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Arizona Immigration Rallies; Working to the Bone in Triple- Digit Temperatures; President of American Federation of Teachers Discusses Obama's Race to the Top Program; Details on Rangel Charges; $1.4 Million for Oil Cleanup Idea
Aired July 29, 2010 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: A new hour, a brand-new "Rundown."
Working to the bone in the fields of California in triple-digit temperatures, the life of Mexican migrant laborers. Our Gary Tuchman joined them for a day.
Plus, President Obama defending his Race to the Top plan to improve education -- public education. He's got his supporters and his critics. We'll hear from Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers.
Also, got an idea for cleaning up massive oil spills like the one in the Gulf? Well, you could win over $1 million if you do. We'll tell you about the oil cleanup X Challenge.
But first, let's tell you about what's going on in Arizona right now.
SB 1070, which is the law that everybody has been talking about, went into effect today. But some major, major parts of it didn't go into effect after a U.S. district court judge removed them, basically, yesterday.
Let me tell you about what's in there.
First of all, what's blocked, what the judge blocked yesterday, forced status checks on reasonable suspicion. Immigration papers, they don't have to carry them anymore in Arizona, according to the law. They were supposed to. And a ban on illegal immigrants seeking jobs has been removed.
What's still in the bill that's contentious? There's still a crackdown on harboring illegal immigrants. There are no more sanctuary cities allowed. And a ban on day laborers who disrupt traffic to try and get work.
Bottom line, though, is in Phoenix, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says he is still going to arrest people, illegal immigrants, the way he's been doing. And there's a protest as a result of that.
People who are demonstrating in front of his office in Phoenix, they were warned that if they don't move out, they're going to get arrested. And guess what? They didn't move out, they got arrested. Let's go right to Thelma Gutierrez, who is with those protesters in Phoenix with the latest.
What's going on, Thelma?
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ali, I talked to a producer just a short time ago, one of our producers, who told me that he personally saw 18 people arrested. And the way that it's been happening is they've been staging out here on the street right in front of Sheriff Arpaio's office, right on Washington Boulevard.
And you can see these are Phoenix police. Phoenix police have moved in and they have advanced on that line of protesters. And then one by one, they'll handcuff them, arrest them, and then take them away.
We just saw two vans leave. This area right now, full of protestors.
And we're also told that there are six protesters who have actually locked their arms together and they've chained themselves to the front of the jail. Now, we have not confirmed that, but that's what a lot of the witnesses out here have said.
And these people say that they're not only protesting SB 1070, the fact that there's only a temporary injunction, but also, they say that they're protesting these controversial immigration sweeps that the sheriff has done for the last few years out here in Phoenix. They say that they believe these things to be anti-Latino. In addition to that, there are other laws that they're protesting such as a ban on bilingual education and a ban on ethnic studies which they perceive to be anti-Latino as well.
Now, take a look right behind me. You can see the police out here.
I can tell you, Ali, that it has been very peaceful. People have been protesting.
They fully expected to be arrested. When we first showed up earlier today, there were several dozen people at a rally -- several hundred, actually. And then a few dozen broke off from the main body of that rally and they moved off. They were briefed by attorneys, they were told what to expect, how to behave, what to do as they engaged in this act of civil disobedience -- Ali.
VELSHI: All right. So, as you said, they knew they were going to get arrested. We were watching some of those arrests being made.
Generally peaceful. These people would link arms together when the police came to arrest them. There was no struggle when they went off.
Where does this go now? Is the crowd still as big? Are folks backing down? What's happening now? GUTIERREZ: Well, Ali, you can take a look right behind me. You can see that the protesters that were in the street, those who remained and who were willing to be arrested, have been arrested. They've now been hauled off.
And then if we pan right over, you can see that there are remnants of the people who were here for this rally. There were several hundred earlier today, Ali. Just a few dozen now.
VELSHI: All right. Thelma, we'll stay on this story, and of course on the developments on SB 1070, this state law that has garnered so much attention.
Thelma Gutierrez in Phoenix for us.
Hard-liners say that immigrants, legal and otherwise, take American jobs. And that could be true. But you can't really grasp the real story unless you've worked a day in those fields. For instance, in southern California.
Our Gary Tuchman did that, and he's got the blisters and sunburn to prove it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before dawn, migrant laborers in the California desert. Despite triple-digit temperatures still to come, they wear long sleeves, scarves and bandanas to protect themselves from the sun and from dust.
Their job today, to pick the purple grapes you will snack on tomorrow. They're all veterans, and they're all Mexican, except for me, the rookie American who is joining them for a full day of work, the only person in short sleeves, the only person who doesn't know what he's doing.
But I have been assigned a partner. Benjamin Rodriguez (ph) has worked in the California fields for 32 years. He knows his grapes, which are called "uvas" in Spanish, and he is teaching me the trade.
(on camera): Here's what I'm learning. You have got to get rid of the green ones. But, sometimes, the green ones are way down. And, if you miss them, and they get to the grocery store, and then you go to the grocery store to buy grapes and see green ones, you will complain to the store. The store will complain to the ranch, and the ranch will complain to me, the worker.
(voice-over): You make $8 an hour, minimum wage, and split 30 cents per each big box of grapes you pack between three workers. The third is Benjamin's wife, Maria (ph), who is loading up the grapes for the grocery store.
She tells me it makes her back hurt and it's hot, "But we have to work hard. It puts food on the table. We have to do it."
(on camera): Benjamin is my partner today. If I don't work fast, I cost him money. So, there's some pressure. It's not just doing a story.
(voice-over): Maria and Benjamin have five children, two of them grown. They, like all the other workers here, won't discuss their immigration status.
But, if you're legal, you would usually seek a less punishing occupation. Either way, taxes are taken out of all the paychecks. They each make a base rate of $64 for the day. After taxes, it's about 45 bucks for the eight hours.
As the hours go by, the workers sing to help make time pass, to take their minds off the heat. They're aware many people believe Mexican immigrants take away American jobs, but, over the years on this ranch --
(on camera): (SPEAKING SPANISH)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING SPANISH)
I asked him how many Americans he has seen in then his 32 years in the field. He has said zero.
(voice-over): Santos Montemayor is the man who does the hiring in these fields.
(on camera): So, for 15 years, you have been hiring labor crews to do agricultural work.
SANTOS MONTEMAYOR, LABOR CONTRACTOR: Right.
TUCHMAN: How many Americans have you hired over the 15 or 16 years?
MONTEMAYOR: None, not one.
TUCHMAN: I mean, has one ever expressed interest?
MONTEMAYOR: No. Not since I have been working the fields, no.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): The temperature has now climbed to 102.
(on camera): As it gets hotter and the sun gets brighter, your mind starts playing tricks with you. Is it purple? Is it green? You start not being able to make out the colors any more. These are purple, though.
(voice-over): The trucks start getting loaded up with the grapes we're picking. I'm doing some wheelbarrow duty, which can't be good for the back.
(on camera): I realized before this day started this work would be hard. What I didn't realize is just how monotonous it would be. These people do it six days a week.
(voice-over): I've never looked at my watch so much. And it's not even lunch-time yet. (on camera): Delicious grapes. Hot off the vine.
(voice-over): The afternoon goes slower than the morning. Benjamin (ph) stays on top of me to get rid of the green grapes. At 2:30 p.m., eight and a half hours of a we started, our final load of grapes.
(on camera): This is the last.
(voice-over): It's quitting time and it's a mass exodus. Benjamin, Maria (ph) and I have done 100 boxes. That's a $30 bonus for the two of them. I wish Benjamin and Maria luck and they head home as quickly as possible. They have to do it all over again at 6:00 a.m.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Gary, did you -- that story that you did, you saw it with your own eyes. You asked the workers if they had ever worked with Americans. And you asked the guy who was hiring them whether he had ever hired Americans.
Did you hear from others that that's the same story, that there aren't Americans lining up to pick these grapes in southern California?
TUCHMAN: Yes. There are certainly jobs where Americans don't get the jobs because of illegal Mexican immigrants. But this industry, the migrant worker industry, really isn't one of them to any large extent.
I mean, there are certainly other farms where maybe some Americans have applied, some Americans work. But this particular ranch, where they have hundreds of workers since 1985, 1987, they've never had even one American apply for a job at these ranches. So it gives you an idea.
No matter how you feel about this issue, Ali, these are hard- working Mexican immigrants. And the reason we know they're hard- working and honest is because if they weren't honest, they'd be doing something else that was a little unsavory and they'd make a heck of a lot more money.
VELSHI: Right. You made that point, that while nobody was talking about their immigration status, they may not be choosing to do that if they had some other options.
TUCHMAN: That's exactly right. And by the way, this obviously is a lot different atmosphere that I had at the grape field with the protests going on.
I want to tell you something very interesting, Ali, is this is outside, this protest, outside of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office. Most of the people here, they hate that particular sheriff and they're protesting against him. We were actually interviewing the sheriff while the protest was going on. We heard it in his office. And I can tell you, he was considering the possibility of coming down here, and he ultimately decided that coming down here would be a very unwise thing for him, and perhaps the safety of the other police officers down here
VELSHI: And it looks like it's largely dispersed around you from what you can see?
TUCHMAN: Yes. Right now it's largely dispersed, but there is a protest, as Thelma probably just told you, in another part of the city, near the jail here in the city.
So we expect there to be protests throughout the day. They're expecting an even larger protest, organizers say, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, 4:00 p.m. local time today.
So, this appears, despite the fact that all the provisions of this law do not take effect today, this appears to be a day where there will be mass protests in the state of Arizona, particularly here in the city of Phoenix.
VELSHI: All right. You and Thelma and our team will be on top of it.
Gary, good to see you. Thanks very much for that.
Gary Tuchman and Thelma Gutierrez in Phoenix right now covering this for us.
All right. One of the big topics that we're covering, we always cover on this show, is the idea of improving public education. We need a plan, and one of the plans is blaming teachers for it. President Obama talks about the controversy surrounding his Race to the Top program. We're going to take a closer look at this issue with somebody who knows a lot about it "Chalk Talk," coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. It's time for "Chalk Talk," where we talk about ideas and ways to improve public education in this country.
Today, President Obama made some remarks at the National Urban League convention outlining his plan to improve our public education system. He talked about the importance of his Race to the Top program which awards states a portion of a $4 billion grant if certain changes are made to improve their schools.
Now, the Race to the Top program has been a bit controversial over the past few months, with some saying that it turns state governments against teachers and teachers unions.
Here's what the president had to say about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For anyone who wants to use Race to the Top to blame or punish teachers, you're missing the point. Our goal isn't to fire and admonish teachers. Our goal is accountability. It's to provide teachers with the support they need to be as effective as they can be and to create a better environment for teachers and students alike.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Let me tell you a little bit about this Race to the Top program, what it means to do or what the government says it means to do.
The idea is that a state gets awarded money if it meets certain goals as outlined by the Department of Education, preparing students to succeed, measuring student growth, and improving instruction, recruiting and rewarding teachers and principals, and turning around -- ultimately, this is what it's about -- ultimately, it's about turning around low-performing schools.
Joining me to talk about that is Randi Weingarten. She's the president of the American Federation of Teachers, joining me from D.C.
Randi, good to see you again. Thank you for being with us.
RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS: It's great to be with you.
VELSHI: There's a real effort on the part of the Department of Education to push forward with this Race for the Top, and that has created some impressions in some states that in order to get the extra money, because everybody is desperate for extra money these day, states might make hasty decisions.
In some case -- you and I have talked about this. In some cases, the states have made decisions with teachers as stakeholders and partners, with the unions as stakeholders and partners. In other states, that hasn't happened.
First of all, what's your response to the Race to the Top program and to President Obama's comments about it today?
WEINGARTEN: Look, I think the president really attempted to change the tone today with respect to teachers, and I am very grateful for that. He talked about how no one should be pleased with the status quo. And no one should be pleased with the status quo.
The real issue is not whether to change schools, it's how to change schools. And so Race to the Top is a piece of it. And there are parts of it that are terrific, like the push for collaboration. But Race to the Top is not the be all and the end all. I mean, look at what else the president said today. He talked about the importance of early childhood education, and Race to the Top doesn't include that. He talked about the importance of curriculum, real curriculum like they do in Finland, which has now helped make Finland one of the top nations in the world in terms of education. Race to the Top doesn't talk about that.
So Race to the Top is a piece of it, but the other pieces that are really important -- and the president talked about it as well -- we've got to make sure that schools actually do what they're intended to do. So when you have, for example, summer school being eliminated in all these places across America because of budget cuts, what are we going to do about summer learning loss when at the very same time, we're talking about extended time? When we're talking about literacy, when in L.A., every single middle school and elementary school is about to be closed, what are we going to do about literacy?
So this is the agenda for education, complex and big. But we all have to be in there together.
VELSHI: Well, let me ask you this -- we do all have to be in here together, but most people, I think most parents will tell you this, most people in education will tell you this, that while it's not the entire equation, the teacher is probably the most important part of success for a student. And that is manifested in positive ways and it's manifested in negative ways.
WEINGARTEN: Right.
VELSHI: And the negative way it's manifested is that people who say that there are low-performing schools and low-performing students say blame the teacher. I guess we could probably agree that the teacher is more important than all of the other things involved in public education, right? They're central to it. So the teacher's participation in change is going to be the most important element.
WEINGARTEN: Well, I would actually say the teacher has always been a critically important element in kids' education, of course. But what teachers would tell you is that we can't do it alone.
And so, ultimately, when we talk about accountability, we talk about mutual accountability, not just principals and administrators telling teachers what to do, but when teachers then say -- good teachers say, this is what I need to help, then they have to be listened to. But parents have to be listened to as well.
So, ultimately, it takes good teachers supported by good leaders. It takes robust curriculum which actually sing from the page, not just us making it up every day. It takes conditions that help us eliminate barriers to students' success, and it takes mutual accountability.
I'll give you one more example.
Look at what Geoff Canada is doing up in Harlem, New York, the Promise neighborhoods. I've been talking about wraparound services like that for years. First, when I was head of the New York City local union, and now as the head of the American Federation of Teachers.
I have seen these programs work hugely well in places across the country. Take St. Paul, Minnesota.
Every single child deserves these kind of wraparound programs. We know they're really important. But that takes money.
VELSHI: Let me just play you something else, because you said something about what the president said today. You just mentioned success.
Let's listen to what the president had to say about success in schools.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: If we want success for our country, we can't accept failures in our schools decade after decade. And that's why we're challenging states to turn around our 5,000 lowest-performing schools. And I don't think it's any secret that most of those are serving African-American or Hispanic kids. We're investing over $4 billion to help them do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Randi, you said it earlier, look, there's no news in what the president said today. Every piece of information he spoke of we knew about. But the thing I noticed in his speech is the same thing you noticed, a change of tone so that there ceases to be what appears to be an attack by the federal Department of Education on teachers.
What about the tone from the other side? I know you haven't been party to it, but you know that many teachers and teachers unions have been party to the, we aren't digging in, we're not making changes, we're not adding an extra hour to our work time, we're not going to take the blame for underperforming students or schools.
What's the move on the part of teachers now to say if the tone is changing from the federal government, how does our tone change?
WEINGARTEN: Look, I have to tell you, and maybe it's just that I'm boastful about my own members, but we just had a convention in Seattle and that wasn't the tone at all. We had representatives from all across the country. And we put out a prescription for saying, we're going to fight against those who blame the teachers, but at the same time, we have to be on the vanguard of saving education as it ought to be.
And so, ultimately, we want to be part of that change-making, and we want to be change agents. So we applaud the change of tone, and we're rolling up our sleeves to make these things happen.
We overhauled our evaluation systems, even though sometimes we're not responsible for them. And we want to help turn around struggling schools.
Again, the issue is the hows, not the whethers. And the issues we have had is that the mass firings are the things that have been so concerning, because, ultimately, you want to get great teachers to come to tough places. So, even if we're not totally successful, we need to make sure that we create an incentive for great teachers to come to tough places, and we also want to make sure communities are involved.
There's been this week -- I have never seen a week like this. There's been so many really powerful reports this week about actually how to turn around schools, how to make things better. It's the hows that will really help. Not the whethers, but the hows.
VELSHI: Yes. Very good. Agreed.
It's an interesting battle because everybody seems to be on the same side. They want better schools and better education and better outcomes for our kids.
WEINGARTEN: Right.
VELSHI: Thank you for talking to us. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
WEINGARTEN: Thank you.
VELSHI: Randi Weingarten is the president of the American Federation of Teachers.
And of course this is a topic we're very committed to here on this show, and we'll continue to bring you the latest information and ideas about education.
We're also committed to covering the story on immigration in Arizona. We've got full coverage of the situation in Arizona. SB 1070, that controversial law, has gone into effect with some changes.
We'll tell you what they are and what's coming out of it when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: One of the reasons -- that was very cool, by the way -- one of the reasons we do "Off the Radar" is because I can't even get my head around the stuff that's actually on the radar, but Chad is so far beyond that, that he's looking at things that we don't know about.
So I'm still trying to kind of understand earthquakes. You've moved on.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Get your hands around that.
VELSHI: You've moved on to spacequakes.
MYERS: Look, you did it.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: You had your hands around a basketball. VELSHI: I do. That's new for me.
(LAUGHTER)
MYERS: Look, with two hands you're palming it.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: Really. Drop it.
One, two, three. Not so bouncy anymore.
VELSHI: No.
MYERS: The first bounce was pretty good.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: The second bounce, not so bad. The third bounce --
VELSHI: Am I responsible for that? I just did what you told me to do.
MYERS: You had nothing to do with it.
VELSHI: All right.
MYERS: OK.
We're going to take plasma. We're going to send it from the sun in a coronal mass ejection.
Do you know what that is?
VELSHI: No.
MYERS: Solar flare.
VELSHI: OK. Solar flare.
MYERS: Here it comes from this direction, and it's taking our atmosphere. And, in fact, it stretches our atmosphere that way, where all the energy from the sun comes in.
Look, we're stretching our atmosphere.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: It's going out and out and out --
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: -- a little bit, you know, more than it already is. But it's going out. All of a sudden, it can't go out anymore and it snaps back!
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: All of the sudden, the ionosphere is in charge. Northern lights, southern lights -- all kinds of fun things going on. Except here comes the earthquake, just in this space quake, still moving back and forth, possibly as strong as a number five or a magnitude five earthquake in the sky.
VELSHI: This is the energy that you were just talking about moving forward. So, that's the quake?
MYERS: You know, we knew -- we always knew that coronal mass ejections, or basically the solar flares, basically stuff coming from the sun would cause northern lights.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: We always know this. But these northern lights have these phenomenal, back and forth motions. Why -- what's this back and forth notion about. You're from the north.
VELSHI: I've seen them, I love them.
MYERS: I sat there in Minnesota one night.
VELSHI: You stare up.
MYERS: You can't stop looking at them, right? But where did this event come from? That's what they believe is the space quake.
It's NASA's birthday today, too, by the way.
VELSHI: That's right. Happy birthday.
MYERS: But they sent out these five little spaceships out there. They're out there. the satellites are going around and they found this -- they found this stretch. When the energy, the plasma from the sun, not -- this doesn't happen all the time.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: But when it comes in, it hits the atmosphere and it pushes the atmosphere, the ionosphere, thousands -- I mean, thousands of miles around. I'm not just talking about just around the atmosphere that we're breathing. Pushes it this way, stretches it that way and it can't go stretching anymore and then vibrates back and forth.
The first vibration is when you dropped the ball. It came up pretty far.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: And then it didn't come back. And so, that's why when you see the northern lights, the first and the initial surges will be amazing.
VELSHI: It's robust.
MYERS: And then after that, it starts to slow down.
VELSHI: How interesting. I remember, one time, I was in Church in Manitoba, and you know, the reason you go to church in Manitoba --
MYERS: Is this a long story?
VELSHI: Well, it could be short. It depends on when my producer tells me to wrap.
MYERS: Go ahead.
VELSHI: And I was up there staring at the northern lights and when I looked down and there were all these foxes that had gathered around me. They were small, little -- those Arctic foxes. They're like -- and they weren't going to do anything bad but they're a whole bunch --
MYERS: They were animals.
VELSHI: They were sort of licking their chops and looking at me. It was OK. They didn't think I was all that appetizing.
MYERS: Space quake.
VELSHI: All right, good. Thank you for that.
MYERS: All right.
VELSHI: Space quakes.
Listen, while we're talking about fantastic things, there's a huge prize for the solution to one of the biggest problems in American history. Find out how to win $1 million -- right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Of the number of stories that we're following today, one of them is on Capitol Hill. We're following the House Ethics Committee's investigation into Representative Charles Rangel, formerly the head of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Let's go to Briana Keilar who's on Capitol Hill right now with an update on that story -- Brianna.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And, Ali, I'm holding in my hand actually the report that came out along with this public airing of these alleged violations of a very powerful Democrat, Charles Rangel. It's considerably long, about 40 pages or so and I'm only on page 4. So, we're going to be updating you as we get more information.
But what I can tell you off the top here, this statement here which alleges violations is suggesting that there are 13 counts -- so, 13 charges. And it says that the charges relate to four general subject matters. And this is what we discussed before, Ali.
One has to do with solicitations and donations to the Rangel Center of Public Service at the City College of New York. This is a center at the city college bearing the name of Charles Rangel.
Also, it has to do with errors and omissions on his financial disclosure statements. We were aware, Ali, that he had failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of assets on those disclosure statements.
And also, it talks about the use of those rent-stabilized apartments and using it for a political reason. We knew that he had been saving thousands of dollars or he allegedly saved thousands of dollars per month on those rent-stabilized apartment buildings.
And fourthly here, the fourth matter has to do with failing to report and pay taxes on that rental income that he got from his villa that he owns in the Dominican Republic.
So, 13 counts, they have to deal with these four areas. But let me tell you what really struck me so far, just get into the beginning of this. It details some of the delays that have come here in the inquiry, and it really paints a picture of -- and especially as we've heard from Congressman Rangel that he's actually the one that asks the ethics committee to look into these allegations, he's cooperated all along.
But this paints a picture, Ali, of Congressman Rangel, and certainly his office, not being all that cooperative. It talks about his delays being troubling, that actually, there was -- off the top here, I'm going to tell you -- it says that he was supposed to submit his responses to essentially these allegations, and they were supposed to be signed under oath. It says they weren't. That he was given an opportunity to sign them under oath but he did not.
And then it talks about some of the delays that says that he talked about getting a forensic accountant and after, there were clearly issues with his filing -- clearly after filing taxes that he was going to get a forensic accountant. And it said that he said that publicly and then six months later -- it wasn't until six months later that they got that -- that they got that to him -- Ali.
VELSHI: All right. Brianna, you'll stay on top of that. As you've been also reporting to us, there are some sources saying that he may be close to a deal, obviously. Go ahead.
KEILAR: Yes, and let me speak to that matter because what we learned from a Democratic lawmaker was that he was close to a settlement, that his lawyers were close to a settlement with the ethics committee. However, shortly after we reported that, Ali, Rangel himself came out and spoke to one of our producers, Deirdre Walsh, and a number of other reporters and said that he's not involved in a deal.
So, it's really unclear at this point. Certainly, there was no deal in time to avoid the public airing of these allegations. I guess the question now is: could he maybe come to a settlement so he could avoid a protracted trial? As we said, it could begin possibly in September and go for week -- uncomfortably close to this mid-term election for Democrats.
VELSHI: All right, Brianna. You're on that story. You'll be going through that stuff. We'll visit with you again.
Brianna Keilar on Capitol Hill on the Charles Rangel matter.
All right. We're going to take a break. When we come back, I'm going to tell you again how it is that you might be able to make a lot of money solving one of the biggest problems we're facing right now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Let me bring you up-to-speed on some of the stories that we're following here at CNN.
Demonstrators opposed to Arizona's new immigration law were arrested during a protest in Phoenix just a short time ago. They were demonstrating outside the office of Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who is an outspoken defender of the law. Part of the new law officially went into effect today. Arpaio told CNN last night he would be sweeping the city for undocumented workers today, and that is what gave rise to those demonstrations.
Former Agriculture Department official, Shirley Sherrod, says she is going to sue over the video clip that led to her resignation earlier this month. It was posted online by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart. The clip was a small part of long speech that she gave to the NAACP. Breitbart has said that he wasn't targeting Sherrod personally. He says he was taking aim at the NAACP.
And a second sailor who was missing in Afghanistan has been found dead. The first was found Sunday. U.S. military officials are still trying to determine why the two sailors drove off a military base in Kabul in a civilian vehicle. They were involved in a firefight with Taliban militants in Logar province.
All right, when we come back, we're going to talk about -- well, let's not even come back. Let's do it right now. I want to talk to you about our "Mission Possible" for today.
This is a big problem that we got -- it's got to do with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Until now, about 3.9 million barrels of oil have been dumped into the Gulf of Mexico as a result of this particular spill. And we need to figure out ways to solve this.
You know, on this show, we've been particularly committed to finding ideas or at least listening to people with ideas of how to clean up this Gulf, from the shores, from inside the water, from on top of the water. Well, now, we have an "X" prize for this idea -- a prize to the top three ideas for cleaning up this spill of surface oil and spills later to come. I'll tell you a little bit about the "X" price in a moment. We've talked about this a lot before on the show, but I want to introduce you to three people who are going to tell us a lot more about it.
First of all, my friend, Peter Diamandis -- he is the CEO of the X-Prize Foundation. Wendy Schmidt is the president of Schmidt Family Foundation and the co-founder of the Schmidt Marine Science Research Institute. And Philippe Cousteau is an environmentalist and the CEO of EarthEcho. He's also the grandson of Captain Jacques Cousteau.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you for being with us.
Let's start with you, Peter. This is, first of all, an X challenge, not an X prize. Tell me the difference and tell me what you -- what you have to do to win this money.
PETER DIAMANDIS, X-PRIZE FOUNDATION: Sure. Good to see you again, Ali.
As you well know, our X prize is our $10 million or larger purses. The Google Lunar X Prize is $30 million to build a robot fly to the moon. This is an X challenge, which is really focused on a technology demonstration that takes place in a one-year period of time.
Our benefactor, Wendy Schmidt, has put up $1.4 million of prize money, plus the operations. And to win this, you go to our Web site which is iprizecleanoceans.org, or go to the xprize.org Web site, and you can register to compete your team. And you're going to be in a head to head competition with other technologies to see who can most efficiently get the most flow through of oil and actually clean up the ocean, lakes or rivers.
VELSHI: Wendy Schmidt, you got your name of this thing. You're the benefactor. I'm always curious, I'm curious about the scientists and the people who compete. I love the X-Prize Foundation for giving people the incentive to do it. But I am always fascinated by people who are prepared to put up their own cold hard cash to solve a problem that many of us think somebody should already be solving.
Why are you doing it?
WENDY SCHMIDT, SCHMIDT FAMILY FOUNDATION: I'm doing this because this is the most constructive way that I know to deal with the anguish people have felt, the frustration about what's been going on with the operation, cleaning up now in the Gulf. We're clearly not where we need to be and an incentive prize is definitely the way to get people out of the woodwork to offer solutions.
I'd like to change the conversation from who are we blaming about this to solutions, because if you really look at it, we're all to blame. We live in a petroleum-based economy -- I do, you do, we all do.
And as long as we drive the demand for oil, we're going to have more oil spills. We're going to need to be responsible in some way for cleaning them up. It's like messing up somebody else's house. We should be cleaning it up.
VELSHI: Philippe, let's talk about this for a second. I'm going to continue this on the other side of the break, but I want to ask you: are you worried -- you wouldn't be worried about it -- but are you concerned that despite this incentive, we don't -- we keep hearing reports that there's less and less surface oil as a result of this spill actually out there.
PHILIPPE COUSTEAU, EARTHECHO: Well, you know, it's true, there's a little bit less surface oil because of the cap, but there's a lot of oil in the water column. And, you know, I've been covering this story for the last three months down in the Gulf, working with CNN a lot, of course, and that there's still a huge concern about what's under the surface.
And I think what's so critical about this prize is it's not just about the Deepwater Horizon disaster. This is looking forward. There will be more oil spills. Though we need to get off fossil fuels as soon as possible, it won't happen tomorrow. And we need to be prepared.
I testified about this 18 months ago in Congress. We did not have the technology. We weren't prepared for this. Government and industry were not prepared. Thirty years ago, Ixtoc. Twenty years ago, Exxon Valdez. Our approach and our technology to clean those spills is the same that pretty much that we're using this summer.
This is about solutions, as Wendy said. This is about the greatest innovation in this country, greatest country in the world, and finding those solutions to make sure that this doesn't happen in the future.
VELSHI: OK. Great place to leave it there. Stay there. I'm going to come back to you. Philippe Cousteau, Wendy Schmidt, Peter Diamandis.
And by the way, in the middle of this break, go to xprize.org and figure out exactly what they're up to. You'll find it fascinating like I did.
Stay with us. I'm going to come back and continue this conversation about how we can create an incentive to fix this problem -- put the blame behind us, fix this problem and fix it for the next time it happens.
Stay with me.
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VELSHI: Talking about the Wendy Schmidt Oil Clean-Up X Challenge by the X-Prize Foundation. And Wendy Schmidt, we want to -- let's go back to Peter Diamandis for a second.
Peter, I don't want to give you free PR, but I'm actually going to because I think it's excellent. Tell me the concept behind and creating an incentive for people to compete head to head with each other to find the solution to a problem.
DIAMANDIS: So, you know, this all got started for me when I realized that Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic in 1927 to win a $25,000 prize. I thought, wow, when you put up a very clear objective goal, whatever it might be, incentivized by a large amount of money, you attract the greatest minds around the planet to solve your problem. And you only pay the winner.
And better than that, you get 10 to 50 times the prize money spent by these teams to win and solve your problem. It works very well and we want to reinvent philanthropy so it's efficient and highly leveraged, whether it's going to the moon or progressive automotive X prize or cleaning up oil spills.
VELSHI: Wendy, you -- your husband is a friend of our show, the CEO of Google. You come from a household where you guys just get things done. But you have a particular affinity to the marine world?
SCHMIDT: The marine world and to our use of energy and the way we look at our relationship with the environment as a whole. Our foundation is looking at this transformation from one century to the next in the way we use energy and resources.
The oceans are obviously incredibly important. They're under so much pressure right now from the effects of climate change. Spilling oil into the oceans attacks every living system there, and not just in ecosystems and not just on habitats, but we're really talking about families of marine life under the oceans that we affect for generations, very intricate networks of relationships that we're only really beginning to understand.
We are messing up someone else's house when we do this. And when we spill garbage into the oceans, pollutants of all kinds, toxics, it's really our responsibility as we transition to the next energy revolution to take care of what we have built up in the last 100 years as our infrastructure.
VELSHI: And, Philippe, you brought up the saddest point, and that is that our technology has not moved far enough. We faced the same problem we faced. And, in fact, when people say this is almost cleared up, look at Nigeria where there's been spills happening for years and nobody's bothered to clean that up.
So, you're talking about developing a technology out of this prize that we'll be able to use for years to come, we hope.
COUSTEAU: Well, Ali, this is a symptom of a bigger problem in that we've underinvested in our oceans for decades. The oceans are the life support system of this planet, providing food, regulating climate and providing so much of our oxygen.
And I think what's so wonderful about the X prize, this is part of a larger plan that we have to begin to change and reverse that trend and invest in our oceans, and thus invent in us. And this taps into the grassroots entrepreneurial spirit that made this country so great. And I think that we owe most certainly a healthy robust environment, not only to ourselves, but especially to future generations.
And that's what Wendy talks about, a responsibility that we have -- and this is a first in a great step in recognizing that responsibility, changing that dynamic, and building a more sustainable, safe, secure, healthy future.
VELSHI: Well, congratulations. We're proud to be associated with this. We hope this is where the answer comes from.
Peter, always great to see you. Peter Diamandis is the CEO of the X-Prize Foundation; Wendy Schmidt, the president of the Schmidt Family Foundation, and Philippe Cousteau, the CEO of EarthEcho. And they all have several more titles next to their name because they're busy people who get a lot done.
But they're actually bringing it to you now. If you think you have a solution to this or you have a team that can deliver a solution to the oil that is in that water, go to X challenge -- go to X-Prize Web site, www.xprize.org and it will link you to everything you need to know for this.
Coming up next: "Wordplay." It's a powerful congressional committee -- a little history coming up next.
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VELSHI: It is time now for "Wordplay."
We thought we would wrangle some congressional history: "ways and means." This maybe the simplest phrase in all of official Washington and there's a reason for that. It is really, really old, long predating the United States. It originated with the English parliament, referring to the process of funding national policies, the very business of government. It's the oldest congressional committee there is.
Not only is it a powerful institution, it is a powerful spring board. Eight presidents have served on the ways and means committee, as have 21 House speakers and four Supreme Court justices.
Until March, the head of that committee, Charlie Rangel.
OK. Crack versus cocaine, the disparity in sentencing when someone gets busted. At long last, a much-needed change is about to happen. I'll explain in my "XYZ."
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VELSHI: Finally, today's "XYZ."
I want to follow up on some news we told you about last year -- last hour, I'm sorry.
After nearly 25 years, Congress has moved to right a wrong -- a knee jerk reaction to '80s era drug violence -- one a lot of folks think was rooted in racism. They just sent the Fair Sentencing Act to President Obama's desk.
And the measure reduces but not reverses a giant disparity in how crack and powder cocaine offenses are punished in this country, a disparity that's got our federal prisons bursting at the seams of drug offenders. It's a disparity that has disproportionately affected minorities, mostly African-Americans. They make up some 80 percent of convictions on crack/cocaine offenses, despite the fact that the majority who smoke crack are white.
For an entire generation, crack offenses have been weighed more harshly than powder cocaine offenses. This is the same exact drug, people -- just different forms, different prices, different user demographics.
Now, happily, the Fair Sentencing Act had bipartisan support. Only one guy, Republican Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, spoke out against the bill. He said, "Why do we want to risk another surge of addiction and violence by reducing penalties?" end quote. "Why are we coddling some of the most dangerous drug traffickers in America?" he asked.
Congressman Smith, you were elected to the House in 1986, the very year lawmakers cracked down on crack. Don't know what you've been doing for the last 25 years that you have the same stance, but things have changed. Maybe it's time to just say "no" to ignorance and fear.
Time now for Rick and "RICK'S LIST."
