over 45 arrests related to the illicit dispersion of these chemicals. with respect to passenger security i ir dimension i alreay mentioned this enr but we are also moving to pre-clear more passengers and that was done through cbp. it is border protections as you know and what free clearance is is that somebody can actually go through the customs process, the international border travel process abroad so that when they finally get to the united states, they can expedite through the lines. it allows us to screen passengers internationally and it's identical to what they would go through here except that it's preclearance.

last year, we processed 15 million travelers through 15 preclearance locations. and last december i announced a new immigration advisory program in abu dhabi that is specifically designed for preclearance out of the airport there. this is the first such agreement in the middle east. we also have announced a new iap in cutter and negotiations are underway in other nations as well. a program like that and a program like global entry which is the cbp kind of fast travel program that gives you your pre-clear deckard to ask her that i threw international arrival, a new pilot that we have just started called pre-check which is that the domestic part of global entry so working off of the same platform we can clear passengers through domestically. all of this is to improve access to passenger information to

allow us to better assess passenger risk and allocate these for higher risk travelers. these programs make the passengers travel experience safer and more efficient and that already has had a path -- positive impact on many. rather than standing in line after ending the united states and by the way in our session if somebody wants to raise an issue about where they last stood in line, one of the problems we had of course is that some of our airports are older and they are not built for the widebodied planes and the mass arrival of passengers all of the same time. one of the ways we can deal with that is to better differentiate among passengers and also to conduct more of our activities outside of the border of the united states. that all requires substantial negotiation come international agreement in building that consensus and it's right in that spot where security and

economics and efficiency can be united. let me touch briefly on to other areas where we are heavily engaged in the international sphere. one is cybersecurity. in an age of rapidly evolving cyberthreats physical borders are almost irrelevant except that they have jurisdictional meaning and that requires us to work internationally. we are working now with international partners on the budapest declaration, and the european cybercrime forum. we conducted an international exercise this fall and we are working within the offices of the u.s. working group on cybersecurity and cybercrime. we also recently entered into a partnership with mexico to enhance our mutual cybersecurity cybersecurity and infrastructure protection efforts. and then the third area i would like to briefly touch upon is countering violent extremism. we know that terrorism whether

homegrown or imported internationally, remains a threat in the world today. we know that we are not immune to homegrown threats. we know that we have a lot to learn from our international partners on the issue of countering violent extremism. so we have been engaged internationally with a number of countries in exchanging best practices and really trying to explore what is meant by violent extremism in terms of what kinds of indicators, tactics and techniques we need to be watchful for so that we we we can in turn share information with the state and local law enforcement partners we have who are within the united states the first line of prevention. so what does all of this mean in concrete terms? it means obviously that homeland security requires working internationally as well as within our borders. it means that there is a new avenue of negotiation and diplomacy occurring outside the

traditional state department avenues, although we work very closely with the state department and chordate in court made our activities with them. it means that we are finding new ways to unite effective security with good economic business practices as we smooth and secure the movement of goods and people around the world. and given the economics and the sweet spot i described, it means that it is within the self-interest of the nations of the world to participate globally in these initiatives. and finally, it means that we have matured the concept of homeland security to the point that we can dissolve the traditional dividing line between international security and homeland security and recognize that each can strengthen the other. thank you for your presence and your attention here today and i thank many of you for your ongoing efforts in this arena. i look forward to our discussion. thank you.

[applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> thank you for joining us. secretary nepal, thank you for setting the stage and i want to assure you that we all have problems with our hair.

[laughter] let me introduce our other panelists are going sure many of you are familiar with them but general jim jones is here with us, 40 years in in the marine corps holding many important positions including commandant of the marine corps and the head of all nato forces. he then became president obama's first national security adviser. he left that post in 2010 and now is president of the jones group international. and jim maclaughlin serving as acting director and now a senior fellow at the advanced international studies at johns hopkins. thank you all for being here. i can't have this menu of gas and not ask you first of all about the current threat situation. a couple of weeks ago a video was released on line that appears to show u.s. marines on members of the taliban. there has been a lot of discussion about what reaction

that might provoke. secretary napolitano let me ask you are you seeing anything in the chatter or in other indicators that were repeat revealed that perhaps this has been some sort of a trigger to action in the future? first, the activities that were videoed are not the policy of the united states. they are not the practice of the marines or other fighting men and women and they deserve the highest condemnation and i hope and i know appropriate actions are being taken so we begin with that. we have obviously always watch for things that could trigger an international reaction, they could have impacts within the homeland and it's an example of how something that happened abroad or happened in the so-called so-called international or dod spears could have real impact within the homeland. i don't want to talk about the

intel that we have except to say that is the kind of thing that in the past has caused violence and violence it be against the united states so obviously we are monitoring very carefully what is going on. the other big point of intention right now is iran. much concern over their nuclear program, escalating tensions with the u.s. in the strait of hormuz and etc.. let me ask you general jones what aspect of this relationship between the u.s. and iran concerns you most at this point in time in terms of the possible ramifications to the homeland? >> i think it's an enormous, i mean 2012 is announcing itself as the year that iran is going to have to be dealt with one way or the other. good it is an enormous shadow that casts its -- the threat of

iran conducting nuclear weapons, one of their sovereign country nations israel is a real threat to a possible nuclear arms race in the gulf. and third, the most pervasive threat, the national security geyser has the most risk of the fact that in a world that is increasingly populated via nonstate errs iran could export that kind of technology for a weapon of mass destruction to a nonstate actor and if that happens i think the world we live in changes dramatically. so it's a big deal. >> the u.s. is tied to an international effort with their nuclear development and has limited success. does is show the limitation of international cooperation on

security issues? >> no, i mean i think it certainly is always difficult but i think one of the signature achievements of the administration in the first couple of years was to be able to rally such generally disparate comp -- countries like china and russia and many other countries to the cause of sanctions against iran, sanctions that have not really run their course nor have they been ratcheted up as fully as they can and we are seeing the individual countries and some of our arab friends and neighbors as well starting to tighten the screws on iran so there is still a ways to go in terms of things that can be done, and i think iran knows that and i think that is one of the reasons we are seeing the bellicose behavior of the iranian forces and they arabian gulf or the straits of hormuz which is one of their favorite tactics. let it is clear that where world

opinion is concerned, the majority of the country that we have relations with our with us on the side of the shoe. >> john are you also concerned about iran's relationship with certain groups like hezbollah? >> yeah, think the problem with iran is that we have basically three courses of action. we can use diplomacy, we can use sanctions or people keep saying that the military options are still on the table. i think it would be a very bad option the latter one to use and one of the reasons is that iran does has this relationship with hezbollah. hezbollah has not attacked the american interest in recent years but has lots of plants on the library shelf or doing that in the event we got into a confrontation with iran. and hezbollah of course has been present in the united states and least in fundraising, so one of the big problems with iran is that if you get into an open

confrontation, a military confrontation, you risk a cycle of retaliation in response with great difficulty seeing where the endpoint is. >> if i might on iran, a couple of things. one is as we have seen some at to these that are an open source obviously now that it seems a bit irrational but can fit into the overall picture. for example the individual brought to the united states ostensibly to assassinate the saudi ambassador here. that's an example where cbp working with their other domestic law enforcement partners was able to help make sure that arrest occurred and no activity was underway. the other thing is, when you talk about some of these organizations, one of the things we do is analyze at what point do you move from say fundraising for lack of a better term, to

planning a tactic for an operation that could actually take place against a western interest, u.s. interest a broader within our homeland and share that kind of information with the police around the country and law-enforcement around the country, so they know the kinds of things to watch out for. and to share with them information about where we know specified groups could be located. now we are just having an arrest in thailand of somebody purportedly a member of hezbollah interested in targeting tourists, israeli targets. any iranian connection there and was that by the way an example of international information sharing? >> let me not comment on the connection there and so forth but i think many of these events that are in the open source press are good examples of information sharing that is occurring around the globe.

between security homeland type security officials as well as other officials we all have an interest in making sure -- >> general jones. >> i would like to point out and we have very fortunate in having two outstanding secretaries back-to-back. six. chertoff is here and i have been privileged to work with him and it was at that point we started thinking about the international aspects of dhs and when you look at the threat envelope that is out there, one of the last conferences i attended as national security adviser adviser was a russian sponsored conference which 43 countries attended and the main subject of the conference was the increasing cooperation between terrorists, drug merchants and organized crime, and this is right in dhs's sweet

spot. 43 countries roughly at the table talking about this about a year and a half ago, and this is a clear and present rising trend and dhs, as the secretary pointed out, we want to defend our borders as far away from our physical borders as we can and the way you do that is by international engagement, and so the presence of dhs and the importance of dhs on the international arena as part of our combatant commands for example, having a residence in those commands is very very important in order to deal with that threat in conjunction with the inter-agency process. i think one of the great things that we did early on in the administration was to decide to combine homeland security and national security and that has

spawned a great cooperation of which i'm sure goes on today but when you see and mike is here as well and when you see the corporation that exist at the inter-agency level and where dhs is one of the prime movers of this entire process gets really i think it's very comforting to the people of this country to see the progress that has been made. >> just to follow-up on that briefly, when you have a merger of homeland security and national security at that level what do you lose? don't you lose some capability through a merger or is it all positive? >> since it happened early on and with the agreement of the secretary, you know from my standpoint we didn't lose anything. we gained a lot and you saw that reflected in not only the amount of work that was being done

involving the inter-agency where peabody was present at the table and it was an instant. we had to grow a little bit but i'm quite sure that in the past year it has gotten even better. i would be very surprised because if it hasn't, we see and the president presided and i'm still sure presides over regular meetings involving homeland security, dhs and dhs is always present and the secretary is always present at the table where their big decisions are being made in terms of international security as well so this growing partnership is really a tremendous achievement i think and if you like and it's a little bit to what we did to reform the intelligence community where we took disparate stovepipes and eventually force them all to bend towards the middle this is what is happening in terms of our homeland security as well and it's really work in progress

but i think the secretary is being very modest about a lot of the achievements that have been made in the last couple of years. >> if i could add to that, don't think you'd lose anything. we i think realized early on after 9/11 that the secret to not been attacked again was involving many things but two of the things that involved was integration information. putting it in the starkest terms, if some trooper in nebraska picks up a group of people and finds him suspicious and can't reach into a database that includes what cia has picked up in the back alleys of cairo or istanbul or wherever and integrate that it's arguably an intelligence failure these days so that merging things come integration is always a good thing and the other big secret is also in something the secretary said and that is international engagement. if he went back to the cold war we shared information with small numbers of people with the u.s. government and around the world

who had to build a worldwide coalition. you cannot do this job yourself. you need a lot of hands in it and need to be able to pick up the phone and call some police chief in the saudi country and say i need you to do this for me tomorrow and they need to respond and that only comes through constant engagement and to the degree we have also integrated our own information homeland facilitates everything. >> certainly can't share all the information with all players. >> that's right and i think one of the things, one of the value-added oppositions of dhs if i might, sometimes we get the question why do you have your own intel when you have the cia and you have the fbi and the nctc etc., etc., etc.. the value-added is really to pick intel that is obtained through a friday of ways and to integrate it into what is and

can be and should we shared real-time or overtime, state and local law enforcement and with the private sector within the homeland and to combine the intel, the data points with analysis that really says alright we have this, these are the things you want to watch out for. these are the kinds of behaviors, the tactics, the techniques that good law enforcement should be aware of. and we share those things through integrated centers throughout the united states. we have 72 of them now. we share those things with the private sector particularly where infrastructure is concerned and build and that what kind of the homeland security aspect of what is being collected and analyzed around the world really. >> but internationally you can't share all information with all countries. you can't trust them, can you? >> that's right and we don't. some countries we have a very close relationship with and the

sharing is very robust and others, decisions are made about what can properly be shared. >> in your department he have recently created an assistant secretary for international affairs. what do you hope creating that office will accomplish that you are not already doing? >> well we had won and we are just going to reinstitute it and what that office is designed to do are to follow up all the operational things that require a time and attention. if we decide we need an overall strategy on protecting the global supply chain that is kind of a policy decision and a lot of things going to that but at some point you have got to deal operationally, what does that mean at the ports, the airports, seaports and the lan ports? what is that mean for training domestically and internationally?

which countries have to engage? who is going to intersect with all of the alphabet soup of international organizations and to do that at a level that is very focused and concentrate on the operational activities that need to follow up on the policy decisions that are made and so that is really what that job is designed to do. >> also the state department works hand-in-hand with dhs but i'm wondering how much unity of effort ultimately there is going to be or whether those two entities and the others that exist and up either tripping over one another or being duplicative or is it all positive synergy? [laughter] >> of course it's all positive. >> i can't speak about the state department, but in sort of reviewing all of the things that dhs is now doing overseas i was frankly surprised by the sweep of it and the breadth and the

numbers. the question i ask myself was, how does this fit with what my former agency is doing and with what other intelligence services are doing? i have to say i came away thinking it's very complementary is very complementary because what homeland security is doing is essentially a layer above what is going on in the intelligence realm, so for example if someone in the intelligence field develops concerns about a group of individuals who may be traveling, it helps a lot to have the customs and border person from the united states at an airport. it helps a lot to have dhs doing a passenger name recognition. it helps a lot to have an ice age and who can look into whether there is a high-risk traveler involved here. so i'm not doing this anymore so i don't know precisely how it's working but if i had my hands on it i would assume that there is

an managed to be gained here in terms of how traditional intelligence works in the field having people from dhs out there who can take this material and do something with it that ultimately protects the homeland. >> one of the things that the national security adviser i try to encourage among different countries is the idea that they should, other countries should have a national security adviser so i would have somebody to talk to. >> was at that lonely at the top? >> no, nova quite a few did. the united states generally -- i was curious secretary napolitano if you are seeing an international trend towards developing homeland security departments? your peer group or do you have to do like i did and say, they don't have a national security adviser so i've got to call for. >> i think what is happening is

many countries have departments that overlap with homeland security and their missions are being amended or changed to more closely mirror the myriad of missions we have now swept under the rubric of dhs. my peers are the home secretary is, the interior ministers of the world. this tend to be the closest relationships but because of the things that we do, we also have partnerships with ministers of transportation. we have agreements on the development of counterterrorism, science and technology and sharing of some of that technology so that occurs at different levels. we have agreements sometimes with commerce departments and things of that source but the primary relationship i have, the people i call on the phone, the people and meet with abroad and here are the ministers of interior and in some cases known as the home secretary.

>> some of our closest relationships are with the europeans. the european fund right now is in a big heap of trouble economically. how is that impacting what they are doing in terms of protecting measures and in terms of intelligence? is it hurting? >> well i think right now, they are under tremendous budget pressure as we are so your earlier question suggested would it be necessarily duplicative and the like. recognizing in some areas you do need of the bold areas because there are different functions to perform. i think we don't know. i think the intent is not degradation but when you read the budgets of some of these countries and see the reduction in personnel how that would play out over time is unknown. however, budget pressure i think on all of us requires us to act more internationally. we have to leverage resources with one another and we are

actually exploring some pilots wear we leverage inspections and checks abroad with other countries. we will do some, they do some, all with the same standards, all with mutual embeds to make sure those standards are abided by but the idea is to say look we are all under budget pressure. there are some things we can do together now and we ought to be exploring them, and we are. >> how worried are you about the future ramifications of their economic trouble? >> i worry about a lot of things. >> i'm sure you do. >> but, i think again, when we meet and speak and speak with each other, the ideas alright that is the situation we have. that is the hand of cards we have been dealt. how do we make this work so that there is a maximum ability to detect and interruption for violent action takes place? >> the u.n. has internationally

provided it vice and sometimes equipment to help heart nurse in this security battle. is the u.s. still going to be able to do that to the extent it has been given the budgetary constraints? >> well a lot of that we do through the state department and this is where funding for the state department, one of the many reasons the state department is key in all of the security areas. for example, our efforts with mexico, the witch has required us to help provide training and equipment up to and including things like some helicopters, that is all funded through something called the merida commission. we work with them on how and what expense and we work with the mexicans on what makes sense and what should be prioritized and obviously on the joint training and the vetting of law enforcement personnel etc. so all of that happens within the

state department and exemplifies the kind of linkage that has to occur there. >> we talked a little bit about the current trend and i don't want to spend all of our time talking about the threat, but i would like you to look forward in time for me, six months, a year, and tell me what do you see emerging internationally as your principle area of concern, your top two or three, and the list could be endless i know. we have yemen, somalia and pakistan but what are your top two or three? john, do you want to start? ..

>> they are having trouble fund raising, and the arab spring is not working to their advantage, yet -- >> but it's not yet clear it's going to work to our advantage either. >> it's not clear it's going to work to our advantage. it's up for grabs. it's act one of a three act play. we don't know what's going to happen next there. come to the affiliates, and if i give you my top two or three worries, i'm still worried about al-qaeda central, the core of al-qaeda, but i'm more worried about the affiliate, and there, the alarming thing is the relationships and connections that are developing among them. the major ones are, of course,

al-qaeda, the ararian peninsula and yemen which if not controlled, it's influential in 50% of the country. >> the impact of the death of al arwaki? >> the leadership is still there. there's two or three characteristics to worry about. one, they move fast. i mean their operation sent mulltalob here. it's cheap. the operation cost about $4200, and they have a strategy which is a thousand cuts, basically attack us where they can, and they are not routed out yet, and they are connected. they are connected to the al-qaeda core and somalia which

is strong and is a magnet for americans of somalia heritage becoming important in the terms of leadership. >> are we seeing americans leave for somalia? >> yes, and we are and we work very closely with the somalia-american community itself, building bridges there within the homeland, but al-shabob is a growing organization and it is concerning. >> i don't rank them like basketball teams in a way. [laughter] i would say and agree with john that we should not be facile about the threat of international terrorism. it is there. it takes different forms. the threats constantly evolve, and the targets of opportunity always change. it requires us to be leaning

forward thinking proactively of what is the next best thing, and so al-qaeda affiliates, aqim, aqi, aqip, ect. all are of concern. then one of the things i constantly watch is what is going on in mexico and central america. what is going on south of the hemisphere to affect us undually in the homeland itself. >> your level of concern with an election approaching? >> well, you know, there's an election in mexico in july so they are in the election season now. president calderón has taken measures, and it's a violent struggle, and we see it in the

papers, and it is ongoing. our hope is and our plan is to keep working with the mexicans at the mexican federal government in particular on those efforts. >> what if he's not re-elected. >> well, he won't be. >> okay, excuse me -- >> party change? >> yeah, and by the way, a story just in recent days about indications that the drug cartels are trying to influence the election. >> well , i think we'll work with whoever is in power there. it's simply an indicator of while we keep the eye on the middle east, on africa, other places, hot spots, and this is one that we also work very closely with because it's so close to home. >> general jones, your top two or three? >> well, i think, you know, not necessarily in any particular order, in addition to terrorism, proliferation is a huge threat

and cybersecurity is certainly one of the giants that's coming down the road at us, but i would say that the one component that defines all of the threats is the speed in with which you need to respond to them. the speed is really something that is defining the times we're living in. you have to respond quickly, and i was very encouraged during my time as national security adviser at how we were able to build repore with friends and allies, traditional friends and alis, but the speed of which with we can pass and share information, more information than ever in the past without vetting it because time was of importance. when you think about threats, you know, there's really two formulas if you will to think about a threat. the first is somebody has a hostile intent, puts together a

capability, and then that's a vulnerability for us. if you take the vulnerability and -- i'm sorry, the capability becomes a vulnerability, and then you take the threat and vulnerability, and then you have a risk and the newest formula determines what priority you respond to the threat in, and that, i think, gets into the questions you were talking about with regard to, you know, how much of your resources you're going to devote to this priority, and it really is a clear priority. >> on that point, on proliferation, it's worth mentioning, too, that in the context of terrorism, a number of the people in al-qaeda who had interest in proliferation and in wmd attacks are still at large. we -- among those that we've taken out are not all of the wmd people.

as a physician, he's always been interested in a wmd attack, and i think we cannot underestimate him. he doesn't have the charisma of bin laden. in one's prints t-shirts, you know, but he's a tough, disciplined guy who has a lot of credit in the organization for his time in prison and his operational abilities, so -- and there's a lot of stuff in the world. the president has a initiative underway, of course, to tighten up on loose nuclear material, but we have not made a lot of progress on that. there's something like 2300 tons of enriched uranium and processed plutonium out there with variousing degrees of security. we know it leaks. in 2003 and 2006, we picked up significant amounts coming across the border in georgia. >> what do you do about the problem? it's still a significant nuclear

threat initiative. >> it really requires international agreements and commitment by a lot of countries to tighten up on the control of those substances and within the terrorism context, it requires a lot of focus on that because, you know, that could be a game changer on the terrorism front. that would be a big game changer. even a dirty bomb opposed to a nuclear weapon. that puts them back in business, inspires recruitment, and it puts them back on the ma'am at a time -- map at a time where they seem to be on their heels. >> we talked about international cooperation on that front for decades, and yet, we still have a long way to go. how do we get there? what's the obstacle? >> well, i think in this area in particular, our efforts, our protection efforts for the country really begin with good intelligence because there are so many different ways that material could be smuggled into the united states, and so good

intelligence and good information sharing, and that's where the international engagement really has to occur is that realtime information sharing, and as general jones said, a lot of times, you don't have the opportunity to make sure it's perfect information, the perfect can be the enemy of the good. it has to go; however, back in 2005 with the rob silverman committee said they have not made nuclear weapons a loose priority. has that changed? [laughter] >> i think it has, but it's one of the really tough targets because you do need excellent corporation among allies, but you also need things like provision of commitment to partners who have the potential to monitor border, sophisticated equipment to detect nuclear material coming across borders, and we've done that.

that's how we know that it does leak. we have intercepted significant amounts of enriched, highly enriched uranium at different parts of the world, so, yeah, i think it's improved, but i don't think the president would have undertaken the initiative he took in prague were it not for the fact that there's still a long way to go here, and in terms of gaining international corporation, it also involves, you know, treaties on things like control of fiscal material which we have not controlled in our own country and still controversial in other countries. >> we've made progress, i think, especially with russia. for the first two or three years of the administration, we've been able to, i think, work very closely with the russians in terms of having our two countries at the lead of the effort, and that should continue, and the conference that was held in washington, i think, in 2010, was also very,

very good, so i think the -- it's absolutely essential that the united states maintain its leadership in this particular arena. >> and if i might, in terms of this, but also importation of other kinds of weapon-type material, that's why we have a security container initiative negotiated around the world, to really be able to screen high risk cargo around the world. that's why we have something called ct pat which is basically a form of the same thing. it's why through the tsa and cbp we now have united data bases so that we can track travel patterns in touch a way that it enables us to do further examination on the higher risk travelers or travelers who have had a pattern through countries

that cause us to say, look, we want to double check. those things all go together and are the operational side of what do you do? >> the other thing i'd say is that, you know, in the intelligence business, you're constantly struggling with priorities. you can't do everything. you got a lot of reporting on the movement of ill lit sit -- illicit materials. what i say to you i hope is slightly reassuring, those kinds of reports are all run to ground. in other words, you get a volume of reporting on everything, some of it you just have to not pursue. on that kind of reporting, every report is run to ground no matter how off the wall it appears to be because you can't take the chance one might be right. that's a very high priority. >> i think, you know, we talk about -- we tend to gravitate towards talking about things that are kinetic, those are the things that are, you know, obviously, involving lives and

sometimes hundreds of thousands of live, but the energy -- the security threat that we face on the asymmetric cybersecurity, when you have a disaster like a wikileaks, for example, it causes people all over the world to kind of pull back a little bit. it's a natural reaction. you say i don't ever want to get involved in that, so i'm going to be really careful about what i work with in terms of the other countries, and we have to be -- we have to be very aware of it. the cybersecurity threat growing in the country affecting everything we do. >> zappos. >> pardon me? >> we know what zappos is, not to worried. [laughter] >> unless you have high heeled shoes. >> we're into intel. [laughter] >> but what really affects our

commerce, our trade, it affects our industrial secrets and everything else, and that is, to me, the most competitive arena that the united states faces in addition to the kinetic threats, but how do we compete in the new world, and what role does cybersecurity protection play and how will we do that? >> how can the international community grapple with a cybersecurity threat when you are dealing with so many non-state actors? >> well, one of the things you work on is how do you protect the networks and do it in such a fashion that critical infrastructure is protected. we do an exercise that included a number of our international partners this called called cyberstorm, and, you know, they could be exercise z that involve infiltrations and acts by state ac actors and non-state actors. what actionings you take as a country differentiates a bit, but in terms of intervention and

response, that all is something that we all are working on and must be internationally, and i would say we're really, in my judgment, only at the beginning of that. this is the new kind of -- the new international sphere that's going to require quite robust engagement if we're to be successful. >> just want to touch on another subject before we open it up. a lot of the programs you jot lined here are about -- outlined here are about keeping that stuff out of the country. there's a lot of stuff here in the country you can use. there was one going around to beauty supply stores buying what he needed to conduct an attack. it comes down in large measure to the people, and intelligence is imperfect. we don't always know who the bad guy is when he comes in. we still don't have the exit system worked out so we know when people are leaving. general jones -- >> if i might though -- >> yeah.

>> faisal shahzad, the time square bomber, david headley, connected with attacks in mumbai, those are all cases in which data was helpful in identifying an unknown actor before the fact. >> but general jones, speaking on the phone the other day, you mentioned something not mentioned often in washington which is a national id card. do you think that's something that it's time for to help secure the country? >> well, this is a very personal opinion, but i believe technology has gotten to the point where something like that could be contemplated, and how you put it together is up to us, but who individuals are really matters, and i frankly, having grown up in a country where you

had to have a national id card to have access to just about anything, that would be france, post-war france, called a ray card, but it was the document you had to have when you were pulled over by a policeman or questioned by a lawyer or anything. you had to have it, or tried to get access to health benefits or anything like that. it's not a new idea, but when you think of -- >> but it's very controversial. >> it's very controversial, but if you really are thinking about security, i believe there's more we can do to ensure the security of this country by virtue of knowing who's in the country, authorized to be here, and who is coming here, and technology can help us get there. whether politically anyonements to take that on, that's -- anyone wants to take that on, that's another issue. >> are you willing to take that on politically? [laughter] >> you mean after we do

counterterrorism, immigration enforcement, cybersecurity, ect. -- >> sure. >> look, i think that that's not in the cards so to speak, but there is room for national dialogue about security and privacy and security and other values, and we are always in our shop -- we talk about that a lot. we think about it. we actually have a presidential appointed privacy office within dhs, and many of the agreements i discussed with you today like pnr have a huge privacy obligation that we negotiated carefully with the europeans, being cognitive of their interests in that regard. that is not to say, however, that there is not room for things like a global entry card where those who wish can voluntarily provide information and subject themselves to a check in exchange for which

they, in essence can be con trued as prechecked as low risk travelers and move through the system more conveniently, but there's -- there is real room there for discussion and debate. >> i'd love to take questions from the audience here. i see some at the back, but i'll start here with congresswoman -- do we have a microphone here? yes, we do. can one of you come forward? >> is it on? >> it was. >> i'm not sure. it's not on? >> here. >> just made a comment about security and liberty, and i

whole heartedly believe it's not a zero sum game, and we have to think about both at the same time and the wilson center will have more conversations about that, but my question was something about not mentioned by this panel, and that's the roam of the private sector, cyber, for example, cyberthreats have more -- of course, they affect the.gov space, but the largest space in the country is the space everybody else in this audience uses and you too also on the weekends, and that's the private carriers, and in order to do the job we have to do on cybersecurity, i know you agree, secretary napalitano, we have to build adequate connections and information sharing with the private sector, so i just wanted to raise the question how are we doing? i thought i'd ask our -- general jones and john who are now in

the private sector, how you see this now that you have left the government space? >> well, i'll start. this is an area where we are continuing to grow our engagement. we appreciate that roughly 85% of the nation's critical infrastructure is actually in private hands so we have to have those connects. the way there's critical infrastructure counsels with each of the major components, but going forward, we have to do more with the private sector. i think congress moving forward on a cyberbill is helpful because it will establish what we are actually praking under, but establishes in law what the jurisdictions are, and that will be important, but, jane, you put your finger on an incredible

area where it's not just acting internationally, but across the public-private sector. >> do they want to share information with you? >> sometimes, sometimes not. sometimes they view it not to their competitive advantage to do so, or they have information that is something they would like to protect because it is part of the intellectual property, but it also imp kates other thing, and so we have to work with them being creative, creating things like information lock boxes, looking at different types of secure networks, ways of sharing information that we could then share more generally, and these are easier things to say than to do. this is an area that's going to require our best minds oafort next months -- over the next minds and years. >> i totally agree with that. the public and private sector have to work together. they will not always be able to have conversion interests, but it just is going to have to be done, and it's a huge task.

>> you know, it's the most complicated problem of our times because it brings together technology, cultures, social issues, privacy issues, and it's changing all the time. that's the other problem. it's like going back to the invention of gun pod herb and wondering what was -- you know, how do you use that stuff? this is totally different and totally revolutionary. the private sector, of course, worries about proprietary information to put on the table in order to be protected, and i have an alarming thought about all of this which is in some ways the discussion about cyber mirrors the discussion we had about terrorism back in the 80s and 1990s. there was a great deal of difficulty coming to a national consensus about what to do about it, and until we had 9/11, which then crystallized everything, and we knew what to do and the nation moved forward. we have not had that event in

cyber yet. we message -- imagine it, talk about it, and the only good thing that comes out of those is i think there's a few more of those and growing public awareness that this is a serious vulnerability that i think will then overcome some of the private sector reservations about working with the government on this because of the terrible ramifications when there's a breach, but you also need a demonstration effect here to get everyone focused on the right page. >> the potential's out there. >> the potential's out there. it probably will happen, the cyber pearl harbor we all worry about will probably happen at some time, we'll have commissions, figure it out, and do something quickly, and we'll say why didn't we do it ten years ago. >> questions over here? >> thank you, all, don warren,

deputy secretary deaf of homeland security. thank you for your participation this morning. the grand talent commission report, world at risk, opines we are likely to see a terrorist organization use a weapon of mass destruction by the year 201, and it goes -- 2013, and it goes further it would be a bilogical weapon of sorts. i ask all three of you, do you believe from a biosurveillance, bio protection perspective, we're a nation prepared to deal with that or prevent that? >> tough one. >> i'll start with where we are. we do have deployed in a number of cities in the united states biodetection devices that detect a limited number of pathogens. you know, one of the issues in the current budget climate is whether we move forward with the construction of a new national

biolevel for laboratory that would deal with the pathogens and disease which is a concern as well, and that's something we're working on right now. the -- that is, you know, when you think about bio, one of the things to think about is the development detection technology, diagnose not ticks, quicker diagnostics and how do deliver in terms of an attack. working backwards through to working with hhs and others on the response mechanism. we have been working on storage and storage of prof lactics. we've been improving technology,

although we are not where we need to be in terms of protection. 24 is an area -- this is an area where intel plays an important part because bio is easy to imagine, but it's difficult to execute, and it requires training, education, and the like, and so there's opportunities there for intel to help, and then in terms of our interall ability to develop these thing and improve them, we have to, at some point, look at what our national laboratory facilities are and what they need to be, and those are -- that question is really part of the ongoing fiscal debate. >> general jones, isn't biotechnology capability growing in many parts of the world, and is that a concern? >> yeah, i think it is. when you take about proliferation, you know, people immediately gravitate towards nuclear, but chemical and bilogical threats are out there, and they are growing. i don't know whether i agree

that, you know, i wouldn't even pick a year to be honest with you, but i'm sure that -- i'm sure there are hostile non-state actors out there that are trying to figure out how to do that, and this is a very dangerous world that we're going to continue to live in. we're not going to have a conventional war in this century, but we'll be fighting things like proliferation and what all that entails for the foreseeable future. >> you said every lead in the area was run down, but -- >> it is. you know, we worked hard on al-qaeda's bilogical weapons program years ago, and i'm sure we still do. to a degree, the trail went cold here at a certain point, particularly on the anthrax program. >> is that a concern? >> that's a concern, yeah. the great mystery is why hasn't someone done this up until now because everyone tells you that

the barriers to weaponnization, the barriers to deliverly and culture acquisition dropped in ten years. look at the doctor's plot in the u.k. years ago. they were not into biology, but it shows you that medical personnel get involved in terrorism, they have access to cultures. you can buy stuff on the internet to deliver a fog of pathogens down pennsylvania avenue very easily and you can make this stuff in your kitchen with your mother's cabinet of chemicals and foods. ..

may not be as concerned or focused as we are because because that hasn't happened yet. nuclear occupies a unique slot when you talk about proliferation. >> yeah usually but the probability of a cyberattack is higher than any one of those, any of the other three. >> easier in terms of near-term and not his kinetic in terms of lives lost that could be very disruptive in terms of how things work in this country. >> let me take one of the questions in the back here in the dark shirt with the hand still up.

>> is it on? my question is really for jane harman and that was, how much does -- jane, how much does this soaring of the deliberative process in congress impact our credibility for the administration in this country to negotiate all these aspects? >> i think everyone in this room can answer that question and the answer is a lot. it's obviously personally painful for me to watch this and paul because we were in it and i sadly think the paradigm has changed to blame the other guy for not solving the problem rather than work with the other guy to solve the problem and it has a huge blowback and the executive branch and i'm sure everyone who has served in executive branch would know that. judge webster is one of the

vital young men on her committee but he served in government at a better time. these problems are exponentially harder and if the image people have a broadly might even default on their dead and they surely can take this seriously so this is for a longer conversation and i think i will now take medicine after trying to answer it. [laughter] but it is a big factor. >> and if i might, one of the things that has not happened yet in the congress is to realign itself with the new functions, when you have a homeland security department that has an international aspect that is quite significant, but the old kind of committee jurisdiction in line still pertains. it's over 100 committees and subcommittees that have some jurisdiction over our department. it's the only 9/11 recommendation in which there has been no movement and what it does mean however, there is no

opportunity for, a lot of opportunity for overall strategic thinking at the congressional level for strategic oversight of the department as opposed to programmatic. >> another question, the gentleman with the glasses with his hand still up there. >> and i miss brian and i'm the washington correspondent for euro politics and my question is for secretary napolitano. on the u.s. visa waiver program can you just say what is the future for it? i know there are four countries that are knocking on the door quite vigorously and perhaps next year if it joins the e.u. and one other question on the 100% container rule i believe there is a july deadline for when you have to extend the waiver and i believe you had signaled you are going to do that. can you just say what your latest time is? >> we are working with several

countries on visa waivers and there is actually a congressional proposal to adjust some of the criteria. a visa waiver for those who don't know is exactly what the name says. you can travel united united sts without a visa. we get information about those travelers through something called f. doxil we do get information before they enter the united states, so it continues to be an important heart of what we do. continues to be something that we work with other nations on. obviously becoming a visa waiver country is key for travel and tourism. it just makes everything easier for people. and i am trying to, with respect to cargo, we will and are in the process of screening 100% of high-risk cargo coming into the united states. but 100% of every container

coming into the country would require an international engagement far beyond what is accomplishable in the near-term and requires other things, redesign of ports etc. and that is why we have in their place put together efforts that allow them to differentiate high risk from lower its cargo and shippers and trance shippers and cargo forwarders and can signers and the like are go that is why we have ct pat and why they have security initiative. they are all designed to give us intel and info sharing opportunities that basically serve the same function as putting every piece of cargo through the same kind of device. >> one more question here in front. >> hi, thank you.

>> try it one more time. >> hello? thank you for being here and i would like to ask secretary napolitano, you have talked about air travel and efforts in that department also of ports of entry but i wondered if you could give us a sense of the threat at the border in canada and mexico, not just the regular illegal immigration of people talk about the people coming into this country from some of these areas that we have talked about like somalia and yemen and other places where there is a threat. can you give us a sense of how dhs is tracking that? >> actually, we have done quite a bit in that arena, recognizing that there are many things that could transit these huge land borders that we have. the president and prime minister

harper announced what is called beyond the borders which creates for the first time a perimeter sense of security coming into north america. we are trying to take some pressure off of the airports and land ports along the north border in that regard and also to follow travel patterns and the like better. with respect to mexico, we have been working very closely with them. there is a whole category called sia, special interest aliens is what it stands for, but we watch that very carefully and work with the mexicans on it. we have been working not just with mexico the but countries in central america in terms of following more closely people transiting the airports and the like and so again, our efforts there are to try to get as much info and to take as much pressure off of the physical land border as we can. >> and alas we are at a time.

>> i would like to thank all of our panelists. [applause] are a smarter raider. we could easily go another hour. i think there are a lot of questions in the audience and this is a subject near to my heart and i could ask another few questions but i won't. just keep us safe, janet and thank you, thank you all for coming. i would now ask that the members of the audience remained seated just briefly and tell our panelists leave and until the members of the aspen homeland security advisory group moved down the hall for a different meeting. again, reflect to thank the aspen institute or joining with the wilson center to put on this activity and just say that i am very proud to cochair the aspen

group with my dear friend michael chertoff. thank you again for coming. [applause] and. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

according to a recent report u.s. metropolitan areas have regained the jobs they lost an economic downturn. those results and the real estate market were discussed at the annual conference of u.s. mayors earlier this week. this is 40 minutes. >> in an effort that we have got a huge agenda this morning to keep things moving along i see that jim diffley is here the head of the regional economics at ihs global insights who will provide our traditional metro

economy update. let me add that we finally added mature economies to the name of this council. since we are now in our 11th year, of issuing these reports for this conference so jim, i think i saw you back here. he is right here. i will put off the final results of the iowa caucuses until he has finished. [laughter] >> thank you mr. mayor. a pleasure to be here again. we release this report with the mayors today. it was a rough 2011. the u.s. economic recovery almost stalled out last summer, largely due to a crisis in confidence in the political leadership on both sides of the atlantic. but the year ended strong and the risks remain again largely political by the way. we believe we carry enough bowman to minted 2012 to generate economic growth and job gains across almost all metros in the u.s..

but this growth will be moderate. the economy still faces headwinds from high household in public debt and slower growth overseas and abroad. now the combination of excess debt, excess housing supply, recession in europe, and the contractionary fiscal policy will hold u.s. growth to modest rates. through 2012 that we expect 1.7 million new jobs to be generated. that however will barely be enough to dent the unemployment rates that still remain about the percent, once you factor in growth of the labor force. and it still represents less than half, 48% in fact, cumulatively up the 8.8 million jobs lost in the great recession. that is, we only ever covered less than half of the jobs lost during this recession.

in this report we demonstrate the distribution of those jobs of 2012 across the metro, across the nation's metros which i remind you ama don't have to remind you it accounts for 86% of all jobs in the u.s. and over 90% of u.s. gross domestic product, what we call gross metropolitan products. we also emphasize the importance of households and governments across the nation try to reduce their debt burdens the trenched over export which will be counted on is the key driver of u.s. growth going forward. in metros, we find generate 88% of all exports from the u.s. and they will play a pivotal role in that process moving forward. this is also documented in a report we release today. the maintenance and development of the metro area's continued ability to generate this economic activity derived from

exports is essential to the prosperity of the nation. thank you. >> the full report is in front of you all. jim if you will allow us what we take a couple of quick questions and will ask anybody who has a question, just try to keep them real, to the point and concise because again we have got quite a bit on our agenda here and a lot to do this morning. any questions? yes, maam. >> can you talk about the changing nature of the jobs? they are not the same jobs that were lost i assume. >> well they aren't precisely the same but we do see growth now finally in higher-level business service jobs and professional services jobs. so it's not only low-paying jobs that are recovered. initial recovery was in retail trade and leisure and hospitality but we are seeing growth in the higher value

sector so that is important to know. >> another question? [inaudible] >> realizing that outsourcing is not always beneficial. do we have any real numbers on how many jobs might be coming back from overseas or is this all anecdotal at the beginning? >> it's all anecdotal in the sense that the size relative to the economy of the return is small. i would emphasize however that the importance is that not so much how many jobs are coming back but the flow is being stopped, the enormous numbers going overseas as china becomes more expensive than u.s. corporations realize there are other factors to consider. >> any other questions?

>> thank you, mayor. just a quick thought from you. if you are a mayor what would you do to create jobs in your community based on what your findings have been? >> i would emphasize the importance, gounod and thinking would have a mayor can do but i would emphasize the importance of the infrastructure both as it relates to business activity and household consumer activity to make the metro and attractive place to live and to do business. >> thank you so much for giving us a quick update and let's move on and as we are going to get robert klein and jim rokakis and david stevens if you will move forward we will set up for her next presentation. i would like the gentleman who is setting up the table here to suggest to all of you, we have had over 1000 mayors signed onto

the climate protection agreement. it seems at this time that we ought to discuss a little bit moving forward about sustainable cities and communities and the work that needs to be done in some of those areas. there are 40 cities around this country that have applied for and received regional sustainability planning grants so there is a lot of work going on and i would hope that staff would follow-up with mayors from across the country and let's share best practices, some of the things that we are doing in our cities locally to create a green economy and to transition in the 21st century and what jobs look like that makes our city sustainable. so i just would like to throw that out to all of you, and i'm hopeful that staff is going to follow-up so by june we ought to have some good ideas to share on that friend.

having said that. i would like to now move to robert klein and jim rokakis and as all of you remember all baltimore meeting in june we indicated that we would work on developing a auto piece of legislation to address the issue of how we move abandoned property through the system quicker so we could lessen the tremendously negative impact of these properties on our neighborhoods around this country. >> i've been asked by date dave to be chris. 33 years as a county and city official, the land conservancy in nature conversation wanted to adopt the urban mission and opened the driving communities institute to set up land banks all over ohio. land banks in ohio and michigan are becoming very common and are

designed to take in distressed tax were close properties. we have 13 in place by june of this year in ohio. we are overwhelmed by the vacant properties. my good friend rich cordray that i have known for several years. we know what they do. they are destroying values. they are crime magnets. they are taking away from many people are single most valuable asset, their home. there are probably more vacant properties in ohio and michigan then there were post-katrina and louisiana and alabama, cities like cleveland, the average home is on the market for almost 1000 days before itself someone sells itself very to 10% of its value which is the value of the scrap metal and i can go on and on what these depressing statistics of the answer is not only but certainly in many areas

demolition is critical. there is very little money to deal with the issues. law grants have been slashed. local government funds have been slashed allover ohioan. cuts at the state level so we are looking for a federal solution. the treasury department and members of congress in ohio and michigan have copied the qualified school construction bond model that has helped issue $22 billion worth of bonds in 09 and 10 to build new schools calling it qualified urban demolition bonds. are making a request to issue tax credits to do demolition in ohio and michigan the two most seriously afflicted states that would require local participation for sinking funds. we have gone to the attorney general asked them to set aside a portion of the monies to help fund the sinking fund to help make these possible. i was on a program in 60 minutes a month ago and i was likely because i was not -- everybody continue to watch but in the

program, it was entitled there goes the neighborhood. if we don't raise money for demolition you can do another one last year and it will be there goes another neighborhood and there goes another neighborhood. a lot of these neighborhoods have a fighting chance but not as long as there are thousands and thousands of vacant properties waiting to be demolished. again is not demolition only issue and i know mr. klein was the ceo and founder of safeguard properties the largest firm in the country and would want to address some of those other issues if that is okay with you mayor. >> thank you mr. mayor and thank you gem jim for the comments. the majority of his comments were directed at the mortgage industry. let me put my disclaimer out, i'm not a mortgage lender and i don't have any interest in the properties that are there better

in default. what we do as jim mentioned we are property preservation company. we perform approximately 1 million property inspections on a nationwide basis. we do work in each one of the mayor's communities. we are there and we are the ones when the loan defaults we will try to maintain the property as best as possible. i so want to follow but at the mayor said over here which is life as a director, we are out there on the ground, boots on the ground and we see the actual devastation that these vacant properties have on families and communities around the country. i will tell you from our point of view seeing what is happening, the greatest cost causes with the mayor mentioned, the time it takes for a property once it is abandoned and once the mortgage or for whatever reason prior to foreclosure -- foreclosure gets up and moves out on the property. that property will set in the foreclosure process for two years which means it is sitting

there and it's vacant nobody's living there and it will take two years for the servicing mortgage industry to go to foreclosure and take possession of the property and and and do it needs to do. in those two years it is deteriorating the neighborhoods and one consumer that is being heard is the next-door neighbor. the values of property go down. all that you have heard about the property deteriorating, large chunk of it is due to these properties are sitting for years and i will give an example in ohio. it will take two years for the property once a foreclosure is filed until the actual foreclosure is complete. in those two years no matter how much we maintain the property with a bank able to it will deteriorate and get vandalized. it is going to be used by drugs -- we see it on the ground first-hand. that is what is in my opinion being on the ground the most prevalent problem and why it is deteriorating. i think jim rokakis introduced a bill in the ohio senate to actually, i don't want to say

backtrack it may not be the right word but accelerate properties that are vacant and abandoned. i don't think anybody is saying anything in the private sector. keep it in the property. the property doesn't do anything for the city or for the neighbors are any good for the mortgage company. the mortgage company sitting there with the collateral interest deteriorating day by day and there's nothing they can do because the foreclosure process is taking so long. the package we have put in there, but bill that was introduced, the package was introduced in the ohio senate addressing that issue. we have been in touch with communities around the country every community we have spoken to including down to the level of code enforcement, these vacant products are sitting there for months and years. we have seen properties in the foreclosure process for three years bacon and sitting there. the mortgage company cannot do anything because they are tied

legally because they have not taken possession you so it's a catch-22. who is maintaining these properties? we do the best job that we can but it is going to be vandalized. we see it being on the ground, the largest cause that we can see a properties and communities and the blade we see in communities around the country. there are other exceptions but the vast majority of these properties are geared to -- deteriorating because the properties are sitting there for months and years without anybody having legal possession of the property so i would urge that you mayors have legislation that works. that needs to be addressed somehow and i believe the bill that is being introduced in the ohio senate is a model example of what can be done when you shorten the process of abandoned properties. this is not kicking anybody out of their homes. and get the property into responsible hands and the markets or restore their

mortgage bank so they can do it needs to be done to sell the property and get it back and used. one of the comment what jim rokakis said about demolition. demolition is another factor we see on the ground that deteriorates these neighborhoods but having said that demolition alone is not going to do it. you have to demolish and we have. properties that need to be demolished and properties that need rehab. to demolish a property and you don't we have properties that can be put in the affordable housing and being occupied you will not accomplishing think so demolition that has to be done and at the same time focus on the rehab of these properties. thank you. >> before we pass the baton it again as quickly as does anybody have a question specifically about these vacant and abandoned properties? >> greg fischer and i would just ask you to think about one other thing and that is the maintenance of the properties while they are in this limbo land. you were living next to -- door

to them in the weeds are rowing six feet tall. we as government can't even go on the land sometimes to take care of the so this is an issue that needs to be addressed as well. >> quickly, every mortgage deed allows the service or to actually take action to protect its collateral interest. best practices industrywide fannie and freddie are required as the mortgage service or. to take action to go in there and maintain the property. we do millions of these every single month. we have been doing this for 20 years now. we are not successful 100%. properties have fallen through the cracks but we do have a right to take action when the property has been vacated but it is limited action. it is a limited action of what the bank servicers can do so we are working with -- like as it is a catch-22.

we are not doing enough that we need some help from the legislature to push that whole item. >> a question right here, mayor. >> are any of the legal think-tanks working on the whole issue of private property because what we have all the time is laws restricting us from being able to take property that is until liquid for many years. the laws are not on the city side, they are on the owners side and the owner is hurting the property values for everybody else. there is a think the fundamental issue of copyrights that we need to have some of the legal geniuses start working on because i can deteriorate an entire block value on purpose deliberately and be protected by the courts. they flip from llc to llc which starts the legal clock running all over again. is a wholly un-american way way to treat your neighbor and yet the cause of this preoccupation with people's private property rights, we allow entire

neighborhoods to be penalized. and so what i would like is for people who are a lot smarter than me who are legal beagles to start working on ways to take robert he from people who are purposefully gaming the system to the expense of all the other people working harder and playing by the rules. it's wrong and it should stop and somebody has to figure out a way around our love affair with private property because it's not private property, it's a purposeful, diminishment of everybody else's private property. so who can we turn to to change the laws? >> let me comment i saying that i'm not an attorney, so that is totally out of my realm. but, as far as i know we are on the ground seeing what communities are doing. we are taking actions on tax foreclosure so -- [inaudible] >> i will pass the buck because

i'm not able to answer that. >> let's quickly move on now. mr. stevens on critical regulatory issues around the mortgage financing. >> great, as mayor coleman said i did also just leave the obama administration where server couple of years as the federal housing commissioner and the question, that last question is a good one for a second terry donahue who is coming today. let me switch gears. there are two challenges facing the housing market and one of the challenge you are dealing with on a day-to-day basis, families in trouble, servicing errors that you have taken three or offices on a day-to-day basis. its homes underwater and negative equity. its access inventory and all those things are front and center undermines. the other side of this is the future of housing finance. how are we going to make sure people can borrow money going forward it with tight credit. this comes down to a couple of rules that i'm not going to go into detail to talk to about.

i want to offer myself up as a resource and you can contact me to educate me further but it's a mortgage provision under the doctrine legislation, the qualified residential mortgage provision is part of something called qualified workage and without explaining it thoroughly i just want to say that if the rule goes into effect as is, access to homeownership for qualified workers within your communities could the severely restricted. the proposed rule today which is proposed by six regulators working together puts a down payment and loan-to-value restrictions as to who can get the qualified residential mortgage in your community. that don't payment restrictions which there is that dated back in your package that you all have that i would be glad to talk about on another day but it walks through who gets impacted. it is literally a direct attack at first-time homebuyers, african-american borrowers,

latinos, demographically across this country. impacts firefighters, health care workers, schoolteachers middle income who will be restricted from a qualified mortgage simply because of this down payment standard. one thing you should know and i know time, we are on their schedule so i want to make this concise as possible. one thing you should be aware of is dodd-frank did not ask for anywhere in the legislation for these regulators to identify a loan-to-value, to hardwire in a loan-to-value with a minimum down payment or debt-to-income ratio and the rule. the regulators put that in above and beyond what dodd-frank did. having been involved in the process it was intentional to leave the south because as you well know first-time homebuyers may not have high levels of inherited wealth or large amounts of residual income to save up for a 20% down payment and if you can't recruit schoolteachers to your communities because they can't i a home because they are

restricted by access because of those residential mortgage, that has a direct impact on quality and the vibrancy of your own particular cities that you are responsible for. we'd like a lot of things in the dodd-frank legislation in a lot of things in the residential mortgage. talks about owner-occupied fully documented ability to repay fully amortized mortgages. it eliminates all the exploding neutron mortgages that destroyed many of your communities auction arm, subprime, balloons extended term loans. all of those or eliminate. it is very healthy for us to get the rules of the road but to put the down payment area in place for your communities is going to have a direct impact and i'm joined by people like mark from the urban league and la raza and the center for responsible lending and ncrc and others that we have co-joined together and later today i'm meeting with congressman frank with this document with all their logos on

it to review this with him. this could only be stopped by your active involvement. by notifying you regulators and secretary donovan is here today to make clear that we support these protections and product qualities that but we are concerned about access for the workers of our communities and the disparate aspect of this potential world. that is the overview and i leave my offer to help out in any way i can if you or your staff want to reach out to me personally and i would be glad to talk about a. >> any questions for mr. stevens? yes, mayor. >> good morning. i am carol chen, mayor of california. i thank you for your comments. as a real estate petitioner myself i see it first-hand in terms of the difficulties in obtaining home mortgages at the current pace. although we understand the need for oversight and also some

safeguards in place, nevertheless, the access issue mentioned is truly limited at this point. we have i believe the pendulum has swung too far to the point where now the lenders are limiting truly the ability of people trying to take homeownership into their personal standards right now. but i also think there's got to be a way to make it more balanced, where access is available and then safeguards are in place. so how is it that you can advocate on behalf of the consumers and the mortgage application, applicants, in order for this to move forward the coast at the rate we are going, we are so limited in

terms of funding available or making it available to the average borrower and that is in terms of a vicious cycle that is where we are seeing we are not getting the inventories supplied limited and we are not making use of the current really really good marketplace right now. thank you. >> i won't add much other than to say i completely agree and there are ways to do this. fha as you know which is probably a prime source of financing for homes in many of the communities that all of you serve allows down payments for borrowers as low as 3.5% for an fha loan. the challenges that not all vendors are using the full breadth of that credit portfolio for a whole lot of other reasons that we need to work through to create certainty in the financial systems of these financial institutions will come back in and begin to lend again. part of this can come with us working together through public and private partnerships to make institutions felt comfortable going back into communities. there is a lot more to talk about in this area but your point is absolutely accurate.

we can't be enacted this voice to bridge that they are and my background with the administration coming into this role by did try solely to bridge that barrier. we need to work together because you are on the front lines in the urban communities where we have to gain recovery and make sure we have responsible access going forward in a way that is sustainable and that is the real challenge. >> thank you very much and appreciate everybody. now we have to move on. we are working on models of best practices to encourage homeownership, and a number of cities have housing programs. philadelphia's one of the great cities that do that but we have some comments by representative of our realtors and holly moskerintz. did i pronounce it right? >> you did, thank you.

good morning. would like to give you a brief overview of employer assisted housing or dah. dah can help communities address some of their work worse housing issues. it is the employer-provided benefit that not only addresses helping to meet and employees helping me but also businesses objectives such as recruitment, retention or simply helping to revitalize a neighborhood around that business. there are a variety of different benefits associated with dah but the most common ones are homebuyer education, counseling and financial assistance and i think we have heard from all the speakers today away the dah actually could be used with everything we have heard today to carry out some of the goals of our speakers today. for instance homebuyer education, think of it as it a can be offered on-site at the workplace. a lot of time employees to not have the time to go after work or weekends ago to these

workshops. a lot of education is required by a lot of government loan programs that employees cannot take advantage of these because they simply cannot attend these. think of having a workshop on site at the workplace. i think it's a great concept and it will get consumer education out there to the masses real easily. another option is financial assistance. this can be grants or loans. it can be structured for a business objective. for instance a lot of employees have come employers have problems with retention. they will train employees and then they will leave. this is particularly for hospitals and nursing staff turns overlap. there are costs associated with training employees. you can use it as a five year for forgivable loan so facility employee would have to stay with the employer for five years and in that home would be forgiven. employers have also target neighborhood so if there's a neighborhood that needs revitalization they can say i only want i employees to purchase a home within this

neighborhood and i will help them out the financial assistance if they do that. how you all can help is, these programs can be leveraged through state and local programs and not that not only the loan programs that state localities have but also dah programs and i have a handout that you have to get a listing of several state and local dah programs that are being implemented. for instance philadelphia and baltimore, they have matching funds. they will match matching employers contribution up to a certain amount so that could help leverage an employee when an employee is getting frances a down payment for closing costs. the city of also more works with the johns hopkins university. johns hopkins university gives $17,000 to its employees to help and baltimore believe will give up to another $3000.

the state of illinois not only has a matching program but also has a tax credit for employers so that will help the employer implement a benefit. d.c. now has a pilot program. program. this is not coming from the housing agency. is coming from the planning agency because they want to help reduce commuting in the district of columbia. detroit is working with select employees and they give up to $20,000 to help employees purchase a home and select communities in detroit. now what you all can do and i'm working with the u.s. conference of mayors and the council to see how cities can get more involved in this. two things that the national association of realtors is doing this year is one is having employers form around the country and we are working with the mayors and with the u.s. conference of mayors to coordinate these forms. this will be where everyone in the community gets together including the mayors, housing

authorities, nonprofit organizations which are particularly important, the real estate industry. they will get together and learn about employers housing and what they can do in their community to implement the program. next week there will be one in las vegas. we will have participation by the mayor of las vegas, henderson and north las vegas in april we are working on planning to have another forum in dubuque iowa and the mayor is participating in that as well. so i welcome you to think about this, to think of dah could help in your community to help with the workforce housing issues and if so you can get in touch with me or dave and we would welcome your participation. thank you. >> thank you very much. we are really running short on time so we have more of the american chemistry council from norman jacknis and --

on our behalf. thank you. >> thank you mr. minear for the invitation to come address this group. we wanted to introduce ourselves. i'm worth a arthur moore and we wanted to tell the story of the chemical industry and how port it is for the national economy and the metro economies. the chemical industry employs nearly 800,000 in the u.s. in high-paying manufacturing jobs that average $82,000 a year which is 43% higher than the average manufacturing wage. in addition to these jobs there are 515 jobs created for every job in in the supplier industries and in jobs supported by households. the chemical industry is present in each of the 50 states and metro communities around the country.

it is in major exporter. in 2011, we exported nearly $200 million in chemistry exports hitting a new record. exports and then trending up thanks to shale gas. i just want to transition briefly and talk about the tremendous opportunity that shale gas has brought to the chemical industry, the manufacturing sector in the country as a whole. president obama highlighted shale gas and the opportunities it presents in his recent jobs report. we believe that the come up industry in particular stands to gain as they use high amounts of natural gas in the feedstock but also for fuel of power but also the feedstock. there have been a tremendous number of investments announce along the gulf coast and also along the marcellus region. we estimate that about 17,000 new high-paying petrochemical manufacturing jobs can be created from the use of this additional and an additional

80,000 in direct supplier jobs and 85,000 jobs associated with a household spending so it total of 182,000 american jobs generated by taking advantage of the ethane in the ground to reduce value-added chemical products. thank you. >> it has want to quickly introduce myself. you will see in the materials that we are kicking off a partnership with the council for joint publication of articles, webinars and best practice sharing. really to particularly focus on economic growth in the most distressed areas of your cities. a few quick facts. they are and what we call the inner cities which is that part of your city which has 20% poverty rate. that is about one tenth of 1% of the landmass of this country and has 31% of minority poverty in this country.

in the years of 98 to 2008, when in fact we were growing jobs the regions around your cities grew over 6 million jobs and the inner cities lost 300,000 jobs. recent research we just did on small businesses within your inner cities, 71% of those small businesses are undercapitalized as compared to their peers outside your inner city. these are distinct economies. we will be sharing a lot of information about that, places we have been working as diverse as new orleans to tried -- chicago, philadelphia and new york city. quick to what we do in the cities and the information that we will be sharing with you, we help identify those industries that can specifically suited to the inner cities. we help cities align their economic levers whether that is zoning, work horse development, infrastructure improvements as

well as collaborate with key private sector actors like education institutions and hospitals where in fact those two instruments were the top employer and 66 out of 100 inner cities across the country this past year. and finally been working around aligning some of the small business development support so we look forward to working with you throughout the year. thank you. >> thank you very much. we have heard that the united states is behind the rest of the world in terms of connectivity to the internet but in fact even in the u.s. a study by michigan state economist shows the cities that were the most viable were not necessarily the largest that the once over as connected to the global economy which is a change from two years ago. in the last meeting, the annual meeting of this conference, you

talked about how they were combining -- so they could create, combine the quality of life with the ability for residents to me to living and as a result they have been able to bring back some of the younger entrepreneurs from new york and california and bring them back so they can actually still make the same kind of living they use to another places. i have been actually glad to hear yesterday especially some of the things we have developed in terms of future economic strategy mentioned here including lifelong learning and connectivity of entrepreneurs to global opportunities. dave and i have been working quite a while now on trying to come up with a strategy to ensure the economic liability for cities and one of the things we are looking for now are volunteers, cities that would like to work with us to create demonstrations for pilots of what this future growth might be and that will help your cities show the way for everybody else.

that is really the short of it and anybody who is interested please. >> today to myself. >> thank you very much and i will see everybody in orlando. [inaudible] >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> you mr. speaker, the president of the united states. tuesday night president obama delivers his state of the union address, live coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern including the president's speech, republican response by india and the governor mitch daniels and your phonecalls live on c-span and c-span radio on c-span2 watch the president's speech along with tweets from members of congress and after the address more reaction from house members and senators. throughout the night go on line for live video and to add your comments using a spokane twitter at c-span.org. >> earlier today the supreme court threw out a redistricting

map instructing the lower court to take another look at election maps from the texas legislature. the justices said the lower court didn't pay enough difference to deference to the legislature's choices and decided this case 11 days after hearing the oral arguments. we will now show you that oral argument. it's an hour and 10 minutes. >> case 11713, perry v. perez and the consolidated cases. >> mr. chief justice and may it please the court. the judicial maps drawn here are truly remarkable. they reflect the reality that the district court below lost sight of the first principles. to court repeatedly invoked the principle that these were only interim maps and not remedial maps, but that obscures the

reality that a court has the authority to draw an election map, surely one of the most powerful tools in the judicial arsenal only identifying specific statutory or constitutional violations or a substantial likelihood there up. >> mr. clement section 5 says you can't draw new maps unless they have been -- you can put them -- so the only thing is to get the preclearance. i don't see how we can give deference to an enacted new map if section 5 says don't give it a fad until it is preclear. >> justice sotomayor section 5 is clear that the new map drawn by the texas legislature, the new maps cannot take affect of their own force, but that doesn't answer the question of whether a judge having to impose

a remedial math to address what i'll concede is a one-person, one vote problem with the benchmark maps can look to the new maps which also remedy the same one person, one vote problem for guidance. >> but you are asking for more than guidance. you are asking for deference. you are saying they have to start with the new map even though that map hasn't been approved. >> that is right your honor. >> the old map which had been approved. >> we are in fairness, we are asking for to be used as the starting point for drawing up the new map. >> doesn't that turn section 5 on its head? >> i don't think so we'll your honor for a number of reasons. one is the obligation to go to the preclearance board or to go to the attorney general remains fully in place of the only question is what is going to inform the district court with

texas to exercise remedial authority to remedy the one person one vote problem with the remedial, the benchmark plans rather? this court from the beginning in its reapportionment cases has emphasized the need to look for legislative guidance in order to inform the judicial exercise of solving that reapportionment problem and the need to look to the new maps i think is most -- the congressional maps because the benchmark is a fine map by the map for 32 seats and the congress here, the legislature of texas has spoken as to how it would like to divide the new 36 seat allocation often it seems to be quite odd that the court would simply ignore that judgment when it could look to that -- >> they didn't ignore it. they took it into account along with other plans. mr. clement, the d.c. court has

exclusive authority over these maps. it denies preclearance and suppose we accept your provision. you prevail in this proceeding and then the district court says these plans do not meet section 5 requirements and we deny preclearance. what happens if we use the texas plan that has not been for the interim antrum plants? >> justice ginsburg as a practical matter i suppose at that point of pallets would go to the court of texas and say, you need to revise your interim maps once again. now i think since the premise for the court drawing its interim maps is that time is of of the athens -- essence. the texas court may deny that motion or grant that motion.

i don't have a crystal ball to take that into account but what i do think is anomalous is let's suppose that the d.c. court does deny free clearance. at that point it is common ground that the plan, the legislatively enacted plan even though it is denied free clearance would be something that the texas court would have to defer to. that is basically -- so the oddity of the other side. >> basically, that was the plan in two contiguous districts, there was a problem with them. the attorney general said the rest of it was okay. the entire plan, the plans are oppose. >> justice ginsburg it's true that the justice department does raise an objection to the plans as a whole but of course even that take support from the way

particular districts are being drawn. seems to me quite likely are position is the d.c. court is most likely to grant free clearance but if they were too denied it seems quite likely they were denied of a particular district and it would be made clear that you would give, the texas court would give deference to the legislative plan and the anomaly of the other side's position is to give less deference to a planned when preclearance is tended then when you do when a cleanse is tonight because they cannot ask i ask a question about timing? let's suppose the district court in washington moves expeditiously and issues a decision in mid-february. are there problems with postponing the texas primary so that the plan that is to be used doesn't have to be formulated until after the district court in washington has ruled? texas has very early primaries. some states have been for

congressional races in the fall and the latest presidential primary i think is at the end of june, so why can't this all be pushed back and wouldn't that eliminate a lot of the problems that we are grappling with in this case? >> justice alito, two answers. one is as a practical matter all that the affected entities in texas have gotten together and agreed on the ability to move the primary back to april on the assumption that a map could be in place by february 1. now the primary has been moved from march to april already so i can tell you it's impossible to move it again, but it's also, in a sense, the question becomes texas made its own determination that it wants to have a relatively early primary and it's not something for this set of elections. does have that in place since at least 1988 so the question is how much do you want to interfere with that judgment? >> what are the