democracy's best days lie ahead. we're a powerful force for good. with faith and courage, we can perform great deeds and take freedom's next step. and we will. we will carry on the tradition of a good and worthy people who have brought light where there was darkness, warmth where there was cold, medicine where there was disease, food where there was hunger and peace where there was only bloodshed. let us be sure that those who come of after will say of us in our time that in our time we did everything that could be done. we finished the race, we kept them free, we kept the faith. >> find state of the union addresses going back to 1952 online at the c-span video library and watch president obama deliver this year's address tuesday night live on c-span. search, watch, clip and share. it's washington your way.

>> now, a report on federal efforts to combat drug trafficking by the white house drug control policy director. gil kerlikowske spoke to sheriffs from around the nation at their annual winter conference. this runs a little under an hour. >> this morning i have the honor of introducing our first keynote speaker, the director of the office of national drug control policy, the honorable phil kerlikowske -- gil cerl allow key. gil kerlikowske was nominated by president obama and confirmed as director of the office of national drug control policy. in the his position he coordinates all aspect of federal drug control programs and implementation of the president's national drug control strategy. gil brings 37 years of law enforcement and drug policy experience to the position. he most p recently served nine

year as chief of police for seattle, washington. when he left, crime was at it lowest point in 40 years. previously, he was deputy director for the united states department of justice office of community-oriented policing services where he was responsible for over $6 billion in federal assets. he has received numerous awards and recognitions for leadership, innovation and community service. he served as a chair of the board of directors of fight crime, invest in kids. he has also served on the advisory board of the salvation army. mr. kerlikowske holds a ba and an ma in criminal justice as well as an honorary doctorate in humane letters from the university of south florida. i am honored to present director gil kerlikowske. [applause]

>> let me thank president paul fitzgerald for the very kind introduction, he did it exactly the way i wrote it out. [laughter] doug gillespie taught me to leave when crime was down, i mean, really, i'm learning so much from some of the experienced sheriffs in this room. [laughter] and it's a great pleasure to be up here on the dais, also, with aaron canard, and we very much appreciate his leadership and stewardship of nsa. and then my friend save shah hilton --stair shah hilton. we had absolutely great partnerships with the marshal service whether it was fugitive task forces or the work that they do in tracking down the fugitives through the electronic means and others that they have such knowledge about. and now in this role for the almost three years as president

obama's drug policy adviser, again, the marshal service is a great partner, and it's good to be with some friends and see a number of folks and find out how you're doing and do a little catch up. and i've learned a tremendous amount about the area and the science around drug addiction and drug use that i really had very little knowledge of as a police chief. i understood the law enforcement part very well. didn't really -- and i understood our relationship to be involved in prevention like all of you do because i think we're joined at the hip when it comes to preventing drug use in our communities. but i really didn't understand the issues around addiction, around treatment, around how health care is involved, the public education part. i actually wish that i had had that kind of knowledge when i was a police chief because i would have figured out smarter ways to leverage system of those resources. so let me mention a couple things that were involved.

all of you recognize the dangers and the problems that drug abuse causes and particularly the work that you to in the criminal justice system, but also the work that you do, you know, with your holding facilities. but as, in talking to the president and talking to a number of members on the hill, and i know you have that wonderful opportunity, it also, of course, strains our education system, keeps our kids from graduating from school. it strains our health care system. it drives crime. and the research, the research and the evidence is very clear that the drug issue you only have to scratch the surface a little bit to see how involved it is with all of the things that i just mentioned. drug-induced deaths are now the leading cause of accidental death in the country, and i keep saying that, and people keep kind of looking at me oddly or quizzically because i know when i was going through confirmation, they said, you know, more people are dying from

drugs in this country, and this was a couple years ago, than from gunshot wounds. and i said, actually, i don't know that, and as a police chief or sheriff, you keep track of what hurts the people that you're responsible for. and i didn't know that. well, now things have changed. now drug-induced deaths are greater than car crash deaths in this country. and it's driven by prescription drugs. it also is a tremendous burden thanks to the partnership with the united states department of justice. they recently came out with a study and said what does it cost us in this country to keel with our drug -- to deal with our drug problem? well, it costs us about $193 billion a year. $193 billion. let me put that in perspective. that's about $20 billion more than it costs us to deal with diabetes. $56 billion could be traced directly to the costs associated with the criminal justice system. i don't think that's a surprise to any of you as to the cost.

there's seven million people in the united states that are under supervision in criminal justice, more than two million people behind bars. while the united states prison population actually for the first time in nearly four decades fell last year, and we're seeing that state and local elected officials, policymakers are working very hard to reduce those criminal justice costs. because between 1998, 1988 and 2009 state corrections spending increased from $12 billion to more than $50 billion. so we have to figure out smarter, more effective ways to keel with it. to deal with it. it's not just because of the sheer number of people under criminal justice supervision, but also as you so well know many of those people not only have the substance abuse problem, also a mental health problem, and so many sheriffs is and those that run correctional facilities say we've become, your facilities have become

mental health institutions and drug centers, drug rehabilitation centers also. well, the data show that over half of state and federal inmates used drugs during the month before crime, and we know from the atom data that many of you take a look at and that comes out on a regular basis where people are tested in 12 different correctional facilities or jails around the country, we know there's a strong nexus. but if you think about that, over half of these federal inmates and state inmates use drugs for the month before the crime. a third of the state prisoners and a quarter of the federal prisoners use drugs at the time of the offense. and we have to keep bringing that to the forefront. the facts underscore, though, that we also need to take a different approach to our drug problem. this administration believes that the approach to drug policy should be guided by three facts. addiction is a disease, and it can be treated, and i have met so many people in these three

years that are back on the road to successful recovery, back in their neighborhoods, they're back taking care of their families, they're back actually working and paying taxes. sometimes we don't recognize that, although you as sheriffs often do, so people can recover. and simply put, the man a that that i -- mantra that i continually hear from my colleagues is we can't arrest our way out of this problem. we have to be smarter about how we approach it by recognizing addiction as a chronic and progressive disease and bringing in other people that should be at the table or at the forefront. you can make a big difference in lev racking your own resources, and those are health care, public health officials can help people overcome the institutional barriers. when i was in seattle along with sheriff john lovic who had been retired from the washington state patrol, we wrote an op-ed for the paper about why people who had been arrested for certain crimes that they should be able to more easily appeal

and get their civil rights restored. and the legislature listened to that along with the support of a lot of other law enforcement people. because those people that are not going to cause problems and really need to get into society, we should work hard as professionals to reduce those barriers. well, the president's approach is guided by action. over $10.4 billion is spent on drug prevention and treatment programs in federal dollars, and that's compared to about $9 billion in support of domestic law enforcement. but we know that state and local law enforcement also provides tremendous amount of resources. the president signed, president obama signed the fair sentencing act reducing that 100 to 1 disparity for crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. let me, both president clinton and president bush had both worked very hard with congress to try and get that reduced because of the burden that it imposes.

and the fact that it really wasn't based on science during those crack epidemic times. and we know we can be smarter about how we approach that. let me give you a really piece of good news when it comes to cocaine. cocaine use is down significantly in this country. if you don't think that think good law enforcement, through interdiction, the work the coast guard and customs and others do, through prevention programs and education programs, if you don't think we cannot, that we're not going to make a dent in drugs, we actually can. cocaine use in the united states is down by almost of half since 2007, and be that continues on in every survey, every piece of data that we take a look at. so when we all put our shoulder to the wheel and we all work very hard across all of these different balanced perspectives, we can actually reduce drug use in this country. fortunately, that's not going to be true for all the different drugs of abuse. i also had a great opportunity

to hold a series of round tables across the country. los angeles, new york city, atlanta, philadelphia, chicago with african-american leaders. sheriffs, police chiefs, law enforcement officials from the prosecution area, but also people that run treatment and prevention programs, et, to talk about the impact that drugs have on their particular community. and what we could be doing to work together to lessen that impact. because it truly in those communities affects families, affects children and their ability to achieve a good education, it affect bees their ability to get hired, especially with over 6,000 employers that do drug testing. and we need people that are going to be energetic, that are not on drugs that are going to be the work force as the economy continues to tick up. the administration strongly supports drug courts. you strongly support drug courts. this is like talking to the choir here when it comes to drug

courts. i know the amount of time and attention many of you serve on drug court executive advisory boards, etc. you have been active in getting those put into place in your communities. and you have the research, again, the ed because people -- the evidence because people want to see, well, how do we know in evaluation that these things really work? and the urban institute just released a long study on drug courts across the country, and it came as no surprise to me, and i'm sure it came as no surprise to you that drug courts are not only cost effective, they actually get people back into society and reduce recidivism. so we know that. we also know that you're big supporters of the second chance act as are almost every law enforcement professional that i deal with. it provides resources for common sense evidence-based approaches to preventing -- to reducing crime, and the act provides funding for programs to improve the coordination of reentry

services. you know, a few years ago if i was thinking about or talking about reentry, i would have thinking about things about the space shuttle. but when those people leave that prison door, that jail door, you want to get them back into society with the ability to be successful. for a whole host of reasons. it's not just because your community's going to be safer, that's the primary reason, but you know what? it's also cost effective, and it make sense. some of you, i know many of you have been visited and seep some of the reentry programs that you're involved in. jail's also a critical access point for people who need drug treatment. i cannot tell you how many times, time after time, i have been on a dais talking to prevention or treatment programs with people who said being arrested saved my life. and we were in st. louis talking about meth am fete mean, and a young -- methamphetamine, and a young man who has been clean for a long time talked about in the st. louis area having been

arrested. he was on his way to visit his mother who was dying of cancer, and he got arrested for meth. and he said it saved my life, and he has been clean and sober for a long, long time. and just a few months ago at the national press club right around the corner from here, i was speaking right after a wonderful young woman from st. lauderdale who talked about -- from ft. lauderdale who talked about a 30-day program followed up by aftercare that saved her life, and now she speaks on the importance of rehabilitation. so not everybody outside of law enforcement sees this incredible change that can be made in people as a result of what you do. talking to that young man about methamphetamine, you know, he said it was the way the arresting officer or deputy treated me that started me on my road to recovery. we don't tell that story often enough. we know it and we see it, but we

need to tell that story much more publicly. helping formerly incarcerated individuals successfully get back into society is an important issue, and it's important to the attorney general, eric holder. there is a federal interagency reentry council with all of cabinet officials, and i'm, and i sit on that reentry council to talk about how we can reduce federal barriers to getting people back into society. it's no, no secret to anyone in this room especially at every level that we serve in the government about these very tough economic times, and across the board regardless of partisan background policymakers and elected officials are looking at how can they save money. and you have this incredible opportunity during this time, and i mentioned this to the president when he said do you think -- he asked me, he said do you think we can make progress in this area, and i said, actually, i think we can, mr.

president, because the wind is at our backs with this economy. and he kind of looked at me oddly, and i said this tough economy is making us rethink how we do business. and you have, you have the opportunity, the bully pulpit, the power to actually make sure that the right decisions are being made, that the decisions are being made based upon evidence and fact and that you have this not only sworn duty to protect your community, but you also have the influence and the position and the credibility and the power that you have to make sure that across the board at the state level and the county and the city level people are making decisions that'll not only keep people safe, but also given to reduce some -- begin to reduce some of those costs. let me just mention a couple other quick things to you also. we've taken on drunking driving as a significant issue. it was off the radar screen. we know a lot about

alcohol-impaired driving. and, again, when we put our shoulder to the wheel, sanctions, law enforcement, education, technology, on and on, we have seen a decrease. not enough, and there's still work to do, in alcohol-impaired driving. but we didn't know much about drug-impaired driving, and so the 2007 study that the department of transportation did not -- had did and released in 2009 shows that people behind the wheel with drugs in their system -- methamphetamine, marijuana, etc., are a significant problem. well, we know that you have dres, and we know that's a two week program. well, to pull a deputy off the street for two weeks for training is is a cost, is a huge cost in many ways, and we've worked hard to try and make sure that not only is the department of transportation continuing to fund the dre program, but also there's a basic eight-hour program on getting deputies and law enforcement first line,

front line personnel more aware of what drunk driving actually looks like. the r.i.d.e. program. rather than pulling someone off the street and sending them to a training course, we put money into developing this eight-hour course online. and my leaf is that the more people that the front line that are more aware of the drugged driving and the more knowledgeable they are not only will we see more of this, but we'll see cases that can be made rather than cases that are sometimes reduced when, in fact, they're just as dangerous as alcohol-impaired driving. that's why we support per se legislation in the thurm of states -- in a number of states around the country. per se laws that say if you're behind the wheel and drugs are in your system, it's tantamount to driving under the influence. we partnered with mothers against construction driving. every one of you has been a strong supporters and worked

closely with their victims' programs and many others. they had not really partnered outside of alcohol-impaired driving, but when we sat down with the board and talked with them about the dangers of drugged driving, it was very clear to them that they needed to be a strong partner also. and, of course, you have that crossover issue of alcohol and drugs. so having mothers against drunk driving, that community voice, that group who has actually moved this country so far to reduce alcohol-impaired driving, of to have them onboard on drugged driving is great. to have you onboard as a partner in all of these efforts, too, is really terrific. our office door is open to you. we have information, we have data. right now my guess is -- well, you can tell me if i'm wrong. my guess is that there are a lot of people that don't really want somebody from inside the beltway to compare chute into their state or their county and tell them what they should do or what they shouldn't do whether it's

on these legalization issues that we continue to battle in which we know don't make any sense to the future of this country l it's on issues -- whether it's on issues around medical marijuana, these are all important issues. we have a lot of fact and information. it's not ideologically base withed, it's based upon the science, and it's based upon the research, and we're happy to help you with it. frankly, your voices are the strongest voices that people listen to. that was true in california on the legalization issue, there are a number of other states of that a variety of ballot proposals. and what we're saying, the president says he opposed decriminalization, he opposed legalization, but if we do a much more balanced approach to the drug problem, we can have some of the same successes in other drugs that we have had in cocaine. so your partnership and your relationship with us is valued, it's important, and we are happy to provide you data and fact and

information. so thank you very much for having me, and i appreciate this very much. [applause] >> [inaudible] >> i got it right here. director kerlikowske, thank you for your remarks and for taking time to join us today. i know you have a very busy schedule, but e still have -- but we still have something we'd like to take a second to present you with. please accept the nsa commemorative badge as a token of our appreciation this morning. >> oh, thank you very much. >> thank you very much, sir. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> our second keynote speaker this morning is the direct everrer of -- director of the united states marshal service, is honorablestacia hylton.

i have the honor of being the sheriff in my home county, but i've also been sworn in as a deputy u.s. marshal, so something that i'm equally proud of. director hylton has 30 years of law enforcement experience. she began her career as a deputy united states marshal serving in the district of columbia, southern district of florida and the eastern district of virginia. she has held numerous positions during her career with the united states marshals service. director hylton was an instructor at the training academy teaching firearms, physical fitness and interrogation and interviewing. thank you. she also served as a witness security inspector, assistant director of prisoner operations, and chief for the judicial security programs at headquarters. while in the position of chief deputy united states marshal in south carolina, she also served

as the agency's emergency response incident commander for such assignments as ground zero after 9/11. in 2004 director hylton was appointed as the attorney general's federal detention trustee, and then in 2010 she was appointed directer of the united states marshals' service. she is the recipient of the presidential distinguished service award and several attorney general awards to include the edmund randolph award in recognition of outstanding service. as director, ms.hylton leads a key department of justice law enforcement agency responsible for federal judicial security, fugitive apprehension, witness security, asset forfeiture and prisoner transportation, custody and safety. i am honored to present director stacia hylton.

[applause] >> thank you, mr. president, for that welcome. um, i won't say that aaron cared while he was reading my bio leaned over and said, wow, you're old. [laughter] but i am particularly pleased to know that the serving president is a sworn special deputy here and both at iacp. i take great privilege in our partnerships and the honor of so many that are sworn in to help us in our duties every day. i am also honored to be here today with all of you and share the dais with men of such great distinction. i am particularly pleased to be a keynote speaker here at the winter conference since i have been a longtime member of the national sheriffs' association and served on many of their committees. but i would like to take a moment and reflect and recognize the accomplishments of this great organization. like the marshals service, nsa has a rich and proud history.

nsa, to me, has never lost the very spirit and intent in which it conception created which began in 1888 with a small group of sheriffs in minnesota and the surrounding states. i was struck when i read the history of how it was created to provide the opportunity for a wider, mutual acquaintance, to exchange ideas for more efficient service and to assist one another in the apprehension of criminals. to me, that remains at the foundation of nsa's beliefs to this day, and what i've seen while i have been involve with the this organization. even as the organization grew and became a professional association on the forefront of law enforcement efforts and policy, it has always kept in the center of their mission the grassroots approach from which it started, and i admire that greatly. through the years they have provided all of us with a venue to meet, a forum of events that goes beyond networking, a chance to be with our colleagues, a

chance to share ideas, a chance to learn from each other. and year after year they line up speakers and presentations that bring to us cutting edge information about sharing intelligence, about contemporary issues and community policing. i thank your association for its continued dedication and to the success of law enforcement. our work together is interwoven and intertwined. largely because commonality of our work. i think that's what makes the marshals service feel so close to sheriffs nationwide. from fugitive apprehension to the housing and detention and transportation of prisoners to insuring the judicial process and the integrity of that process, we have historically supported each other in our daily work, shared innovative ideas and leveraged our resources to provide safety to the individuals and citizens of our communities. we must continue to do so to fight the criminal element that

we face today. we must continue to be assertive and aggressive and stay affront and strategically plan so that we stay ahead of them. today i want to talk on these program areas. i want to talk about the challenges we leaders face. i want to talk and share some innovative ideas and strategies and how we've incorporated them in ways that we want to bring them to you. the first thing i'd like to start with is while many of us know that technology has brought us so many advances and has actually made chasing the bad guy a lot easier. unfortunately, it has been proved to us to be an incredible hindrance in our protective operations, so while we receive the benefits in investigative operations, we pay a price with the advancements and technology. as we protect over 2,000 judges nationwide, 5,000-plus u.s. attorneys and their assistant attorneys and over 18,000 protective witnesses and their families in our program, we face technology challenges.

technology poses a myriad of these issues when we're trying to insure the safety of these individuals. think about it. you can access endless public records on individuals via the internet. people sitting at home, people looking to cause havoc, people looking and chasing information, we have made it that much easier with technology. public records with home addresses, phone numbers, information on family members, personal information on our protectees, information that our protectees cannot take off the public records. blog sites with inappropriate communications easily at someone's fingertips and the ability to create momentum and escalate potential threat situations. what about social networking? while it may be easy to convince a judicial member not to be social networking, it is a whole other ball of wax to try to convince their teenagers or their grandchildren or even

their law clerks. when unintentionally they don't mean to, but they may be communicating on their own social network and releasing information about our protectees and where they may be. what happens if a law clerk just unintentionally puts out across a social network, hey, i can get together, the judge is out of town up at his vacation home in wyoming, information that we don't want out? so social networking itself is such a challenge to us. our very heart of our democracy allows for that freedom of speech, and we in law enforcement face the challenge of how to control, contain and react. internet sites that post information, remember that once in place it's very difficult to get that information off. so you may be protecting an individual that previously wasn't under protection detail, but all their information on an internet site when somebody wasn't thinking is now staged and remains on an internet site, and we now put them under protection. ..

>> how judges can react and deal with those threats, what needs to be reported and what we ask of them. it was really developed for the federal judiciary, and then distributed to every sheriff nationwide via the association, and we appreciate the efforts that we would be able to deliver

that to you. i am pleased to announce today that the second iteration of 365 has been completed. we are in the process of copying and producing the dvds, and was get the association this morning agree to release those dvds for us to sheriffs across the nation, and i appreciate those efforts. this series is a series of nine vignettes, addressing various security topics such as how to safely commute to work on a regular basis, providing suggestions and ideas. there's a very big focus on internet security because of course what we have learned, commonsense, is part of protecting and ensuring the protectee is educating them and making them aware of what risks when they are on the internet. how they can control and contain information better it's all about education and awareness. residential security. most of us recognize that sometimes or judicial members one of the greatest risk is actually off-site.

we secure the building. no other protection years besides the sheriffs and the marshals take the protectee's and then introduce the criminal element on a daily basis in accordance. we have mastered security. with shared security standards. we have shared formulas on how to disperse and locate individuals in a courthouse to control contraband come into the courthouse. now was built to deal with off-site residential security because of what's coming to us in the technology and internet and information is now we have to be concerned about their off-site residential security. there's a lot in these vignettes that deal with off-site security and we're hoping to in the process of producing a dvd and working with the association to distribute it, that it will provide and help you on your additional security awareness programs. i hope you had an opportunity, i'll ask him how many attend the u.s. marshal's presentation yesterday afternoon on breaking the stovepipe? i won't knows he can raise your hand and make me feel good. [laughter]

we discussed methods of sharing threaten to mutations regarding public officials. we continue to want to get and use and the association is so good to us allowing us for us to put this information out there. and so we want to use every opportunity in your meetings to bringing current information. this was hosted by our national center for judicial security. some of you may be aware of it, refer to it as -- we have established the ncj f. to offer a wide range of support services across municipal city, county, state and even federal and international jurisdiction on judicial security. security operations at the protection of members of the judiciary and public officials. our areas of expertise that you can capitalize that our ability on a daily basis included thread psychology and management, cybersecurity, intelligence interviewing, terrorist mindset,

courthouse design, new security technologies on security systems, protection details, and risk mitigation. our goal is to share with you the best security practices across the government and industry, and to include the initiatives that you yourself are taking on locally. we had time this morning, the present and i come and us are really government and local, government both federal and local working at its best intent of 50 moment of a share initiative that the president is taking on in iowa where sometimes it's a very complex issue, and it may be hard to roll out nationally. i watched him talk to me about at iowa and i was thinking we've got to get in on that. we, the marshals service. as he works with the fbi and takes on this new initiative, it's an opportunity that i say if we could get engaged, and then as a group we work through this together so that it's easy to apprehend, identify fugitives, through technology, it gives us a chance then to roll that information into the transit and to make sure we can

disperse it on our success. so we struggle together to find funding but i look forward to working with the president in trying to identify perhaps governmental funding to help this initiative because it would be so advantageous to our task force nationwide as work together to appian fugitive. thank you for the conversation this one. so it's not always the federal government coming in. many times today it easier for you to have an initiative at a local level, for us to help start the initiative at the local level, work through the intricacies, complex and issues that may arise and then start to move him into the national for. it's a two-way street we were on. i think the center of ncjs that has never shipped from the association on our board, the membership from industry, members from across law enforcement is the perfect venue for us to capitalize on. please note it is up able to do if you're not aware of it, your local marshals office can help guide you to the. we will be around afterwards and i'm glad to pass out some

information about ncjs and had to capitalize on what's available to you. moving away from court operations a little bit and into a note to all of us deal with everyday, a program the marshals are service will approximately, the process of approximately 200,000 prisoners this year alone. resulting in an average population being house of 63,000 prisoners. this could not be accomplished without your support. we are grateful to the services that you lend to us in detention. let's face it, there's nothing easy about running detention facilities. or detention programs. i am pleased to see that detention trustee mike pearson, is here with us today. as you know the federal detention trustee's office was really created to help with the infrastructure operations that we face in detention. how can we do better, how can we deal with can find them how we leverage technological this process prisoners and keep them

moving so that we can get them into risen facilities and out of detention. it's a great work of the detention trustee that we been able to make advancements and the great work of detention trustee that has helped us in our agreements and iga processes trying to streamline that through technology and make each year. we are faced, all of us in detention, and you face a more than anyone, space challenges, conditions of confinement issues, lawsuits, numerous regulations, and certainly never enough budget to do with the ever-increasing population. we feel in detention that when the prisons back up, they stay in detention longer and that impacts our budget, both for you, both for us, it doesn't matter, they are all experiencing the same problem. as the prisons become so full of overtime in detention, fire the cost to all of us in detention. we have to stay focused to help keep the prison work and initiatives that are going on

for prison space and programs, actually it's hopeful to all of us to stay focused on that so we can get more space in prisons. we support as i always say the growth of b.o.p. institutions. so we can get them out of detention and in. we have to work together across prisons and detention. again, you meet that challenge every day and without you we could not beat our mission. i'm also pleased to just take a moment and touch on the asset forfeiture program because it impacts all of us and it's a positive for all of us. they manage industry the equitable sharing proceeds. the state and local law enforcement agencies that participate in investigations leading to forfeiture. this fiscal year to date, just since october, the asset forfeiture program has always shared $153 million across state and local law enforcement agencies. i'm so pleased to make that announcement. last year were able to distribute 568 million shared with local law enforcement for

programs. we create additional programs and i like to take images to highlight one that has been in place the one that we are really strategically looking ahead to be able to capitalize on some of the authorities that have been given to us in the program and its operation goodwill program. it actually provides for the opportunity transfer seize properties to benefit communities through state and local and nonprofit organizations. what does that mean? i'll give you an example. the very first transfer actually happened on an issue from the attorney general when he was sitting as u.s. attorney in d.c., and the first transfer was the fulton hotel in washington, d.c. which is actually seize because of criminal activity. it was seized and turned back to community as a drug and alcohol treatment program for women, and has been incredibly successful. so we were able to flip the property, revitalize it come and then put it to use on a criminal element to try to stop the use

of drugs and alcohol abuses. another example is in northern oklahoma called southaven land transfer. nine residential lots were transferred to the tolls of habitat for humanity incorporated to construct a single residential housing for low income families. this that osha to the revitalization of a neighborhood, but actually entire community by removing the criminal element, and redirecting those assets and putting them to good use in the community. i arrange this for you today because over the next couple years we were are going to very strategic. will want to be able to really increase our turning to investigators, detectives, federal agents so that they haven't i during the investigation of any properties or assets that may be beneficial for the use and can be seized during the event of that case and prosecution. it really starts in the forefront and really starts with the investigators. so our initiative now that we have well established how to

manage this program is sure to get on the front and with federal investigators in state and local agencies so that i think when we really get to the true spirit of unity policing, it's not only about apprehending fugitives, it's not only about going after the bad guys, it's about taking care of our communities and getting rid of the criminal element and printer properties that were used in the criminal element to good use. to date, 47 properties have been transferred since the onset of this program and i say let's take it higher. most recently, as it relates to shares, just to touch on a familiar story we're in the process of transferring 114 pairs of sneakers in their care program. just a to how it can be utilized for you. located in the southern district of intent is usually given to middle and high school agents, at risk joe, another initiative of this administration to protect the children. so, you know, again i want to say to you always to reach out to the marshal service. if you see things that you're

interested, we are very aggressive on asset forfeiture. editor to help our investigative agencies and we want to continue to so please reach out. i will say that in recent years and something that hope to bring to some initiatives that we're talking about this morning, the asset forfeiture fund has been used for joint law enforcement operation. it has been able to provide funding for overtime vehicles, fuel and retrofitting vehicles that are in operation today. over $123 million has been distributed for these purposes. so again as you work within your communities, as you struggle within your budget, please be aware of these programs that are out there, what participation on the task force is with us means and how we try to redirect and supplement funding to help you to meet and get the criminals off the street. there are task forces nationwide, we have the president working with many of you every day and you provide excellent deputy sheriffs.

in fact i will say that the success of our future program and how it has grown over the years is greatly due to our collaboration together. it is the work we perform that service to reduce the crime and protect and serve the people of this nation. together we can do so much more to protect our children from sexual predators. as you may be unaware of, to the authorities given to the u.s. ms and adam walsh act of 2006 and we cannot wear stood up the program and we can now provide investigative assistance to your department on noncompliance or potentially noncompliance offenders. to our national sex offender targeting center, we have available to you investigative and behavioral analysis, the development of risk assessment and anything strategies? prioritization, and especially assistance with developing of a

safeguarding program to ensure the wellness of your sex offender investigated. these are difficult investigations on individuals and we have in place for our investigators a wellness program and have been very beneficial and we love to share the information if you're already not taking advantage of it. so once again for local marshal's office for internet, call our headquarters can we are to you really want you to be able to capitalize on the national sex offender targeting center that we have in place. again, it is interagenc is in og to have a lot of resources available to you. occasionally please keep in mind to our commitment to the national center for missing and exploited children we sit down and alexandra at this site, at their headquarters and we can assist your department on certain missing child cases, including tracking and/or arresting suspects and recovering of missing children. so remember within our authorities have been given to us that are new, we are in an

asset for you to help you reach across your county and state line, and to protect our children. let's keep them safe. finally, i will say that for me the last year has proven extremely difficult. and we have stood together in a loss of our law enforcement personnel. last year as many of you know proved to be some of the highest numbers we've seen in a long time in the loss of investigators, officers on the street, all due to violent shootings, attacks and ambushes. for those of us in law enforcement commanders position, i don't think there's anything more difficult than the moment when we get word that there's been a law enforcement shooting involving our personal. we said if we wait. our gut feels tight. we're hoping to get the call that the scene has been cleared with no incident. and, unfortunately, when we do not, it is tragic to our department, their family

members. we rise to the occasion to bury our own and take care of our families. it is not easy. a law enforcement mission remains, becomes more dangerous every single day. however, despite that danger, the men and women within our organizations put themselves in harm's way daily. they protect others that cannot defend themselves, and they assure those that have violated the law are brought to justice. for that reason, as leaders, we must remain committed on reducing the risks to our law enforcement personnel. we cannot allow shrinking budgets to have this waiver in our commitment to protect our people. we owe it to those that put their lives on the line every day. the work of the united states marshals service did with all of you resulted in the arrest of over 122,000 dangerous felons across this nation.

but they came at a loss to us. we lost to deputy united states marshals, and seven task force members. all the result of ambush style shooting. with such a rising national shootings across the country, many of us leaders were concerned, what was happening, what were we experiencing, was it a shift in the criminal element or was the increased just random? was it a spike? would it go down? it doesn't matter to me. in the midst of the shootings, that we were experiencing, we decided that usms to perform a comprehensive assessment to identify and begin an aggressive approach to reducing the risk to the investigators from the criminal element, and the behavior we were seeing in the streets. our approach for policy, procedures, training, equipment, organizational structure, and for the first time ever for us, a behavioral analysis of the

criminal element. who was shooting us and why? was there a trend we could identify? could we provide the information to our investigators? we performed it within six months, and that the foundation of our results that are want to share with you today it's not anything different than most of us already know. to provide a safety that comes down to equipment and training. they are critical to officers survival. but we took an approach on this because so often we struggle to get the right equipment we struck with budgeted we struggle to make sure people we have time to drink and we decided we would prioritize it. we would take an approach and we would make sure we were directly linked each of these areas together in a condensed weeklong training program that we were developing across the nation. we committed and prioritize the very focused and dedicated effort this year to officers safety.

we realigned and streamlined policies and procedures, procured, enhanced cutting edge equipment to make sure it was out there for all of our investigators. we created a greater asset for operational planning and threat analysis. we enhance our training curriculum to include simulated exercises that link policy and procedures and advanced equipment we bought, and corporate behavior analysis that we're finding on the criminal element threat situation, to create what i would say was a simulated scenarios that were stressed induced, very intense week of training that was a swat style type of training for all of our officers. we focus on three primary areas of arrest. building entry, vehicle stops and open space arrests. we put in simulated stress situations and use live fire would be good, used sound effects that we could, you

sliding where we could. we really tried to raise the stress level, had to work in large teams instead of individual in a trend and find with a flipping target. the idea was to great as many life-threatening situations with induced simulated stress and utilize the new equipment. we actually took the scenario from start to finish, had to decide what equipment, many times i was asked from non-law-enforcement after the shooting did they have shields? do you always use a shield? does each person i've issued? sometimes the shield is not the best equipped to take into a situation. you could put people at risk. you have to have the investigators thinking what equipment do i need in this scenario? want to know about where i'm going? the trinkets them on the front and thing and then carries them through. we provide them with shields, ballistic helmets, blankets. were given everything to use to make the decisions in this training curriculum. the idea village to take it further than any other academy

style training, to really kind of remove some of the restrictions that we face, and as i said earlier kind of great an environment that was more realistic. so we had, for instance, team shooting live fire down the range with the shield so they could get used to one unissued shooting him the other guy shooting next to his ear, what was it like, continue the shots, the other shots were going off close, you know, give them a real thing to what the situation would be like. let me ask him how many of you have ever used a fast machine to turn a quick salmon have used the new 365 fast machine? it's a whole new experience, like fast on steroids, we call it. where you actually are on a stage like this with five screens. so we use different centers that would pied piper machine with. it's got incredible sound system. it's got vibration systems, and you put everything in there that you can so you don't have someone just looking straight ahead. you have to keep them focused on the entire area. we put them into individually,

with team members, if you ever get an opportunity to look at equipment to procurefrom this upon one of the best training advances that you can easily put together at any location and it gets so much, invest there so much out of that. i welcome any of you to join us in our training sites are a demonstration if you're interested. the other thing that we did was create kind of a m.e.d.i.c. program whether deputies, give our deputies basic training on basic medical equipment we put them into a cemented shooting situation on how they themselves have to apply to medical treatment or have others with shields applying it while still suppressing fire. again, getting them used to rely situation, we took this from our own shooting, and heroes that survived that protect the injured and got them out of the shooting situation. we actually took that and put that from their information into our training scenario. we have equipment to extract the injured out so you will see them extracting the internet while

still engaging and suppressing fire. all of these in his weeklong training session going across our nation we'll to train 1500 u.s. marshals and task force officers over the course of the year. we continue to make sure that it is a priority and all that is to make sure our people are safe. we will not tolerate unreasonable attacks on law enforcement personnel, and we must do all we can to protect them. the facts remain, guns enhanced of repeat offenders and drugs, are a common denominator in law-enforcement killings. we must never waver in our fight against crime in order to honor those that have fallen. we need to get the guts out of the hands of the felons. we need -- [applause] thank you. director, we are committed and remain committed to support your efforts on the war against drugs. and to support your locally throughout our task forces to continue to combat drugs. we've got to address those guns and drugs to protect only our

citizens and our law enforcement personnel. i thank you for your service to your communities, and may i say you'll always have my support, and i think and it's an honor to serve with you. [applause] >> director hylton, thank you for your remarks today. and taking time out of your busy schedule to join us. we would like to offer you, as a token of our appreciation, the office of sheriff, a history of the office of sheriff, and in in is a portfolio, and the nsa mug. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> thank you very much. thank you.

[applause] >> just ahead, speeches from the u.s. conference of mayors beginning with white house senior advisor david plouffe.

>> for more resources in the presidential race use c-span's campaign 2012 website to watch videos of the candidates on the campaign trail. see what the candidates have said on issues important to you and read the latest from

candidates, political reporters and people like you from social media sites at c-span.org/campaign2012. >> now, white house senior advisor david plouffe gives a preview of the president's state of the union address to congress tomorrow night. at a conference of mayors in washington, d.c., he spoke about the administration's focus on manufacturing and the president's request for authority to consolidate some federal agencies. he also said that it needed the white house would continue to look for ways to push its jobs agenda without congressional authority. he talked for about 20 minutes. >> thanks everyone. i'm not going to start by singing any our green, something everyone will expect from everyone funded ministration. but only president obama can carry that can. i want to thank president villaraigosa and vice president

nutter and second vice president smith for inviting me here today. i would stop us and help us me of you saw the president was in orlando, florida, yesterday, making an announcement that's going to make it a lot easier for foreign tourists to visit america. this is the kind of action we have taken many times in the past few months, something we felt we can't wade in where we are scouring the government and listen to a lot of people in america on things we can do on our own. to help improve the economy, help improve the country. and something like this seems like a very small procedural detail but it's going to have a huge impact. in cities like los angeles, orlando, and las vegas and philadelphia, all around the country in committees large and small where people from around the world can comment, spend money, visit, learn a better country if your small business owner, more tourists mean more revenue. if you're one of the many americans are still looking for work, more revenue might mean more jobs.

and for just that everybody in this room, tourist dollars to play role in your budget and your commute. we were losing a lot of business in other countries and that has to stop and now it will. but this isn't just an abstract policy decision is made in the white house but it will help people in those committees all around the country get to some of the toughest times any of us can remember, certainly since the great depression. what's nice about talking to all of you, and i know members of the administration had a chance to visit with you, you are grounded in the real world that every decision that we make here in washington, that the government may come you make as mayors, have direct impact on your constituents and the kind of cities and towns that are going to be billed for your residence in the coming years. so when we talk about investing in education and performing it, investing in transportation, about how we create good lasting middle-class jobs, about how we can, known again for making things that are sold all around the world, stand with those great words made in the u.s.a., you understand how much these things need to people living in your cities. while you come from both

parties, you know the debate here in washington needs to be a lot more about scoring political points. a need to be about putting points on the board for your and your communities, and the american people. the decisions we make in this city have a real direct impact. so for many of your constituents there's never been more important that in government live up to their responsibility. and that's what's happening all around the country is people know that you're living up to your responsibility to your having to make our decisions, county government, state government, people running businesses, small and large, having to make really tough decisions, workers, family members. they have weathered this recession. they made adjustments. they have been super responsible, and they want to see that same responsibility out of their institutions and they certainly need to see more of that responsibility out of the city. and that's healthy what we will see in 2012. the president last month, some of you might've seen his speech he gave in kansas, where he

talked about the kind of value he believes, i did most people in america believe, need to undergird our economy. this is a make or break moment for the middle-class. we have to continue to create jobs, get growth up to bring the unemployment rate down. but the central challenge facing the country, and it has been for decades, is how do we have more people in the middle class can have to have those people in the middle class feel more secure about it and the people are fighting to get in the middle class, so many of you people here in the room represent people you are trying to get in the middle class, their central goal in life. we have to have an economy and a government and the country that is focus on that task. this make or break moment for the middle class. and that speech he gave in kansas, small commute in kansas, but i think what's reflected there is what's happening all over the country. which is that for too many people in america now, they are not sure if they work hard and act responsibly if they're going

to be rewarded. that no matter who you are or where you come from you will have the same opportunities of people in previous generations have. and that is something we're few -- too many americans, it might be eroded. and what we're seeing here is wage stagnation has been a problem again going back decades for the average worker, they've been falling farther and farther behind it is a growing gap between the wealthiest and everybody else pick in the top of that, excessive thereby the financial crisis. so even though people are getting with the stagnation heading into 2008, less mobility and about what happened in 2008 overcome it makes the burden of recovery for these folks and their aspirations even more challenging. so the challenge is, we faced were not created overnight. they were not even create in 2008. these challenges have been going on for a long time.

it's going to take a long time for us not to just dig out of the recession but to build the kind of america where everybody gets their fair share. we play by the rules. it is fair play, anybody gives a fair shake. it's a division that says we are greater together and we are on on the that we succeed him we all succeed when everybody plays by the same rules. and i think that's true for our economy. but just as important as what it means to the economy, that's the kind of america that your residence people all across mecca want to live in. a sense that there are the same rules in place for everybody. that their hard work is just as valued as someone else. that if you're not accountable or irresponsible there's going to be consequences, no matter your station in life and about how powerful your legal team is on your lobbying. so that's really what we have to build here in america is we know the jobs with some certainty there's going to be, needs to be created. in your communities to succeed going forward.

we know that we have have a manufacturing sector here. the good news is for the last two years we have added manufacturing jobs. it's been a long time coming but in commuters all across america you are beginning to see a manufacturing renaissance. we've got to step on the accelerator the president has been talk about some ideas on tuesday night at the state of being about how we can do even more. we to have those manufacturing jobs that pay people 18, 20, 22, $24 an hour, maybe more so that they can thrive. so many of those are going to be a high-tech manufacturing field. the remarkable thing we have right now in america, we have a moment where you're beginning to see more companies make the decision that economically it makes sense for them to stay in america or relocate in america. because you are seeing rising wages in china and the cost of doing business increase their and other countries there's a window here. the president a conference on this, some of you attended a

couple weeks ago on insourcing. companies came your to talk about their stories, about the decisions they made to bring jobs back. think about that. we could have a moment here in this country when we are bringing jobs back and have some great it is about what we at the federal government level can do and the present lot more to say about that on tuesday. but we have to seize this moment because we are not going to have clearly we're not going to get the job growth we need by the kind of jobs when you going to have to be a resurgence in the manufacturing sector, particularly in high-tech manufacturing, and we know so much of that is going to be clean energy, health care technology, places that notches here in the country but where our technology and our workers can export all around the world. so this is a really, really unique moment we have. and you see what's happening all over the country. companies like ford, they are investing in this country bringing back 2000 jobs, and

they are shifting production from countries like japan, mexico and china to states like michigan, ohio and missouri. it was announced yesterday that once again, after a long absence general motors is not the number one automaker in the world. we should all be proud of that. [applause] another great example from the great city of milwaukee, a familiar american company, they look at the numbers and they realized that their union workers in america were competitive with nonunion workers in china. they are export in their products from the united states to china and europe. and for the first time in 15 years faster lots of milwaukee complexes of running at full capacity. the event i mentioned, the insourcing event, galaxy solutions have already hired 150 workers with outsourced to detroit program. they been hiring up to 50. so this is something we want to work with all of you on and

begin we will lay out the new ideas on tuesday but how can we create the atmosphere, the policies, the incentives to make sure if countries are making these decisions they're going to stay rooted in your committees, start in your communities and to add capacity in your community. now, listen, last year was a very frustrating year here in washington. and one of the real, you know, really troubling moments was that any time when the economy was already getting weaker, we had a little good moment at the beginning of 11 and then because of the arab spring and because of what happened in japan and a variety of factors in europe, the economy began to slow a little bit as we got into the summer. in washington made it worse. it was a self-inflicted wound to our confidence in this country come to our economy, and it's taken us a long time to dig out of debt. the debt ceiling debacle was something that never needs to be repeated in washington again. now, we're not naïve. we understand we live in a very

divided country. and we're heading into an election year. but the election is still 10 long months away. one thing i'm sure of is any of you that might be in your election you do not have the luxury of not focusing on the task at hand. each and every day. and there's a sense here in washington some of the pundits are always saying sometimes of congress are saying that welcome it's going to be hard to get them done year, it's an election year. will have to take these debates down the field to 2013. please, i would implore you, you know, demand of us, demand of republicans and democrats in congress that that's not acceptable. will have an election. there'll be plenty of time to have a to and fro and that's going to result in because a lot of work that can be done right now. now, democrats and republicans almost -- encourage congress to continue to payroll tax cut for the middle class. and your voices were enormously

important. if you hadn't lifted up your voices, if your constituents had lifted up their voices i think taxes would've gone up on everybody. but you force action so that taxes are going to continue to be cut this year and is going to have a profound impact on every middle-class family. people trying to get to the middle class our businesses, we need those customers. we still have a little work to do so we need your help to make sure congress lands the plane, but that was a moment where the party that was a little too late and a little too messy, but we finally came together. you've got help us make sure we do that it would lead to mature extend the tax cut. we're going to continue to make the case that helping you, putting teachers back in the classroom, firefighters, police officers back on the street is an important thing to do. it's traditional had bipartisan support. it needs to again, given the struggle that you're facing at the local level in terms of your budget. not to mention that we're in a great competition now.

the last thing we can be doing if we're going to compete and her kids are going to compete when kids in bangalore and singapore and beijing is to be shorting them into classrooms. we've got to be pushing excelerator down, not pushing the breakout. that has to be a central mission of this country if we're going to help. so there are job producing ideas that traditional have had bipartisan support, that we think congress ought to work on. we may not solve all the great philosophical debates this year. there's no question we won't but we can do some smart things to help you. we can do things to assist in the manufacturing sector. to make sure we are pursuing tax policy that helps the middle class and also helps small businesses. we can work on education and reform, maybe do some things about immigration reform. it's a long year. and i think it's important that you hold washington speak to the fire that this is can't be about speech issues to grab a lot of people hurting out there and we have a lot of opportunity.

now, we're going to pursue every opportunity to work with congress. we've had some success. i mentioned the payroll tax cut. we signed trade deals with colombia and panama, south korea. we will be selling ford and chevy's in south korea, not just having himself hyundais here. we have had reform, such a big deal for entrepreneurs and our investors. we cut taxes, repeal don't ask, don't tell, did things republicans on nuclear weapons. so we've had some success but we have a lot more. we are not naïve. so we are going to continue to look for every avenue where we can take action on our own, sometimes that is because there's gridlock you because congress won't act. sometimes it's just a good idea. and i would ask you if you have ideas, you interact with the federal government every day, if you have ideas for executive actions we can take, we are all years. you are going to have better ideas than we do because you on the other end of this.

and so honestly, seriously, if you have ideas, send it our way because we want to continue not just to scour the government but have people are customers for the government for their ideas. because we're going to continue all throughout this year and if we're here after that, the next four years after that, to look at what we can do on our own to help communities, help your cities, towns, and help our workers. so, the president is on tuesdays going to deliver his state of the union address. it would be foolish of me to preview it too much here and get ahead of him, he's working on it as we speak. but a little sneak peek is that as i mentioned, the president gave a speech in kansas when he talked about the values he thought he need to animate our country and our economy. about fair play and everybody doing their fair share everybody getting a fair shake. and that his make or break moment for the middle class and how it can create more good jobs. and for the first time a longtime reverse the reverse the

wage stagnation and have more people get into the middle class. is going to take a long time but what he's going to lay out on tuesday night is really putting some flesh on the bones there, and lay out his concrete ideas from his blueprint, if you will, for how we can build an america that is here to last. an economy that is built to last. at the end of it after what we all went through in oa and aftermath, that's what people want, that's what the country needs. not a short-term economic moment built on bubbles, or financial estimates. we need a durable economy and a durable country. with a real sense of what our north stars are. what are the things we need to do in the not-too-distant future where, in your cities at all across the country we're doing the right things in terms of education and skills. some of that by the way requires government reform to the president announced last week is asking congress for the ability

which is the president all what happened them to and got taken away from congress to have what's called re-org decision to 40. what does that mean? the present has the ability and his administration to give to congress for an up or down vote, not -- ideas proud to make the government smarter. morgan and more efficient if we have a government, you are surrounded here by a government that was built for the middle of the last century. it is not as efficient as it needs to be. it's not a strategic as it needs to be. it's not as customer for and as it needs to be. we have made big improvements using technology, efficiencies, metric measuring come and help you've seen a difference. but we have a lot more to do. so we get some ideas last week, if we had such an authority what would we do. we do a lot of consolidating and a lot smarter work around our exports, around our business assistance, around small business. we want to reimagine and refashion and reform this

government so it is built to provide you and your cities and our businesses the kind of governing we need in this century. we have become ossified excellent things when you do is not just ideas and policies, that's important we will lay them out next week am in energy, manufacturing them in skills and education, in terms of some of the reforms we need to our institutions, more responsibility throughout this country. but also that needs to be directed here, and we have to again have i think the conditions about the kind of reforms we need to bring to this government. so it is a true partner for you at the local government level. and a true partner with the private sector so that we can unleash the power of our people. this is going to be an important year, not for the reasons a lot of people are focused on, which is what happened in november. that will come. but we have an economy that is still far too challenged. now, slow progress, 22 straight months of private sector job

growth, over three men jobs in the courage, 2011 create more jobs than any year going back to 2005. but given the people we find ourselves in, it's not enough. so, and we've got external challenges out there. there's some turmoil going on in the middle east. we still have a lot of instability in europe. we have hanging over this town both exploration -- expiration of the bush tax cuts at the end of the year and a sequestering. probably everyone in this town will do that the smart way, in a way that serves your cities, served our people, served our business. and we can't do anything here that would be again another self-inflicted wound that would slow this economy. in fact, we need to do the opposite, in smart ways and in tough budget times we find ourselves in. what can we do in a way with you, and whether businesses, to do, play the role government

should to help put a little more acceleration on this economy. so the american people, your residence, they have just been remarkable in this period. they had just dusted themselves off and they went right back to work. they started new businesses. they have gotten a new skills. you know, they are saving. some of them even have to adjust their dreams in life, and they're doing it and doing it without complaint. and what they need is leaders, and you guys are on the front lines every day. you don't have the ability for much pontification and finger-pointing, okay? of this is more about our national leaders. they need to see their leaders here acting more responsibly, putting our nose to the grindstone. we had big debates within our parties. they're not going to be solved easily, but there is an area of ground. and i don't think the country wants us to wait until 2013 to make more progress on our progress. and i cannot humbly admit the painful that will be on the

ballot next november have got to be better served if they will show they can make progress. so we look forward to working with you this year. you always give us and our staff great ideas, great insights, great criticisms. please keep them coming. we need to be better partners with you. we need to be more innovative. all of you are doing remarkably innovative things in your cities, that some of them can scale up, some can't do want to take a look at all, healthy we can continue to make progress and make sure we continue to build an american and an economy that is built to last all of our citizens. so thank you, mayors. [applause] >> many of the initiatives, david, that you have chartered -- charted as priorities for the nation moving forward are initiatives that we put together in our common sense jobs agenda in september.

they are extending for the rest of the year, payroll tax, as you mentioned, investing in infrastructure, investing in school construction that we supported the trade agreements and said that we need visa reform to promote tourism in this country. you'll see that virtually all of what you mentioned are things that on a bipartisan basis, this organization got behind. we are tired of the idle in both parties. we're looking for practical solutions. as you said, many of these initiatives were initiatives ever we went to republicans and democratic think tanks. and we said what are the things that could put people back to work, millions of people back to work. and we came up with a set of initiatives and they dovetail quite perfectly with issues that you raise. we will be there standing with you, standing with both republican and democratic

leaders. who want to put the nation first. so thank you so much. [applause] >> coming up, more from the u.s. conferences mayors with a discussion on funding job training and education improvements.

>> i have never felt more strongly that america's best days and democracies best days lie ahead. we are a powerful force for good, with faith and courage. we can perform great duties and take freedoms next up. and we will. we will carry on the tradition of the good and worthy people who have brought light where there was darkness, warmth weather was cold, medicine where there was disease, food where there was hunger, in peace where there was only bloodshed. let us be sure that those who have come after me, will say of us in our time, the in our time we did everything that could be done, we finish the race, we kept them free. we kept the faith that fine state of unique addresses going back to 1952 online at the c-span video library. and watch president obama delivered this year's address tuesday night live on c-span.

search, watch, clip and share. it's washington your way. >> now the mayors of tacoma, washington, and denver discuss their efforts to fund job training and education improvements in their communities. they spoke recently at the annual u.s. conference of mayors winter meeting in washington. this is about 45 minutes. >> our next panel can, up. we are going to be talking about sector strategies models now moving from business development. first of all -- hi. i'd like to introduce mayors marilyn strickland and denver mayor michael hancock. is michael here? on the way, all right. there he is. who will focus on sector strategies model.

again, we will go to the presentation and then take questions. mayor strickland was sworn in as mayor of tacoma, washington, on january 2012. so you are new that i am. [laughter] it's a typo, right? i thought you were. when we sworn in? third year, 30. so that keeping that information, sorry. so she is experienced. she is professional expensive of the private and public sectors, holding the time of development officer for tacoma public library, as well as management positions with starbucks and j. ray communicate and. she is currently the vice chair of the tacoma pierce county health board and executive committee member of the economic development board. marilyn strickland will be speaking about the tacoma's cover coach program which

provides on site specialized career services to health care employees, ensuring that they receive the training required for advancement in high demand health care careers. subject that is near and dear to all of us since the health care industry is growing rapidly. we look forward to your presentation, marilyn strickland, thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, mayor rawlings. so, i'm going to do a case study, and like the mayor of dallas, i have brought a profession with me and i've to rc, issues with multi-contest -- multi-care health systems which is one of our partners but whenever i'm asked to presentation, which the desired outcome? there are a few things we want to come. we want to make the case for workforce training, especially if we have funding. we want to dispel the myth that government and business can't work together. government is not the enemy. we want to share best practices. that does two things professionals that you can move

people of the wage progression latter, because as communities we want to make sure that our workers make as much money as possible. they spend more money, the country before to the tax system. we're able to provide system. and, finally, an example of a program that also serves some of are more vulnerable citizens. so as we talk about the economy we are often focused on unemployment, but as mentioned earlier, what we don't talk about is the fact that there are lots of jobs that go unfulfilled. there's a huge mismatch between people said i can't find a job and the needs of employers. as you think about the fact that there is a retirement boom coming across every single sector, it really illustrates why training is important and why education is important for me tell you a bit about tacoma, for example. we are part of the seattle-tacoma bellevue market. seattle is about 30 miles north of tacoma. and to come is different from seattle for a few reasons. seattle has a college degree

acquisition rate of about 35, 37% to ours is a half of that. .com is a more blue-collar city. with a military base our midst else we are a city of about 200,000 people. to come is different from seattle. we also have a public school system of 29,000 students, and 61% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. i will give you a profile of a city. it's a great city. it's a diverse city. it's a wonderful place to live. it's my hometown edge of the comeback to live there instead of seattle for very good reasons. but there are some challenges that we have the very meaning to our city. when i look at the four sectors that important to our city, we look at for them. aerospace, boeing is a big giant in her backyard and we have a manufacturing facility in tacoma. we also provide a lot of suppliers for blowing. health care is very important. i.t. and clean water. we'll focus today on health care. go to the next slide, please.

>> i'm sorry. >> is there -- [inaudible] controlling my own destiny. so one of the things that we did with our organization is that we renamed it. this workforce central is our workforce board, and at one time it was called the tacoma pierce county workforce employment training consortium. [laughter] like san luis i can't even remember. and remember walking from city hall scratching my head saying what is the and what do they do? so workforce central is a shortening and basically we connect people looking for jobs with employers looking for employees. it's important because what we did in the year 2000 is that we initiated a health care sector partnership to address the acute workforce shortages in this key industry. we know that we're in the midst of a recession, but there are some industries that are just recession-proof, and health care

is one of them. that's been booming for a lot of us. we did in 2001, we came up with the to your own workforce strategy. we did by industry partners. next slide, please. that would be me. so if you look your comment our list apart has come with multi-care which is the largest private employer in pierce county, health care system which is another health care system, about a mile down the road. va puget sound, tacoma lutheran community. you can see a lot of partners also in the education field. faith technical college. the university of washington, tacoma. pierce college. what we said was we are the center of this. with private sector partners on top but we must partner with her educational institutions if it's going to work. so let's look at the workforce shortage issue we were dealing with. in the year 2000, as you go down the list, rns, 10%, laboratory technicians, 9%, technicians

15.3, people who work in building, 8%, pharmacists nearly 13%. 10 years later, and there's an economic part of this obvious a. it's gone down dramatically. .. >> we've been able to deal with it directly by getting people employed, by moving people up the wage progression ladder, but also acknowledging, again, these numbers look great in the 2010 column, but if retirement boom takes place the way we

anticipate it will, those numbers are going to go back up. and when we talk about education, we tend to talk about s.t.e.m., science, technology, engineering and math, and those are actually related to the four sectors i explained for that comb ha and pearce county. it's important, obviously, to have it in our k-12 system, but it's also applicable to how we restrain adults. for example, we just found out that boeing is going to make a lot of planes in washington state in the next five to ten years. that'll end up with about 20,000 some odd jobs altogether. so as the work force ages and retires out, we have to make sure this is more funding at -- there is more funding at the community and technical college levels. i was in college for six years. i have a graduate degree, i love it. but for some people they want to go to work right away, and direct training is the way to get there. we want to make sure that our

community and technical colleges which train a lot of people going into health care have access to funding, have partnerships with the private sector so we can put people in a payline that goes directly -- pipeline that goes directly right to work. at this time, i'm going to turn this over to darcy who'll give you some nuts and bolts about the career. >> thank you. multicare health services is a, um, for-hospital system, it also has over 90 outpatient clinics that include home health and hospice, specialty clinics, urgent care, and we employ almost 2,000 nurses, and that's rns and lpns. so when you look at the vacancy rate number up there, 3.4, that doesn't seem too bad. but we actually have 81 openings for rns currently, so we still have some work to do, and the

average age of our registered nurses is 46. we have quite a few that are of retirement age and are, you know, ready to retire, they're just waiting for a little bit for the economy to turn around. l so we still have some work to do. we've done great work, but we need to continue, um, addressing this issue. so the career coach program, some nuts and bolt about this, the career coaches are co-located on the health care employers site. and they are available to meet with the health care workers to talk about health care occupations. help them decide, you know, where, what occupation they may want to advance to, what schools are in the area, how to get into the programs, um, and they're available to really provide them with guidance. one of the key challenges for the health care employees is that they are unable to come up with the tuition dollars up

front. um, our organization is not unlike many organizations who offer a tuition reimbursement program, so that means the employee has to front the money, take the course, pass it, ask then the employer will reimburse them. so the challenge is they don't have the money up front to be able to pay for this. the career coaches, um, can assist our employees with access to wea dollars, other financial aid grant scholarships to help pay for their tuition and books up front, and that's a really big deal because this is a huge barrier for a lot of folks who just don't have the money to front ahead of time. they also provide ongoing case management, so once they help somebody get into, um, a high-demand occupation training program, um, any barriers that they may come across that could prevent them from graduating such as child care or

transportation, the career coaches, um, can assist them through that. one of the reasons that this program has been successful for ten years is that through the public and private partnership. we realize that we cannot do this alone, that it takes both, um, to make this successful. some of the employers -- from the employer side, we fund half of the career coach salary and benefits. we do provide the office space for that career coach on site. and then the tuition reimbursement that we would have given that employee after they finished, um, we still actually pay that money, but we put it into a pool of dollars so that if we have an employee who comes forward, um, and doesn't meet the financial aid assistance, um, then we can use that pool of dollars to help them. so that's how it's sustainable

moving forward. um, we also provide leadership on the health care sector partnership. the mayor mentioned that this is a partnership that started in 2000. one of the challenges with this partnership, um, is that, you know, we really need to be able to get together in the same room with other employers, community colleges, university, um, our union partners. and one of the challenges that we have is really being able to keep that going. and so as part of the public partnership, the career coach in that system helps us coordinate the sector partnership. so they're helping schedule the meetings, they're helping get the employers to the table and the universities to the table, helping with our agendas, our meeting minutes. it makes it very easy for us to get together and work on thesish i shoos. -- issues. so the other 50% of the wages

and benefits come from the wea dollars, and the assistance that these career coaches can provide to the employers is something that, um, you know, we don't have access to or we don't even know that it's available, so they can tap into those resources, um, and really assist our staff in being successful. so some program highlights. the career coach program began in 2001, and we have served over 5,170 incumbents. nearly 60% of those have been, um, completed their training in nurses, so that's registered nurses or licensed practical nurses which is really one of our greatest areas of need. so on average over 500 incumbents are served each year. i like this slide because it shows, um, where somebody starts

when they enter the program. we just picked three categories, there's many others. but you can see, um, the wage progression after three years for these staff. um, very significant. finish lpns starting around 1321, three years later making 2250 for the radiology tech, $38.18 an hour. i'm going to turn this back over to mayor trickland. trickland. >> so this is really the intersection of opportunity and career boulevard. when we often talk about employing people who are vulnerable, we say, oh, let's just get you a job. we want to move them onto a career path because there's respect and dignity in all work, and they should have the

opportunity. there's some incredible stories, and i'll just share one with you, but what we're trying to do is we're trying to bring people into the labor market who may not have been in it for a long time. we have an initiative to end family homelessness, and this is one way to make that happen because we know when people are employed, they're not so dependent on social social serv. and also, too, it's about advancing people through the system. there were about a dozen young women there who were all on tan i tanf, and they all had small children, and they were probably somewhere between the ages of 20 and 25 on average, and every one of them got up to testify about their experience going through this type of program with work force central. it was life changing for all of them. and there was a young woman who said to me i never imagined i would work in a hospital and help people because i'm always the one in the hospital needing help from someone. and then when we talked to her again, we said what are you going to do after your cna?

she said, you know, i never really thought about that. well, one day you could be an lpn or a registered nurse. let's put them on a path of dignity and help them have a career. i think that's incredibly important. what i want to do, too, is talk about some demographics. so the career coach program on the left column, 43% minority population, county wide 31.5%. the city of tacoma has about 200,000 residents county wide which includes suburban and rurals, 720,000 residents. military and veteran, 6% are in the career coach program, and county wide we have nearly 20%, so that tells us there's actually an opportunity to do better work with joint reachout. and even though we talk about nursing which has historically been female-dominated, you see more men get into nursing now which i hope will continue to drive the wages up and have more of a diverse work force there. [laughter]

public assistance recipients, um, 17.5% of our career coach are public service recipients. pearce county, 45.1%. i saw that number and gasped, and then i had to do some research, and it shows that 54% of children in washington state get some kind of public assistance, so that number includes children as well rm, so i feel much better about that now. limited and english proficiency, 23.5%. tacoma's a very, very diverse city. my husband is the principal of the high school with the highest poverty and highest needs, and he says there are so many languages spoken there, it's unbelievable. so we want to make sure that we are respectful of all cultures and we're giving all people a chance to become proficient. single parents, 26% of our career coach program,11.8%. and as i explained in the last example about the cna program, we do serve single parents, and we understand that helping people move up the fro depression ladder's important --

progression ladder's important, but again, becoming part of the permanent work force is equally as important for us. so at this time i'm going to turn this back over to darci, and she will share with you some, um, case studies of some different students. >> okay. um, what better way to show how this career coach program has impacted the lives of our staff than to, um, let you meet a couple of them? so meet esther. esther is a certified nursing assistant making $15 an hour. she worked multicare good samaritan hospital. her dream was to become an rn, she just didn't think it was attainable. she did not have the finances to be able to do that. she saw a career coach flyer at work, met with our career coach who helped her apply to nursing school. the coach was able to help her with the tuition up front and

also child care services. um, three years later she graduated and passed her nursing boards. i'm happy to say she's a registered nurse on our cardiac unit, and she is now making $37.71 an hour. and she is the first in her family to attend college. and here's what esther had to say. i cannot thank you enough for providing the funds to pay for my education, books and supplies. without this it would have been many more years before i would have been able to fulfill my dreams and provide service to this community. this community is growing quickly, and there is a dire need for more nurses. this program not only allows people like me to fulfill their dreams, but also fills the need for providing more nurses to this community. one more. meet lubas.

lubas was up with of our first -- one of our first participants in the program, she was equivalent to a secretary on one of our nursing units. she made $11 an hour. she wanted to become an lpn, so she also saw a flyer on the career coach program and was able to get assistance to get into lpn school. she also received her tuition up front. she graduated from the program in 2004 and decided she didn't want to stop, she wanted to continue on to become a registered nurse. so she went back to school and became an rn in 2009. luyubov is now a edge -- registered nurse in our icu making $32 an hour. so another great success story. in our first year of the program we received the governor's

promising practice and work force development award for innovation approaches to the integration of work force and economic development. just a few other quotes from some of our participants and the career coach program. um, the first one from andrea, if it weren't for the career coaching program, i would not have been able to see my dream of becoming an rn come true. thank you so much for the opportunity. from tarah, little did i know that i would have the opportunity to do something i will enjoy and feel proud proudf which is becoming a radiology technologist. the most important part about the whole experience is that i will have a career that will enable me to take care of my mother when she gets older. it has been very difficult working while going to school. my car broke down, and without hesitation you helped me get through a very stressful time. thank you for your continued sport. support. and lastly, from michelle.

i want to expression my thanks to you as an individual and to the career coaching program. because of the program, i am able to continue working for multicare and be a full-time student. there's no way that i could have gotten this far before your help. i feel fortunate to have you as my career coach because you have been so caring and concerned with me. you are always so prompt and responsive when responding to my needs, and i really appreciate your encouragement. sooner rather than later i will receive my degree as a registered nurse and will be able to give back to the community through health care. i am so thankful for this. and lastly, from one of my coworkers, jodi smith, she is currently the chair of the health care partnership. the work force central career coaching program is a vital resource that supports our employees with valuable career development services. the program has supported and helped empower our employees as they pursue their education and

gained the skills needed for advancing in the health care field. i have seen the impact that this program has made not just on our individual employees, but also on addressing the critical staffing shortages faced by us and other health care employers. this program has continued to demonstrate its unwavering value to multicare and our employees for nearly ten years. thank you for being there for our employees, we look forward to a continued partnership. okay? >> okay. so i'm going to wrap this up here was i know how we are -- because i know how we are. the desire at the end was to show that public and private partnerships can work, and in order for a private partnership to work, there has to be some sort of a self-interest need being met, and that's okay. businesses, employees, they need to be profitable, and they want to do well. and this is what work force central offers to multicare, the largest employer in pearce county. but also important, too, there

is a human services part of this. and when i hear people talk about words like entitlement, i cringe because we don't want people to stay dependent on the system. we want people to go to work and to be empowered, and that's exactly what this does. so we hope we've provided you with a good best practice scenario. i'll be happy to take any questions and, yes, sir, i will move this along. >> with we're going to take questions at the end. >> okay, perfect. >> stay right there. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is denver mayor michael hancock. mayor hancock was sworn in as denver's 45th mayor in july 2011. previously, he served two terms as denver city council president and was the youngest ceo of the urban league chapter anywhere in the country. he is a leader on neighborhood issues, city finances, economic development and children's issues. he is here to speak on denver's work force strategy to support business growth through industry

sectors. thank you for joining us today, mayor hancock. [applause] >> thank you, mayor rawlings. and to mayor strickland, thank you as well to that thorough presentation. thank you so much, a pleasure to be here. i'm going to ask our director of work force development to come forward. i'm going to let you run these slides so i don't screw it up. [laughter] we all know a little something about that, don't we? it is a pleasure to participate in this forum, and on a topic that i think, quite frankly, is timely, um, as the president and as the secretary of labor, hilda so lease, has pointed out, and as the president has talked about for the past two months it's about creating jobs. and, um, you know, i'm excited to be here to talk about ways we are using sector strategies in denver to stimulate the economy and growth and to provide job opportunities for our current and future workers.

in denver we consider work force development to be an integral part of economic development of our overall strategy. we are very aware of the fact that when choosing a site to relocate and expand a company, businesses first consider, of course, the quality of a skilled work force that is there locally. work force development in denver is housed under our office of economic development, and our work force staff members work with the rest of the staff in areas of business recruitment, retention and expanse. expansion. we have been using sector strategies for work force development to serve adult and youth this denver for a number of years. we use them for our work force investment, our wea programs, and we use them for our year-round youth programs as well as our, the tanf programs in denver, and i can tell you having come from the urban

league, this was this framework that was hugely helpful in helping the urban league establish its foothold into work force development. we have helped a lot of businesses in our targeted sectors expand their work force, improve their bottom lines while increasing the city's tax base. in fact, as part of our recruit m of companies into denver, we have useed our work force office to be the ones who do all the recruitment and recommendation of future and possible employees to new companies. we have simply been a partner to companies moving into denver, colorado. however, we've not done a good job in aligning our sectors with the industries, clusters that have been targeted by regional economic development or our partners. we are working now in denver to change all that. um, we simply can do a better job and get more traction if we align our efforts, of course, with the priorities of the regional partnerses and regional targeted clusters for the region. to be effective as we can this

helping the the current and future work force obtain the skills they need to participate in the global, competitive economy, we these to understand what is happening not only within our county boundaries, but also in the regional economy. and prepare our residents to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by the regional economic activities. this is important today, but it will become even more important as our regional transportation district, our rtd, builds out fast tracks. and those of you who may not have heard about fast tracks, it is the largest transportation project in the country right now in denver as we attempt to build out our metropolitan transit system. and as the region grows through transit-oriented development, it's going to create a whole list of opportunities for future and current employees in the area. denver residents will be able to take advantage of all types of opportunities throughout the region as they leave their cars and, hopefully, get on the train and head to work and head to play.

but only if, and we all recognize this, only if they have the right skills to be competitive. that is why this year our work force development division has started to align its sectors with the clusters targeted by our metro denver economic development corporation. that is our private sector partner that helps denver to recruit, to retain and expand companies to our region. we will continue our work with sectors such as health care and hospitality which we know currently has a lot of jobs available in the denver area, but we're now paying attention to what we call regional opportunities with our community partners and our job-seeker customers in these industries. another piece of our economic development strategy relates to the airport. um, if you follow what's going on in denver, you've heard me talk about our airport which i believe is the most powerful economic engine we have in our entire region. right now it's a $22 billion

economic impact. dia, denver international airport, is the fifth busiest airport in this country, tenth busiest in the world. and we have a 21st century vision for our denver airport which includes an aerodrop lis which will give us an opportunity to attract a lot of industries that thrive off their closeness to the global markets and their ability to access them conveniently. for example, most recently about three years ago we recruited a company to denver called sma. it's a german company that produces solar inverters. it moved to denver, and a couple years ago it invested in a whole, huge plant near the airport, actually in the footprint of our aerotropolis. and not far from the airport. and since then no fewer than five new companies have moved to denver because they are part of sma's supply chain system, helping us grow our clean energy industry, but also helping us to

attract new jobs to denver. and recently, we've also discovered that -- and we are thrilled to have manufacturing making a comeback in denver. and already our work force folks are recruiting for a manufacturing technician training program in partnership with the community college of denver to help put folks to work in manufacturing. this program is called skill build colorado. in addition to clean energy, our metro denver region has other important clusters such as aerospace, bioscience, medical devices, aerospace -- i said aerospace -- and aviation. and we see the potential for those industries growing in and around the airport as part of our aerotropolis. so we are developing the master plan as we speak so we can be more aggressive in marketing that opportunity to these corporations. we know in order to grow these clusters we will need highly-skilled work forces, and

we know that in order to attract them, this highly-skilled work force must also be grown from within. that's why we are partnering with our community colleges and with our community-based organizations and four-year universities to help us develop this work force. now, let me just say this. one thing we recognize in denver is that we have been endowed with a beautiful place to live. we have a great city. we have a great football team. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> yeah. [laughter] we won't talk tebow now. [laughter] we have a great temperate climate, and for many years we have been able to attract the best and the brightest from around the country. in fact, denver is known as one of the most educated communities in the country. attracting the best and the brightest is always a great

economic development strategy. but it's also a double-edged sword. it means that our state can have a highly educated work force without insuring that our own home grown work force is equally equipped to compete for the jobs, for the era in which we are driving toward. we call in the colorado paradox. the fact that our work force is among the most educated in the country but our high school graduation rate is less than stellar. in fact, denver only graduates about 53% of its students. moreover, colorado's among one of the worst in the states when it comes to the achievement gap. today in denver only one-third, 33% of our african-american and latino children test proficient in math. while two-thirds, over two-thirds of the white students

test proficient. or going on to college. that's why one of my actions as mayor was to create what we call the denver compact. many other cities in this country, including louisville, since natty, seattle -- cincinnati, seattle, boston, portland and l.a. have education compacts. and in the compact we've created several goals. this was my effort to bring university and colleges, the private sector, all the stakeholders who love to talk about education and how important it is to come to the table and put their money as well as their resources, other resources where their mouth is. and we've established some goals around the compact. number one, every child in denver will enter kindergarten prepared. every child graduates from high school ready for college or career. every student enrolls, persists

and graduates from a postsecondary institution. doesn't have to be a college, it could be a vocational training program, it can be one of the partnership programs with community colleges in the area. and number four, we have got to be with breakneck speed and a sense of urgency working very hard to close the achievement gap in our city. this is important to us on a global scale because without this we realize there's no work force development. and without work force development, there's no recruitment, retention or expansion of job opportunities and companies in our city. cities are being called with a very clear and direct message today to prepare the work force for the 21st century because we are competing against cities like beijing and new delhi and shanghai. we know who our competitors are. as the president pointed out last week about the companies that have shipped their jobs outside the united states.

this becomes the foundation to bring that work force back to denver, back to our country. and this is why we're starting with the very, very basic planks, if you will, of rebuilding this economy and making sure that we build our work force in preparation for competition within the sectors on a global scale by preparing our young people within. thank you all very much, and i'll be here for q&a as well. [applause] >> fabulous. what, what questions do we have for these folks? would you, on your coach, explain again who pays for the education of these, of these folks. how's that done? >> sure. so the tuition assistance, it could actually come from many different ways. it could be, um, financial aid scholarships, it could be work force investment act dollars,

um, the employer also funds the pool of dollars through the tuition reimbursement. so it is a shared pool of resources that fund the tuition. >> and if somebody, i just wanted to follow up, if somebody wants to go from one hospital to another hospital, how does that work? they're kind of competitors, aren't they? >> well, yeah, we do have competitors. so, you know, it depends on whether or not that hospital is part of the clear coach program. um, we do have, as we mentioned, several different health care partners that are part of the program, and so if they have a career coach at that program, they could certainly pick up the services at that other employer. >> well, and i think when i was talking earlier with linda who was here, there was actually a point where you had people bouncing from hospital to hospital with the same fusses, and instead of bouncing back and

forth for the same job, get trained and move up the ladder and quit bouncing around. so i think that was very helpful to help solve that problem as well. >> right. >> good, thank you. that answered my question. other questions? thoughts? who's got a compact, an education compact? does anybody have their out there like denver does? >> louisville does. >> louisville does. it's an important -- dallas has just done that as well. >> ours isn't called a compact, but we have one. >> you know, in dealing with that issue. yep. is that a question you might want to -- >> yes. michael, the work force director for louisville, thanks for the shoutout, mayor with. i wanted to ask about the sense of urgency that you're trying to bring to denver. my mayor will be on the podium to talk more about our educational compact in louisville, and we have the same dynamic that you described which is all the educators love it that we're talking about

education, and it has that feeling of "kumbaya", this is clearly the right thing to do, motherhood, apple pie, but trying to convert that good feeling to action is not the easiest thing. so i wanted to learn maybe what you're doing in denver, and there may be other things that mayor strickland would like to talk about as well. >> great question, you know, and i'll tell you, that is the biggest hurdle that we're going to have to, have to overcome. and i'll tell you that i'm, i took office in july campaigning on the development of this education compact. and as a new mayor, um, it was easy to recruit, you know, the money and the power brokers to the table. the biggest challenge, of course, is keeping them at the table. and one of the first things that i had to make very clear was, well, first the thing we did was recruit the superintendent who was critical to this. people needed to see the superintendent engaged. and then secondly, to have a major star, if you will, from the private sector as a

co-chair. and so we recruited the president of the rocky mountain kaiser health care program as the third co-chair. but one of the things we had to make very clear in the first meeting, this is not the forum for debate. we're not here to debate traditional versus charter, union versus nonunion. this will not be the place where we will debate those issues. folks, we have a problem, and we need to get to work now trying to soft it. and that, of course, helped bring a lot of people to the table. and keeping it pure and focused on those goals and not about a versus b or c versus d and letting nothing distract us from the mission of addressing these goals that we've outlined, i think, is going to help us go a long way. these very busy people will disengage very quickly if they feel like you're wasting their time or you're taking them back through the same kind of sitting in this a room debate and posturing kind of thing. so we've got to keep it moving, and we feel that sense of urgency and obligation to do

that. >> i would like to respond as well. we've been having the same conversation about education in this country for about 25 years. and when i became mayor, i ran on an education platform for the very reasons that the mayor described. and, you know, the city of tacoma doesn't control the school district or school board, but we run the library system. we now have a task force on education, we formed the foundation to raise private support, and we have tacoma 360. and in washington state, it's one of the few states in the nation that doesn't allow charter schools, so there's something being brought forward to have charter schools in washington state horribly contentious, and i have come out in favor of charter schools. [applause] so i think that -- and we don't have to debate today, but i think that, you know, this requires action now because five years from now i don't want to have the same conversation about the achievement gap, the opportunity gap and this, and these kids who are graduating from high school, and they are not prepared to go on to college

or to go on to work. i think it's become an urgent thing for most mayors across the country. i tell people that every mayor and every city should be the strongest add advocate for those very reasons. >> how is your board of trustees dealing with this? >> which board? >> the school board. >> the school has come out for charter schools -- >> i meant your advocating for this. >> you know, a couple years ago when i first ran, people were telling me i was running for the wrong job, and then when i talked about gang prevention, crime and economic development, i explained there's a nexus between what i tried to do. so i have a very good relationship with the school board, but they do not support charter schools, and i'm a very vocal supporter. >> and how's your school board dealing with your activity? >> who cares? [laughter] and i mean that. you know, not to be disrespectful, mayor, or disrespectful to the board of

education, there's no word more universal to all of us than the word kids. and at the end of the day it's been those arguments about your territory versus my territory that's gotten us in this mess. it's the same crap that's going on in washington. we have a sense of urgency. our kids are not being prepared appropriately, they're not graduating, they're not graduating compared to compete in this global economy. this is a national defense issue. and if we don't get it right, then we might as well concede to every other country, in this world that is already working and doing everything they can to prepare our kids. so we walk in and say it is this not about you, it is not about me, it's about our kids, and we're going to do everything we can to prepare them, and we're not going to let anything get in our way. i mean that in a sense that it's time for america to wake up and realize what's important to us. [applause] >> i think you're preaching to the choir. i think we all need it. >> yes, sir. >> piqued my interest now. mayor, god bless you.

let me tell you, this mayor is the first knew mismy-owned and operated charter school system not funded by tax dollars, but by bonding that we did privately. we have, and the reason we did it is because recals trance from the school summit. when this man got -- >> tell everybody your city? >> i'm sorry. great city of pembroke pines, florida. and as you did, mayor, when i became mayor 16 years ago, we decided -- i said it's going to be about education. so we have a mayor's committee now of all the principles in pembroke pines. and now we get together quarterly and share resources, and i go to every school as the great mayor of miramar does and read to the kids and do anything they want this mayor to do. i take your hat off to you on the compact. we have a similar thing but not quite as great as you have, but it's all about kids, it's all

about children and education. i was the chair of the college, community college board for five years, and i just can't say enough of what you're doing. >> thank you very much. >> there's a question there someplace. [laughter] >> thank you. and let's, let's give our panel a nice -- [applause] >> thank you. >> at this time i'd like to acknowledge, i think she's joined us, our sponsor, the anna e. casey foundation which supports the work of the u.s. conference of mayors, work and opportunity task force. they sponsored today, lisa hamilton, vice president of external affairs is here today. could you stand up? did she come? >> she's not here yet. >> she's not here yet. we'll give her applause later. and thank you very much for that, ms. hamilton. with that, let's take a 15-minute break and get back here at 2:45. okay?

[inaudible conversations] >> coming up here on c-span2, more from the u.s. conference of mayors as agriculture and energy department officials talk about local food sustainability and renewable energy. and later live coverage of the annual anti-abortion march and rally in the nation's capital. marking the 39th anniversary of the landmark roe v. wade supreme court decision. tomorrow night president obama delivers his annual state of the union address to a joint session of congress. that'll be followed by the republican response given by indiana governor mitch daniels as well as your phone calls. live coverage begins at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. and here on c-span2 we'll also bring you the speech along with reaction from members of congress via twitter and comments from the capitol. and throughout the night go online for live video and to add

your comments to the discussion using facebook and twitter at c-span.org. >> for more resources in the presidential race, use c-span's campaign 2012 web site to watch videos of the candidates on the campaign trail, see what the candidates have said on issues important to you, and read the latest from candidates, political reporters and people like you from social media sites at c-span.org/campaign 2012. >> officials from the agriculture and energy d. spoke recently to the nation's mayors about local food sustainability and renewable energy. over 250 mayors attended the conference in washington d.c. this is about an hour and ten minutes. >> there we go. sorry about that. i just want to tell you that i think we're very, very honored today to have the secretary of

agriculture. i was speaking to him a few moments ago, and he was mayor for five years of pleasant, iowa, i believe it was -- >> [inaudible] >> mount pleasant, iowa. and i think once you're a mayor, you're always a mayor, you know? you kind of go around cities, and you're looking at streets, and you're looking at stores and residential neighborhoods and all that. but, so he is, you know, now secretary of agriculture, and they gave me a little bit of literature, and i just want to read one thing, and i want to turn it over to him so they he n make remarks, and then i want this to be a dialogue where we have a little bit of a question and answer and talk to him about some of the things that we're doing. but one thing in particular is that he entered into a partnership with the department of energy and the u.s. navy to invest up to $510 million during the next three years to produce advanced drop in aviation and marine biofuels to power the

military and commercial transportation. so looking at our resources and department of agriculture in particular and seeing how can we maximize it on a long-term basis, you know, doing sound, you know, cost benefit analyses that integrate all the different elements like what jennifer was talking about earlier, it's just so, so sound and so, so important and especially at a time like this when we're talking about creating jobs, we're talking about sound investments, we're talking about helping our country on sustainability issues and oil and defense and all. and so with that, um, you know, please, let's give him a warm welcome and start thinking about questions and all because i understand from the staff you want to talk about 10, 15 minutes or so, then we're going to have about 10 minutes for questions and answers. >> very good. >> so, secretary vilsack, please. [applause]

>> mayor, thanks very much. just a friendly suggestion on the corn, make sure that it's sweet corn and not field corn. [laughter] >> you may have been shortchanged? >> well, he might send you the corn that you could feed to your livestock, but not to your folks. [laughter] well, i appreciate the opportunity to speak to this group. i, obviously, have a fondness for those who are running the cities big and small. they have a very difficult job at a very difficult time. and i though that there are tremendous demands on all of your budgets. let me just really summarize the president's floss si about -- philosophy in terms of where we go with the economy and the role of usda and energy and biofuel production plays in that equation. simply stated, the president believes that we obviously need to be a federal government that will, over time, spend less money. that is fairly clear. we've got to get our fiscal

house in order. but as we spend, we need to invest wisely, and we need to invest in the opportunity to create an economy that gets back in the business of making and creating and innovating again which americans have done so well for so long. the reference to thomas edison is an indication of the kind of innovative history that we have in the united states. we need to get back into that business because when we do, we then create and make and innovate products and services that the rest of the world wants and needs. so we then get back in the business of exporting, and we take our trade deficit and turn it into a surplus. that's what we've done in agriculture. today we have a record number of ag exports. we exported $137 billion of ag product to the rest of the world, it generates for every billion dollars in sales 8400 jobs many of which may very well be in the cities that are represented here. and it gives us a trade surplus in agriculture on one of the

principle parts of our economy that actually has a trade surplus. and we want to continue that. and so we've made a commitment at usda to a new energy future and the important role that renewable energy and biomass and bio-based economies will play in creating that think economy. the first thing we did was to set up virtual research centers across the country in every region of the country linking our universities, our agricultural research service offices to focus on creating new ways to produce biofuel and bioenergy, new feed stocks, moving away from are a reliance on corn-based ethanol to expand significantly to include woody biomass, switch grass, municipal waste, a wide variety of opportunities to reduce what you all are required at this point in time to landfill. it can help create new fuels and new energy. these research centers then, in turn, have allowed us to identify opportunities where we

are now providing resources to farmers around the country to help produce some of these alternative feedstocks, we call it the big cap program. we have roughly 50,000 acres enrolled in this program today, a maximum of 250,000 acres. you're growing things like camelina, things of that nature that can be converted into new fuels. we are also helping a number of smaller producers of these advanced biofuels to get to commercial-sized operations, and we recently have announced support for a number of large-scale biorefineries that are, again, located throughout the country in all regions of the country. we want to make sure that this is representative, an try that's representative of all aspects of america. the mayor was kind enough to talk about this unique partnership we have with the department of energy and navy. the department of defense and specifically navy has indicated that over time their desire is to commit to 50% of their fuel needs being met by biofuel. it's a national security

imperative. they are not interested in being reliant on a foreign source of power and energy. and so they have made a very serious and significant commitment. they've entered into a memorandum with us and the department of energy specifically to develop an aviation drop in fuel. this is not a blended fuel like ethanol that goes into cars and trucks today, this is actually a fuel that you literally drop into a tank, and a jet or ship uses it. this is a unique partnership because it involved these three agencies pulling together roughly $510 million. these resources will be, first and foremost, used to help finance the construction of biorefineries that will convert nonfood-feed stocks into this drop-in fuel. then the navy has committed in advance to, essentially, purchasing the supply that's generated by these biorefineries which will make it easier for the refineries to gain investors and commercial financing to build the biorefineries.

and then the usda will work with the producers to, basically, buy down the cost of the feedstock so that the pricing of this fuel will be competitive with other fuels so that the navy will not be paying more than it would otherwise pay, and as these refineries expand beyond the navy's needs, commercial aviation is also very interested in this. we had a meeting in chicago this week, earlier this week with representatives from boeing, united and honeywell. they are very, very interested. they, too, are interested in having 50% of their fuel supply over time being met by biofuel. why? one, because of the security aspect of it. they are not as interested just in the way the navy is of not being reliant on a foreign source of energy and, two, they believe that it will put them in a better position to meet the greenhouse gas restrictions that other countries -- particularly in europe -- are currently imposing on air transportation. so it's in their best long-term

interests to see this industry take hold. these biorefineries can be located anywhere, so as cities are looking at economic opportunity, as they're looking at their region that they are sort of the center of, they ought to give some conversation to working with their economic development officials in the counties surrounding them to see whether or not it's feasible to potentially be one of the locations of these three or pour or five biorefineries that we hope to be able to finance. in addition, we are also heavily engaged in promoting what we refer to as the biobased economy. because not only fuel and energy can be produced from these feed stocks, but chemicals, polymers, fibers can also be produced. so there's a whole brand new industry that could be created from our agricultural richness, something that can renewed, something that can be grown every year, something that will be better for the environment. and, again, reduce our reliance on foreign oil. we've gone from importing 60% of oil in the united states to 52% in the last three years.

the president has challenged us to reduce our imports by a third. that would be roughly 18%. that 18% is about equivalent to what we currently import from the middle east. and i think i would probably not get much disagreement around this table that it would be far better for us to create jobs here in america than it is necessarily to create opportunities someplace else. particularly in an area of the world that is not particularly stable right now. in addition to all of this, usda is also the responsible for labeling bio-based products for purchase by the federal government. would encourage all of you to take a look at our web site and our bio-preferred program to see whether or not there are opportunities within your cities in terms of the supplies and items that you purchase on an ongoing basis to see whether you might be able to support american agriculture or the agriculture in your district and in your area that is providing the feedstock, if you will, for these new bio-based products. we are also engaged in rural

commitments in retrofitting homes and buildings to make them more energy efficient using some of the resources that we have through our programs. we are very much involved in financing windmills and solar and renewable energy opportunities in rural areas through our reprogram. we had over 32,000 projects -- 22,000 projects that usda has financed in this arena. last point, we are working with the department of energy, the interior department and ferc to try to see if we can streamline the process by which transmission lines -- at least those relating to transmission lines over public lands -- can be permitted more quickly. we recognize and appreciate that you can produce all this renewable energy, but if you can't get it to the cities that need it because the transmission system is not equipped, then it does very little good to generate the power. so we're very much involved in this. we have identified roughly eight primary corridors that we think

we can streamline and encourage a speedier process for approvals of these transmission lines, key areas that will link renewable energy production to the users and consumers of renewable energy. so usda is engaged in all of this. you may not have understood or appreciated that when you got into this room. the usda is a department that we like to say is an everyday, every way usda. there's virtually no issue you can talk about today that we don't have some connection or involvement in but, certainly, we are heavily invested in this new opportunity, this new more than bio-based -- american bio-based economy that can be created with the assistance of our farmers, ranchers and producers. mayor, i think that's a very quick summary of some of the things we're doing. that leaves, i think, sufficient time for -- >> it is a fantastic summary, and i think one that brings a lot of thoughts to our minds. i have a few questions, but before i go into those, i'd like to maybe go around the room a little bit and see what some of

the questions are that my negative mayors may have -- my fellow mayors may have. let me jump in on one, and then, you know, maybe it'll stimulate more discussion. you talked earlier about that there are eight corridors that you're trying to focus in on where we can administer capacity. would it be possible to get those eight corridors, you know, put maybe a link on our web site for the u.s. conference of mayors and share it with all our mayors? because there might be some that, hey, i'm in that corridor, and, you know, what do i do, etc., etc. any thoughts on that, mr. secretary? >> i think that information is available. i will double check and make sure that it's available through our web site, but i'm pretty sure it is at usda.gov. if you click on to the energy utility, rural utility service line, i'm sure that we'll be able to link you up with a map that shows where these corridors are. i will tell you that, you know, quite a number of them are in

the western part of the united states because, obviously, there's a lot of public lands there, forested lands, blm land. and in the past, you know, the attitude was, well, we try to avoid using public lands for this purpose. i think we're changing that attitude. we understand and appreciate the private sector feels that perhaps the onus was placed too much on them. and we also recognize that getting it through the process, through the public lands is sometimes very, very time consuming and a cumbersome process. so we've looked at ways in which we can identify primary agencies and giving them the respondent to shepherd this -- the respondent to shepherd this process through, developing timelines and reducing the amount of time. what cities could do is work with your respective states to make sure that the regulatory process is -- and systems that are in your state are also streamlined as possible. and that there's coordination. many of these lines go from one state to another. if each state has a slightly

different way of approaching transmission approvals, it complicates it and slows the process down. so the degree we can streamline, to the degree we have some consistency in what factors we look at, it'll make it easier for us to get these transmission lines built. >> city of denton, texas, we're the northern bastion of civilization until you get to oklahoma. [laughter] and we, we have a lot of agricultural areas around, but we're the northern part of the metroplex. my question is, we also have our own public utility, denton municipal electric, and we have 40% of our electricity now for our city of 125,000 plus and two universities. 40% of all our energy comes from wind now. we partnered up with nextair energy, developed a wind farm where we have 72 generating

windmills just north of the city. and my question is, can the department of -- you mentioned that usda has for agricultural areas you work with folks for wind-generated power. would that work in a partnership-type arrangement with a municipality where we might partner with agricultural areas to develop additional wind capacity that we could sell to them? because we could do that. i've never thought of it. we just, we just entered into this realm two year ago. so that's my question. >> congress has basically restricted the geographic areas in which usda can invest resources to insure that its primary focus is on rural areas. having said that, we have a rural utilities service part, portfolio of our operation that basically provides low-cost financing for the construction of wind farms, etc., and

electric generation. be those wind farms and those turbines are located in rural areas, there's no reason why we couldn't have the kind of partnership that you're talking about. it isn't so much where the energy's used, it's where the energy is generated, it is where we can invest. and so i would encourage you to take a look again at our web site, usda.gov, under the rural utility service. that will give you some information about the programs that are available. this is a little far afield from energy, but one of the things we're also trying to do is to connect these rural communities with broadband and the rural utilities service is also engaged and involved in providing resource for distance learning, for telemedicine and for connecting communities. so there's a lot of activity that can support regional economic development. and one of the things i would encourage, we have roughly 50 regions that we've identified

that have self-identified themselves as economic regions. this can be multiple counties, it can be, actually, multiple state locations working to develop a strategic plan on how they might be able to grow the regional economy and, certainly, a large city like yours would benefit from a strategy that encourages surrounding communities to contribute. to a regional economic development strategy. >> um, i'm going the call on mayor fox next, but it's important we use the microphones because i understand that we're on c-span. so this is going to be very interesting as others, you know, listen to this discussion and, therefore, the microphones are very important. mayor fox? >> yes, thank you, mr. chair, and also thank you, secretary vilsack. in my community one of the things that is becoming more of a topic is the concept of local food, and partly as a sustainability initiative. the idea that when you have food that is moving for thousands of

miles to get to the plate, it has an impact on the environment and on energy consumption. i'm wondering whether there are initiatives through usda to promote local food and to help connect urban areas to some of the food sources that are closer. >> mayor, there are a couple things i would say in response to that. first, we have a program which we refer to as know your farmer, know your food. it's not actually a program, it's sort of a overarching theme of helping to create local and regional food systems. we're using our rural development, economic development tools, our business and industry development tools to create the infrastructure that allows cold storage, warehousing, mobile slaughter units and the like to help create critical maas of locally-produced food so that schools, institutional purchasers of food can do exactly what you've suggested. ..

>> it's also prevalent in rural areas as well. we worked if the treasury department and others to put together a package of a healthy financing initiative to use resources to try to encourage the location of smaller scale, but full service grocery stores in urban centers. we know there's a number of grocery chains now expressing

real interest in creating this opportunity, and i would encourage all of the mayors here who might have a food desert in their city to consider reaching out to the grocery store chain in your community and suggest to them they might consider in lieu of a check which is sometimes what you get from corporate foundations, to consider the grocery store at no profit, that that would be a contribution to make to a community by establishing a small, right sized grocery store that would provide fruits and vegetables to folks and provide a convenient location for folk, and if they operated it at no profit, at a break even, they might have an opportunity to actually lower the cost so that lower income families would be in a position to ang seases that grocery store. i would also say that, you know, this is a little bit of far fielded from your question, but

we also made a concerted effort to reach out to schools to encourage them as we improve the school breakfast and lunch program to consider what's grown and raised in the area around the school within a 1500 mile radius, and, again, using our economic development tools to build the food hub to allow an ag gracious of -- enough of that to build a consistent supply. there's a number of initiatives in our department and the treasury department and hhs has a smaller program as well. >> thank you. we have time for two more questions, but before that, mayor davis, you came in before we got started. introduce yourself, please, and say a little something about your city. >> mayor davis from the city of orlando -- thank you -- from california, you guys probably have heard that name. we are now out of bankruptcy.

we have passed successfully -- just hired a new city manager that we stole from concord, california, and we have passed a tax measure to help us boost our economy, and we're moving ahead. we're in great shape, have our contracts in order, and the city is getting ready to move. good to be here. >> congratulations. mayor hauserman please. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. secretary. i hear about rural america all the time from my sister, melanie parker, and i hear all both the wonderful stuff you're doing, but i have a question much broader than that. you know, we talk about crumbling infrastructure in the country, not just water, waste water, storm water, energy,

improvements to the grid. you mentioned communications, you know, roads and bridges, and what do you think the real opportunities are there for a really true infrastructure bank in this country to fund these types of much needed crumbling infrastructure and quite frankly give the opportunity to put people to work? >> well, mayor, that's a good question. you know, to a certain extent, i'll comment we make a fairly concerted effort to provide resources for the basic infrastructure you mentioned. we have a waste water and suer treatment program, a broadband program, electric generation program all throughout the rural services. having said that, it's clear that the need for infrastructure improvement far exceeds what government currently has available to it. what we need to be able to do is to figure out ways in which we can tap resources outside of

government and that's why i sat down with investors and folks with large pension programs to ask whether or not we could partner, identify projects at usda we were aware of, would they potentially be interested in investing in the projects. they could do it through an infrastructure bank or individual investments, but we have to look for ways to leverage resources and access large sums of money that are available, that want to be placed in stable investments, certainly infrastructure at the local level, state level is one solid stable investment that could be made with a relatively reasonable return given the current circumstance. as it relates to the chances of that happening, you know, i'd like to be optimistic, and my hope is that at some point in time folks in congress understand the president is proposing an infrastructure bank, supported an

infrastructure bank, suggested with the american jobs act that we create a first start at this. we have not been anal to get that down through congress yet, but we'll continue to work on it because the focus of this president and this administration is on jobs, and it's obviously a great job creator. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. secretary. the final question -- you got to go? sorry, frank, almost got there. [laughter] got very close. >> thank you, mr. secretary, for taking yet another moment to speak. i'm fascinated and have been watching closely all the work that's been done in your thought about local foods as a follow-up to the question a moment ago, and also looking at our state in iowa and knowing that we don't raise a lot of -- well, as you pointed out, soybeans or corn

that people eat. we shove it through something else and it becomes something else. do we have a model that you're thinking of in cooperation with the other agencies and departments where we shrink that model from where our food sources come from? i mean, iowa, i think, most people would say a majority of the food comes from over 1500 miles away. i've been into some of our local chain groceries that you may be familiar with, and i'm astounded in walking through the fruit aisle discovering that not only is one apple from iowa, but i was in there one day and not one apple came from the united states. so i'm trying to figure out how do we work together to make this country and our state and our

cities sustainable and have a model as we talk about energy and food and food fuel and shipping and how we move goods and services around. what are we doing, and are you looking at that model, and do you have any statistics that says that number from 1500 or we're able to shrink it 20% or 40% to maybe only 900 miles away or something in i mean, how are you judges and looking at those issues? >> we are very interested in a recent trend that's taking place in agriculture which is that individuals in their 20s, late 20s, early 30s in this country have become more interested in getting back into farming. we're seeing a fairly significant trend of young people wanting to get into farming, and the reality is that farming today is highly capital intensive 23 you're looking at large scale agriculture

productions and commercial operations and many opportunities are actually in smaller scale operations. one thing the council of mayors could do is perhaps for the first time extend your interest in the farm bill to not just the nutrition assistance portion of it, which is important to your constituents, but also to this issue because congress is about to engage in a discussion of the 2012 farm bill, and we will have to address this issue of beginning farmers and how we can encourage young people to get into the business of farming because the overall age of farmers in the country is rapidly aging. secondly, there is a growing interest in direct to consumer sales. we're seeing significant increase in the amount of activity in this space to the point where it's now a multiple billion dollar industry, and

it's, in my view, a good complement to commercial sized agriculture. it complements it, and so, you know, we want to continue to work to create new market opportunities whether it's increasingly farmers' markets or encouraging schools to enter into contracts -- there's a good operation in new mexico that i'll get you information on which is a pretty good food hub that basically collecting food from local producers. you'd be surprised -- there's probably quite a bit of activity in the space of the state of iowa that is perhaps just not coordinated. i know secretary is working on this, that you could aggregate substantial amounts and meet some the institutional needs for the schools, for example, in des moines that would be a good project, and i think there's more in the space than you'd imagine. i'll close with one other

observations. the farmers, rancher, and producers of the country with due respect to the folks in the room are absolutely taken for granted and not given an expression of appreciation from the country they deserve. i say that for the following three reasons. one, 86% of what we consume in this country is grown and raised in this country. 86%. which means that we are, for all intensive purpose, a food secure nation, which is to say we're capable of producing that in which we need to feed our people. do not take that fact for granted because that is not true in most of the major countries around the world. they are dependent on importing their food. secondly, when your constituents walk out of your local grocery store, they walk out with far more in their pocket from their paycheck than most of the world. most countries it's just 15%.

all of your citizens have opportunities to live in a nicer house, buy a car, take a vacation or have flexibility with that paycheck than anybody else in the world. that is a result, in part, from the extraordinary productivity of america's farmers, rancher, and producers. the third piece of this, often not recognized, and i know i'm speaking to larger city mayors, but rural america represents 16% of the area, but 40% of the military. not only do they provide food for the families, but they are willing to send their sons and daughters to places far, far away and put themselves at risk to protect the frees and liberties we take for granted in the country. it's not a place that's fully appreciated, and it's important that mayors of communities and cities of the sizes represented

at this table know that rural america matters. you'll see your fuel produced there, and economic opportunities with biobased economies with plants likely located in your cities providing the feed stock for new job opportunities and a new job economy. mayor, i appreciate the time being here. i hope i did not over stymie time here. >> not whatsoever. i want to ask you to see if you're willing to do this, and are you willing to head up an ad hoc committee between now and whenever the 2012 farm bill is put together. if it has not occurred by the summer, i'm thinking we could have a resolution before the energy committee because it impacts energy that might push u.s. in the right direction, and if yoir working with the secretary, and if there is language that he needs in a bill

that we can all get behind. we've done this before. maybe we can get this done. sometimes it's difficult to come to washington to ask for money because it's tight, but he's offering us something that could help a lot of communities across this country and help the country as a whole so, frank, if you're willing to do that, you know, you're very articulate, understand the issue well, and if you can track it, staff will work with you, and maybe we can get something done along the lines he mentioned. >> i'd love to work with you, secretary, and do you have any idea, mr. secretary, when that bill might roll out? >> i just ask the congressman next to me when that would be, and hoppestly, there will be conversations and discussions the first part of this year about it, and i think now's a very good time too -- to get engaged.

it would make sense for the opportunity to perhaps visit with the house and senate leadership on the ag committee and basically provide your input. jennifer? where are you -- right there. she's the intergovernmental affairs person, and she's the key person in my world, mayor, that you should get jennifer's contact information if you don't have it, and we'll coordinate with her and you. >> i'll be in your office next week. we got an urban forestry meeting, and hopefully we'll -- >> okay. [laughter] you're not going to get away. he knows where you live. that's why i appointed him. that's why he's the right man for the job. thank you very much, mr. secretary. [applause] >> i now am going to turn things over to mayor brian from new

jersey because he's the person responsible for the next special guest that he's going to introduce and give a proper introduction to. >> thank you. great honor and pleasure on behalf of the residents of the sixth congressional district and my colleague from edison who is here today to introduce the congressman and represents our two town, especially after redistricting, still represent it, and congressman is a 12th term congressman serving on the energy committee; correct? he's been a leader on the environment for all of those years and also on the energy issues and is at the forefront with our home state senator menendez fighting for the block grant program and which many are here today received direct funded grants for energy assistance and direct block grants, so with that, i'd like to thank congressman pallone

spending time here with the mayors. with that, we'll get you the microphone. >> thank you, mayor, and i won't take up a lot of your time because i think the time allotted for this panel, i guess, is probably near the end, and i want to thank both mayor wallard and my mayor from edison, and i see other mayors from the district are around as well. i know that nobody expected me to talk about agriculture, and i was not planning on it, but i couldn't help but listening to the previous conversation because if i could just digress a minute and say that new jersey is the garden state. people don't think of us that way, but we pride ourselves on the being the garden state, but we're the most densely populated state and lost our agricultural production and land over the years because of the housing that's gobbled it up and the

development that gobbled it up, but with that, the whole concept of jersey fresh, which has been promoted in our state with the idea of trying to have local farmers, you know, produce things at small farm markets, you know, that exists in a lot of our cities and suburban areas is really popular in the state of new jersey, and we can't get enough it -- of it. in fact, it's not just an issue of marketing, but it's also from a dietary point of view. you know, as you know, our first lady's concerned about obesity, and part of the issue with obesity and diabetes is getting fresh produce and delicious products to people in the urban areas, so in a lot of urban areas we have these farmers' market with a way to improve the diet and nutrition, so, i mean, it's a big thing. i don't even have a single farm in my district that i'm aware of, but we have rutgers which is not only a state university, but

the agriculture school for new jersey, and we've done a lot to try to promote jersey fresh, and it's very popular. the other thing i was going to mention too because i heard the secretary, we have, the highest population of asian-and india, and i've been to india a couple times and one of the reason india's been successful in increasing its growth national product and joining the more developed countries now is because they managed over the last 20 or 30 years to be food sufficient. i mean, people don't realize -- people still think of the starving inian, and they are actually food sufficient now. they export agricultural products to china and other countries, and china, by contrast, is the opposite.

that vie to im-- they have to import their food because their agricultural base didn't keep up, and it's a big part of the reason why india's been successful economically because they managed not only to be food sufficient, but actually start to export. when he talks about the importance of agriculture with the fact that 87% of what we need is, you know, what we consume is american grown, that's a very important part of the economy and job growth and, you know, the whole -- i call it make it in america. i think we think more of manufacturing, but that also involves your agriculture sector as well. that's not what i was here to talk about. i just couldn't help it because we're the garden state, couldn't help it. >> not on the house floor, congressman. >> i just wanted to briefly say, i'm a supporter of renewables so it's hard for me to be neutral or not excited about the issue, and i really regret the fact, and i'd ask you to help us.

i regret the fact that in the last few months and in the last few years, but particularly in the last few months, that we have not -- that we're not incentivizing renewables whether it's solar, wind power, hydropower, whatever it happens to be, and, of course, at the state level, you have. i mean, for the most part i know in new jersey, in a lot of states, we have, you know, major tax credits that encourage renewables. we have renewable portfolio standards where a certain percentage of your electricity and utilities and energy has to be produced from re[inaudible] s, -- renewables, and i regret the tax celt expired on december 31st for solar which is unfortunate because you need the incentives, and we tried to pass a standard on the federal level, 20% by 2020, and i don't dare mention the name, part of the climate

change bill back in 2009 when the democrats were in the majority, you know, we had a standard we were pushing, but, of course, that bill, you know, the american clean energy act essentially -- it never got passed because of the opposition. now, i don't want to -- i'm not going to sit here and try to make you advocates for addressing climate change, although i'd love to do that, but i really think that it is important for all of you to the extent to be to talk to -- possible to talk to your representatives on a bipartisan basis and express to them why renewables are important. it's not just a question whether you believe or don't believe in global climate change or you're concerned about the environment. it's also a national security issue. it's a jobs issue. i mean, from a national security point of view, we just cannot continue to rely on the imported oil, you know, and energy sources from the middle east. it's not reliable. you know that you've -- i'm sure

just listening to the media in the last few weeks we've seen iran threatening to close the straits of hormuz. we're relying on the energy sources particularly from the middle east, from countries not our friends, countries not reliable at any point, you know, these supplies can be cut off and result in having, you know, take some military action, so from a national security point of view, it just doesn't make sense to continue to rely on imported oil. we have to look at renewables, even if you don't care about the environment, from a national security point of view, and it also is clearly a jobs issue as well. you know, in my state of new jersey, you know, we continue to have the incentives, and the governor, you know, i don't usually praise him. he's a republican. he's not one of my favorite people by any means. ask my colleagues here, and they'll tell you that. bottom line is he stressed as

has the democratic legislature, the need to try to not only move towards renewables whether it's offshore, wind, or solar, but also to make the things, you know, make the wind turbines, make the solar panels, and at the federal level to the fact we have not inacceptability vised that -- incentivized that, we're falling behind china and other countries, stressing china, that use sub subsidies to you encoure production of solar panels and corner the market now that most of us consider trade violations, but it's our fault at the federal level that we have not kept up, not only in incentivizing the use of solar panels, but also making the things. those are good jobs. they are clean jobs. you know, china is not investing in subsidizing solar and wind

turbines out of the love of their heart. they could careless. they could be thee worst polluter in the world, but they recognize the jobs need to be created. the public is supportive of it. most of my district is changing, but there's a literally of areas along the coast, along the atlantic, and you might say to yourself, and, realm, it's tourism oriented, tourism's the number one industry in the state of new jersey, actually, and most don't realize it, but you would think, oh, people don't want offshore wind because it's going to affect the tourism industry. they don't want to see the windmills and all of that. just the opposite. every poll i've seen shows the opposite, and i've been a strong advocate for building the wind mills, and i've not received any opposition -- well, i shouldn't say "any," but any significant

opposition to that. the polls show that people are even willing to pay more, if they have to pay a couple dollars more, they are willing to do that because they understand from a job point of view, from a national security point of view, an environmental point of view, that renewables are the way to go. now, i mean, you know, brian asked me to come, he'd mentioned it probably, but i'll mention my two mayors because they are here and i see them. you know, in brine's case, he got one of these energy block grants, and he installed the panels on the municipal building, and i went there with the senator a year ago whatever it was, and it was just wonderful to see. saves money in the long run, but in the case of mayor ricigliano and went to avadon and this was

a -- >> [inaudible] >> refrigeration facility; right? >> and it is the largest rooftop solar panel in the nation. >> incredible. it's incredible. it is so -- when we went and they -- >> we climbed on the roof. >> we went on top of the roof. it was so large, you could not see the horizon. >> right. >> you literally looked and couldn't see the horizon. >> how many kilowatts? >> i think i have it here, mayor. i wasn't going to mention it. it's a 4.26 megawatt system reducing carbon emissions by 370 tons annually and taking a thousand suvs off the road. they told us within a few weeks it was not going to be the largest because somebody was building another one somewhere else.

but it was unbelievable. >> edson received an energy grant and we have a company putting solar panels on our mew municipal complex as well. >> we have these climate awards. you ought to enter your city for, you know, come in june, you know, we give out climate initiative awards, cities that are doing things. i mean all of it are good projects, and that sounds like a wonderful project. >> i won't continue on, but what i wanted to leave you with, and i just regret, trying not to be partisan here, mayor, but i regret the fact that, you know, we have not been able to make enough progress on the federal level, and i also feel we're running out ever time. we didn't renew the tax credits. we didn't move forward with the renewable portfolio standard, and the problem is this is all now, you know, entwined of the

issue of global climate change and whether it's real or not. all i say is, you know, if you can't, you know, look at it from that perspective, then in new jersey we can because people understand on a bipartisan basis that, you know, we have to address the environmental concerns and global climate change. we had, you know, what was it, our staff person told me who does the issues said that last night walked your dog at drsh i was in washington yesterday, walked the dog at 11 p.m. at 60 degrees, january 17. i mean to me, the notion to me that this is not real is crazy. put that all aside and just talk about the jobs and the national security concerns and all of the other things and not even talk about, you know, climate change or any of that if you don't want to, but we need your help, you know, to talk to the representatives about this because we're moving backwards

not forward at this time. i'll be honest with you. i'll leave it at that. thank you. >> thank you, congressman. questions? mayor appears 20 have a question. >> actually, we're running out of time, and i just -- it's -- forgive me, mr. secretary and chair, i was going to talk about tar sands, but we ran out of time, but i didn't want to meeting to go without talk about what i consider to be a victory for clean energy, and that is, a bunch of us, about 103 mayors signed a letter to the president asking him not to permit the tar sands line, and although the u.s. conference of mayor has not taken a position, they did a resolution back in 2008 asking for it to be examined more carefully, and i just heard the president today is going to make an announcement that he's not going to allow the permit for the tar sands line, so i consider that a victory for

clean energy, and didn't want the meeting to go by without saying that. thank you for the opportunity to speak about that for a moment. >> thank you. other questions or comments for the congressman? anything from california? yes, please. >> thank you, mr. chair. congressman, what do you think the prospects are for renewing the contracts or an rps standard 1234 it appears most of the states as you mentioned and local communities went down the route and recognized it, but there seems to be a huge disconnect of what's happening locally on the ground and then here in washington, d.c. -- >> i hate to be pessimistic, but it's entwined in the issue of

global climate change to the extent that there's members of, you know, my colleagues and the presidential candidates as well who, you know, deny this or feel that this is somehow related to the global climate change issue from an ideological perspective, it's going to be difficult to do any of that, you know, until after the presidential election. i just don't see it. unfortunately. >> thank you. >> let me ask a question if i may, conman, and then i think we have a representative from the deo to speak, but my -- doe, but my question goes to the block grant. we passed some a few years ago, went great, and i understand we can't get them now, but anything to rally around as mayors and

this being an election year where we can get traction on something? >> again, i think it was some way to separate the whole issue from the global climate change debate, in other words, talk in terms of jobs, in terms of national security, stay away from the global climate change issue. if you could somehow, you know, accomplish that, then i think we could move in the right direction. we have to get away from that because it's an ideological battle now that makes it impossible to move forward. >> well, let's -- ♪ >> abortion opponents gathering today in washington, d.c. for the march for life marking the 39th anniversary of the roe v. wade decision and expecting

boehner to speak here. first march held in 1994 after the landmark ruling, and in recent years, attracted up to hundreds of thousands of participants. this rally beginning a little early here on the national mall right here in washington, d.c., and participants afterwards march up constitution avenue to the supreme court building. the house speaker said he's honored to address the march, leading the house's bipartisan majority. ♪ ♪

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[cheers and applause] >> let me go over a few things. a few more folks around us. hi back there! come on up. don't be shy! all right. there we go. when the march actually starts after we sing "god bless america," take your time. there's no rush. you'll get there eventually, but don't push, listen to marshalls when they tell you to go this way and that way. on the avenue, there's a point where the knights of columbus are collecting. they are identified with being for march for life and have some

like collection plates and that kind of thing. they are the only people authorized to be collecting anything, those and the ones that you get the annual reports from, so, again, what is the rule i told you earlier? you guys, you need to hear it. if you need help, see a marshall. all right. i need some help right now. okay. it stopped raining, it looks like. thank god for that. [cheers and applause] i can remember snow and a few other, but i don't remember a rain like this, but at least it's warm. you know? some years we've been freezing out here and all kinds of stuff. again, i have to remind the newcomers we need to make sure that we don't leave behind signs or any other trash. that's really important. i know you guys here got that, but they are just coming here. we have to remind them. there's bathrooms to the side.

if you have a lost one, get in touch with a marshall, and he'll get you to the assistance van or someplace, you know, where either your loss or if you're looking for a lost child or something. you know, get in touch with the marshalls, and they'll get you some help. all right. i want to remind you again to get investment and the march for life annual report, a lot of useful information, you can get it from the marshalls around the area. all right, sounds of liberty with andrew jackson, and all the rest of you guys from the sounds of liberty will sing a beautiful song. what's the story on this song? >> it was written just as an anthem for people here just to know the meaning of just what we're fighting for, the least of these, so that they can have the opportunity to live.

>> he was not expecting that question, but it was a song basically written for an event like this, and, again, let's be in an attitude of prayer because this is a solemn occasion. you know, we're celebrating life overall and also mourning the death of millions of preborn children in the abortion holocaust and here to remind our nation of the importance of this issue and how abortion is wrong and it needs to stop. we don't kill life for convenience. we don't kill life for greed. we don't take innocent life, and that's why we're here. [cheers and applause] all right. god bless you guys. sounds of liberty. listen to this beautiful song. ♪

♪ we will stay for the least of these ♪ ♪ for the child in the womb we fall down on our knees ♪ ♪ we will pray for the least of these ♪ ♪ that you will be loved and accepted ♪ ♪ safe and protected ♪ we will pray for the least of these ♪ ♪ ♪ we will speak for the least of these ♪ ♪ a voice for the voiceless

♪ the one no one sees ♪ we will speak for the least of these ♪ ♪ that eyes may be opened ♪ that hearts may be broken ♪ we will speak for the least of these ♪ ♪ we will search for the least of these ♪ ♪ we will reach out our hands to those in need ♪ ♪ we will search for the least of these ♪ ♪ we will give hope to the hopeless ♪ ♪ we will give to the least of these ♪ ♪ to be love and accepted

♪ safe and protected ♪ that life may be open, our hearts may be broken ♪ ♪ we will stand for the least of these ♪ ♪ we will stand for the least of these ♪ ♪ we will stand for the least of these ♪ [cheers and applause] [inaudible conversations]

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>> when you hear the national anthem, you'll know things are getting ready to start. just a moment. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> okay. the the moment's getting close. ladies and gentlemen, our national anthem. [cheers and applause] ♪ oh say can you see ♪ by the dawn's early light ♪ what so proudly we hailed ♪ at the twilight's last gleaming ♪ ♪ whose broad stripes and bright stars ♪ ♪ through the paroous fight

♪ through the ramparts we watched ♪ ♪ we're so gallantly streaming ♪ and the rocket's red glare ♪ the bombs bursting in air ♪ gave proof through the night ♪ that our flag was still there ♪ oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave ♪ ♪ oer the land of the free ♪ and the home of the brave

[cheers and applause] >> welcome to march for life 2012! wow. that was beautiful. thank you. now we're going to have the pledge of allegiance to our flag, and i want to introduce john morella who is the supreme advocate of the general council of the knights of columbus who help us out so much each year. brother john, come forward. [cheers and applause] >> thank you. thank you for inviting us to participate in this march for life. before we begin, i'd like to reflect briefly on two important words in the pledge of allegiance. those words with "under god." [cheers and applause] these two words reflect the idea held by our founding fathers and understood by most americans for most of our history that our rights come from god, and not from the state and that governments are accountable to a

higher authority, identified by our founding fathers as nature and nature's god. president john f. kennedy elegantly summarized our common belief in his inaugural address when he said "the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of god. by coming to washington today, you are bearing the truth about the dignity of the human person and each's right to life. please join me in saying the pledgee of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. [cheers and applause] >> we like to open the march with prayer. the scripture says god is

delighted when brothers dwell in unity, and today we have a special treat. we have a combineed opening prayer where we have the eastern orthodox and roman catholic bishops standing on the stage. i'll have father john from orthodox for life to introduce the opening prayer. >> thank you, james. thank you gray, and thank you, march for life. [cheers and applause] it is with profound joy in our lord and savior, jesus christ, 245 i have this opportunity to introduce a joint venture in our march for life opening program. in fact, it is unprecedented and

historical, a combined gathering of roman catholic and eastern orthodox bishops to the on the same platform at the same time offering the same prayer and sharing a 2,000 year common tradition of living and respecting the dignity and sanctity of human life. [cheers and applause] we are both celebrating the word of god made flesh and being mindful of our common tradition especially the roll of the mother of god in salvation history. today, we are very grateful to cardinal, arch bishop of houston, and bishop gregory monsor, bishop of brooklyn of the roman catholic church for