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Romney on Coverage for Children; Wall Street Braces for Fed Meeting; How to Pay Public School Teachers; How To Pay Public School Teachers; Searching For Arctic Oil; The Latest Navratilova Challenge; Romney Campaigns In Ohio

Aired September 10, 2012 - 14:00   ET

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

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Martin Savidge, and it is a largely symbolic but very, very important, a handover that happened in Afghanistan today. The U.S. says it is giving back control of a prison at Bagram Air Force Base, that's according to Afghan leaders, control of the prison and it detainees have been a political tug of war for years. And it seems that tugging will continue. You see, the U.S. is not handing over control of all of the detainees and that is just a portion of a much larger problem between the U.S. and Afghanistan.

Anna Coren is live in Kabul and, Anna, U.S. officials are hanging on to control over an undisclosed number of prisoners. So with the spokesperson for the American led coalition in Afghanistan saying we have paused the transfer of the remaining detainees, our concerns until, that is, until our concerns are met. What kinds of concerns are they talking about and why not just give them all to prisoners?

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's interesting phrasing, isn't it, that pause of transfer. But basically the Americans are concerned that roughly 34 detainees, that is the number that we are hearing here in Kabul, 34 highly valuable detainees being high members of the Taliban, the Haqqani network which of course was listed as a terrorist organization a few days ago, and al Qaeda should remain under U.S. control. The fear is that if under Afghan control, they will then enter the criminal justice system and potentially be freed, whether it be through political interference or corruption which we know is ripe in this country, that is the major fear. So the U.S. want Afghan forces to give them some sort of guarantee that this is not going to happen.

SAVIDGE: There are also a number of bigger issues that are at stake here. The Afghans also want the U.S. to end the practice of conducting night raids. They would like U.S. soldiers to break the law to have immunity from prosecution and of course they want complete control over the prison and its detainees. So no matter how high level they are, and I guess what this really sounds like is this is a country that wants to have greater sovereignty.

COREN: Yes, it definitely does, Martin. And there's no two ways about that. President Hamid Karzai has made that very clear. He met with the Commander of NATO and US Forces General John Allen over the weekend and it was after that meeting that president Karzai sent out a press release saying that if this transfer does not go ahead in full, this would be seen as a breach of sovereignty. So these two countries are really at a stalemate, Martin. There is not really much compromise going on. But speaking to analysts today, they believe that if U.S. forces withdraw from Afghanistan, obviously we're seeing that drawdown up until 2014. The U.S. will have less and less leverage.

SAVIDGE: And there seems to be a sort of, for lack of a better phrase, quiet panic among the population of the Afghan people and those who fear who will happen when the U.S. pulls out. So how is the Afghan government reaffirming that they can handle leadership?

COREN: Well, I think they're struggling there, Martin, to be quite frank. We have a serious problem in Afghanistan, that being security. Just a few hours ago, there was another suicide bombing in the northeast of the country, 16 people killed, 10 policemen. We have been reporting about these strains of green on blue attacks having Afghan soldiers turning on coalition forces who have trained them. To date, Martin, there have been 45 deaths. This time last year, a total of 35. So we are seeing a dramatic increase. Today I went to the emergency hospital just down the road here in Kabul and we interviewed a couple of people who survived the suicide bombing here in Kabul over the weekend and the Director of the hospital said August was their busiest month as far as suicide bombings. So this is a serious problem, the government has a serious problem in trying to convince the Afghanis that they have things under control, because at the moment I can assure you the population doesn't think that.

SAVIDGE: Yeah, and what's serious for the Afghan government is serious for the U.S. All right, Anna Coren thank you very much.

Back here in the U.S., instead of dismissal, well, Chicago is marking an ugly moment in its education history. The first day of the first teacher's strike in a quarter of a century.

(BEIGN VIDEOTAPE)

PROTESTERS: We want contracts. When do we want it? Now!

SAVIDGE: Now the nation's third largest public school district is in crisis. 29,000 teachers and staff are out picketing. 350,000 students are not in the classroom learning and Chicago's mayor says the public school district and the teacher's union were close to resolution, but there were two issues that got in the way.

RAHM EMANUEL, MAYOR OF CHICAGO: The two issues come down to, as you know, the teacher evaluation and also what is called about basically the issue of which teachers are in the classroom. And who has the control. This is a strike of choice, and it is the wrong choice for our children and it's not necessary. Totally avoidable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: There is some good news. The two sides are still negotiating today. CNN's Casey Wians live in Chicago. Casey, let's first get the latest on the talks and then give us more details about the contentious points. CASEY WIANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, talks resume, Martin, about 10:00 a.m. local time this morning., and it's an encouraging sign that both sides are continuing to talk, but there were lots of encouraging signs over the weekend. They were making progress, they came out and said they were very close to an agreement on the salary issues, but there are some contentious points that remain separating the two. And apparently separating them enough for the teachers to go on strike today. The two main issues are how teachers are evaluated is the big one according to the teachers union. They don't want these teacher evaluations tied to test scores. They are very worried that up to 6,000 teachers over the next year or two could lose their jobs if these new evaluations go into place. The city of Chicago says they don't know where that number comes from. They're debating that, but they're still discussing that issue. Also Rahm Emanuel wants local principals to have more control of the hiring decisions in individual schools. He says the top performing schools in the strict are those that give that local control to the local principals. The teachers union wants more of that control centralized. That's what our understanding is of the main issues that are still being talked about right now, Martin.

SAVIDGE: Well, beyond the lack of learning, this is a real problem for working parents. What are parents doing with their kids?

WIANS: Well, it's been a very, very difficult situation. Behind me is a school that's one of 140 or so schools throughout the city of Chicago that was open temporarily this morning for parents who had child care issues, working parents. We spoke with one mother earlier this morning who dropped her daughter off. Here she didn't want to do it because earlier this whole sidewalk was a picket line of the teachers that are normally at this school. She didn't want to take her child here. Felt she had no choice because she had a job interview and she's out of work and she need to go to that interview. We also spoke with a man who is the father of three children at this school. He's very angry. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PARENT: It's 50-60 students to one teacher-how can you teach the class if it's 50, 60 students to one teacher? Textbooks been used since 1938 probably. Who knows how long we've had these textbooks? This school alone has no AC in it. I know for a fact because I went here as a grammar school student. My kids are at home missing out on all their education. So now they get to go home and play around and pretend this is a fun day-this ain't fun for nobody.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WAINS: One of the big concerns also that those parents have, Martin, is the fact that this has obviously been a very violent year in the city of Chicago, 360 murders so far this year. Up 32 percent over last year. Parents very concerned about the prospect of children especially older children running around on the streets with no school to go to. Martin.

SAVIDGE: Casey, I read some interesting numbers about the salaries of Chicago teachers. You can just remind us what they are?

WAINS: The average Chicago teacher makes about $76,000 a year. The pay increase that has been offered by the school district is a 16 percent average increase for the average teacher over the four year life of their proposed contract. One of the issues that the striking teachers bring up, though, is that they were supposed to get a 4 percent salary increase last year, that increase was canceled by the city because of its budget situation.

SAVIDGE: All right. Casey Wians, thanks very much. We'll have a lot more on the story later in the broadcast. We'll go in-depth on the issue of public schoolteachers and teachers unions. We'll have Steve Perry along, principal of an inner-city school.

A lot more news developing this hour including this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MITT ROMNEY: I will act to repeal Obamacare.

SAVIDGE: But now Mitt Romney says he actually likes some parts of the law. That comment raising eyebrows. And he'll speak live during this show.

In Syria, rebels accuse the government of dropping TNT barrels. And they say craters like this one prove it.

And a tennis legend joins me live, what Martina Navratilova wants you to know about living longer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: Right now, in Burbank, family and close friends of actor Michael Clarke Duncan are saying their last good-byes in a private memorial service. His fiancee, Omarosa Manigault, spoke to CNN.

OMAROSA MANIGAULT, FIANCEE OF LATE ACTOR: I don't remember him as Michael the actor, entertainer. He was the love of my life. He is the love of my life. And I'm going to miss him so much. I'm going to miss his voice and his laughter and his hugs. And how much he cared so much about his family.

SAVIDGE: Yesterday fans were able to pay their respects at a public viewing. Clarke Duncan passed away September 3rd, he had a heart attack on July 13th, and according to the family's spokeperson never fully recovered.

Big headlines today. Mitt Romney embraces parts of Obamacare. Well, maybe not. Let's first listen to Mitt Romney in late June stating his well-known position on the health care reforms and this by the way is the day that the supreme court ruled that, yes, Obamacare's constitutional. Mitt Romney.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMNEY: What the court did not do on its last day in session I will do on my first day if elected President of the United States. And that is I will act to repeal Obamacare.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Okay, pretty straight-forward. No ifs ands or buts. Repeal Obamacare. Now, fast forward to Sunday "Meet the Press" Mitt Romney perhaps a little different.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMNEY: I say we're going to replace Obamacare. And I'm replacing it with my own plan and even in Massachusetts where I was Governor, our plan there deals with pre-existing conditions. And with the --

DAVID GREGORY, NBC ANCHOR: So you'd keep that as part of the federal plan?

ROMNEY: I'm not getting rid of all of health care reform, of course. There are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I'm going to put in place.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: OK. Which ones? Which reforms does Mitt Romney like and what would he keep? Elizabeth Cohen Senior Medical Correspondent is joining us. And is Mitt Romney replacing parts of Obamacare or what's he doing?

ELIZABETH COHEN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It was widely reported after he said that, wow, Romney is embracing parts of Obamacare after saying he wanted to get rid of it, oh my goodness! But when we called the Romney campaign, they said, "huh-uh," they said 100 percent we he are going to repeal Obamacare and then we are going to come up with reforms of our own addressing some of the same problems Obamacare addressed, but our reforms are going to look very different.

SAVIDGE: One of the things that I should point out and we both know this, before it was Obamacare, it was in the state of Massachusetts under Governor Romney. I mean, is it surprising that he would at least some things he likes about his own plan?

COHEN: Right. I mean, many parts of Obamacare were modeled on Romney's plan in Massachusetts. Which has been done previously. When Romney has been asked about this, he says, "look what I did in Massachusetts was right for Massachusetts. But that doesn't mean that the whole country should do what Massachusetts did." He said he wants each state to decide what they want to do. If each state decides to look like Massachusetts, well, so be it. But he doesn't want to tell them to do it. He doesn't want to mandate it.

SAVIDGE: OK So let's talk about some things he wants to keep. Pre- existing conditions.

COHEN: I would say he does not want to keep that, he wants to address that problem but in a very different way than Obama did. What Obama did was he told insurance companies, hey you've got to take everyone. If someone has diabetes, heart disease, whatever, you still have to insure them because previously insurance companies were saying no to these people because they're expensive. So Romney does not want to do that. He's been very clear. Here's what he wants to do. He wants it so that individuals with -- this is a quote from something he wrote. Individuals with pre-existing conditions who have maintained continuous health insurance coverage should be guaranteed the ability to retain coverage. So the key part of that is who has maintained continuous health insurance. So if you have a pre-existing condition and you want insurance, he wants insurance companies to say yes to you if in the past you've maintained continuous coverage. Now, I know the question in your mind so I'm just going to say it: what the heck is continuous coverage? What does that mean? We don't know, we've asked many times and not gotten an answer.

SAVIDGE: But that is at least one aspect of Obamacare that many people seem to like. The other one is the ability to keep your kids on your own insurance plan.

COHEN: Right. Obamacare tells insurance companies you have got to allow young adults up to the age of 26 to stay on their parents' insurance if that's what they want to do. And Mitt Romney says, no, that's not what I want to do. He said I'm going to institute market reforms so if customers, if that's what they want that's what insurance companies will give them. So for example he says, I'm going to make it so you can buy insurance across state lines which you can't now. Once you can do that and once I institute other reforms, then people will be able to demand what they want and insurance companies will give them what they want. He doesn't want to tell the market what to do, he wants to make it so that it will just sort of happen on its own due to market forces.

SAVIDGE: There's a lot more could I ask you, but we're out of time. Elizabeth Cohen, nice to see you. Thank you very much. Our Jim Acosta is traveling with the Romney campaign and Romney is in Mansfield, Ohio, expected for speak live at the top of the hour. Jim, what can we expect?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Martin, I think you can expect so far that Mitt Romney will be going after the President on the economy, that is something that he's been doing as you know throughout this campaign. You can look over my shoulder, you can see that the banner "We Did Build it" is up behind the podium there. That has been and ongoing theme for this campaign. I will tell you one thing that we probably won't hear a lot of, Martin, during this event that's coming up in about an hour from how is Mitt Romney talking about this polling memo that his campaign issued earlier this morning. It not only went out to reporters in the early morning hours, but it went out later to the full main e-mail list of Romney supporters and donors an deals with some of the polls showing that President Obama got a decent size bounce coming out of the Democratic convention. The polling memo goes on to say that people out there should not get worked up in the words of this polling memo by some of these recent poll numbers showing the President in the lead. And I had a chance to ask a senior Romney adviser about this earlier this afternoon and he told me they feel like they're in a great position, that this is going to be a race on the economy and that at this point, they feel like the edge is certainly in their favor at this point. SAVIDGE: Jim Acosta, Mansfield, Ohio. We're going to check back with you. The next hour when candidate Romney speaks. Thanks very much.

If you've got a 401(k), could be a pretty interesting week. We could soon find out whether the fed pumps another round of stimulus into the economy. We'll tell you what to look for.

Plus, Disney, Amazon, Chevron, Apple, just a few big name companies have a lot to cheer about, I'll tell you why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: If you're looking for a reason to smile, both the Dow and S&P hit four year highs last week. Alison Kosik is live for us. Here's the big question. Is it over, are we back from the crash of 2008?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So let's take it easy for a minute. When it comes to the stock market, yes, I mean, stocks are pretty much back to where they were before the market really began tanking. But still stocks still have a long way to go from the record highs that we saw in late 2007. Now, one of the reasons we he are kind of back is some individual stocks. They're on a major roll. Did you know almost a fifth of the stocks in the S&P 500, they're close to an all-time high and they include names you'll recognize. Of course apple, we talk about that one almost every day. At least I know on Twitter. Amazon.com's another. Disney. Craft foods and chevron. Now, something a lot of these companies have in martin is that they manage their way through the recession successfully, whether it's Disney, which offered theme park discounts for the first time ever when times got tough, or Kraft which cut back on costs or apple and amazon rolling out revolution their new products that somehow people found the money for, they scraped up the money to buy those products. These companies have a lot going to them and the market is rewarding them for it.

SAVIDGE: Stocks are doing well, but the jobs picture is not really so rosy. And a lot of folks are looking at the fed board of governors which is to meet this week and may take some sort of action. So what kind of action or will they act at all?

KOSIK: So, yes, that's the question. They could do nothing, could do something. And if they do, this would be the third time that the fed introduces this stimulus money into the economy in this particular way. Meaning when the fed takes money right from its balance sheet to buy U.S. treasury, lots of U.S. treasuries and there is also talk that if they do go ahead and introduce this kind of stimulus, it would also involve buying up investments backed by mortgages. And it would drive mortgage rates lower, and also lowering borrowing costs. But martin, critics say the problem with this is that the -- the problem with the economy at least is with demand. There's not enough demand. That interest rates are already low. Just because sprou dues the stimulus and push interest rates lower, it doesn't mean suddenly you'll see businesses and consumers rush out to take out loans. There's got to be confidence backed up with that. Confidence that the economy is so solid footing. SAVIDGE: Let's just say that the fed does implement some sort of stimulus program here. Is it possible that it could have an impact before voters go to the poll to choose the president?

KOSIK: Well, if they do, we could only see what they did, what the fed did in it past stimulus measures and what they wound up doing was brought down interest rates right away. In theory that encourages banks to lend, whether they decide to do it or not, it certainly helps stock. So if you're invested in stocks, it makes you feel wealthy. But most of the effect with these stimulus measures is really short term. And we see that because it has been done twice before and we're seeing how the momentum in the economy is slowing down. So that's why there are a lot of questions and the critics are coming out of the woodwork as to whether or not a third round of stimulus will help will the economy long term and grow jobs.

SAVIDGE: A lot of debate about that. Alison Kosik, thank you very much.

Hundreds of thousands of students with nowhere to go as teachers strike in one of America's largest school systems. My next guest says those teachers ought to be ashamed of themselves. Don't miss this interview.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: In Chicago, the teachers' union leaders and school district officials are negotiating after ten months of failing to reach an agreement. There is one thing that they basically do agree on, they want to avoid a second day of a teacher's strike. It has left 350,000 kids out of class today. And in the middle of a fight that many of their parents are joining.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERICA CLARK, PARENT: It is about job security and fair pay for teachers. Because we want our teachers to be protected from our most experienced teachers, from being protected from being laid off to bring in less experienced cheaper teachers to save money. And we want our teachers to have protection so they can stand up for what's right for kids and not fear recrimination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: Teacher job security. Many say that is at the he heart of what is happening in Chicago. Should teachers be evaluated on merit or seniority? To talk about that, Steve Perry joins us, the principal and founder of the Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Connecticut and the author of "Push Has Come to Shove: Getting Our Kids the Education They Deserve. And you tweeted, quote, "The Chicago teachers ought to be ashamed of themselves for sending half a million kids to the streets or to homes without parents." So why are you putting this on the teachers?

STEVE PERRY, PRINCIPAL, CAPITAL PREPARATORY MAGNET SCHOOL: Because the teachers are the ones who decided that today they would stay home. They decided that $76,000 a year for 5-1/2 hours' worth of work in 187 days wasn't enough money in a community where the average family makes only $47,000 in a city that has a $700 million deficit.

Where the murder rate in some years was higher than that in Afghanistan for our troops, that these folks are going to take it upon themselves to take a day of education away from children. It's reprehensible.

SAVIDGE: Let's get back to what looks like the main issues here and whether teachers should be evaluated on merit or seniority, and really this is a dilemma that goes far beyond just Chicago public school system, right?

PERRY: It is. I mean, who would ask the question whether or not you should be evaluated based upon the value that you add to your profession or how long you've been there?

It doesn't matter how long you've been there. If you're an amazing first year teacher, you should be treated as such. If you're an amazing 20th year teacher, you should be treated as such.

If you're a sorry first year or 20th year teach every, you should be treated as such. We have to realize that schools were actually opened for children, not for grown people.

SAVIDGE: How much of this do you think falls into the teachers union's lap, in other words, that they're the ones that are pushing the seniority aspect and not key on merit pay?

PERRY: This is all teachers union. In fact what's so troublesome about this is that teachers union are the ones who give most to the Democratic Party and here you have a president who is fighting for his political life and the Chicago teachers unions are going to pull this an tick right here?

This is the time they'll use less than 60 days before the national election for president? Again, the teachers union are a political juggernaut. When you hear conversations about politics and giving money, you hear conversations about people like the Koch brothers. Nobody's given more money to campaigns than the teachers union and they have clout.

And at some point the parents, the real parents who are going will hurt from this, need to speak up and say my children are more important than the upper middle class people who are complaining about not getting a raise when I don't have a job.

SAVIDGE: I think I know the answer to this, but what do you think is the best way to figure out pay for teachers and is there a way to keep the union involved?

PERRY: Well, I'm not so committed to keeping the union as much as I am to delivering a product that parents can be proud of, that the community can be proud of. The best way to reward a teacher is to pay them what they're worth, basically pay them what you can afford to pay. See, we are public employees. I am a public school principal, which means I can only makes as much as the community can raise based upon the amount of money that they make. So if I'm making so much more than they are, and they can't pay me, then I'm not worth that.

I have to be able to produce enough educated people in that community for that community to be able to pay for me. And that's not happening in too many communities and too many of the teachers unions are pushing beyond the capacity of the community to pay.

SAVIDGE: Many communities are stressed, of course, as a result of tax revenues being down, but let me get back to the issue of politics. Teachers unions are very strong. They're all across the country.

And they definitely pull out the vote for Democrats. So do you think the White House is staying out of this? We know Rahm Emanuel formerly connected to the White House is now the mayor of Chicago?

PERRY: I'm telling you, I don't think that they're helping their overall cause. This is a place where they're actually hurting the president and in fact could be making someone like Mitt Romney look like he's going to come in and save the day, which is an unfortunate thing.

Because as the president is working harder and harder to come up with creative methods of producing education reform, here comes one his biggest contributors like the drunk uncle at a wedding trying to give a toast and makes a fool out of themselves at the worst possible time.

SAVIDGE: Steve Perry, interesting picture. Thanks very much for joining us.

PERRY: Thank you.

SAVIDGE: Drill, baby, drill. Remember those words? Well, it was a big rallying cry for Republicans and right now Shell is drilling for oil and gas off the coast of Alaska, but there are some big differences between this project and the deep water horizon in the gulf. We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: This weekend, Shell Oil, the royal Shell oil company started a controversial project off the far northern shores of Alaska. The oil company announced that it has started drilling in Arctic waters.

Well, the bounty of all of this, gas and for oil could be huge, but the risk is the environment. And that could also be equally huge.

CNN's Miguel Marquez reports on the ghost of deep water horizon and how it looms large over this project.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Shell calls the wells relatively simple, but will drill them as though the most complicated prospect in the country has ever done. Why, deep water horizon and the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

PETE SLAIBY, V.P., SHELL ALASKA: We would have been tone-deaf if we thought that it would have been business as usual after the deep water horizon.

MARQUEZ: Could this happen again like Shell's Arctic wells, the disaster McKonda well was exploratory, but Shell unlike BP has no plans to bring up oil this summer. It will need a much bigger platform to do that.

Shell's wells will be capped and abandoned, the biggest difference, depth. Shell will be drilling it less than 200 feet of water and up to 8,000 feet below the seabed.

Deep water horizon thrilled through 5,000 feet of water and then more than 13,000 feet below the seafloor. The pressure differences are enormous.

SLAIBY: The pressures are roughly about a third of what you'd see in typical deep water well.

MARQUEZ: Like all wells Shell will use blowout preventers. Unlike BP's, Shell's blowout preventers will light beneath the seabed so a rig can disconnect more safely in case of emergency.

SLAIBY: As a part of what happened in the post-deep water horizon where all these blowout preventers were actually brought back to what we call original equipment manufacturer standards.

MARQUEZ: In case of a blowout, Shell will have on hand a capping stack. That's what brought an end to the gulf disaster.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There you go.

MARQUEZ: For drivers like Erinn Shmaeff who has a mountain of bills and a 3-year-old to raise, she thinks there should be room for exploration, but not at the risk of another deep water horizon.

ERINN SHMAEFF, SINGLE PARENT: I would want to know, like, where it would be. I'd want to know how damaging it would be to the environment, if it would have an impact on the local wildlife.

MARQUEZ: Regulators insist of risk in the arctic is acceptable with no easy oil left to find. It is only hard choices from here on out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: And Miguel now joins us from the Los Angeles Bureau. Nice to see you again. A question for you, is this really a done deal or are there, I don't know, regulatory issues and other problems that could stop it?

MARQUEZ: Yes, at the moment, Shell is only doing preparatory work. They can drill down to 1,500 feet. They are waiting for a cleanup barge, the "Arctic Challenger," to arrive there. It's still not been OK'ed for use. Once that happens, Shell says it should be any day then they can go down to areas where they can actually hit oil. They'll send equipment down there to see just how much oil is down there and confirm what their engineers think is down there. Then the real race for the oil gets going.

SAVIDGE: And how long time phrase wise?

MARQUEZ: It's going to be years, decades really. They have to build a pipeline if the oil is really down there. They need very, very substantial platforms to withstand the ice and the weather in the Arctic. It will be a good 15 to 20 years before and billions and billions of dollars before we start to see oil coming up out of the Arctic.

SAVIDGE: OK, Miguel, thanks very much for the report.

Now let's bring in Chad Myers. Chad, this is the area up here where the drilling is what we're talking about. And far removed say from the Gulf of Mexico, which is the one that everyone recalls.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Obviously, we were both here Gulf of Mexico. You were down there. I was here trying to explain what was going on, the blowout preventer, all of that stuff. That was in 5,000 feet of water.

This well they are putting down is in 130 feet of water. Not unreasonable that a man could actually dive down there literally and get down there with some extra -- some better air. But this is their little lease that they have and they'll be drilling down into this.

They're going to drill pilot holes right now, only about 1,400 feet deep. The oil is 5,000 feet deep. So they're not even trying to get to the oil right now, Marty. All they're trying to do is get things moving.

They have been working on this lease since 2008, regulations have been coming and going. Injunctions have been issued and taken away. This has been a very long process, $2.3 billion spent just to get where we are now here for Shell and 26 billion potential barrels of oil under the ground here. That's a big number.

SAVIDGE: The payoff is pretty huge potentially. Not just for the oil company, but for all of us. The environmental threat, what is that?

MYERS: Certainly if there's ice in the water, that would make cleanup of any spill a nightmare. I mean, you have icebergs moving around. You have, you know, animals out there on the icebergs.

What they are going to do is the sea floor is going to be made into a basement. The blowout preventer is actually going to underground in case because we're only 130 feet deep. There could be icebergs floating over top.

They don't want this blowout preventer up here and an iceberg to chop it off and then the oil get right out into the ocean and no way to stop it unless you get down there and get another blowout preventer.

So they're making this mud, they're calling it a mud pit here, but that's what the blowout preventer is going to be and obviously the oil comes down from there, 5,000 feet down, it will take a while to get there.

As you said, this won't be an easy process. It may not go smoothly from here either. Regulatory things and all those other -- some people are not more upset about drilling in water than on land in Alaska.

Remember how ANWAR and all that was all going on. If you hit an iceberg this, is brutal territory. Have you ever watched the show deadliest catch, they're over here and that is brutal water. This also can be brutal water too with big storms.

SAVIDGE: Appreciate it very much. Thanks for the insights.

Up next, she is a legend in the world of tennis. I'll ask Martina Navratilova about Serena Williams' big day and also about what she's telling Americans as to the secret of living longer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: Martina Navratilova is arguably, well, the best female athlete of all time. How's that? She won 59 grand slam titles. She also overcame breast cancer and has advocated for gay rights, but now she is championing another cause to take on a battle where the odds are stacked against her, getting people specifically seniors to exercise.

Next week the 55-year-old is headed to New Orleans to be in the "Life at 50 Plus Expo" as fitness ambassador for the AARP. Martina Navratilova joins us now from New York.

And Martina, first, I want to get your take on the U.S. Open. You've won four titles there yourself. Serena Williams won the U.S. Opens women's singles yesterday.

Williams has suffered injury after injury and now she has won the U.S. Open at the age of 31. And I'm thinking you probably like her comeback story.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA, CHAMPION TENNIS PLAYER: Well, it's amazing. Life definitely gets more difficult for an athlete after 30 and apparently, Serena and I are the only players that won both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in the same year after the age of 30.

So I did not know that that was the record, but now Serena has it with me and it's amazing because she's had so many injuries over the years so some setbacks.

But she keeps coming back and now after losing the first round of the French Open just completely retooled herself and had the best summer ever winning Wimbledon, the Olympics, of course, and now the U.S. Open as well. And most of all doing it coming back from down in the third set yesterday, she put it all together. And she's a champ once again.

SAVIDGE: Yes, it was one of the best rounds of tennis you could watch in a long time. We'll know moving on to exercise and how it is important to all of us, but how do you get people to exercise?

NAVRATILOVA: Do something that's fun. Do something that you used to do when you were little, you just for forgot to do it, or something you always tried to -- wanted to do, but didn't have a chance to.

Now you have the time. Now you have the chance and just take that time first step and get out there and do it. But if you're doing something that's fun, you're more likely to do it.

Most of all, I encourage people to get a partner to do it with them that way they're less likely to bail out when things get busy during the day, et cetera.

But do something that you want to do rather than dread doing. Everybody feels great after, everybody says I'm so great, I worked out. Nobody ever says I wish I hadn't gone for that run.

But maybe running is not something that really excites you. Try to do something, find something that you enjoy while you're doing as well as, of course, getting the benefits from all that exercise after the fact.

SAVIDGE: You know, exercise of course is something we should do, but as you get older, you worry about injury. And I'm, you know, wondering -- you have a couple of tips here and some interesting ideas. Let's go over just a few of them here. First one you say is to play the flamingo. Explain that.

NAVRATILOVA: Well, I think I like to do the dancing. I think it's more the flamingo. As you know, I tried my hand at or foot I should say at dancing and loved the exercise that you get from that. That's easy on the joints.

It combines some mind and body and again, it's a lot of fun. You're doing it with somebody, you have that social interaction as well as you're on your feet, you're working out, you're moving your body and having a great time.

SAVIDGE: All right, I saw another thing, drink chocolate milk? What's that all about?

NAVRATILOVA: Well, I'm not so sure about that. I don't drink milk. So I'm not sure where that's coming from, but I prefer coconut milk or coconut juice. That's nation's soft drink. I think that's the best one out there.

SAVIDGE: It could be that we're trying to encourage people to drink milk period and chocolate is perhaps the flavor that people want.

NAVRATILOVA: Stay on your feet, you know, if you need to I guess flavor it with something, but I don't know that I came up with that idea.

SAVIDGE: How about golf balls and talking specifically about golf walls as a way to avoid injury.

NAVRATILOVA: I think that's something that you can actually step on and massage your feet because we have a lot of plantar fasciitis and a lot of issues with our feet. So if you used the golf balls as a massager and step on them then you can avoid a lot of injuries.

Because if the foundation of your body is not there, then nothing is there, but most of all I'm just encouraging people to get out there and do something that's fun. Maybe you bike or swim or certainly walk. Everybody can do that.

Go for a hike. Go for a nice walk around your neighborhood. Maybe meet some cool people that way as well as get some exercise.

SAVIDGE: Get out of house and get moving. Martina Navratilova, thank you very much. It's a pleasure. Thank you for joining us.

NAVRATILOVA: Thank you. Come join me in New Orleans.

SAVIDGE: All right, look forward to it. Thanks.

Speaking of tennis, don't forget to catch Serena Williams on Piers Morgan, that will be tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Happening right now, Mitt Romney speaking live in Ohio, we will listen in next.

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SAVIDGE: Mitt Romney is speaking live in Ohio, the state from once I hail. Let's listen in.

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We'd see more years of high unemployment, massive deficits, more years of almost no wage growth in this country. We'd see more years of a nation at the cusp of the kind of crisis you're seeing in Europe.

We're forewarned and that's why we're not going to re-elect this man instead we're going to get America on track to create jobs and prosperity.

I have a plan to change the direction of America and to get the kind of jobs we need again, five parts to my plan. Five things I'll do. Thank you for asking.

Number one, I'm going to take advantage of our energy resources, our coal, our oil, our gas, our nuclear, our renewables. We'll take advantage of energy. It means don't put this place that keep truss using coal.

Let us use our coal. We have a lot of it and let's use it and create jobs with it. Number two, I'm going to make sure that in using our energy, we take advantage of natural gas. We have extraordinary resources of natural gas.

I don't want our regulators to stop us from being able to use that. I always want to be able to drill on public lands. The president has cuts in half. I'll double it. We'll use our resources. That's number one, energy.

And we can have North American energy independence within eight years and when I say Northern American energy independence, I say for a reason because I'm going to make sure we get that pipeline from Canada and get the oil here instead of going to China.

SAVIDGE: All right, we got to breakaway for the moment, but if you'd like to watch the rest of Mitt Romney's remarks, CNN is streaming that event online. You go to cnn.com/live.

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