Wire both sides saying lets just get this done and take this problem off of the table . I do not know. Anybody else there must be some insight regarding the reliability of the grid is reliable. I had no idea why they would go along with that. And from it is the lawyers. Doctor . I think as we look at the bigger picture, and the substances that are being used by athletes, we talked earlier about the supplement you can buy on the internet and in Health Food Stores that may or may not contain illegal substances. I think a lot of athletes that i talk with who have gotten caught in drug testing, they say that all i did was go to gnc and by a protein powder or a muscle product and i didnt know that it had anabolic steroids and and or whatever it was that broke the rule. I think there is some concern that this is the bigger issue in i think some athletes may be concerned that they are going to do the right thing, but also get caught doing something could be wrong. I think as we look at this, as the pair has been talking about, the issue of unregulated supplements is a huge issue that needs to be addressed. That is the can of worms that we dont have time to deal with. But i do want to take another step back. I do not want to diminish the negative impact that these banned substances or any other substance has on our players after they retire. As they are moving forward, i would be concerned to say what is the appropriate role of the federal government . I realize that it is funded by people like mr. Dick bukus, he has an honored to be in the same room i am so honored to be in same room as him. But is there way to work this out without the federal government being involved in and . I will entertain the comments from anybody on the panel. Mr. Michael gimbel, i would like to say that when the first steroid hearings were held, i think it open up a dialogue and it opened up to the American People about performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball at the time. I think that with such an Important Role that this committee did, because it gave us to work with kids, a lot of knowledge and leverage and it also focused on college and high school athletes, not only about the dangers, but the consequences. There is a definite role in doing that this committee has been doing. We just dialogue and awareness and educating the public. Obviously, arent we protecting our children is absolutely critical. But i do hear from people when i am back home. You are about to go off the fiscal cliff. What are you doing having a hearing on it. Let me just finish by saying that if the public was aware of a number of our children were taking some level of these performanceenhancing drugs, they would be demanding these hearings. Because if it were cocaine or other drugs, they would be saying i would be not do anything . In regards to the illegal use are we trying to educate the public . I think that is a huge role. I think we are trying to clarify the questions and make it very clear about what the role is about what we can and cant do, what we can control and we can. I would like to thank everyone for being here. Mr. Chairman, i would like to thank everyone for the opportunity. Sir, perhaps i can answer one of your constituents concerns for the Ranking Member. That is the one thing i get asked all the time it can congress do more than one thing at a time. To a great extent, yes, there are leadership working on the fiscal cliff. There are those working on what they are doing, and this committee wasnt supposed to be in session is trying to take full advantage of doing is many things as we can. I might note that the gentleman has been incredibly helpful in doing oversight on a lot of things. People may not have understood him it until we started finding out, for example, hydraulic fracturing was under attack. So i would like to thank the gentleman for multitasking and his wife as well. Mr. Trey gowdy, before we close, would you like to do a second round of questioning . No, sir, mr. Chairman. Ague. I would then yield to the Ranking Member chris pozen. Again, i would like to thank all of you for being here today. One of the things that i say to my children, i tell them, mr. Dick bukus, i tell them and i try to figure out what is the enemy of destiny. What is the enemy of your destiny . Because i believe that if they try to figure out what might block them in getting to where they have to go, that they will begin to change those things now so that they can get to where they are trying to go. I would hate to think that the enemy of peoples destiny is him looking up to athletes who may be pulling something improper, and then they try to emulate that. We have our chance. That is one thing that i know about you all. The question is what chances are we blocking our children from having . So the testimony has been very insightful and helpful. Hopefully as we move down the line, the players will see how incredibly ridiculous it looks. Maybe they need to talk to their lawyers. We have to move up, we had to move down the line, and it doesnt look very good. If you cant carry through with it, the least showy good reason why you can. Then make it so that there is a way forward. If you can come and get it done. Right now, we are not seeing that. But your testimony has been very helpful. You have put in the record, not only the science, but the effect of the tribes on our young people today. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Thank you, i want to again thank our witnesses. Making the record is an important process. Each of you has brought an insight. Mr. Dick bukus, even though you dont have a doctorate degree or a phd behind your name, your humbleness in recognition that you continue to have dedication to this sport being clean, it adds more than all the science can add a human side of this hearing. For our scientists, i want to thank you for beginning the process of making it clear that the testing regime has to occur and can occur and certainly has occurred and most of the rest of the sports world. And again i would like to thank you for your time as we go into the Holiday Season and we stand adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] thursday on washington journal, grover norquist, the president of americans for tax reform, discussed republicans and negotiating the fiscal cliff and debating on the spending increases. Then our guest from Kaiser Health talks about the potential impact of the fiscal cliff on medicare. Washington journal starts at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Ive been on that list, they are as good as gold. All of us in this country are starting to see people coming out and talking about their experience of this phenomenon. Though many of us have experienced this in one way or another and have no words for it other than adolescence when growing up. I think there was a moment where there was a possibility for change. The director and i, to start the film, i have the feeling that opinions are bubbling up and coming to the surface to say to say this is something that we can cant accept any more as part of our culture. And he alone has followed up her awardwinning film by gathering essays and personal stories together in her book, bully on after words on cspan2. Find more booktv online and like us on facebook. North dakota senator kent conrad said goodbye to the senate on thursday. He chaired the Senate Budget committee and is involved in the fiscal deadline negotiations. Senator conrad was elected to the u. S. Senate in 1986. I have often joked with him that he has been my secretary on state and i have served here int the United States senate because he could count on senator dick lugar to give good and unbiased advice on complicated formulation issues. We will very much missed senator lugars voice in the United States senate, and also his hal, better half, charlotte, who i bt think we all know is a bright w ceite. Senator, it has been an honor and privilege to serve with you, and i know that your voice will continue to be heard on important issues of the day. O i think you for your service to, our country and to your state, and thank you for being a good friend to me. Mr. President , we have this long tradition in the senate by alert senators giving farewell remarks and i would like to alert that a my remarks will be especially long. Becau you may want to have lunch and then come back. [laughter] i dont consider this my final speech because im hopeful that we farm bill. On hopefully we can Reach Agreement on averting the fiscal cliff. Because that is important to thh country. Nd this is my farewell remarks. Observations on 26 years of service here. It has been an incredible experience. The first thing i want to do is say thank youto you the you. H thank you to the people of north dakota are having confidence ino the United States senate. I was 30 years old, but i look d about 25. Hey have i i treasure the confidence that they have had in me. I would also like to thank my ven colleagues and the responsibilities that they havep given me, the leadership team, senator kerry reed, senator echumer, senator murray. Ff, iav the confidence they have had ine me. Been i have been so blessed to have people who have been with me, in many cases for more than 20 years. My chiefs of staff n timely dr me, care are garland, bob vanhuevland, wally, my legislative director who was with me for more than 20 years, tom mar, jerry gaginas, we all fondly call mom, because she cracks the whip and makes sure the trains run on time. Mary naylor, also has been with me more than 20 years. My deputies there, john rider and joel friedman, who have done extraordinary work on behalf of the people of this country. Stew nagerka, who is going to help me with charts today, my longtime communication communics director, and so many more. And most of all to my family, my wife lucy, who has been my partner through all this, was my Campaign Manager when i first ran for the United States senate, my daughter jessie, who in in many ways has perhaps sacrificed the most because when youre in this job, you miss birthdays, you miss other important events. But she has been a great daughter, and she was here last night for our farewell party. And we had a lovely time. Our son, ivan, and his wife kendra, who are in oregon where they have a small farm tawld tipping tree farm. We wish they could be here today, our grandson carter, who is a proud member of the university of oregon marching band, the ducks, who served as an intern for me not at government expense, by the way, that was at our expense. And our little dog dakota, who has become sort of a mascot of the United States senate. Brian williams when he did a show on a day in the life of senate concluded that program by calling dakota the 101st senator. And, you know, i think he will be missed perhaps more than i am as i leave the senate. In 1964 i came here, i sat up in the gallery, in fact, it was the gallery right up here. And i was 16 years old. And i watched a debate in the United States senate. It was on civil rights. Hubert humphrey was leading that debate. And it so inspired me that i thought, you know, someday id like to be down on that floor and i would like to debate the great issues of the day and i would like to represent the people of north dakota. And so i went home and wrote out on the back of an envelope that i would run for the United States senate in 1986 or 1988 and i ran in 1986. And was successful. That is the power of a plan. To you young pages who are here, if any of you seek to be in the United States senate someday, have a plan. Because there are so many people who sort of drift through life without one, if you have a plan, you will be light years ahead. And in that race as i indicated my now wife, lucy, was my Campaign Manager. We won what was then believed to be the biggest political upset in the history of our state. And i was proud of that victory and proud to have a chance to represent north dakota here. I think we all know that our country needs a plan now. And we know that plans have worked before. I was here in 1993 when we had just come off the largest deficit in the history of the United States, the country was in doldrums, the economy was just plugging along, not doing very well, just had a weak recovery from a deep recession. And we passed a plan to get the country back on track. We did it the Old Fashioned way. We made tough decisions, some that were unpopular, but it was the right thing to do and it worked. We balanced the budget, we had the longest period of uninterrupted Economic Growth in the nations history, 23 million jobs were created, and we were actually paying down the debt of the United States at the end of the clinton administration. And we did it again when disaster struck my state in 1997, one of the worst disasters ever in north dakota, a 500year flood that followed the worst winter storm in 50 years, many of you may recall the images from that disaster when firemen were fighting an enormous conflagration in downtown grand forks in the middle of a blizzard, and a massive flood. Grand forks was devastated. Again, we had a plan, a 500 million Disaster Recovery plan that became a billiondollar plan and it worked and we did it the Old Fashioned way, we made tough decisions, some that were unpopular, but it was the right thing to do and it worked. The Community Just held a recognition event for me this last weekend. And the leadership of the community was there, and various aspects of the community. Reporting on the remarkable recovery in grand forks. It is really i think, an example of what can be done when government responds and does so intelligently and effectively. Now we face a new challenge. We have a fiscal cliff or a fiscal cliff curb or whatever one terms it, but what we know is if we fail to act, we could be pushed back into recession. Our country needs a plan. A plan to get us back on track, to revitalize Economic Growth, to secure our longterm economic future, and to get the country moving again. And we can do it. Weve done much tougher things in the past. You know, i hear people being critical sometimes when they leave here of this institution. Let me say im not in their ranks. I leave this institution with enormous respect. The United States senate is the greatest deliberative body in the world, and the vast majority of my colleagues, i sincerely believe, are serious minded and have the best interest of the country at heart. I really believe the vast majority of my colleagues want to do whats right for the country. We have differences, enormous differences, about whats the right thing to do, but i have no doubt most of our colleagues are well intentioned. In many circles its fashionable now to bash government and play down its importance. I personally think wed be well we would be well to remember what it has accomplished. I can remember so wellbeing called to an emergency meeting in this building in the fall of 2008. I was handed a note that i was urgently requested to come here. It was about 6 00 in the evening, and it was the last one to arrive. When i walked into the Leaders Office there were the leaders of the house and the senate, republicans and democrats, the secretary of the treasury from the bush administration, and the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Well, i instantly understood something very serious was afoot. They closed the door and told us they were going to take over a. I. G. , the large Insurance Company, the next day. They werent there to ask for our approval or seek our agreement. They were there to tell us they were taking this step. And they told us they were taking this step because they believed if they did not, there would be a financial collapse in this country within days. And they gave great speakers deskity great specificity if they failed to take the action they were about to do. The public reaction was harshly negative. The notion of the government of the United States bailing out a large private Insurance Company created controversy and criticism for almost every corner. Ultimately, the rescue of that company cost 180 billion. A staggering sum. But you know what . Weve just learned this week that the taxpayers will make money on the deal. Yes, it cost us 180 billion. But the taxpayers are going to make 22 billion on the transaction. And if we hadnt done it, we would have risked going into a depression. So when people say theres no role for government or it should just be a limited, shrunken role, really . Would we have wanted to stand by and risk this country going into another Great Depression . Lets recall what that was like. More than 20 of the people in this country out of work. I know my open grandfather own grandfather who refused to take bankruptcy owned stock in the local bank. In those days you had unlimited liability. If you owned stock in a bank. So when there was a run on the bank, as there was, he was called to bring money to the bank. Which he did. And he did it over and over. And it took him nine years to recover. People were hungry. People were desperate. Thats what a depression is about. So when i reflect back to those decisions, i believe they were the right decisions to make, and its not just my view. Thats the view of two of the most distinguished economists in this country, mark zandi, who was a key Economic Advisor to john mccain in his president ial race, and alan blinder, the former deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve. Heres what they say. Without that federal response, we would have had eight million fewer jobs and 16 level of unemployment in this country, and we would have been in the second Great Depression. They call it depre