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In the Arena
Flying the Dangerous Skies; Tea Party's Lightning Rod; BP Oil Spill One Year Later
Aired April 19, 2011 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Eliot Spitzer. Welcome to the program.
Breaking news tonight. More frightening revelations about America's air traffic control system. Tonight, we learn that controller error has even endangered First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, the wife of the vice president.
The two women were returning from an appearance on the TV program, "The View," when their jet came dangerously close to a 200- ton cargo plane and had to abort its landing. The incident occurred yesterday, but details of it are just new coming in.
Controllers at Andrews Air Force Base fear that the cargo jet would not be able to clear the runway before the jet carrying the first lady and Dr. Biden landed. The planes were only three miles apart instead of the five miles required.
The landing was called off with little time to spare. The mistake was apparently made by an FAA controller in the nearby Warrenton Radar Control Center.
This of course is just the latest in a series of controversies involving air traffic controllers from sleeping on the job to one who was even caught watching a movie.
Michael Goldfarb is the former chief of staff for the FAA. He joins us now to explore this latest chapter in aviation mayhem.
Welcome, Michael.
MICHAEL GOLDFARB, FORMER FAA CHIEF OF STAFF: Good evening, Eliot.
SPITZER: First of all, what happened here? Was this as dangerous as it sounds?
GOLDFARB: Absolutely. It must have been a harrowing experience for the first lady and Dr. Biden.
First of all, when VIP aircraft fly, the presidential fleet, normally the separations are more than five miles. They normally sterilize the airspace and create a 10-mile buffer zone. So the plane on the runway should not have been there to begin with. Secondly, in effect, it's a -- go around happened. We've been on flights where you feel in your gut all of a sudden you're coming down, then you have to go around. It's a safe way for air traffic to manage the traffic when they have problems. But the S-curves that they put this plane are pretty harrowing.
I mean in effect the plane is backing left and back right. It probably could not have reduced the air speed anymore and it ultimately led to a go-around.
So it's a serious error. They're going to investigate it. We don't know enough it yet to assign blame. But it certainly feels that way when you put it against the string of things happening around the country that something is not right.
SPITZER: And so it sounds like this is a pretty significant series of evasive maneuvers almost that they had to go through to avoid.
GOLDFARB: Right.
SPITZER: Now explain to me -- you say to somebody three miles that sounds like a pretty big distance, or five miles or the 10 miles. But if they were only three miles apart, and the airplane was going, what, 180 miles an hour? When somebody need to land --
GOLDFARB: It's a matter of -- yes.
SPITZER: So that doesn't give them that much time, though.
GOLDFARB: No. There's no margin there. Five miles is considered safe. Anything less than five -- a plane violates it it's considered an error. So three miles is very closes. It closes in a matter of second and it's not a situation you ever really want to be in, even though in this case it ended OK.
That facility in Warrenton, Virginia, handles a massive number of aircraft. Unfortunately in the last year, they've had a spiking of operational errors where planes came too close or bad instructions were given. And we're seeing that nationwide where controllers not only are particularly sleeping on the job in some cases but are creating these mishaps as well.
SPITZER: Well, Michael, that was my question. There's always -- when you see a spade of reports like this, I always wonder, is this the sort of the typical number of incidents and we're simply reporting it more aggressively, or in fact, has there been a spike in the number of incidents involving air traffic controllers. And you're saying there's really been a significant spike.
GOLDFARB: Yes.
SPITZER: Can you put a number on it?
GOLDFARB: Yes. Well, there's a 50 percent increase in errors. And some of that through better reporting on the part of the FAA administrator asking controllers to report.
So there's always that factor than media coverage always highlights it. But no, we're seeing -- we're seeing an increase. But 99.9 percent of the men and women of the FAA do a remarkable job, but the problem isn't to blame the sleeping controller, although that's terrible to fall asleep, we have a work force that's stressed, that's fatigued, that's overscheduled, and is filling in a critical facility where we don't have enough backup.
SPITZER: OK. Michael --
GOLDFARB: And that's why we're having these problems, Eliot.
SPITZER: Look, we'll come back to that in one second. But I got to tell you, one of the things when I heard about this that struck me was, if there's any airport in the world where you would expect them to get it right.
GOLDFARB: Right.
SPITZER: It's Andrews Air Force Base.
GOLDFARB: Correct.
SPITZER: I mean this is basically where the president flies in and out. How can this happen? I mean isn't there special security or special care taken for everything -- I mean, the president's wife and the first lady was on this. I have a hard time getting my arms around this one.
GOLDFARB: Me too. Me too. It's the gold standard. I mean, Andrews is protected air space. And it's the last place that this should happen. So if your point is, how can it happen here? Is it happening elsewhere, probably so. But behind all this, then, has to be a look at what's happening to these controllers who are working these double shifts, triple shifts.
And you know, I feel bad for the administrator and the secretary of transportation, they're playing catch-up from a decade of bitter battles with the controller's union and the FAA over pay, over pensions, over staffing. And the hole is a bit deeper than Secretary LaHood and Administrator Babbitt might want to admit. And I think we're going to see that over the next several days. There's a lot more happening.
SPITZER: Explain that to us a little bit more. Explain how a decade of not hiring has led to a shortage of trained controllers and give us a sense how long would it take to get a new controller up to speed at JFK --
GOLDFARB: OK.
SPITZER: -- here in New York City for instance.
GOLDFARB: OK.
SPITZER: Which is a busy airport, needless to say.
GOLDFARB: Yes. Yes. After the 1981 PATCO strike, a whole wave of controllers came in. And they're not retiring. The age is 56, they have to retire. The FAA didn't accommodate and failed to account for an aggressive hiring of new recruits and they also lowered the pay of the most juniors to make air traffic a less appealing profession.
But let's take Kennedy Tower. They're understaffed in the New York airspace. They have been, 270 people should supposedly be there to handle the traffic load. They have about 148.
But Eliot, they've only been able to --
SPITZER: Wait, wait, Michael, Michael, I hate to interrupt. There are supposed to be 270 and there are 148?
GOLDFARB: My numbers could be six months outdated, but things don't change that fast.
SPITZER: Even if you're off by a few, that margin is enormous. I mean, how do you make up for it?
GOLDFARB: It is enormous and the FAA will tell you that it's safe. And -- so how do they accommodate that? They accommodate it by the extra shifts, by working the schedule, increasing the hours, and the price you pay is the -- is what we're seeing today.
SPITZER: Michael, I got to ask --
GOLDFARB: They've only brought in two -- two trainees in four years in New York have been able to come from junior controller to being qualified to work in those facilities and it took them about four years. So it is a huge problem --
SPITZER: Four years to get two trainees. Is there a faster way to do it? How could you accelerate that process?
GOLDFARB: I think to the FAA's credit, they are beginning to use simulators for training. They've started aggressive recruitment. But you know it's like catch-up. We're playing catch-up. These are incremental changes that aren't going to deal with the problem.
Going from eight hours to nine hours won't cut it. There's talk about ways to allow napping. Canada, Germany, France, and Australia allow controlled napping on night shifts for people who do operational, emergency jobs. We do it in emergency rooms, we do it in police and fire, and in the control tower, if you have two on duty, controlled napping would be good. But you know, that's been ruled out. I guess it's politically incorrect --
SPITZER: Michael, I tried suggesting controlled napping to my bosses one time, they didn't go for it. But I got to ask you seriously. I mean you're painting such a dire picture. You're not being paid by Amtrak, are you?
GOLDFARB: No. I do take Amtrak to -- (CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Look, I may start taking it also. I mean this sounds like something we really got to deal with. Is there --
GOLDFARB: Yes. Can I tell you what the good news is? I mean, first of all, you know, Eliot, it's an exceedingly safe system. And the thing that has to be learned from these things, where no one was killed and no accidents occurred, even on the Southwest jet, is to learn from this.
The cures have to be bigger than what they're proposing to date and I think you'll see greater remedies coming out to make it even safer for people to fly.
SPITZER: All right. Michael Goldfarb, thanks so much for your time.
GOLDFARB: My pleasure.
SPITZER: Let's go now to Tom Foreman in our Washington bureau.
Tom, you're going to show us exactly how this happened.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Eliot, we've been looking at our own reporting today. "The Washington Post" reporting on this.
Look at the sequence of events and what happened here. New York City, the first lady takes off from here. She's headed down here to Andrews Air Force Base. Coming around here, here's Maryland up here, here's Virginia over here, Warrenton out here.
There's a radar facility out here. They were tracking the flight as it headed in here to Andrews.
I want to show you precisely where Andrews is. You can see it right here. This is the base itself. And as you mentioned, it's one of the most prepared in the whole country. She was not coming in from this direction, however. She was coming in from the north, headed toward the south.
Now here's specifically what we understand to have happened here. We talk about these planes being close to each other. When the Warrenton facility passed off these planes to the Andrews folks, as we understand it, what was happening is the planes were coming in -- and I'm going to light them up here so you get a sense of what we're talking about here.
The planes were coming in. The first lady's plane was back here and the people at Andrews were told that she was about four miles behind this cargo plane in front of her. This is important because that kind of cargo plane creates a lot of turbulence in its wake. So one of the concerns was that she shouldn't be that chose to begin with. It should be five miles back.
That aside, the distance when Andrews received this message, we are told, was actually more like three miles from here to here. Here's the cargo plane, coming into Andrews, here's the first lady's plane, and that's about three miles behind, a little bit more.
So what they were told to do was for the first lady's plane to start flying an S pattern like this.
You can see what's happening, obviously, Eliot.
If this plane's flying directly and the first lady is flying in an S pattern, she's eating up a lot more space. In theory, what that's going to do is open up some distance. It's going to give her more separation. But what we're told is it didn't give enough separation.
So in the end, as they moved in here, the concern was that even as this plane touched down safely, even if the turbulence wasn't an issue, that she was simply coming in too quickly behind it and this plane back here can go around 500 miles an hour, cruising speed.
Obviously, a lot slower than that landing, but let's say even crank it down to 150, 200 miles an hour, you can see that if you're only three miles behind, this guy lands, what are you going to have? Thirty seconds, 45 seconds, a minute to get cleared before this one can land?
It wasn't enough, Eliot. So in terms of the nuts and bolts of what we're talking about here from all the reporting we've seen so far, that was pretty much the issue. The sense that they were simply coming in a little bit too quickly to this air base, where they know they have these giant cargo planes, where they know they've got to get the first lady in and landed safely, and there is just a sense that maybe that was not going to happen under these circumstances.
SPITZER: So it sounds -- it sounds to me, Tom, as though, look, it should have been 10 miles, according to Michael, because you double the distance for the first lady and Dr. Biden, and then you're down to three miles. And if the cargo plane lands and slows down it kind of pulls up at the end of the runway, the first lady's plane comes in and basically something comes up right behind it and suddenly you've got rush hour traffic in downtown Washington or New York City.
FOREMAN: Exactly. And you can't -- yes, sure. And you can't deal with aircraft like this. I mean these are massive, massive -- we mentioned the size of the cargo plane, huge plane.
This one, I think, it weighs something like 120,000 pounds, something like that. The first lady's plane. So yes. And there aren't any options here, as you can. Once you get off the runway here, you're off in the dirt. So that's the real issue.
Truth be told, Eliot, you know what we're hearing from the White House and everybody else is that there was no real immediate danger, but the truth is, the only reason this is an incident is because they were verging on danger and that's why there's so much concern.
SPITZER: And Tom, I think what we're getting is a window into a system, and it's a system that's supposed to be, you know, one that gives us confidence and every time you have an incident like this, you begin to wonder, really, what are we looking at? Is this a house of cards?
All right, Tom Foreman, thank you so much.
FOREMAN: Good chatting with you, Eliot.
SPITZER: All right. Apparently the FAA just issued a statement about this incident involving the first lady and here it is, and I quote. "FAA controllers at Andrews Air Force Base instructed an incoming Boeing 737 on approach to Runway 19 to perform a go around on Monday, April 18th, 2011, just after 5:00 p.m., because the plane did not have the required amount of separation behind a military C-17. The FAA is investigating the incident.. The Boeing 737 landed safely after executing the go-around. The aircraft were never in danger."
All right. They seem to be downplaying it. And a different story than we just heard from former FAA official Michael Goldfarb. Clearly we will stay on this and see what else emerges over the coming weeks and months about where we are with our air traffic control system.
In the meantime, E.D., I'm taking the train. Anyway, E.D., when we come back, we're going to be drilling down on three questions. One year after the BP oil spill, have local officials exploited the disaster for financial gain? We'll ask Billy Nungesser, the man many viewed as the face of the spill.
Another massacre in Syria as the government opens fire on a demonstration. How much do we know about that mysterious country and the powerful man who runs it?
Plus, remember those protests that erupted in Wisconsin over union rights? One voice has called them out with some fiery rhetoric. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW BREITBART, CONSERVATIVE BLOGGER: Go to hell. No, serious. Go to hell. Go to hell. You've been so rude. You're trying to divide America.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: All right. Lightning rod Andrew Breitbart who does not agree with those who say they have the right to form a union joins me later on.
And E.D., you've got an incredible story about the biggest debt problem facing Americans.
E.D. HILL, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. Well, you know, our nation's credit card debt is crazy high. And guess what, another debt most of us owe has just zoomed past it, making that look like chump change.
What are we doing wrong? How can we change direction, and why is this important to us and our children? We'll find out -- Eliot.
SPITZER: All right. Tough times for much of the middle class, as we know, for whom the job numbers and the income numbers over the past decades. More on that when we come back.
Thanks, E.D.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: If the lightning rod that is the Tea Party has its own lightning rod, it is conservative activist Andrew Breitbart. He's the Tea Party's most vocal defender and one of the nation's harshest critics of the so-called mainstream media.
This weekend, he took aim at the long, bitter battle over workers' rights in Wisconsin. You remember for weeks, teachers, firemen, and other public workers have been fighting Republican Governor Scott Walker, who's been trying to end their right to negotiate contracts as a group.
And on Saturday, Breitbart confronted a group of protesting workers while introducing Palin at a Tea Party rally. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BREITBART: Go to hell. No, serious. Go to hell. Go to hell. You've been so rude. You're trying to divide America. Class warfare is not American. Class warfare is not American.
And the reason why they hate Sarah Palin isn't because of her human flaws, it's because how effective she is, it's how effective she's been in calling out the community organizer in chief, Barack Obama.
Now is the time to bring you the person who's had the courage to stand up to this cynical division.
Ladies and gentlemen, Sarah Palin.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: All right. Andrew, I love the passion, love the energy. Disagree about everything, but we'll get to that in a minute.
Andrew Breitbart's new book is "Righteous Indignation." You just saw it. "Excuse Me While I Save the World." That's the title of his self-proclaimed book.
Welcome, Andrew, thanks for joining us.
BREITBART: Thank you, Eliot.
SPITZER: Look, as I said, I love the passion, the energy. We'll get to the substance in a minute. Class warfare. You know a lot of folks on the other side feel that, in fact, it is those who lead the Tea Party who are waging class warfare, beating up on people, firefighters, teachers. Do you have any sympathy for that at all?
BREITBART: I do. Your intro said that my passion that you saw on display there had something to do with being against workers' right to organize as a union. That had nothing to do with it.
I mean, that was a misrepresentation of my position.
SPITZER: All right. Correct us.
BREITBART: My position was as I watched the union activists, the public sector union activist there.
SPITZER: Right.
BREITBART: They're attacking the speakers, including a 14-year- old girl who did the "Star Spangled Banner." They were so rude. You remember during the World -- you remember during the World Cup, those weird -- noise things that were going on.
SPITZER: Yes. There was a name for it during the soccer games.
BREITBART: Right.
SPITZER: But it was banned. Right.
BREITBART: The zuzzle, whatever. They were there. They were trying to drown out the Tea Party's right to dissent.
SPITZER: Let's agree on something. Let's agree on something. That sort of behavior on either side of the spectrum --
BREITBART: That's what I was -- stop. That's what I was upset about.
SPITZER: OK. Look.
BREITBART: That's what I was upset about.
SPITZER: I don't like drowning out speech ever. I'm a First Amendment rigid ideologue. Ideologue or not --
BREITBART: Then please do not go to hell.
SPITZER: All right. All right. Thank you. I got dispensation.
This is the question I have for you, though. Because the issue in Wisconsin, the one we spent a lot of time discussing --
BREITBART: Right.
SPITZER: -- was should these workers have the right to negotiate collectively? So let's engage on that? Do you think they should? Because frankly -- I'll give your moment in a second, my view is Scott Walker, the governor, should negotiate as hard as he can to balance his budget, but don't take away the rights of the workers to negotiate together.
What's your view on this?
BREITBART: I'm personally against that. I'm --
SPITZER: Why?
BREITBART: It just I -- I just don't think that the politicians who are paid by the same union workers, I think that this back and forth that goes with the Democratic Party is paid by these unions. I think that it's a rigged racket where the people who were lost in this debate are the taxpayers. And it's not done at the federal level. I don't see why it should be done --
SPITZER: What do you mean it's not done -- there are unions that represent federal workers.
BREITBART: Right. At the public sector union, the negotiation is not done on behalf of the taxpayer. It's done on behalf on two entities that --
SPITZER: But just to pursue your logic, the largest donors to campaigns are the corporations that benefit from the contracts, the tax breaks, so the issue of contributions and negotiations applies across the board. But nobody has taken away the right of corporations to lobby or to speak, so why not --
BREITBART: I'm not here to support the corporations.
SPITZER: Why take away --
BREITBART: I'm not here to support the banks. The reason why I went to that state was because the mainstream media was misrepresenting what was going on up there. The mainstream media ignored the fact -- they treated the Tea Party to a different standard to the union workers out there.
They treated the Tea Party as if they were guilty until proven innocent, that the Tea Party was racist, sexist, and homophobic.
SPITZER: Look, but just so it's clear.
BREITBART: Yes.
SPITZER: Wait, just so it's clear. I have been in a very bizarre way a fan of the Tea Party as grassroots politics.
BREITBART: And --
SPITZER: As you know, I disagree with it, but I'd never --
BREITBART: But I don't why you would disagree. I want to offer you -- SPITZER: Well, that's why -- OK.
BREITBART: I want to bring you to a Tea Party. And I think that your crusading against Wall Street would resonate with these people.
SPITZER: I think it would. I agree with you.
BREITBART: And I -- that to me is where we need to bring people together on that issue, as a Republican, as a conservative, as a Tea Party person. There's no love lost between me and the relationship between the kleptocrats on Wall Street and in Washington. But I also think that the unions should not be left out of this equation.
SPITZER: Look, I have been critical of anybody who exercises undue influence in the political process but it seems to me the right of the workers to say, we want to negotiate collectively, we want to speak as one, that is something that is as fundamental to the American process of democracy and capitalism.
BREITBART: OK.
SPITZER: And that's what I'm in favor of. But I don't see --
(CROSSTALK)
BREITBART: Well, democracy happened during the election and the mandate was put on Walker and the voters just voted last week.
SPITZER: I think --
BREITBART: So you just -- this is democracy. And right now --
SPITZER: But don't take away the rights of the workers. We disagree. Let's move on to another one.
BREITBART: OK. Yes, sure.
SPITZER: Because I want -- I'm looking for areas where we agree, and you raised one, I think.
BREITBART: Yes.
SPITZER: Because we are viewed as being -- end of the spectrum.
BREITBART: I'm not sure about that.
SPITZER: Well, we'll see. Let's try one. Wall Street. Just last week, a bipartisan report came out. Senator Levin, Democrat, Senator Tom Coburn, conservative Republican, told the tale of greed and, to use your word, kleptocracy on Wall Street, really took a harsh shot at Goldman Sachs, said they were selling people these products, mortgage-backed securities, complicated stuff, we don't need the details, don't matter.
BREITBART: Yes.
SPITZER: At the same time, for their own money, they were betting against it. Sort of this -- is that wrong?
BREITBART: Yes. It's vulgar. And --
SPITZER: So should they be prosecuted?
BREITBART: Yes, absolutely.
SPITZER: Should there be rules against it?
BREITBART: Sure.
SPITZER: So -- OK. Here's my question, then. Why does the Republican leadership in the House want to repeal the power of the SEC and the OCC to impose those rules?
BREITBART: Well, I'm not speaking on behalf of the Republican Party. I'm one of these pitchfork guys out there in Wisconsin. If you talk to these people, they don't --
SPITZER: Who are you pointing the pitchfork at?
BREITBART: The pitchfork people are the Tea Party people.
SPITZER: OK.
BREITBART: And we're upset with what's going on on Wall Street as well as what's happened within the political class.
SPITZER: Can I push you one second, though?
BREITBART: Yes.
SPITZER: Because I agree with you, the folks who are in the Tea Party should be as outraged as I was and -- you know, still am, back when I was AG bringing these cases. But they're a political movement, they support in the Republican Party that by and large --
BREITBART: But they don't. They don't.
SPITZER: It's trying to repeal the rules --
BREITBART: There are checks and balances. This is what the media has missed about the Tea Party, is that it's a checks and balance against the Republican Party. You saw what they did to Bennett in Utah.
I guarantee you in the next election cycle, the Tea Party is going to be a bigger thorn in the side to go along to get along Republicans than it is to the Democratic Party.
SPITZER: I get that sense and I see John Boehner being very conscious of that fact. But it is -- you have to acknowledge I'm right when I say that the leadership of the Republican Party and the leadership of the Tea Party have wanted to repeal the rules that were being placed on Wall Street to eliminate these conflicts.
BREITBART: Yes. You know -- well, you -- I guarantee you understand these rules better than I do, OK? I'm not --
SPITZER: So you're going to defer to me on this one?
BREITBART: I'm going to defer to you on this one.
SPITZER: All right. Big win here tonight. All right.
BREITBART: Yes, it is. It is. Look, my expertise --
SPITZER: From an unlikely source.
BREITBART: My expertise is not the rules of what's going on on Wall Street.
SPITZER: Right.
BREITBART: Clearly something went wrong with the way that the government was interacting with the banks and both parties are equally guilty, I would imagine, in that regard.
SPITZER: Here's what I would love to do. I'd like to sit down with your buddies who are the head of the Tea Party.
BREITBART: Yes.
SPITZER: See if we can find common ground on Wall Street.
BREITBART: Yes.
SPITZER: Because right now, they're applying pressure to repeal rules that make sense.
BREITBART: Yes.
SPITZER: All right? It's a deal?
BREITBART: OK, let's have that.
SPITZER: All right, Andrew Breitbart --
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Yes, you have a caveat?
BREITBART: As long as you go to a Tea Party with me, and I think that your anti-Wall Street message will resonate.
SPITZER: Yes. All right. We've got a deal here.
All right, Andrew Breitbart, thanks for joining us.
You can read an excerpt of "Righteous Indignation" on our blog at CNN.com/inthearena.
Up next, a year has passed since BP's oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. New questions tonight about the cleanup and corruption when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: It has been a year since that BP-owned oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. It triggered the biggest environmental crisis this country has ever seen. For weeks, we watched tragic images of white beaches stained by oil and birds struggling under the weight of the contamination.
And day after day, Americans were glued to an underwater camera, showing oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
Well, tonight, NOAA, the government's agency managing our oceans, is opening up all waters in the Gulf to fishing again. And as amazing as it sounds, a year into this crisis, a large majority of Americans now say drill, baby, drill.
What a difference a year makes. Or does it?
One of the most persistent critics of the cleanup effort has been Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana. Day after day, he came on CNN and voiced the frustration of Gulf residents. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILLY NUNGESSER, PLAQUEMINES PARISH, L.A. PRESIDENT: Well, I'm speechless. This is disgusting. They should be fired. How can you let that oil sit in the marsh for over a week and not clean it up?
They had no plan to keep the oil out, even though they said it wouldn't come ashore. They have no plan to clean it up. They have no plan to make the fishermen whole. It's like it's being run by a bunch of seventh graders.
This is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: Billy Nungesser joins me tonight live from New Orleans.
Billy, welcome back.
NUNGESSER: How you doing tonight?
SPITZER: Wonderful. So let me ask you, how are you doing a year later? You tell me, are you satisfied? Are you happy with where things are, or is that frustration that just kind of exploded through the TV every night still there with you?
NUNGESSER: Well, it's absolutely not as bad as it was. But still today, a year later, I can't look you in the eye and tell you who's in charge. You know, they've changed out so many BP and Coast Guard people, just when you get somebody you think you can trust and makes promises about cleaning up, taking care of the wildlife or making the fishermen whole, they're gone. And this continues to be an unbelievable response to a major disaster. And here today, we're still seeing a dog and pony show about cleaning up the areas of the marsh that still have oil in them and still are impacting the wildlife, not to the degree we saw early on, but it's still a mess in certain areas.
SPITZER: So, Billy, I want to get specific here, just so we know where to push the elected officials and BP. What is not happening that should be happening? Where are the areas where you're not seeing the effort, the activity, or the chain of command that satisfies you? Give us the specific things that need to get done.
NUNGESSER: We have one or two crews out in Bay Jimmy. Every once in a while, they'll pick up a little marsh and act like they're doing something when every day we see a thunderstorm slam the oil into the bank line, and in four or five days, that land falls off into the water. The next thunderstorm washes four or five more feet in. We have seen rapid deterioration of the coastline in those areas, far more than we've ever seen with saltwater intrusion. Secondly --
SPITZER: Can I stop you, Billy, for one second? I want to stop you because I want to make sure folks understand is why is there erosion of the coastline? How does the oil create that problem?
NUNGESSER: Well, the oil is being picked up off the bottom of Bay Jimmy, slammed into the marsh. It's killed the grass. There's nothing to hold the mud together. We've begged for bank stabilization, for them to clean the marsh. On many occasions, they'll try. They'll say we're going to do more harm than good, but it's been a dog and pony show, and nothing's really being done out there.
SPITZER: Can I switch gears just a second? Is opening up all of the ocean space to fishing, is that the right thing to do, both from an economic perspective and perhaps, more importantly, in terms of the environmental issue of where the oil is?
NUNGESSER: Well, we've seen more seafood tests than ever before. I eat the seafood. The fishing's never been better. But we have isolated area with heavy oil impact. Bay Jimmy, Pass a Loutre, and those dead dolphins that washed up full of oil, that oil has come from somewhere. We don't feel we're getting the true picture of what's out there and the federal government and BP and the Coast Guard, we don't feel is being honest with us. And we have little trust --
SPITZER: I was going to say, there is a school of thought, Billy, that a lot of this oil has dropped to the bottom and it's sort of sitting right on the ocean floor and nobody's testing there or picking it up down there. Is that what you fear?
NUNGESSER: Absolutely. You know, NOAA has all this great equipment, and yet we don't know what's out there. It's a guessing game. We spent all this money to tell everybody it's right, we're going to make it right. Let's make the public honestly aware of what's going on.
We still have concerns about the health, especially of the men and women that worked to clean up the oil. There's all kind of health issues. You would think the federal government would want to test these people, give them physicals, and make sure if the dispersants are OK, which, there again, they were told to quit using. I was told personally, 24 hours, they've got to find something else. They continue to spray for months, yet we're not getting the whole story of what those effects could be long-term on the Gulf of Mexico.
SPITZER: Does it surprise you that in the most recent poll that I've seen, 69 percent of the American public wants to go back to deepwater drilling again? It's gone. I don't know if you can see it on the screen. It was 69 percent in '08 before the disaster, dropped down to 49 percent, is right back up at 69 percent. Does that surprise you?
NUNGESSER: No, it doesn't. Because, you know, we know this company was not the norm. This company cut corners. It's obvious, by the clean up. It's obvious by the continued denial of everything from the oil that was being released, when they were caught, lying about that, to lying about the effects to the wildlife. So the other companies that pooled together to come up with solutions, we feel confident we can drill safely. We had a bad player in the game here, and they should be held accountable.
SPITZER: Look, Billy, talk about a couple bad players and cutting corners, there are reports coming out right now that some of the elected officials down in New Orleans have been trying to get rich. That means somebody is calling them the spillionaires. People are profiting off all the money that's being spent on the recovery effort here. One story about an elected official who was renting an acre of land that he owned for like $15,000, and now is renting it to BP for $1.5 million or something like that. Clearly at one point, $1 million, clearly this isn't -- you know, it's wrong. It's now the market looks like a kickback. Is this something that's going on that you've heard about that is going to be something that we are prosecuting six months from now, a year from now, so we're just seeing corruption rife throughout the system?
NUNGESSER: Anybody that took advantage of it should be prosecuted. But let's not throw the attention. BP made them spillionaires. They set the rate. The local officials didn't decide how much to pay. If they paid it and it was wrong, someone should be prosecuted. But let's look at the attention on what the Coast Guard wasted, money that was spent. And I'll bet you there was more money wasted by the Coast Guard than was ever spent to recover the oil or build the berms. It's easy to throw rocks after the fact. But let's disclose how much the Coast Guard spent, and nobody in the Coast Guard has oil on their uniform. They did absolutely nothing to help with the clean up. A lot of great men and women in the Coast Guard, but in this instance, they should have not been put in charge of this cleanup.
SPITZER: All right, Bill. I hear your passion on that, on clearly what's an important issue. I suppose not to be Pollyannaish about it, though, it's a year later, people are back to fishing. The recovery looks as though it's made some progress, and so let's look at the bright side of this. A year ago, I don't think you or anybody would have predicted this degree of progress right now. Is that a fair statement, do you think?
NUNGESSER: In spite of what went on, and we need full disclosure by BP and the Coast Guard, so this never happens again.
SPITZER: All right. On that one, we all agree. Billy Nungesser, thanks so much for joining us tonight.
Coming up, when Congress and the president tangled over the national debt and almost shut down the government, remember that? Time to take on a real challenge. Student loans. Think I'm overstating it, then you don't have a teenager. Stay tuned.
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E.D. HILL, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Tonight, a look at America's mounting debt. And I'm going to start by showing you startling video. Watch this.
See that number? That is not the national debt clock. That's the student loan debt clock. College student loans are set to top $1 trillion this year.
Now, Eliot and I are going through the same thing a lot of you are. We've got kids going off to college this fall. And I'm sure Eliot was smart enough to set up that college savings plan well in advance, not me.
So, a couple of questions. What's the impact of this debt on society? What are the best ways to pay for college and is it even worth going at this point?
Joining us is Carmen Wong Ulrich, personal finance expert and the author of the book "The Real Cost of Living."
Welcome.
CARMEN WONG ULRICH, PERSONAL FINANCE EXPERT: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
HILL: So, if you were going to take these loans out, what are the worst ones you could take? Go look at the bad choice.
ULRICH: The absolute worst loans you could take in terms of terms and your ability to pay you off, what's called proprietary loans. And these are loans that are not even private loans. These are loans given by for-profit institutions. These have the highest default rates of all and they have incredibly high interest rates. The next are private student loans.
HILL: I saw one -- I looked at one, $40,000. By the time you'd paid it off, you were paying 89.
ULRICH: Yes.
They absolutely do not make sense and actually no one should ever take out a proprietary loan. This is a loan that's given by the institution itself, but the school itself. Right? Don't do that.
Private student loans, here, this is why they're a little dangerous, because you cannot do things like file for forbearance, file for a deferment or have an income-based repayment plan like you can with federally backed loan and federal loans. There's a lot more flexibility with that. Private loans have higher interest rates and you have to pay them. Remember, no matter what. You cannot pass them off in bankruptcy at all.
HILL: From a societal perspective, what's the problem with such high debt for your student loan?
ULRICH: Well, here's the thing. Think of it as return on investment, right? Are we getting a return on the investment that we're giving to our kids or to ourselves? For example, I'm still paying off graduate school loans, but I'm happy to do so. Low interest rates, I got a great return. Have you --
HILL: But you've got a child.
ULRICH: And I have -- and I have a 4-year-old, so I'm saving for retirement. I'm taking care of her. I'm taking care of some family members. So it is very expensive. And we have less and less discretionary income in terms of being able to pay for school. And remember, the cost of college is going up six to 11 percent of average every year. Our income, inflation, if you fix it for inflation, we're talking about stagnant since the '70s. There's less and less room for us to pay for this.
HILL: And if you've got staggering debt when you get out of college, don't you have to be really pretty ruthless about this in thinking, I need to get a job that pays a lot of cash? Whether I like it or not, it doesn't matter. I need money.
ULRICH: That's the thing. How many of us are going to be able to -- our kids are going to be able to do what they really want to do? Because they're looking at, again, that return. So how much am I going to make when I get out?
Well, the biggest salaries, of course, go to engineers and computer technicians. So is that what you want to do, or are you going to do that because you're going to be able to pay off your loans that way? You really have to think about what you're studying and what, really, reasonably, is going to be your starting salary.
HILL: OK. I'm a tough love parent, I think. And all my kids work and earn money and I expect them to contribute to college and their expenses. I really haven't thought, well, they should pay for it, and they certainly have never thought that. But you say, no, that's not a right. I mean, that's not something that all kids should have their parents take care of them and send them to college.
ULRICH: Exactly. I mean, look --
HILL: It may be bad. ULRICH: They should have -- you've got the right attitude because you've got to have some skin in the game. The kids have to have skin in the game. They have to work to help put themselves through school.
My mother waited tables, I waited tables. We worked together to put myself through school. And I knew that I had to do a good job for her and for myself. If you're not working to help put yourself through and instead what's really dangerous is taking out private loans to pay for things like, so that you don't have to work or so you can take spring break vacations, that's dangerous debt. Yes, this happens all the time.
HILL: The craziest thing. Yes.
ULRICH: Dangerous debt.
HILL: You owe debt -- oh, I need a vacation. I'm going to take out another loan.
ULRICH: Or they just take it out of the money that should be going to school instead.
HILL: What about the worth of getting a college education? Because I'm hearing the horror stories from kids who are graduating right now or in the past year, and they can't get a job. They come out of top Ivy League schools, some of them, and they can't get a job. They come out of big public, you know, state institutions, they can't get a job. And people who can't get jobs then are going back to school. So we've got this mushroom of enormously educated people with no jobs to take.
ULRICH: Right. But, keep in mind, here's the thing. A college grad will earn, on average, $22,000 more a year in the long-term. College grads have less --
HILL: Have debt on an economy where we had a lot of jobs?
ULRICH: No. We're still basing this on the jobs right now. And also, their unemployment numbers are half that of high school grads. So even though the unemployment numbers are higher for college grads than ever, but they're higher across the board --
HILL: Right.
ULRICH: -- for folks who just have a high school degree, it's way into the double digits. There is still an advantage. The key here is, what's your kid going to do with that degree? What are kids going to do with it?
HILL: Wait tables.
ULRICH: That's the important thing. You've got -- you have to have -- no, I never waited a table again once I got that degree, just so you know. But you really have to look at your child and say, OK, is this going to pay off? Are they going to pay attention? Are they going to make this investment have a return?
HILL: OK. If we've made the mistake of taking one of those stupid loans where all of a sudden we really read the fine print we go, oh, my Lord, how are we paying this thing off? What should we do? What's the best way to try to pay it off?
ULRICH: Well, here's the thing. I think a lot of folks know this and I hope know this that student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy court. OK.
HILL: And that's something relatively new over the past couple of years?
ULRICH: This passed since the early '90s.
HILL: Yes.
ULRICH: This is really, really important to understand that these cannot be discharged. Tax bills, child support, student loans do not go away. So you need to take those loans with the understanding that you will never get rid of them. So what you've got to do is you have to manage them and manage them the right way. And that means stay on top of them. That means communicate with your lender. And if you have federal student loans, sign up for an income- based program. And part of this is with the changes in the reforms for student loans that President Obama put through in 2010, that it's only 10 percent of your discretionary income can your monthly payment be, as opposed to 15 percent. Also, these federal loans can be discharged after 20 years, not 25. Ten years if you're in public service. So be wise about what kind of loans you take out and what you do with them.
HILL: Or we could just go back to sleep and dream about our kids being at the top of the class and getting scholarships.
ULRICH: There is that. There is that. And grants, yes, we love those.
HILL: Apply, apply, apply. Thank you very much, Carmen Wong Ulrich. And her book is called "The Real Cost of Living." Thank you.
ULRICH: Thanks, E.D.
Coming up, dangerous days in Syria. How close is that country to a real revolution? Eliot will take a look.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Turning now to Syria, a country that is shrouded in mystery, largely because it's nearly impossible for western media to get in. But no matter how hard the government might try, videos like these leak out, revealing dramatic developments.
There were huge protests today. People standing up to the regime demanding freedom. (CHANTING) And then the brutal crackdown. (Gunfire) At least four died in this assault, gunned down by men loyal to their leader. Bashar al-Assad is Syria's president, the son of a dictator. Western educated, he sometimes appears moderate and tolerant, but he rules with an iron grip. It's a grip that may now just be slipping.
Here to talk about all this is Jamie Rubin, former assistant secretary of state, and Chrystia Freeland, global editor-at-large for Reuters.
So to both of you, we hear all the time, Syria is so central to the Middle East, more important by leaps and bounds, even than Libya. Why is that?
JAMIE RUBIN, FMR. ASST. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, I think it's considered the fulcrum of this part of the world, because it has a relationship with Iran. It has strong powers with Lebanese Hezbollah in Lebanon, and because it's the real politic country with no real reason to be allied with any one country. Another, it can move.
Syria, for example, was and has been Iran's ally for 20 years, mostly because they hated the Baath party in Iraq. They're also the Baath party. Two different wings of the Baath party. So they make an alliance with Iran against Iraq. So because it's so conceivable that Syria could change alliances, people always look at it, they hope, they try to maneuver Syria into a new position. Unfortunately for the last 15, 20 years, that hasn't worked very well.
SPITZER: So if all politics is local, you sound as though these very local, likes, dislikes and prejudices will dictate what Assad does. Do we have leverage in this chess game where perhaps Syria is the fulcrum, as you say, of Middle Eastern politics?
CHRYSTIA FREELAND, GLOBAL EDITOR-AT-LARGE, REUTERS: Well, Syria really hasn't been the west's friend. Right? I mean, Syria has been really not only incredibly nasty to its own people as we've seen in those images, but Syria has been closely aligned with Iran. Syria has been pals with Hezbollah. Syria has, you know, had a devastating grip on Lebanon. So, you know, it's not a case like Egypt or like Tunisia where this is a government and an authoritarian government, one with whom we are friendly on which we can exert leverage. So actually, it's been sort of a perverse situation where the Syrians who haven't really been nice to us have been less criticized than some of these friendlier authoritarian regimes.
SPITZER: Well, we have seen in the course of the past several months that those countries that have closer relationships with us, hence, we have greater leverage are more likely to become the subject of our antipathy when they crack down, whereas Assad here shooting and killing, there's nothing we can say or do, almost. And even though he has had multiple wars as you say with Israel, he has supported Hezbollah in Lebanon. He is a tyrant and many think a terrorist supporter. There's not a whole lot we can do.
FREELAND: Well, we could at least condemn him the same way we're condemning the guys who used to be our friends.
SPITZER: Certainly, there's much we could do rhetorically. Is there any thought, whatsoever, Jamie, to military action? Is there an organized opposition which we can support? Is there any sense of an embargo that might begin to have an impact the way we hope it might in Libya?
RUBIN: Well, in terms of sanctions, the U.S. government has imposed what it can on Syria for years. The idea has always been with Syria to offer them a choice, to re-join the community of nations, if they do, and behave in the way that we'd like to see them, whether it's negotiating a peace agreement with Israel, stopping the suicide bombers going from Syria into Iraq, stop the support of Lebanese Hezbollah. But that enticement, really, rather than a crackdown, has never really worked.
Are there more things we can do? You can always isolate them further. You could probably put travel sanctions on the leaders. There are some other things you can do, but up until now, there hasn't been a united view in the world about Syria. The last time we were united was when we did succeed during the Bush administration in getting Syrian troops out of Lebanon. Because they had gone too far, people perceived them as having been responsible for the murder of Lebanon's prime minister. The last time military action was considered, you know, was a little emanation here and there during the Bush years when regime change was at its peak --
SPITZER: Right.
RUBIN: -- in 2003, 2004.
SPITZER: Words that could be uttered without a snicker.
RUBIN: That's correct. And, you know, Iran and Syria were the other two countries that were thought of as next.
SPITZER: Since we mentioned regime change, tell us about Assad. Who is he? We will try to grade him compared to some of the other despots in the region in a moment, but how do you assess him?
FREELAND: Well, I was going to pick up on Jamie's points about the travel bans. And I think that that is actually a really smart thing to talk about. Because this thing about these dictators, including Assad, is, you know, it's lovely to be a dictator at home, but it's even more fun if you can take your money and have prestige and status in the world. And an interesting thing about Assad and his whole family, especially his wife, that we had seen prior to these past few weeks, is a real effort to join the western community. We had that really terrible piece in "Vogue" magazine, you know, a tough piece about Asma al-Assad, his wife, which talked about, and Anna Wintour, if you are watching, you should be really embarrassed about this, the wildly democratic principles of the Assad family. I mean, really dreadful.
SPITZER: But what you're saying is that they have become adept at using western PR to create an imagery of progress and as you say being part of the western community, even though as soon as domestic politics gets rough, the guns come out and the bullets fly. FREELAND: And clearly they like that. Right? I mean, you know, clearly Asma al-Assad liked to be in "Vogue" magazine. And, you know, the least we can do is say, actually, you're not a member of polite community.
SPITZER: Chrystia, Jamie, let's take a break. We'll come right back. We'll be right back to continue more about Assad and Syria.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: We're back with Jamie Rubin, former assistant secretary of state, and Chrystia Freeland, global editor-at-large for Reuters.
I want to go to our despot meter. I want to compare and I want to be frivolous about this, but compare Assad of Syria to Mubarak or to Gadhafi. And where does he rank in terms of brutality, a lack of respect for human rights? How would you rank him on a scale of one to 10?
RUBIN: Well, I think if you put Saddam as a 10 and Mubarak in the middle and say one of the more friendlier King Abdullah as a one, I would guess he would be in the round eight.
SPITZER: Right. So he's bad, but not as bad as they come. Do you agree?
FREELAND: Yes. Even I would nudge him up to nine. You know, Human Rights Watch said about Syria last year that it was one of the very worst offenders in the world.
SPITZER: But again, we don't hear about it because there's just not a media presence. But he shoots to kill and he tortures. You spent time with him back when you were at the State Department.
RUBIN: It was actually when I was in a role similar to yours. I was doing, hosting a show for Sky News. I went to Aleppo, the second largest city there and spent the day with him and his wife, did a long interview with Bashar for Sky News. And the truth is, one of the reasons why people are hopeful about Syria when it seems like they shouldn't be is because he's very difficult to read. You spend a lot of time with him. He's got all the language of reform. He's got all the western language that we're comfortable with. He looks like kind of a mild-mannered guy. There's not the Saddam shooting a shotgun in the air or any of the theatrics. And he knows the language to use. He's got very good argumentation, and so diplomats who follow him very closely had the experience that I had is he'll tell you things that seem totally plausible, seems like he believes them but then in the end, they never happen.
SPITZER: Kind of like Seif Gadhafi, the western-educated son who has the patina of legitimacy, but the moment things get tough at home, boom, the iron fist comes out. Give you assessment.
FREELAND: I think that's exactly right parallel (ph). He's the son of the dictator. And I think there was a hope that, you know, he was going to be the evolutionary model. It looks like that's not the case.
SPITZER: Well, you know, to use a metaphor, to mix metaphors from Seif Gadhafi, is he almost the Michael Corleone? Does he deep down, you know, the "Godfather," the metaphor for so much in life perhaps? Does he want --
RUBIN: In this case, it's not a terrible metaphor, because the regime is run in a way like one of the five families, the one in charge.
SPITZER: Right, right.
RUBIN: And because they're a small minority in Syria, that's why people are so worried. If they fall, you could have real chaos in Syria.
SPITZER: All right, Jamie Rubin --
We will see. Jamie Rubin, Chrystia Freeland, thank you for joining me IN THE ARENA tonight.
Good night from New York. "PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT" starts right now.
