vote:

the presiding officer: is there any senator wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, h.r. 3079, 79 -- 77 yeas, 22 nays. the bill is passed. under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate, equally divided prior to a vote on passage of h.r. 3087. who yields time? the senator from montana.

mr. baucus: mr. president, we are now on the colombia free trade agreement and i can take a lot of time, i think most senators know how they're going to vote on this. let me say i've visited colombia, i'm extremely impressed with the progress colombia has made. colombia was a failed state, failed country about ten years ago. with america's plan, colombia, the assistance we've given the narc owe traffic is down, clearly we don't want one laborer or anybody killed in colombia. but the fact is there is tremendous progress in colombia. colombia is so important to the geopolitical future in south america. if we cut and run, colombia is going to wonder where is the united states, it will not -- it will go to other countries, venezuela and china and so forth. i urge my colleagues who are on the fence, who are on the fence

to vote for this because that's a vote for the future. the glass is half full. the presiding officer: who yields time? the senator from ohio. order in the chambers. the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. same story. this is the panama agreement but colombia's is even longer, hundreds an hundreds of pages of rules. i admire the colombian people. they're our allies but the colombian government, not so much. colombia remains the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist. 23 trade unionists killed in 2011, 51 were killed in 2010. what's happening to them is working over the past 20 years, union expwhraition rates -- unionization rates in colombia have been cut in half. when you threaten trade unionists, you actually murder them, of course unionization rates are going to go down. the labor action plan commits the colombian government to get better but what we're doing by a yes vote, we're rewarding promises as we always do in

trade agreements, but we're doing nothing to really establish and enforce concrete results. mr. president, if you care about human rights, if you care about workers having the ability freely to organize -- the speaker pro tempore: the senator's time has expired. mr. brown: -- you'll vote no on the colombian trade agreement. the presiding officer: the question is on passage of h.r. 3078. is there a sufficient second? yes, there is. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? h.r. 3078, the yeas are 66, the nays are 33. the bill has passed.

mr. baucus: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: mr. president, i think it is a great day. it's -- it shows america is moving forward, forward-leaning, forward-looking. i want to thank the countries with whom we've reached these agreements. they, too, are so encouraged. and i hope it is a good model that we can pursue in the future. in that vein, i would like to thank some members of my staff, beginning with my chief trade person, amber coddle, mike smart, tom quick, chelsie thomas, gabriel addler, sarah babcock, and i want to very much thank my staff that works for my good friend and colleague, senator hatch, beginning with especially with h everett eisenstadt. they've been a real team. and i believe very strongly that not much is accomplished in this

team if we try to go it alone, if do you it by yourself. rather, much is accomplished with team work and working together. i just -- i thank very much my team and i very much thank the team from senator hatch. i see everett over there nodding his head. he knows teamwork really works. i thank him also very much. mr. president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. mr. baucus: mr. president, i ask consent the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. baucus: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. udall: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. udall: i would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the banking committee be -- discharged from further consideration of senate resolution 270 and the senate proceed to its consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 270, supporting the goals and ideals of national life insurance awareness month. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. udall: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and any related taiments be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: i ask unanimous consent that the senate now proceed to the consideration of

senate resolution 292 which was submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 292, designating the week beginning october 16, 2011, as national character counts week. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. udall: mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, the senate adjourned until 10:00 a.m. on october 13, 2011. following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. following any leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business until 12:00 p.m. with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each, the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with republicans controlling the first 30 minutes

and the majority controlling the second 30 minutes, and that at 12:00 p.m., the senate proceed to executive session to consider calendar numbers 251, 252 and 253 under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: mr. president, we expect two roll call votes at approximately 2:00 p.m. tomorrow on judicial nominations. additionally, there is a joint meeting of congress with the president of korea at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. senators will gather in the senate chamber at 3:40 p.m. to proceed to the house together. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate will stand adjourned senate will stand adjourned

the company lightsquared's plan to build a wireless broadband network could create problems for businesses relying on gps technology.

>> of course i am delighted, but not surprised by the appeal of the 18th amendment. i have known all along that when this planet was -- rank-and-file of our people they would readily see that it had no place in our constitution. >> he served as governor of new york four times, though he never attended high school or college and in 1928, al smith became the first catholic nominated for a major party to run for president and although he lost the election, he still remembered to this day by the alfred e. smith memorial dinner and annual fund-raiser for various catholic charities and a stop for the two main presidential candidates every election year. l. smith is one of the 14 men featured in c-span's new weekly series, the contenders live from the state assembly chamber in albany friday at 8:00 p.m.

eastern. >> now hearing on the potential effect of lightsquared's plan to build a multibillion-dollar high-speed wireless network. earlier this year, test showed that its original network proposal would cost gps service. witnesses from the aviation and farming industries said they continue to be concerned that the network could interfere with gps accuracy which they rely on. this how small business committee hearing is about 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon everyone. we will bring this hearing to order and i want to tank you are witnesses for being here today.

i know some of you have traveled a ways and i appreciate you being here. today we but here about how lightsquared's proposal will impact the ability of small businesses to access the global positioning system gps. thousands of small businesses who rely on inaccurate gps signal for their day-to-day operations have potential interference could severely handicap or impair those businesses. lightsquared aims at providing wireless forgey coverage to 260 million americans in rural and urban divinities by 2015 and they agree we need to find innovative ways to provide high-speed internet access to underserved areas. access to high-speed internet provide small businesses especially those located in rural communities with the opportunities to compete in electronic and global marketplace however such innovation should not jeopardize the currently established systems including gps and at more words to those who use them. since it was first launched taxpayers invested over $35 billion in the gps system.

this national asset has become an integral part of our economy. vacancy the value-added benefits in a variety of sectors. from a safer more reliable energy grid to precise agriculture mapping nearly every industry has benefited from this technology. more for recent studies have estimated the gps imports over 3 million u.s. jobs and contributes over 3 trillion in economic activity. federal test results from lightsquared proposal showed significant interference on all types of gps receivers. this alarmed many small businesses and could be required to replace a retrofit their current gps system. this'll be an enormous cost to small business. and in the lightsquared is committed to spend 50 million to retrofit federal gps devices it is done nothing for the 1 million small businesses to the bill that will easily cost billions of dollars. i am confident we can find a solution to provide more broadband to rural areas while not jeopardizing small-business gps users and again i want to thank are witnesses for their participation in nine now yield

to the ranking member for opening remarks. >> thank you mr. chairman and good afternoon and thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. it is about job creation and growth. companies can reach new markets across the globe while reducing costs at home. in fact, the number of jobs dependent on broadband and information technology is suspected to grow by 25% over the next 10 years. this made the expansion of connectivity a critical priority and the main reason the administration set a target of reaching 90% of the population through such technology. today we will examine a proposal that will advance this objective. this plan which centers on constructing a hybrid ground-based satellite network would have brought benefits. beyond its payoff, widespread

broadband adoption will mean new economic opportunity for communities across the nation particularly rural america. for individuals looking to launch a new enterprise, broadband -- this is especially important now as many dislocated workers are looking to entrepreneurship as a way to replace lost income. for the established small-business high-speed internet can expand using a company web site, social networking or other forms of on line advertising. firms can utilize voice and video communication to connect with customers around the world and reach previously untapped markets. they can store data on line and access office productivity tools. while the proposal we are considering today shows promise to accomplish this goal, we have to consider its interference potential. one example is gps which serves

a critical role in aviation safety and efficiency. in fact, the department of transportation's next -- nextgen program focuses on moderating its platform and is expected to create 160,000 jobs in four years, the same number the aviation industry lost in a decade. with 360,000 gps equipped aircraft and over 3 million jobs, we must ensure interference does not undermine this growing industry. not only must we address the aviation industry's concerns, we also need to investigate the planned small businesses impact. business owners and a 480 trades like position agriculture and construction relied on gps technology for its cost-saving benefits. small farmers use gps to save 50 yen dollars annually on water and fertilizer costs. and accurate information or expensive equipment upgrades

cost -- caused by interference could result in small-business job losses. recognizing this concern it is imperative to test this planned technology. doing so will ensure smart businesses are now left with costly burdens. regardless if this new plan is ultimately adopted, we must continue to push forward with our indy and evaluation. at some point, either through the -- endeavors we will be able to mitigate gps interference successfully and bring the benefits of broadband to nearly all small businesses and their customers. we should not let the competition that has multiple solutions hinder progress towards nationwide connectivity. time and again, advanced technologies have been a springboard for growth. from mobile phones to the internet new technologies have

brought jobs and prosperity. with this in mind that look forward to hearing how we can further foster innovation. thank you mr. chairman. >> if committee members have an opening statement prepared i asked that they submitted for the record and just explains you the timing system each of you have five minutes and the allies will indicate green for that time and down to a minute it goes yellow and then read when you run out of time. if you run out of time it is not that big a deal. just don't go too far over. this hearing is obviously or the subject matter has been heard in a lot of committees on the hill so far. small business committee because they have such an impact here, the armed services committee transportation committee, the science and technology committee, the agriculture committee will probably have a hearing on it so it is of huge importance. with that we will go to our witness is now so you can give your statements and i'm owing to turn to representative west from florida to introduce our first

witness. >> thank you much a chairman and ranking member. our first witness will be mr. dennis boykin, the founder and manager of db for consulting. mr. boykin is a small-business owner and veteran, licensed pilot and a proud aircraft on her. he is an army veteran and artillerymen whom i served together with an 1991 in desert shield desert storm in the fifth field artillery and dennis it is great to see what can and hopefully all is well the family. he is implying ferber 30 years. mr. boykin will be testifying on behalf of leesburg executive airport commission. mr. boykin. >> chairman grace ranking member velazguez and members of the committee and old army comrades thank you for the introduction and the opportunity to address this issue today. as congressman was noted critical not only is a business owner highlands high precision gps in order to keep my aircraft safe and more importantly keep the people underneath my aircraft safe. but in a leadership position as

the leader of the leesburg executive airport concerned about the welfare of our airport because we run a business. favorite concerns regarding this potential interference of high precision gps receivers. my family say because associate with the proposal may impact on our general aviation infrastructure. i've spent nearly $40,000 gps equipment installations over the last eight years and two airplanes. i'm not unique in my community and many of assessment made to increase their margin of safety while running our businesses and flying or airplanes. make no mistake gps as a matter of life and death. this is not hyperbole. i'm a combat veteran i know something about life or death situations and i know you hear a lot of hyperbole sometimes about this issue, gps is critical not just a business but to life. first let's talk about my airport in leesburg. we have a saying out there is a served in town and residents in redding airport in that airports are not about airplanes. there are about commerce. our airport provides newsday commerce benefit bringing over 200 jobs and $80 million year in

economic impact to leesburg in lowden county virginia. we have over 250 aircraft in our field and nearly all of them are gps equipped. at the faa estimates lightsquared employs a system as tested in a few months back there estimating a foreigner and 40 million-dollar year negative economic impact to general aviation. 800 lives lost per year in $22 billion in opportunity cost of nextgen's and deploy. that are there -- that is their numbers, not mine. i don't want to have to explain to town council by the airport is causing trouble. in my second row managing a business i'm hearing lightsquared posner claims that their system won't interfere with gps and i read mr. russo's testimony on strategic forces and says the opposite. they claim they have a filter. it will magically solve the problems they cause. in my expected to bear the expense of the certification certification installation

downtime and test flight surrounding these filters? mr. carlisle will tell you not. and oh by the way -- speaking of business was talk about environmental impacts. recently took a business trip to florida to an army conference. they made the trip on a direct route tank is to gps. saved an enormous amount of fuel not following the airway routes. this is the next -- the entire precept behind nextgen, direct routing. any impact on gps we lose those environmental improvements in the reduced carbon foot end of each pool -- life. fireman concerned about the safety of every flight. gps need signals enhanced by augmentation services have created a precise flight environment today that is unraveled in our history. flight is so much safer today than when i learned to fly 30 years ago. i'm no longer comfortable getting up in bad weather. now let me put you in an entirely likely scenario. imagine yourself flying in my airplane at night returning from

a trip. we are in the clouds. i'm on the gps approach to runway 17 at leesburg and the screen goes blank because there is a continuation of the lightsquared cell tower i just flew over. the engineers will tell you that cell phone towers only impact ground receivers. every pilot on these goes will tell you otherwise. and don't ask me why i know this but up to about 5000 feet you can get a good cell phone signal. i just happen to know that. there's absolutely no reason to create this risk to life and property without proper testing and without proper coordination. now, we are going to hear a lot of testimony about how folks have fixed the problem already and there isn't an issue. frankly, i will remind everybody here that we are in a committee meeting chaired by someone from missouri and they have a great saying in missouri. show me. and i would like somebody to put together a test that puts

multiple base stations multiple handsets out on that test range at white sands and make sure this thing really does work before we put lives at risk. i have a little bit of experience when i used to work for the motorola corp.. i do get chained -- trained. i'm not an engineer but i know things can interfere with each other and i hope this committee would have something to say about how that works and i thank you for your time and i thank you more important for your service to our great nation. >> thank you mr. bly can. next witness is mr. rick green. rick is precision agronomy manager for mfa columbia missouri. is roly helps family farmers utilize agricultural technology to increase crop yields. rick has testified on behalf of retailers association. thanks for being here. >> thank you chairman and ranking member -- and members of me. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. i'm here to testify on the

behalf of agricultural retailers association. a trade organization which represents agri tailors and distributors with equipment and services. ara members are scattered throughout all 50 states and range and size from fairly small family business to a large cooperative with multiple locations.

to minimize fuel consumption tractors drive themselves within one minute inch to minimize overlap. spry years turn off individual sections and reduce over application of inputs. sensors detect how much nitrogen plant will require your and the hour survey and two-thirds of the time it takes traditional surveyors. a real applicators and the nitrogen on the flight to reduce

runoff and increase plant of take. irrigation systems based on those characteristics to reduce the water rate to reduce border wasteland the list goes on. we wouldn't people to perform these without high accuracy gps. with perdue university did a study back in 2000 for using in 1800-acre model farm and found that a farmer that uses hi accuracy gps will decrease his hours of operation by 17%. that 17% is not only operation but it's a decrease in fuel, maintenance and input like seed pesticide and fertilizer. times change and the producer needs to more efficient to combat local competition. bruce erickson with perdue university did a study of economic adoption of the farming technologies. from 2002 prices are up 350% in commodities and they are up 266%

and fuel and fertilizer is at 270%. efficiency and increased productivity is the key to surviving in the global market. according to the united nations organization, the population could rise to 8.2 billion people in 2030 which will require 50% increase in food production over the next 20 years in order to feed the global demand. the only way we are going to be able to achieve this is by using high accuracy gps, biotechnology and proper management. precision agriculture industry has over 400,000 - accuracy receiver is valued at $13,000 replacement cycle of ten to 15 years and has approximately $19.9 billion per year of value to the grower. mfa has over 700,000 acres in the gps to triet management,

$9.5 million, 9.5 million acres covered with high accuracy coverage and has almost $20 million of gps equipment sold to the farmers that will be a directed by the implementation of the industrial terrestrial component. since 2005, nsa has seen a 600% increase in sales and adoption rates of 40% of the customer base. it's like asking the american population to switch their analog gp to a 13,000 over digital tv. white square must be allowed to broadcast their signal in the upper and lower band of the gps and televisa will and economic resolution sound. to conclude, if the accuracy of the gps that makes the technology important believe a solution will be found that allows gps in the wireless broadband to coexist but lightsquared and gps providers will have to work together. we believe farmers and ranchers in gps companies shouldn't have to bear the additional financial burden of resolving this issue. thank you.

>> it's my pleasure to introduce to the committee mr. jeffrey carlisle, executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy for lightsquared. prior to joining lightsquared, mr. carlisle served as deputy chief and later chief of the wider line competition bureau, where he managed the development of the commission's broadband policies. he has over a decade of experience in telecommunications law. welcome. >> thank you very much. mr. chairman, ranking member, members of the committee, think you for having me here today to talk about lightsquared and gps. one thing that's very important to understand up front, and my colleagues on the panel here or going to clearly make the case that gps is important to them and nobody in my company doubts that one bit. in fact gps is crucial to us we have to have a functioning gps system to coordinate the systems on our network, and the people

who bring devices to our network are all going to have gps devices, gps receivers built into their devices. so no debate about gps is important and crucial to the american economy. we use it every day and it is important to the safety of life. there's another important issue so that is particularly relevant to this committee and that is the fact small businesses suffer from a lack of choice and their ability to get wireless services. the committee has recognized this numerous times. lightsquared is building a network that would just bring one competitor to the market but will bring dozens of competitors. we already have over 17 business partners waiting for us to have our network waiting to go so they can start selling broadband services to end-users. the effect of this is to enable them to lower prices to the end users and small businesses and people who needed the most, that your connectivity and extension of connectivity to the rural areas which is to really have been on the short end of the

stick when it comes to what your list that works and will be so when it comes to the broadband networks. and this is a problem that we have to deal with make no mistake the lack of effective broadband infrastructure makes america 15th in the world in terms of broadband adoption. why is this important overall? fees' consume 24 to 25 times more data than a regular cell phone that was three to four years ago before this started to be the effect. in less than two years we will have to many devices and little spectrum. we are the only realistic source of spectrum within that timeframe and let's be clear. there will always be issues with spectrum when you have a new network began build with 700 megahertz which is another band with wireless microphones with your it is gps 800 megahertz it was public safety. these issues can be solved. if we can't solve them we are not going to be able to provide services to people who need them

and the loser on that will be small businesses. they are the one whose bottom line gets hit the worst. not in my backyard doesn't work in spectrum. there's not one piece of spectrum in the whole range that you can pick that will not have some sort of a issue. so how do we solve the issue? unfortunately i think a lot of the commentary that you hear about completes our own proposal starting in the spectrum closest to gps but the proposals we have on the table now, where we will offer a hour service on the spectrum for this the way. and this will address the issue for over 99% of gps device is simply by physics. they don't work that far down into our spectrum and that covers cellular devices, personal navigation devices, it covers aviation devices and to show that affect the government testing itself which is separate from the industry testing on this concluded initial test results demonstrated that some applications for civil aviation were able to operate with little

to no degradation when we were operating on the spectrum for this away from gps. that's been established for months now. so what are we left with? precision devices. so we are going from 400 million devices across the country to something less than 750,000 perhaps as few as 100,000. these are the ones designed to get the accuracy used in agriculture surveying and construction. and i think there's room for skepticism in terms of the claims as to how hard this issue is to solve. for months now we have heard about there's not enough room in the device that would take a back pack sized filter to fix it it would cost too much. it's going to take long. it's going to take years and billions of dollars. well i have a precision device right here actually. it's from an unnamed manufacturer. we bought it on ebay.

right there. as you will see, when you take of the dome of there is room in this device in the this is the antenna. this is where you place the filter for the antenna. it's right here. this little square. the filter that we have developed in a matter of days at a cost of $6 per unit is right here. now our solution isn't going to be a solution for every receiver. many manufacturers will have to come up with their own solutions, but what this is is a proof of three concepts colin kuwait can be done, it can be done inexpensively and they can be done quickly. i also think the issue of bearing the cost for this proposal was also something that is misunderstood. last august in 2010, gorman issued a voluntary recall of 1.2 million gps receivers that had better reissues and their

price declined about 1 cent the day they announced that so this is an issue that comes up in private industry all the time could come the manufacturers put things out there subject to this kind of interference when there shouldn't be, should bear some of the responsibility and we have already borne a significant amount of the cost of addressing the issue for hundreds of millions of devices and i look forward to receiving your questions. thank you. >> thank you, mr. car weigel. the ceo of freeflight systems in texas his company manufactures aviation gps navigation systems for commercial military aircraft and has over 35 years of experience in this industry and his testifying on behalf of the aircraft electronics association. welcome and thanks for being here. >> chairman graves, ranking member and members of the committee, and you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the impact of small business gps users of the

industry and the proposal from lightsquared. i'm president and chief executive -- >> mcgeorge your microphone is on. >> there you go. >> i am president and chief executive officer of freeflight systems. today i have the privilege of representing the aircraft electronics association and it represents more than 1300 ev and businesses worldwide including manufacturers, repair stations, distributors and schools. of these more than 80% of small business. my company, freeflight is a manufacturer of avionic systems to commercial aircraft and was the first to certify an airborne receiver. freeflight systems specializes in next-gen avionics, gps systems, sensors, dillinger radios. our entire industry has been working to the implementation of gps to post navigation from air traffic management and landing systems over a decade. the ongoing transformation of the nation's system next-gen is predicated upon the availability

of the ultra high integrity gps positional information, which has in turn been made possible by some 30 years of work in gps technology that lives on the fringes of human engineering capability. the development has been to the consistent assumption of a certain level of protection and the gps signal spectrum one that predates any of the date. lightsquared proposed a wider list network of high-energy waves into the previously protected spectrum. we eat like all americans support a low-cost nationwide network but not one that compromises the safety and efficiency of the national transportation system. clich studies are being undertaken and quick decisions are being made. this is entirely incompatible with the requirements of safe airspace critical design. i'm reading a spectrum self limitation when i see reports of solutions to interfere in a filter that was thrown together in the past few months. this is not howard works for us. the faa estimates, and i would agree, no less than ten to 15

years would be required to bring an amended product safely to the aviation market is assuming there for the spectrum use. my testimony today is not intended to support or deny the reports submitted regarding the combat ability to the systems. the record has more than enough evidence to draw a conclusion. my intent is to exploit the aviation process and extreme cost to small business that only changed the fusion navigation systems would cause. gps satellites are low power and a long way away. the signals we receive are less than a noise interference generated by the metal box we put the receiver in. but people's lives depend upon our ability to read the information and not get it wrong any more than once every ten to 1 billion flight hours. if you've been on an aircraft landing in low visibility conditions he would reshape his integrity as to those who live close to airports. to respect the industry to meet kimmage requirements like these in a rapid response mode, to a

significant noise and fire and changes entirely unreasonable. for example, in this table requirements and where might we have been developing a replacement gps for one of our older products for some six years. we are still about a year away from the gps engine and two or three years away from the usable avionic systems implementation. that system in a real aircraft would take another one or two years. i can categorically tell you i do not know if the new system will work in the most optimistic lightsquared plans on the table. i can tell you it will not work at all if lightsquared receives the translation. member companies have been manufacturing and selling the navigators, surveillance and emergency locator systems to the aircraft operators for nearly 20 years. the systems have been designed and when factor and certified to the government's technical standards to provide the aviation consumer with an assurance of usability and acceptability in the air space. in the efforts by lightsquared to generate a requirement result in the retrofit of the resources

systems which are negatively affecting the industry and the nation's aerospace. in closing while we support the concept of a low-cost system no system regardless of its anticipated benefit can be allowed to comprised safety and security of the air transportation system. changes that affect the national transportation system require a long range planning and we encourage lightsquared or any other company to participate in the aviation technical standards development process. rtc a and faa have been working towards next-gen for 20 years. neighboring technologies beat changes in the aviation system to be compatible, these companies need to work with the faa and the rtc asa the next generation of aviation products might be designed and certified to be compatible with future business plans while the current generation of product reached the end of the service of to the idea of a new entrants into the marketplace can introduce a market compromises' aviation safety and security while expected deviation industry to design and manufacture, test and

and certify and restore the filter is simply not realistic. thank you for providing me the opportunity to address the committee. i'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you, mr. taylor. mr. carlisle, have a quick question. on your receiver -- which i've never seen a receiver that big before -- my question to you is the filter that you held up, which you talked about you could fit inside of their easily -- the gps antenna the i have on the aircraft on a flight are the same size of that filter, maybe just a little bit larger. how is that going to fit in that and and and that includes the streamline casing for the slipstream i'm just curious how that's coming to -- >> i'm glad you asked that question because it allows an opportunity to clear this issue up to read this is a precision received your it gets you down for the use in agriculture, surveying and construction. the type of receiver you're talking about are not that kind

of precision receiver. >> all right. >> under our proposal which puts us of the bottom end of our band under the minimum performance standards which are adopted internationally, we should be fine under the faa reviewing that. but all the testing of the faa received as was done by both the federal government and by industry shows that the aviation receivers perform much better than the minimum performance standards. so we are not talking about under our current level of proposals requiring any change out and let me repeat that because it's important. any change out of aviation receivers. if it was going to take eight to ten years to go through the certification process in order to do that that wouldn't be a commercially feasible business plan so what we have proposed is a use of spectrum that does not require any change at of the aviation procedures. and the problem i have in the

testimony. the part that bothers me you said just now in the question should be it's the should be that bothers me because we deal with is your vote tolerance. a zero tolerance. so if there is any concern out there we are going to end up having to retrofit and filter because it is the zero tolerance and what is going to cost, and i am very curious and i want to hear from all of the panel what we think this is going to cost in terms of that retrofit because at least when it comes to aviation it has to be certified. it has to be certified that's when it gets really expensive. >> if i can respond to that -- that's absolutely true. the fact is we should only move forward this can be done while assuring the safety of life and

aviation and we're working with the community to do that. that is something the we believe is non-negotiable. nobody in our company is running out to deploy and network it is going to cause issue with people with air safety in the united states. that is not what we are about and we are absolutely committed to making sure this will work and that the faa is satisfied and the ntia and the and cc. we've worked with the faa for years. we are members -- pardon me. we have worked with rtca for years. we've been members for years on these issues so we've put a lot of resources into making sure that happens. in terms of cost, again, we believe our proposals will take us in a direction where there will be no cost to aviation in order to accommodate the network and that's where we want to be. >> how is that no cost? >> they will not have to be replaced. we are taking the cost of solving the issue on our side

which is over $100 million by the way. >> mr. taylor. >> first your comments on whittle to know we don't live in the world little to know. we live in the world of certainties measured in fellows instead of millions of parts,ws instead of millions of parts, very high integrity and availability and our systems. it also mentioned many of the systems out there were developed back in the 90's. there are a lot of aircraft systems we as a company have over 2,000 systems flying that were developed in the 90's that were requirements significantly less than the requirements on the of modern receivers so they certainly would have to be addressed and i have no idea how they would work in this environment no one has yet tested one. for the new receivers, and as we said, there is a very strict faa

requirement for the malaise. as i understand, the proposal for the widespread use of the lower spectrum comes very close to the edge of that or cross is likely the current malaise requirement and the concept we are going to be okay because there is more jutting doesn't work for me. this is something that needs to be tested and evaluated and it isn't one field test. it is a serious comprehensive series of testing but will take a long time to accomplish. >> adult test is. it all sounds good but back to the show me concept and will take you back to 1981 in the field and arizona were a client of mine and motorola was complaining that interference, couldn't talk on a mountaintop 60 miles away, he could see but couldn't talk with a radio. drove 2 miles back to interstate 19 and found the crew from a

construction operating and asked them to to their radios every minute. drove back to the site and said let's try it now and that is what it was. the client was using a retial in 450 megahertz band for business. that's 400 megahertz and 2 miles away and that amount of electrical energy in the air interfered with a 60 monreal transocean and note from the chart he brings in that we are talking about a spectrum spread of 30 megahertz between the rib ground-based transmitters so i will just go back to the point, mr. chairman, i spent over $2,000 of the receiver to do my accretive few years ago. we are talking thousands of dollars for other grades of necessary. let's get back to the testing. that's what really needs to get done. mr. green? >> i will concur to the gentleman on my left and mr. taylor on the right. we need to have a lot more testing to make sure we don't go through an air fare. being in the agriculture industry i do go ahead and

recognize that receiver, and that receiver has a lot of the same type size we use for our hi accurate. mfa has approximately to hundred 50 hi accuracy gps units across the state and we cover approximately 1 million acres with those high accuracy and hammes. assuming that lightsquared's filter is going to cost around $800 to go on retrofit to purchase the filters it is going to cost roughly $200,000, and $200,000 for the filters and approximately $200,000 for the resource. the resources and personnel, the fuel expenses to go around and take care of that. the timeframe in that period will take at least one year's worth of time. and that is just for the 250 hi accuracy receivers that we have.

if you go ahead and take a look at it, mr. carlisle said there could be between 100,000 in 750,000 high accuracy the antennas. our belief is there is at least 750,000 to 1 million receivers used in agriculture and construction, used in the geography management. so you take those kind of numbers and basically it comes out to $1,600 per unit in order to go through and retrofit ticket times that 1 million or excuse me, 1 million hi accuracy gps out there in the marketplace >> of the numbers i actually used were the universe of devices could be above 750,000 in the country. it's not entirely unknown exactly. it could be as high as a million

but in terms of the one that have to be replaced or retrofitted it's not going to be the entire universe first because the significant number of the devices already tested go out in terms of being resilience of this ten out of 38 or almost 25%. second, many of the receivers were going to be used in areas far away from anywhere our network is going to be coming and third, our -- this isn't a slash cut we're going to deploy your network of free period with five years. there will be a certain amount of exchange of devices the would take place in the ordinary course of business any way so that's how you get down to the 100,000 to a 200,000 number you have to focus on and change out just to clear up the record. >> i don't want to dominate the member because we of questions and i will save my for the other hearing but i do have one quick one for you mr. carlisle because the test results reveal significant interference and that 10 megahertz band coming and so you have proposed

launching in the lower ten or four years' service. my question to you is can you -- will you never use that upper ten? >> we will certainly continue to use it for satellite services. we have used there for 15 years without any issue at all with the gps and satellite services to public safety, oil and gas, all sorts of folks in the united states uses it and the satellite services were used after hurricane katrina, after the tornadoes in joplin first responders had the units there so we will continue to use the spectrum. we would like a continued dialogue as to whether or not we can ever commercially deploy that spectrum because then you do start to get into the issues that mr. taylor and others have raised about the aviation functions and susceptibility of a larger number of gps receivers simply because more of them look

into that spectrum so you would need a longer conversation about that but we are open to having that discussion and open about talking about alternatives. >> basically right now you are not using that upper band you are just doing that as a company is decided not to do it there is no requirement you can use it at any time to read the only issue that comes up down the road is if we deploy out in our network using the 10 megahertz all the way down on the other end of the band. we can do our full deployment to 260 million people with that amount of spectrum. the issue is the number of devices, the amount of usage ultimately goes on the network. that won't be a problem we have at least five to six years. so, and in the meantime, you can either skin the cat a lot of different ways. you can modify the way you are using your current spectrum, you can use a new spectrum in ways

of a different and low-power that will not raise an issue on interference. you could also look at swapping for alternative spectrum or something like that. there are a bunch of things that can be looked at before we move forward on the lower ten and also keep in mind our customers and retailers will have options in the marketplace, too. by that time at the spectrum may have been brought on line and if they need more spectrum for their customers they can buy it from somebody else so there are different ways to skin the cat down the road and we are willing to talk with of the government agencies and the gps manufacturers about how we do that. >> i am worried about the future and the debt to come that something is going to happen in that timeframe between then and now to the worries me a great deal that it isn't going to happen. i'm going to yield.

>> thank you. mr. carlisle, the filtering technology is the solution to interference. are you aware of how much it will cost small firms because after all this is a small business committee, and we are here because we understand that it could have been negative impact on small businesses, and i would like to know if it is important for all of us to recognize that is not just because of retrofitting but also if you took into account in indirect costs such as tying and lost resources or use of equipment if those were included in the calculations. >> i think it highlights an important point in that faltering is not the only

solution. faltering is the solution for high precision receivers. for the vast number of small businesses who day-to-day only use consumer level devices that aren't precision, moving down to the spectrum and lowering our power is going to address the issue for them. for those small as this is to use the precision equipment are very strongly our belief is it shouldn't cost them us and to the chris -- a cent. we will be depleting our network able have advanced notice of where we will be and when they will be there that there will be time for them to work with their manufacturers to get alternative is coming into the manufacturers really should be stepping forward on this. i don't think that there is any question about that. mr. taylor and his testimony, you know, has made statements that this is all of a sudden came up and it wasn't anticipated that our power levels were all of a sudden jump

up operating at transmission levels and power levels approved in 2005. there have been years to address this issue. >> mr. taylor, the dod 2000 standard input filters for gps devices. can you please explain how weeks ackley this filters minimize interference and whether you currently use to filter in your gps device? >> first we do not make much in the way of gps we do a small amount so i cannot specifically address the question from the general aviation receiver point of view, we would be happy to look at faltering as a possible means of litigating the challenges we were talking about. gps is different from the telecommunications. the way that gps signal is a

broadband signal. we need to reliably discriminate the information and we need to be able to see a broadband signal to the as a filtering the limits filtering the performance of the receivers i can't tell you today to what extent >> i understand the the the plan includes to span the obligation to the entire spectrum but no details have been provided. those the company have a timetable for these expansions and how will this affect gps? >> we won't need additional capacity as i said earlier for it least five to six years and so i think that's the outside a timetable and as i said there are many alternatives that we would want to consider to see what was commercially reasonable and safe.

>> and your company believes it can increase coverage to at least 260 million people by the end of 2015. in light of our current economic conditions, what role do you see your company expanded while the broadband network is planning job creation? >> i think it will play a significant role. to build that network, you to pull out $9 billion to the american economy. we have already spent a billion dollars in american technology and put our satellites up. that was with boeing in washington state and in florida. in order to achieve a network like this you have to spend a tremendous amount of money all across the country wherever you put a tower up, that is from your vendors, contractors and the small business people providing that service and then it's contractors and small business people providing the maintenance going forward.

so we have estimated very conservatively that the impact of our investment on the american economy is 15,000 jobs supported each year for each of the five years of the build out. following that, each one of our business partners, because they don't have to spend money on owning and maintaining their own network can put that money into their own retail operations and higher jobs there. >> my question to the other three witnesses. the fcc believes that lightsquared proposed network is going to benefit and have a positive impact on broadband access for the rural small businesses, but we also know that the gps technology will be harmed. so my question to the witnesses is how do you recommend that we proceed going forward? should an innovative idea be of great rejected without any attempt to find a technical

solution? >> thank you. obviously we don't want to withhold any technology. technology is with our economy. i'm going to sound like a broken record here we need to do some testing. things are not always as they appear to be in the spectrum and i will point back to the fact the original test had one base station. i used to work for motorola. motorola was not only the company that designed the retial in the beginning. motorola was a company that invented cellular technology with the 800 megahertz system referred to. those experiences taught me that when you get two or more radios in close proximity things get a different and you will note some of these tests were done with run radio any waste for the chamber. we need to put a couple of stations out there and i will offer my year plan of someone wants to chip in for the gas i would happy to fly to mexico is

a beautiful state to make sure that this thing actually works. >> mr. cream? >> thank you. i concur with a list of the group that we need to do additional testing. being a cubs fan and knowing the spring training happens in arizona i would be happy to go out and help in any possible way i can. more testing needs to be made. we feel like broadband internet will bring an exceptional increase to our business perspective as well but if we don't of the gps to collect the data there will be no data to transfer in order to do more processing. >> again we all agree that we need more in the country, no doubt. but from the aviation community's point of view it has taken decades of a complicated interaction between the receivers gps consolation,

ground infrastructure to come up with something as robust enough to be safe, safety of life for people to fly safely. one or two flight tests would not answer the question and i cannot tell you there is a fast answer for this. it is going to take time and analysis and interaction. i cannot see any every answer i am afraid. >> mr. carlisle what is wrong with testing? >> there is nothing wrong with testing and we are supportive of the further testing of the ntia asks for by not sure that the background material mr. taylor has read but frankly there has been a more comprehensive testing of this issue than any ever interference issue ever presented to the fcc. there were 130 devices tested in eight independent labs over a series of months by the industry group that had 37 of the nation's top gps engineers on it. that was just the industry testing. there were dozens of devices

tested in new mexico at the base by the air force and. furthermore there were devices tested by the faa and the jet propulsion laboratory. moreover, the rtca gps group ran an analysis of the minimum performance standards against or signal and the analysis is continuing to be done by the faa. so we have no issue with there being for the testing to make sure that we are absolutely safe on safety of life, but let's not ignore the fact there has been an awful lot of testing already have analysis. >> mr. shilling? >> thank you. mr. chairman, just quickly a couple of things. i guess i will go to mr. carlisle. if the retrofit replacement of the gps receivers in the market, if you have to do a retrofit will you be paying for that or will that be the person that is

having to retrofit on say a farmer for example? >> that's a very important question because for nine months with the gps manufacturers have done is they've said there's only two parties in this debate. there's the lightsquared network and the users of gps who are going to be affected. the have conveniently left themselves out of the equation. i don't think that the user should have to pay a cent. we have already paid, and the total value of the commitment is over $160 million at this point to solve the problem for the vast majority of consumer devices. for these precision devices where there is no solution that we can put on our transmission except to abandon the band entirely, given we are talking about 100 to 200,000 devices may be a few more than that but that is the order of magnitude we are talking about coming and that our power levels have been for six years that that is the right

outcome. >> very good. now i want to go to mr. greenup. i come from a large agricultural area. have you done any looks at me be if things need to be switched around how long it has to be down, how that will affect like a single contractor versus a large family farm? >> i haven't put any numbers per say but one of the things with agriculture is it is three time sensitive, and it's one of those things where if we can't get to everybody by springtime a producer can have the option and well, i've got -- a producer could go and see a projected downtime of -- well, let me give you an example. in the state of missouri we have 1 million acres underneath high

accuracy rtk coverage. if you look of 180 bushels per acre, those acres don't go through and get planted that would be $1.26 billion the producers will have lost about a year just for the 1 million acres we have in the state of missouri. >> that's a lot of corn. that's all we have. i yield back my time, mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman and mr. ranking member. my question, mr. carlisle, and i will take it into a different deduction. you talk about developing this in rural communities, correct? i'm very concerned because when you start to look at a lot of military type activity, the military activity are on the ground and a lot of the rural communities like these in tce national training center and china lake and pact and this type of thing.

my question is what type of testing, and what is your implementation plan, what have you done to work with the department of aircraft, helicopters, designating devices as well as smart munitions because i think would be a bad day for small businesses and communities if that i'm spectrum were to somehow interfere could to leave to the training exercise and given that some where it is not supposed to be. >> thank you for the question. we've been working with dod since 2008 to coordinate the use of the spectrum, and in terms of the more recent identify issue with gps receivers, which was really only brought up in december of 2010, we have had extensive exchanges with u.s. space command about and also

with northern command. the general's testimony before the house armed services committee quite accurately of land to talk that well you've got to train the way you are going to fight and so we have to be using the same equipment as we are using over there. the fact is we know where the training facilities are. we know where the proving grounds are to read today we operate under a very significant requirement to limit our power near the airfields and the navigable waterways. it limits our power sycophant lee in order to avoid any interference with aircraft or maritime receivers in our band. you can extend those operating limits to the base stations we might put near the military bases in order to avoid that interference because you know where the activity is going on. that's one thing you can do. there are other options. >> than my other question is have we put these towers out there and run some tests on this

with across the spectrum with different types of aircraft and munitions to make sure that we are certified? >> of the u.s. air force ran a classified testing of military receivers and mexico a and april of this last year. those results are classified. we are -- our consultants have not seen them, but we would assume they've run that testing. now, the ram it under our old business plan which was to start closest to gps and that is part of the reason there was the need for further testing now to make sure that velo work option works for those. >> for the rest of the panel leges the question is when was the first time that you all heard about this impact or potential interference on the gps system? with this surprise us that we should be restrained to birthdays?

>> well, not sure about birthdays, congressman, but i can tell you like a lot of issues that come up in public policy we had an issue next to our airport we learned about by reading it added in the washington business journal. we learned about this by reading about it in the newspaper. understand that the most recent application to the fcc over the thanksgiving weekend last year was literally over the thanksgiving weekend and the public purse cannot eight hendee turnover of the thanksgiving holiday which having been with of business with the federal government i felt pretty speedy but our first indication was strictly out in the public arena >> same thing. we first basically heard about it in the public arena around the march or april time frame and then from there it was quite simply a kind of watching the news to see if this thing progresses. >> it's been less than a year trying to keep up with eight

ells reports appear in the press. we have been contacted by the faa and military to provide testing so we could become involved that way. >> when we first learned about it, i will be quick, we learned of it in december of 2010 when the gps manufacturers brought it to the attention of the fcc with actually been working with gps interference issues with the communities before 2002 when we reached an agreement with them to limit our emissions into their them, so we have a cliff on the spectrum there are filters in the transmissions that stop our signal from leaking into the gps. the issue -- there was no problem with that agreement for eight years and there is still no problem all of the equipment tested the way it should. the issue raised in the timber, 2010, much to our surprise as much as everybody else here was that the gps receivers look well

into our band. so it doesn't really matter if we are limiting our signal. if we are operating within our brann to be condemned with frequencies they are looking at it and can be overloaded. so that is what we learned of it and we've been dealing with since then, too. >> thank you mr. turney. i yield back. >> what would it cost to retrofit -- not retrofit but for the device is not the father of four built yet to accommodate your bandwidth? >> it depends on the device. if you dhaka what cellular phones where you've got millions of these devices and you can build at a very high level of the volume you are talking about filters that cost less than a nickel that excess today that can go into this. i think the there was some ambiguity or just nobody knew how expensive a would be to develop a filter for the

precision devices which are the hardest ones to deal with. we now know that you can deal with precision receivers on the market today and also sold to government agencies and surveyors and all sorts of people use them for $6. so going forward, this is a very small increment cost to deal with. >> if you missed me will be able to provide internet service to another 50 billion people in the rural communities? >> is that on top of the 260 million we are required? absolutely. we have already struck deals with several companies we have the potential to go outside of our footprint that's cellular south, wireless and southern illinois come and just today we announced a deal with a company that plans to deploy doud to did thousand people or less that will reach deleterious that have been historically underserved.

we may not have a regulatory requirement to serve but it's good business to do it and we should be doing it. >> have you done studies on the potential growth from that economic growth? >> i know that there are studies out there that indicate broadband infrastructure investment is one of the major determinants of economic growth. i grew up in the world neighborhood that, you know, where we had a electromechanical switches until the 1980's in california, and i will tell you the one thing that keeps people in the communities is if they feel they've got economic opportunity there. they are not going to have the economic opportunity if you don't have the highway going out there. the same thing is they are not calling to have that opportunity if you don't have the broadband infrastructure today. it's not going to happen. leave aside issues like public safety, provision of medical services and education.

>> thank you. i yield back. >> mr. tipton. >> thank you mr. truman. mr. carlisle, i would like to go back to one of your comments you talked about the filters stopping of the leaking as you described at. is that 100% with the filters there's not going to be a problem? >> yes, sir that was confirmed in the industry tested government testing confirming they are doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. they filter the signal down to the level that is a thousand times stricter than what the fcc requires and the was a level that the gps industry picked and 2002 and asked us to agree to so that's what we agreed to. >> i come from rural colorado and supportive of broadband be moved out into rural america but

we have a lot of problems right now particularly for small businesses that are struggling in terms of a lot of the cause. and then the more so probably than a lot of our farmers gps users who are already struggling right now in our economy. the u.s. census bureau estimates that about 50 million people live in these rural areas. how many of the 50 million citizens that are in rural america right now would receive new broadband service and additionally, can you tell us how many would be covered by lightsquared if you move forward with your operations? >> in terms of what your list service they would get the day we turned on and our next generation units out there. remember we have a satellite that covers 100% of the united states and up to 200 nautical miles offshore. and it reaches these devices. that's why we spent a billion dollars on it. we spent 250 million of that inventing technology that have

never been built before. so, when the day we are not there -- >> is that satellite, is that just a receiver that transmits the technology on the ground? >> it's a pipe, so you can put basically any kind of signal you need over it. so, and that would operate at speeds that are approximate what you get to see you can do phone calls, e-mails and texts. wind we've rollout, the rollout of the network that's going to depend on the business deals we do and the opportunity but i will say this. we've had a significant amount of interest from the companies who don't see an alternative to be able to bill about on this issue and there is a 700 megahertz for the development that was put out there and unfortunately, those carriers can't get enough of a volume to be able to attract the new chip companies and handset

manufacturers to put the frequencies on their devices so it's been difficult for them to actually have an independent we've moving forward and that's why entities like the cellular association support lightsquared. >> that's an important point because it does get down to economics. in your statement he claimed that the revised implementation plan would solve interference for 99.5% of gps receivers and making the assumption this is obviously a big assumption that you're figures are completely accurate i a understand that 4.5% of their receivers are affected by the high precision receivers used in agriculture, construction surveying. you stated in your testimony this figure is actually 750,000 to i believe a million units. that is a lot of americans that are going to potentially be negatively impacted by this implementation. how are we going to deal with

that? >> to be clear about the number i think 99.5% is probably a liberal estimate of it. if you take them the worst case scenario of only 400 million devices in the universe which seems to be the minimum we have ever seen as an estimate, and 1 million precision devices being out there which is the largest number we've ever seen estimated it is 2.5% of the percentage so the number should be 7.9%. but in terms of we fix that there are three factors which indicated the universe is not going to need to be replaced. first a significant number of precision devices use different types of technology, some use satellite technology to achieve high levels of precision and some like artie ks terrestrial technology so when you test these out to see different results and ten out of 38 were fine. the majority won't be and by the way and they didn't suffer harmful interference under the

strict definition of harmful interference used by the manufacturers. not all of them are going to be affected, not all of them are going to be used in close proximity to where we will be operating even in the rural communities where we are deploying we may only have the grout network and the dense areas rather than in the far field faraway. and then third but it isn't a flash cut we will be deploying over five years and we will have an unprecedented level of transparency as to where we are going to be and when we're going to be there so people will know well in advance and a certain number of these devices are going to change of the ordinary course of business any way. so, in terms of the cost i think you start getting that portion if you assume it is 750,000 or a million is it 300,000 devices committees at 200,000 is it 100,000 we have seen that estimate from some gps manufacturers i don't know but

it's not going to be the full universe and we believe that cost is appropriately boreman the manufacturers'. >> yield that mr. truman. thank you. >> no questions? what's let the record show that the first time. >> thank you i appreciate to holding this hearing and it's something that is needed to be and still needs to be aired out and i find myself in one of those conflicting pieces of real-estate that is pretty much impacted by the gps guidance of the farm equipment and can use more broadband but i want to direct my first question to mr. green and that is the impact on precision and farm equipment gps guidance as that was developed how many years ago we are talking about perhaps ten years or so ago putting in place do you have knowledge of any efforts that were made to look

at the spectrum then and the basis by which that is the decisions made to build of the guidance technology on the spectrum? >> yes i would be happy to address that issue. the agricultural industry looked at that kind of spectrum back in i believe it was around the late nineties early 2000 area and one of the things i've gotten from several manufacturers of gps is that they were actually asked to have their spectrum in that area be moveable if you will come so if the company called at the time would like to go and change the signal they were operating on the company could move it from one side of the spectrum to the other side of the spectrum. >> in your perspective on this

the spectrum purchased by light squared you disagree i think to where the overall might be, is that a fair characterization? >> yes, that is correct. >> if a decision were made on where the bright line would be rather than the gray line and how would you respond to this and devotee of him company or an entity purchases the spectrum that they have a complete full legal how right to where the bright line versus the gray line might be would you agree to that? >> mr. green? >> yes. >> if there is to be mitigation of this problem the testimony that's been in the dialogue about the filter that at least presumably can resolve this what

is your position on which side of the spectrum should pay for that technology? which side of the argument should pay for that technology? >> you know there is an old interference phrase that goes across the regular wireless network. first-come, first-served. basically when you go and put a new frequency on the power if your frequency interferes with somebody else you have to go ahead and remove your equipment or find an alternative way in order to resolve the issue. >> provided that spectra as you have said earlier. >> yes. correct. >> and so, aside from that, even with that argument, let's just say that some entity has the authority to make the decision clearly and they draw a bright line and that breitling is some place along the line where some of this gps equipment i want to keep operating i want to solve this problem in the worst way,

if it finds itself on a spectrum that is as clearly and legally determined to be lightsquared then you would say from a legal perspective it is up to the agricultural industry to take care of the cost of the filtration. >> i would say that there is no clear-cut line of this. like the other couple of gentlemen were saying frequencies have a tendency to go together, and testing out that interference and checking to see what is available is what the key is. >> siggerud see you would apply the first come first serve to that area? i've been running out of time, so we don't want to spend all focused on mr. greenup i appreciate that. i want to turned into mr. carlisle who was in this dialogue and ask the office a 180-degree opposite of the questions. so the shoe is on the other foot if it is determined in a way that the gps people are there with a spectrum that they have a claim with 30 is a gray area or

a lead over or first-come first-served who then would you say should pay for the filtration, and i think you testified, i'm going to guess this, the problem can technologically be sold to the dissent is the dinosaur down to who writes the check to solve it? ..

i've got an excerpt here from a garmin g-900 x cockpit gps device manual, which says this complies with fcc rule i just mentioned. subject to following two conditions. the device may not cause harmful interference and this device must accept any interference received including interference that may cause undesired operation. >> i conclude the earth sides of argument looking for tax pay, to pay the difference? >> absolutely not. >> no. >> i'm glad to hear that, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> mr. carlisle, as far as the testing goes you guys tested the upper bandwidth but still in the process of testing lower bandwidth and

those results are in yet. >> technical work group testing which is industry testing, for all lower devices the testing was conducted. we have lower set of data for all 130 devices. further testing needed to be done for classified receivers that were no the tested on the lower 10 in the independent government testing and some additional validation testing as ntia set out in its letter a couple weeks ago. >> my next question, mr. taylor and mr. carlisle can comment too, you talk about a lot over the course of the next five or six years there is going to be normal changeout of devices but in the aviation community because they are so expense safe because of certification issues out there there are still a lot of older devices out there that are working and working very well and we hope work well into the future but mr. taylor, can you comment on those? you know the ones i'm talking about. the ones came out in the '90s, late '90s and early 2000s. >> yes, sir, normal service

life for commercial aviation equipment is minimum 15 years. we're required to support equipment 15 years. often lasts much longer than that it is incredibly expensive to make a change to aircraft or critical system like gps the larger aircraft more complex the change. those systems that predate this entire discussion are in the field, in thousands. i know thousands is not a big number compared to the numbers we're hearing in terms of equipment fielded here but 1,000 that you care about. it he is a airplanes thaw fly on every day. many of them have equipment that was developed long before this debate started and to which, to which no one knows the answer. i don't know answer. i build it. i don't know the answer to susceptibility. that equipment will, in the normal course of business be in service for at least another five years. some of the old equipment, some of it much longer than that. it lasts for a long time and it stays in service. on the spectrum i just want to clarify something on the

spectrum. the rtca as you said, the rcca, preliminary report which is a quick report, said that if light speed, lightsquared, excuse me, stays at the lower five megahertz of the lower spectrum, lower half of lower spectrum at very reduced power you just impinge or don't impinge on the standards which new equipment is developed, brand new equipment. if you two to the next 10, next five megahertz of the lower band its acquisition is affected. tracking might be affected. you go to the upper band, acquisition and track something affected. rcca said at full spectrum there will be no gps aviation service across the entire united states and close to any major service where the system is operating. today i heard for the first time the lower 10 megahertz is the one that is contemplated. if the lower 10 megahertz is used even as reduced powers we're discussing rcaa says i

say you will have problems with aviation gps receivers even the newest ones in service today. who knows what the story is with the older ones. >> mr. carlisle. >> i like to correct the record on a couple things. first of all what rtca found. what it found that the lower five was clear and the next five megahertz for tracking was likely fine, but there could be issues with acquisition and further analysis was necessary. faa is undertaking that further analysis. the rtca report did say if we were using our upper 10 megahertz then that could impact aviation but unfortunately, you know, this issue continues to be inflated into our new proposals to move down to the lower 10 at the power levels we were authorized to do in 2005. the other point that i would mention is on the aviation receivers and whether the older ones are better than

the newer ones. one thing we found through the testing process is months and months and months ago when we were at the very beginning of this i think we, like other people just assumed, well this has got to be old gps receivers that just, you know, it is old technology. certainly the newer technology is better. well what we found out was that wasn't actually the case. older technology actually is in some cases less susceptible to this kind of interference because it is not as wide open. the gps industry has moved further and further into more and more precise equipment that requires you to pick up more gps energy. requires them to look further and further into our band and where i'm happy to get further, follow-up information on this to make sure i'm recalling this correctly but my understanding is the older rtca standards which predated the currently applicable ones are actually less open and have less wide open receivers than the ones

that are currently authorized under the current standard and that's the one that's being analyzed today but weill provide follow-up information on to make sure that's correct. >> mr. boykin, did you have a comment? >> far be it from me to spoil a really good party but in fact i'm following along with the rtca paper and mr. carlisle is exactly accurate in his comments about that but what it points out there that there is a small margin for error. that same paper points out that traditionally gps being an aviation safety service includes acceptable safety margin as standard practice. i'm starting to see numbers here getting very small and very small safety margin so my comment would be back to the same comment we started with. significant amount of testing needs to be done and as my colleague from the the gps manufacturer said, that isn't going to be taken lightly and isn't going to be done tomorrow.

>> mr. greene, i will give you the last word. >> well, we all know hough wireless internet to rural areas as well as gps to the rest of the, to the rest of the country and how much of an economic impact and like to go on follow everybody else and say that you know what? more testing does need to be done and i hope we doesn't jump into a situation that gets everybody in trouble in the end. >> want to thank y'all for participating today. the committee will very closely follow the action of the fcc and the lightsquared proposal and i plan to send a letter to the fcc reinforcing the need for comprehensive tests of all types of devices to insure that there isn't going to be any interference for small business gps users. with that i would ask unanimous consent all members have five legislative days to support materials for the record. seeing no objection it is so

ordered and with that the hearing is adjourned. >> up next on c-span2, we'll hear from the obama administration's pick to be the next u.s. ambassador to russia. michael mcfaul testifies before the senate foreign relations committee. and later more senate debate on u.s. trade agreements with colombia, panama and south korea. on tomorrow's "washington journal", we'll talk with two members of congress about the trade agreements with colombia, panama and south korea that the house and senate passed.

representative charlie bass of new hampshire and congresswoman marcy kaptur of ohio join us. and then more on the investigation into the government's "fast & furious" gun program. cbs investigative correspondent, sharyl attkisson will take your calls. "washington journal", each morning at 7:00 eastern on c-span. later on c-span3, defense secretary leon panetta and joint chiefs of staff chairman martin dempsey will testify about the pentagon's spending priorities. live coverage from the house armed services committee starts at 10:00 a.m. eastern. now the confirmation hearing for michael mcfaul to be u.s. ambassador to russia. the nominee is currently senior director for russia at the national security council and teaches political science at stanford university. this senate foreign relations committee hearing is an hour, 20 minutes.

>> good afternoon, everyone. good afternoon, dr. mcfaul. senator lugar and i were at the business meeting of the senate foreign relations committee. so please excuse us for being tardy but i think that is probably an excused absence. this afternoon the senate foreign relations committee meets today to consider the nomination of michael mcfaul to be the u.s. ambassador to russia. i want to welcome dr. mcfaul and his family here and congratulate him on his nomination. thank you for choosing to take on this new responsibility at such an important time for our country. it's been over three years since the summer of 2008 when the russian invasion and occupation of georgia

led to perhaps the lowest point in u.s.-russian relations since the fall of the soviet union. the deteriorating relationship threatens to plunge your nations back into new cold war marked by mutual distrust and escalating tensions. in response the obama administration sought to define a new direction, one based on cooperation, over confrontation. the reset as this new policy has come to be known, was founded on the notion that the u.s. and its allies had more to gain from a more cooperative relationship with rush that -- russia. it has been nearly 2 1/2 years since the reset button was first pushed in march 2009 and there is little doubt that the shift has produced some significant, concrete progress for the u.s., our allies and the world. the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty is the perhaps the most high-profile example of success. because of new s.t.a.r.t., the u.s. and russia have the fewest deployed warheads aimed at each other since

the 1950s. in addition, on-site inspections and data exchanges instituted under new s.t.a.r.t. are providing the u.s. with a transparent, detailed picture of russian strategic forces. we have seen significant cooperation between the u.s. and russia in afghanistan. rather remarkable considering that just over two decades ago our two countries were engaged in a proxy war in that country. russian cooperation was critical in passing a fourth round of sanctions against iran in the u.n. security council and its decision to cancel the delivery of a missile system to iran was welcomed by the international community. some early critics of the reset argued that these efforts would come at the expense of our allies abroad. the facts however have proven these concerns unfounded as our allies in central and eastern europe for the most part have been some of the strongest proponents of the shift in our relationship. one has to see the reset and

the concrete benefits it has produced as a success today. however the real test of the reset still lies in front of us, not behind us. whether or not we're able to sustain these initial successes and expand progress on a much more difficult yet still mutually beneficial issues remains to be seen. areas for further cooperation inclues missile defense, follow-on arms control agreements to include tactical nuclear weapons, russia's wto accession and additional efforts to stop iran's nuclear weapons program. each of these areas can be with win-win for the u.s. and russia but they are fraught with difficulty. complicating these efforts is the recent decision by prime minister putin to return to the presidency of russia in 2012. though the white house has said that the reset is about interests and not personalities there's little question that a putin presidency will change the dynamics of the relationship.

and finally though we do share mutual interests with russia on a number of critical issues it's important to remember that we have a significant number about of deep disagreements with russia which can not be papered over by a shift in tone. russia vetoed a resolution at the u.n. security council condemning the syrian government's actions and continues to protect its dictator. russia's record on human rights and the rule of law is deplorable and by most accounts getting worse. corruption is rampant and the state of democracy in russia can only be seen as a failure to date. russia remains in violation of the 2008 sees fire agreement with georgia and continues to illegally occupy georgian territory. in addition, russia falsely maintains its right to spheres of influence on its borders with prime minister putin most recently calling for a eurasian union of ex-soviet states. despite the improved relationship between seen little progress on these

disagreements since the beginning of the reset. so i will be very interested, dr. mcfaul, in hearing your thoughts how the united states can be more effective in finding progress on each of these important areas. the relationship between the united states and russia is a complex one with a long and convoluted history. we've been allies fighting side by side against fascism in world war ii and bitter enemies threatening nuclear destruction throughout the cold war. this relationship marked at times by mutual interests and at others by diametrically opposed values. but we simply can't turn our back on this relationship. we will need our strongest, most capable civil servants in moscow to balance these difficult responsibilities and represent american interests. i believe, dr. mcfaul and are up to this challenge and i intend to support your nomination and hope we move forward quickly to confirm you. i will officially do a

introduction but i would like at this time to turn the microphone over to the ranking member of the full foreign relations committee, senator large garr. >> -- lugar. >> thank you very much, madam chairman, i join you in welcoming dr. michael mcfaul to our committee. the united states relationship with russia remains as you pointed out critical to many foreign policy priorities including nuclear nonproliferation, counterterrorism, global energy security and numerous regional issues in euro-asian a, common interests and economic conditions have created openings for cooperation in specific areas but we need to proceed according to realistic assessment of what is possible and we should avoid ratcheting our attitude towards russia between severe disappointments and excessive expectations. last year the senate approved the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty for ratification

which preserved the foundations of certainty in the u.s. much russian strategic relationship. one does not have to abandon skepticism of the russian government or dismiss contentious foreign policy disagreements with moscow to see value in a practical enterprise of nuclear verification and transparency. in fact it is precisely the friction in our broader relationship that makes continued engagement on nuclear issues so important. the only nations that would benefit from less nuclear cooperation between the united states and russia are those such as iran, north korea, that operate outside international nuclear controls. the ongoing risks posed by moskow's nuclear weapons complex were underscored recently when moldova authorities interrupt ad sale of weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium reportedly originated in russia.

russian american cooperation with the nunn-lugar program and associated efforts greatly improved controls and security related to wmd materials. but the threat that one day weapons or materials of mass destruction will be stance feared out of the former soviet union remains very real. and such a transfer could have catastrophic results for the united states and the global community. we must make certain that all weapons and materials of mass destruction are identified, and continuously guarded and the destruction programs proceed on schedule. a major challenge for the united states policymakers will be to convince russia to bring transparency to its tactical nuclear weapons arsenal. in the resolution advice and consent of new s.t.a.r.t. treaty the senate was unequivocal that the next round of arms control negotiations should include russia's tactical nuclear weapons. despite some concrete achievements we must deal

with the reality that the united states-russian relations are likely to be difficult for some time. russia remains a noncompliance with its 2008 sees fire obligations in georgia. russia's heavy-handed use of its energy predominance over ukraine, moldova, belarus and the baltic nations demonstrates that moskow has not altered its hard-line on regional issues. we frequently face russian roadblocks in the united nations security council and the orchestrated transfer of power taking place in moscow suggest that is the civil and political liberties of russians will remain severely restricted in the years ahead. we should understand that the outcome of most issues affecting the united states-russian relationship despends on geopolitical leverage, not simply on our willingness to negotiate. with this in mind we should continue to strengthen our economic and security relationships with nations in eastern europe, central

asia and the caucuses. we should also intensify our efforts to open a southern corridor that will circumvent russia for direct natural gas trade between the caspian region and eastern europe. the next six months will be critical in determining which routes if any can be constructed to deliver gas to our allies some of which are overwhelmingly dependent on russia for their energy. the united states should also seek to create more ballast in the relationship by broading the base of stakeholders. american corporate leaders, often function as effective advocates of democracy and rule of law overseas. one recent study cited by "the financial times" estimates russia will experience more than $70 billion in capital flight this year and that russia asset values are devalued by up to 30% due to political risk created by russia's leadership. rush sha -- russia must meet

all technical requirements for accession to the world trade organization an event that could be a important step in locking in economic reforms. in the coming years negotiation after u.s.-russian bilateral investment treaty can provide united states investors with reliable dispute resolution mechanisms that are currently absent. i thank the chair again for holding this hearing. i look forward to our discussion of these and many other issues with our witness. >> thank you very much, senator lugar. dr. michael mcfaul currently serves as the if the's top white house advisor on russian policy and senior director for russia and eurasia affairs at the national security council where he served since 2009. a distinguished academic by trade and a renowned russian expert who speaks the language is widely respected on both sides of the aisle here on capitol hill. he is currently on leave from stanford university where he is a professor of political science and a senior fellow at the hoover institutions.

dr. mcfaul has a strong background in democracy promotion and is the former director of the center on democracy development and rule of law at stanford and the former codirector of the iran democracy project at hoover. dr. mcfaul's background will prepare him well for the challenges and opportunities in moscow and we certainly look forward to hearing from him today. so, i hope, dr. mcfaul, that you will take a moment in your opening statement to introduce any family members that are here, who are here with you today. so thank you very much and i will turn it over to you to hear your testimony. >> thank you, madam chair. i have a longer statement i would like to submit for the record but i would like to make oral remarks now. madam chair, ranking member lugar, senator demint, other members of the committee, it is a honor to appear before you today this time as president obama's nominee to be ambassador to the russian ted race. i'm grateful for the

confidence that president obama and secretary clinton have shown in me. if confirmed i look forward to working with your committee closely. i'm also delighted that my wife donna, and my two sons, coal and luke, coal is the bigger one, are here today. having hosted dozens of democratic activists from around the world at our home in california, coal and luke have heard me talk a lot about democracy over the years. so i thought it would be appropriate for them to be here today to witness a democratic process that might have a direct impact on their personal lives. >> [inaudible]. >> small d. correct, correct. thank you. unlike my son, i grew up in montana and never met somebody from another country until he went to college. but the in debate class in bozeman senior high i did develop ironically a interest in u.s.-soviet relations in particular a simple idea that more direct talk with the soviets could diffuse tensions and make us and the world more secure.

stints of study in the ussr, communist poland and zimbabwe taught me that sometimes talk alone can not overcome idealogical differences or competing interests and that democracies are america's most reliable partners. therefore, advancing democracy abroad, the title of my last book, is not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do. and yet even when some differences can not be overcome, greater communications between countries allows for cooperation on mutual interests in other areas and lessons -- lessens dangerous misunderstanding. on january 21st, 2009, president obama gave me the opportunity to test these theories in the real world. the president called for a reset with russia animated by the belief that greater engagement with russia could produce security and economic benefits to the american people. two additional principles have guided our reset

strategy. first, we will not seek cooperation with russia at the expense of our allies and partners. second, as we engage with the russian government we also seek deeper engagement with russian society. the strategy has produced results. let me highlight a view. we dramatically expanded the northern distribution network as you already noted which is up price our troops to afghanistan. we signed and you ratified the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty. we passed a new u.n. security council resolution this spring which expanded sanctions against iran. russia then canceled the sale of s-300 surface-to-air missiles is to iran. we continued to fulfill senator lugar's vision of reducing threats from weapons of mass destruction including an agreement this year to dispose of the equivalent of 17,000 nuclear weapons worth of plutonium in russia and the united states. we also have agreed, helped to create more trade and

investment opportunities for russia for american farmers an american manufacturers including pushing for terms of russia's wto accession that will benefit our economy while also making sure that countries like georgia have their interests addressed. but the reset is not finished as you already observed. two issues in particular require more resetting. first, european security. we have made progress. in the last three years, there have not been gas wars, cyber wars or military wars in europe. and yet russian soldiers still occupy georgian territory, tensions between russia and georgia remain too high and that's why we continue to give this issue our highest priority. second, democracy and human rights. president obama and secretary clinton have engaged regularly with their russian counterparts on democracy, human rights, and the rule of law and our administration has already

issued over 80 statements expressing our concern about democratic erosion and human rights violations in russia. we have taken actions so that human rights abusers can not travel to the united states. we have deepened our engagement with russian civil society and we continue to provide robust support to russian human rights defenders. and yet trends in russia suggest that more needs to be done. as someone who has worked on these issues for over two decades now be it first as the first representative of the national democratic institute in moscow in 1992, as a teacher and writer on democracy at stanford and at the hoover institution, or as a member of president obama's national security staff, i have the experience necessary to add vigor to our efforts in russia on these sets of issues. president obama believes that we can pursue our security and economic interests and promote universal values at the same

time. if confirmed i look forward to executing his vision as the next u.s. ambassador to russia. thank you for allowing me to appear here today. >> thank you very much. i want to start with where you ended and that is, what do we do to address democracy promotion in civil society? as you point out more does need to be done and so if confirmed as ambassador how would you take on that issue? >> as i mentioned in my remarks, the obama administration has developed a strategy, we call it a dual track engagement strategy. let me tell you honestly we stole it from ronald reagan and my mentor and colleague george shultz at the hoover institution. the idea we'll engage with the russian government on our national interests and it would be wrong of us to not engage with them with

when we have security interests at stake. . . not just privately about these issues and we talk about the wide range of issues when we

see instances of democratic erosion or human rights abuses. third, as i've stated my opening remarks we've made sure human rights abusers do not come to this country. with respect to russian civil society we've done a number of new things in that area as well. we all border collie with russian government officials with russian civil society leaders, for instance when president obama traveled to moscow he met with vice president, he met with president medvedev and president putin and then he spent the entire second day of his time in moscow meeting with civil society leaders, business leaders and members of the opposition. we support something that we called peer-to-peer engagement between american civil society leaders and russian civil society leaders and we support that with bilateral assistance roughly $40 million that goes directly to this kind of support. of course with your support as

well. we need to do more. we need to create the space for those organizations to do their job and as ambassador look forward to the challenge to do that personally even the ties i have to that community in russia. >> other than preventing violators from coming into the u.s. most of what you've described has been on the carrot side. are there other sticks we should be looking to employ to provide incentives or disincentives for russian behavior in this area? >> in the obama administration we have a firm belief that we should listen to the activists on the ground from the democracy. those are on the front line. it's easy to sit here and say they should do this or that. it's harder to be in russia or

harbor even yet with siberia are places that don't get as much attention. when we talk to these people they've asked us to deutsch to things and i would say these are familiar. one is speaking out on their rights are violated and provide support to what they are trying to do. and by that support they want rhetorical support but they also want financial support to be very blunt. and without that, that support that comes from the united states and other european countries there aren't places for them to go to that kind of support so i would emphasize this can be an issue that we would work on with congress to find new avenues and ways to support those people more directly. >> i don't know if senator cardin is going to be here, but i know that he has discussed his legislation with you, the rule of law accountability act, and i wonder if you could talk about

whether that kind of legislation is effective and moving the russians or not. >> welcome a first come if he doesn't show up, please pass on my applause to senator cardin for the leadership that he's focused on this particular case, the wrongful death of sir jay but for raising this issue as something where actions should be taken to really have to sit personally as a u.s. government official the hardest day of my life without a question was the day that i met serge's life in moscow and brought public attention from the united states come from president obama, to what has happened to her son. i was also honored senator cardin invited me to speak at the premiere of the documentary film on serge that he posted up here. i say all that to point out and to underscore that we take very seriously what happened to serge, and remind everybody that

though the attention that he has received because of senator's carvin good work these kind of human rights abuses happen every day. so we did take action. rather prodded by the legislation, we now have in place for the authority secretary clinton already has denial to the human rights abusers from russia and i would add they are not just affiliated with this case. moreover, we've taken more action than that. last august, president obama sign proclamation 8697 which in effect internationalizes what senator cardin was seeking to do in his legislation and we are proud of the fact that this is not just an issue for russia is an issue that should be -- unfortunately happens to many countries are now the world and cicatrix clinton and the state

department have new authorities to do the same for the violators around world, and finally we have raised these concerns privately and publicly. i've been with president obama when he's raised these issues. i know secretary clinton has raised them with foreign minister lavrov and will continue to do so. >> thank you very much. i should point out line also a co-sponsor of that legislation. since my time is almost expired i'm going to turn over to senator lugar. >> thank you very much madame chair. 15 years ago, senator nunn and i created the or helped create the international science and technology center in russia to prevent the proliferation of the wmd know how and technology and the former soviet union. it is peacefully reemployed thousands of former weapons technicians for the wmd obstruction and to become a

center with more than 70 united states companies to bid now president medvedev recently signed a decree that would terminate russian participation in the isgc. at a time when institutional cooperation is as important as ever, what has been your response to russia's's withdraw from the isgc and what further action can we take? >> let me start, senator lugar, for thinking you for the vision you given to this of the issues the last 20 years. you may not remember but i was a young ph.d. student working for a fellow by the name of bill peery before he was secretary perry. i remember meeting you back then, and when i think about over the last two decades what you have done, what senator nunn has done in various administrations have done in terms of making the world safer

through cooperative threat reduction and its sister programs of the department of energy and the state department is a remarkable and innovative program that we are all safer as a result so i want to start with that. second, you know better than most, but i think that we've made very clear how serious president obama takes these issues. he's lead of an ambitious agenda in the speech and then hosted the first nuclear security summit here in washington last year and we are now making preparations for the souls on that next year. i hope you can attend. and i would say two things with respect to russia and then get to the istc but you mentioned. i want to remind the committee that there still lot more work to be done in russia and we think this is no longer an issue we need to move on to the third countries. it's not their style of work to be done and the vast majority of these weapons of mass destruction are in our two countries and the security of

them in russia still remains a top priority for our administration. second, with your guidance we also seek to cooperate with russian third areas and we will discuss that when we meet in seoul next year. with respect, i think historians will judge and i used to the historian and i've talked to people who've written about this and i think it was a fantastic achievement at a very important time when you remember what is going on with the collapse of the soviet union i know you remember that i don't know if my boys over here remember it's a very scary time when you thought about all the stuff that was there, not walk down and secure and you did not know what the future of the russian state was going to be. we now know in retrospect this has been a relatively peaceful collapse of the soviet union at the time when you were initiating or thinking about this we did not know that and ensure that some dangerous

things could not happen did not happen and i know it's always hard to document those as a social scientist but even that won't happen. our administration has been involved now for two years in active negotiations seeking to preserve. we still think it should be preserved. in particular we continue to try to think about new ways to frame the agenda but more appropriately meets the challenges that we have today, but i want to be honest right now we haven't reached agreement with the russians yet. >> i do appreciate your response very much because i'm hopeful as ambassador you will be able to work on behalf of the center and other ways in which the dangers are decreased because clearly many people as you pointed out

say the real problem now is north korea so this is an old hat. the fact so far that the bulk of the nuclear weapons are still in our country and that will be the case for a long time and the dangers not only of that but the personnel involved with that and a proliferation of ideas and leadership would have you is really critical for both of our country's i'm hopeful you will be able to make the way there and we look forward to working with you. on another issue that you have worked on very hard the senate has made clear in the advice and consent of the new treaty the next round of arms control initiations would have to address the access if nuclear weapons arsenal. the rationing has refused to negotiate over the weapons. why have they taken such an intensive review of the dawn of

negotiations what is your hope as to when the next round might occur and the circumstances? >> we've made clear to our counterparts the next round of negotiations have to include the weapons you just mentioned, on strategic weapons. we have a kind of general agreement that these negotiations have to take place and obviously in consultation with our allies because this affects european security. i would answer the question to ex plan because you asked me to explain why russia has resisted i would say right now the answer they gave as we want a holistic view and in particular they want to discuss the issues of missile defense they've made it clear that without some progress it's pretty profound disagreement we have with them right now about missile defense on certain aspects of that they are not

going to move forward with this negotiation. we continue to negotiate with a team over their right now in moscow negotiating on these issues. we have started something that we call strategic stability talks and for our commitment to you during the ratification of the treaty we fully expect the next round will include those weapons. >> i would mention as you well know this is a great interest to many of our friends in europe the new ambassador to the united states from germany may invest in some conversation he had while we had yesterday back in washington in fact the germans have tactical nuclear weapons. they are not unique to the are important to the country and so the question isn't simply a bilateral one but is one of total european security for that matter but as you point out, the

missile defense situation which obviously the germans and others are also involved is a complicating for factor and one that has to be taken into consideration so i'm hopeful that during your tenure you will be able to make progress and inform the a administration as to how the arms negotiators might do so. thank you. >> i would like to pick up on the missile defense question because it is an area as i know you remember that was a big point of contention during the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty debate as you point out as senator lugar pointed out the russians continue to express their concerns with the nato states that have to approach, so maybe you can talk about the status on the missile defense cooperation,

and whether given our historical differences on this issue with it is realistic to think that we can reach agreement and then if you can comment on the statement by the current u.s. ambassador that russia and nato would reach a cooperative agreement by the nato summit in chicago in may of 2012 do you agree that that is realistic? if you could address all of those. 64, senator. let's first start by mining everyone that we very -- kept of any discussion of missile defense from the negotiations personally involved from the beginning to the end i can tell you every stage of the way when president obama himself was involved in the negotiations and he was more than he wanted to be

by the way it was never an issue and there were no side deals done and there is no constraint in the treaty whatsoever would also be honest the russians wanted that and we've resisted that to the very end we continue to roll out as you mentioned in a rather rigorous and vigorously as we have committed and started in march of 2011 with the deployment of the u.s.s. monitor may september 13 to be signed a deal with the remaining the 14th we signed a deal with the turks about a radar and extended our agreement with poland and host other leadership so we are moving forward on the missile defense and i think it's important for people to understand and we are going to do it is necessary to protect or

alice is it or without the russians. with respect to russia we believe the security of our allies and if our partners in europe can be enhanced through cooperation with russia that is our working assumption and the tracking data that russia has better access to or earlier and the sharing of that data could make both russia and nato and our partners in europe more secure and that's why we've had a vigorous program of trying to negotiate. last fall in lisbon i think we had a productive exchange with president medvedev the council where we committed to seeking some kind of agreement on a late fee has been difficult in particular the have broken down over russian requirement, russian demand they would not

undermine their strategic deterrent. while we have responded to that is a powerful defense systems are not aimed at russia and we do not seek to undermine strategic stability. at the same time we are not going to sign any legally binding agreement that would in any way constrain our missile defense systems. because russia believes strongly in our view that phase four of the epa would be a threat to their icbm lira at an impasse right now on those negotiations. we will continue to work it and talk to them about after all a lot of this is about physics this isn't about policy or perceptions we will see what we have as we prepare for the summit next may i'm optimistic right now but we are going to

continue to work this issue. >> it's not likely based on what we know now that we will have an agreement by the time of the summit next may. >> i will put it this way. we want to maintain progress, and i think it's important for everyone to remember how neuralgic this issue has been for decades in the u.s. soviet and russian relations. so no one should be surprised that after one meeting in lisbon that we have been able to find missile defense cooperation with russia and the last several months it would take work by experts and to help educate our societies about what the the real threat and what is not a threat and so our objective is the obama administration to continue to find progress, however incrementally as we move towards the nato summit and well beyond that because i suspect we

will be working this issue not just the next month but for years and years to come. >> thank you. as a co-chair of the atlantic council georgia task force, tomorrow i'm going to be among those who released it policy report providing recommendations for the united states, europe and georgia on how we can have a chance to georgia's gura left into consideration and as i know you are aware one of the stumbling blocks remain georgia's russian occupation of the virgin territory and we've seen little progress on this issue and that some would say things have gotten worse since the cease-fire agreement was signed so how can we take on russia's continued occupation of the south ossetia in abkhazia and make progress with russia on this issue and if you could also speak to how how your role as

ambassador in addressing this issue. >> thank you. obviously we consider this to be very serious issue that's the region i mentioned in my opening remarks we've reaffirm whenever we can george's territorially integrity and strengthening georgian security remains a top player in for the obama administration and we do that in a multifaceted way and if i may tell you about some of these first on the diplomatic front we do several things and we continue to do so we seek to dissuade other countries from recognizing of causing the ends of the city and in the spirit of the dog is the deutsch mark those are important achievements that have gone forward further dimension. we radically disagree with the russians and we do when the presidents we do in cicatrix clinton meets with the foreign minister lavrov and continue to do so if confirmed as ambassador

to russia if the talks up second we affirm the integrity and multilateral negotiation with their that is over the regime and the wto. we are very persistent in those multilateral forums we continue, we continue to press russia to adhere as you rightly point out to the 2008 cease-fire agreement which we believe are not respected. fifth, we continue to push for international monitors and greater humanitarian access to abkhazia and south ossetia. six, we work directly with moscow to try to reduce the pressure and sometimes coercive pressure they put on georgia. part of our argument and part of what we have tried to do is to develop a substantive relationship with russia so that the cost of the coercive behavior in that part of the world are hired to russia than

they may have been three years ago. president obama personally engaged president medvedev on these issues and will continue to do so throughout. second, it's not just diplomatic but it's in our economic assistance working with you all here at the u.s. congress to try to support what georgia is trying to do internally. we believe like you do -- i have a copy of the report as you know one page to but supporting russia -- the consolidation of liberal democracy it's actually a very important part of making georgia more secure. second as you also note in this report, supporting economic growth in georgia we think is also an important component of the king george a more secure. third, i would especially given recent events in the region we need georgia to succeed as a democracy because at a time when other countries we have greater hopes for there are some troubling things happening

including justin ukraine yesterday when a hour democracy in the post-soviet world can succeed, that sends a very positive message, again come to the small the democrats throughout the region. so that's why it's important that we do that on the second front. at third, in terms of military terms, we seek broad cooperation especially on the two fronts. first, on the comprehensive reforms that georgia is undertaking to modernize its ministry of defense and second in the training and equipping of the georgian soldiers serving with us in afghanistan and let me just mention that includes military service and includes training of soldiers important to us. they've lost 11 soldiers now 50 of them wounded. we consider these very important contributions to the way we look at security and what we are trying to do in afghanistan. >> thank you. senator lugar. >> i would like for you to

consider a couple of issues side by side. one is that in 2007 russia expanded the implementation of the conventional armed forces in europe treaty and has not provided any data since that time. despite the attempt by the united states to revive the treaty is been denied by the russians. at the same time, france recently concluded and the sale of the lottery equipment to the russian form [inaudible] ships subsequently other nato allies including spain, italy and germany contemplated a comparable sales. on the one hand, there are reports it has an ambitious modernization plan whereas conventional forces this is one reason for asking for the the the so that we and the europeans have an idea that the same time

there are also reports that things have not progressed quite so rapidly as the russians might have suggested that the conventional forces have not grown at that dynamically. how does the weapons purchase business fit together with what ever is occurring and is the judgment of where the conventional forces are quite apart from whether we can revive for the sake of transparency and international reinsurance of the treaty. >> thank you, senator. there are a lot of complex issues here that you have mentioned. with respect to the treaty, we initiated earlier this year -- ambassador newland was our negotiator -- very rigorous and

comprehensive set of diplomatic interactions with our allies and with russia to try to come up with a framework agreement to try to enhance and expand this efp regime -- cfp regime. frankly the talks have broken down with russia despite the efforts with ambassador newland, and there are some small or instances the but the main issue of where russia could refuse to accept the definition that a signatory to the cfp treaty accepted was over the issue of the host nation consent. you're obviously we are talking about georgia. so, we are not optimistic that there will be a way forward right now. and before the next set of the plans of exchange of the information this december as you well know occurs we are consulting with our allies about how best to form a unified policy about what to do before

that september deadline and i expect you will be hearing from us very shortly on that. with respect to other bilateral sales on a modernization, i think that you're right in your assessment that the modernization inside of russia hasn't gone as fast as some would like to read it is a debate in russia just so you understand and the finance minister of russia did recently resigned a few days ago over a dispute that he had with president medvedev over how much of the budget should go to these efforts and to expand in the russian military. so there's not a firm agreement on that. it's a real domestic issue in russia. with respect to other country singles i don't think i should comment on that other than to say we know to what president sarkozy said when he was in the triple the a few months ago affirming many of the same things i just said about our

joint project to a firm george's territorial integrity and enhanced the georgian security. >> this is an oversimplification but some analysts have indicated that as we'll and natural gas increase in the price worldwide economic problems that were severe russia began to dissipate and as a matter affecting president putin's regime when much of this happen have seen general approval of the central government because the military could be paid, so good civil servants and so could most russians, some degree of prosperity. others have noted what goes up can come down and therefore i am curious to what extent has the russian dependent on these external forces and it does not