anniversary of the 1994 contract's release. and coming up friday more from road to the white house with remarks from texas republican governor rick perry. he'll be live from his town hall meeting in derry, new hampshire. that gets underway at 6 p.m. eastern, also on our companion network, c-span. ..

nationwide on x and satellite channel 119 and on line at c-spanradio.org. statistics show the unemployment rate for male veterans age 18 to 24 is as high as 26%. up next for war veterans services officials and business leaders discussed ways to help service members find employment. this panel discussion is moderated by cnn pentagon correspondent barbara stock - t --starrr it is the daylong forum. the u.s. naval institute and military officers association posted this one hour and 20 minute discussion. this is the fifth annual defense forum on providing programs and services to severely injured service members.

>> give people one minute or so to take your seats. thank you. [inaudible conversations] i am pleased to introduce our next panel discussion, deployment to employment, are we really committed to hiring wounded warriors and its moderator, barbara starr, and the award winning producer and correspondent who has been reporting from the pentagon since 1998. she has profiled numerous wounded warriors and reported on section 60 at arlington. we are honored to have her here

with us today. currently with cnn barbara has worked for abc news, and james defense weekly magazine. it is an important discussion for us this afternoon to talk about the action that goes with some of the reality we are talking about this morning to discuss the challenges and barriers to providing meaningful employment opportunities to our wounded warriors and in our panel to try to construct corporate government and veteran perspective. let's get on with our panel and i would like to introduce barbara starr. [applause] >> i want to share something about your speaker general peter chiarelli. i am biased because i think he is one of the most remarkable serving general officers in the

military at the moment and i want to tell you why. it was maybe a year ago one night i was looking at my blackberry before i went to sleep and suddenly had a long torturous e-mail from a young army captain ahead come to know. he had served in the worst of combat. you got to wonder how many if you say to them triangle of death would even know what you are talking about. this capt. e-mail me and i had met him at fort hood. he was suffering from a good deal of post-traumatic stress. he had been involved in an incident where he called a strike. it had resulted in a number of civilians being killed but this investigation had fully cleared him. with a series of circumstances his unit was put in that led to this and he e-mail me saying

tonight is the third anniversary of my offense. he had a new baby and he said my son is five weeks old and tonight i wonder if i deserve to have him. if you want to talk about having your heart stop when you read an e-mail that will do it to you. what do you do as a reporter that late at night? after all these years we know so many troops at this man e-mails me. what do you do? you cut and paste that 9:30 and e-mail general peter chiarelli and say i need help. this young man is in trouble. i will tell you general chiarelli is on e-mail at that hour of the night and immediately got this young man what he needed. i had to share that because you're one speaker is a remarkable officer. we come full circle in a minute. when i started this more briskly

hear the question of veterans unemployment you start looking as our reporter for the numbers how many veterans are unemployed from the wars in iraq and afghanistan and you find different statistics which one of our panelists will address and they're all different but the latest round when i looked this up this morning was younger male veterans 18-24 years old face unemployment rates as high as 26%. nearly 2.5 million men and women have left the active duty military since september of 2001. that is 2.5 million that need meaningful work. 9/11 veterans generation more likely by all accounts to be employed in things like construction, mining, transportation and utilities, information services, all the sectors of the economy that one

has told have experienced deployment decline. less inclined to be employed in education and health services which added jobs during this period of recession. some of the questions we want to look at today are the basic ones. where are the jobs? how does -- all these statistics are meaningless to the and veteran who says i need a job and where do i find a job? all the statistics in the world and all the training programs in the world while they have tremendous value to someone who needs work, that is what they need. we will talk about some of that and we will talk about some of the cases i am sure we have all run across of young veterans coming out of the military looking for work. i will give you two examples of veterans i stay in touch with and this will give us the scope of a problem.

young iraq veteran marines home for many years could not find work. post-traumatic stress. fell into joblessness and hopelessness and nowhere to go. it has taken him a number of years. i saw him last month in san diego. he has turned his life around. he is going to start manufacturing his personal hot sauce recipe and it will be marketed at whole foods. this is a kid who was sleeping in the park when he came home from being part of the first wreck -- marine reconnaissance unit in baghdad. i can tell you of another young marine i know who is an amputee, 100% disabled. he is enrolled at harvard looking at getting a joint degree in business and law. for those who considered a good day when we drag ourselves out of bed and get to work in one piece these stories are

remarkable. i am going to stop there because what is useful is to talk about the programs, the trends but never forget there's a young veteran out there that needs a job and all the washington talk may be fairly meaningless to them when they are looking to pay next month's rant. on that note we start with our panelists. i am not going to introduce them. they will introduce themselves and we are going to move right down the line. they will talk about who they are and what they are doing with their company or their government organization to answer this question where are the jobs? capt. ayers first. >> do you have live bio? i am a retired captain,

commander of the first marine in fallujah civilian wounded on april 13th, 2004, in an attack sustained in excess of 15 to 20 rpgs. one killed by gunnar and ripped off the back of my right 5. stock in the track and dead on the water. the driver came conscious and punched out of the kill zone only to end up having the engines ease up because the rocket that went through my leg went to the engine compartment. we were still dead in enemy territory. the ambushing force pursued us on foot. our marines bailout of the track and set up but hasty defense. one of my gunners pulled me from the track and dragged me into the house. the doctor put a tourniquet on my leg with two shot of morphine

and he coordinated and rebuild three frontal assaults and had liaison with quick reaction force to come to get us. pretty much lost all my blood. bled to death. had transfusions. my doctor was not screening blood packs. i spent 70 days in brooke army medical center and end up taking six months to learn how to walk again and eventually retired in april of 2007. during that course i was pretty upset. i was retired and pretty on, 36. what does a 36-year-old do retired now? kind of like forrest gump. i had cycle.

i became known as that disabled athlete and the migration to the road and tried to win some races. that didn't solve everything. at some point i realized as the mail i esteem myself as most of us do on providing for the family and working. at one point i figured at some point have to go back to work. i started interviewing with a lot of companies and working with military recruiters and was having a tough time. one recruiter looked at my career path and all my education and everything and goes you are not the typical candidate. you are and a typical candidate. if you don't have the intellectual capacity to understand raming rpg through your legs might change things i don't want you representing me.

goodbye. i was hopefully able to provide perspective after a reprimanded him but i don't think he cared. the point is we got to work together. interviewed with other companies and came across operation impact which is a program for hiring wounded severely wounded service members or family members with the northrop grumman corp.. i have a lot of success. i grill karen sting continuously for three weeks before accepted a position with northrop grumman. i had to grow her about a lot of concerns. in my experience i have seen a lot of organizations that say we want to hire wounded that's. that is great but it is like a trophy piece. i am not a trophy piece.

i don't want to come to your organization. i want to work. i am wounded but not a rock star. i just want to get back to work and provide functional aspect in society and contribute to the rest of society. a lot of companies and organizations have great programs that they are a little bit immature in their experience in realizing what you are going to do with this now that you hired them. i was a first marine officer to be retained on active duty in the marine corps under the commandant's, that wounded. great program but in its infancy. what are we going to do with capt. ayers? i was stuck at headquarters marine corps in a cubicle with three lieutenant colonels. i wish some things had been different about the program but i was a sick individual,

unhealthy and ended up accepting medical retirement. here comes north grumman. i grill karen stained and she put me at ease. what was good about her is she is married to a marine corps vietnam veteran who lost his leg through vascular surgery from agent orange. having a program manager like karen as liaison between veterans and family member and also corporate organization to get the support to implement a program like this was key. it was a huge. within the program i won't paint a pretty picture. i had my ups and downs but it is a great program. they bent over backwards to help me out and support me. i related to if you want a decent program you have a program manager that can be that

liaison that understands a liaison between the veteran and the corporation but also the corporation needs to give the program manager support like we were trained in recruit training, or as an officer you go through basic training and other trading, just like we do college graduates out of school with no military experience we put them on a rotation. if you can implement those programs in your company's that veteran will take the shirt off your back to do anything for you and continue to accomplish anything you put in front of them. operation in backed, if the veteran is too severely wounded we will hire family members and that is a tough crowd because usually it is a veteran or spouse taking care of someone who is disabled. it is tough on the individual to work and perform.

it is a tough crowd to try to hire. but we do have -- that is part of our program. i will hand it over to you. >> now i know why you were first to speak. you have quite a story. i am paul cafone and i would like to begin my comments not with my own words but those of a disabled veteran who works for a company and here's what he says. i was a little worried about being a productive member of such a high level technically diverse team but i had on the job mentoring that let me hit the ground running. i don't expect to be treated differently and don't let my disability keep me from doing the job i enjoy. if i can leave you with one thought, what our program is about is helping people find

meaningful careers, disabled veterans find meaningful careers they enjoy and bring up the best in them. i hope you are experiencing that at northrop grumman. for caci this journey began in 2007 when we decided it would make sense to do our part to help not repeat the complacency and distain shown to returning vietnam veterans that started in the 70s and continues today with too many veterans never reintegrated into our society. many of them never fully treated for diagnosed for their symptoms and their wounds and sadly making disproportionate percentage of homeless people. one but of the great shames america in my opinion. we decided this generation of

war fighters needed better help in reintegrating and we launched a program as i said to do our part by offering meaningful employment. we call the program deplane talent and creating careers and we set a goal in 2007 which seems small now but then seemed pretty good to hire ten disabled veterans that year. we began by assembling a team of people who were committed to this ideal or this goal from around the company and they were mostly headed up by human-resources and recruiting people with a few managers, some of whom were out of that vietnam-era and understood the problem and wanted to help. we started working with walter reed and beth as the. later we worked with the medical

folks, initially those interactions were met with some suspicion because there's a lot of interaction happening around warriors as much as publicity or feeling good as there are about real efforts to help in the recovery process and reintegration process but eventually because we had past experience with walter reed through a program called comfort to america's uniformed services we had a little credibility and work their way into the good grace and began our program along with the other medical facilities i mentioned. we also worked with a number of other organizations in building a network that would provide resources and of people who were

interested in employment. we worked with the wounded warrior foundation and safe harbor program, department of labor became a good partner of ours with their career centers around the country and the marine wounded warrior regiment is another organization we are working with. we also worked with nro who are willing -- bringing wounded warriors and and getting them to learn job skills to have a good career and we will work with mcguire air force base on their redeployment centers and built our network. also joined 60 other companies that share job needs and resumes for disabled veterans. after four years where are we? the word is out both externally and internally within our company and out among the

veteran community that we are serious about this and anxious to help. we met our goal of first year of ten disabled veterans. since that time the program has wrapped up. we now have 4% of our population of disabled veterans. 90% of those do direct contract work. they are not solely doing staff type functions. we developed an intern program of our own and that mentoring program. the intern program helps disabled veterans in acquiring skills on the job. the mentoring program helps them to integrate into our culture and make the transition. our rate is over 100 disabled veterans being hired in our company for a year and 15 to 30

of those are combat disabled veterans. we are proud of what we do and proud to be associated with so many companies. if we could get the fortune 1,000 to take that challenge to have 4% of their population be disabled veterans we would knocked the heck out of this issue. some of these challenges we found a long way that i am sure others experienced as well is finding the right skills to match the job requirement and the right clearance levels as well. also location is an issue. many returning wounded veterans aspire to return to their home towns where they feel comfortable and can get restarted in their lives. many jobs we have to offer in this area. it is of little more difficult. one of the other problems is there is not much flexibility in

the job skill sets we are issued by our clients and not much ability to relax those to give someone the benefit of the doubt and a start. we have to take a lot of the burden of helping those people acquire skills. i think i will stop there. >> i will stick my nose in. we come up on you and the rest of the panel. broaden it out a little for us as vital as employment is of the disabled combat veteran. broaden out for us to all veterans coming home who are impacted by the recession, the economy, black of jobs and what you are seeing in the department and what works and doesn't work and my suspicion is mr. profit and mr. scpeigel will have

comments about the broader picture. >> anything else you want me to do? >> that would be nice. >> i can write some other stuff. >> if you sort out the statistics. >> let me thank you for being here. i appreciate it on behalf of my secretary and the department of labour i want you to know that we are the only piece in the department of labor that handles veterans specifically. i am honored to be part of that. secretary scalise made a commitment across the board. the bottom line is we will take care of veterans no matter what. we will do what needs to be done to put them into meaningful

employment, get the lou dobbs and so on and so forth. i want to put that out because the commitment doesn't just come from one level. it is from the top across the board. statistics. 18 to 26%. as of august this year we had 877,000 veterans unemployed. out of that, employment rate of 7% is actually what the total percentage is right now. it gets to 26% for the 18 to 24 years old at certain level when they get out. however after a while that percentage starts going down. i wasn't prepared to give you that.

i promise i will get you -- whoever is interested, let me know. the bottom line is i want you to understand who is our fetterman. everyone of you know what our young men and women are going through. when i say them i am not just talking about 18 through 24 or 18 through 30. i am talking the 18-year-old to 64-year-old to the person who has done what needed to be done and put their lives out there for us and now find at 54 years old they can't find a job and haven't had a job for 10 or 12 years. so they go into homelessness. that is reality. whether the economy is good or bad it happens. even during the bad times we had veterans on the street.

that is a travesty. we shouldn't have that. we should never have that. the homeless counsel -- one of the biggest thing they said is we are going to try to eliminate homelessness. we are doing that. we are working as hard as we can. we have certain programs in the veterans training programs. we have homeless veterans reintegration programs. pretty successful programs i got to tell you. bringing in veterans to a stern site helping them not only deal with the fact they are unemployed but the first thing we got to do is get rid of those, quote, demons. i will use chris for a second. >> i am the demon.

>> the point being when he first transitioned in coming from such a hard life that happened to him. those first few months were a little tough to get over a little. he hasn't changed. the fact of the matter is you have to be able to deal with all those issues before you can get a person to move on and do anything. i don't care if you are the best employer in the world. if you don't understand that culture and where they're coming from you can have the best employee in the world but you won't retain him or her and you won't make them work

effectively. you have to understand who they are first. whether they are wounded or whether they are not. whether they are in combat or whether is a never saw something being shot at them. am very passionate about this you can tell. i have coffee four sons in the military. i understand what it's like having one of your sons call you and ask you -- not using dad but calling you by your rank and saying do you have nightmares? when you walk down the street do

you smell a surge in thing that flashes you to something else? having the three our conversation with a marine who is a phenomenal individual or a three hours conversation and you spend five minutes talking in that three hours. i tell you that because that is what we are looking at. the other piece -- i have to give an overview. let me give you one biggest thing that happened to us that we noticed. we noticed we have an education problem. not with our troops but with the people who employ them. i have two gentlemen to my left

who i am very honored because what they did in their respective areas to help break that barrier down. the second problem is the troops, our young men and women coming back. how many of you have served in the military? raise your hand. do you remember the day you walked into. camp? remember that day? do you remember what that felt like? marines standing on the yellow footprint? there were two things in my head. one of them was not too kind. the other one was what in god's name did i do? with your the army or navy or air force of marines or

coastguard -- maybe not the air force -- but everybody else -- [laughter] -- you understand what it is like that first day. there is fear and apprehension. you don't know what to do. as the weeks go by for the time goes by it gets a little better. you can actually understand what they are saying to you. it gets a levy easier and you move a little sharper and look a little better and so on and so forth. then the moment of your life, the moment of truth is the day you graduate. anyone of you have served. forget if you serve. remember when you graduated from high school or college, that feeling you had inside? your chest was a lot bigger.

you spoke a little deeper. you were somebody. at that moment you were going to conquer the world. that is our guys and gals. we have to make them understand that when they get out and get rejected the first time by an employer that we bring them back to the day they graduated from boot camp with their chest up and their voices and that strength that they will conquer the world. i ended the vietnam war all by myself. i did. i graduated from boot camp and said i am ending it. my point being that is the culture and we have to understand that. for the employers understand what it is these young men and women bring to the table.

whether it is a small or medium company. or large company. how do you bring them into your company and make sure they see themselves as that company? how do you make that work? walmart has done it by having an employer group of veterans to be able to turn around and talk to each other. they reach out to other people and make sure they understand what is going on. we got together to make sure the resource managers understand what 11 broad vote is. i didn't know what it was until someone told me it is an infantry guy in the army.

why didn't you say that? we have to teach the human-resources individuals to ask the questions because if you don't ask the questions a resume will get you the interview but the interview will get you the job. if they don't ask the questions you are missing an opportunity. with that i will stop. >> i just realized we're up here with three marines so i think things are about even. >> a good one. >> i am gary proffit of military programs at walmart. by way of introduction the thing i would like you to know most about me is i have been at

walmart for three years. the reason i accepted an opportunity to join the walmart team was twofold. first of all this isn't about wal-mart feeling good about itself or me feeling good about myself. this is absolutely about the prospect of creating positive business outcomes. i think the military community constituencies represent the largest talent rich pool in the world and if as most of us believe the future will belong to those -- if you are not operating in the space you are missing an opportunity. it is about business outcomes. for me the personal aspect of this was a chance i get to

giveback in terms of career opportunities and contributions for family financial security to those with whom i had the privilege of serving. that by way of introduction is enough for me to share with you and you can ask anything you like of me afterwards. when i accepted the invitation to be with you today i wanted to make sure with the organizers of that they understood i probably was going to gain more from this opportunity than i was going to contribute in value. we are in the early stages on the threshold of our commitment to wounded, injured veterans and their families and care givers.

let me share some things with barbara's suggestion by offering some context. for those of you that may not know our relationship with the military dates to u.s. army intelligence officer capt bolton who served during world war ii. that relationship has grown dramatically over time. and i think that is important because it allows me to talk to lots of people about the compatibility of the walmart culture for those serving in uniform. our three basic leads use the same words i remember from army values. if you can have a cultural foundation that begins that

transition it is helpful. others have said this. i don't need to tell you about the challenging economy or the difficult employment market but we feel an urgency to act now. as i was talking earlier, prospect of continued drawdown in iraq and afghanistan, the fact that there are pressures, i am not sure we can feel confident that it will get easier sooner so i think we have to accept a certain bit of urgency but also recognize this is a marathon. we need to be in this for the long haul so we need to get it right. as you see in front of you i hope you recognize that i am

gratified, i am a glass half full guy, this is a growing and deepening public private partnership. we need to work together because nobody can solve it on their own. i can talk at some length about the fact that we feel a responsibility because of our size and pervasiveness to leave civic and social responsibility and the walmart foundation does lot of work and are one of my greatest partners doing cutting edge work and i could talk about in the wounded warrior community. for those of you that realize as i do walmart is mostly everywhere. unlike what paul was sharing we think we can make an impact in communities across the nation which is why what kevin is doing in hiring heroes at community level is important to us.

for reason we have been very deliberate in the subject of today's session is i learned when i visited with my wife in my last assignment on active duty every 90 days or so that this is a very vulnerable population and we can't make any mistakes. we have to get this right. urgent, yes. place where we can make mistakes, i think not. kevin will talk about joint forces so i won't do that other than tell you one of the things that is important is what the white house and the president and first lady have done is raise awareness which is a big fan and done a lot of things to

educate people. i will say something i heard this morning about portability of jobs and turning jobs into careers. one thing we thought was important we did that they would be part of an announcement where we highlighted the military family promise which essentially guarantees a job for a spouse who has moved to another part of the country as a result of her uniform spouse being transferred. trying to turn jobs into careers is an important thing for us to do. we are engaged throughout the spectrum. transition point engagement. kevin will talk about hiring our heroes and the important work

they're doing with the uso. we think spouse as far as important as the uniformed member. we are very much involved in the military spouse employment partnership. we are just beginning work with the wounded warrior project that we think is very promising and has potential to scale so walmart feels it is impact will. we are beginning in the northeast, california and oregon to get lessons from that and migrate to other parts of the business. last veterans day we made a

commitment to address unmet needs of military families and veterans at $10 million over five years. in a speech bill simon gave at the american legion at the end of august we doubled that to $20 million. it is important because the philanthropic peace with the corporate piece goes hand in hand. specifically there's a great program led by mark haney of syracuse university called boot camp for veterans with disabilities and there is a companion effort dealing with families, represents consortium of universities devoted to make a entrepreneurs out of veterans

with disabilities and their families and make them successful. if you don't know much about it you are encouraged to learn about it. it provides flexibility we think this population needs to not have the typical career with walmart or anybody else but starting their own business. i heard some discussion about my friend barbara, the work she is doing is important to us as we go forward with our work in this space. one of the things we realize is we must take away any of the hindrances to our leaders in hiring managers. with support of her network advising her people on some behavioral issues we think is an important effort but her work in the community blueprint is

exciting stuff. the coming home series the american red cross announced about integration and some of those things we think is important, a couple observations and i look forward to your questions. to add something to my friend jr. we have a great challenge on our side. i spend 50% of my time teaching the military about walmart and the other 50% each in walmart about the military. we can't expect our associates to understand the space for which some of them have no exposure. so we are very invested in making sure we do that. just an example of that at a very high end, we will spend

veterans day -- for those of you that don't know them, for first and only blind army officer serving on active duty. we live broadcast this throughout the walmart network across the united states and live stream on the web. we want people to see the caliber of the people we talk about. we want to put a face on all of this. that is one of the ways we do it. it is very important we work on the military side to better prepare our soldiers, sailors, coastguard to transition from uniform service. i am off of active duty so i

don't have the same problem of wanting to blow up something. we have a transition assistance framework that is very mired in the past. i think the discussion about reverse boot camp is very unlike inning and we should give them serious consideration because there's a communication problem. people looking for a second career can't express to us what their career aspirations are or why they should be considered with portfolio preparation experience they had and conversely on the other side the people that are listening don't know what they are hearing so we have to do some work on those areas. the final thing i would say is we at walmart believe when we see an impediment to hiring a veteran or military member we

must take it on because today things that viral pretty quickly. is true inside organizations that we address any of these things that arise pretty quickly. i have taken more time than i should. >> we have 25 minutes left and went to get to some questions. don't feel any pressure. >> at least i got lunch today. a little background. i was going to frame some of the issues with numbers. i was a marine for 20 years. i retired in 2009. i was very fortunate when i left the marine corps. i had a mentor named jim jones who was president obama's national security adviser. i was in the right place at the right time. i was lucky tom donahue understands the value of hiring a veteran. he had a marine with him for several years in a program

called the year out program which was an internship program. people on active duty. it kind of taught people in the private sector about the value of hiring a veteran. he was always part of that. not every veteran is that lucky which is the reason we started this program at the chamber. if you look at the numbers there are twelve million veterans in the workforce. 1 million are unemployed. people say what is the big deal? that is the same average as the national average. i have to bite my tongue as a veteran. i want to give them an answer. are you kidding me? someone leave their family for a year and you ask why we should do a program for a veterans? got to be kidding me. but i bite my tongue and don't say that. we make the business case for why hire a veteran.

even though veterans are suffering 9% unemployment there are specific populations of veterans that are really suffering. looked at iraq and afghanistan veterans it is 13%. in the age of 18-24 which is part of that it is close to 30%. that may be by folks in school today but it is double digit and nearing 30%. if you look at guard and reservists they are suffering 13% unemployment and in rural areas is 20% to 30%. we are at 9% but we are at a moment in time for every don't do something now that 9% will grow to 11 or 12% for the whole population because if we are drawing down the force and we are demobilizing this year that 9% number will grow. we have to do something about it now. when i first came to the chamber i was tom donahue's chief of staff. i traveled around the country

and i heard hundreds of fortune 500 ceos say you are a veteran. how do we get more veterans in our company. wind, asked what i want to do next i connected two things. when i left of the marine corps i served as head of enlisted assignment. i was at enlisted assignment in the marine corps when we started the wind warrior regimen. it seems to me if we are seeing this problem in our society and ceos want to hire veterans you start a program to address two. it is a successful program because this is not about washington talk. the chamber hired a marine to do this because it is about action on the ground. it is not going to happen in washington. it is nice we meet and talk about this but if you look around the room and saw everyone raise their hand most of you served. most of you get the issue.

most of you understand why it is a good business proposition to hire a veteran. this is going to happen in local communities. if we are going to have an impact. talk to 90% of kids that leave the service they have no idea what they are going to do next. they talk about where they are going. if we are going to solve this problem it requires a movement across the country. companies like walmart and fedex have a presence across the country can impact actions on the ground. we are not going to solve it talking about it in washington. we started a yearlong initiative to do hiring fares across the country. i will be first to say this will not get hundreds of thousands of people jobs. at the end of this period 15 to 20,000 veterans will have jobs.

it is not just the numbers but creating the movement. core groups of leaders have stepped up and gone through the next adjacent cities and we don't have to worry about the local chamber because trust me when they see this, we never have to go back to that city again. next year we will be in 500 communities. i say that with confidence because after we did the first five events 13 chambers called me and said we know you are doing the first hundred. we will do our own. send the hiring our heroes logo because we want to be part of this. we are on the verge of creating a movement. i am confident that with the chamber, with companies, with the government because we are doing this the department of labor and support of the garden -- guard and reserve we will create a movement. we're working on those

populations that are suffering the most. the chamber has a program for student veterans and iraq and afghanistan veterans. we have a program working with the guard and reservists focused on a yellow ribbon program and a program for women veterans and military spouses working with business and professional women's foundation to create a network of 10,000 women and businessmen tours because those populations have issues too. my wife served with me 15 years. a lot of people say don't use the term heroes. it is over use. spouses, 90% of whom are wives are the heroes and people cannot forget that. any program that helps veterans should help spouses because most men and women are leaving the military have to have dual incomes and go back to communities across the country. we are working on a program for wounded warriors which is why we are here today. the chamber will do this in a measured way. lots of people are talking about

doing programs with wounded warrior is. a lot are not doing it for the right reasons. we decided to do pilots. we will work to address this population because it is different from the other populations. we're working on hiring heroes in fort carson and very targeted workshops to get ready and mock interviews so they don't feel the intimidating environment of the job fair and they get the care they need to do it with us. we also engage dod. great we have operation war fighter but what about doing that in the private sector? we have an internship program for wounded warriors in the private sector and we can get 30 companies tomorrow to sign up to do that if the nba past the house. we start as early as this spring.

it is important to educate employers. ptsd and t b i is not just the stigma in terms of what general chiarelli addressed. doing a service to our service members in terms of telling people about ptsd we create a stigma in the employer community where people aren't hiring because a lot of people with ptsd are fully functional in the workplace. we need to educate managers about that. and we are creating a network for the local chamber so the local chambers of commerce in stations across the country can be connected with other chambers when a wounded warrior is getting ready to leave so when we pass these pilots we can scale that a significant way once we look at what works. we scale to the chambers of

commerce across the country. the last thing i say is the chamber will not stand and be happy with what we do in the first year. we have the 25 biggest companies in america. walmart, fedex, all founding members. on veterans day we launched that and those companies not only represent millions of jobs that they will drive this in the private sector and we will tell the public sector how to make a bigger impact in years to come. we create an architecture to support the touch events in communities of veterans are held the day before and the day after and implement a small business strategy because if we have an impact on this is not just did companies. the chamber has 1700 local chambers. we have three million small-businesses. if we get 10% of those veterans

don't small businesses to hire one veteran by 2013 we can cut the unemployment rate in half for veterans and that is something the chamber's working on with our partners in the veterans employment advisory council and we will drive this as long as it takes to address the issue of veterans unemployment. ..

and we hire a veteran and we are very interested in this forum because we really need the information that you are sharing about how to make a workplace that and integrate lives of veterans. i've got two questions. i think primarily for captain ayers and mr. ortiz, it's really a one two-part question. what can we do to put some additional pressure on fat centers and departments of labor to provide that her employment readiness programs for veterans reentering the workforce? and with that, also what do we need to do as an organization to provide a truly integrated and supportive environment? like what are the top three things we need to have in place? >> race. >> yeah, the first is a difficult one because i've got

my opinions about the tap process. i think it can be much more, but it's one of those things. you know, we recognize -- you think everyone in this room understands there's things we need to continue to work a and that's the beauty of this. we're talking about it and trying to better the process. bottom-line boils down to leadership. boils down to leadership in us both on the veteran at and the employer side. >> anyway you can think of that an employer can be vocal or support of a local legal departments? >> you know, working with you again? >> departments we as an employer have had difficulties when we've needed them to perform our work processes. that we are high-tech consulting and record compliance management. and just kind of trying to work with local service agencies to

get really employment ready people into the organization. >> i was thinking about going for life than the marine corps and the other organizations like that. one of the things i want you all to kind of take away, veterans employment training services also has what we call our force multiplier out there and we work with the state workforce agencies. the workforce agencies have specific one-stop centers, which is what i think you're talking about. >> yes, yes. >> there's specific individuals in their but that is their job to hope for veterans to come through. one of them is disabled veterans outreach personnel and of course the lever is the local veterans employment out. the lever is the one that reaches out to you and says, what do you need?

now, the problem that arises is that a lot of people know that the one-stop center takes care of all of everyone to include veterans. what they don't know his veterans have priority and not one-stop. the lever is supposed to reach out to you and get you -- what do you need? what are you trying to achieve? who are you looking for? and then be able to match that with what you need. so if you don't have that, i can provide that for you because we have -- we have about 2000 letters throughout the country and every single state. so i can provide that. >> follow-up meeting in the back of the room. let's keep it going. >> quincy taliban, advocate on the direct heir of the coast sport foundation and we worked with kevin on the national launch in the chamber of

commerce is across the country who are spectacular in helping us with that effort. i wanted to say to kerry with the ebv, making a hospice institute for veterans and military families and i think when you want to talk about the education piece of it, both from the outside come servicemember site, veterans cite any actual companies themselves, that's probably going to be the most important and that has to have, and junior he talked about the mental health aspect to it. i think the peer-to-peer type of opportunity that she will have a nice company is fostering a is going to be in the end one of the most important parts of all of this because if you can get us in the door and chris, you were talking about the challenges of trying to get this house is in, particularly if they are caregivers, one of the most valuable things we can provide to you as the caregivers and not the wife said that

experience and living with tenure suborn now because you have an entire generation of military families that don't do anything but more, you can use us as consultants and how to communicate with veterans, how to communicate with spouses and get the best out of them. the last thing i was asymmetric spirit everyone is so well intended and i've seen so much money and so much passion to be flushed down the toilet because no one seems to be keeping track of when to get these veterans in a spouses, what's actually happening? >> yeah, you make a great point here. i want to add onto that the education piece. i think it really goes to say that the person you have implemented matt and being the liaison needs to be engaging in outgoing individual understands and can execute. if you hire someone that doesn't know it and put them in there, it's going to fail. so having not liaison, you have to put forth the effort and make sure the individual is a form you can execute.

>> going to go wherever they appeared with six people standing and i went to get to everyone's question. way to the end of the room, sir. >> wreck by brian vietnam veterans of america. first of all, to thank all of those representing the private sector up there for a you're doing, particularly the u.s. chamber, wal-mart, et cetera because most of the is totally missing when we came home from vietnam years ago right after the publication more [laughter] for those of you in the audience. i commend you for what you're doing because it's going to take that kind of private leadership in every may i'm trying to get the job done. i want to see with not having any governmental level and i guess this is directed towards junior. the workforce investment act is supposed to have services for veterans than it does not. and there has been no enforcement for the last 10

years. and frankly, the tax credit the president attacking about is the jobs for america act. in and of itself it's not going to the decision to get people to higher veterans. it has to be money up front. we can take workforce investment acts and if there is the political will, forced the service delivery areas to start putting veterans and in use that money as an o.j. t. that is number one. number two, we can take the federal contract job listings, which is enough if the federal contrary compliance through which basically doesn't help anybody at the moment and they seem to be engaged in finding employers more than anything else. it's not supposed to be revenue enhancement mechanism. it's supposed to be a behavior changing mechanism for federal contract is to get into the sennheiser protected groups beginning with disabled citizens. the question is twofold.

one, what is the department of labor doing to ensure that veterans priority services enforce and implemented in every community and the country, working with employers to have o.j. t. programs that are funded and the money is already appropriated. a second way, what is the department of labor doing to make office of federal contract compliance not an onerous burden on employers conduct in how people change their behavior so that they higher veterans, particularly returning wondered veterans. thank you. >> well, i am on the hot seat across the board. and rick, we've discussed this in previous times also. i can't speak for ccp in that light skin in this case i'm going to have to go back and actually find out about because unfortunately i can't answer those questions to you directly, but i'd be more than happy to go back and check.

>> okay. >> john sperling, retired. one thing i haven't heard much about this morning or this afternoon is the faith based communities. this is an untapped resource that is baking for opportunities to serve and not only to reintegration, but also to employee for veterans. this is where you're going to find the doctors lawyers, schoolteachers, active guard reserve people. you're going to find veterans, retirees, et cetera. it seems like this is an untapped resource. just like ia-64 family sign-up is sunday, asking what they can do a nice fall program to help with working with the walter reid -- the new walter reid wounded warriors, et cetera. i like to ask all of you to consider this contact resource, especially when you consider the u.s. chamber that can be

integrated into the community. >> i think you make enough ending point. you know, three years ago when i got my wife by the throat and lifted her to feed off the deck and then got arrested for domestic violence because i was a sick individual. i educated myself on a lot about ptsd. with my new enemy. bottom line i had to give it to something else. i had to find the lord. and that's where i started my healing process. [applause] the bottom line at the end today is the accountability is on me as well as the veteran. it some point i have to say, you know what, i've got to step up to the plate. he doesn't give me virtual impunity to have the certain behaviors as i'm pointing out to get up off my rear and take accountability for my actions and everyone else seems to take accountability as well. it's a twofold good relationship.

>> it wouldn't be too hard in northern virginia to grab less than safe for churches and come put 30,000 people. we've got a lot of large congregations. 40% of the organized volunteers come from faith-based organizations. so if it's there, take advantage. >> i know it up-and-coming. i work for the bible campus, needy recipient from vietnam and i know he's done some work within the marine corps and the senior chaplain within the marine corps instead of turning to drugs and alcohol for returning veterans that difficulties are turning to jesus christ. >> lets see we can squeeze in our last word. if the people anxious to get impreza microphone, i want them to be heard. we'll go for sure questions and short answers. >> i not only military veteran. i'm an intelligence professional. one of the most important lessons learned from this latest worm was the important culture. as mr. keyes and mr. ortiz

alluded to, only 1% of the population actually served in the military. and that makes them particularly isolated in a vulnerable population. so my question is, is there a resource, maybe a handbook or field manual that bridges the cultural divide and educates, as mr. ortiz suggested, servicemembers so they can own their psychological -- their own psychological adjustment and well-being, both blogging and getting back into employment? by the way, i'll leave mr. schmiegel but the point suggestion from the u.s. intelligence community and that is luck is not a reliable source. [laughter] if any would like to answer that question. >> yeah, let me just tell you something that is important to let because before we hire

anyone at wal-mart, whether it's a senior person there very junior person, we feel very confident that they can make -- that they will be comfortable in our culture and that we will feel comfortable and confident that they'll be successful. the most important asset that we have in that regard frankly bizarre cultural foundation and what we understand to be service cultures. and the people that are the purveyors of that on our side are what we believe when we finally get the result is some polling done is well north of six digits of veterans that are at wal-mart. and they are the best people to be able to take care of that for us. >> okay, let's move on. we are going to run out of time.

i've been a bad guy. >> aventail, nine-year marine, recently transitioned to amazon as the military relations manager. just really directed to you, chris, what a specific example that companies like amazon, northrop grumman -- what is northrop grumman specifically done to help you? 's >> one with workplace accommodations. and then had recently -- i moved my family at pier and a retired in texas. i was born and raised in mexican families all over texas. living up here with three girls, her office has down syndrome and then i disabled as well. i was working full-time with northrop and my wife might as well have been a single mother three. it was tough. i chose to move my family back home, got permission from management to work remotely. i work in health i.t. a lot of stuff right do i can do remotely. when i need to travel like come

out and visit with my folks in the program. they've been able to accommodate me they are. you know, the program is not perfect. it takes action -- you know, i can get ticked off here and say i'm mad with the program. i'm leaving. you know, two wrongs don't make a right. or i could sit down and say, you know what, i think we've got some areas that we could continually need to improve. and hey, here's my input. cultural differences is huge. i came from a military culture organization and then you draw me into the corporate world and complete with new acronyms. i was like what? and medicine education mismatch. at a bachelor of science that i don't have an i.t. degree or a business degree. it was completely tough. so having the understanding, having seen the manner country in middle and senior management that understands and provides a

mentor within the program that will work with me for the next year and program management. and in taking actions like that and stepping up to the plate and bringing your 50% effort on both sides is really going to help. >> them to get the last two people wherever they are in the end. >> catlin jail in america islands. we've heard as many as 89% of g.i. bill users dropping out of college. my question is that the education crisis is linked to the unemployment crisis and if so, while at work and employers do to build the sturdier bridge from education to employment? >> kevin? >> well, we do, as you might imagine, we have a pretty aggressive campus relations program. generally we have a fairly long relationship with student veterans of america.

we are actually looking to better integrate the military aspects of what i have done into our larger campus relations program that we think will be more integrated. we have a very aggressive intern program. and so, we take it pretty seriously, you know, how we interact with the academic community and on about her friends, i, i do note that completely answers your question, but we're pretty aggressive in the face. >> and i just sat? there's one other thing we need to do. if you look at the force that's leaving, when they are making their decision they have to understand what path they are going to have to go down to get the qualifications they need to do what they have to do. in our transition process right now, there is no bridge plan for

these young men and women leaving, so they make an informed decision. the question earlier, veterans will hold three jobs in the first two years they leave. it's not because they are not assimilated in the culture. mentors will help and they make an informed decision. these are smart young men and women. they just need to make a better decision. maybe we need to push community colleges to start. but we absolutely have to show them the path and give them maybe 20 or 30 options than what they're going to have to do to get to what they want to do in their second careers. >> got to jump down and screamed at me. they are not getting the leadership and they don't have to plan that is supposed to be executing when they leave and being part of the transition is huge. >> were going to make you the last question. >> ascot cox, career coordinator with the army program. not to wonder where your project. a federal employee with the army. right now we have about 9000 severely injured veterans and service members that is

medically or will be medically retired. everything i've heard here today, every right on cue, right on target. just like the gentleman stuck up this morning and said what? what's going on? i would challenge labor to do one thing. read the apprenticeship program. make it work. i would challenge the chamber of commerce one thing. years ago we had it reintegration center for veterans in d.c. held by survivor court in one of the things that came out with a veterans friendly riddling concept, like a nice oql malcolm bulger's kind of thing. come up with a branding program. stick to it. make employers responsible for hanging veterans in a standardized format that they can police themselves. thank you. >> i'm going to take the reporters prerogative and i'm going to have the last question. my question is going to be to the audience. as i sat here listen to everybody, i want to know, is there an unemployed veteran in

this room? is there a veteran in this room that needs a job? and i don't see a single hand, which tells us of course -- is there a military spouse? is there a military spouse mr. indicted here to look for information because they need a job? been looking around the microphone. i want to miss any hand. >> i'm a military member that will transition out medically separated or retired soon and that is why i came to find out what is out there, with available because i have no idea what i'm going to do. i haven't had to look for a job in almost 11 years. >> did you learn anything here today? >> most certainly. thank you very much. i'm a u.s. marine. >> telecine. >> first lieutenant robert keefe, combat but just ask battalion to come the station at camp lejeune, north carolina. >> erring with enough, but i'm biased. [laughter] >> no worries. >> first, we wish you the best

of luck. a lot of resources here today. >> all give you my card right after this. >> will give you a card. [applause] and i say this because then i will tough talking. a couple months ago another term of the joint chiefs of staff to meeting similar to this in detroit and then moved to cleveland and then we went to a few other places. everywhere we went, it was businessmen and bankers that organizations are now kind of people in the audience, that there was always one or two if you only open your eyes to mask in the back of the room who came because they read about a meeting and they need a job and they need work and people will do what they needed to do. veterans will do what they need to do in touch and a mini to

find. mostly it's a reminder to me what i said in a large meeting room in washington will veterans, real needs and we thank you all for coming and wish everyone the best of luck in thinker vietnam veterans for their surveys. some of us are old enough to remember the peloponnesian more. [laughter] and i guess we'll be back next we year. >> thank you harbor and to all of our panel members. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> now a discussion of epa regulations in the ongoing disagreement between the white house and republicans. we would hear about the impact of those regulations in the overall current rule of the epa. "washington journal," and this is 35 minutes. >> davenport of the energy en annapurna correspondent for the" national journal here to talk about the fight of her epawhat regulations. i want to go back. let's start with the ronmental protection agency. what is it? to mancre

what gives it authority to make environmental regulation?ironmel protection agency was created in the 1970's under president richard nixon. its basic authority is to regulate our air, water, basic environments. there's a couple of big pieces, a couple big laws that congress passed cups soon after the creation of the agency in the 70's that gives the epa legislative legal authority to control the pollutants that go into the air and water. the biggest one and the one then there's the big debate about today is the clean-air act, which was passed in 1970, which essentially lays out -- defines a series of pollutants that are hazardous to human health. that law from 1970 gives --i'm

sorry, the clean air act gives the epa the environmental protection agency the authority to regulate, to control various entities that are committing pollutants that cause harm to him and helped. host: without congressional approval? guest: correct. if a chemical or something that is going into the air is defined as hazardous to human health, that qualification, then it gets a legal definition of pollutants. if something is defined as a pollutant, under the authority of the clean act, environmental protection agency has not only the authority but the requirement, anything that is defined as a potent to human health, the epa must regulate

under the law. host: that is what the supreme court decided. guest: there is a debate right now about the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide. there's a number pollutants that have been determined to be hazardous to human health over the years. and so, under the clean air act, the epa has to regulate them. one of beckham is a look and called sulfur dioxide. this is a common pollutants, mainly contributed -- minister did to coal-fired plants. so for dioxide has been determined by a wider of rate of studies to cause harm to your lungs if inhaled. it is like getting a sunburn on your lungs if you inhale and sulfur dioxide. it causes asthma and causes your lungs to fill with liquid. it's clearly meets the definition of hazardous to human health and a pollutant. under that definition, the epa

must epait under the law. there's a number of other pollutants that fall into that category. mercury is another one. we have heard that one a little more. studies have clearly shown that mercury is linked to prenatal diseases and developmental disorders in the fetus. it is linked to nerve damage and problems with brain development and a lower i.q. and children. clearly a pollutant that is hazardous to human health. again, because it meets the definition, epa must regulate it, epa must find entities that in mercury and control them and regulate them. in 2007 there was a very big, very contentious of the court decision. that was over greenhouse gases. massachusetts vs epa.

what was at stake in that decision is the question, " scientists have shown greenhouse gases contribute to global warming." the question is do they meet the definition of a pollutant? does global warming cause hazards to human health? the supreme court decision of 2007 essentially told the epa that it would have to make that determination. the epa gets the authority to make that determination. the epa looks at these reviews and studies. since 2009 the epa determined that carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases, to contribute -- are a hazard to human health. -- in 2009. it is a little harder to drop a direct connection. if you are breathing carbon dioxide in the same way that

your breathing mercury, you will not hurt your lungs or immediately gets sick. if you are breathing mercury or sulfur dioxide, a problem with your lungs immediately -- you will have a problem with your lungs really. carbon dioxide is kind of broader. that contributes to global warming. global warming is linked to a wider spread disease. it is linked to warmer temperatures. it's a couple more steps that you have to take. studies that they did said ultimately greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, are pollutants that hurts human help, so the epa gets it. once you make the definition, the e.p.a. cannot choose whether or not to regulate it, under the supreme court decision. or rather under they original clean air act. host: it is going to be a

potent, but after goingit, said the supreme court -- the supreme court said that if you deem it to be a potent, than you have to regulate. there was an article that said -- guest: what happened with that ig report is essentially it did not find fault with any of the data or any of the science that epa used in making this endangerment finding. that is a very important distinction. thedoes find faultles with process that was used. essentially, when the epa gave this endangerment finding, came to this conclusion, they evaluated all of the peer-

reviewed existing scientific reports that were out there. they did a review of the reviews. there's a lot of data, a lot of evidence, a lot of recording out there about the effects of carbon dioxide and the global warming. there process was they reviewed all these. they did not conduct an independent fresh study. ultimately, the ig report determined that this was such a high-profile decisions -- a decision of such high profile and high influence that it was going to be a high influence decision, they should conducted scientificfresh fin study. they are saying you really should have done in your own rigorous review. rather than reviewing the reviews. the ultimate conclusion, of the

reduced added, there's no question that science is accurate, that those reviews or rigorous. the final conclusion is the epa does not have to go back and redo what they did. they should be more careful about the process is going forward. but ultimately in does, underpin the content of their findings. it is a slap on the wrist. it does not look good. at the end of the day it does not change epa's ability to go forward and regulate these gases. it does make them look bad and say you should have been more rigorous about this process, but the final outcome is still the same. caller: is the reaction from republican darrell issa. he says this --

guest: i would question chairman darrell issa's characterization. here's why. the epa is doing rulemaking process right now on carbon dioxide that affects a global warming. they had a rule making a proposal that was due this month which there recently and delayed indefinitely. reason they gave is their wont to go as slowly and carefully as possible to make sure every piece of that -- that they are really as progressive as they can possibly be. hthat the greenhouse gases. here's why this whole issue -- the epa is in the midst of rolling output an unprecedented

school of new rules and regulations. it's not as a global warming rules. this one on smog and another on mercury and another on sulfur dioxide. there's a whole big pile of them. they're not coming out very quickly. however i differ with the chairman eisa, a lot of these goals greeted i'm sorry, i spoke about the clean-air act from the 1970 oppose it, but there is a follow all that was passed in 1990, the clean air act amendments. it was signed into law by george h. w. bush pickshe worked very hard on it. -- he worked very hard on it. they learned a lot more about the science in those 20 years and realize epa should be raining in these other pollutants, so a lot of the rules epa is willdoing now,

epa scientists have been working on some of these rules 20 years. it is a stretched to call them rushed. even though there are a lot ofw themlote have. host: let's hear from a democrat in shaker heights, ohio. caller: not many years ago, i was running a company, a distillation company, in florida making 190 proof from the second squeezing of oranges. i had a small problem with the epa and even though i had a zero water discharge plant. thomas dickerson said the role of government is to protect the public, so i don't disagree with regulations. but the problem it is cool too many of the people will carry out the regulations are mechanically and inaccurate.

the regulations have become very abrasive because of the way they are carried out. there are other problems. host: henry, from what you heard from the epa, does that economically impact your business? caller: did its impact my business? nitpicking just an in pic about nothing. it was a plant next door that complained because we were having a problem over our border a, it's this peopl -- these people had nothing to do with. there were dumping chemicals that kill the orange trees. they said we were dumping water on the ground. if the water be dumped on the ground was water that came through the water treatment plant. we were having trouble keeping close him out of the water. the bond producers are putting

tells him in orange juice anyway. host: we have a republican in abilene, texas. caller: the epa should be abolished for so many foolish decisions. we live in west texas which has produced oil for about 100 years. probably the biggest employer and in west texas out here. our water is good as well as the air. they're going to shut down that plant. i guess they could not do it because of the air and the water, so they have cstop it because of the lizard that is indigenous to that area. it is going to displace so many jobs here in west texas. in the midst of all this, right in the middle above the basin,

the epa is putting a toxic waste dumps. it would be terrible if the toxic waste dumps hurt the lizard. caller: our guest road about that in a recent edition of the national journal." guest: epa and a lot of independent groups and think tanks have done studies on the costs and benefits over all of all the rules. by and large, independent analyses have generally shown there's a couple of patterns that i saw looking through these analyses. absolutely these epa rules will have a cost. they are going to lead to shutdowns of mostly coal-fired power plants. they are also going to cause a lot of polluters to have to invest in cleanup technology

known as scrubbers which is like a filter that you put in the smokestack that cleans out a lot of the stuff . that can be a billion dollars per facility. the companies will have to take on these costs and in some cases pass them along to ratepayers and customers. there's no doubt that a lot of these rules will cost industry. in some cases tens of billions of dollars per year. if you have closures of coal plants, " as of oil refineries, there are a lot of jobs lost there. overall, the way they account the benefits is in public health and the overall benefits to the economy. in that they count a lot of these pollutants are so clearly linked to problems with human health, so they count kids not getting asthma, fewer premature deaths, you're lost workdays is

a big one that they count. and so, generally -- another thing that does not going to give an accounting of caused back on it was interesting is when companies pay to install all the cleanup technology on the polluting plants, they are paying a lot of money and creating a lot of jobs. american electric power estimated that due to the epa one big cleanup for coal plant could probably hire about a thousand people over a period of two years up to five years. overall, the public health and broader economic benefits do outweigh the cost, but there's no doubt that especially in in oil and coal parts of the

country you will see pockets prepare its case a small stream hit balanced with a broad overall benefit to public health. caller: here are some numbers from your report. galt is an independent in columbia, south carolina. -- paul.

the firefight between the epa and power companies. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. mrs. davenport mentioned global while ago. every time i hear that word, it makes me angry, because we have regulations against manufacturers in the united states, but yet we've are shipping jobs over to a communist country, which is slavery, and then ship them backs. it causes as much pollution in the air with ships and buildings and containers and what have you than it would cost if we kept the jobs in the united states. caller: dennis is a democrat in piedmont, missouri. caller: i would like to ask about the regulations pertaining to creeks and rivers.

when i was a child they regularly cleaned out the creeks and rivers to reduce the flooding, especially the creeks. we have a creek that runs through town. local officials have told us for years that they cannot clean it out because the epa regulations and it flooded the whole town. we lost a lot of homes. sadly, after the flood when the creek was back down to normal levels, and they said they could clean the creek out down to the water level, but no further. my question is, do the regulations require you can go down only to the water level? are you not allowed to clean them out to reduce flooding? guest: i am not familiar with that specific set of regulations. a lot of the callers are illustrating the fact that these regulations do touch people to

in their daily lives. it touched people in communities in so many ways. a lot of people experience a lot of good of the epa and a lot of the hassles. bureaucratic regulations. that is part of why this is really a bubbling up pinsetter debate right now, as the broader debate about regulations takes hold. there are so many regulations. i don't know about that particular one. it is interesting, the previous caller spoke about the jobs going to china. one of the reasons the debate is so inflammatory right now isn't we are seeing all of these new clean-air regulations coming out -- is we are seeing all of these new regulations coming

out. if you go to china, you see so much development in some parts of the air is thick with sm andog and soot. the regulatory environment is completely different. they are incurred to build and go crazy. there's a question of the trade off. you see the economic boom. is there going to be a trade-off in public health? host: we have to become a republican. caller: i have a question concerning the mercury. she says that mercury is so dangerous for us and yet we are told to take light bulbs into our homes and have murdering in them and if they prepare so much danger because there's mercury

in the light bbulbs. we're not even allowed to make a light bulbs in this country because they are so dangerous. they make them in china. if it is so dangerous, why do they want to bring it into our country and into our homes? guest: the debate about compact fluorescent light bulbs is an explosive issue and that we have seen in this regulatory context. i'm not a scientist. i do know that it says on the package that you should not put them in the trash. households with pregnant women are supposed to carefully dispose of them. grandstanding generally is that the amount of mercury in one light ball is -- bulb is so tiny compared to the mountain mercury and that comes out annually from the smokestacks in major

coal-fired power plants. it's a magnitude of difference of scale. that's my broader understanding of the difference of that. that's why we see the regulations, a call for regulations to really cut down those much higher scale emissions of mercury. caller: rick is an independent in cleveland, tennessee. caller: ms. davenport, pro-green energy movement? guest: i am a humble reporter. i talked to people and write about what's going on. caller: ok. my question on my statement is this transition to the new green movement has crossed the economy, in my opinion. whenever we could depend on our own natural resources and get off of foreign energy would be a win-win situation. let me ask you this, do you

think the president will still support the keystone pipeline that is going to add a five-hour energy shock to our economy? guest: all signs point to yes on the keystone pipeline. there's a final decision due from the state department by the end of the year. they're supposed to give a final decision by then. bucks all the signs that we have seen have been in the direction -- click looks like the administration will approve the caller: keystone pipeline the pipeline would start in canada and go to through six states. here's a map of it in the new york times this morning. it would go from canada to the midsection of the u.s. and has taken on an unexpected your duty this week as the stakes of the message process-focus at a time of festering anxiety about the

nation's future. around a public hearings by the state department -- a round of hearings is meant to focus on a single question period is it in the national interest? now to st. louis, nathan is a republican. caller: hello. it's common knowledge that krupp and dioxide is exhaled by human beings which the plants breed -- breathe. -- carbon dioxide is exhaled by human beings. are they going to tax human beings? guest: carbon dioxide is a special kind of pollutants. most of the pollutants regulated by the epa until now are primarily produced by giant

entities like a coal plant or an oil refinery. when they got into the business of regulating carbon dioxide, they opened a pandora's box for themselves because carbon dioxide is ubiquitous. it is produced by plants and and buy your vehicle and pretty much every building. once it was determined carbon dioxide in large quantities ultimately is a pollutant, epa has to regulate. they were faced with how do you regulate something that is everywhere that you and i are breathing right now? and so, epa came up with a rule called the tailoring rule. essentially they said we are only going to regulate it for entities that produce around

120,000 tons or 60,000 tons per year. so we are not going to regulate for smaller emitters. we concluded is dangerous when only produced at these larger scales. the epa made very clear, lisa jackson, the illustrator, the president himself has made clear because are not in the business -- we don't want to regulate churches and schools and houses. they want to regulate these giant polluters. o they did this tailoring of a lot. that has come under fire as well. --ler: jim wright's this now let's hear from rich in connecticut, independent caller.

caller: ok, osha in the workplace. manufacturers vent all these things that the workers were exposed to all, to the outside air. also, there's a worldwide diabetes epidemic, even in populations which are primitive and have not changed their ways or anything in the last years. the cancer rates, it is all in the wind. the wind is out of the west. one is d.c., number two is road island, #four is new jersey. if we go by the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, we need clean water, clean food, and clean air to breathe. all of the pollutants are dropping on the fields on our food. surface reservoirs, the levels of mercury and cadmium levels

are higher than in isn't i -- that -- higher than in well water. guest: for pollutants like mercury and sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, that is essentially what drives the regulation. what are the health hazards of these pollutants? what are the scales at which they cause health problems and the scales at which they don't? and how do you bring that down? host: does the epa have scientists within the agency and that do scientific experiments? guest: yes, that is a big part of what they do. the syntax and, the administrator, started her career as a career scientists with the epa many years ago. so, yes, they have teams of

scientists that evaluates what are help the levels and unhealthy levels of these chemicals in the air and water. -- lisa jackson is the administrator. caller: in new york regarding the marcellus shale area, they are still under debate. the epa also has a report that they will be generating that will produce results within the next few months. after watching and seeing any time you go into some areas it's almost like baking a cake. you don't take the particles out after you have done the chemicals. what can the epa do to regulate the effect of hydrofracturing?

the water and the air in our area is going to be totally and unprotected and we are all going to suffer from that. i don't see the epa or any other organization stepping up to protect the people. guest: the epa study is everything. hydrofracturing is not federally regulated right now. some states have state regulations. but by and large it is pretty much regulated by the companies that do it. if it is generating another big debate. tpa is in the process right now of conducting independent study. if the spoke about the study on carbon dioxide and global warming and they were slapped on the list and send you should've done your own independent study. if that is what they're doing with hydrofracturing. what are the effects of

hydrofracturing and what are the effects on the water table and on the air? when they completed that review, the expectation is that, that will follow up with proposals for some kind of new federal level regulation of hydraulic fracturing. so the epa is doing this review and is expected that in the coming years it'll probably have a stronger role and then there will be more regulation. caller: the house has taken up epa regulations, try to delay them or streamline them. what is next? what is the next legislation coming down the pipeline? guest: next week. eric cantor had a memo in august laying out all the federal regulations but house wants to undo week by week this fall. they did one last week. they passed the one that blocks epa's ability to regulate mercury picks from coal plants to preventability

pollution from one coal-fired plant to cause harm or hazard in the next states over. so next week epa is also coming out with rules that would regulate pollution emitted by cement plants and pollution emitted by industrial boilers. these are the didactic boilers -- a gigantic oil is that power a big building like a factory

>> earlier today, elon musk, the ceo of space facts announced a plan to develop a launch rocket. he said reusable rockets can pose a tough engineering problem, but space facts will do it and set it to its on paper. from the national press club, this is an hour. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon and welcome to the national press club. i earmarked hamrick of associated press, when they broadcast and online journalism and in this capacity on the 104th president of the national press club. where the roads leading

professional organization for journalist committed to our profession's future tours programming, events such as this while fostering a free press worldwide. for more information about the national press club, we invite you to visit our website at www..press.org and donate two programs offer to the public or eric freed had national journalism library. you can visit that on the website as well. on behalf of our members worldwide, would like to welcome her speaker here today and those of you attending today's event. ..

please note the journalists present particularly during this political season does not imply or signify an endorsement of the speaker. i would ask each of you here at the table to please stand up briefly as your name is announced and we will begin from your right. to begin my paul shankman who is a reporter with wtop news and we might know the third-generation press club member. heather weaver is a freelancer and she is with their book and author committee leadership. ron of the kuwait news agency. by the way he hails from the usl. he is the chair of our newsmakers committee and doing a great job there as well. kristin grantham is medications director with spacex the guest of our speaker. welcome. angela king is the transportation reporter with bloomberg news and their membership secretary on our board of governors. tim hughes's general counsel

with spacex and guest of our speaker. skip over the podium for a moment, melissa charbonneau with news media is there fantastic speaker committee chair really doing a wonderful job for us here this year. thank you so much melissa. let's skip over a speaker for just a moment. leif harriman as director with "associated press." george dewey is senior vice president of marketing inc. medications with spacex the guest of our speaker, welcome. frank mooring us deputy managing editor for space aviation and space technology magazine. robert schlesinger is opinion editor "u.s. news and world report." at them is vice president client strategy with tmg government, by shareware broadcast committee here at the national press club. please give them all a warm round of applause. [applause] one might be inclined to color

guest speaker today a renaissance man. but to do that would to be to set him back several hundred years of that would be fair. with south african canadian heritage is an engineer whose passion for solving problems necessitated that he become an entrepreneur and inventor. we are told that he multitasks, that he is a workaholic. we are told he got in it 3:00 a.m. this morning here. he probably dries fast we are told that with a preference for energy-efficient vehicles. he thinks a lot about life and space. from software businesses to the internet lets not forget about electric cars, solar energy and space rockets. his friends say that are speaker today does everything with absolute conviction. even when he believes in something, when he believes in something he is unstoppable. he has said if he thinks the stakes are important enough he will do it whether the odds of success are high or low. in february "forbes" magazine ranked him as one of the nation's 20 most powerful ceos

40 and under. last year times listed him as one of the 100 people who most the world. esquire said he is one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century. there have been many other awards and recognitions along the way. he bought his first computer at the age of 10. he taught himself how to program that them by the age of 12 he sold his first commercial software space game for the commodore 64 platform for about $500. 8817 and 1988 he left his native south africa for western canada to live and work with his mother's family. in 1992. he won a scholarship to the university of pennsylvania where he received an undergraduate degree in business school. he got a second bachelor's degree in physics. he headed to stanford in the graduate program. the goal is to create ultra- capacitors with enough energy to power electric cars but after today's elected to start a company with his brother which

provided on line content publishing software for news organizations and in 1999 required for -- . next our guest speaker founded an on line financial services and e-mail payment company. you have probably heard about it, 2001 became paypal for $1.5 billion in stock. to use the proceeds to start space exploration technologies in 2002 where he is ceo and cto. in 2008 spacex what a nasa contract to replace the cargo transport function of the space shuttle to support the international space station with astronaut transport in mind. in 2009 spacex's falcon one rocket became the first privately funded liquid fueled vehicle. he is known as an original investor, chairman of the board and eventual head of product design where he led design of the all electric tesla roadster.

today tesla sells to daimler and toyota. he is the primary investor and nonexecutive chairman of solar city. our guest speaker has been compared to howard hughes henry ford in even the fictional tony stark, iron man. he has been described as the inspiration for robert downey, jr.'s interpretation of the character and he had a cameo in ironman two, appropriately enough the spacex pedigree was used in the film. he is not without critics and skeptics however including some who doubt the spacex's economy of scale can sustain the low-cost business model but he insisted he is proving them wrong today. so the founder of paypal, the worlds largest internet came it sees them ceo and product architect of tesla motors manufacturer they all electric tesla roadster automobile and model s sedan and nonexecutive chairman of solar city the leading provider of solar power systems in the u.s. and here today we are grateful for that to talk about the future of

human spaceflight as head of spacex developer of rockets and vehicles provisions to earth orbit and beyond. our guest views space expiration is the key next step in preserving and expanding human life and he is promoted making life multi-planetary starting with mars. it is an appropriate follow-up tour launch in the summer that featured nasa administrator charles goldman and astronaut mark kelly. although this serving as proof that you do not need to be a rocket scientist to be a national press club luncheon speaker, but it helps. please give it one national press club welcomes one of the most interesting personalities and entrepreneurs of our day, mr. elon musk. [applause] >> thank you very having me. is really an honor to speak at the national press club. so, i have an exciting announcement with respect to

space, and i think one should he provided some inspiration and some believe that the innovation is alive and well in america and going in a into a really interesting direction. i am going to get to that, but i'm going to preface that with the logic that explains why such a thing is important. because it may not be obvious. so first of all, going back to why am i in space and electric cars and solar power and internet stuff. it goes to back wins -- mac2 when i was in college and trying to figure out what were the most important things that would affect the future of humanity? what would have a significant impact on the future of the three things i came up with where were the internet, sustainable energy both

production and consumption and then space exploration but specifically making life multi-planetary. and i didn't expect when i was in college drugs would be involved in all three of those areas but as a result of some success in the internet arena that gave me the capital to get involved in very high capital endeavors like cars and rockets, which really are very high capital. [laughter] so, the reason for -- mostly i want to talk about space so i want to explain why do i think space is really important and what about space because i believe it comes from a rational sort of framework of logic. you start with how do you decide

anything is important? i think the lens of history is as a helpful guide here in bad things that may seem important in the moment but actually aren't that important in the grand scheme. over time if you look at things over a broad span of time, things that are less important canon ball away and if you look at things from the possible spent time as it relates to the evolution of life has been primitive life started 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago and what are the important steps in the evolution of life? at the obviously goes to single celled life differentiation to plants and animals. there was like going to the ocean from land. there were mammals, consciousness and i would argue also on that scale, life becoming multi-planetary and in fact i think is consciousness --

it is the next that actually because you really do need consciousness to design vehicles that can transport life over hundreds of millions of miles of irradiated space to an environment that they do not evolve to exist in. it would be very convenient of course if there was another planet just like ours nearby, but that is unlikely and as it turns out not the case. so, i think you can't really -- there is no way for life to sort of survived -- natural selection to get over to mars. so you need consciousness. so i think it is the natural step. i think if one could make a reasonable argument that something is important enough to fit on the scale of evolution

then it is important, and maybe worth a little bit of our resources. and one can also think of it from the standpoint of life insurance. there is some chance as a result of something in humanity or as a result of something natural like a giant asteroid hitting us or something. civilization and life as we know it could be destroyed. there is clear evidence for life being destroyed multiple times as a possible record so we don't need to guess that this is something that can occur because it has occurred. and the extension being particular he an interesting one because i think that's destroys somewhere between 90 and 95% of all species on earth which doesn't tell the full story because most remaining species were fungi. unless you are mushroom, you are

out of luck. so, if we think it is worth buying life insurance on an individual level or perhaps it is worth spending more than, spending something on life insurance for life as we know it. and arguably bad expenditure should be greater than zero. then we just get to what is an appropriate expenditure for life insurance and i think probably it is a quarter% of gdp, that would be okay. i think mostly it would say say it okay that's not too bad. but you know you want it to be some sort of number that is much less than we spend on health care but maybe more than we spend on lipstick or something like that. and i like lipstick.

[laughter] i can't wait for that comment to go out there. [laughter] so, that is kind of the thing that i think is important that we give a little bit of -- towards and i think it is also one of the most inspiring and interesting things we try to do, one of the greatest adventures that humanity could ever embark upon. and, you know of life has to be more than about solving problems. if all that life is about is solving problems why bother getting up in the morning? there have to be things that inspire you, that make you proud to be a member of humanity. and, you know the apollo program is an example of that. only a handful of people went to the moon, and yet actually we

all went to the moon. we went with them vicariously. we shared in that adventure. i don't think anyone would say that was a bad idea. that was great. so, you know the need more of those things. at least we need some of those things. and even if someone is a completely different industry and eight completely different walk of life it is still something that is going to make you feel good about the world and that is why, that is another reason why i think we should do these great things. so, now then let's get to the question of well, how do you make life multi-planetary? what are the fundamental obstacles you will have? everyone agrees that is worth doing but if we can do it doesn't matter. so, the pivotal breakthrough

that is necessary that some company has to come up with to make life multi-planetary it a fully and rapidly reusable overclass rocket. this is a very difficult thing to do because we live on a planet where -- that is just barely possible. if gravity were a little lower it would be easier and if it were a little higher it would be impossible. so, even for an expendable launch vehicle, or where you don't attempt recovery, a lot of smart people done their best to optimize the weight of the vehicle and efficiency of engines and the guidance system and everything. you get maybe two to 3% of your liftoff weight to orbit. that is not a lot of room for error. just a little bit heavier you get nothing to orbit in this is wildly a few countries have ever reached orbit. now you say okay let's make it reusable which means you have got to strengthen the stages and

you have to add a lot of weight, thermal protection. you have to do a lot of things. that ad weights to that vehicle and still have a useful payload to orbit. the maker two to 3% or maybe if you get it to fall, you have to add all that that is necessary to bring the rocket stages back to the launchpad and be able to re-fly them and still have useful orbit. a very difficult thing but this has been attempted many times in the past and generally what is happened is success was not one of the possible outcomes than the project has been abandoned. some government project kept going even with the worst

right around now, is we will show you a similar mission -- simulation of what we plan to do. that simulation is mostly accurate but there are few areas which are inaccurate. in some cases, just due to timing constraints we weren't able to work with simulation people to get a completely accurate and in some cases we are keeping a few technical things under our hats, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what we intend to do. which is to land basically for the first stage after stage separation, turn the stage around relight the engines go back to the launch pad and land on the possible landing legs and after dropping off the satellite or dragging the spacecraft then to a dealer but earn, re-enter. you'd need quite a palpable heat shield.

steer aerodynamically back to the launch pad. you don't actually need wings. this is a common misperception. steer back to the launch pad and land the upper stage also possibly with landing gear. so we will see if this works. this will be certainly an exciting journey, and if it does work it will be pretty huge, because if you look at say the cost of falcon ix rocket which is quite a big rocket, about 1 million pounds of thrust, and it is the lowest cost rocket in the world, and even so it is about 50 to $60 million. but the cost of the fuel and oxygen and so forth is only about $200,000. so, obviously if we can reuse the rocket, say 1000 times, then

that would make the capital cost of the rocket for launch only about $50,000. there will be maintenance and other things that will factor in and fixed costs and other allocations but it would allow for a 100-fold reduction in launch costs and this is a pretty obvious thing to think about as applied to any other mode of transport. you can imagine if planes were not reusable, very few people would fly. 747 is about $300 million. you would need two of them for a round-trip, and yet i don't think anyone cares to pay half a million dollars to fly. the reason is because those planes can be used tens of thousands of times and so while you are really paying for his fuel and pilot costs and sort of incidentals and that capital the capital cost is relatively small.

so that is why it is such a giant difference. to put it another way, and mentioned that we could probably afford a quarter of eight a percent of our gdp for making life multi-planetary. that is the cost if you have a fully reusable rocket. the cost of the don't have a fully reusable rocket on the same would be 100% of the gdp and that would mean no money for food, health care or anything else and obviously that is impossible. so that is why think a fully reusable system is fundamentally required for us to establish life on mars. mars is the only real option for another planet, seen as being too hot, mercury being way too high, jupiter being a gas giant and jupiter is a possibility but it is much further out and

harder in a lot of different ways. the moon is too small and resource. you have to make life multi-planetary, not just to have a little base. a little base is not that interesting but a self-sustaining human civilization is a multiple planet where life could continue even in the event of a calamity on earth. that is the real thing. so i think this is pretty exciting, and i think everyone particularly in america and arguably the rest of the world should be pretty fired up about what we are doing and hopefully wish us well and we will do our best to succeed in this regard and yeah. it is definitely going to be an adventure. i will say one final thing, which is that some people say

what is the business model for mars, and sometimes they think can you mind mars and bring things back? that is not a realistic model for mars because it will be far cheaper to mind things on earth then mars. but i do think that there is a business model where you can reduce the cost of their flight to mars are moving to mars to around the cost of a middle-class home in california, which does seem to be rising over time, maybe not recently. may be to around half a million dollars, then i think you would have enough people who would buy a ticket and move to mars to be part of creating a new planet and be part of kind of the founding team of a new civilization. you don't have to -- obviously you don't have to be willing to

have an appetite for risk and an adventure, but there are 7 billion people on earth and it will probably be 8 billion by midcentury so even if 1 million people decided to do that, that is 8000 people. so that is what i think is sort of the business model, if you will. hopefully mars can export intellectual property like software and inventions and things like that if you can beam it back with photons would be a better way to go. alright, so i'm happy to answer any questions. [applause] >> thank you very much. obviously given the diverse nature of your own interests and pursuits we will ask you to stay here is an issue grab a drink of

water, which is required on earth. if you went to the moon that might be more difficult. so we are going to start with the space peace and if you will to stand up here right by my side we will just sort of wing it one by one. talk about how you see the practical application of this technology that you just described, sort of in the near and intermediate term and if it's successful. >> well, in the near term that technology will be applied to launching satellites and to resupplying the space station, taking a crew up there. that is the near term thing and that is what spacex current business is predicated on. we have got about $3 billion in a contract and that is okay. >> $3 billion. >> it is spread out over the next five years and we do have to do lots of things to get that

money. but, so that is our bed. so we have been profitable for the last four years, not hugely profitable but marginally profitable. we expect to be the same this year and i think that is necessary because obviously the amount of money going out exceeds the amount of money coming in then it will die so we have to make sure that we have more money coming in than going out. but that seems to be going well. >> you described to me earlier that right now you are the leading vendor for launching satellites into space right now? >> well, if measured by launch contracts awarded, that is correct. so the united states has been uncompetitive in the international launch market or are longtime, and russia has actually been a leader in that regard followed by europe and then to a lesser degree and he

and china although china obviously is growing rapidly. and, except in the last few years where the united states has done the best and that is due entirely to spacex. >> obviously you are a person very interested in innovation and that is something it seems the united states as well. in the space is the specifically, how can we maintain a competitive edge and are we maintaining it in the sector generally within our nation right now? >> well, as far as launch is concerned, think it is fair to say that the united states has by far the most competitive launch capabilities with spacex, as a result of spacex, and the only realistic potential competitor is china. it is not the easiest thing competing with national governments which are heavily subsidized, and they certainly have set their sights on us and

have told us that. but that's okay. i think we will win. but actually with respect to china we have a conscious strategy of filing the minimum number of patents. we were very careful about cybersecurity and very careful about physical security because there is also a history of intellectual property in china. and the enforceability of the patent in the chinese government is zero. so, contrast that to tesla where tesla requires a lot of patents because tessler commercial companies so not to worry about the launch. we will take care of that. >> let me come back around a little bit to maintaining the national standard. as you know there has been an active debate in congress or in washington about what is the

appropriate role for government? of course there was a different approach to that and times for cash was more flush and it seems to some degree or a great degree your ire beneficiary that in the sense that we are outsourcing some of this within our own country now. is the inability, the apparent inability of the federal government to spend on this going to be an inherent problem for our country? >> well we do spend a fair bit on space, much more than any other country from a government standpoint. so i think what will continue to be the biggest -- in the united states but, i think the budgets will be increased because of overall compression on the federal budget. we have a huge budget crisis, and largely have our heads in the sand or are ignoring the

reality that we are spending far more than we are bringing in. fat chicken will come home to roost. so, i think we can expect massive compression evolve widgets including space's just because we simply won't have any other choice. >> i want to get more to the spacex piece but since you just now talked about sort of the way you should do business as the government, there is obviously a political issue right now that is out there about what are the appropriate roles of government and encouraging job creation? you have 1500 employees at spacex. you are having those jobs in the united states. i guess you have a launch facility in marshalltown iowa. >> actually our primary facility is cape canaveral and then we are building a launch site at bangor air force base in california. we are not currently using -- but we did use initially but the logistics are just too difficult getting out there because it is

a zillion miles from anywhere. so it is convenient in some ways from a standpoint so cape canaveral and also we plan on establishing a commercial launch site which, because i know it makes sense and the cape air force bases and it makes sense to concentrate air force and nasa business to those two facilities and concentrate commercial launch at a commercial launch site. >> so what is your sense in the political debate here in washington? do you have trouble creating jobs within your company because of the way the federal government is operating currently or what you envision as the way that policy is managed generally? >> well, i should first of all say that spacex would not be where it is without the help of

nasa but historically the great thing is nasa currently gives us and the expert advice and everything. i make sure to strongly credit nasa in terms of how helpful they have been. we do have a bit of a challenge with the air force, and this is something where i am sort of surprised there is not journalistic interest because the air force is currently proposing to extend the sole-source monopoly of boeing lockheed until 2018. and the reasoning given for that is restoration of the industrial base although for some reason i've been enough we are not included in the industrial base and this is doubly hard because the main rocket used by lockheed has a russian-made engine and a

center air frame and a forward airframe bearings which are made in switzerland, so which industrial base are we talking about preserving, the one in russia? that doesn't make much sense. >> so you sense that is a political problem? >> you no, we have 1% of the power going into lockheed. >> that is a political problem. [laughter] >> the this decision is made as a function of loving power, we are screwed. [laughter] >> i think you just earned some journalistic attention. well let's give a little bit more to the space business because we do have a lot of questions and i want to be fair to our audience to get in as many of those questions as time permits and obviously these are far-flung questions literally as well as figure that. someone is what will today's announcement, how will today's announcement reverted resources from sending humans to the international space station i would probably add, if at all?

>> i would see a diversion. this is a parallel effort and so it is not really impacting cargo to the space station nor is it affecting our human spaceflight development activities we are doing in partnership with nasa which is going really well. so, think this is sort of a parallel of being -- it doesn't really affect the ascent phase of the vehicle but we are really trying to have the descent phase not the -- exploded. that is actually what happens to all rockets otherwise. >> given the grounding of rockets fleet are you accelerating launch date for the space station missions and what in what happens with your schedule with the november launch with the possibility that the iff may need to be evacuated? >> yeah.

with the soyuz recently, it actually likely result in a delay because it sort of pushes out the other missions and nasa rightly wants to have the appropriate level of astronaut astronaut -- the right astronauts and number of astronauts with the right training onboard the space station when we arrived, so it looks like things will be more like january for the launch of the space station and that is contingent upon the russians meeting the schedule that they are currently stating. >> how do you evaluate the fact that we are using russia as an important partner in the space program right now? how do you feel about that? what are the risks and what are the benefits? >> well i think despite the recent failure of the soyuz it is actually a good vehicle and

has a good track record. i think there may be some concerns going to the future with russian that a lot of their expert rocket engineers have retired because it is much more compelling financially to go into the oil and gas industry in russia than it is to go into the rocket industry. so, so, that expertise is tailing off and i think that may lead to decreased reliability for russian rockets in the future. hopefully it doesn't, but. >> does that give advantage to china then? >> long-term i think china is a serious competitor long-term. if you look at russia and rocketry since the fall of soviet union there has been no significant development. the technology has barely progressed and no new rockets have launched since the fall of the soviet union.

so obviously what that means is a sense that technology is exceeded and they are redundant and they have nobody to compete, think that is likely what will occur with the russian launch industry. >> how much longer do they have unless they start doing serious work is being a viable space program there? >> five or 10 years. >> and does that mean at that point china moves and essentially in that space that they are occupying? >> i'm quite confident we can take on china. >> lets get let's get to another question. [inaudible] >> you are on the record and i think you have a lot of people cheering for you. obviously we will see what happens. we will invite you back. >> could be famous last words. [laughter] >> given the progress launch and the risk of trusting the very survival of the international space station entirely to soyuz for years to come there is something of a state of emergency until u.s. crews

began. kenya fast-track development and human rating to resulting crude launches beginning in two years and if not can you speed up the process by any amount? could be launched an emergency flight? >> i think it is important to clarify what can the system do, the falcons system that we are launching today, what can it do? if the degree of safety required was equivalent to that of a the shuttle we could launch shuttles on the next flight scheduled to go up in january. the system is fully capable of carrying biological cargo which is you know, people. what it doesn't have is a launch escape system and the shuttle does not have a launch escape system but nasa and we agreed that a launch escape system is a wise move.

so, we are -- it will take us about two years, may be three to develop and qualify a launch escape system and the way we are doing the launch escape system is i think significant innovation beyond what has been done in the past. the escape thrusters on both of the side walls of the spacecraft so you can actually use those same thrusters for propulsive landing. we are actually talking with nasa about potentially doing missions to mars and other places using dragon as kind of a general test, general science delivered platform to various places in the solar system. so, that is an important distinction. we can launch satellites next flight if required but if we wanted to add a launch escape

system, two or three years. >> the questioner asked nasa has a legacy of openness and transparency unlike private companies would. while you are flying private payloads the private model will continue to work with you however once the american taxpayer starts putting the dough and i guess the supposition here's more aggressively what assurances can you give space -- spaces will be as open and transparent as other aerospace systems or need you be? >> well, relatively speaking we are an open and transparent company. there are some restrictions here which i call restrictions. they are not restrictions but advance rocket technology is considered protected technology so you -- >> you can do harm at those. >> right. we can't just publish it to the general public a detailed analysis of secrets on how to

make rockets. that is actually a violation of the law, but all that information is available to nasa and to the faa so for missions we do for nasa, nasa has quite a detailed oversight law and then the faa as well has an oversight role. so if you are comfortable flying commercial aircraft then you should be pretty comfortable with what you we are doing in commercial rocketry. >> and yet with nasa there is obviously any number of tragic events that have occurred where human life was lost and in the sense that obviously they are using private companies as partners, but essentially under the nasa government brand. essentially flying the american flag. can a company like your sustain a loss like that as a private enterprise? would people be willing to give you much dare i say space in the event of a tragedy that they would be?

>> i think that will be okay. if you look at other modes of transport, aircraft, boats, carn every mode of transport and if one set a standard that you couldn't have loss of life then there would be no transport. you wouldn't be even allowed to walk. so, you have to allow for some amount of risk and it needs to be reasonable and measured, but you have to allow for that but i don't think -- a commercial company arguably would be better able to deal with that then a government entity because the government to have the congressional hearings and it tends to become sometimes it clinical football. >> congress has a willingness to investigate private companies as

well. >> oh, sure but i think that it certainly occurs where it seems like there is ben sort of a violation of the rules or something like that but obviously there are fatal car accidents every day. they don't go to congressional hearings. >> i'm trendy thing. let me follow. someone asked if he took nasa out of the equation in the sense of being responsible or important for a future business is there enough private satellite and other payload business to keep it going if for some reason nasa wasn't in the picture or is that a concern at all? >> yeah. well assuming nasa is our largest customer and are most supportive customer but if you look at our launch manifest we have over 30 folks in line missions on the contract and 13 of those are with nasa, so effectively we have got 40% or so of our business with the government. but then if you consider, let's say you made pencils.

about 40% of your business would be for the government so it is not unreasonable number. >> fair enough. fair enough. we are getting to the workforce issue. someone writes in the audience today, my son not me as a mission comptroller at houston's johnson space center which obviously is relative to the future of your business as well. many of his friends with the shuttle program had been let go and are interviewing the video for jobs with your company. any suggestions on what you are looking for? [laughter] >> sure. well, if you look at the amount of money that is allocated to commercial space relative to the overall nasa budget you will see the zip ready small number. you know, last fiscal year was about three and a billion dollars but that was split over

for company so we have got about 75. that is i guess about half a percent of the national budget. so it is important to bear in mind that we would love to hire lot more people than we are currently hiring that we also can't run out of money and die, so we can only hire a few people. in terms of what characteristics we look for, we generally are quite engineering centric so we are big fans of what people have done from a hard-core engineering standpoint? yeah, what engineering problems have they solved, how did they solve them, and we are less interested if it has been more paper oriented role that they have had because we try to minimize data space facts. >> are you to minding --

demanding an employer the nasa would have been? >> well that is a tough question to answer. i think we are probably more demanding. i guess nasa is a large organization, so i think the level of demand that people face in different parts of nasa varies considerably and i'm sure there are parts of nasa which are just as demanding and maybe more demanding than spacex but it is an extremely demanding organization and we expect people to work hard and to be very good at their job. speak it in a test load solar city and your response to climate change have you answer politicians that say they are not sure it is actually happening? >> okay, well the climate debate is an interesting one. so if you ask any scientist, are

you sure that human activity is causing global warming? any scientist should say no because you cannot be sure. so, on the other hand if you said, do you think we should put an arbitrary number of trillions of tons of co2 into the atmosphere and just keep doing it until something bad happens they would probably say no too. if we essentially are running an experiment, that experiment is to test the common capacity of the oceans and the atmosphere. now that experiment may turn out to be fine. it may also turn out to be really bad. and it just -- i just don't understand why we are doing that experiment particularly when you consider at some point we have to get to thump something that is sustainable. we have to have sustainable production of industry and consumption of industry.

you will run out of it. you can certainly say well, let's say hypothetically co2 was good for the environment. and let's say hypothetically the united states united states possessed all the oil in the world. well, you would still have to get -- because it is a finite resource and as you run out the scarcity would drive the cost up and it would only collapse so why not do it sooner? and i'm not saying that there needs to be a radical or immediate change although people need to acknowledge a great deal of -- into their lives to avoid co2. but we should lean in that direction. we should lean in the direction of supporting technologies that are sustainable and lean slightly against technologies that are unsustainable. that just seems pretty sensible.

even if the environment isn't a factor. as a matter fact my interest in electric vehicles predates the current climate issue. 20 years ago no one was really talking about global warming. so, but i just think the climate thing does add urgency to things and i do think we will see quite a significant increase in the cost of oil just from a demographic standpoint. you up that china, india and countries that represent almost half the worlds population and have very few cars on the road that are rapidly adding cost to the roads road see you expected doubling of demand, and i think it is going to be difficult to achieve a doubling of the supply. >> heavy change anything in the wake of the federal solyndra investigation and to have any concerns about an acquiring

government loans and contracts? will tesla's dua loan application stand up under such scrutiny? >> yeah, i mean so in the case of solyndra, solyndra has become somewhat of a political football here. the doe programs are necessarily aarp portfolio programs where some number of the things that are funded there are going to fail. that should be assumed. we should not assume that it 100% success. and in the case of solyndra, people forget that private investors lost twice as much as the government did so -- and there was some really first rate venture capitalist in solyndra. so if you have got first rate venture capitalists who have

lost twice as much money as the federal government you have to say okay, i mean it was a bad. that didn't work but that doesn't mean something really terrible happened. the most you can say is solyndra executives were too optimistic. you know they% a better face to the situation than should have been presented in the final few months but then if they didn't do that, it would have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. i'm not sure whether it will survive, so you know i think people are making too much of the solyndra thing. i mean, it and don't think there weren't problems with tesla. we had to learn from the doa from a different program i should point out, but in our case, we have significant capital and we have more money

at tesla then we need to complete the program in question and we don't face the same issue that solyndra face which is extreme competition from china on a commodity product that drove the cost of solar panels from $4 down to one. that is the fundamental reason why solyndra went down is solyndra would have been okay at $2 but not one, and that's it. and here here's the other thing, which is how much money do you think the chinese government has put into solyndra? estimates are about 40 billion, okay? so our team operating on a pittance. we have china operating on 40 billion our team -- that should be no surprise. >> do you worry that has tarnished the view by the american public of the solar industry in the united states?

>> you know there is probably a little bit of tarnish, but you know, it is unwarranted tarnish. solar city, now, what occurred was something that i expected would occur so if somebody asked me to think solyndra was a good investment i would have said no. but solar city works on talent allen sing a system where they do everything except the panel and they're kind of like dell or apple. dell or apple don't make the cpu or the memory or the hard drives. they design their own system and they give it to customers through sales and marketing so that is what solar city does. solar city is doing super well, and they are growing at 100% a year with positive cash flow which is pretty incredible.

and yeah. i just show up at board meetings to hear the good news. it is really great. all the credit to those guys. and for them, the the more rapacious the competition on solar panels the better. >> well if you wouldn't mind, we will do some finishing business here so if i can just step up here for second and we will get a couple more questions than if you will just stand by. as many of you know we are almost out of time and before asking the last question of the day, couple of housekeeping matters to take care of and first among those is just reminding about some immediately upcoming luncheons. ken burns the documentarian filmmaker will be here in monday to talk about his new film, prohibition. on october 5, ron paul for the gop presidential nomination the fifth of october in that event is sold out. just announced october 24, at tmc harvey levin will talk about

the changing landscape and entertainment so before i get to the last question if you will just come right over here. we present our speaker on a routine basis with our token of our pushy asian and thank you very much. our national press club coffee mug. thank you elon. [applause] >> thank you. >> we will see if we have time for more than one question here at again but these are on the lighter side as many of you know an audience. let me ask you first about what is the one great idea that you have seen from somebody else and is the slogan go i could've had a v-8. why didn't i think at that? of that? there are probably been more than one privilege of those loom largest in your mind? please stand up to the microphone. great idea that someone else had and you wish to have it your cell for x. rest of that idea. >> well, there are lots of great ideas that come up all the time. don't necessarily wish to my --

i had to myself but certainly larry and sergei came up with google was very smart, with the back links to pages. obviously what facebook is done, twitter. there are great examples on the internet. and, yeah -- >> those are american companies. >> you know i think apple, google and facebook art samples where it is like you are sort of like who is their competition and they aren't even sure. [laughter] >> how was it that america's able able to integrate so well given all the challenges when we have great companies like that performing so well? >> sorry? >> in other words in many ways the nation continues to be a great innovator. how do you explain that? how does that continue to happen and why is that?

>> well, it is kind of like the statement about democracy, it is a bad system but it is the least bad. well the united states is the least bad in ink inc. urging innovation. [laughter] and silicon valley actually have to say is particularly good at encouraging innovation but silicon valley is just orders of magnitude better than anyplace in the world for creating new companies and innovation. it is quite remarkable. so i don't think we especially need to worry about some other country out there out innovating us. almost almost all innovation in the world comes from america. it is true. a ridiculous percentage. and, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be battered i think we need to be concerned about excess regulation, a tax structure that does not promote

innovation because you need to remember when companies are little they are like tadpoles. they just die very easily. so you need to have an environment which tries to protect little companies and help them get bigger. and silicon valley does that very well and america in general does that very well compared to other countries that most other countries tend to foster and protect the big companies. big companies don't need protection. >> how about a round of applause for our guest speaker. [applause] thank you to all of you for coming today and we would like to thank the national press club staff including our library broadcast center for organizing today's event and you can find more permission about the national press club on our web site. you get a copy the program. please check th