with the capability and authority to do, to refinance the loans to workable system -- >> the subprime and predatory loans? >> yes, which the estimates they have somewhere between 400 and $600 billion worth of those, 45 million. use of the vacant houses as a job creation program and all these foreclosures, begin to train people to become plumbers, electricians, she metalworkers and someone to rehabilitate a lot of these homes which become abandoned and a stress on local government and local community. train people to rehabilitate and bring up the code and weatherize these programs which will create jobs and produce an affordable housing and rental housing. the consumer finance protection bureau which has been offered -- this has to bill and i applaud for its version but unfortunately the senate has undermined your initiative by

taking the consumer finance protection bureau and putting in the federal reserve and then putting oversight of the bank regulators, the very people who fail to enforce the laws and regulations to prevent this kind of calamity on now going to the oversight board and be able to we don't control what comes out of that board. when the senate is done weakening this legislation that you really fight to create a meaningful consumer finance protection board. >> yeah. it is going to be interesting to see it publicized on television and to see just who is shilling for who. thank you, mr. taylor. this panel is dismissed.

>> partisan gridlock and its effects on governing. a conversation with former homeland security secretary tom ridge. former colorado governor roy romer, and pilcher prizewinner daniel yergin, author of the price. the epic quest for oil, money and power. posted by the center for the study of the presidency and congress. this portion is 50 minutes. >> two announcements to make. the first is that if you want to read this report we've been talking about, please go to the

website. it is www.the presidency.org. i will repeat that. www.the presidency.org. you can see the entire report. the other thing is we will have questions from the audience. after this there i couple of people who raise their hands that i hope they didn't get discouraged and leave. we will do that after this panel in about 40 minutes. i'm now going to introduce this panel. i'm starting on my left, with tom ridge. , is a former congressman from pennsylvania. who was the first secretary of the department homeland security. and he's a veteran of the nice days army. he won a bronze star and get non. on my right is roy romer, a person i was eligible to vote for when i lived in colorado. i can't say whether or not i voted for him.

because everyone knows me, i'm bipartisan in a fetish kind of way. [laughter] >> but roy, after leaving colorado he want to run the los angeles school district, which i heard tom ridge and agreement say that was like, what did you say, leaving the dmz and a helicopter under fire or something? and to my right, to roars right is daniel yergin who is a pulitzer prize-winning author. is really mr. energy. and reported, any journalist in this town ever want to know about energy just call him and he has always been very helpful. so i am happy he is here. i thought i would just are, we're going, this panel is smaller. what we're going to do is each of the panelists speak briefly. were going to do we did before, i have a couple of questions for

each of them. but please jump in as you well. then we will take questions from the audience. tom, which you start? >> thank you very much. first of all it's been a pleasure to be associated with the center and with a great patriot and ambassador. it's great to be affiliated with this organization and the institution and all of you in the audience who support him and his efforts. we are grateful for that support as we'll. i think they're a couple of predicates underlying as a team of study. the first predicate is forevermore, forevermore and the united states our security and our prosperity will be tied to the security and prosperity of the balance of the world. when you think about it, in the '60s we had the only economy, the only military. we have supremacy just about everywhere. we are making gauges and gadget but slowly things have changed through the force of the globalization. and those in this town who

desire to be political isolationist or economic isolationists would put front i think america on a path to a second degree military and a second degree geopolitical power and to a second rate economy. we cannot afford to pull back economically. we cannot afford to go back economically -- militarily, diplomatically, from the rest of the world. and we have to engage. second predicate, and there were several other line in the study i believe, the institutions of government as they exist today, and if you think about it, are not really designed or focused on that which may occur five or 10 years down the road. it's pretty much an ad hoc democracy. something is coming in front of his. we try to avoid. we try to do with it. but call me the next time,

within the political arena says we anticipate these problems a decade from now and we're going to act today. it doesn't happen. it's not a fault. it's not -- are not being accusatory. it's just the nature of institutions and i'm proud to be up there for 12 years. they don't think in terms of strategy and they don't think in terms of budgeting long-term. so you want to match our strategy with the budget and then try to promote those issues the best you can pick people in this panel talk about what are the outcomes? are the measurable quick how we determine success? how we define success? so the citizen wants -- a couple of very capable people all walks of life, and let's have our institutions of democracy, our institutions of self-government in this town look long-term. now we can look long-term, but as david and his group have

said, you may need of the strategy long-term but you have to start thinking in terms of budgeting long-term as well. now clearly in the area, let me share a couple words with you about security and global engagement. there is tremendous respect, i believe, today throughout the world for the american brand. there's disagreement about how we conduct foreign policy from time to time, disagreement and our presence in iraq. but by large i believe the world still appreciates and understands and admires the american brand. the american that are you system. they admire our diversity. they admire a lot of things about it, and we're not perfect. we will never be perfect. but we need to understand that and not get kind of tied down and occasional political. sovereigns are allowed to disagree. they have and they always will. is a healthy democracy. maybe we are to healthy in this

country right no. there's a lot of disagreement and not enough consensus, but the bottom line is if we except that as a basic tenet, that america is unique and we have a brand and we got to quit preaching a little bit, but there is a branded by system people admire. how are we going to engage the rest of the world? to retain. to retain our ability to influence events, diplomatically, militarily, socially, economically. how do we contain the brand ourselves? this report comes up with some fascinating ideas. the foundation for international understanding. remember how effective radio free europe was? why don't we explore the use of global communications? the facebook, social media, how do we get america's message out? let's think different about writing ourselves overseas. one of the interesting pieces and this is the foundation for international understanding. i think it's a remarkable i get. what we think about our engagement and the rest of the

world we have a tendency i think to be unilateral in that engagement. well, we're glad pakistan is helping us with the jihadists and helping us with in afghanistan, but they still have a conflict that's been going on since the late '40s with india. all right. so we look at our relationship with india and we look at our relationship with pakistan, and at some point in time would take a look at global problems why do we take a regional approach? why do we have treasure in state and department of homeland security and justice and the military, take a look at regions. because they would the global in the dependency. not so much country by country and isolation. let's think differently. let's think about in terms of regions. the report also goes to underscore and i will conclude, president obama's address a little bit. but if you talk about future security and future prosperity you betcha think about what we're going to do in the cyber

world. there are many talks cybersecurity. i get of somebody really identify for me what they are talking about. other than the fact that it is the backbone of the world economy. we are probably the most vulnerable because we're the most dependent by and large. the world is becoming increasingly dependent upon it. so do we need if we believe our security and prosperity and engage with the rest of the world on that issue. we know of all the hacking. we are 55,000 hackings into the department of defense at 2008. by mid-2009 decade about 40,000 hackings. so how do we as a judge engaged rest of the world for coming up with standards and protocols? if we ever designed, a lot of people think we can design the attacks. do we as a world community, i we united ending with the attackers? we are certain united in a military way with those who would attack us. relationship we have with nato, but are we united with those who

would disrupt the nervous system and the backbone of the world economy? we have to think about that. what's the strategy, long-term, for the rest of the world? let's start thinking about terms of budgeting consistent with the strategy to get these institutions today a different mindset, a different perspective in order to influence not only the rest of the world but in order to help us state our ability to partner with the rest of the world and our mutual interest. so i tip my hat to you and your organization for pulling together this over 18 months and i'm grateful to be a part of it. >> thank you, governor. [applause] >> i want to talk about solutions. we've all acknowledge the last hour that we have a severe challenge and competition and the economy and in creating jobs. the key to all of those is knowledge and skills of the american people.

education is the foundation and the most important strategy we can use over a long and short-range. next to, we are now witnessing something that is most unusual. i call it kind of tidal wave of state faction. and we need to surf the wave while that momentum is there. let me say first what is the package we need. in education we need to do four things. one, we got to raise our expectations, our standards, k-12 and have them coherent, consistent and be world-class and competitive with the world. fourth, we need as another bookend, a new set of text, examinations that not just hold us accountable, the students accountable and the system accountable, but count us in the learning that occurs in the classroom. between standards and tests, we need to have a very much more aligned curriculum and the most

important of all, a better teaching. those four things need obviously technology to help them happen. now, what are we doing? 48 of the 50 states have agreed in the last 12 months to try to arrive at a common core set of standards. that is monumental. you will remember when we were governor, there was no way we could get over the states rights issue. first, bush tried to have a national test, you know? got killed. when i 48 out of the 50 states saying, we are going to voluntarily agreed to a wide set of standards. there was a traffic came up. just a week ago. my prediction will be 80 percent of those states will adopt them. more important, those states have said not , and equally important or more important though states have set not only will we arrive at a common core of standards, but we

will arrive at a common core of examinations. and i went to angeles system for six and a half years. let me tell you, the exams are really what shape the content of the course and the level of teaching that occurs. teachers teach to the exam because there are consequences of there. so the key is to get the right exam. let me give you a simple illustration together question about the korean war. the question would be who was president who was president of the united states during the korean war? you don't teach to that. all you do is give a kid a set of facts. but to ask the question, why were we as a country engaged in this war? what was the policy objective? and give them five alternate answers. then the teacher has got to teach to a different conclusion. the quality of the exams is critical. now therefore 50 states can get together or 80 percent of them, and agree, they'll have exams that are coherent, math, liquid,

arts, science, and benchmarked to the best in the world. that's going to drive the politics of the american family to say you mean you're raising my kid and he's i going to be able to compete for the job show is going to have because the belgians are going to be better prepared? that's the most explosive political issue out there in the country. and it's going to hit the fan in the next 10 years, i believe. so what i'm saying is, there is a movement. obama and arne duncan are helping this by saying here's $4 billion race to the top to help states in the consortium to arrive at these examinations. as you well know, our tradition, federal government can't dictate the curriculum. but it can facilitate this by saying here are the right incentives for you voluntarily, collectively, to find a way to get this done. now, this is exciting stuff. it's -- just compare with health

care on how we are polarizing health care. we have a bipartisan group of governors and others saying we need to do this because they understand. finally, technology has got to be a strong part of this. every time i see, you know, the can. >> or a new laptop, there's going to be a revolution and a way in which we assist students to learn, assist teachers to teach, and hold ourselves accountable. you know, i have 19 grandchildren that i can look at their medical records which are committed and you can see the health of the child and say, hey, this is what we need to do to make that life work for you. we're going to have that kind of educational record for every child in america in 10 years, i will bet you. and hopefully, it will be used and a diagnostic tool so that you can take a kid, fifth grade, immigrant to the country, and say, hey, we're going to look at where you are now, where you ought to become and what we need to do together to get you to a

person who can be employed in this country. that's what's happening. it's a solution that needs a whole lot of nurture, but i'm hopeful. and it is unusual. i've been and is a long while. i haven't seen that kind of tidal wave come along, and there but on to get on and surf the hell out of it. [laughter] >> thank you. [applause] >> daniel akaka was about energy. >> first i want to say it's been an honor to be a part of this project. would you pull down and read from internet you will see that as both the framework and a low specifics, which makes it very constructive. and i think what it does is it encourages us as a nation to move beyond the world instantaneous gratification of a twitter and soundbites, and instead to lift our heads up and looked along the road to the future and kind of see what the challenges and the issues are. david abshire said at a high standard, and i think we try to

live up to it. but to talk about our future we need to have a sense of history. norm augustine warned us about hubert and ego and i think that applies to our history, that as i say on brochures for mutual funds, past performance is no guarantee of future success. and i think that goes for nation's, too. tom is talk about short-term view in terms of political process. david did as well. norm highlight some very important which a short-term view in terms of the private sector and in particular the demand of the institutional money management which is really our collective pensions for short-term performance. and i think if we look at, i have a list of the 13 reason for the great recession. and one of them is this the man for short-term performance and the pressure put on banks to act in to a in to a certain way. we paid a heavy price for that when you pulled in the study, we the little box about the suez crisis of 1956. speaking of history.

some of you will remember it. others have studied it. but has a slightly different twist on it because it's about how some very bright people made some fundamental mistake as they did not realize how fiscally constrained they were. this applies to the british and it pulled the plug from the. and creating among other things a vacuum in the middle east that the united states an extra play had to fill. and i think that's an important lesson to keep in mind as we look at the fiscal issues and concerns that underlined this report. energy. we have a $14 trillion economy. address on energy foundations that is pretty complex and has a skill that most people don't really see. it's not something that changes overnight. it's not like a you tube that can go from nowhere to everywhere but it takes, change doesn't come quickly and it is so critical to our economy. so i think one of the premises of the energy part of this is it's not an either or decision.

you've got to the ecumenical about it. you don't choose one side or the other. conventional fuels, also fuels provide 83 percent of our energy today. most studies indicate that by 2030, 2035 is still going to be around 80%. so making sure that energy is secure is a hive national authority. seeking to make it clear in certain i going to be a very big focus of it. and making it more efficient is another big focus. there's been one of the things i'm struck by is a kind of embrace of energy efficiency across the spectrum in the wake we've never seen before. and it's because not only the traditional reasons of cost and security, and integers like to make things more efficient, but it's also two of the fact that one is climate change and the other is seen that there is his new big surge of energy demand that's coming from the emerging markets and how do we cope with it and it all adds up to be more energy efficient. in order to secure that energy

base that we have, we have to pay very much attention to what tom talked about, our international relations. we exist in an international marketplace when it comes to energy, more part of a larger economy and energy is only part of that. we need predictability. we need a full picture, not peace bill but being able to see it prudently and sensibly to develop domestic resources. renewables and alternatives have certainly had a great deal of growth over the last several years. and this is not a fuel their to fuel their growth. and we're going to see a growing role. it's going to expand. it is still very small and even if it goes very fast, still going to be small for a number of years. and we're now reaching the stage though, a new one, where how do these news sources get integrated into our energy system. because as they get bigger the question of integration becomes more complex. so questions about how to

finance them, how to a properly nurture them come and there, too, predictability and certainty. i think the foundation of all of this goes to really what norm has been concerned with for a long time gathering storm before that. which is the will of innovation and research and development, which is a theme that runs throughout this report. i think in the energy sector all across the energy sector we've never seen the focus on innovation that we are seeing today. and that is to be commended. but we need steadiness. we don't -- when you look at the patterns you see the cycles of our anti-spending that go up and down and up and get that it's very hard for people to make careers in those areas when you have that kind of funding. so we need appropriate levels and we need sustained levels. all that i think takes us back in energy to what really are some of the larger issues of this study in this 18 month venture that we've all been part of, which is questions of investment, infrastructure, ensure that we are investing in

the kind of infrastructure we need for this entry and even for the next century. innovation and priorities. and i think that gets us in place to live up to the premises that david outlined for us, which is really preparing for the long haul, both with realism and also with confidence. thank you. [applause] >> i've got questions for each of you. i was going to go in order, but i'm just so -- energy is so interesting. dan, just going to ask you something. is there anything going on innovatively in this country? is there anything to be excited about? isn't anything new on the horizon? what the next cool app? >> there's a lot. i'm on the advisory board, energy advisory board at mit, and five years ago they didn't have an energy club. now they have 1200 students belong to the energy. but i say if he said was the biggest innovation in energy

said to be at the city, some of you will know the answer. it may surprise some of you. it's natural gas. which is really literally breaking a code by breaking the rock in terms of shale rock. suddenly as a country where they much, much more abundant domestic resource, lower carbon than other fossil fuels, and love it. but a lot of questions about how does this change our energy dialogue in the we do? i think i would say this innovation really, the breakthrough, a sort of 2002, 2003. this is only recognizing 2007. i think politically it was sort of discovered in washington and about august of 2009. so we are still beginning to figure it out. but if you just look at the scale of it, it's a big thing. >> can i just add one thing to that. this is a great, previous panel talked about jobs, innovation, competitiveness. this is where we ought to be spending considerable time and effort and resources because if

you take a look at the energy sector as you pilot there is enormous opportunity there or innovative technology as being experts. if it's at all in come if it's an all in proposition, i'm showing someone buys with natural gas and nuclear and renewables and solar, et cetera, et cetera. if there was a national strategy looking over the next 10 years on how we take our capability, our innovative capability, technological capability, wrap around the world more and better and smarter energy, it is come again, i guess ago from ad hoc crisis instead of thinking longer term. this is classic case for the centers approach long-term strategy budget and then don't play around with the budget once you decide what strategy should be expected governor, a question for you based on what you're talking about. you said the american brand is strong. i was thinking of indonesia, the

united states have always been admired there. the majority muslim country where deny states this has always been popular. and the polls have shown this. but suddenly they went down precipitously in 2003, and you can all, if you don't know you can imagine the reason, it was the invasion of iraq. than three years later's -- later they shot back at. what happen? they had a salami and the united states navy said ships. and these indonesians saw the first american sailor in their lives and they were bringing medicine and food and clothing. it was a great feel-good moment for the navy. it helped us to help the american brand. the other sort of feel-good moment for the military, it happened just recently in haiti. the marines and the army and navy, air force, all went in. very popular. saving lives. meanwhile, afghanistan, iraq goes on. which is the future of the united states military?

that very soft power or the hard power that you see in afghanistan? >> i think you retain the capability with all those tools. and use them selectively as we discovered i think in iraq. sometimes they need to be used in unison. one of the interesting stretches around i think general petraeus effort in iraq, and i was listening to them about a year ago give a briefing. and for someone who spent a little time and get none, i took a look at and said i we who have applied those in the '60s and early '70s when he talked about the need to have a strong military presence, but they also need to build up and indigenously to building within a particular country to monitor its own affairs. so that's why you go after entering the army. that's what you train the police. but simultaneously you have to do build infrastructure of a civil society. roads and bridges and schools. suddenly you have that at the center of authority, but you also have a certain degree of

empathy, sympathy and support from the committee. suddenly they have something they want to protect. it is about keeping all those tools available to you. i think it requires the foundation for international understanding, we need to communicate. let's be serious. up until recently, the most, one of the most difficult both in washington, one of the most favorite targets politically is for a. the fact of the matter is if you take a look back on occasions when i think perhaps some development assistance, some engaged in a different kind of way and different parts of the country, just think for a moment we assisted the motion been, get the russians out of afghanistan. what happens, and i don't know if you sing charlie wilson's war, but there's a scene at the end where he suggests that we as spend the money, should we

consider as a country a few dollars to start building roads and bridges and schools? who knows if the outcome would've been any different. there was such a strong vacuum that the taliban would've come in regards. i think your question, you need to have come you didn't military might. we do need a military, new demands on them getting with the asymmetric enemy, but smart power and its software. there's a soft power of ideas and our value system. there's also the smart power and the soft power system for for a. we shouldn't forget. >> i'm going to turn to questions from the audience in a minute, but i couldn't let my friend off the hook. i have two questions for him. i'm sorry is not because you're sitting by me. it's because i used to cover education so i think i know something i probably don't. useful, governor, about this movement, the 48 and 50 states. and you said there are

$4 billion after. and i guess my skeptical journalism question is there a movement or just before million dollars? because the last three presidents, bill clinton, when your governor and thomas governor, and then dick riley was former governor was secretary of education, tried to push this. and george w. bush tried to push it. isn't all about the money? >> it's a movement but it needs to be assisted. let me take the difference. we know now, china is very strong competition. just go to wal-mart and looked. we know now that jobs go overseas because they are more skilled. there's a different awareness. i like to visualize the family at the table, three kids, thinking about what's the future. and they're worried about those kids are going to have less income than we do, going to live in a smaller house. how can we help them cope? and they know that skills are critical. the problem is, i went to l.a.

six years ago and ran a school system, the second largest in the united states. and if it was kind of satisfied with being mediocre. and that is a failure. and so you've got to bring education to wear a parent can look at education like they do health. and they have kind of on their while, okay, if we want our child to be employed after they graduate from high school, or get into college, here is the track of map that showed has got to go. that child is that in the fourth grade. we need to communicate to those parents so that they know these are the expectations you have to have from the system and your child and from yourself. and then we need a digital reporting periodically to the parent that says okay, here's where a child should become here is where your child is, here's what we together are going to do in the next period of time. that's what you do if they had a bad loan. we need to raise our expectations. we need to communicate better, and we need to get it and we're

25th in the world that comes to comparing ourselves on math or science. >> i actually have a lot more questions, but i realized that i'm just going to dominate the thing. so what we're going to do now is open it to questions from the audience. there are two right here and we have microphones. please wait -- there is one back there. is between patiently. wait for the microphone to get to you. asked the question. also, i've got norm augustine is to hear and david walker is to do. and if you passionate about, what are you guys just come up if you don't mind. so your question can be anybody. i was going to ask carla but i think she slipped out. annually, so let's start with right here. >> hi. i'm sally. let me say that my husband was chairman of the republican national committee at one point in time and had run political campaigns.

and he and i always were interested in a topic called baby boomers, of which i am a part of that population. i am very greatly concerned about my friends, they're all very discouraged at where we are. some of them have guaranteed pension plans. most of them have had to go to a 401(k). and it is down. stock markets are still do and we're very concerned about our retirement. and most of my friends from south carolina are going to draw social security at 62. this is a huge number, almost 80 million. tell me, how these great initiatives are fabulous. but i'm going to get my social security, and i know my friends are. [laughter] >> david? >> well, first, social security does not face an immediate crisis. it is negative cash flow, and cash flow was key.

it's got a $78 trillion unfunded obligation. but frankly solving social security in basketball terms is a layer. you can miss a let but it is a pretty high percentage shot. what we need to do is to gradually increase the early and the normal retirement age, let's say, for example, three years over 20 years and index it to life expectancy. strengthen the benefit for people near the poverty level because too many people rely upon social security only for retirement that it wasn't intended to be that way budget is. still provide a benefit that may be somewhat less that it is carbon. and we can do all of that, make it secure indefinitely. and a defined-benefit approach without raising taxes. some people want to raise the tax to moderate benefit adjustments. but the other thing we have to do is we have to add on automatic savings account. two to 3 percent of pay to get our savings rate up to reduce our dignity on foreign leaders

to provide a preretirement death benefit and a postretirement supplemental retirement benefit. 50 percent of americans don't have a private pension plan. of the ones that do, most of them are in defined contribution plans. they bear the risk of market returns. we have a low savings rate. we need to mature we recognize those realities. >> david, thank you. >> i am from duke university. among other things i run a small business where we higher guestworkers, and that program is going to be slowed down by the present congress, i understand, and its union cause. we can get american workers. this is a tree farm and we do a lot of things. on education, that seems to be the big opposition to reform our unions. and on the fda's, on doha, i've debated uaw and others. the unions are unequivocally oppose. there is really nothing that you

can do tweaking the policy that would change their views. i haven't heard the word union mentioned on either panel. so i would be very interested to know where that fits in your views and annual report. thank you. >> eat you could see my notes you would say question two, are the democrats can't do of the teachers union. so, to me afterwards that i can prove it. ray, would you take the question? >> i will be very realistic. as a party chair in colorado, you attend a democratic caucus or democratic convention, 25 percent of the delegates are members of the teachers union. california, you know, probably similarly. they are very strong, very active. that's the way america should be. we need to join with them very hard to change the formula. i put the package out, standards, curriculum, teaching, assessments, supported by technology. the teaching is the most

critical. we need to be more rigorous in our screening and hiring teachers. we higher from the bottom third of the class. we need to hire from the top third of the class. we need to pay better. we need to tie pay to performance. this is tough. we need to use this new examination system as a part of the violation of teachers, but not the whole. got to be very careful. you put teachers strictly on an evaluation of what their students do. they will forget the bottom third of the classes so they look. they will manipulate the system. you need to have, the measurement as a part of it but not the whole. this is tough, but there is some -- the aft is talking so see about getting with a new form of evaluation. let me just say i thought recently in colorado when i was governor we created the air force academy. that's a great thing. we've got to go and look at what a singapore and south korea does on teaching. maybe we are to create five

academies of teaching at which we guarantee a job to the best and brightest that go into. we pay them while they are there, and we require absolutely restrictive admissions come and we set a standard, you know, for what teachers can be. the quality of teaching is probably what will save us in education to. >> anybody else's? >> thank you. i'd like to footnote voice comments. into a specific area that pertains to a violent background. there been a number of studies that show that 50 to 85 percent of the increase in the gross domestic product over the last 50 years have been from advances in science and technology. is likely to be even more in the years ahead because of the pace, acceleration in those fields. today if you're a fifth through eighth grader, u.s. public

school, there's a 69 percent chance that your math teacher has neither a degree or a certificate in math. there's a 93 percent chance of physical science teacher has neither a degree nor certificate in physical size. there is probably a physical and teacher has been told to go teach math. then we wonder why kids don't get inspired with math and science. it's not helped in this city by our newspaper the "washington post" recently been a full-page story on how to get good grades in college. that was the headline. subhead was don't study engineering. that's what we tell our young people. and yet, we're going to have to impede on the basis of math and science. when it comes to the teachers unions, clearly that's been one of the major in hibbitts to change but i think that is changing. i think the teachers unions just in the last year have begun to

realize that half the teachers are above average. we ought to look out for them, too. not just the bottom 2%. i think we're clearly seeing that change. i think the teachers unions are realizing that they, too, will have to be more supportive of getting rid of the poor teachers and rewarding the good teachers the with a good teachers really ought to be rewarded. >> i'm to we have time for one more question, but i've already knotted at three people. so i will take three questions if i can get my panelists to agree to answer succinct way. everybody okay with that? right here is the first one. >> this is on the subject of university education. the internet now makes it possible to collaborate with people overseas as easily as people on the same campus. and i think that that opportunity isn't fully taken advantage of. it raises the opportunity to promote national development, increase stability of states.

may be increased cooperation on protecting cybersecurity. it also increases their ability to compete with the u.s. firms and workers. so what's the u.s. policy on promoting collaboration through the internet? >> i don't know. does anyone know that? that's a good question. is also a good statement. so we will just -- david, that's an extra report then. [laughter] >> dan? >> obviously, there are things like academic.org that seek to enable one to collaborate on universities around the world. so certainly, people are doing it. >> and it was a question over here. >> admiral -- admirable report. a lot of effort. it is very valuable. the elephant in the room is bipartisanship. i mean, politics here. we know what's happening in

washington. the chances of any of this happening, you know, doesn't seem to me like it's going to happen. it occurs we have something president clinton said, right now the politics, the way it works, it works. if you are against everything you get your turn comes and you get elected. president clinton said it will stop working when they suck getting elected. you know, when it stops working. so when the parties to work together, when the parties were together, that's not happening because right now it's effective not to work together. how do we change that? how to change that before the worst does happen? >> look, there are for some very deep practical things we can do. let me start with california. the way the district in california greece this polarization. you ought to make congressional districts and legislative districts which are closely competitive. you get better quality

candidates and yet better policy. first problem. second, campaign-finance. i'm worried about what the supreme court has recently done. i have run for office in colorado, five, six times. ivan for the senate one day and loss. i spent 89,000 in that campaign. this was back in 1965. do you know what it costs to run for the senate now? look what the senators do. they spent half the time raising money. those are fundamental things that we can fix. finally, we've got to think seriously about the kind of media that we are confronted with. i try to find something on radio or television that has some degree of the balance that i can inform myself. and outside of the jim blair, i'm really up a creek. >> outside of politicsdaily.com. [laughter] >> and there are others, but i just want to say, you -- name

names. unfortunate get on the readers sometimes and rush limbaugh is on too many stations i can't avoid him. i think this is pointless to have everybody just a drill daily up on the irrationality of the extremes. brainwashing really can be effective. i'm worried about it. so modest comments. let me stop. >> just a quick comment. i think there's a lot of -- people don't turn on television anymore i think to learn. they turn onto a their views reinforced because that so many of these shows are aligned. your very thoughtful, not very many forms of thoughtful disposition or discussion of the issues. and one of these days perhaps the leaders of both national parties and leaders in the house and senate and a bipartisan's way was i let us least agree to be civil to a debate. there's not much stability. although if you look back at the

housework debates in the 200 year history of our country, there was a lot of incivility way back then. but it's no different now because it is translated into a national environment, and we've become very, very partisan in that regard. i think a great place to start with the independent redistricting. independent redistricting is done by state legislators and it's not quite a science yet, but it's getting -- they're getting better and better at it. and, therefore, you in that probably out of the house of representatives 435 dissidents, have only 30 of 40 truly competitive districts. i would love to see independent redistricting. >> i think we need three things. we need independent redistricting because it's the ideological divide i think is more of a problem than the partisanship. that's a function of how we'd redistrict right now. secondly, we need finance campaign reform. and thirdly, my personal view is while there are pros and cons, we need to update the term

limits. the founders never envisioned that you would have people who would be career politicians staying in the same job. that it's not good for transformational change. and i think the pros of outweigh the cons. >> we're going to wrap it up. if you notice the answer to that question can everybody talked about these dishes, these gerrymandered districts together once said on a radio, if you that gerrymandered was the root of all evil. and what are my brothers called and reminded, called the their everybody i used to say that a but see, the commissioner of baseball. [laughter] >> so i retire that line. but i just, i want to say, but i want to say industries, there are a lot of journalists out there who don't like the sort of new tone that seems fashionable on the internet, especially in cable television and politics daily is a website and there are

many other news organizations that have done that when we try to have bipartisan views and civil. and stability turns out to be not just a polite thing. it turned out to be important to democracy. and so what i say is i'm doing my part anybody up here is doing their part. i have a former republican governor to my left and a democratic governor on my right. they both worked on this report. i will say one other thing. i realize why i'm up here is because he has talked about long-term planning. vivid action and his infinite wisdom had noticed that i'd written all the stories criticizing george w. bush for talking about the social security going cropper 2019 what we had troops in the field. and i thought that was bad and i realize i'm a. to do penance for those columns. because i, look at his tenures ahead is what we ought to be doing. and this report does that. it just showed a. is available. i hope i'm right about this right outside the doors.

so get it. i would do it again. www.thepresidency.org. and for those watching television, www.thepresidency.org. thanks, dan. and for those of you in the room, the report is available. and i think all of you for your attention. a public. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> a form on efforts by the obama administration to provide transparency and openness in government. first, the president special council on ethics and governmental reform in a

conversation on getting started. then a panel on changes to the law making it easier to get federal government information. and finally, they use and effects of that information. hosted by the center for american progress. this is two hours and 10 minutes. >> i'm director of government reform here at the center for american progress. we are pleased to be hosting this event on government transparency. building a more open and transparent government is a key priority of the center for american progress. we just launched a new project called doing what works. where we will be promoting open government and we're very pleased to be working with the open government coalition in advancing this important goal. and the opportunities before us are truly great. with new technologies, we can disseminate more information, build incredible analytical

tools to hold government accountable. and enlist the public and the policymaking process. and we also now have an administration that is committed to taking advantage of these opportunities, that is committed to being most transparent administration in the nation's history. and this past year indeed we have made much progress. and the administration has started to put in place a solid foundation. but we still have much building left to do. and the open government coalition and its director, patrice mcdermott, is providing critical leadership and ideas as we move forward. patrice has a long history working on open government issues, having preserved at the american library association, and she continues to be aging champion of these issues. and she has pulled together a great show for us today. so i will now turn it over to patrice to get things started.

patrice? >> thank you, reece. that was very, very generous. so, hello and welcome to the fifth annual national discussion on government openness and secrecy to help and a very successful sunshine week. i'm your moderator as reece said, patrice mcdonough. the official name of the open the government coalition. our cosponsors for the event are listed on the program that is available to you outside, and i'm not going to go through all of them. and we are very grateful to them for the help in creating this event and making this a success. this year again we're webcasting live from the center of american progress from washington, d.c.. i want to thank reece and john podesta, president and ceo of gap for graciously hosting the event for us this year. the center is a partner in open government.org and is honest and committee. and the staff at c.a.p. have

been wonderfully helpful and wonderfully patient. as always we thank all of you for joining us live in the studio, and those of you watching at meetings in your communities or from your computers in your office, or from your beds, or wherever you're watching. remote audiences, we have numbers and e-mail address that you can send your questions to. the e-mail address is. the phone number is two ciro 27416278. please be aware that we will not be able to get to all of you but we will do our best. last year on his first day in office, president obama said a member of his administration on transparency and open government. asking him to develop recommendations for an open government directive that moves government towards being transparent, participatory and collaborative. that directive was issued last december and the agencies are underway to develop an open government plans. the blueprint, as it were, for building transparency.

and are just wrapping up public forums on what should be in those plans that actually today is the last day for you to participate in those initial forums anyway. as a silver sunshine week, we are excited and curious about the changes ahead for the agencies and the public. we will have three panels of distinguished guest today. i will introduce peace panel when they take the stage. our first panel our joint us to discuss briefly, unfortunately from what the obama administration has achieved today and the plans for the months ahead and what remains to be done and are too to nongovernmental panels will also give us their views on what has occurred so far, what remains to be done, what are new ideas that haven't been put forward yet. we are honored to welcome norm eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics in government reform. and our openness go to guy for the last year. we are also pleased to welcome

jim harper, director of information policies study at the cato institute. and he maintains an online federal spending resource washington watch.com. and highly but serving not least, john wonderlich who is policy director at the sunlight foundation. we think each of you for joining us today. norm, let's start with you. we have provided a hand up that describes in you're in the presence word with the obama decision has accounted over the last year to vote open is in the executive branch. [inaudible] >> it's the president and then you. yes. i got it right on the head that. yes. so what we would like to hear is, dinner, very brief summary if you have additional items. and what you have very plan for the upcoming months. >> i faced a challenge this week and that there were a number of opportunities to represent the

administration's point of view, and i needed to do something a little different for each one. and i really took the hand when patrice sent me the copy of my blog, a new rating all of our things, saying she would be handing out. so i thought i would take advantage today and of the final day, sunshine week, to address the tremendous progress that we are starting to make in one area. it's really only one of the dozens of transparency areas that resulted in the obama administration getting a great of a for its transparency work in the first year from a coalition of independent outside reform groups. although it's only want it is an important one. and that is a foia complaint. and connect please tell you know the chief officer reports were due internally this week.

and we have surveyed them for the cabinet. and for a couple of additional agencies, epa and the fed, that were included in some of the metrics this week and that are important agencies. and i'm very pleased to tell you that the government is clearly making progress on foia. all 17 of the agencies have made concrete changes in response to the presence of directives. those changes are producing improved results and we'll build the framework for long-term reform. agriculture put an electronic tracking system for foia. at commerce, program offices now certified before they withhold information that disclosing additional information would result in harm to an important interest. defensively trained over 500 persons involved in foia. processing.

energy implemented online foia request forms. the fbi changed its policy to provide for more comprehensive searches in every request sent to headquarters. and on and on through the cabinet and the others. and you would see a similar 100% rating if you were to expand this, for example, to the so-called 25 cfo agencies, a larger group of 25 and we're working through the is can you explain to the world what cfo agencies say? it does not mean she's foia officer. is a chief financial officer. it is a common grouping we use an government to look at some of the largest and most critical agencies. the objective data and those foia officer reports are now being released on the website and you can find those on the agency websites to see for yourself. the objective data for fiscal

year 2009 or operate, corroborate these concrete changes. foia is first and foremost about releasing information and releases are up. almost 10,000 more releases in full. and/or in part over the course of the last fiscal year. for the 17 agencies. that is almost 10,000 more reporters, advocacy groups, average americans and almost 10,000 more folks like the people in this room and watching on the internet who got their requests were information answered by the government. the progress that we're describing is taking hold broadly, broadly across the government. a majority of the agencies in this critical group, 12 out of

the 17, or 70% i've increase releases in full or increased releases in part, or increased both. now, that's all the more remarkable because request from the public are actually down by 46,000. so that really highlights the direction of the trend. i should pause to answer the question that some of you may have, why the dramatic decline in requests. because we're affirmatively releasing vast amounts of data. my friend, jim, my favorite libertarian will talk about -- will talk about that the subject of another speech. will talk about data.gov a little bit. . .

in a small and quiet but profoundly significant ways across the entire federal government. just to pick one example given the limitations of time epa office of pesticide programs they have made tens of thousands of records available on their web site without waiting for requests for that information. as a result of that request for free quote and the requested material from zero pps at plummeted from 2% to 3% of requests received by the office and that story is happening all over the government. and another remarkable background fact is all of this progress was made while we tackled tens of thousands of backlog older and tougher for your requests many of which we inherited from previous administrations. we cut the inventory of the backlog by almost 60,000, about

124,000 to 67,010 of the 17 agencies achieved reduction in the backlog. as you know the ' requests tend to be the most difficult ones. often involving ones that could not be rapidly resolved because of their difficulty they often involve multiple exemptions per document to protect privileged or other information because there are so many of these it is to be expected that exhibitions went up. but we think it is to focus on a rising exemption alone is a profoundly misleading metric because so many tens of thousands of the documents were processed. and i would note the denial and fall based on extension decreased again in the majority of agencies and by about 5%

overall. so a couple final notes and then i will pass the baton. what makes all these encouraging signs all the more noteworthy is they reflect six months or less a full implementation of the president's new directives on these issues. these statistics i've gone through cover and the chief officer reports cover the last fiscal year, the period from october 2001 to september 30th, 2009, 4 months of the previous administration and two to four months or more between the president's memorandum and the attorney-general memorandum and in turning the ship of state to make the changes that are called for so i would add with to notes come to notes and conclude first we want to note it is still early to judge as my friends of the archive noted too early for

final judgment. a better data when we have a full year to measure the trends and changes. some of the data is mixed and there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done, and as encouraging and powerful as these statistics are as somebody who has worked in this area i thought it was so remarkable perhaps the most remarkable thing from our perspective about some shine week was the white house issued a memorandum from the chief of staff in the white house counsel urging the agencies to redouble their efforts despite the initial success and i would know what you have it before you again it is only one of the dozens of transparency initiatives that we have undertaken that led us to get the most recently echoed by the archive within a for effort that led us to get degree from the independent groups that study the full of rage of reform

issues, the raid and transparency is an important one and we look forward to working with you on of these issues in the time ahead. forgive me if i took a little longer but this is the first time we are presenting the full results and now petraeus is going to cross-examine me. >> i hoped, and i realize these reports just came out and you wanted to get the message out. i hope to talk about the open government plans and folks can take a look, agencies are finishing up an idea forum today. the plans are supposed to be up on the seventh of april we expect agencies will have something up. one of our concerns is partly with the agency and partly with the white house, the administration. this initial push, the first year coming here and a half is wonderful and it's been very

exciting. but what's going to be done to sustain the culture change that you want to occur, that we want to occur so that the state, and use it the other bigot will continue to have to be moving but it's easy for the agencies to drift back of the white house isn't constantly paying attention. >> i think it will be the open government plans of course are the strategy to have each agency owned and it is an extraordinarily detailed template the need to answer and we worked it out it was a fully participatory process we have three prongs of, three pillars to the openness of government philosophy transparency, collaboration and participation and the process of developing the plans was highly participatory. we got a lot of input from the folks in this room from our

moderator, folks at this table with me. and so those are kind of contract that each of those agencies are making with themselves or a better way to put it is a set of measurable objectives and then the agency's well abide by that and keep themselves honest. the first iterations will evolves and all of you will help in a participatory way to keep us on track if we give clear guidance which the president has provided. if we read it periodically which the chief of staff and white house council demonstrated this week they are very willing to do. we have adequate management resources of the top, we have a large group of colleagues for whom i am just one who work on this and then we have measurable benchmarks. that is those are the ingredients of holding us

accountable and i don't think we will disappoint. >> thank you. turning now to jim. i know that data.gov has been an interest to you and norm mengin how it's grown. how was the government doing it in public access to the data that it can use? how useful are those 118,000 data sets that are out there? >> having examined the mall first let me tell you thanks for having me here and the center for american progress for hosting this. i am glad to participate in the defense where we see ideological interests and transparency and i do that on privacy and identity issues and things like that so it is a delight to be here with this group. it's a delight to learn i am norm's to durham libertarian because i'm the only in laboratory and he knows. [laughter] and a lot of people's favorite libertarian because i will explain why stoplights are an

intrusion on liberty when i go to the properly at properties. i do tend to stammer and choke up a little bit when asked to say something complimentary about any government agency, but i think the obama administration deserves credit after its first year for both symbolically and substantively moving forward on transparency. you've got to admit it is from a very low baseline but it's a better and more transparent at fenestration than we've ever had before. certainly more than the most recent prior administration. the successes are clear, white house records seem small but i've been persuaded that it's a lot of work. i know the crucible he's in all the time and even that from an outside perspective may seem like a small achievement but i think it's real. the opening government directive was an important symbolism, not

symbolism has meaning. it was important symbolism. i worried over the course of the last year the open government directed and the devil and of the plan might be sort of a shiny ball goal that was taking the transparency community off to the site and may be distracting from some real gains that could have been made. but these things take time and there has been progress and i think that the data.gov site and the open sites are forward progress and so a lot has yet to come and i will come back to data.gov and the open sides of what remains to be done. the area where i would have to characterize the at fenestration it is not so good because i'm trying to be hopeful to. i don't want to see bad, it is sunlight before signing i did as an issue to track because president obama was very clear in his campaign speeches and on his campaign website that he

would get some light to legislation that came from congress and hold it at the white house for five days and posted online for five days so the public would get a chance to look at what's happened. i have been tracking sunlight before signing from the beginning. maybe it was a mistake politically to make a truckle promise but we want many more promises from candidates in the future. my account which is subject to dispute from my friends in the white house is that the obama administration is currently seven for 143 on the sunlight before signing. the bills that were subject to the promise are 143 and seven of those have gotten five days of hearing on the white house.gov available to the public so high school kids from across the country can look and see what the president might sign. that is a .049 batting average of your interest in baseball it is an improvement from one point where the administration was .009. that wouldn't get you in a team

but it will continue to improve the they put a link to the pending legislation that hopefully the process will be more robust on the white house got up and i think there is nowhere to go but up on some land before signing so congratulations, norm. it is fully implemented as we go forward. what needs to be done, what doesn't need to be done might be the question coming in by not talking about with the obama administration needs to do. it's what all of us need to do. we are building a new and different culture of transparency in government and so what remains to be done is putting out 100,000 data feeds is just the start. we need to figure out what they are in most important. i have tried to emphasize getting data feeds from agencies that relate to management deliberation results. the real internal workings of the agency. i think it's fine and it's helpful. there's nothing wrong with putting out nutrition data and toxic and all these things. they are good things and helpful for people to have but the

essence of government transparency is transparent workings of federal agencies and so the more of that the better. another measure, very difficult measure but i think the true measure of success is when sites like mine, washington watch and map light and all the others are making use of the data feeds. there has to be built culture in a community bigger than this room and many times over of people who use data. the agencies have to figure not what data is useful to them and what information they want from the agencies and then it has to be structured in a sound way. in that day and i will talk about a project and may be pitch to you a little project colleagues of mine in the community and i started on monday this week called earmarks data.org as you note to the president's credit he talked about getting a transparent earmarks data in the state of

the union and that is straightforward that joined the progress that the democratic house and senate started last fiscal year when they required membership to post information about the earmarks requests online. really good, but the information was posted in terrible format. ad washington watch i hosted a crowd sourcing project to try to gather all this information in scaap and pd def and html data formats and getting into a database and we collected, but thanks to the prices, kendal and ipod and a fruitcake number three was a fruit cake that's what i think people are going after. >> 9-3 he would have a better invention than the ipad. >> we had 40,000 requests and benevolent to do that against with the data book award winner not only asking developers to

help us work on a scheme we think is good but we need to refine it using of the community to help us make it better that we are asking individuals to use the site we have a petition to ask the members of congress and ask the had been a station to make sure that state-of-the-art data base on earmarks comes out to read earmarks requests all the way through the final bills we see the ecosystem that's not antiearmarks it's just let's see what's going on so we can do public oversight and administer well. that is one of the examples of the thousands we will need to develop in the different areas the government deals with as we go forward. cautious congratulations to the obama administration so far. there is so much work to do though. >> for the remote audience don't forget to e-mail questions@opengovernment.org or call and the speakers that are out in the lobby could come and sit down if they would like. john, you spend a lot of time on issues of the federal and

permission policy and practices. what do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges that face this administration and its efforts to make the government more transparent and what is the sunlight working on to help sustain openness in the government? >> thank you. so, i have to start off by saying what an incredible sunshine week. we were hopeful a lot of these things would have been put on top of the weather i have like 40 things to talk about. so that's why all of our notes have little scribbles oliver them because it's like how can i fit these ideas in. so looking back on just the last five days these are some of the things that pop into my head has enormous things that have happened. a representative of israel after working with the sunlight condition revealed the public online affirmation acts or h.r. 4958 which is the new effort to try to get all public information in the exit is print to be required to be posted on

the internet. we are free excited about that. you can get more information about it at boya.org. if you've been paying to the health care debate this week it's gotten little attention that we've got ideas the meat, ideas being before consideration. it wasn't long ago that was a pipe dream or something that would happen for on controversy il's a year ago that became something that maybe what be reasonable and would be done selectively. and this week the health care bill has talked about as though that is an assumption. it cited as though it is already a house rule so we have gone from a dream to assuming its reality and that happened this week. the supreme court unveiled a new version of their web site, which takes the supreme court website from i would say 1996 with the gray background and everything but the dancing gifts to something like maybe 2000 or 2002, which is 2010 but we will take what we can get so that was exciting. the sunlight foundation launched

a new nationwide campaign to engage citizens in a more open government which you can find out about at publicequalsonline.com. the congress has released new digital preservation and clean air act to require more easily understandable language. at the same time the open government directive plans are being finalized with agencies. i know people in a lot of agencies that have had all my writing sessions as they prepare drafts as the plans were being circulated that the agencies and we can't wait to see what comes out april 7th. and there is so much more happening. c-span put up all of their archives going back to something like 1980. part of the reason i fell behind this week as i was spending so much time and been through their archives for example everyone in my organization seen with the first time is the appeared on c-span which i might get in trouble for saying that it's really amusing what everybody's

first appearance for example you can see the end state senator barack obama in 1998 talking about putting transportation subsidies online on c-span.org executive director in their early nineties or in a number of things i can get in trouble for bringing up but everyone should do their own research through c-span's old archives. the work of a new international image your scanners which is a movement of people trying to begin to digitize the nation's recorded history has gotten attention in "the new york times" and starting to grow. right now it is the stage there's probably a few hundred dvds but to meet those represent the beginning of what will become a hockey stick of citizens being able to produce a peak in bodily opening more in beijing were analyzing the government helping to digitize the history. >> that said the coordination with the national archives. >> i could describe all of these because i have 40 of them. we will go through all of them that there are so many things happening right now and a lot more things i can't talk about

it that we are still working on. so in conjunction these things to be represent the opportunity and that is that we see broad coordinated movement towards creating more open government especially through technology and policy and through what has really been a change in the national psyche because of the experience of using technology and of what has become an obama your promise about what technology can do for the government. now, along with that opportunity that's happening, we have a lot of challenges. one of them is living up to those opportunities and what could be hype. i said this at an earlier talk. i don't want to see it happen to transparency what happened to break dancing. basically what happened to break dancing -- [laughter] >> i couldn't say make special accounts for break dancing. [laughter] >> i don't want a brief

commercial success that then becomes not hip in 2012. that is my concern i want this to become sustainable and voluble and built in and assume and not something that was over promised and then becomes a fad so that leaves us with a lot of challenges in brief we need to balance between defining a new thing is the executive branch is doing and it the same time managing to encourage and do the right amount of experimentation so there is balance things and the right amount of experimentation, and challenges around coordination outside the government so all of the thousands of experiments that are happening. it's fine if some of the open government's sale but that is another thing we have to do with is the amount of enthusiasm and thinking what the right way is to receive all of that popular enthusiasm. so, in short, sunshine peak

enormous success. if only to people to organize my thoughts after what has been such a crazy week but the genie is out of the bottle as we say at some light sometimes the camel's nose is sticking into the tent so it's exciting to be part of that. >> thank you to read it and that more is itching to respond. >> i am confident that transparency will not be a passing fad and i will say why briefly in a way that responds to the message that i appreciated so much from the to a few each in your own way such leaders in the outside world on this issue. somewhat different ways. [laughter] it's because, john, the great project that the president is carrying on although while you freeze it in terms of technology

and technology is certainly important it is really an 18th-century project that dates back to the foundations or 17th century projects that date back to the foundations of the democracy, and that is the notion of the government of body and for the people. and this is the technology but also the will. you wouldn't have to have the technology to do all that although sometimes it helps make possible full participation in a way that rests the ownership of the government in the people particularly not just predators a patients collaboration which to us is the highest virtue of openness, and it is a post partisan endeavor and i think it is fascinating as we embark on the kind of slogan or partisan divides the president has worked spoken so often eloquently about

but as we actually break down the barriers to solve problems like the earmarks problem together that those partisan divides really fall away i will say that i followed the cato blogging of the state of the union and the earmarks, the president's earmarks views received a higher marks, and it was the only now that i think back. but we see it in other ways, too. the way that we make it real and not just philosophy is with numbers, with milestones, benchmarks, quantification, measuring. that's why focused on the measurement of the concrete success to start because that, too, should be an assurance that

this is for real and is lasting. >> okay. if you want to respond to that? we have a couple minutes and will open up for questions. >> there is a lot going on. and i feel in all of this before john's book to credit the sunlight foundation for all the dolls but especially the earmarks project so i didn't want to just highlight that. we had washington watch and thanks to the help of the summit foundation which is working on so many things and i know why john is as busy as he is. a couple of -- i will predict john also with of the notion that transparency should not be break dancing. if i could put a gloss on that i would like transparency to be a pop, not break dancing and for those of you have an older generation or my generation, rock and roll. it's never going to die. now, norm and i have been kind to one another. it's really not entertaining enough. so let's go. >> you only have a minute.

[laughter] >> i see transparency almost exactly the same way that norm does. as a real opportunity to develop a again the people's capacity for self-government. that is a modern age with a large complex society to redevelop capacity for self-government, and my ultimate vision and i am saying this for fun but also because i'm deadly serious is to have a people who don't think they should rely on the federal government for their health care decisions. that was just to inject a note partisan remarks. >> not partisanship but i don't. >> you'll get dustin trouble. >> the other interesting issue, returning to sunlight before signing, is whether -- and this will be much to my surprise because the 72 our law said i'm being made a monkey of by the house leadership, i assumed they would not put a bill for 72 hours but it looks like they will abide by the 72 hour for will be for a vote.

and i just hope -- i just hope to hear that the obama had fenestration won't be outclassed by house democrats. [laughter] that couldn't be possible, norm. >> i'm going to take the bait on that one. jim and i, although we do agree more often than anybody who knows us would think possible, there is a -- there are differences and measurement and how we do the sunlight before signing. we do not, for it simple, include the post office bills for naming of post offices and such and what we post. if you subtract those out, the vast majority of the bills have been posted in accordance with the commitments and they've been posted for comment on the white house we started posting them earlier and earlier in the process often more than five

days. there's also a difference and we now i think have come to the meeting of the minds on this. jim did not agree with the way we were posting them. he felt that it was too tough to have to look for them. they were there on the white house website. she felt it was too tough to look and we are posting them in a way that we agree so we get a discount from that in how we measure this and then it was always understood and the president was explicit there are going to be bills under exigent and you cannot always wait five days. that accounts for some of the difference. so, we do have a different view but i think we've moved now moving towards more of a place we have agreed on where they are posted and hope to be able to agree on a much higher batting average now that it's spring training season. >> the future is looking bright. >> we do think we were

compliant, however, before. >> we are going to start opening this up to questions and actually, if you would go lineup that behind the camera. mary alice has a question, has a microphone. while we are lining up, i would like to thank the foundations that fund openthegovernment.org that make it possible and the csrl of california and would like to note that we have a couple of staffers here and in addition to the bills john has mentioned, the faster bill which would create a commission to identify and make recommendations about the backlogs was introduced this week and a bill which i am the communication something bill which would lead towards greater

management of electronic communications including e-mail passed the house this week. .. both good and bad reasons. and so they adopt this a very narrow compliance approach to

the issues and my first question is, how are you thinking about dealing with that? and i second issue which is related is many programs involve a discretion to third parties, states, localities, ngos, for profits and how are you dealing with back? >> well, jim, how are you going to deal with the? >> wait around for years until the culture changes. >> i think the point that is not the case with the obama administration. we are seeing how not just strong leadership and guidance, but as my description of the 100% compliance where concrete change in the cabinet made clear as the description of the data metrics beverages starting to see measured made clear, we're seeing commitment on the part of the agencies and i do want to take a minute and is not to say

there is a tremendous more to do -- there is but they are attempting to turn the ship of states, starting really got off to a good start without, more to be done as the chief of staff white house council recognized. then i will also point to the open government directive because there's a philosophical and both those areas philosophical approach that i think makes a difference, philosophy of government. it's really the same notion of government by and for the people that we ought to break down the barrier. we have invested it the agencies with the authority in the open government plans -- we didn't tell them what to do, we sort of post the question and the options and provided metrics, provided assistance and leadership, a lot of structure and regular meetings. soon will have meetings with the taking comments on and they are designing those plans, they're

setting their own a benchmarks and milestones, they're committing. so it is not a top-down system. the leadership comes from the top, commitment comes from the bottom up and this is a wonderful i have to say wonderful experience for folks and government who are really rising to this talents, the career of sind government and as you heard from both of my colleagues out in the world. i won't go on at length about the question -- >> we don't have time. >> but folks are responding in ways that are collaborative and we will have even more for you next year on that point. >> we have about five more minutes for questions. we have the 13 host sites around the country who are sponsoring their own events today and having speakers and this is the question which i think is probably more appropriately for you to take back with you but is

a comment about difficulty locating government documents on david.gov. there are very difficult to search for this person search for no doubt left behind and, of course, the education anything up there about that, but this is really about the difficulty of surging david.gov so we will take another quick question from the live audience and go to a question from our remote folks. >> one of the things i wanted to tell you about is my boss congressman beryl eisa and from chicago will shortly announce a the first bipartisan congressional transparency caucus. the idea of the caucus is going to be to provide a permanent infrastructure for transparency and accountability and open government in congress. we hope that the senate will

follow suit. i'm interested in talking with all of you about our legislative agenda, we tried to be transparent about that and i know at this jim and john have seen a copy of what we're working on and hoping to have water conversations with them. i have one question for norman and you'll want to have another about that -- >> and be happy to take a copy as well. >> that would be great, we are two his parents about that but broadly speaking where are the areas where you think the open government directive requires producers legislative support? >> well, it is a good question, it is an important question. in it is one that i am going to need to evaluate. we have been very focused because it has been such a busy and such an extraordinary legislative year, we think one

of -- some of the most of remarkable legislative accomplishments certainly since the '60s was if you look at the list, we've been very focused on what we can do in the executive branch and the immediacy although i notice some you may say you've been there a year, but with doing the open government directive and making a meaningful is really taken every minute of that and some of the transition time as well to think about how to do it right, how to make it last dust in terms of talking to each other in the executive branch so i appreciate the invitation. wamp and that we will give that matter some thought. we will talk more about its. >> eid is one to say thanks to hudson for bringing it up and knowledge it was painful to not talk about. [laughter] >> a very important development. >> some legislation might help but a lot of the responsibility lies with the community of users and i think what we're trying to

do with your mock data to the board is made easy by producing the davis, and asking for it to, that can be done by 9/11 house rules, just by house practice so legislation. >> we have two minutes left and i have a couple questions i'm going to combine and i think there for everybody on the panel. one of them really plays off of what has been said that is how do we ensure that the transparency is that the obama administration is making remain in place across the administration's? i think that goes to pot of fine. but other measures that are available for measuring openness in government besides check the box which i thank you sort of mansard. >> well, i will speak to the measurement issue and it really goes to the notion of collaboration. part of the reason i am so focused on the statistics today is because there has been one

healthy debate this week about the progress and we believe the chief officer reports on the data demonstrating a strong progress and a good start. you may not be -- there is a certain amount of responsibility that everyone has both in media and the folks on the world, to make sure to get right. so i don't know folks notice of "the new york times" for example had to retract. its headline on a story that they did it earlier in the week. usa today had to do a retraction and we have methodological issues necessarily and some other reports were incomplete and now we have more authoritative data from within government but i do think that there was other news stories that focus on the exemptions out of context in a way that to convey is the wrong picture so i do think there is -- and the public has a responsibility both to keep us accountable but also

to share our success and the public frankly is a part of the success story with this because we have almost 10,000 more folks to have got what they ask for this year. so i think is very important that we maintain this with high standards on all sides that we maintain our collaboration and that as part of the way i am sounding like a libertarian out. [laughter] its exposure to jim. but that is part of the way that we will all maintain progress on this. >> regretfully we are out of time for questions, we had 10 minutes and reviews them up. so i'd like to thank our panel for their time in fort lively and thoughtful dialogue with all of us. [applause] if our other panel would make their way up here, please.

we are now going to turn our discussion to changes being made in the freedom of information act policy and practices, some of which norman has discussed in this but is this accident and apprentice start introducing our folks as they arrive appear in their name tags to put in place. we are honored to welcome miriam nisbet and burma's services at the national archives and records administration. and coming along behind me the melanie pustay director of the office of information policy at the department of justice. we're very pleased to welcome melanie slowness on the end who is the executive director for responsibility and ethics in washington also known as crew and kevin goldberg who has counseled for the american society of news editors, asne.

we think each of you for joining us here today. hello, everybody. thank you. try to keep this ship moving. keep the train running on time. merriam, let's start with you today. the office you had the, the office for government information services just got going last fall and i know if there is a great hope for it in the community. let's start out talking -- you have a dual role but if folks out there may not know it is the ombudsman role and review of agency implementation so let's start out talking about the review role that the office has. how are you thinking about implementing that and what have you already put in place if anything? >> thank you. good afternoon everybody. it is wonderful to be here on the fifth day of sunshine week

and to have heard from the panel before, a recap of the wonderful things that have been going on and we would like to consider how the office of government information services which was not around the year-ago for sunshine week. a reason to cele. let me just mention before i answer your questions. and we do have a handout if you didn't get it coming in could you please get it going out because it will tell you in a nutshell what we are about, what review part in the mediation services for the first time in a administrator process of foia. and also our contact information very important, how you can reach us by any means technological or otherwise and we hope to hear from you. so we do have these two roles,

the office was created by the 2007 amendments to the speetwo open government act of 2007 with a twofold mission, one is to review agency procedures and policies, their compliance with the freedom of information act and to make recommendations to congress and the president on changes that might need to be made. in that regard, i want to be sure the aide to congressman eisa, are you still hear? where did he go? somebody will tell me -- we would be interested in talking with him because it sounds like he has an interest were rep does and also looking for ways that congress might support to certainly the open government

directive it is what he mentioned, but, of course, foia is a piece of that so that would be something we would be looking for to in order to do that particular part of our mission. we're certainly going to be continuing to work with the department of justice which has certainly the oversight role on foia compliance for the government. we will be looking to work with the very groups that are represented here, and particularly instrumental in pushing for changes throughout the decades to make foia work more efficiently and effectively so we will be doing both one and analysis that have come in recently to the justice department and we will also have been doing a lot of talking to people in terms of good practices.

>> okay, thank you. we have also heard that journalists and newspapers particularly those outside the d.c. area who don't have quite as many options available to them and some of us inside the beltway, if we have problems we can pick up the phone and call norman or you or melanie, the people we work with all the time that the agency is the people outside the beltway are struggling. with getting access to documents. so there are especially interested in the mediation services your office will be providing. can you tell us something about those and what you have planned it? what should folks expect? >> [laughter] thank you for asking. the statute now says that we will provide mediation services to resolve disputes between foia

request years and agencies so that is all the executive branch agencies 11 and that is a tall order, but we think that by approaching it in number of ways we really can do this. one way is really what we are doing already, we now have a staff of six as of a few weeks ago, we have our sixth person and we are already handling requests from members of the public and also in a few cases from agencies as well to really i would say intervene to mediate to facilitate where there are problems. very often just a communication between ever questor and an agency. so we are doing that. we're also creating and developing a pool of a neutral trained mediators both government and non-government to

be available to do more formal mediation. we are with the justice department. next week with the cooperation of the lateral energy regulatory commission the launching our first effort at a training program. it will be an all-day training for foia public liaisons' who are, of course, now through it the new amendments to this foia is designated to be sort of appointed people for not only helping request years find out what's going on with their request, but also resolving disputes so we are doing dispute resolution, skills, training courses for the foia public liaisons. as a way of using existing resources to really multiplied our resources within our office. and then the other thing we are doing is working with some agencies to develop a pilot

program for bringing together the existing alternative dispute resolution programs in the agency is with the foia programs and agencies. up until now those conversations and i would say we are trying to do in intermarriage or a cost -- cross pollination and agencies to really use of the existing adr resources to help the people in the foia area not to become trained mediators by rather to it better be able to deliver good foia customer service to request. >> thank you. i have a question to melanie pustay. if i'm right today is the anniversary of the attorney general's memo on the foia and norman talked about this foia

officers but from a doj perspective and what impact has that had in promoting openness and a greater disclosure? >> is mike on? >> yes. >> i know that norman probably gave all the great stats that we have so far so that's all, right. [laughter] we certainly, the reports are coming in this week as you know and we are posting them as fast as we get them coated and ready for posting. what i have found to be really satisfying is that there really has been quite a lot of progress and what i think is a short amount of time. the biggest -- the biggest to metrics that are significant are the releases of information, the number of requests for records co has gone up and since -- i always thought foia is about releasing information, giving

out more information to the public as reflected in our statistics on how many requests resulted in releases and that has gone up so that was great. and then also backlogs have gone down quite significantly by almost 50 percent across the key agencies so to have those two things hand in hand that i am really obviously very pleased. i spent this past year really working to promote the guidelines, pronounce the new initiative and educate personnel and what they're being asked to do and then the chief officer reports were designed to be the it means by which agencies could show -- showcase all the steps they're taken. and the public so everyone can look at them and reach their own judgment on them. but i think i brought -- i like to have a little prop -- we made a nice blue cover, the justice department chief officer report

is this big because we have 40 component so there's really each of the big agencies with your significant reports of this is a tremendous amount of information we gathered from the agencies about the steps they have taken to improve compliance so i think these reports are going to be a great resource. >> great. what is doj and the government foia community generally thinking about in order to help change the culture to sustain the changes in foia practices that i am thinking now of the compilations of the annual agency -- are you going to do something like that with the chief justice office and in some of us talked about an idea like a dashboard or the public could visually see and compare out agencies are doing on a number of scales. >> right. >> can you tell us? >> those are all great. i like all of those. [laughter] we are planning to do our usual

compilation of the annual report although we're going to include some new measurements because the reports are so much more detailed but then it was significantly we are going to do a thorough study of the chief officer reports because these address a lot to be on the statistics in the annual reports that talk about the steps agencies have taken. for example, to increase practice disclosures so that's something that is conveyed in a narrative format and the chief officer reports so we want to analyze and get a picture of how people are doing with pro-active disclosures. another thing we did for the first time in the chief foia officer reports is we asked a series of questions about agencies use of technology so this is the first time we are capturing across the government a survey of this state of play in terms of utilizing technology to receive requests from the process requests and create in

your reports and we want to use that as our baseline for going forward. >> and track requests. >> so that is -- we have looked at these as a way for agency is doing and then we're planning to analyze the reports and see where we are across the government and what is based on an analysis we can decide what we need to do further, further guidance, further training can make, in fact, key to this process. >> thank you. just as a reminder to our audience, remote audience, e-mail questions at openthegovernment.org or call us at (202)741-6278 and we will have 10 minutes at the end of this panel for questions. i am going to go to melanie. i got you in. melanie sloan. you been engaged in looking at the it m'aam, can you tell us

about what you see as the positives and negatives of the last year? had been seen improvements in foia practice especially as regards to actually letting loose information? and in litigation outcome or the need to go to litigation. >> we aren't going to pay quite as rosy a picture as everyone else so far today. crew it spins hasn't been that different, i think the president has made great statements and the attorney general's memo is written it but we're not seeing that translate to the agency level not even at the department of justice. crew was engaged in a lawsuit for example against the department of justice for records of former vice president chaney's interview with the fbi and the valor plan wilson case and one said the administration changed the obama administration maintained the same position that the bush administration had which is they didn't want to have to produce it and relied on something that we now call the

daily show defense which would embarrass politicians so we didn't want that out there. that is not a great change. similarly we have had foia out nawaz to the department of health and human services about the decision to release vaccines to wall street banks before all other americans, high-risk americans to access and we haven't been able to get documents. we also have a case where we have been suing the veterans administration says that the bush administration over the department's decision to diagnose returning veterans with adjustment disorder rather than ptsd as a cost-saving measure and it turns out that when they finally handed over some documents the original e-mail we have received as a tip which is why we knew there was a problem had been destroyed over at the base of the having produced that so there were destroying

documents. so these are still present the american problems. sometimes we can resolve matters because we can e-mail our complaint and say this is going to be filed and that sometimes norman can facilitate a better out, and we don't have to sue although not in every case but in our view that's not really progress because a group like crew can reach out to the white house council office. your blogger in idaho or your regular citizen in nevada are going to be able to do that and i get a better result so and argue that's not really making government more transparent. >> okay, are there other initiatives to think needed, the doj and agencies should be? >> i think there needs to be in a dramatic change in training at the agency level, is hard to overcome a culture of secrecy that we have for eight years to all of a sudden say we have this new view toward openness and expect everybody to turn around on a dime and be more open.

so i think training is probably the most american thing that we would see as a roadblock. we think there are still some legislative changes that could be made to the freedom of information act to improve its. for example, we think exemption five could be amended to withhold only were the public interest in disclosure does not outweigh the agency's interest in withholding information at. >> can you explain to the audience who may not know the foia exemption five? >> exemption five is the exemption -- let me say our chief counsel knows better on this and should have been here for you. >> i am sure the other melanie could tell us. >> and not the best person on this. this is what is really about the lucrative materials and what an agency believes is delivered to so that they don't have to give early on materials like draft and such and there may be times when they shouldn't give that