville; Diana Trepkov, a certified forensic artist in Toronto.
Remember the victim in this case, Raymond Green, just 6 days old when he was stolen from his mother in her Atlanta home. His mother Donna, you just met her, also victimized by her son's kidnapper.
A 2002 Justice Department report estimates that 797,500 children were reported missing in just one year. Now, some of these cases, they turn out to be false alarms, other cases are resolved. But for Donna green the panic has given way to a three-decade search for her son. So if you happen to know anything or see a man who looks like this, call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 800-843-5678.
Coming up next, our "Big 'I'" segment. We do this to tell you what the future is going to look like. Listen to this one -- using leftovers to make containers that are eventually going to hold leftovers. A cutting-edge bioplastic is today's "Big 'I'" coming up next.
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VELSHI: All right. Yesterday, in our "X-Y-Z" -- no, "The Big 'I'," we have a lot of letters going on in the show -- we looked at creating oil from algae. Now today's "Big 'I'" branches off from that, I'm going to come back to the algae thing in just a minute, so stay with me. We're talking about plastics right now.
The vast majority of plastics are made from petroleum, oil, raising issues of resources and cost because plastic -- when oil goes up, plastic goods cost more. A company called Cereplast produces bioplastics. It's a hybrid resin that replaces 50 percent or more of the petroleum that goes into plastic with renewable sources and then becomes 100 percent compostable and biodegradable.
Basically, let me show you how it works. I'm just looking at this and trying to give you a sense of it. To make the plastic, you have a few things. You've got starch from stuff like corn and tapioca and potatoes, things like that. That's biomaterial. And they mix it up with other biomaterials and then mix it up with something called PLA -- PLA -- it's basically a natural acid that comes from sugarcane or corn.
And they put it all together and it becomes this -- these grains you see here -- this becomes the product that then goes into the plastic to make a more biodegradable plastic that then gets made into all the things you think you use plastic for.
Now Cereplast sells the material to all kinds of companies who manufacture it into the kinds of products that we use today. Let me give you a bit of an example as to what we're talking about here. This is the product that gets made, and it goes into all sorts of other things. You can see straws here. You can see injection molding. You can see bumpers for cars. You can see cups and things like that. So you know, common products.
It says that its resins are much cheaper to produce and more durable than the brittle bioplastics that we've seen in the past, the kind of plastic that's made from biodegradable goods.
Now, I told you in the beginning that I was going to tell you about algae and how it comes into it. Yesterday, we talked about making algae the oil. Basically Cereplast is banking on the idea that they can use algae to do some of this.
Frederic Scheer is the CEO of the company, and he's here to explain a little bit more about it.
Hi, Rajeev, welcome to the show.
FREDERIC SCHEER, CEO, CEREPLAST: Good afternoon. Thank you for having me.
VELSHI: Tell us a little bit about it. I tried to give a setback, but I'm sure I botched some of it. Did I basically give the right idea and what are you doing with algae?
SCHEER: You absolutely did give the right idea. Plastic is in everyday life and clearly plastic is something is very important for us, we cannot live without plastic. But plastic, as you say, has a couple of challenges which are, number one, it's made from one single feedstock which is fossil fuel. And bioplastics are -- it's what we are doing, and what we want to do is avoid that problem and trying to make product from different kind of feedstocks (ph).
And therefore, it is the reason why we're working with agricultural resources, but we're looking at alternative feedstocks such as the algae. And this is how, in fact, we came to the algae because we believe that algae could be a viable feedstocks and could help us make sure that we will be creating products that are going to be affordable.
VELSHI: All right. You know, a lot of people think of algae as something in the water. We learned earlier this week about algae that's used to make oil, but it's algae that's farmed basically. Is this what you're talking about, sort of creating algae, to do this?
SCHEER: You're absolutely correct. Basically, if you look at all the companies that are interested in extracting the oil to make algae, they end up with one big problem, they create a mountain of biomass of product that they don't know what to do with it, it's a byproduct. And this is exactly what we are interesting in.
We basically take from those people and from those companies, we take, in fact, all the biomass, all the waste that they are creating, and we are transforming it into a feedstock for bioplastics.
In doing this it's allow us, in fact, to have access to materials that will be low cost. We helping those companies. And if you -- if we take a little bit of perspective, if we trying to remember what happened about 150 million years ago, it's exactly what happened when we discovered -- when we discovered petroleum. You had a couple companies that basically drilled the oil --
VELSHI: Yep.
SCHEER: -- get the oil out and starting to use it as a fuel, but then they were ending up with a lot of byproduct. Those byproduct become the plastic of today, the chemical of today.
And it's, you know, 150 years ago well, we not reinventing the wheel, we just looking at something in a pattern that is basically more or less the same.
VELSHI: So, you're taking a byproduct of algae which can be used to make oil, you're taking the byproduct of that and making it into what we think of as a byproduct of oil, you're making it into plastics. Are your plastics cheaper or more expensive than plastics made out of traditional petroleum?
SCHEER: This is a key question. As of today, the hybrid resins that are offering is basically about 5 percent more expensive. However -- in terms of the resin itself.
However, when the plastics fabricators are manufacturing the product, they run their machine, traditional equipment, at a temperature which are about 50 percent lower than -- than normally when they run -- when they run fossil fuel-based resin. The result is our resins are basically at the same price as of today than traditional resin.
And I believe that this is a key thing. You have to understand something, which in my mind is key. I listened to your show earlier, you were talking about carbon dioxide. When we create one pound of polypropylene, which is a poly-oliphant (ph), we are creating at the same time 3.14 kilos of carbon dioxide.
VELSHI: Yes.
SCHEER: When we do create one pound of -- or one kilo of our -- what I call biopropylene, we are basically creating only 1.70 kilo of carbon dioxide.
VELSHI: So, you're cutting that in half.
SCHEER: Basically we're reducing that, absolutely. And I anticipate -- anticipating that with the algae, we'll be even doing better than that.
VELSHI: All right. Good to talk to you. This is a great big idea, we hope it works out for you. We'll continue to follow this and one of these days I'll bring my lunch to work in a container mailed of bioresins.
Good to talk to you, Mr. Scheer. Thanks for being with us.
SCHEER: Thank you very much.
VELSHI: All right, listen, we're going to have a conversation when we come back about Beau Biden, the vice president's son. He's 41 years old, he was hospitalize yesterday with a stroke. How does a young guy like that -- healthy, athletic guy like that, get a stroke? Sanjay is going to tell us about it when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: All right. We were going to tell you about Beau Biden and how you can identify those situations that get you into a stroke, but I actually have to do something else, because we just got this word in from the Delaware Department of Justice, an update on Beau Biden's condition.
It's not actually telling us about his condition, but it does say -- and I'm quoting here, "Attorney General Biden continues his favorable progress after sustaining a mild stroke yesterday. He will continue to follow standard protocol and receive medical therapy over the coming days, as is typical for any patient recovering from an event like this. He looks forward to returning to his duties as attorney general in the near future." That's the end of the statement.
He is in hospital in Philadelphia. Again, it is vague as to what sort of condition he's in, but it does use the terms "favorable progress." I'll get you more on that when we come back. Right now we're going to take a break.
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