next, and angela merkel. this is 40 minutes. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ladies and gentlemen, could i ask you to take your seats?

those of you who can find any. let me start this session by saying my name is peter sutherland. i'm the moderator of this session and will be introducing the report, and first of all, i would like to welcome the very distinguished panel that has come here this evening who have been responsible for the creation of the report which is the backdrop to the meeting which we have this evening and which i will be referring to leader in some little detail. i should say first of all, prime minister cameron, chancellor merkel, and president, let me thank you for the mandate which you gave to the group that is cochaired by myself and the professor, which is produced a report on the doha round.

and also, looking at the broad issue of trade liberalization. the report itself is an analysis of where we are in the doha round. it was started ten years ago, and it has now the record as being the largest negotiated trade round in history. but a great deal has been achieved and we are in this sense on the verge of success or failure. one of the points that is made in the report which is available and will be available on this session and if the ground is not concluded by the end of this year, that it will fall into the situation which makes it difficult to see it being concluded for some substantial period thereafter because we

will begin the cycle in the united states in particular and we've suggested in this report there should be a deadline placed on the conclusion of the round and that the conclusion of the round therefore should be taking place in the months immediately preceding december of this year. the doha round is extremely important for all constituencies it's extremely important for the developing countries who have a particular interest in net. but it's also extremely important for the developed economies, and the report points to the potential benefits of the market access which will be provided by what has been already agreed because we are in the situation where ten years of

effort and herculean effort i should say by the director general who is with us here on the panel this evening have brought very significant results, but there is that little piece more that is required to bring about a concluded agreement. it's important in the resistance of protectionism, it's important in the development of multilateralism and in an interdependent world that the great advance that took place in the multilateral government's by the creation of the wto which is probably the greatest of fans sensed the inspired period of institution building that followed the second world war, it's important that should not be lost or damaged and that its credibility should not be undermined by a failure to recognize what its achievements

have been and will be through concluding this round. and to the fact that a global community, now basically all except a pool based economic system, and the trade system itself is governed by rules which are promulgated by the wto. there are countervailing tendencies toward regionalism outside the multilateral system, towards bilateral -- bilateral though some and agreements between member states which exclude others from the same benefit which is the advantage of the most favored nation principle which is at the heart of the wto. the achievement of the creation of an organization which has an ad adjudication capacity and can make decisions in terms of the rights and wrongs of trade disputes without being backed by

one of the parties to it is a significant step in creating an attitude towards national sovereignty and interdependence which is being crucial to the positive benefits of globalization, and those benefits we believe are now at risk. in the agreement itself, there is a very significant market access provided for industrial products and goods which can bring very significant benefits. there may be a debate as to precisely how much those benefits are worth more, but minimum figures often are expressed in the order of 360 to 500 billion a year in additional trade. but apart from that, we have the substantial changes in agricultural policy, we have the

least developed countries, the 49 countries that are the poorest on the globe, to provide them with access to markets which is remarkable and deserving but important to them. but above all, it provides a framework for the harmonious commercial relations between states which in history has bedeviled the relationship between states and cannot be allowed to do so again. it has to be said that over the years after 20 meetings, g8 meetings, we have been used to statements of general intent. the only chance that we have to conclude the round now is for the heads of government to become directly engaged in the process of including the negotiation with.

trade negotiators negotiate in their own arcane of language as is already proved. we need the impetus and dynamism of leadership, which is being provided by those who sponsored the report which is being opened to you this evening. and that engagement, we believe, is absolutely necessary to the satisfactory conclusion of the round. we basically believe as the report indicates that all the major parties have a little bit more to offer, and that little bit more will be enough to drive this to a satisfactory conclusion. but the negotiators meet the political cover provided by the heads of government, and it is vital, therefore, to demonstrate that multilateral -- multilateralism and multilateral institutions have a future, even in the world that has changed fundamentally from the creation

of the institutions. i'm now going to ask each of the panel to comment, and finally, we will open up to anyone who may wish to participate in questioning. let me turn to you first, prime minister. >> thank you, peter. i think one of the biggest problems we face frankly is the apathy and cynicism people have after ten years of not getting the deal done. people feel somehow this is like a multi python -- monty python did. and i believe that isn't true and i am going to make four brief points because i want to give him the maximum amount of time to convince all of the cynics out there that this can be done because it can be, and i believe that we have the political will to make it happen. my four quick points, first of all, this is an excellent report. it is very, very powerful about what needs to be done and what benefits would flow from doing the deal. this is perhaps unfair, but it's

been taken an irishman and an indian to read the report that has the passion for free trade and englishmen. [laughter] it is a very, very good report and i commend him for it. [applause] and anyone who occasionally feels baffled by doha and what it means this does explain the modalities and differences what needs to happen. second of this point, free trade is one of the biggest creators that we have ever known. we can see its power in the developing countries in southeast asia now powering ahead with growth and trade and it's those countries trading occurred in the best. this is the time need to stimulate the economy in europe and a stimulus that doesn't cost money so it is a stimulus we need. third point and the apologies to those who already had me speak this morning. we have to get across and this is something for the political leaders, this isn't a zero sum game. we have to stop talking as if one export is a success and one in part is a failure.

trade is good for all, opening our economies is good for all and we can create overall, increase the overall wealth of the world. i think it's very important that we see it like that and negotiate like that. my final point, i really believe this can be done. as peter said, if everyone puts a little bit more on the table to make the deal with it bigger to make it work a bit more, then i think this can happen. this has to be the year in which it happens to be we cannot go on after a decade so there is no leader as far as i am concerned. no one should hold anything back for what might happen in a future negotiation. now was the time for all political leaders to strike negotiators to put everything on the table to allow the negotiators to negotiate with each other. as peter said, the benefits for the poorest in our world are absolutely clear because of the duty-free access for the poorest countries. the benefits for the rapidly developing countries we can see in the trade performance

already, and they would get more of it and the benefits for the developed world of access in terms of things like services and access to market is also i think we're. one last point peter meade. failure wouldn't just be feel you're in terms of economic failure, treat failure, it would also be in terms of a multilateral system that works well and the alternatives they're worth thinking about. so one last effort and actually confront people including political leaders with the consequences of failure if they don't sign it, and it can be done. >> chancellor merkel? >> translator: i think it is the right thing to do for germany, turkey and india to do what we've done to try and bring

this initiative to get there. i have seen many g8 meetings and recently g20 meetings that always in the same way. we say firmly and solemn way we wish to bring the doha round to an end, and actually that's something we should have done and ought to have done and had the financial crisis ever happened. now this crisis has happened and we have done a lot of good things, a lot of correct things. and we know from the experience of the thirties that a lot of the right things that were done then failed because one regarded back to the same old protection and some of shutting yourself against others, isolationism and not finding the right answers. so, the right answers in this crisis must be also reduce barriers, try to learn and companies, global thinking, get rid of your fears of new

competitors coming to the floor because the cheapest form quite likely that we all have even though we all have [inaudible] the cheapest ways to boost competitiveness and give a boost to the economic development is free trade. we can't make it and we have a french and she 20 and g8 presence which i think is a good thing, but this goes together this year. and it's not about say neither france should be in the driver's seat this year. i think we have a better opportunity perhaps than ever to make this happen, and the american president also has his full political weight behind this. once you see the report, you will see that these deals with highly complex, highly complicated issues and too often together with the groups have actually made it look easy. so it's something that is also

understandable if you like for politicians who are in political responsibility. and i do think that it is indeed now a matter for showing the necessary political will to make this happen to a direct level, and it is certainly something that is up to us now to solve it and to show that we have the same. we have to be careful that we don't drift apart and that there is a gap between the rich and poor in this world and there is a right time line and in 2011 will be a very good thing. it will be good for the way we sort of set matters here with our european calendar and i feel we ought to make the best possible time of that. i have every confidence in him. >> now president may i call on you? >> yes. from the perspective of developing countries, trade is

not only the engine of growth, but it is also the means for development. and for us, we also consider that fair, free and open trade is more important than aide. that's why we strongly support the conclusion of the doha developing round. we do not start from the beginning. we build on progress that we have achieved already. what we need is balanced and comprehensive agreement. and i fully agree with what has been said by prime minister david cameron and angeles merkel on the importance of the political will. not only the political will but also responsibility. all countries have collective responsibility as last

individual -- the benefit is real for the country's and better trade will increase global output and create much of, so in essence i fully support the conclusion of the doha developing round this year because we always say every year we have a narrow window of opportunity. so we should not rebuild this thing again and again. thank you. >> thank you. >> well, what we've just heard and just read one in the report is very clear.

the deal should be done now, and second, the deal can be done. you may question how. on this how, which is sort of my midwife, let me sort of give advice. number one, please build on what is already on the table. 80% of this round is already on the table. of course we've got [inaudible] we all know that and that's a principal of trade diplomats

which we cannot preach. of course 80% is an average. we've got more than 80% of the agriculture, we've got less than 80% of the servicers, more than 80% of the deal on the trade civilization and procedures and less than 80% of the official subsidies, but on that, 80% is a very solid and good base to finish. number two, use this window of opportunity which the g20 has recognized after a good discussion and with that, opening all the secrets of the g 20 i.t. skycam publicly say that the three heads of the members of the g20 who happen to

be with us tonight have been the ones leading the pack with in the g20 and are want to thank him for that. so there is a window of opportunity to read it has to be used and for that we need to accelerate. a good explanation as to the place [inaudible] will have predicted a there's much more steam and the geneva missionary now than there was last year or even of the beginning of the term. so there's good momentum that need to be accelerated if we want to land within the timing

which has been identified. three, be prepared for the give-and-take which are necessary to cover the remaining 20%. and that means we need spend capital, energy at home in order to offset the resistance of that what remains to be done in terms of give-and-take and will create at home your constituents loath to take, they don't like to give although precisely some of your constituents and many of you within your political legitimacy to make the necessary and this

time we can, and if we're serious about the timing of this time will come very soon. so please be aware of this and factor this into your own political scheduling and a sequence. lastly, please remember the deal is about the system. of course i know full well that if i have to go to my parliament and i say please ratify this because the multilateral trading system is a good system they don't care enough about the system. but you know, you've experienced this during your crisis, during

this crisis you have a system that has protected you from protectionist development. so the system has a huge value in itself. what will remain ten or 20 years from now is not the one or 2% of peanuts or plastic bags which negotiators are fighting about. what will remain is the system which is the contribution to the batter into the cup butter macroeconomic diplomat, and if there is anything you can do for the development which remains sort of number one economic issue on the international agenda assuming we exit this

crisis, the best thing you can do for the development is open trade and make it. the difficulty countries are exit in this crisis. there are more trade dependent than other areas, and the reason they now are part of the engine of the economy is because the system has remained open. so this is a major contribution. not only to you all, not only to your domestic constituencies, not only to the system, but development which again i believe remains a priority number one of the international economic agenda. >> thank you, peter. i don't know if you know that pascrell runs a marathon every here and in his last lap.

[inaudible] to do that last mile, and he has to be complimented on that. but in doing the last mile, we need the leadership of the prime minister, the chancellor, the president, and in fact members being put together. it is amazing i think that the british and german governments in particular would tell you. there were large numbers of people that want to ministers to join the initiative as sponsors so i think in fact the support is the level of political leadership is very large. it has to be made more effective. and i would say i think the -- without singling out my own president, obama, i think that he's someone who can be brought on board because we think he could test it ten years in chicago without being corrupted by the free trade principles. [laughter] and so in my opinion he's hesitating and i was a bit disappointed in the budget of

the state of the union speech. with the word doha was not mentioned at all i can even though she spoke nicely about trade, and the least disturbing explanation of course which i hope the prime minister will enjoy since a great matter of which is he wants to bring stability back and doesn't want to pronounce a four-letter word. i think that was probably the explanation. plight think it is something where the state can bring on board because there are pressures on the other side in the united states as we all know. but it is within reach, and i think the changing prospect -- i think in the dell would come on board and other countries have expressed privately a lot of interest without which we couldn't do that last mile, and i think this is something we -- i think we need in order to go

out and deal with it and we need not hesitate about it because the abundance of evidence shows both developing countries and developed countries profit and it's not just a matter of economic prosperity, it's the poor people who actually benefit from it. almost 500 million people since china and india shifted have been rescued from poverty. before that there was stagnation so if you actually look at the virtue it is on our side, not on the free trade, and if you need to do that. i would remind you of one thing some of you may not remember that the u.s. secretary got his nobel peace prize in 1945 because he was a multilateral free trader among other things. today it is almost unthinkable but the first thing you should start is conveyed in to your counterpart in norway that this

is the time asking for something which is absolutely important. thank you to read >> thank you very much. i would now like to open up to anybody in the audience who would like to ask a question or make a comment. we persuaded everybody without any difficulty whatsoever. well, is their somebody at the back over here? >> good evening. what if we need here in 2012 and there is a different scenario? >> i'm sorry? >> would you repeat -- >> what if we meet here again in 2012 and there is no result? what would be the next steps? >> i think it would be unfair to put the prime minister, chancellor or president in that

particular question, therefore i'm just going to repeat what we said conclusively in the report because we believe that there has to be a deadline. and having been director-general myself, at the time of the uruguay round coming to an end and playing a very important role, i think this is both necessary and desirable, otherwise talk and talk as they used to say about the gas is the inevitable consequence and it's particularly important for the reasons you said. the presidential election is coming, and everybody agrees that that will mean at best paralysis of the whole process for period of time. so we strongly advocate a deadline. how you described that deadline may be in different terms, but i think that those who commented from the position of head of government here this evening or generally improve the report and i am quite happy with that. >> i would just add i think what

happened at seóul is that we agreed we should take what we have, we should make it a little bit bigger and then we should confront ourselves with the prospect of success or prospect of failure, and that is what has to happen this year. and i think if we come back and we are still talking about i think i would be hopeless. so that was the aim of seóul was to bring this to a head, and that is why i and others commission this report is to try to set up a road map on what you have to do this year to make it happen. >> we are prudent people and careful as well. so when you see us sitting up here on a panel and to clear to the world what we are about to achieve, they're has to be a certain probability somewhere to actually make it.

secondly, we are politicians who know if you put a little bit of pressure on yourself then you stand a better chance of actually achieving this goal, and when you have a final deadline it gets even more probable that you reach it and i think in the ten year history there has never been actually any sort of commitment or obligation that this has come out in seoul of the heads of state of government. they actually make a personal commitment. so that places all of us and an obligation. i shouldn't be so pessimistic. >> the meaning of deadline and familiar if not absent is getting a instructions to the minister's and also in the

negotiation process. and we should clearly -- we have to say what kind of thing to be given in order to have a compromised consensus. so i am also optimistic that if we are committed to the conclusion of this round to think this can happen. >> i think there was another question here. >> wait for the microphone. thank you. >> thank you. there are a number of small economies committed to the multilateral trading system and convinced of its value but also very concerned that the development aspect has been watered down, and as such wondering how central is it to those committing themselves to

completing the around? >> , the proof of the pudding is in the eating. there is no way given that two-thirds of the wto members are developing countries there's no way a doha will not be more development friendly. what i see for the moment of a look at the various constituencies, who is pushing the most today is countries like yours, the developing countries in the asian region.

so if that is their position not speaking for them you have to remain neutral but if that is their position their must be something there, and i believe there is by the way the numbers used. there is not a one-size-fits-all. there's no way that a country like yours jamaica may be treated the same way as china or brazil or the u.s.. and of course once you recognize this how different is the treatment is a matter of endless discussion by diplomats. but this will be the reality.

>> and questions? one. yes, please. >> from the australian newspaper, just getting behind the final negotiations have a question for mr. lamy. is there a push for the bigger packages to deal with something bigger on services than we might have seen before? >> yes, certainly. the service of the negotiation is one of these areas where in my view our sort of below 80% and that is on the 20 topics in the back of the negotiation. but to the time of the egg --

euro the service of the negotiation to which countries are requesting the developing countries to open more of the market's to buy existing market access. this is a negotiation where some developing countries are asking the developed countries to open more of the market's because in the meantime they became the party of that vintage. so like much of what remains to be done and i think i should be very clear on this, most of what remains to be done is today north versus south issue. northern countries which countries have different positions on which remains to be done, developing countries have different positions on what remains to be done. but it is not in our position, something which is more complex

than that, but that for sure servicers remain notably in the big emerging markets and for the u.s., japan, canada, australia and a few others where the necessary give-and-take remain to happen. >> allow me if i may to make one remark. about the negotiations come at some point in time which is interesting because the united states and europe had actually come to a fairly large agreement, and they thought they would be the ones who would actually achieve the breakthrough and it was a mill miserable failure, and so also the change in the balance of forces in the world of today he

asks to take a moment to recognize or possible compromises are come and sit here and am deeply convinced that we need to achieve success, but also an industrialized country that has quite a lot of vested interest. so, when he asked me to show the necessary sense of compromise i have to meet with a certain response here, so i would like to ask the representatives of the emerging economies here that they should always have an ally on the timeline. the development in the emerging economy is working, happening so fast that if we talk about the transition period we cannot simply dissatisfied with looking the status quo and completely neglected this development periods we haven't situated in industrialized economies.

we have to look at the sheer speed of development in those emerging economies, and this dynamism also has to be factored in. i know we have to be fair and equitable, i know there are a lot of countries that still have a lot of ground to cover and a long way to go yet, but each and everyone needs to know a sense of compromise, and for us in europe, and let me be self critical here it is going to be very important for us to forge a sensible and intelligent positions and a uniform positions when you have 27 countries with different strengths and weaknesses it isn't all that easy and looking at agriculture >> sample and we in the european union will also do not create money difficulties on the country to come up with tangible

solutions. >> we have come to the end of our time. i'd like to thank all the panelists for their contribution and also for the questions that have been asked. let me make a final comment on this. it seems to me apart from the leadership that is clearly evident by the panel here today that is particularly important as we reach the leadership of the end of this round as we have in so many before from the united states, from china, brazil and india, the european union is the largest trading bloc in the world and it has its place to play as well. what is at the moment agreed for the poor countries of the world is phenomenal. it's been mentioned before the 49 least developed countries in the world have duty-free access to the will markets in the world and industrial goods all tariffs

in the countries are already agreed to be abolished. this is a substantial move forward from the point of view of development. it happens also to the interest and responsibilities of the developed countries and the developing to treat we have a single global economy functioning as such because when they will based system that is terribly volatile and we've seen in the contributions this evening why is this valuable and why it deserves support. thank you very much indeed. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

now a discussion of broadband policy and competitiveness. the club of cleveland heard from

blair levin the chief architect of the national broadband plan when he worked at the federal communications commission. the plan's goal is to expand affordable broadband access. this is an hour. >> good afternoon and welcome to this special city club forum today where we are honored to have the principal architect of the national broadband plan brought to you in partnership between one community and case western reserve. im dorothy and i am honored to be about to make the introduction of the guest speaker for today. i've been involved in the technology industry for many years as the founding president of nortech and have been asked by fitzgerald to join the team as the interim economic deployment director so i am very

excited to be here at the city club with all of you but more excited to introduce your guest speaker. here in northeast ohio we are fortunate to have several organizations that recognize the importance of broadband early on. thanks to the work of one community and its co-founders, including case western reserve university, nortech and idea stream are positioning itself to compete in the 21st century knowledge economy. many other local leaders have emerged as well. some of whom you will hear from today. as part of the american recovery in the ring and the smith act of 29, the federal communications commission was charged with drafting a national broadband plan to spread affordable broadband access throughout the united states. with the goal of creating jobs, improving health care and encouraging energy independence, the man chosen to lead this ambitious endeavor was blair levin.

mr. levin and his team presented the plan to congress in march, 2010. among its recommendations were connecting 100 million u.s. households affordable 100 megabit per second broadband service by 2020, identifying and making 500 megahertz of wireless spectrum to be authorized or shared and used for mobile broadband by 2020. building a network nationwide interoperable mobile broadband network for public safety records and agencies and restructuring the fcc's universal service fund including the redirection of the $15.5 billion from traditional telephone subsidies to broadband deployment. exhibit director of the national broadband plan was mr. levin's said and what the fcc. previously he served as chief of staff chairman reed hundt from

december, 1993 through october, 1997. mr. levin oversaw among other matters the implementation of the historic 1996 telecommunications reform act, the first spectrum auctions, the development of a digital network television standards and the commission's internet initiative. mr. levin also spent eight years as principal telecom, media and tech regulatory strategy analyst at nason and stifel necklace. mr. levin serves as communications society fellow with the aspen institute communications and society programs. please join me in welcoming mr. levin. [applause] >> thank you. it's a great pleasure to be here today and i want to thank my cousin, adam, there he is over there, a native of cleveland. it's a great pleasure to see him

and his family. but i'm actually not here just to see family. i'm here to talk about a moment. our nation is having a sputnik moment in late november energy secretary chu suggesting the clean energy areas should be seen as a sputnik moment. shortly thereafter a wave of education officials had an op-ed in "the wall street journal" saying that a recent international to score showed that if education we are in the midst of a sputnik moment. at the same time, senator kerry and north carolina and a lot in entire beach to describe akaka generations but mcclelland and others started using david brooks and "the new york times" summed it up by saying it represents a pervasive sense of the nation this but the moment where it either rises to face the international competition or

it does not. so if you look at the google trend, you will see the phrase sputnik moment has no traction from 2003 to november, 2010, and then shall we say shot up like a sputnik rocket. [laughter] now this phenomena as many things including the belief shared by about 65% of the public according to a survey that america is a country in decline. but as many now analyze the meaning of the moment to generate what i feel it's a foundational question, which is what are the requisite assets we need to successfully respond to this moment and that is what i want to talk about today. in 1957 when scott mccloud up, we had the necessary access to respond, agreed research institutions, great engineers, political will and cohesion, financial capital to effectively react to the threat we perceive the sputnik represented. but today's world is very different. an important element of today's

challenge was described by the great business visionary peter drucker of 1999 when he wrote the most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is to increase the productivity of the knowledge work and knowledge workers, the most valuable asset of a 21st century institution, with their business or on business, would be the knowledge workers and the productivity. it is on the productivity of knowledge work above all the future prosperity and indeed the future survival of the developed economies would increasingly depend. and as dorothy mengin, knowledge work is the backbone of our economy now and he understood this. now the court has such an economy is the task of knowledge exchange. knowledge exchange is fundamental to what most of us do. we gather information, we analyze it, act on it and through the feedback continually revised courses of action based

on new information. the way we do this is completely transformed in the last two decades by the revolutions, the data revolution along this to collect and provide trillions of datapoint previously unavailable, the competing revolution, analyzing the data that one might have seen by the findings not just a needle in a haystack but in a galaxy as common as finding moon in the sky and to transfer the analysis anywhere, anytime to the speed and cost that were totally unmanageable and the ground for the rock and roll museum a few blocks away. it was broken 18 years ago. so knowledge exchange revolution isn't a high-tech phenomenon. it affects every sector of the economy and its help wal-mart became the largest retailer, how the largest manufacturing process in the country development of the dream liner is being done both here in the

united states and across many countries before the final assembly in washington. to every construction project from high rises to houses and it's essential to the tractors. what's interesting is the knowledge exchange shares a common platform. it is the broadband ecosystem, the combination of network devices, applications and above all people who use the combination. so for management to rise to the challenge to increase productivity throughout the economy, we need a broadband ecosystem to enable high-performance knowledge exchange. having this ecosystem doesn't ensure success, not having it guaranteed us feel year. so my principal point today is the table stakes for responding to this but mick moment includes the broadband ecosystem that facilitates high-performance knowledge exchange. now congress and the recovery act asked the fcc to develop a

plan for a country to have such an ecosystem, and during that effort, certain things became very clear. number one, it's not just about networks. it is about the interaction of the networks, devices, applications and above all people. it has to be ubiquitous so all can benefit and included in the work of the economy and the society. number three, it has to be diverse. you have to have different things driving innovation from all its different parts. and number four, it has to be constantly improving. improvements to each element to drive improvements in the others in the constant feedback loop data replication driving the more usage, driving the upgrade networks and more powerful devices capable of better applications and onward. the government is in the primary provider of any part of this ecosystem. but nonetheless it has an obligation to ensure the drive and to not suppress improvements in this ecosystem and further an obligation to rethink how it

delivers the public services in light of new opportunities created by this ecosystem. so i just guessing but i'm pretty sure no one will find anything i just said either controversial or surprising. but what i have to tell you today is that what i just said is deeply at odds with prevailing government policies. rather than what i just said, the most dominant idea in broadband policy is the primary metrics by which our policies should serve is to maximize the speed of the wireline network to the most rural residents. this is a profoundly bad idea that is hurting america. it is the principal way we actually act. it's wrong in almost every respect. first of all, there is no primary metric. how would it profit us to have high speed and power devices oslo applications consider how

the iphone change the ecosystem an explosion of use and innovation and not coincidentally and accelerated the network upgrade. contract is with the set top boxes on televisions and the fact only two companies produce more than 95% of the set top boxes. that has something to do with the difference of innovation throughout the mobile world we've seen the last few years compared to the multichannel video world. hopefully that is changing, but the key point is that the measure with improvements throughout the system not just any single metric which leads to a second problem, a focus on speed. speed is an input and what matters is the output. the data we looked at the plan shows why we need to increase speed and certain strategic areas, the biggest on tasked promise has much more to do with applications particularly new ways of education, healthcare, public safety, job training and

other critical public services. third is focusing primarily on a wide airline services. why your line is important that the mobile wireless services are every bit as important and in terms of economic growth in the next decade may be more important because wireless today is a prize and industry that points out how retail manufacturing agricultural transportation, health care, every segment of the economy can improve with the duke to be emerging developments in the nanotechnology, location awareness and machine communications will make wireless even more important. but because policy makers don't think of wireless as an essential underpinning of the economic future we slow to grasp of the potential danger of the spectrum. in just a few years, insufficient spectrum could lead to higher prices in the worst service and will cost our economy billions of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. there's an urgent need to act and a simple solution which has bipartisan support a lot in the

spectrum license holders to read dissipate in an option for the up spectrum. there is no action in part because some want to solve tying this problem to the shifting support more support to the rural america. as to the role it is important to connect all of its. it shouldn't be the major focus of our effort to say with residential. a great example of the wrong way to think of the problem is a recent op-ed in dillinger register by the head of the audio telecom association to protect the reforms in the national broadband plan it's extremely well-written and i highly recommend reading it. it happens to be wrong in almost every way. it attacks the plan as an tyrol when in fact the plan is the first effort to connect all of rural america. part of the problem today is the role rural carriers to

essentially provide a mercedes quality connection while providing other carriers nothing. effectively telling their subscribers to walk. more government subsidies for his clients and nothing to solve the rural areas. the worst part of the editorial is actually sounded quaint. after noting the plan typical of at least 100 million american homes having access to networks capable of delivering 100 megabits, 100 bits per second, he wrote, quote, it's hard to believe the fcc doesn't believe all iowans should have access to the same type of broad and speed. this sounds like a lovely democratic, small d idea but it ignores the fact that it's the market, not the government who sits the speed most americans received. the ignore to provide the same speed to all rural residents and taxing all subscribers about $30 a month which would cost tens of millions to drop off the network which is partly the result we want.

but the most important thing is that it ignores that a robust constantly improving broadband service is essential to all the economic engines and we need to have some sectors have far higher speeds than the have today. ..

instead, we're spending billions of dollars on subsidizing some carriers $20,000 a line per home or subsidizing a thousand competitors in some areas. another example of yesterday's logic is how we further subsidizing rural companies through a set of carrier compensation rules that are so complicated, it would take my 25 minutes to describe it, and you would be asleep by the second minute. there's two things to understand about that. it's strives models on regulatory arbitrage and not economics, and it stifles innovation. second, for over a decade, there's been a consensus on how to fix it, and yet the system remains in tact. we are a prisoner to yesterday's logic and how we use the network. our emergency alert system, by

the way, if anybody is watching -- not in this room, connected to the radio or the television broadcast television right now, no one is. how many of you have a cell phone in your pocket? just let the record reflect, everybody. if there was an emergency right now, how would you like to be notified, tv or your cell phone? the question answers itself. not only are you connected 24/7, doing it through mobile communications lets you set the language, what area you are in, you can get much more information in terms of interconnectivity in terms of where you need to go and what you need to do. we have an emergency later system that -- alert system on yesterday's logic. we have technology that was delivered five centuries ago,

texbooks, rather than e-books. this allows students more averse ways of learning that work for the best way for the student at a cheaper price. we'll endlessly debate health care reform, but every use to measure adoption of the health care technology, the united states ranks in the bottom half of comparable countries even though such measures could save us a half trillion in 15 years. the job training program pours huge dollars into physical centers and private efforts show job training as well as job searching is cheaper done over broadband networks. the public arena is still using the logic of the past. unfortunately, the news is not all bad. there are efforts to respond appropriately, and one of the best is the one community effort here in cleveland, that effort, coordinating plans improved

performance of 1500 schools, hospitals, clinics, government and public safety entities serve over 1 million sftses. it's an effort not just about faster networks, but developing educational and health related applications, training people to use the tools. for example, there's a one classroom initiative offering 700,000 students the digital schools they -- skills they need to compete. we were aware of this while doing the plan, and noted this in the plan, that it was the instrumental part for two important recommendations. the congress preempts what municipalities can do in meeting the bandwidth needs of the communities and a anchor network, a proposal that was basically based on the cleveland one community program, and we hope other communities will do it. now, you know from this experience that none of this alone solves our big problems,

but no big problem can be solved without having the high knowledge exchange platform. it's the stakes for economic growth and justice in this country. the bottom line is this, we are facing a sputnik moment in energy and education and competition and many other areas, and many of the advantages we had in 1957 have diminished, and we can offer words bemoaning this fate or rallying our spirits in response the reality, but unless we act, put in place a diverse constantly improving broadband ecosystem, unless we as a nation act as you have done here in cleveland, the cries about our sputnik moment will be irrelevant. let me quote by noting a scene from the 1981 movie, "raiders of the lost arc" that maybe you remember. it takes place in cairo. a huge man in block robes takes out a great sword and with great

skills confronts indiana jones. jones takes out a gun and shoots him. i think we should be careful about the use of metaphors and media moments about guns, but i did want to say for the man in black with the sword and his supporters, we might think of this as his sputnik moment because he was confronted by something he was unaware of. he didn't realize how the technology was advanced beyond the sword, and at the time of the movie's release not long after the 440 day hostage crisis involving the american em embassy, the scene provided a not so subtle or unconscious psychological comfort that we still had a technology to allow us to get out of unseemingly impossible situations. we should all welcome the

bipartisan moment. i think how we respond to it, how our institutions responded to the calls for help, calls for action in the plan, i fear that we are now reversing roles. we are now like the man with the sword. we still have swagger, but we're caught in the past and we're about to be overcome by those who truly understand today's logic. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, blair. today, we are listening to a special program featuring blair leviv, architect of the broadband plan. we're return soon for the questions. we encourage you to make questions now and remind you

your questions should be brief and to the point. we welcome you all here especially those who are guests. we hope you will join the city club and become active in its ongoing civic dialogue. we are pleased to welcome guests that tables hosted by the define partnership, case western reserve university, the cwru technology services, ibm corporation, one community, and connect your community. thank you for your support. now, we would like to return to our speakers for our traditional city club question and answer period. we welcome questions from everybody including guests. holding the microphone is program manager terry miller and marketing manager heather. now our first question please. >> actually, if it's all right, i'll let the panel say a word or two first, and then we'll open up the floor for questions.

i'm the vice president of information technology services at case western reserve. it's my pleasure to be can coring -- anchoring this afternoon's panel with my colleagues and friends. to the left is scott rork, the president of one community that you heard referenced in the talk that blair just finished. beside scott is bethany bentler from the economic corporation, and most of you know lloyd church, the president of loraine community college. when we heard blaine was talking about the 21st century, i asked i colleagues to reflect to one or two stakes that are regional in the context. blair has the advantage of seeing the entire nation and beyond, and all of that needs to translate into a meaningful way

with ohio, and we actually have a nice representation from a nice crop section, so just kind of a table stake conversation, first, scott, to you, one or two key insights that allow us to translate from the national picture to the regional picture in terms of positioning our region for the 21st century. >> well, i think from my sputnik moment came from when i was in korea. an example from there which is the most digitally advanced community. i saw a classroom with one teacher teaching in a small community in seoul. they had 600,000 kids online for free with no grades, just an opportunity to learn. their government, as an example, had 300 services online with no computer so you can could with your cable box. i'm most concerned about our

inability to innovate for entrepreneurs to develop new softwares, new technology services, so i think the public innovation and the private innovation particularly in the technology market is really a terrific opportunity for us in northeast ohio to take a national leadership opportunity, but as certainly a national disadvantage. >> okay. bethany? >> you could say i'm the case study in the room here. we are working on a fiberoptic network for the past decade. it's about economic development and jobs, and that's why we're doing this. we talked with companies, again, over the past decade, and we're hearing today that broadband and access to broadband is more important than ever to allow companies to grow and get the employees that are going to be able to use those technologies. when we talk to communities and they can't scion and down load at the same time, you know we're in a new place.

we need to ged ahead of it. >> the key that i understand here before we go to roy is it's really a prerequisite for economic development and regions such as yours, obviously, are trying to get ahead of the curve as you are facing both the regional and international landscape. >> absolutely just as roads and suer and telephone poles were important, we need this infrastructure for the next century and beyond. >> i understand your first piece is an up sight that in order to provide basic services whether they are public services through the government or education services, the real staigs here is leveraging the infrastructure not like blair's insight on textbooks, we have to understand how to leverage the broadband to deliver to the citizens the services as well as education services. education services sounds like a

good segue to the president of the college. what do you take insight on table stakes for the national broadband plan relating to our region here? >> well, i go back to scott's point about the connection to innovation. we epitomized that transformation from manufacturing to what's cometting next. we have been very proud of the notion in the united states that we have been ahead of the curve in utilizing innovation to maintain our economic preeminence. well, the reality is that broadband services and this ecosystem are challenging that proposition, and we face the risk of falling behind in the most critical factor in economic success, innovation in today's environment because we haven't had this strength across the country, and i think it really

ties to the whole notion that we may not have resources enough to give everyone the level of br services that they would like, particularly to your point about the rural america issue, but your focus on getting the anchor institutions to function more effectively, to me, can help us spawn that gap, and enable that balance between divergent and convergent thinking in our economy to favor innovation in the united states in real and compelling ways. >> that's great. thanks, roy. before we go to the audience, i want blai to chime in at the end of the first robed here to reflect on other pockets of innovation, regional efforts that are under way. you were kind and generous to cite the really good works going on represented by my colleague here at the table and the institutional investments that's been made. help us understand how other

regions of the country are responding to the narnl call for broadband adoption, use, and innovation. >> well, i wish i had other examples. there areaiy some communities that are doing some small things, but part of the problem we have is that the nature of the innovations which are so critical to this, you need to have a certain kind of critical mass; right? you need a certain number of people using and have the speeds to develop the applications and that's why the right metric is the constant improvement and why the iphone is the perfect example. it was surprising. it was a better device that drove better applications and now the need for better networks and enabled people to learn how to use it who previously didn't know how to use it. we need that. the problem is, you know, and i think your point about korea is good. usually people think of all the

apartments in seoul. that's not the problem for us. what is a problem for is us that korea is educating their kids better. they have the initiative to get rid of textbooks to replace with e-books. that's the competition we face. it surprises people, but in the plan, we focus on public sector applications that really drive it. now, unfortunately, that has to be done, i think, partly at the federal level. only the federal government can drive a nationwide public safety network. i think the federal government actually move to e-books is being driven by a lot of individual school districts particularly in those states which don't have state textbook adoption boards would like to protect the textbook industry, but you don't see as many examples of regional activity, and part because the incumbents, the providers did a pretty good job of getting a bunch of states a few years ago to stop local

efforts which made it much more difficult for local communities and what you were able to do. >> thanks, blair. several of you mentioned entrepreneurship. one of the questions is from a local interneuroship. we'll go to questions. we have several other prepared conversation pieces if there's a short lull, but with that -- >> i'm mark, i moved here from california after 21 years and started a company called macromedia if you've ever heard of flash. the idea of jobs being based upon companies is i think one of the mistakes we're making. jobs of the future will not necessarily be full time jobs where i've got a nice existence and the company pays for the health plan. they are project based and based upon individuals. the best people are independent

consultants working on their on in a project base flex environment. the problem here is the comim development world doesn't recognize that, count these jobs, and i was wondering when the economic development world will recognize that jobs of the future are not being counted, are not being trained for, and we're just completely missing what in fact is the growth area in the digital economy which are these part timers project-based people. that's the project that my new company is working on to create these part time jobs. to your economic development people, i know there's a bunch of you here in the room, we please, please, recognize the fact jobs of the future are not full time jobs. they are project-based, and how can we as economic development people, work force development people create those kinds of jobs which are not based at a company, but individual based. >> got it. tell us what you really think, mark? [laughter] all right, thanks for that. maybe we can sort of let bethany

and roy make a run at that. what is the aggregate view of economic development, and certainly, roy, you live it every day in your life. >> i agree with you actually. i think interneuroship -- entrepreneurship is a key to economic development. part of what we need to do as a community in the field of development is count those jobs differently and look at wealth creation in a community as opposed to the number of companies and number of new jobs created, and we are working on things to help those entrepreneurs innovate. what we hear is they are working with the part time folks working at home, and, you know, either here or in another state or across the country. they need to have access to that broadband so that they can work with that developer in california who is sending, you know, materials back and forth at three o'clock in the morning. we need to have that pipeline in place to be able to provide for

the entrepreneurs who are really going to be starting the jobs of the future. >> you know, there's never been a tighter connection between education and success in the economy than there is in this environment. therefore, i think as educators, we have a huge challenge in front of us to prepare people to develop the skills that they can apply in a wide variety of settings, in different ways at different times. we need to use the film industry model as the example of how work will be organized in a significant way in the future, and enable people to be comfortable in that setting to be able to accept the am ambiguity that brings and bring the skill sets to apply across the range of opportunities that are created by that model, and i think some of us are working very hard to do that, embedding entrepreneurship and innovation in every curriculum, in every

way, for every student. >> blair, you and the director on this question of whether or not we are solving the economic problems with yesterday's sort of orientation and obviously as mark as outlined and the colleagues indicated, this really is one of those big fundamental questions to work on. next question. >> the infrastructure question is wonderful. >> introduce yourself. >> kevin, a lawyer here in midtown. i wonder if we can get a response to education. there's imn some historic underinvestment in education and perhaps the technology is a opportunity to leapfrog that to give people skills they need to meet the digital economy that was outlined earlier. how do we specifically reenergize the education needs here in northeast iowa? >> roy, i'll let you state what is under way opposed to perhaps simply little projections of light. >> i think warren buffet said

never waste a good crisis and education is in a financial crisis. it's a great time to explore ways to let the technology help us address how we redesign and reinvent what we are doing. you know, we happen to be working in an innovation align with university of akron, and one of the first projects we have undertaken is to create a shared services model where we use the information systems and services in both institutions in creative new ways that drive down our costs in the long term for development. that's just one example. there are many others across the system. you know, one of the things that i would hope would happen through the one community work in tieing all of us together more effectively with this broadband capacity is that we would be able to share services, technology-based services with not only higher education institutions, but with k-12 and with government and other

anchors within our communities as well. that's how we drive down the cost and move. >> do you want to take a run at cell phone's question? >> -- kevin's question. >> i'll build on the shared services model and tie in the last couple questions. i think the human factor is the bigger challenge here. i think we're ahead five years and probably accelerating now with the help of stimulus funds on the supply side. we'll get broadband out to help the education, government, and some others with the public and private sector's help. the next issue is the talent issue which is the technology talent on how to deploy it and make sure it's used and particularly k-12 areas it's challenging in this area. at a statewide level, local levels, regional levels, very, very challenging. i think the advantage of the shared services and if you heard of the cloud services, taking some of the high, very intense technical skills which is a

weakness taking those out of the par paradigm and finding a toaster to plug it in and all the technology works is where the schools are going to have to go. it could be the private sector, but i think the technology is the easy part now. i think it's the human factor in getting people interested in it and the talent aligned to make the technology visible to work is the next key step the region needs to focus its time and talent and energies and up vestment in. >> just before the next question, i'll give you two other examples that come to mind, leveraging to broadband relat k-12. one is to acknowledge things like health care education are gone, music education is gone, how do we address those? one is to leverage the broadband by collaborating with the health care providers, direct delivery

of health care education directly into the classroom. scot touches about every school child in productivity, and those who don't get health education, you can leverage it by partnering. like wise with music. our area is known for music. it's a great opportunity to take musician teachers who may be sitting in institutions and do direct music education in an interactive way with kids around the region. next question. >> good afternoon. i'med to adams with vizzability markets. scot, you segued to my question around the human capital component. we live in northeast ohio, traditionally a blue collar working class community. what i'm saying having worked in the broadband spaces around a value proposition, so in other words, so people who have or are

underserved, talking about the masses, you said, blair, and so i want to speak to driving policy of, you know, an advocacy comes from the masses being educated, being aware, and the value proposition around having the applications, the applications of services, the connectivity. if you can kind of speak to that because we touched on the infrastructure, the policy, and how does it sort of that, the human side of it among the masses, sort of drive policy so that we can -- of course, there's an election in 2012 coming too. >> well, let me take that and toss it to blair by reflecting one the things todd is getting to is even though you don't consider yourselves technology gist, most who read the plan think you are. >> my children do not. [laughter] they are better at this than i am. >> the question i took from todd is really how do we change what seems like inpenetrateble peak

speak and turn it into compelling stories into things that are meaningful to regular folks that they are both understanding the opportunities, the needs, the adoption curves a enthe like. i'll throw that to you, and perhaps ask more on that one. >> yeah. i want to answer with two different groups in mind. one is a group that's really important which are nonadopters. there's 100 million americans without broadband in their home. some don't want it, and that's fine. when you have a situation where 80% of kids identify the internet as the -- k-12 kids, middle school and high school kids identify the internet as the primary way to do homework, the 20% who don't have it in their home, you have a big problem. you are falling further behind, so the problem of nonadoption is really important particular my

because to be digitally literal is the same in this economy as being literal. it's a skill set that we have to have, and here's my point, we spend billions every year connecting bill gate's second home which is somewhat of a crime in my view. i like bill, nice guy, but i don't think he needs the help. we spend almost nothing on the national level on digital literacy. one of the things we have to do is shift priorities. universal service with a phone is simple. universal service with broadband, you have to use a mouse, search, you have to punch things in. it's a different skill set. we have to do that. the second point is how do we sell this whole thing? i have to say, and i said this publicly, i'm very, very proud of the work that the team did in creating the plan. i've debated it all over the country, and i think it holds up very well, but i think our sing the greatest error that i can

discern so far and i'm sure we'll find other ones is we didn't sell it right or talk about it right. i think it's exactly this thing. i think it goes not to the networks or the speeds or to that, it's how people use it, and that's what we have to focus on, and i think the government really has to transform the way it thinks about how it delivers something, and this goes to the textbook example is one that i started using after the plan. i wished we used it more earlier on because every group i've spoken to, parents, if i say to you, you know, wouldn't it be great that when your kid does their homework in e-books, you know whether your kid did that homework that night. more importantly, perhaps, the teacher knows of the 30 kids in the third period math course, how many kids did their homework, what problems they have a problem with, what problems didn't they have a problem with? it helps them teach better the

next day and helps the parents also. everywhere i've gone and talk about that, parents are grateful for that possibility. in fact, i think we have to have concrete examples like that that you people gives a sense of power of the opportunity. we haven't done as much about that. >> any insights on the story telling piece of the challenge? >> well, i come back to what i call relevance. the digital divide, the primary region for the digital divide now is people don't know they can benefit from it or why they should participate. the same audience often has a low income household, looking for a job quite often, and yet, we get to the point where most jobs are available only line only. in cleveland, more than 50% of the community does not have internet in the home, and most of the jobs are only available online. >> to apply online? >> to apply online. >> right. >> that's just one example. we are working on the connector community team over there which is actually great talent,

multiple states led out of cleveland, and we're all participating in it. we are training 30 households on the internet, health department, education, and government services. we are tackling this challenge, but the relevance is to get the folks to come to the classes, get free training and computer and access support. it comes down to relevancies on stories on why is this relevant to me? it's even relevant in the enterprise market. there are rural hospitals missing the fact that they don't have broadband. they are sending everybody many helicopters to the big urbans where they have specialists. it's a big problem. i guess my favorite henry ford quote was if i ask the customers what they wanted they want a faster horse. we're in the awkward moment where the technology arrived, but they don't know what they're missing. it's a disruptive technology. i don't know that there's an

answer yet. what we do is find stuff, get testimonials, our demon is actually really just proving the nay sayers, the so-what guy. this is what we combat day in and day out. we have to prove it's relevant to seem adopt it. >> look at that point, it connects your community initiative that was paid for by stimulus dollars. we know there's no more stimulus dollars and there are not investments planned, and i would suggest that this may be one the best ways to create the educational connection to the folks who most need it. i know our experience in lorain is part of that. the first group, 210 people, went through the training program. five weeks later, 181 of them showed up to get their certificate, and to get their refurbished computer and to understand what the next steps were. i would take that retention rate

in any one of our educational programs, and it says to me the interest is there if we had a little stimulus funds to provide that connection to those folks that are least able to afford to connect to the broadband services. >> terrific. another question over here. >> henry, lcr enterprises. how are you doing? good to be here this afternoon. paying particular attention to the k-12. i appreciate that. there's another sector of the population, and that's the senior population. talking about the baby boomers who are going through half this community, 78 million bb 65 and older. this is an opportunity to connect them who have a serious aversion to this. it can provide a educational and connectivity opportunity for -- i apologize. a connectivity opportunity with

that k-12, and civilization historically respected the elder, and i think today that's not as necessarily true as it could be, and i think this opportunity could do that. can you speak to that for me? >> thanks, henry. that's terrific. perhaps blair can start the conversation. this morning, we were able to share, blair, some of the work going on in the case connection zone, a very ultra broadband collaboration project tweak the university and one community, and we actually tied in some colleagues from tucson who were actually engaged in an inner generational schooling project. peter whitehouse was down in tucson sharing the goal of linking the generations and literally using broadband as an opportunity not only for grandmother to actually keep in touch with grandson half way around the country or world, but also to engage in continuous learning. i think one the key points is

developing a platform that supports constant feedback. i thought that was a really interesting example that something in our own community, perhaps one of several, but blair, can you speak to the senior issue and then beth, you want to reflect on what that means in your neighborhood as well? >> well, thank you for the question. we look at a bunch of demographic groups, and one of the interesting things about dupes -- adoption is it's not one problem, but a series of problem. the hispanic community where english is not the first language is a problem, income is a problem, literacy is a problem. seniors are an issue, but that's self-correcting right now. it's the fastest growing group. i don't know this for certain, but i'm pretty sure it's because seniors want to see pictures of grand kids on facebook. it's really killing the cool of facebook. [laughter] that so many grandmothers are know and grandfathers are getting on it.

that's an issue. i think that there's tremendous opportunities for all kinds of innovations, and it would be great if innovation occurred in this state. let me just mention one phrase that you've never heard of call -- most people haven't, called ambient assisted living. this is the largest uses of the internet, i can't believe it's true, but it's true, it's called puppy camp. this is a video of your puppy that you can watch while at work and making sure your puppy is okay. they have more puppy cams than espn. [laughter] here's the point. the puppy cams is a nice thing, but not necessary for society. ambient assisted living that we're going to be needing with the aging population is going to be really critical to health care, and it is going to be -- people are not really out of

their homes, this keeps them in their homes opposing to moving them to assist the homes which is a mixed blessing. there's a huge economic opportunity for our country to establish leadership. this is the frustrating part of the plan for me is that we have the best technology, we have the best medical expertise, and we have the best ability in the world to make things easy, design, we also tell the story of hollywood. we ought to be leaders in the development of utilizing broadband and ambient assistant care and create companies that are, you know, think of facebook for senior medical uses. we ought to be leading in that, and we're not taking advantage of the opportunity. >> sounds great. beth? >> sure. one of the aspects in my mind in addition to the technology we put in place in the infrastructure is the need for training because as more and

more seniors retire, forced to leave their current employment because of downsizing, they are looking to not just retire, but they are looking to start a second career to become an entrepreneur, and a lot of them if they haven't been trained at work are now faced with the situation to figure out how it works themselves. i think it's critical in addition to the hardware, we're putting the training piece into place. >> the other thing before the next question, another piece to adhere is in addition to creating applications where seniors can keep in touch, the connect part of it, there's an enormous amount of innovation opportunity to create a home environment that provides sensors, for continuous monitoring as well as intervention work to keep people at home longer rather to engage in clinical base of care. that's some of the innovation exparentation -- experimentation we are working on.

please introduce yourself. >> [inaudible] the conversation relative to training, you know, teaching people how to use mouse and the digital divide, we all know is valuable relative to our society, getting on the grid, and improving our innovation, but, you know, and i know we talked about this a lot one community in cleveland was founded it it's all about the applications. we're at one of those sputnik moments now and it's glossed over more than it should be. blair, you did mention it that, you know, today's computing environment rests in my hands. it's not plugged into a wall, so when we talk about connectivity, i mean, and we know we can't afford to put broadband into every house. i mean, we do a little bit, but the capital required to put it into every home and to get activity, you know, access to that broadband and time warner

is not interested in me having it, but using less of it because their capital is restrained. the question is the policy perspective on the public side as well as efforts from the community perspective on where we're putting the dollars, how are we migrating to a broadband wireless policy? you know, where's the television spectrum that they have access to that five years ago should have been diverted to a wireless medium than a plugged in meeds yum. >> perfect question for blair. take a run at it. >> well, first thing, it's spree interesting to come back at a second run to the fccment quickly, time is running out. the single most important thing we did at the fcc the first time is time limit the television transition. we just got new tvs and digital and high definition, but we got a benefit of recapturing spectrum. we didn't know at the time that the purpose of that was 4g.

forth generation wireless. that's what you will be using in two or three years. it will be better, but back in 1996, we had no idea. the real point is we need an effective way of reallocating the spectrum constantly to improve the way we connect because as you say, there's a huge big mobile revolution. we don't have time for the policy, but let me say that this idea of options, giving broad indicatessers the in-- broadcasters the opportunity has bipartisan support and it's not moving anywhere because everybody is playing political games on it. >> let's give the panelists a last round, a kind of take away message, a headline that if the audience didn't hear already, you want to make sure you leave them with it. >> i go back to how critically important having broadband access and knowing how to use it is to our competitive advantage

and innovation and entrepreneur ship. >> the key is for businesses to spread their voice, share with their government what their needs are. >> scot? >> i think north eastern ohio will be at the leading edge on the supply side for broadband. the challenge is to take advantage of that. it's about getting the public sector engagement, aligning systems, investments, planning at a regional level now that we've got it, but it's unlimited, what will we do with it to innovate, improve quality of life, and spur economic development. >> to understand what scot said, you're yearing ahead of other people to develop the best public safety applications to instill in the rest of country, develop a brand new education system to deliver to the rest of the world, and same with health care. >> thanks, everyone, and today we have been listening to a

panel discussion featuring blair levin, national broadband plan, [inaudible] roy church, president of lorain community college, bethany, executive director for the economic development corporation, and scott rourke, thank you, panelists for willing here, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for being here, and you are now adjourned. [applause] >> in just a few moments, a discussion on hispanics and immigration. in an hour, interior secretary

ken salazar outlines the administration's new conservation strategy. after that, political unrest in the middle east, and how the u.s. is seen in the arab world. later, a discussion of global trade and development from the world economic forum.

>> now a discussion of hispanics and immigration. speakers include former u.s. representative. this is part of a conference hosted by the hispanic leadership network. it's an hour. >> so now we are going to keep moving and moving fast with our program. so far, hasn't the day phenomenal? yes, so far. [applause] i want to thank the panel is, everyone who flu in to be with -- flew in to be with us today. i'll introdice the next panel which is going to be a very exciting and spirited panel. the next panel is called immigration and security, protecting his panic communities at the border and beyond. it is my pleasure to introduce the folks that will be on this next panel.

first, i'd like to introduce moderator, california state assemblyman, bob, pacheco. thank you for your celebrateed service career. the former governor of california and former ambassador to spain, ed, aguirre. amanda needs no introduction in the community, but former congressman, but always will be our congressman here in miami. long diaz-balart. lincoln, who in 1997 was able to pass and sponsor and author the most recent immigration law, went 400,000 folks from

different countries received their green cards, and it was called -- do you remember that? it's thanks to this gentleman. yes, round of applause for diaz-balart. now, i have the pleasure and privilege to introduce someone that really needs no introduction. senator john cornyn was reelected. he serves on the senate finance budget, agriculture, and judiciary committees and is a ranking member on the subcommittee on immigration, refugees, and board of security. senator cornyn has a career in public office and serving as a district judge member of the texas supreme court and as

attorney general of the great state of texas. it gives me a great honor to introduce in a warm miami way senator john cornyn. [applause] >> good morning. well, thank you very much for that very nice introduction, and i'm delighted to be here with my panel members, our panel members for this important event. i want to just start by acknowledging governor jeb bush and carlos who i know are co-chairs for this event, and welcome as president of puerto rico, i understand governor pe len they has been here and every

one at the american action network and american action forum, and thanks to all of you who live here in south florida for making us feel so welcome. of course, our topic this morning is immigration and security, and as i said, we have a great panel to speak on this topic. i look forward to your questions and your comments as i know the panel does because i think it's absolutely essential that we have an open, honest, and candid dialogue about a very complicated subject. if i may preface my remarks by this is honesty, opennd, and candor are a sign of respect. political postering are not. similarly, imflammatory and hurtful rhetoric directed at immigrants who want nothing more

than to aspire to and reach their dreams and a hope for a better life are counterproductive to the goal of an open, honest, and candid conversation. now, i have the privilege and challenge of framing our discussion this morning, and let me proceed to do that the best way i can. as we all know, congress last debated comprehensive immigration reform in 2007. interestingly, those who have read president george w. bush's book, "decision points," you'll notice he got a call from teddy kennedy in the latter stages of the debate to call majority reid to keep the senate in session for the weekend believing they were just a few votes short in the senate of completing work on that bill. senator reid in his discretion

chose not to do so, and unfortunate ly, the bill died, but a lot of things have gone on in washington and around the country and around the world sense then. some of these changes make legislative action more difficult and some of them make it more urgent. some things vice president changed really -- haven't changed really at all. understanding what has changed and what hasn't changed is key to moving forward on imgracious and security measures in the congress. what's changed since the last issue of comprehensive immigration reform? well, we know first of all, the security situation in mexico on the part of the border that texas shares and arizona, california, and new mexico, the security situation has degenerated very seriously, more than 30,000 people have lost their lives as a result of that violence sense 2006.

many areas of the border right across from the u.s. border in texas are not safe for u.s. citizens and sadly, tragically, really, americans are reluctant to traft across the -- travel across the border into northern mexico and commerce as well as that sort of casual travel have largely shut down. we know that, again, tragic as this may seem, and it is indeed tragic, that the cartels and associated criminal gangs are recruiting even on the u.s. side, and their impact is being felt. inin rio grand texas, kids were halfway through a video ran by border control as participant of what they called operation

detour. the goal of the border patrol was to encourage children to resist the cartels and the drug related gangs. after presentation in the city, children were crying midway through the first video because the night before, a classmate had died while running drugs. after the presentation in mcallen, texas, a 13-year-old girl told the border patrol that her father was a victim of cross border abduction, and her family feared retaliation of the cartels if they reported it to the authorities. talk to anyone who lives along the u.s.-mexican border, particularly in the state of texas, things are much different now, fear and frustration now are real and they are rising. second, there's also an increasing awareness that individuals who cross our

southern border are coming from places much further away that's just mexico. mexico and the southern border, in fact, has become a gateway to worldwide human smuggling into the united states. during the last fiscal year, the cues ms and border protection saw an increase in apprehensions of immigrants from afghanistan, iraq, iran, syria, yemen, more than a dozen came from iran and iraq, and more than a thousand, 1100 i should say, illegal immigrants were detained coming from china. now, these are shocking numbers, but they don't include the tens and thousands of immigrants detained by the mexican authorities themselves in the interior of mexico. like cartel violence, increasing illegal immigration from nations beyond the western hemisphere,

especially nations to harbor terrorists should strengthen our resolves to secure borders. unfortunately, a person with enough money to pay a human smuggler and with sufficient determination can find a way to immigrate illegally into the united states. in a post-9/11 world, i would hope we all agree that it is important to deal with this national security as a vulnerability. on the other hand, the economy, we know, it much worse than it was in 2007 when we debated the last comprehensive immigration reform bill, and i think we have to acknowledge that that presents a challenge in and of itself. unemployment stands at 9.4% nationally, but in the his panic community, it's an alarming 13%. last week, chairman of the federal reserve, ben bernanke

testified before the senate budget committee that he expected sluggish economic growth for the next four or five years and anticipated that unemployment would remain persist tently high at 8% even into 2012. long term unemployment is not only a painful reality for many american families, but it threatens america's identity as a welcoming nation in a land of opportunity. after all, we became a nation of immigrants because we consistently created job opportunities not only for our own people, but for others who wished for and hoped for a better life for themselves. right now, our economy's not creating enough jobs for american citizens, so it's no wonder that higher unemployment rates make immigration reform seem less urgent to many americans right now. i would say another change that we have seen in repped years has

been within the democratic party. we know they've controlled congress for the last four years and have occupied the white house for two years, and yet, every time they made a promise to move forward and demonstrate leadership on this important issue, they have not done so. during his campaign, president obama promised both lack in the national counsel that immigration reform would be a top priority during his first year in office. obviously, that did not happen. by this time last year, president obama barely gave a mention to immigration reform in his state of the union, about 38 words out of 7,000 spoken. the majority leader who has the exclusive right to set the agenda in the united states senate, what legislation we're going to consider on the floor, has made a lot of promises mainly during the course of a successful reelection campaign

in his state of nevada, but every promise, virtually every promise he made to move a comprehensive immigration bill in the senate floor as not been fulfilled. then, again, of course he said that he didn't know anyone of hispanic heritage could be a republican. well, i would say it's pretty easy to see that there are not many alternatives to his party which is so cynically misled on a repeated basis, the hispanic community of their good faith many moving forward and their leadership on this important issue. it's easy to be skeptical of immigration reform when about the white house and united states senate have been in the hands of the democratic leadership who have made repeated promises that have not been fulfilled. of course, the american people change congress on november 2, and a new congress remitted increasing reluctance of the american people to pass massive

comprehensive legislation of any type on any topic. now, i believe that immigration is one of those issues that can't be addressed effectively on a peace wheel basis. this is not a political calculation, but a matter of poly reality. every component of our broken immigration system is connected to so many other parts, and unfortunately, congress has poisenned the well for massive reform bill. the stimulus bill is an example, the health care bill that passed with 60 votes on a partisan basis on christmas eve just a little over a year ago. ..

or have perhaps films and them that haven't been fought out or would have the unintended consequences. but perhaps one of the most interesting changes in the last few years since 2007 have been changes within the hispanic community itself. the national pew hispanic pull regularly asks about the impact of illegal immigration on hispanics already living in the united states. in 2007, 50% of hispanics in the u.s. said the impact was positive and only 20% said it was negative.

by 2010, right before the election, those members had shifted. 29% said the devotee legal emigration had a positive impact. 31% said it was - and 30% said illegal immigration didn't make much difference either way. the same poll showed hispanics consider immigration to be the fourth in their list of priorities for the nation behind education, jobs and health care. so what are all these changes and why is it i think it's important to frame this issue in this context again because i think in the interest of having an open candid and honest conversation about how do we find a solution to these challenges. we can't simply kick the can down the road because for no one does the current status quo work. one thing we know is it remains the same that immigration

remains a federal responsibility and we've seen in the case of arizona and perhaps other of state legislators -- legislatures that may follow on that have tried to fill the gap on a state-by-state patchwork basis in the absence of federal responsibility. and the first thing that hasn't changed is we must find a credible and compassionate solution to the 11 million in illegal immigrants who are already here in this country. i think it's beyond debate that our immigration system is broken. our borders are not secure, many who come here you legally violate their weisel by overstaying about 45% of the illegal immigration doesn't come across the border to read the come legally and overstay their visas. many immigrants who play by the rules have had to wait for too long to enter their country.

with no documents are not necessarily credible and easily forged. identity theft is rampant. we know of a system is overly bureaucratic and less she just to the acoustics litigious and at the end of the day we can conclude, and i certainly do, that our broken immigration system serves neither our interest more our values. so, my conclusion is that we need to remain committed, as i know you are or you would not be here, and certainly i am to do what is necessary to find a solution to this challenge. i've co-sponsored immigration bills in the past starting in 2005 with senator john kyl, comprehensive bill. i've introduced others that address specific challenges like strengthening border security and infrastructure to allow for trade and commerce across the borders. i've looked to try to find ways

to modernize the visa programs and upgrade our ports of entry. but i want to get responsible to drop a piece of legislation with no hope of passage just in order to pander or just in order to engage in political posturing. that's why i think this candid transport and dialogue is so important while we must engage all places and stakeholders to come up with a solution, and i think all of us have to get down to some details and answer the most challenging questions that responsible reform can address. so i look forward to this candid dialogue and the questions from the audience and the response particularly of the panel members. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, senator, for those great words. i know that we all share with

the same commentary you talk about. those are important issues for all of us. i know that the republican party is very much interested, and i think both parties are very interested. what is going on with of the latino community and how they can reach the latino community. i fink one of the things we probably need to understand that is more important than anything else is that we need to learn how to communicate effectively in a way that doesn't in some way offend the latino community. you know, latinos i think our -- we believe in the honor of people and we are a humble people, but we have a great deal of respect for our family members, and we don't like to have anything said about our family in any way that is in any way derogatory, so latinos bring

energy and a lot of enthusiasm to the country and have been woven into the fabric of the country and are very, very important to what is going on in this country. they are in fact, and i am going to say this, this is the decade of the latinos. feith latinos are going to be the most important segment of our society in the united states. [applause] we have a very distinguished panel here, people that have been very much involved in a number of issues, and i am going to ask two questions to the panel and have each one of them, panel members and have each one of them answered, and then we are going to turn to the audience for some questions. so, panel members, a couple of questions for you. if you would, framing the immigration issue in the context of larger issues, economic growth and flexibly, domestic security and business skills,

putting aside the illegal immigration issue, what you think are the most important aspect of the aspects of reform for hispanics? ambassador, would you? >> thank you for the opportunity and senator, for your leadership i have to agree that the issue of comprehensive immigration reform is one that cuts across all aspects of the nation, and certainly includes the issue of economics and job creation and such. we can't ignore the fact that there are 12 million or there about illegal undocumented workers in this country, and we are going to have to include them within the immigration reform. that will probably take some of the pressure off of our borders and allow the border to focus more on the criminality beyond

the illegal immigration to curtail the drug trade and other issues. i think the bush administration and hopefully the obama administration will deal with the temporary worker program that will allow for a legal document approach to low-skilled and medium skill worker so that these people do not have to live in the shadows of our economy and if they stop living in the shadows of our economy, i think there will be more productive and more important consumers to our economy. >> lt. governor, if you would -- by the way he and i serve together in the legislature and i was happy to see him become the lieutenant governor for california. the first latino aside from one other latino that was the can

actually governor who happens to be like me, but we are very proud if you are able to address the question. >> thank you. i want to thank disconnect network for inviting us to the panel. i think immigration is probably one of the most important issues facing america and i agree with the senator that obviously the economy and jobs are very, very important, but i think it is all connected to immigration reform, and as i sit here today, i am the son of a mexican migrant field worker who crossed the border in 63 looking for an opportunity, and we need across the border -- he said there were two lines, there was the line for welfare and there was the line for a job and think me every day for getting in the job line because now you are the lieutenant governor of the state of california. [applause] >> and i've got to say that comprehensive immigration reform

is my passion. i think it is one of the most important issues, and i say that with all my heart. and i will start with this, i am not for amnesty and i am not for the ronald reagan amnesty of 1986. all i am for a temporary workers permit that allows people to come here on a temporary basis. [applause] and if you work here after five years and to have been a good temporary worker and there's no domestic violence and no romance with the law there is a process to get a green card just like my father. [applause] and i will share with you that after ten years, i believe they're ought to be a process that if you are a good temporary worker after ten years you have the right to apply to become a u.s. citizen in america and hopefully your kids will be educated and you can be prosperous, and it's the foundation. i'm going to tell you this, just before we go to the congressman, one of my biggest challenges is as senator cornyn talked about, the democrats putting everything

on the republicans, and that is something that is uncomfortable because of the end of the day sometimes i feel they don't want a comprehensive immigration reform because they want to continue to use it as a way to hurt the hispanic republicans and the republican party. [applause] and i will say this with you, too. i believe that my party hasn't been a good job of reaching out and working and getting the message out, because the notion of -- i will be very sincere, the 14th amendment talk bothers me. this talk on not supporting the treen act bothers me. we must come together and pass the comprehensive immigration reform. [applause] >> congressman, if you would direct your comment -- >> thank you very much, mr. chairman and senator and distinguished colleagues. we are not an anti-immigrant

party. in the generous introduction he talked about the legislation of 1997. he was their working with me day in and day out. i couldn't have passed out without the help of new gingrich, without spencer abraham or connie mack, without lamar smith and 400,000 green cards were made available with that legislation. certainly many of those are u.s. citizens come people facing imminent deportation before that legislation. president bush and senator cornyn has pointed out not only made a genuine effort, he assigned to members of his cabinet, carlos gutierez and the other distinguished chertoff members of the cabinet. they were continuously meeting with us. both sides of the aisle trying

to make progress and get legislation passed. i went to see president bush along with other members of the hispanic caucus. president bush made a genuine efforts juxtaposed of that, friends, as senator cornyn has pointed out with what we've seen under the leadership of president obama and mrs. pelosi. mrs. pelosi did not permit anything related to immigration to even reach the house floor until it was simply window dressing in the lame-duck session after they had received a great defeat of 2010. that's reality. i agree. they don't want to see legislation passed, but they are aware of something and they are very good political window

dressing. if we become perceived as an anti-immigrant party, america being a country of immigrants will never allow us to be the majority party certainly with any significant amount of time. you can't be a majority party in a country of immigrants if you are perceived as being antiimmigrant. [applause] let me wrapup by saying and i will divulged -- i will certainly not break the ground rules by which we had discussion after discussion negotiation after negotiation for two years this last congress, there was a bipartisan working group

including liberals and conservatives. legislation is drafted. it solves almost impossible to solve issues including making sure people waiting legally get preference and the folks as abel mentioned it at the end of the line. the legislation is there. the ground rules work, not to divulge the membership of the working group i did not and i still will not divulge the membership of the working group, nor go into detail obviously with regard to the working product plan want to say that the product is there. and so i think this issue can be tackled, but the decibels have to be lowered, respect has to be the number-one priority, and i

just will and again by saying we must always remember that it doesn't matter how good our policy positions are with regard to economic growth, regard to security, regard to a better america, better tomorrow. it doesn't matter how the policy positions are if we are perceived as anti-immigrant we cannot be the majority party. [applause] >> thank you very good congressman. one more question and we will turn to the audience for their questions. bring me the immigration issue in the larger way. economic growth, the flexibility of domestic security and business skills. it's not just unlimited workers are coming year. we get people from all parts with all different levels of skill and the need for the growth of our economy to really think latinos one of the largest

of the economy they bring more new jobs than any other and the wonderful thing is latinos who are now in business are the largest segment of the latino community that is in business and so in addressing those issues we will start with a congressman first and then come back this way. what to make comments on that, please? >> what differentiates us with europe and countries in other areas that are diminishing in their human-resources is immigration. now obviously that's because this is an opportunity society. we have to keep it an opportunity society. that is why senator cornyn was

talking about yes, these are tough issues, and the american people don't like these massive bills have been brought before the congress and voted out without any member of congress reading them. we have to keep american as an opportunity society but let me say we all know that the growth of small businesses owned by hispanics has been exponential, it's been extraordinary, and that is the great strength of the community. we are in entrepreneurial community. and so, that's why we have to nourish that. i helped along with other members of congress and business leaders formed the congressional hispanic leadership institute six years ago. the voice in the hispanic community and the ngo community in washington and their work continues entrepreneurial

spirit, and that is what different sheets us and makes our economy now and will continue to make our economy the strongest in the world. but we have to protect that. so it's connected, connected, chairman. the issue of immigration to our entrepreneurial and economic strength. >> thank you very much. lt. governor? >> i couldn't agree more with congressman maldonado. it's connected from the standpoint where every latino, i don't care where you come from, you come with a goal of raising a beautiful family and a good job for your family and at the end of the day [speaking in spanish] that is the goal of every latino that wants to come here. [applause] and as you do that, you have to find a place where they can come here, and i shouldn't say they, when we can come here to be a

benefactor to this american dream, this american experiment that we all love. and it goes back to immigration. my father tells me every day it's so easy when i cross the border they put power in my kid for lice and gave me a little tend to live in. it's better than any circumstance than the troops in the middle east today. i came here my very first check and my pocketbook. my second check for my family, my third check that my mother and my dad and the fourth that paid the rent. and right now the first six months of money goes to pay the smuggler and we are never going to catch up. so come together and come up with a comprehensive immigration reform system. it's easy. i hear it every day. and i think that what is missing is what was once said [speaking in spanish] and if you have this congressman, then the legislation is there. the work has been done.

now you have to have the want to do it. yes, people are afraid because a couple groups get up and say we want amnesty. we don't want amnesty, but the debate falls. one latino told me one day why are you republican? democrats are for the poor. i said you want to be poor? [laughter] [applause] she couldn't answer me because i told him they won't keep you, my friend. the point is he was just repeating what the other side put in his mind, and he's repeating what some of us in my party have put in his mind, and that is the challenges as we move forward to come up with a comprehensive immigration reform system. [applause] >> thank you.

mr. ambassador? >> the senator knows well because he was there for my confirmation hearing. when i became the first director of immigration services and homeland security, i was astounded to realize that 7 billion applicants -- 7 million applicants come every year within the broken immigration system to live and work and live in the united states year in and year out. 7 million people are coming, have come and will continue to come because this is still the beacon of hope within the whole country. latinos are certainly a strong part of that fabric, but they come from everywhere and that's not going to change anytime soon. so, we need to figure out a way to make it better. it is pretty strong right now among the less.

>> thank you very much. we will turn to the audience for some questions, and i think we have some microphones out there. if you raise your hand they will bring a microphone to you and then if you could just address the panel and while you are doing that there is a gentleman over here that has a question. according to the census bureau there are 48.4 million hispanics in 2009, and of those the record 20.1 million were eligible to vote. but the point is this. there are more hispanics that are not eligible to vote for going to becoming eligible to vote, and we need to make sure we can address them and address them correctly so they respect us and we respect them, us meaning us as republicans, and then as a people who have a great challenge and are interested in making our economy

grow. >> thank you for the opportunity. my name is hernandez, and i want to see first of all we live in the greatest country in the world. [applause] i travel a lot internationally. every time i come to any port of entry in the united states i want to throw myself on the ground and kiss it because we are lucky to be here. [applause] i just came back from two weeks in arizona. we live here in miami now that my family and i lived there for ten years, and i have to tell you that the mood, the people especially those of hispanic heritage is sad, it is a situation where the feelings of the community i can tell you that the hispanic vote in that state is pretty much lost to a

certain degree just because of the tone and the way we are going about things. i am not necessarily for any 107 or things like that but i think we can do better as a party, as those that want to be in the center-right we can do a better job. they were speaking about getting the right people to run, hispanics to run for the government and the service, and i have a friend that ran for the fourth district of arizona as a republican, he's a mexican-american, immigration lawyer and he had a lot of issues with the law we passed in arizona, and basically the republican party shunned him because of that and i think it is sad because we may never agree on everything. as a cubin we have a lot of benefits coming to this country

and we still do today, but other immigrants don't have. it's very difficult. and for us, obviously i can't experience what he does, but he says every day i see cases where people are just being pulled over, they are being questioned, they are being treated, and i can tell you as i was driving through the state i wondered am i going to get pulled over, you know, going to be asked where i'm from and those kind of questions, but life as a party -- and my question would be if we want to be the leaders coming you know, how we get people that have the voice, those that are on the radio, those that were on the tv to maybe tone down their rhetoric coming you know, how do we do that? [applause] >> thank you for the question. we will start with the lieutenant governor maldonado. >> well, i understanding and i feel exactly what sam was talking about from the basis of the feelings people get.

in california 1994 we had the proposition 187 so it's just a repeat a couple of years later and i can tell you this, as long as we don't have a comprehensive immigration reform system in place, not amnesty, comprehensive temporary worker system in place, we are going to continue to get him 70 in other states and as long as we continue to get him 70 and other states, the more of the latino community will be down and we are talking about los angeles, talking about mexico, texas, utah, and as long as the morale is down on the republicans can guarantee you as the congressman said, we are going to have future elections and we are going to continue to becoming a little short. all i can say is i hope in congress we can get a system in place sooner and senator cornyn was right. president barack obama, if you can get 60 votes for health care and pass other issues i don't want to get into but you can't get 60 when you have the leadership and immigration

that's not what you promised us as americans. [applause] >> mr. ambassador. >> the answer to your question i think begins with events like this. councils like this where leadership that is committed to not only values of the republican system but also fell use compatible with the hispanic community will replace the air time of those irresponsible commentary start taking place we need to be more proactive in been proud to be republican and proud to be pro immigration reform. there's no need to shy away from that. [applause] >> totally in agreement. that's why i'm here supporting with fred and carlos and what jeb bush are doing and all of you. we have to do this everyday.

democracy is tough. but it's better resulting it with ballots and not blitz because the six bullets. >> thank you. i just wanted to say amen to what ed wargo and others have said about the importance of the responsible voices speaking up. because if you think about it, what happens in the immigration debate so often is one side will say one thing, perhaps for political or other reasons. the easiest thing for the reporter to do is to go to some wild inflammatory comments made by someone who's not necessarily interested in solving the problem, or offering constructive solutions, but somebody who, you know, they've got their quote and they put their story to bid and that is the end of it. i think what that does is it makes it more incumbent on us and one reason why i am here and i appreciate the american action network sponsoring this conference is those of us who

are like-minded and who wore solution oriented who realize there is a problem that needs to be fixed, that we will then be the ones that will step up and say you know what, that person doesn't speak for me. that is perhaps done in order to raise money or frighten people. it's not constructive suggestions on how to solve what is admittedly a complicated problem but we can do it. we have solved the problems before and we can do this. [applause] >> thank you, cementer. [applause] >> we have another question but before we take that question i just want to make a point about something that we do regularly. you know, in the republican party you constantly hear the point saying we need to reach out to the latino community. let me tell you that sends a signal that latinos are over there and republicans over here. what we need to do is increase

the latino community, and i will tell you a good example of how that is shown by our actions. and i say this to republicans who generally tend to be critical but think of it this way. president bush made a great example of how she embraces the community. he ran a political ad where he is walking down the street with a latina grandmother and he had his arm over her shoulder and they are walking close to each other. that sends the signal that he not only have respect for that lady, but that he embraced her and the values that she brought. and i have another question.

>> first i want to thank you, congressman diaz-balart, for all the work you've done on behalf of miami-dade county and the state of florida and our country. [applause] your voice for hispanics have never changed you have been the one that has stood up front and voted for the treen act, created the dream act. i've been to washington many times. i've taken the delegation from miami-dade college to lobby congress and senate for the dream act and the legislation for many years. i met with mel martinez, senator cornyn, mr. mccain, ted kennedy and many others, and you have never voted again one policy to legalize the process of undocumented immigrants and

the dream act for that we want to thank you. thank you, so much, sir. [applause] >> we have another question on the right side. >> thank you. the hispanic republican group from minnesota and want to congratulate of course senator cornyn a good friend for putting this together. here is a very important question we have to ask as republicans. we are months away from candidates to clearing they are running for discreet office and probably one of our most challenging elections in our lifetime. our lifetime with the deficits, with the liberal movements who can we count on with a list of candidates and we know who the list is to push immigration reform. i haven't heard it with many

candidates around the country even this last congressional race, but this is important to us. you know who the candidates are. give your information and share with us can we get a candidate who will be strong for immigration reform and to get our vote. this is important. thank you. >> thank you very much. let's start with you on the end. [applause] >> that is a very important priority, and the reason that i talked about our history is because sometimes you have to go a little bit under the surface to find out what really, what people really stand for. what have they done when they have had power. so that is what i would recommend to folks to sit down, that all of you, your leaders in our communities, sit down with all the candidates and tell them

, he just pointed out the obstacles can be overcome. and senator cornyn pointed out and he's demonstrated so often the obstacles can be overcome. as i mentioned earlier, work product already has been drafted. nobody's talking about amnesty. when you're creating the kinds of process east that were talked about, and in addition to that, requiring civic glacis and american history and learning english and things that have never been required in american history, and all of our history to obtain a green card that's not amnesty. so in your role as leaders, sit

down with all these candidates, dole and to their history and into their soul. [applause] >> mr. ambassador? and the author comments to make on that? >> the question was who do we think is the leader that is going to bring this sensible immigration reform to the political debate. i don't think it is for us to say. it is for us to demand that those individuals will make it part of their platform and we have to see what they have to say. >> thank you. >> i.t. he is the question what are we going to demand, are we going to ask the questions but one step further, are we going to tell the community that the majority party president of the united states today made that promise and he didn't follow through and we are not going to give him a pass on that because

i can guarantee this if i would have made that promise they would have held accountable. so we are going to make the point and hold them accountable and say you know what [speaking in spanish] and find out who on our side is going to move forward. [applause] >> i think we have time for one more question. yes. >> i am part of d.c. works for us, and my question is you said you're all on the same page. i'm not listening to all on the same page. i want to know which ones of you are supportive of the gerry to and which ones are not and the reason why you do support it or don't support it. thank you. [applause] >> let me be jerry brief.

my 18 years in congress speak for themselves, and i stand by my votes and by my public statements. [applause] >> i sit here as the son of an immigrant and i must share with you that is not the reason why i support and a strong supporter of the dream act not only in california but also won a national basis. i was also opposed to sd 1070 and i support a comprehensive immigration reform system that has a temporary worker permit, and i don't support amnesty. >> in terms of the dream act, that slow hanging fruit for this group. we can certainly not only support it, but decided not to bring it up in the interest of limited time. but it's a dull moment. >> here's the person that actually is going to get the vote on that. senator? >> i've supported the dream act

in the judiciary committee. i voted against cloture during the lame-duck session, and let me explain to you why. the children who are the subject of the treen act are not culpable. they have no responsibility other than the fact they came to this country with their parents and they deserve to have a chance to have a better life and not be limited by the fact that they are not citizens. but what i think is important is to recognize something i eluted to earlier, the political posturing and the way that it's politics played using those children in the lame-duck session of the congress. it was clear that notwithstanding the promises by the president and the majority leader they had no intention of allowing a debate and amendments and for congress to work its will on an immigration reform bill. so they chose to do instead was to raise the gerry in the

lame-duck session, say there would be no amendments, there would be no realistic opportunity to debate post election and before the new congress got elected and they would then use that vote as a bludgeon against republicans and those who felt like this deserved better and more deliberate consideration. i also think there's a question that if the dream act by itself passed what would that mean for the guest worker program? what would that mean for other aspects of the broken immigration system that need to be fixed? so i realize how that vote has been used as a bludgeon and a wedge, but you have my commitment that the version of the gerry needs to pass as part of a larger immigration reform solution and i will vote for it. [applause] >> we have one more question. i think the gentleman in the

middle. he's been waiting. >> congressman, we've been friends for many years. thank you publicly for supporting issues for puerto rico and we love you for that. i'm sad that you decided to retire, but my question is the new speaker of the house, one of the first orders of business was to delaminate the symbolic vote for the puerto rico representatives in washington and we feel that is a front not only to the puerto ricans year on the mainland, but to the 4.5 million american citizens on puerto rico, and senator, we would like you to address that issue also but if you want to reach out to the hispanic community in this country, the

puerto ricans are part of that community as well. so we would ask if you please reconsider that, talk to your folks and i would like lincoln to address that because he's been at the forefront of the puerto rican issues. >> welcome you know, i love puerto rico and it is an extraordinary model me island but people come and i am not aware of what you're seeing with regard to the new speaker. what i do know is that he does an incredible job. not only did he do an incredible job when he was a member of congress but continues to do so and i'm very proud of him as governor, and i know that he, if there's anyone who could convey your message, and i know he will come it is the governor. so the person like to speak to in all frankness with regard to puerto rico is the disputed leader of puerto rico and the issues.

[applause] >> i think we have run out of time. i want to thank first the senator for being here and the wonderful words that you have for us. ambassador, wonderful to see you, to meet you and i look forward to working with you in the future. lt. governor, always good to see you again, and congressman, it's a pleasure to meet you. thank the audience for all the questions. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

every weekday we will take you to capitol hill, the white house and anywhere that news is happening. we will also talk with the experts, politicians and journalists as we put the days even this in perspective. the stories that matter to the most every weekday five to seven eastern on c-span radio. you can listen in the washington baltimore area nine difm and nationwide on xm satellite retial channel 132 mayorga longline to c-span.org. it's also available as and iphone have and you can download a program every evening as the c-span podcast.

interior secretary ken salazar outlined president obama's conservation strategy today at the center for american progress in washington. the plan calls for the creation of new urban green spaces and to reach new emphasis on cleaning up the nation's rivers. this is a less than an hour. >> good morning, everybody. i'm the president of the center for american progress. i want to thank you all for joining us. it's a true pleasure for me to welcome and to introduce a good friend of mine, secretary ken salazar and historian doug

brinkley. a special thanks to the both of you for being here to participate in what i think will be a thoughtful and interesting discussion. we've set this up as a kind of q&a so that we can really get into the meat of the american great outdoors and the great initiative of the secretary and the obama administration to conserve our public lands and water including full funding for the land and water conservation fund. i know that's going to be a challenge in this particular environment, but we are going to all work to support that. so that the vision and your new initiatives can be brought to fruition. this also actually is the inaugural event of new public lands program that we are doing here the center for american progress under the leadership of christi and tom ken were the who is our denver representative to the center for american progress the great outdoors has of course been a central part of our

national character. from the very beginning land pleaded central role in our founding. it shaped the vision and the philosophy of the founding fathers and the laws the crafted to govern the nation. subsequent generations build a powerful national economy anchored by our unmatched natural resources and the unmatched american character. of course, after centuries of development our growth again to threaten the land and waters that made our expansion possible. so senator theodore roosevelt started a tradition followed by every president thereafter as setting aside the most treasured natural places used and protected in a way that preserves them for future generations. as president roosevelt said it is not what we have that will make us a great nation, is the way we use it. i was of course fortunate enough to serve under a great environmental president, the only one i.t. to actually grew up in the national park.

he used to remind me of that all the time, and he took that advice to heart. president clinton recognize our land and waters are central to our prosperity and to our natural -- national spirit, and he's working with a great group of people including the vice president bruce babbitt, dan glickman and many others. he predicted more land in the lower 48 states and other president before him and putting the five national parks in the national monument. i think that he took care to protect existing land as well as about a rule to protect the ruthless forests that protect the development of the over 60 million acres of national forests, an achievement of the subsequent administration really did all it could to try to screw up, but all the way they tried mightily, the heart of that is preserved under the secretaries leadership will move forward.

i think of those of those that serve in that administration tried to focus on what teddy roosevelt called bill long look ahead and i think secretary salazar in the work he's doing it the part that exemplifies the spirit. president clinton might and was also one of the first president to make the case environmental protection doesn't diminish but supports and enhances our economic goals as a country. he argued protect the in the public health and safety doesn't come at the expense of the national bottomline as the companies can thrive without hurting the air we breathe and water we drink and food we eat or the natural landscape in which we live. when it comes to the healthy economy and environment, i think the president got it right and i believe we can and must have both. that notion that environmental protection can further our economic interests is clear today than ever before. it's particularly true when it comes to protecting our public land. millions of people visit the nation's park and beach every year generating tens of billions of dollars of revenue and

supporting hundreds of thousands of recreation and tourism jobs in turn. overall, every federal dollar invested directly in the national parks generated least $4 of economic value and the emotional and spiritual value of our public land for this generation and for generations to come can't be measured. it just exceeds any capacity to measure the way we feel about the great public spaces. the vast majority of americans recognize the enormous benefits. they believe the treasure land and water should be protected but with so much at stake, the public often has important opinions and sometimes this agreements on the way the public lands are protected and used. when i served in the government we sometimes learn that the hard way. and that's why i think it's really, really critical and important that undersecretary selzer's leadership, the obama administration is taking a careful and effective approach through its great outdoors

initiative, the administration held 51 public listening sessions across the nation to better determine local communities' needs and priorities. the response has been enormous. 10,000 americans were dissipated in the sessions and for some of them they are here today. and participants submit over 100,000 comments overall. those comments will be used to craft the 21st century conservation agenda that speaks to the steve scott tribes, grassroots groups and reconnect americans with the outdoor places and provisions that made the country and still makes the country great. i'm sure other speakers have more to say about the america's great outdoors and the initiative of the administration, so let me turn the floor over to them. first it's my pleasure to introduce the secretary ken salazar. secretary salazar was unanimously confirmed as the secretary of the interior in 2009. per your to his confirmation, ken salazar serve as colorado's 35th united states senator where

he led efforts to create and implement a vision for the renewable energy economy. secretary salazar also served as the colorado attorney general was the executive director of the colorado department of natural resources, as an environmental and partner in the california vehicle colorado ranch. as a result i think that he's been a true champion of the farmers and ranchers of the rural communities and of the natural environment. he's very well steeped in a planned and was the environmental protection and we are honored and pleased he was willing to be here with us today to speak about his vision for how to move the initiative for word. we are also quite fortunate to have dug brinkley discuss the great outdoors initiative and the role that it may play in the obama administration legacy. doug is recognized as one of the best historians, maybe the best historian of his generation, and he's on the topics ranging from 20th century presidents of war to conservation to his new book.

his latest book the wilderness for your teddy roosevelt and the crusade for america scales the best sellers list when it won the national outdoor book award and 2009 prize for sustainable literature pete he's offered dozens of other work and is a tenure at rice university as well as a fellow at the dolph briscoe center for american history. welcome. i am going to turn the event over to you, secretary. doug, please join us at the front. [applause] >> good morning. thank you for coming. it's great to be with you, mr. secretary, and i want to start -- what we are going to do is go for about a half an hour i'm going to ask questions and then we're going to be taken in the cards for 15 minutes from the audience, journalists and others that have written a question. we will try to get to as many as we can. let's begin with america's great

outdoors. what is this? how did this report could put together and what is it going to tell us about the obama administration's view of conservation? >> doug, over the last two years what we have done is work with the president on our conservation agenda for the obama administration. we already have things i am a very proud of in the passage and the signature by the president of one of the very first bills in this congress was the 2009 omnibus landstuhl which created 2 million acres of wilderness, 1,000 wild and scenic rivers and national parks so that was the down payment. in moving forward from that we've been doing a lot of things from the everglades to the hills of the national conservation area. but it was our view if it was going to have a sustained conservation agenda, that we needed to go out and understand the reality of the american public and what they were viewing as conservation. and so the america's great outdoors listening session went

by tom strickland and so many other people all over the country, listened to people all over the united states that say given the realities of today in 2010, 2011 what should we be doing for conservation? it's different than when teddy roosevelt declared large swaths of the american continent, the american west area to be preserved with the new reality of the populations and so the america's great outdoors report will move forward in the conservation agenda. >> what are the types of groups that you listen to or talk to? who did you talk to across america to bring together this report? >> it was an incredible assembly of people, some of whom are here today, but it was ranchers and farmers, hunters and wranglers, it was mayors and governors, just everybody who cares about the outdoors, it was very interesting because i think that

what i ended up finding out is there is a much broader coalition of people. this is really the agenda that supports conservation. there are yes democrats but also republicans to understand that conservation is a way that protect the economic vitality of the communities across the country, the outdoor industry, recognizes that there's about $6.5 billion a year created just for outdoor recreation. so the great coalition of people we listen to from all over the country. >> i've noticed -- i travel the west quite a bit, and a lot of times we hear from ranchers in particular, but also people, you know, dealing with natural gas fields or mineral rights that somehow the federal government continue to lock up the land that the obama administration's wild land policies a lockup policy. how do you respond to that? >> i think it is absolutely not true. i mean, we continue to look at

the public state which is some 500 million acres developed, 30% of the united states of america that we had with the united states department of agriculture. we use those public lands for a lot of different things, and so when you look at, for example, the oil and gas development on the public land about 40 million acres that are actually now being used for oil and gas development. but at the same time, when we look at the wilderness and the wilderness characteristics, we believe it's important to protect those lands as well. we do qualitative comparison, less than 9% of all the land of the public state are in a wilderness status and protected for those wilderness values. everything else is open to a lot of different kind of things, and so what we are trying to do is strike the right balance, and we believe under the authority that we have, that i have as the secretary interior, that protecting areas for wilderness characteristics is a responsibility that i have and something we have the authority

to do. ..