economy. >> right. >> so i would urge you and i know you're doing this as you -- as you approve projects that you take very seriously that you want to do the ones that are going to be most productive. >> right. that goes to the quality of the project but at that point in time that kind of stimulus in a sense would serve the economy well and would be needed. .. >> not having it taking away infrastructure money might hurt the economy, adding

infrastructure money will certainly help the economy and, of course, you want to do as was possible so there are other long-term benefits. is that fair? >> yes. although again -- >> say no more. >> various alternatives. >> but those alternatives, this is a yes or no situation. money market funds. we all remember the dark days of the fall of 2008, the panic that ensued when a large money market fund broke the buck and there was a run on the fund. the sec instituted some reforms in 2010 to address the problems that led to the run in 2008. however, chairman schapiro and fsoc, you remember, have made it clear they believe more should be done so that recent reports they discussed a few options. this was in a newspaper. including a requirement that would lock up a portion of investors money in proposed, proposal to require funds to abandon the stable $1 a share net asset value.

the proposals have the potential to fundamentally change the nature of the product. some would say it would drive it out of existence. they play an important role in short-term financing of many different types of businesses. what are the risks to the economy and financial system if we were to fundamentally alter the nature of the money market funds? what do you think of the two different proposals made to strengthen them? i'm particularly interested, i've heard that investors have to keep 3% are certain percentage of side, and can pull it out right away, that it's not worth an investment to them anymore. >> well, so first as you point out the sec has already done some constructive things in terms of liquidity requirements. i think they'll the federal reserve in general, and i personally would have to agree that there are still some risks in the money market mutual funds. in particular, they still could

be subject to runs, and one of the implications of dodd-frank is that some of the tools that we used in 2008 to arrest the fund, the run on the funds are no longer available. as you know, the treasury can no longer provide the ad hoc insurance provided the fed's ability to land, the money market mutual funds is greatly restricted because of the fact that we have to take a haircut on their assets and that's not going to work with her economics. so we support the sec's attempt to look at alternatives. dimensions and different things but i believe their ideas to put out a number of alternative strategies, one would be to go away from the net asset, fixed net asset value approach. i think that the industry will reject that pretty categorically. so the question is what else could be done.

one approach would be essentially to create some more capital. they have very limited capital at this point. there might be ways to maybe over time, to build up the capital base. so that's one possible approach, as then either complementing or a separate approach would be something that involved not allowing the investors to draw 100% immediately. that, you know, if you think about that, what that really does is that it makes it unattractive to be the first person to withdraw your money and, therefore, it reduces the risk to runs considerably. it also as an investor protection benefit which is that if you are a slow investor and you're not monitoring the situation moment by moment and you're the last guy to take your money out, you are still protected because there's this 3% or whatever -- >> but i've heard from some investors and from some funds

that given the low margin that money market funds pay, that it would just in the business more or less. certainly i've heard from investors that they wouldn't put money in if they knew they had to keep two or 3% in there. does that worry you? >> it's certainly a different -- difficult time. the attractiveness is less. i don't know, i think you have to have some kind of discussion here because part of the reason that investors invest in money market mutual funds because they think they are 100% safe and there's no way to lose money. that's not true. if that's not true to have to make sure that investors are aware and that we take whatever actions necessary to protect their investment. >> think money markets played a useful role in the economy and you should generally try to keep them going? >> generally speaking they do. and they are useful source of short run money, but, and again

please don't over read this, but europe doesn't have any. they have a financial system. there are different ways to structure. >> they are in great shape. >> there's many ways to structure financial system, but again i envisioned the money market funds will be part of the future of u.s. financial system. >> thank you, mr. chairman. appreciate it. >> there are no more questions? thank you, mr. chairman. and on behalf of of the chairman, and less i'm instructed otherwise, i will adjourn the hearing. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> coming up live this afternoon, tsa administrator

john pistole, he is in washington today speaking at the national press club and is expected to talk about the future of aviation security. that begins at 1 p.m. eastern time. watch the senate live here on c-span2. the house also gavels in today at 2 p.m. members will be naming post offices around the nation today. that will be live on c-span. and our road to the white house coverage continues in advance of tomorrow's primaries and caucuses. we have former pennsylvania republican senator rick santorum. he will be live campaign in ohio and will have that started at 6:30 p.m. eastern. and as we mentioned, super tuesday is tomorrow, march 6. seven states go to the polls, oklahoma, tennessee, georgia, ohio, virginia, vermont and

massachusetts. while three states hold caucuses, alaska, idaho and north dakota. stay tuned to c-span for result in candidate speeches. >> i know washington is very partner to want to a cybersecurity immunization to oversee this. and i think that is fine. spent the adversaries were dealing with today are more committed than a resource and becoming more sophisticated. so we talk about events persistent threat. >> how real is the threat? bill connor and robert dix on how to handle the threats to government and business communicate and networks. "the communicators" tonight at eight eastern on c-span2. >> next, commodity futures trading commission chairman gary gensler in a recent speech he compared the commission's new regulatory role under the dodd-frank act to having a cop on the beat. he spoke at george washington university in washington, d.c. this is about 45 minutes.

>> i would say perhaps the latest example of that would have been -- [inaudible] >> welcome, everyone. welcome to george washington university law school, and our program at the center for law and economics, and finance. where we have been discussing financial reform. my name is lawrence cunningham. i'm a member of the faculty here. and it's a great pleasure for me to introduce and welcome gary gensler, currently the chairman of the commodities futures and trading commission, and the point when he received and took in may of 2009 at a very difficult time in our country's financial history. to undertake a very difficult job. i think the country is fortunate to have had that appointment, and we are lucky that he is in that job today.

his experience will speak to why we are lucky. he earned a bachelors of science degree from the university of pennsylvania's wharton school, summa cum laude, back in 1978. and the next year earned a masters in business administration from 10. he spent the next 18 years working at goldman sachs your the investment banking firm in new york, where he became a partner and ultimately serve as the co-head of finance. then washington beckoned in 1997, when he took up a position at the u.s. department of the treasury, first serving as assistant secretary of financial markets, and after that serving as undersecretary of domestic finance. in those important decisions he worked very closely on financial policy matters with secretaries of the treasury, robert rubin, and then lawrence summers.

is distinguished service at the department of the treasury earned his receipt of the alexander hamilton award, the highest honor the department gives. capitol hill back and next in our less financial crisis when senator paul sarbanes, the head of the senate banking committee, recruited mr. gensler to help craft the financial reform legislation of that period in 2002, called the sarbanes-oxley act. in between this busy time, mr. gensler managed to co-opt or a fine book, targeted to ordinary americans about investing and finance, called the mutual fund trap. it guides ordinary americans in the sometimes complex world of investment, a critique of the mutual fund industry and some of

its practices and an endorsement for an approach to investing called indexing. i won't elaborate on the book here, but you can buy the book for yourselves at your favorite bookseller. but we are delighted and honored to have chairman gensler with us today to talk about financial reform and what it means. so thanks very much, chairman gensler. [applause] >> thank you very much -- make sure we had that. thank you very much for the very kind introduction, and mission of the book. i'm wondering whether, i don't think it's in any bookstores anymore. [laughter] [inaudible] >> amazon, yeah. it was kind of a neat experience. my kids will read it someday. but good morning. i'd like to thank all of you for allowing me to speak you. i think it is the third time that i've had the honor to come

back and speak to this group of mixed of students and academics and practitioners. and i've always found the experience a good one. and i'm pleased to really discuss why financial reform matters. what it means for investors, consumers and businesses in america. but let me start by seeing what the commodity futures trading commission means for investors, consumers and business in america. maybe not all of you are aware of who we are and why it even matters. at its core, the ctc's mission is to ensure the integrity and transparency of something called the derivatives marketplace, with the futures market and that the swaps market. and along with her big sister, procedures and exchange commission, we have to market regulation in this country, and has since the 1930s since president roosevelt asked her to regulate. so if someone is wondering why,

it's president roosevelt in the 1930s. and that crisis. and each part of the economy relies on a well functioning derivatives marketplace. futures and swaps markets provide for a way for farmers, and ranchers initially, but later producers and manufacturers, retailers, service companies to lock in a prize or a rate and manage their risk. at its core of what these markets are about, locking in the price of corn or wheat at harvest time initially, but later locking in a rate like an interest-rate or currency rate, or something in the oil markets. and so these markets are critical for commercial companies in the real economy, 11 mentioned the real economy is that part that employs 94% of the private sector jobs in america. that's the nonfinancial side. it's critical for that part of the market so that they can focus on what they do best, what do they do best? they service customers, produce products, innovate, invest in our economy and a country, but

they want to lower the risk and lock in the price of something. that's why it matters. the benefits of the derivatives markets go beyond the companies in the real economies. it also goes to the americans his retirement security and pension funds or mutual funds benefit. it goes to americans depending upon community banks and insurance companies, because these pension funds and mutual funds and insurance companies, community banks all also want to lock in a rate of interest or currency or commodity. and they benefit from transparent market places. as back in the 1930s president roosevelt asked for transparent marketplaces for something, that most americans didn't know about, wheat futures and corn futures. combined, these markets are very, very large. size, $340 trillion. that represents $22 of hedging or yes, maybe speculating, in a

futures and swaps marketplace for every dollar that courses through our economy. let me repeat, $22 for every dollar of goods and services that runs to our economy. now by any measure, that's pretty darn evil for investors, consumers and businesses in america. and that's why it matters to get financial reform right as well. futures and swaps markets touch new every aspect of the economy. the food we eat, the price at the pump, tour mortgages and credit cards to our retirement savings. and given how important these markets are it's of course a essential that they be transparent, competitive and free of fraud and manipulation. the ctc has historically been charged with overseeing the future markets. that since the 1930s, took about 60 years to get that through congress from the time of the invention of the futures markets. the swaps marketplace invented in 1981 took about 30 years to

get regulate. it's actually progress in a historical context. but in 2008 the unrated swaps market helps concentrate risk in the financial system, and as we all know that risks build up to the real economy, the real economy that employs 94% of the private sector jobs. it affected every business across america and every consumer across america. anyone who doubts that swaps played a role may i just remind you of aig. and everyone of us in this room got hurt by that crisis. the crisis led to 8 million americans losing their jobs, millions of families losing their homes, thousands of small businesses shattering, and three years later we still face a challenge economy. in 2010, congress responded along with the president, the hard work of many, many people passing the dodd-frank act, which expanded our mission at

the ctc now to also oversee the u.s. swaps market place, a marketplace that is eight times the size and far more complex than the market that we used to oversee. three key goals to keep them simple. three key goals of the part we oversee and the dodd-frank act, one, bring transparency and competition to the swaps market. one, transmitted. number two, protect against wall street's risks spreading out again over the rest of the economy. so lower risk, number two. and three, enhance market integrity. so transparency, the risk, market integrity. on transparency, why does that matter? transparency and competition in the swaps market lowers cost for investors. it doesn't every market. transparency and competition, it can be in how smart, the auto market, it lowers some of the costs for the people using the product. and at nearly $300 trillion notional size, the u.s. swaps

market though remains the largest dark pool in our financial markets. icy hard here. you probably committed dark pools. this doors that with all respect, my friend. the dodd-frank act squarely addresses this by shifting some of the information advantage from wall street to the rest of the economy. and it does that into fundamental, and a number of fundamental ways actually, but it provides the public information, the pricing and volume of every transaction once it is completed. so-called ghost transparent sea. it does so also by providing all market participants the opportunity to come together to transact on transparent and open and competitive trading platforms. so-called free trade transparency. so after the transaction and before the transaction. these trading platforms will mean the end users investors inspectors benefit from seeing bids and offers, and get the

provision of liquidity. the law even goes further by providing the public with daily valuation over the life of all cleared swaps and in addition it provides greater information to the regulators. so one can have an effective cop on the beat. rules actually do benefit if they are enforced. enforced. the cat has completed seven of nine key reforms to bring such transparency to the swaps market. the commission already has begun receiving position information from large traders and the physical commodity markets, including the oil and energy markets, to bring light and shine on this marketplace for the first time. in addition, starting this july, the public will start to get reporting on every transaction, or nearly every transaction, what's called real-time public reporting. not all that different from what's over in the corporate bond market place, something called trace reporting. by contrast, friday 2008, none

of this. none of this was in the largest dark pool in the market. and other public and regulators will start to get information. financial reform also means lowering risk that wall street poses to investors, consumers and businesses across america. dodd-frank reforms does this in three ways. so this is the three ways to lower risk. one, through bringing transparency, as i just discussed, because transparency in and of itself helps lower risk. too, by mandating that the standard transaction, the standard swaps, he brought into financial entities called clearinghouses. and three, i actually rate in the dealers in this space because they were not regulated before under what was an assumption that they were banks, they were kind of regulated anyway. but that assumption didn't work so well. clearinghouses have lowered risk in a futures place by stand between buyers and sellers of these contacts and guaranteeing

each party against the failure of the other party. and the clearinghouses clearly have to be overseen for comprehensive risk management, they have worked to lower risk for a long, long time. in fact, in contrast to this past century, there's been many, many bank failures. we have lived through the great depression, and the 2008 financial crisis, the clearinghouses have to be managed well and have vigorous and oversight, they are far better than the alternative of leaving this risk in the banks. dodd-frank financial reform also mandates that swaps between financial entities, where 90% to the unanswered transactions could possibly move into the clearinghouses. let me repeat that. so if there's a swap between two financial entities and its standard enough, it's supposed

to be moved to this clearinghouse. on the other hand, nonfinancial companies directed at approximately 10% to the market, congress mandated would have a choice. they don't have to use the clearinghouses. the thought which movie that those that are only about nine or 10% of the market, and the furthest away from this interconnected financial system, they get to choose. they also represent 94% of the jobs. it's important to note that consistent with his congressional, the ctc is working rule by rule, the so-called end users don't get swept up in the definitions like a swap deal or definition, or is clear definition, or in the margin calculation. because i think fundamentally we follow congressional intent and allow end users the opportunity to choose rather than been swept up in regulation, they are the enormous benefactors of this transparency, if the financial system has lower risk. investors, consumers and

business in america also benefit for the first time from comprehensive regulation and oversight of swap dealers themselves. the ctc has begun this reform. we passed three rules. to register these entities, to ensure that they have better sales practices when it actually transact with a marketplace, particularly with pension funds and municipalities called special entities in the law. and we have also completed roles with regard to the own risk management or internal business conduct, including firewalls between their trading and research aside. and i know you had earlier, this is one of those reforms of sarbanes-oxley that was picked up from the security side and moved over to commodity side so somebody can have an oil trading research effort sort of influencing the trading desk, and vice versa. we're going to build on these by finalizing capital and margin rules, and segregation rules for the steelers as well.

financial reform further mean something to investors, consumers and businesses in america, you see the team repeating itself. through market integrity. reforms will protect injured from fraud, manipulation and other abuses in the swaps market, as was the burdens that may rise and excessive speculation. markets work best when you actually couldn't rules of the road and cops on the beat. we learned that in the 1930s, in the securities and futures world. so market integrity is critical. the dodd-frank act close a significant gap in our authorities to pursue manipulation charges in the marketplace. one, by extending into swaps, and two, by nearing the security and exchange commission's abilities to prohibit reckless use of broad-based manipulative schemes. ism the lawyers in the room know what i just a. i have learned it but i never went to law school.

we also have a new whistleblower of authority where people can come in and point out abuses. it also directs us to establish aggregate position limits for both futures and swaps marketplace for the first time for the energy agriculture, minerals market. we had limits in 2001, and then they were backed away from. and in october of 2011, we completed the rule so no single speculator is able to obtain an overly concentrated position in the market. now, full and effective invitation of the financial reforms, to best benefit the public, does, however, necessitate funding. i can't finish this speech by not mentioning it, but about 700 people at the ctc, we're smaller than her sister agency with about 4000 over at the sec to give you a sense of scale, we are also only 10% greater than we were at a peak in the 1990s. and in the meantime the market

that we historically overseen, you know, the corn and wheat futures and energy futures and the financial futures, that market has grown fivefold, and we have grown 10%. that's the efficiency. that's a good use of taxpayer dollars. but now commerce has said we have to take on the swaps marketplace which is $300 trillion in size, and not do it with any more people. that's fundamentally what congress has said to us, and, unfortunately, that's where we stand right now. the cftc will continue working hard and effectively to oversee the futures market and implement reforms for the unrated swaps market. and this year, we will finish the rules of the road for the swaps market in a thoughtful and balanced way. but without sufficient resources, the nation cannot be assured that this agency can oversee the futures and swaps markets, and that end-users, this fundamentally, this

benefits all end-users and their consumers and customers. we can ensure they get the benefit of transparent markets, lower risk, and the enhanced market of integrity. the financial crisis was dancing for investor, consumers and businesses in america. dodd-frank respond to the crisis with reforms that brings transparency to the market, brings greater integrity to these markets and financial reforms benefits the companies in the real economy that provide the private sector jobs. that 94%. it benefits all of us in this room as taxpayer so we don't stand behind future bailouts. it benefits everybody that has a pension fund or a mutual fund that wants that fun to be able to invest any more transparent marketplace. so i would say a kind of benefits just about everybody, possible with the exception of a few people that benefit from keeping this market dark. but most of is really, really do benefit from this reform.

and i think that was the nature of your conference you want to be two of say what i think this matters. so some have raised concerns that these reforms will raise costs for end-users. i say not to. ice end users are the big beneficiaries here, as long as we continue to get congressional intent right about end users not being caught up in a definition here or a definition there. and let us not forget the far greater costs over all, the 8 million jobs that were lost, the millions of homes that were foreclosed upon, the hundreds of thousands of businesses that didn't make the budget and didn't make their plan. and that's really what reform is all about, and why it is a necessary. and with that i thank you again for inviting me. you can see i kind of care about this stuff. i believe in it. i think it really matters but i would be glad to take questions from your participants, and then afterwards i'm going to be available for the members to

stay outside. [applause] >> so, chairman gensler, do you feel comfortable on the calling on folks? las..

in china, that is another matter. but, if it is cross-border and really affect the the u.s. people, then we've got to bring that transparency. i also feel very encouraged(£hc% by the progress europe is

making, canada, japan, already passed their law. i'm actually flying this weekend for yet another international meeting on monday and tuesday on these matters.ñr so i say we've got to get it right to theñiçó bringñiñi transparie and protect theçó public here. we're working activelyçó internationally and there's been good progress there as well. over here. then we'll grow to the front table. >> chairman gensler, john book man, e-trade@k9ancial t-pfaculty.ofñiñr the adjunctñr i like to welcome you back here. >> great, thank you. >> we heard this morning, inñi the context of legislation drafting sometimes mistakes can be made if, if actions are taken -- >> not in title 7. >> no, that is just where i'm going, if actions are taken too quickly. and i would say, perhaps, the latest example of that,ñi would have been possibly the

mf global situation. orçó,ñi money was being traded from accountsñr that contained both mf global fund and customer monies. so do you see to try to prevent something like this happening again. you should have a complete segregation of client fund and firm funds? if not, how dovu preventñiqñr another mf global from >> let me say i'm not participating in that matter because it is an ongoing investigation that i'm not participating in but, in terms of the overall questions that you're asking, congress really, with the focus on the crisis, gave us one year to complete the implementing rules of these financial reforms. now it is nearly two years since congress passed the law. so of course, we're taking our time. i think we're doing it in a balanced way.

we're taking into consideration come menners. we have 28,000 legal briefs. some are 300-page long comment letters. some are one-pagers, thankfully. we've had 1300 meetings. you can go to our website and listen. we've had 16 roundtables and coordinating with other regulators around the globe and had hundreds if not,000 meetings with federal regulators. we're doing this in a balanced way and a eye toward the american public needs this reform. with regard to segregation that is a core foundation of the futures and swaps world. we tightened up, rightfully tightened up in december where customer fund can be invested. it is something i felt at least for the last two years we needed to do. we proposed it back in 2010 and some people said, slow down, cftc, doesn't tighten investment.

customer funds. it is not really dodd-frank and i'm very proud of the staff that recommended it and the commissioners that supported it throughout and we finalized that in december. we've, enhanced the clearinghouses by something called gross margining. we in january finalized rules for the clearinghouse segregation of funds in the swaps marketplace which was historic move where there is going to be legal segregation down to the clearinghouse that didn't exist earlier and yet to exist in the futures marketplace. so i think we've made some very good progress but we also just completed two full days of public roundtables to hear from the public, what else can we do. and to the extent a consensus forms, a consensus first amongst the staff and the commissioners but to the extent that consensus forms, we'll seek public comment on further reforms. up here and then back in the corner. >> there is some concern

that the big bank dealers who historically dominated the over the counter market are going to try to dominate some of these new central counterparties and other clearing facilities, what, is the cftc and sister agencies trying to do to stop that kind of domination hopefully from occurring? >> well, a number of things and you're right, these markets, these swap markets have been rather concentrated around something called the g-14. you might have thought it was countries but it is a group of 14 dealers around the globe and there's a lot of things to create a more access to the market. democratization of markets. i truly believe when you bring access to markets and transparency to markets you get greater competition. i think why there has been pushback. there are a lot of thoughtful comments from the financial community opposed to this. they're being rational actors.

you shift the information advantaged to the public by shining a light on a market. you provide equal access, actually the statute says, it has to be open access to clearinghouses. and, access also to the trading platforms. that's what we've done. we finalized rules last october on the open access to the clearinghouses. significantly took down some of the barriers and there were frankly some, they sort of were put there in place at one time for risk management purposes but upon further reflection probably not needed in the same way. we're looking at some rules in about a month on a very technical area called client clearing documentation. it is a very important rule for access and it seems like the comment letters were five or six to one to do it but you can imagine the one out of the five or one out of six on the other side

were the, you know, the frankly from some of the dealers because these client-clearing documentation rules are so critical for access to the market. so those are some of the things we're doing. oh, back in the corner. >> my name is andrea. i'm financial sector analyst and a am a member of new york society of security analysts and serve on the corporate governance shareholder rights committee and the socially responsible investing committee and committee for improved corporate reporting. >> congratulations for all that. >> they cut me slack when i wasn't working and let me do these other things. my concern however is related to the power of bank management to in effect proliferate the contracts and so they have inflated their balance sheets wit these contracts and their capability in effect of this proliferation of contracting which the boards utterly failed themselves to rein in

and so you can game the income statement it with unrealized noncash gains. so the quantitative easing, i'm curious what power you would have or the commission has to be able to service some restraint from management, especially it is the banks because they're pretty abusive. so the agencies of dealing, they have pretty much been able to get away with what they, pretended they have been profitable by, you know. so where can you step in on cleaning up this mess? >> thank you. there is some of that you addressed is addressed in a rule that we finalized last week and others pieces of what you raised are really around what the securities & exchange commission does with the financial, with generally accepted accounting principles. but that which we've done is financial reform as congress past has said we should put

in place rules about risk management, record-keeping reporting and firewalls. so we completed these rules last week about the internal risk management of the desk which includes, of course the risk management of the usual things you would hope it would include interest rate risk and liquidity risk and currency, et cetera but it also includes, supervision, very key rules of the road about responsibilities to supervise the desks and so forth. or to have policies and procedures in place for that and firewalls between the trading side and the clearing side and firewalls as i earlier mentioned with research. but the second fees you're talking about -- piece you're talking about relates much more to the securities & exchange commission and folks in connecticut that set the accounting standards. they're still in connecticut, right?

i guess the public, the pcob that you heard from steve harris was here earlier because a lot of what you're talking about is also accounting. but what we were able to do is really say you've got to have supervision and things have to be brought up. the second thing i would say is transparency in markets, the more that is on a transactional basis reported to the public makes it a wonderful thing for the accountants when they're trying to see, what are the values of things on the books? because everybody benefits by the discipline of seeing where the last transaction occurred. so you take a very dark market, 300 trillion notional amount market and you move it to something like, i would say like the corporate bond market where you actually have to report each transaction. that changes a lot of the ability to manage the valuations. >> [inaudible]. warren buffett only had like

300 of these instruments. i don't know what the notional of that is and granted he is a much more cautious investor so to speak but he called them in effect financial weapons of mass destruction because the banks, there was no regulation have been able again to just abusively contract, call it betting call at agency subdealing, you know, but, are you saying that you think that this could serve to restrain some of this proliferation? >> i think the transparency is a critical piece of risk management as well. the transparency of markets shines a light inside a company on the value of the transactions that you're booking either that day or last year. and so that that's a critical piece of this transparency helps the end-users but it also helps in the risk management of these institutions. and i had a lively discussion with mr. buffett last year when he called in to tell us to keep doing

what we were doing. so i kind of, that was encouraging. >> you mentioned the aspiration that 90% of the contracts will be cleared on clearinghouses? >> well let me, 90%, this is based on bank of international settlement statistics. approximately 90% of the net notional amount -- >> net notional. >> is between financial entitis. third of the market is between dealer and dealers. 55% is between dealers and financials and nine or 10% what we call end-users. not all of that 90% will come to clearing because some of it won't be standard enough to come to the clearinghouse. >> this is the spoke derivative exemption. some expressed concern that is the loophole that could end up swallowing the rule. my question is, what steps do you think the cftc will take ultimately to get to that 90% goal. >> again, it will be less

than 90 because there is really a part of the market that it is customized and legitimately customized. but whatever portion of those 90 points can come to clearing, can be standardized we'll have to go through a period of public comment as well and i would envision this determination of what is called the clearing mandate or what is clearable or standard enough, our hope is that will begin some time in the spring. the clearinghouse is just in the last two weeks have done their first draft submissions to us, the large clearinghouses, in february they did. so we're certain to walk through that, those submissions. the interest-rate swap market right now there's a clearinghouse out of london that clears, i think it is a quarter of a quadrillion, meaning like 250 trillion dollars of dealer to dealer swaps. the energy swap markets, the two u.s. clearinghouses and

london clearinghouse between the three of them clear the vast, large significant sums in that marketplace. credit default swap market i think is over a quarter to a half has already cleared. that is all voluntarily. it gives us some evidence how clearable this marketplace is particularly in interest rates in the energy markets where clearinghouses have been set up for 10 years to do so. i'll go here and there, there. >> could you explain under, -- >> can you give me your name? >> sorry, jeff krasney. ib capital. >> yes jeff. >> how are you? can you explain the cost benefit analysis regarding the implementation of dodd-frank? under section 15-a of the commodities futures act companies are refusing to supply the cftc at times information. in other words, how is the cftc supposed to create, let alone implement and weigh, then distribute for circulation a cost benefit

analysis as required by dodd-frank? >> well, it's actually, just to say a little bit more on this, under the commodities and exchange act, not dodd-frank, we're required to consider cost benefits. it is not analysis. just to give you a little technical side. but all this matters when people take these things to court. and they will. that is part of our democracy. and have. so, the, we, as commissioners, when we do a rule, are to consider the cost and benefits along these five factors in this section 15-a of the commodities and exchange act and we do some. when we go out to the proposal stage we ask a lot of questions and try to seek public input and qualitative and quantitative aspects of it. as jeff said, we get some input, but, often we don't get a lot of input. part of that is because,

commenters are a little bit hesitant to give away their information. part of might be that they don't know yet. this is a very new regime but what we do, is we go through the comments. we go through our economic analysis. our chief economist and his office is involved in each one. has to sign off on each one of these. the policy folks and lawyers of course have to sign off as well and the five commissioners weigh in and i think that we're doing exactly what the commodities and exchange act tells us to do, is to weigh it. to consider it and to seek public comment on it. so. >> david -- wharton. >> david, which organization are you with? >> cart wharton. >> wharton? good, my alma mater. did you have a view on the

fund the commission? should it be funded on assessments of regulated industry. are you worried that might tie the agency's interests too closely with that of the industry? >> so david's question is how to best fund the agency and number two would be it good to do it through some fee and three is would that tie us too closely to the industry. does that got it? i think it is critical to be funded and i look forward to working with congress any way congress wants to [laughter] i mean, it really is. to be only 7-00 person agency and i know, we have a very significant challenge as americans with the budget deficit and the fiscal situation. so to go to congress and ask literally for 50% increase of size of the agency to from $200 million age at this to $308 million agency i do that with deep respect what the congress and president has to do but i think it is a very good investment for the american public.

all one has to do look at tarp. that was $700 billion. i mean i'm not going to say a well-regulated swaps market was all, was needed to avert tarp but, it's a really, like buying insurance to have a well-funded cftc and, and anyway congress wants to do it. if it was presidents both republican and democratic presidents suggested to congress controlled by both, all parties, to consider a fee. if that is what our oversight committees and appropriatetors wanted to work on i say i'm ready to work with them on it any way we could help get funding if that is not the way i would keep advocating with the appropriators, and congress for funds i think it is appropriate for this very expanded mission. >> [inaudible]. public citizen. >> bart, good to see you again. >> nice to see you. volcker rule timing,

chairman bernanke said before the house and senate financial committees that it won't be ready by july 21st when the statute provides that it be in force and i think in his words, it, they obviously, his words, won't enforce it if there is no rule. your views, what's your forecast? trading account is, was the home of some of the most illiquid and problematic financial positions some of which are in your purview. when do you expect to begin enforcing the volcker rule? >> you know, it is a collaborative effort between i think it is six regulators and the department of treasury. we published a rule for comment a little after the others because we, frankly had capacity issues. you know, just, moving through all the matters congress has asked us to do. so we just published ours in the last week or two and our

comment period closes april 16th. so any of you want it comment, we look forward to that comment on how to best protect the public through this means and i would assume that we would work with the other five regulators and again in a balanced way to complete what congress laid out. and the challenge is well-known. it's to prohibit proprietary trading and that is really to protect the taxpayers. that banking entities that have some support from the federal deposit insurance corporation, in essence have some form of safety from the federal reserve and the fdcic, prohibit proprietary trading but permit eight or nine other activities including market-making. so it's how to, how to deal with prohibiting proprietary trading, permitting market-making and not having

one swallow up the other in the final rule and i think that's the core challenge that, 17,000 comment letters have already come in to the bank regulators. was there one other just to wrap because i see you want to get me out of here or something. >> you -- >> no, no, i'll take one last one. is there anybody else who wanted -- there we go. it's a friday, i might be standing between you and like a golf course or something. >> you're right on time. thank you so much for those very good remarks. [applause] i was right, the country is in good hand to have you as the chairman of the cftc and we were delighted to have you here today at george washington university law school. as a token of our appreciation -- >> is it worth less than $20? >> it is a cheap clock and a coffee mug. >> i might only be able to take the coffee mug then. [laughter] >> you take your pick, we'll give you a receipt. wouldn't want to violate any rules. you're welcome to come back

anytime. we appreciate your company here. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thanks. [applause] >> coffee mug. >> that can't be possibly cheap enough. i'm taking the mug. anybody want a clock? >> we have the mug here. does anyone want a clock? looks like under 20 bucks. >> there you go i will take it. >> sure? >> yeah. >> you don't know what the clock costs and no, that is over 20 bucks. is it? we'll auction off the clock after lunch. thank you very much. >> thank you very much [applause] >> coming up live this afternoon, tsa administrator, john pistol is in washington and speaking at national press club. he is expected to talk the future of aviation security. we'll have that at 1:00 p.m. eastern. we'll look at your phone

calls from this morning's "washington journal" >> host: let's look at president obama's comments at aipac. this is about his policy about iran. >> i have a policy of preventing iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. [applause] and as i have made clear time and again, during the course of my presidency i will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the united states and its interests. >> host: president obama speaking yesterday. his message on iran. here is how "the new york times" covered the story. the headline is, loose war talk helps iran, the president says. as republicans on the campaign trail ramped up

their support for israel and a possible military strike on iran president obama used a speech before a pro-israel lobbying group on sunday to warn against the loose talk of war that could serve to speed iran to nuclear weapon. in a forceful address to the group the influential israel american public affairs committee, mr. obama declared he would not tolerate a nuclear armed iran and would act with military force if necessary to prevent that from haing. but he made it clear he did not believe a strike on iran would i have so the interests of the either the united states or israel and he chided his republican critics for, as he described it, putting politics maid of american national security interests. go to the phones and here from ike in tampa, florida. independent line. good morning. >> caller: good morning. this, i think seems like everybody is beating the drums of war here. a lot of people make a lot of money off war, you know. there's a lot of untold stories out there, even like in afghanistan right now there's like 500,000

refugees just out there roaming around. it is wintertime over there. this war stuff is just got to end. it is perpetual. nothing but profit-driven, you know, this oil stuff, just like in afghanistan. we just propped up another dictator. it's insane, this war stuff and, i don't think iran is that big of a threat. i think we could put a stop to it anytime. i think we need to cut off all funding to israel because, you know, let them fight their own wars. this is just getting ridiculous. >> host: let's hear from david, republican in victorville, california. good morning. >> caller: hi, good morning to you. >> host: good morning. go right ahead. >> caller: i just think we have to stand up for israel, you know? it's in the bible, like fundamental to who we are as a nation. and also i think you know, obama has not been standing up for israel like he should. i think we, israel is on the verge of another holocaust and the iranian dictator

ahmadinejad might deny that but that is what is about to happen. >> host: david, what did you think of the republican as president's message yesterday. did you like his tone? >> caller: i'm not sure i saw that message. >> host: do you want to hear more about it? >> caller: sure. >> host: we'll play more clips of the president speaking yesterday and get response of the republican presidential contenders how did they react to what he said and what is their take on what he said. let's look at some facebook messages coming in. adam says iran equals iraq 2.0. don't be fooled. and then, ken writes in and says this will be incredibly testing between now and november. the israel thing where they act independent of the united states. the question of that relationship and boundary there. joseph tweets in with his thoughts. our president was quite clear. no nuclear weapons for iran and america does not bluff. next up on the phones is jim, who is an independent caller

joining us from south bend, indiana. good morning. >> caller: good morning, libby and c-span. >> host: hi. >> caller: hi. well, i saw the president's speech and of course -- with aipac. i hope c-span will let me get my comments out. while there is, i think there is some room for concern of course with iran and their nuclear program i think it is unfortunate again that we have to police the world and -- to the zionists at aipac. the say per rattling, really doesn't do us any good but, of course the president has to go there to this aipac and do that. and just unfortunate that we're still policing the

world like this, dictating who does what when and i don't think iran would be suicidal wanting to lob one weapon over into israel like that. everybody knows what the results would be. >> host: let's take a listen to more what the president had to say yesterday at aipac. >> iran's leaders should have no doubt about the resolve of the united states. [applause] just as they should not doubt israel's sovereign right to make its own decisions about what is required to meet its security needs. [applause]

i have said that when it comes to preventing iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon i will take no options off the table. and i mean what i say. [applause] that includes all elements of american power. a political effort aimed at isolating iran. a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition to insure that the iranian program is monitored. an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions. and yes, a military effort to be prepared for any continuingcy. >> host: president obama speaking yesterday at aipac, addressing his stance on iran. what did you think about that message yesterday? what kind of a signal does it send to iran? what kind of a signal does it send to israel and what does it say to americans and the rest of the world? here is what jamey writes on twitter. the president's message was clear. his posture up right and

tall and resolve unquestionable. i only wish he would address the u.s. economy with such authority. well, bill tweets in says whether president obama wants to or not, polling proves it is in his own best political interest to support israel. dave, republican, cold water, michigan, what do you think? >> caller: well, i don't think obama makes really a strong enough statement. you know when nixon was president as he told barbara walters in an interview, barbara, i would just simply level tehran. now if obama would launch say, two or three 300 nuclear weapons into iran a smoke the country off the map, i think that would solve all the middle east problems and all these things going on in afghanistan, really driven by iran. that would end that too. >> host: dave, do you think, do you think that the president should have the rhetoric or talk that he is willing to go that far? sounds like you actually think he should do that? >> caller: yeah i do.

i don't think he should put out bull crap. usually when i hear from obama ends up being a lie basically. i think he should step down from the office of the presidency and let somebody that can run the country take over. look at the mess he has gotten us everything. he failed everywhere. solyndra, bailouts. and i think he is secretly goes every there and makes deals because he has all the arab countries going together on a big caliphate. he is building up arab world. increasings price of gas to make more money. he has ability to do a lot of things. selling nuclear korea missiles to korea. he is. >> host: let's focus on whether you think the president had a strong enough stance or go too far? what do you think about -- >> you can find the rest of this conversation on online to the c span video library. we take you to comments of

to comments by john pistole? >> john piss toll is the unwilting pace of. every time asked to take of shoes at airport, pull out our laptops or submit uncomfortable pat-down we have his age at this to blame. pistole who spent most of the career chasing bad guys at the fbi can take it. he told at times, whatever people want to call me they recognize we're simply doing everything we can to work with people to provide the best possible security. the son after church of god minister, pistole graduated from anderson university in indiana and indiana university law school in indianapolis. he joined the fbi in 1983 in minneapolis. he went on to work in new york before moving to the bureau's headquarters in washington to supervise the organized crime session. since 1999 when he helped

lead the inquiry into the crash of egypt air flight 990 off nantucket, massachusetts, he has worked on some of the nation's highest profile cases involving national security. after the 9/11 attacks he was put in charge of the fbi's expanded counterterrorism branch, eventually becoming the bureau's executive assistant director of counterterrorism and counterintelligence. pistole led or was involved in a number of high-profile investigations including the 2003, suicide bombings in riyadh, saudi arabia, the breakup of a plot to bomb new york city subways in 2009, and later that year the case of the would-be "underwear bomber" on the detroit-bound jet on christmas. he also took part in the investigation of an attempted car bombing in times square in 2010. in 2004, pistole was named deputy director of the fbi and was serving in the number two position when president obama tapped him to fill the top spot of the

tsa. today, he oversees 60,000 employees who provide security at more than 450 airports and through the federal air marshals service. his agency is also responsible for the security of the nation's highways, railroads, ports, mass transit systems and pipelines. since taking over the agency nearly a decade after the 9/11 attacks, pistole worked to resolve the tsa one size fits all screening of nearly 1.8 million people a day into a more intelligence-driven based on risk. along the way he had to answer to angry travelers, about pat-downs, chatdowns and naked body scans. i'm sure the administrator will have much to say about all this. please welcome our luncheon guest, john pistole. [applause] >> well, thank you, teresa, for most of that introduction anyway. [laughter] i've been described in a lot

of different ways and that was kind of a compendium of a lot of things that are coming together there. good afternoon. it is an honor to be here today. i appreciate the opportunity to meet with you and to speak on the continuing evolution of the transportation security administration. our place in the global counterterrorism community, and our latest efforts to strengthen aviation security through the ongoing development and implementation of risk-based intelligence-driven security initiatives. of course last fall we marked the 10th anniversary of both the 9/11 attacks and legislation known as atsa. aviation transportation security act passed by the united states congress in november 19th, 2001, signed by the president several days later. both as important part of our country's response to those horrific attacks. the tsa was created through that legislation and we continue to be proud of how tsa was staffed and operational in less than one year.

in fact many americans, i would say most americans don't know the building of tsa required the largest, most complex, mobilization of the federal workforce since world war ii. as tsa administrator i've been privileged to know and work with a number of dedicated individuals who, know our story better than anyone because they helped write it. dedicated public servants like then transportation secretary norm mineta. deputy secretary michael jackson who became later deputy secretary at the newly created department of homeland security. john mack gau the first administrator of tsa and ralph bash some who worked closely and jim loy came with the coast guard and dhs and david stone and kip hawley, the next three administrators. also on the list is our current deputy administrator who is seated here who was also there at the start. just one of a handful of public servants give the urgent task of standing up a

new security agency whose sweeping mission has always been to protect our nation's transportation systems, to insure the freedom of movement for people and commerce. i would also note that gail served for 18 months as the acting administrator before my arrival and the american people are more secure because of her outstanding service. so at its core, the concept of risk-based security demonstrates a progress of work tsa has been doing throughout its first decade of service to the american people. it's an understanding, really an acknowledgement, that we are not in the business of eliminating all risk associated with traveling from point a to point b. risk is inhernlt in virtually everything we do. our objective is to mitigate risk, to reduce it as much as possible and to insure that the potential for anyone to commit a deliberate act against our transportation system is

mitigated. he have before i go further i want to take just a moment and mention another significant anniversary within the tsa family. teresa mentioned federal air marshals service. last friday, the men and women of federal air marshal service who comprise tsa's primary law enforcement component celebrated their 50th anniversary. originally safety inspectors for the u.s. customs agency, the first class of 18 peace officers as they were called was sworn? 50% ago and began building a legacy of protection which today's officers uphold every time they board an aircraft. while their core mission is to protect the flying public remained constant over the years, federal air marshals have ever expanding role in homeland security and they work closely with other law enforcement agencies to accomplish their mission. air marshals are integrated with key counterterrorism partners as national counterterrorism center and national targeting center

and several joint fbi task forces around the country. they'res also a critical part of effective partnerships essential to nearly everything we do in tsa. i think it is helpful to take a brief look back and rorl what transportation security looked like prior to the september 11th attacks because as you are aware, what was in place then bears little resemblance to the strong, multilayered system in place today and that is especially true when we talk specifically about aviation security. so remember that before september 11th there was one. no cohesive system in place to check passenger names against terrorist watch lists in advance of flying. two, only limited technology was in place for uncovering a wide array of threats to passengers and aircraft. we saw how effective those were or were not on september 11th. three, no comprehensive federal requirements to screen checked or carry-on baggage. four, minimal in flight

security on most flights. and five, from intelligence coordination standpoint, before 9/11, there was a lack of timely intelligence-sharing in boeing directions both from the federal level to the individual airports and from the individual airport to the national level. as teresa mentioned i came to the fbi more than a year and a half ago, working previous 26 years in variety of positions at fbi, almost exclusively in national security matters post-9/11. so that experience with a range of partners inside the law enforcement, intelligence communities both here in the u.s. and overseas has helped shape my approach to solidifying tsa's place within the national counterterrorism continuum. every day we strive to insure our operational planning and decision-making process is timely, efficient and coordinated as possible and critically based on intelligence. we work to share critical information with key industry shareholders, many

of whom are here today, wherever appropriate and we can constantly communicating with our front line officers through shift briefing held several times a day. thanks to some of these effective partnerships we forge with industry stakeholders including of course with our airline and airport partners and with law enforcement colleagues at every level, tsa achieved a number about significant milestones during its first 10 years of service. these include things such as matching 100% of all passengers flying into, and out of and within the united states against government watch lists through the secure flight program which was previously run by the airlines. it includes screening all cargo transported on passenger planes domestically. as you know we work closely with our international partners every day to screen 100% of high-risk inbound cargo on passenger planes. we're also working hard with these same partners to screen 100% of all international in-bound cargo on passenger planes by the

end of this year. and it also includes improving aviation security through innovative technology that provides enhanced baggage screening for explosives. i do want to touch for a moment on surface transportation also and mention our viper teams. in the time that we have conducted over17,000 visible intermodal prevention responses or viper operations we currently have 25 multimodal viper teams working in transportation sectors across the country to prevent or disrupt potential terrorist planning activities. additionally since 2006 tsa completed more than 190 baseline assessments for security enhancement for transit which provide the comprehensive assessment for security programs in critical transit systems. now we're seeing benefits how these steps combined with our multiple layers of security across the different transportation sectors which include the opportunities we have for

cutting-edge technology, help keep america safe each and every day. since our stand-up in 2002 in aviation security we have screened nearly 6 billion passengers. think about that, 6 billion passengers. our front line officers have detected thousands of firearms and countless other prohibited items and we have prevented those weapons from entering the aircraft. in fact, more than 10 years after 9/11, tsa officers still dedebt on average, three to four firearms every day in carry-on bags at security checkpoints around the country. good news that is down slightly from the 2011 averages. deploying advanced avr technologies continue to factor significantly into our multilayered approach to transportation security. in particular, we see the efficacy of the advanced imaging technology or ait machines, at hundreds of passenger security checkpoints around the united states. from a security perspective, last year the office of the inspector general assessed

number or assessed the manner in which tsa inspects, maintains and operates back scatter ait machines. oig found it. sa was in compliance with standards with regard to radiation exposure limits and safety requirements. as a result of intensive research, analysis and testing tsa believes that potential health risks screening with back scatter security civils are minuscule. a finding also made by the u.s. army public health command in a report issued just last month. . .

throughout 2011, a.i.d. and other technologies help our officers detect hundreds prohibited dangerous or illegal items on passengers, not just carry on bag but on passengers. these good catches illustrate how effective our people, processes and technology are finding concealed items, either on the person or in the carry-on bag. to our efforts which highlight many of these good catches every week in blog posts uploaded to tsa.gov. eke out looked at that i would encourage you to take a look at that. they do a great job in that area. that the number of incidents of items in concealed shoes to items hidden in a hollowed out book, for example, does recognize which, of course, don't show up as metal. to exotic pets strapped to

passengers legs. some of these -- as strange as some these may be that they are stark reminder 10 years after the events of 9/11 people still try to bring deadly weapons and other items on two aircraft. officers are detecting them as weapons every day to keep all of them off the planes. less than one month ago over presidents' day weekend in february our officers detected 19 guns in carry-on bags around the country. in total, 1306 guns were detected in airport checkpoints in 2011. so it's important to note the law working hard to deploy the latest technology, technological adventures, we've also made success in strengthening protection. last fall we upgraded all of our units nationwide with new privacy protection software called automatic threat recognition.

this software upgrade further enhances privacy protection by eliminating passengers specific images and instead display a generic outlined of a person. we know this software makes the process more efficient but into many pieces that county strengthen security, provides enhanced privacy protections, and gives great resource efficiency, i think that is a winning formula for all travelers. as good as they are these technologies such as this one do not stand alone. that's why we continue our efforts to strengthen wherever possible standard operating procedures already in place throughout the roughly 450 airports. one of the ways we're doing this is by developing and put into practice a series of risk-based processes to further strengthen aviation security. in 2011, we have them and several new concepts including a program designed to verify the identity of airline pilots and provide them with expired edit screen. for example, adjustments in screening procedures with

children 12 and under and the use of expanded behavior detection techniques. perhaps the most widely known security enhancement we put in place is tse pre-check, one of several risk-based intelligence measures currently helping us move away from a one size fits all security model and closer to our goal. that coal is very simple. to provide the most effective security in the most efficiently. one size fits all was necessary after 9/11 and has been effective, but thanks to two key enablers, acknowledge and intelligence, we are able to begin moving toward the risk-based security model. these initiatives are enabling us to focus our resources on those passengers who pose the greatest risk, including of course those on terror watch lists while providing expedited screening and perhaps a better travel experience to those that we consider lower risk or trusted travelers. we began implementing this idea last fall, and since then at the

ninth air force we are expanding, we are currently participating, more than 460,000 passengers around the country have experienced expedited physical security screen through pre-checks and feedback we've been getting is positive. the success of tse pre-check has been made possible by the great partnerships with our participating airlines, airports and her sister agencies, custom border protection. the airlines want us to invite eligible passengers to opt into these initiatives and then working with cbp were able to extend project benefits to any u.s. citizen who was a member of one of cbp's trusted traveler programs, such as global country. i encourage anyone who's interested to to apply for global entry, if you get accepted, you get benefits from both cbp and tsa at participating airports. by the end of this year, we expect to be offering passengers 35 of our busiest airports the

expedited physical screen benefits associate with tse pre-check because we can prescreening of them before they get to the airport. by concert evaluating new ideas and having strength to layers of security throughout the screening process, we account wish several things. this allows officers to focus their attention on those travelers we believe are more likely -- focusing our efforts a more precise manner is not only good for strength in the aviation security but also for improving the overall travel expert for the 1.7, 1.8 million people who fly in the use country and u.s. every day. our ability to find the proverbial needle in haystack is improved every time we are able -- strengthening our aviation security screening procedures with risk-based initiatives such as tse precheck, is getting it

done and will continue expanding the program wherever we can. again, all in partnership with the airlines, and airports and all those who have a vested interest in this process. we will also continue to explore ways to adjust our standard screening security procedures for certain segments of the general traveling public. as we did last year with younger travelers, those 12 and younger. in addition to expanding our use of intelligence we're using the risk assessment model to try the airline industries no crew member effort in another way. by the end of this month, we will expand the tse precheck to include active duty u.s. armed forces members with a common access card, coming out of ronald reagan, washington national airport. service members will undergo tsa preflight screening ever able to verify the servicemen is in good standing with the department of defense by scanning their cac

card at the airport they will likely receive tse precheck screen benefits. such as no longer removing their shoes, and allowing them to keep their laptop in a briefcase and their 311 compliant liquids in their carry-on bags. we believe your service those are entrusted to protect and defend our nation and citizens with their lives, and as such tsa is recommending these members pose little risk to aviation security. as we review and evaluate the effectiveness of these possible enhancements, it's possible that additional changes to security screening process may be implemented in the future as we continue to work toward providing all travelers with that most effective security, provide them any most efficiently. of course, will always retain the ability to incorporate random and unpredictable security measures throughout the airport, and no individual is every -- ever guaranteed expedites screen. we appreciate the ongoing support and cooperation of the aviation industry and the

traveling public as we strive to continue strengthening transportation security and improving whenever possible the overall travel experience for all americans. there are also significant economic benefits to strengthen aviation security, most notably in the area of cargo security and our ability to facilitate the secure movement of goods. interconnectedness and interdependence of the global economy requires that each and every link in the global supply chain be as strong as possible. whether it is for business or for pleasure, the freedom to travel from place to place is fundamental to our way of life. and to do so securely is the goal to which everyone at tsa is fully committed. thank you again for inviting me here today. i look forward to taking whatever questions you may have, thank you. [applause] >> you mention over presidents' day alone how many knives were found and guns. what happens to the people found with guns and knives getting

onto airplanes, and how may of them have malicious intent? >> we believe very few, if any, have malicious intent if you're talking from a terrorist perspective. it depends on the local jurisdiction, whether the individuals are arrested or whether they are cited by the local law enforcement authorities. they are always cited high as for trying to get by the protocols. >> what happened to the poker machines at the airport checkpoints? >> the poker machine for a winners are those machines that are constructed in a push to try to find explosives, explosive residue, on a person. and the idea was simply to have somebody walk into the machine and have a puff of air come on them and then that detection equipment would detect that. what we found is that we did not

have sufficient testing done prior to deployment, and basically from a fundamental design features, for example, if the air was brought in from the floor to create that path, and a lot of contaminants on airport floor, ever not any manufactures labs, so simple design change would've made much more effective. but a decision was made, this goes back several years ago, decision was made not to fully deploy those so those were taken, the few that had been deployed, were taken out and put away. >> how do you continuously monitor people are part of the precheck and trusted traveler program? >> so i think it's important to remember that anybody in precheck or for example, global entry still goes through physical security. so for example, somebody asked one time about major hasan, the fort hood shooter, and if he had

intent to do something bad on an airplane. he is still going through physical screen, albeit a different type perhaps, and so those weapons would be detected. we to return to betting against terrorist screening database every day to ensure that nobody is in that category, and then work with the airlines, cbp, in terms of additional vetting which we don't talk about in detail because we don't want terrorists to gained the system. >> is everyone who feels nervous while traveling now a suspected terrorist? >> absolutely not. i have a god who traveled the other day and she's always nervous traveling because she has motion sickness and without we might have to put on the watchlist or something. obviously, not. but the behavior detection officers are trained in looking at those, those physical manifestations which may be of concern, and so even my fbi

background i am a firm believer in the benefits of that, but clearly nervous in and of itself may just be simply something like my daughter. >> the perceived threat from the tears have changed since 9/11. shifting from the idea getting hijacked plane as a weapon to an idea of a terrorist using explosives might bring down an airliner, does tsa regularly review its screening procedures to adapt to the new perceived threats? >> yes. we start every day, the senior leadership team, three of whom you see up here on the dais with me, start every day with an intelligence briefing from around the world, so not just u.s. intelligence community, law enforcement community, but worldwide. and probably the best example goes back to october 2010 when we learned about the plot coming out of yemen of the two packages with the toner cartridges packed in them. and so working very closely with the industry and our counterparts overseas, we took a

number of steps to shore up the jury as relates to cargo, and particularly how we can detect such devices that are well-designed, well concealed, and then shipped in a way that makes it difficult to detect. so yes, every day we recalibrate, if you will, look at what's destiny to incorporate at the checkpoint for passengers or for our cargo screening you here or overseas. >> given the increased growth of international trade and movement of people, what do you envision as a good cooperation with foreign countries? >> will clearly we want to from a security standpoint we want to security for passengers and cargo that is commensurate with what we have here. so for those of you who have traveled overseas, some airports, at some airports you will remember that you went to press a central checkpoint, and then at the actual gate before you board the plane, you will go through another set of security. those are tsa requirements for

various reasons, to make sure that every passenger getting on a flight to the u.s. has been thoroughly screened commensurate with tsa standards. there's over 270 of those last point up archers around the world that fly directly to the u.s. so our challenge is to work with our partners, similar to tsa, and then with the industry to make sure that we have again, the best possible security provided in the most efficient way. >> currently, how much u.s. bound air cargo is screened on passenger airplanes? >> it's difficult to say precisely, but working with industry we believe in over 80, perhaps 90% of all cargo on u.s. bound passenger planes is currently being screened. and our goal, i mentioned in working with industry and again, registered counterparts overseas, is to have 100% of that done by the end of this

year, to a risk-based model similar to what we do in our passenger screening. >> what constitutes high-risk cargo? >> will of course we don't define it because we don't want to give terrorists to go to our website and say okay, this is high risk so i'm going to do something that is not high risk. but for example, ibc is somebody, such as the bombers out of yemen a year and a half ago were shipping computer printers and some clothing and books to chicago and paying $500 in shipping costs, just from an advanced cargo information perspective, why would somebody be shipping computer printers which they could buy in chicago for much less than the cost of shipping? so any advanced information we have helps going to assessing and defining high-risk cargo, and then working closely with industry, the cargo industry, which has manifest information

on who the shipper is, what the type shipment is. every comes down to define and to distinction between known shippers and known shippers against a known shippers and unknown shipments. >> you talk about mitigating risks rather than eliminating it. how do you balance the interest that's an inconvenience of your security decisions against the reduction in real risk? >> well, the bottom line is went to make sure everybody gets on every plane, 29,000 times or so every day in the u.s., that they have been thoroughly screened so there's not a terrorist on who's watching to blow up that airline. that being said, what we are doing with this risk-based model is to recognize that a vast majority of people trying are not terrorist. so how can we afford them some type of expedited physical screening by doing more prescreening? part of that, almost 27 years

anytime i traveled i flew armed, and would never go through security screening. i would go to the protocol, go to the exit lane and find a law enforcement officer bochum have my credentials validated, verified and then get on the plane armed. so clearly, prior to 9/11 we differentiated between passengers because we knew, we trust them for whatever reason. of the id is the same, just to extend that, that concept to say we already know some of the people who shared information who are willing to share information with us and we can make judgments and decisions to again expedite the physical screen because we have done more prescreening on the front and. >> how can travelers give informed consent to search procedure when the tsa refuses to describe exactly how searches are to be conducted? >> yeah, it's a challenging situation because again, we don't want to publish out exact protocol, so again, an

innovative, creative terrorist as we have seen both with the human cargo plot and the assassination attempt against the saudi administrator, and then, of course, with the underwear bomber, we don't want to publish exactly what we do so they can just look at that and say okay, we can construct this type of advise, conceal it last summer we saw there was information about those same terrorists who devised those three devices, they were looking at ways to beat our advanced imaging technology machines by doing surgically implanted devices, bombs, so they would get a passenger on a plane with a surgically implanted device in hopes our technology would not pick that up except that's the ballots that we run every day to provide the best possible security, while respecting the privacy and dignity of everybody involved. we recognize that with 1.7, 1.8 million people every day we don't get it right every time, but it is our goal to provide the best possible security in

the most professional way. and that's what we strive for every day. we work toward that, and it's something that we welcome feedback from the traveling public. i hear from travelers on a fairly regular basis, and we work with them to try to address their need. indy center, we initiated something called tsa cares, which is a phone number you can call, especially if you are elderly or have medical conditions which may require different types of screening. and what tsa cares is a hot line, if you will but if you call in advance, it gives us the opportunity to work with that particular passenger in a way that we can help expedite their screening process while respecting their privacy, their dignity, and ensuring that there is not a terrorist trying to use that person unwittingly forbade

means. >> the tsa is sometimes and headlines for reasons that don't relate to catching tears to for example, and mother in a white was denied entry on a plane for caring breast pump they tsa officer has been accused of inappropriate pat downs of the elderly. how does bad pr effect we tsa approaches its mission, and is there a need to respond to the public anger? >> again, so the challenge is, with those millions of passengers and with 450 airports, it is a challenge to provide 100% total customer satisfaction. and recognizing that many days we don't do that, there are opportunities for us every day to engage the public in a way that most agencies or businesses, for example, i'm trying to think of any businesses that have 100% customer satisfaction with that many customers, if you will come on a daily basis.

i'm not aware of any government agency that has that record. there may be some businesses out there. so it really comes down to the better inform the passenger to be before they get to the airport by looking at the tsa document on the website, we have a lot of helpful suggestions and tips for how to pack, have to travel. what we look for and what our prohibited items, what things you can take on, what things you can't. and what can go in your checked bag but a lot of people, gun owners, know that they can't take their gun in your checked bag is a protocol for doing that. and depending on where you are, you may need, clearly you need to have a permit, but just make sure your following the protocols of the local police, have an awareness of that, and they declare that weapon and packet appropriate. so they're all kinds of subtle nuances that the more informed

accounting public will be, the better job we can do in providing that effective security. >> following the rules of what you can and cannot take, why can't a passenger take on health care joe but not 112-ounce bottle? >> now we're getting into math. well, so the contact againcome of it most people are aware, the limitation on liquids, aerosol, 3.4 ounces of 100 milliliters goes back to august of '06 when a group of terrorists in the united kingdom actually took sports drink and drilled the bottom out of the sports drink, drink out the sport aid drink, and then filled it with liquid explosives. the whole purpose of doing that was, when two types of liquid explosives were combined on the plane, it would cause an explosion. and so of course prior to that we didn't have those

limitations. so that's what we're dealing with, that we know in certain amounts, that terrorists can combine those in a way that would potentially cause a catastrophic event on an aircraft. we look at multiple small items, it becomes an issue of how effective is that, if they are the equivalency of the same larger amounts, but look, there's got to be some point where we look as much, and part of our risk a small is to look at much of the person as the items that they are carrying. and so part of that means, and that's where behavior detection comes in, that's where the prescreening comes in, because with a whole list of prohibited items, which some of them make a lot of sense, some we are revisiting to see whether they do make sense as we further deploy this risk-based security model. so, again, a lot of challenges and opportunities in that rega

regard. >> how do you justify to tsa having more than 65,000 employees, more than the department of state, more than the department of energy, more than the department of labor and education combined? in this day and age calling for less government and less government infringement on our live? >> the bottom line is it's a huge job to provide that transportation security, not only for the 400 airports, but we work with our state and local partners in mass transit, rail, buses, metro systems, you know, there's multiple times millions more people traveling on subways and trains and buses every day than in planes. and that's not tsa's primary responsibility. we act as a force multiplier for those mass transit and other carriers, but that was part of the enabling legislation that congress passed is to say, you need to be responsible for all

modes of transportation security. so how do we do that? and what we do, just for example, in terms of efficiency, yes, we have tens of thousands employees, 24% of those are veterans, people who have served honorably inhe armed forces. over 14,000rity screeners, traportation security offics at airports are part-time. beusfor ose i yin the rlrnthis who want to do something in terms of leaving a bomb or trying to get off or something like that, we know that cctv can be effective but armed officers and canines are good deterrence. so the whole purpose of the viper teams are to try to throw off the terrorist that may be doing surveillance, let's say at union station or at an airport. and they go let's say tuesday at 10 a.m., and don't see anybody there so in terms of law enforcement present, and so they

say okay, next tuesday we will try it again. next tuesday they do it. no one for the present. the third tuesday at 10:00 when a plan to do it, and on that tuesday at 10:00 is a viper team which is armed, with canine, includes some security inspectors, tsa, but it's always involving the local police authority. and again, this is designed to simply be visible deterrent to any terrorists. >> what is being done by the tsa to be more open about how to manage the no-fly list? how can it be refined so its implementation manages security and better catches real threats without being subject to persistent charges that it violates civil liberties? >> so the no-fly list was based on intelligence that has been provided to some other component of the u.s. government, or to

our foreign counterparts who provide them to u.s. government. so if you're on a no-fly list, there is information about you that you are a potential threat to aviation, and so that's a reason for denying you the privilege of flying. that being said, there are others who are not in that status but he would receive additional scrutiny because of again, the derogatory information about them. the only people that there's some derogatory information about from some credible source are on the list. the lack of transparency gets to the point of revealing what that derogatory information is, which in some instances here for the old adage that government needs to protect sources of method, collection of information, in some instances that is the case. that you provide with that intelligence is in any type of public forum or even to the individual who may be using that

as a fishing expedition to find out what the government knows about him or her would be seen as detrimental to the national security. so that's a background on it and that's a reason that we again have intelligence briefings every day. we look at the next several days in terms of who are no flight individuals who are wanting to fly, and then who are known as, he would receive additional scrutiny that are also planning to fly to see if there's any patterns or groupings of people that we should be more focus on from everest taste passionate from a risk-based process. >> over 500 screeners have been arrested from a scene from passengers bags. it some and value out of the passenger back, could they not be bribed to put dangerous items indian? >> i'm not sure where that 500 number comes from. there have been a number of both tsa employees and other folks, other agencies, airline employees arrested for theft. and it is, has been a problem.

it is also security concern and that's why we use cctv extensively, particularly in the checked bag area to also ensure both for protection who may be accused of stealing but also to deter theft in those instances. we have been able to rebut allegations on a not a regular basis from those allegations by just going to the cctv and showing exactly what the security officer did with the checked bag, and then those instances where we do have credible information we have taken steps to the inspector general and the u.s. attorney's office or, to have as individuals not only fired but criminally prosecuted. >> what are your reasons for favoring using government secured officers at airports over john mica's privatization

proposal? >> well of course you know, the private security regiment said that prior to 9/11, and i think tsa was created for the core purpose of preventing another 9/11. and so philosophically, at its core icc essay as a u.s. government run organization with counterterrorism focus. and there are benefits of doing that that have been discussed. what has also been one of the issues for me is from a cost perspective, that up until this point of the privatize airports, its cost more for the u.s. taxpayers because taxpayers are still paying the cost of the screen. they still have to follow the same operating procedures, same protocols that we use it every other airport. and i think that's one of the reasons we just haven't seen that many airports actually apply. we have 16 currently being run as privatized screening

workforces, san francisco being the largest. we have had two new airports apply, the faa reauthorization bill which included a change in the way we treat applications, and so we will look at those closely and work closely with the congress to see how we can best implement congressional intent. >> do you worry that urging the public to report suspicious behavior on metro and highway signs, billboards and basically everywhere can cause paranoia? >> i'm not worried about that. if somebody is predisposed to that, then that may see that. but i think, again, it is just common sense that if people are aware that there is some action that can be taken, now, the other side of that, every once in a while fbi and other agencies will look, what we call

poison e-mails or letters were somebody is wanting to be smirk someone else's reputation and say this person is going to try to get on this aircraft and they're actually a terrorist. well, you look into it and you find it pretty quickly that that is not the case and the person made the allegation is usually charged with a criminal offense in that regard. but no, i think it is common sense in saying let's all work together as opposed to it's just the governments response but to do this. look, it's all of our responsibility is the way i look at it. we each shared a common goal of providing most effective security transportation. we want to get from here to there safely go see our loved ones, go take care of our business. let's just do that in a collaborative fashion, and i think that's what is expressed. >> what work i is a tsa doing wh highway transportation and what is their accomplishment's? >> we work closely with the over the road buses of which begin

carry millions of people every day. we also work with the commercial truck drivers, particularly those of a hazardous material enforcement. because the concern over what a terrorist may do with hazardous material load, and so we work with them to strengthen their security protocols, where we have grant funding available. we also try to address the highest vulnerability areas used a risk assessment model, and again, whether it is providing training, whether it is providing resources in terms of equipment, screening equipment or whatever may be, and do have some some predatory of authority for who is actually working, for example, as commercial drivers, and we work closely with the industry to make sure that their workers have been vetted.

>> we're almost out of time, but before i asked the last question i have a couple housekeeping matters to take care. first of all i would like to remind you all of some upcoming luncheon speakers. on march 14, we're former representative patrick kennedy and jim branstad to talk about the mental health parity act. founder of the chopra foundation will be speaking on and on april 5, douglas shulman, the commission of the internal revenue service. second, i would like to present our kids with the traditional press club mug. >> all right. >> it holds more than three ounces of liquids. [laughter] spent and the last question, have you ever had to be submitted to a pat down when going through airport security? >> multiple times. i go through security every time. one of my recent international trips, i was transiting through a well-known western european

hub, and went through a metal detector and i knew i had no metal on me yet the alarm went off there they sit over here. they didn't know i was. and i received a thorough pat down. i complement the security officer on the thoroughness of his pat down and made me stand up straight. so i do. [laughter] >> how about a round of applause for our speaker today? [applause] thank you all for coming. i would also like to thank the national press club staff, including its journalism institute and the broadcast center for organizing today's event. finally, here's a reminder that you can find more information about the national press club on our website. also if you'd like to get a copy of today's program, please check out our website, web not press.org. and what you think you all very much for attending. we are adjourned.

[inaudible conversations] >> [inaudible conversations]

>> [inaudible conversations] >> [inaudible conversations] >> we take you live now to the u.s. senate. general speeches on the order of the day with no legislative work scheduled. we do understand the armed service committee ranking member, john mccain, will take the floor in about half an hour to talk about the situation in

syria. later this week lawmakers are expected to return to work on the transportation projects bill. judicial nominations may also be considered. now live to the senate floor here on c-span2. senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. immortal, invisible god only wise, you are worthy to receive

our adoration. lord, establish the works of your hands on capitol hill, strengthening our senators and their staffs as they seek to honor you by serving others. give them the wisdom to be agents of healing and hope, enabling our citizens to live in greater justice and peace. make them eager to reverently submit to your guidance and to obey your precepts. we pray in your sacred name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to

the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c, march 6, 2012. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable richard blumenthal, a senator from the state of connecticut, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid:, following leader remarks, the senate will be in a period of morning business, filing deadline for first-degree amendments to the surface is 4:00. there will be no votes taismed the first vote of the week will be at noon tomorrow on the noings voke cloture on the surface transportation bill. mr. president, i ask unanimous

consent the senate proceed to s. 2153. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 2153, a imil to apply the counterveiling duty provisions of the tariff act of 1930 to nonmarket economy countries and for other purposes. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask that the bill be read three times, passed, the senate receive h.r. 4105 and if it is identical to the it text in 2153, the senate proceed to h.r. 4105, the bill be read a third time, passed, there be no amendments prior to passage, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table with no intervening action for debate, any statements related to this matter be printed in the record at the appropriate place. the presiding officer: is there objection? hearing no objection, so ordered. mr. reid:, mr. president, this

is an extremely important piece of legislation, we just adopted. it has had bipartisan support and we're able to do it quickly. we'd hoped the house -- and i'm confident they will -- will follow our example by passing this quickly. h.r. 1837 is at the desk due for a second reading. officer the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 1837, an act to address certain water-related concerns on the san joaquin river an for other purposes. mr. reid: i'd object to any further consideration of this legislation at this time. the presiding officer: objection is heard and the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. reid:, mr. president, 56 years ago it took president eisenhower a year to convince congress and the country to make on precedented investment in america's highway system. after all, putting 47,000 miles

of highway miles across the nation would require an unprecedented effort and investment the project required enough concrete to build six sidewalks to the moon at a cost of $50 billion, the equivalent of almost half a billion today. the project was hugely successful. it created gorks connected farms and factories, tiny towns and towering cities are and allowed merchants to ship goods across the country for the tiers time in our history. looking back on this effort to pass the first highway bill, president eisenhower considered -- "more than any single action by the government since the entdz of the war of washings this one would change the face of america." its impact, he went on to say on the american economy, manufacturing and construction is beyond calculation." so 56 years after his initial

work, congress is once again considering transportation legislation, investing in this country's crumb crumbling brid, roads. we know that investing in america's highways and railways will create and sustain jobs. we have no doibt dowght that building a world-class transportation system will help us rebuild our world-class economy. that's why the senior senator from oklahoma, senator inhofe, one of the most liberal members of the senate, senator boxer, have joined hands to advance this bipartisan transportation bill before this body. the bill is comprised of four measures reported out of the e.p.w. and the banking and finance committees, all with bipartisan support. both sides have agreed to package a package of 37 amendments noition this. it is now part of the measure

before the senate. this is the legislation that's here in the senate now. if the finldzed and we passed the bill before us, it would be a huge step forward. passing what we have now and vote on it and call it a good day for america. in today's political climate, bipartisan support isn't enough to keep good legislation alive. in today's political climate, 85 votes begin debate on a measure isn't naff guarantee the measure will become law. the transportation legislation under consideration is truly bipartisan. it will create or sustain 3 million badly needed construction jobs. yet republican leaders have wasted almost a month on the senate's time obstructing this valuable measure for political reasons, obviously. unfortunately, democrats cannot keep construction crews working to repair 70,000 collapsing bridges across the country without republican cooperation. without republican cooperation, we cannot exspandle the nation's

mass transit system to accommodate tedges of thousandsf new riders. and without their cooperation, we cannot create and save 3 million jobs repairing crumbling pavement and building safer sidewalks. it will take a bipartisan effort to advance this bipartisan legislation. frank turner, former federal highway administrator, said work on this country's transportation system -- quote -- "will never be finished because america will never be finished." although the work is never finished, it is up to congress to move it forward. unless congress acts this month to work on highways, bridges, and train cracks, the economy will come to a havment the american economy will pay the price for partisan bickering. mr. president, what we have before the body now is the measures reported out of the four committees i talked about plus 37 bipartisan amendments. we should pass that.

we should invoke cloture on it and just pass that, and wait for the house to pass what they do and go to conference. that would be a tremendous step forward for us. so i'm hopeful my republican colleagues will join democrats to put american jobs ahead of these procedural games that we're having so much trouble with and help us advance this viertal transportation legislation. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: last friday evening tornadoes hit several counties across kentucky, including mcgaughlin, martin, johnson and tremble. might say, mr. president, these weren't just tornadoes. these were very severe

tornadoes, all over the southern and midwestern part of our country. leaving an incredible trail of devastation across many of our states. in my state, the storm caused at least 20 fatalities and more than 300 people in kentucky were injured. 48 kentucky counties suffered damages from the storms and tornadoes friday evening. i'm told that about 19,000 people were without power yesterday. this morning my colleague, senator paul, and i sent a letter to the president urging him to approve governor steve bashir's request for federal assistance. yesterday, mr. president, i had the chance to visit arguably the hardest-hit of our communities, west liberty, kentucky.

it was a scene of total devastation. the whole community has either been evacuated or is in the process of being evacuated. the county judge -- in our state, the county judge is like a county executive in a number of states. the mayor and i toured frankly what little is left of the community. i ran into the county attorney there. not only had her home been wiped out, her office had been wiped out. and the most poignant story of the day was one of the local residents came up to one of my assistants and said, here, i found $70. it doesn't belong to me. i want you to take it and see to it that it's used for the community. and my assistant said, well, no

one knows where the $70 came from or who it belongs to. and you're wiped out. why don't you keep it? and this citizen of west liberty, ke kentucky, said, i jt wouldn't feel right about it. i just wouldn't feel right about it. those are the kind of people, mr. president, who are in west liberty, kentucky. those are the kind of people today who are homeless, who have lost friends and relatives. and of course in a town that's devastated, there are no jobs. where do you go to work? -- where do you go to work when your place of business have been wiped out? so fema is on the ground there, and we'll do everything we can to try to help these good folks rebuild their lives. and similar stories are the case

in a number of other kentucky cointsz, but west liberty is the one i single out is because it was probably the most devastated of any of our communities. i want to applaud the work of the first responders. there were people from owl over my state who -- from all over my state who just immediately kim to the site -- came to my site. some with some official responsibility were with the red cross or wit were with the natil guard. there are 400 national guard troops mobilized across the state in these severely hit areas. but many of the people i ran into this west liberty, kentucky, yesterday were simply people who got in their cars, loaded it up with bottled water and whatever food they could come up with and went there to be helpful. there was one restaurant in another town who sent in a very

large number of barbecue sandwiches just to try to feed the people who were there trying to help get started. i went to the command center and of course one of the biggest things in a situation like that is, what do you do first? well, obviously the first thing is to get the power back on. a.e. pee, the powep., the powers there, trying to get the power back on. then they had a priority chart. what do you do second? what do you do third? and i just wanted to express to them and say again on the senate floor here today that we're going to be there for these good folks not only of west liberty but in the other counties that wercounties hit inour state. that's why fema exists. dhow a good job. hopefully it will not require any additional funding for us to have to appropriate.

hopefully they'll have enough funds to take care of this. but if there is a shortfall, we'll be there to be helpful. i just wanted to share with high colleagues here today the devastation to which we were subjected last weekend. it's reminiscent of a tornado that hit kentucky in the 1970's. i remember it went into my mother's and father's neighborhood the house next door to them was obliterated. the houses across the street were obliterated, and amazingly enough my mother and father's house was largely untouched. there were very few homes and businessness west liberty, kentucky, yesterday, or friday that were untouched. it came through there with a stunning force. i heard one story i would also relate, the county judge was in a building on the floor and

literally grabbed somebody by the leg and pulled him inside the building as the storm was attempting to suck them out into the street. he was able to save that person himself. so the incredible force of these massive tornadoes are truly, truly destructive, and we will help the local residents get their lives back together as soon as we possibly can. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, there will now be a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein up to ten minutes each. the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. mccain: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be suspended and that i be allowed to speak as if in morning business for as much time as i may consume. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona, without objection. mr. mccain: after a year of bloodshed, the crisis in syria has reached a decisive moment. it's estimated that more than 7,500 lives have been lost. the united nations has declared that syrian security forces are guilty of crimes against humanity, including the indiscriminate shelling of civilians, the execution of defectors and the widespread

torture of prisoners. bashar al-assad is now doing to homes what his father did to hamah. aerial photographs procured by human rights watch show a city that has been laid to waste by assad's tanks and artillery. a british photographer who was wounded and evacuated from the city described it as a -- quote -- ," a medieval siege and slaughter," the kinds of mass atrocities that nato intervened in libya to prevent in benghazi are a reality in homes. indeed syria today is the scene of some of the worst state-sponsored violence since milosevic war of crimes in the balkans or russia's an nile hraeugs -- annihilation of the chechnyan city of grahzi. a spree continued despite severe

pressure against him. his regime is almost completely isolated. it's been expelled from the arab league, rebuked by the united nations general assembly, excoriated by the u.n. human rights council and abandoned by nearly every country that once maintained diplomatic relations with it. at the same time, assad's regime is facing a punishing array of economic sanctions by the united states, the european union, the arab league and others. measures that have targeted the asets of assad and his henchmen, cut off the central bank and other financial institutions, grounded serious cargo flights and restricted the regime's ability to sell oil. this has been an impressive international effort, and the administration deserves a lot of credit for helping to orchestrate it. the problem is the bloodletting

continues. despite years of diplomacy backed by sanctions, assad and his top lieutenants show no signs of giving up to take the path into foreign exile. to the contrary, they appear to be accelerating their fight to the finish, and they're doing so with the shameless support of foreign governments, especially in russia, china and iran. a steady supply of weapons, ammunition and other assistance is flowing to assad from moscow and tehran, and as "the washington post" reported yesterday, iranian military and intelligence operatives are likely active in syria, helping to direct and sharpen the regime's brutality. the security council is totally shut down as an avenue for increased pressure, and the recently convened friends of syria contact group, while a

good step in principle, produced mostly rhetoric but precious little action when it met last month in tunisia. unfortunately, with each passing day, the international response to assad's atrocities is being overtaken by events on the ground in syria. some countries are finally beginning to acknowledge this reality as well as its implications. saudi arabian qatar are calling for arming opposition forces in syria. the newly elected kuwaiti parliament has called on their government to do the same. last week, the supreme allied commander of nato, admiral james stavridis, testified to the senate armed services committee that providing arms to opposition forces in syria could help them shift the balance of power against assad. most importantly, syrians themselves are increasingly calling for international

military involvement. the opposition syrian national council recently announced that it is establishing a military bureau to channel weapons and other assistance to the free syrian army and armed groups inside the country. other members of the council are demanding a more robust intervention. to be sure, there are legitimate questions about the efficacy of military operations in syria and equally legitimate concerns about their risks and uncertainties. it is understandable that the administration is reluctant to move beyond diplomacy and sanctions. unfortunately, this policy is increasingly disconnected from the dire conditions on the ground in syria which has become a full-blown state of armed conflict. in the face of this new reality, the administration's approach to syria is starting to more -- to

look more like a hope than a strategy. so, too, does their continued insistence that assad's fall is -- quote -- "inevitable." tell them to the people of homs. they will them to the people of hamla or the other cities that assad's forces are now moving against. nothing in this world is predetermined, and claims about the inevitability of events can often be a convenient way to abdicate responsibility. but even if we do assume that assad will ultimately fall, that may still take a really long time. in the recent testimony of the armed services committee, the director of national intelligence, james clapper, said that if the status quo persists, assad could hang on for months, probably longer, and that was before homs fell.

so just to be clear, even under the best-case scenario for the current policy, the cost of success will likely be months of continued bloodshed and thousands of additional lives lost. is this morally acceptable to us? i believe it should not be. in addition to the moral and humanitarian interests at stake in syria, what is just as compelling if not more so are the strategic and geopolitical interests. put simply, the united states has a clear national security interest in stopping the violence in syria and forcing assad to leave power. in this way, syria is very different than libya. the stakes are far higher, both more america and some of our closest allies. the regime in syria serves as the main forward operating base

of the iranian regime in the heart of the arab world. it has supported palestinian terrorist groups and fund arms of all kinds, including tens of thousands of rockets to hezbollah and lebanon. it remains a committed enemy of israel. it has large stockpiles of chemical weapons and materials and has sought to develop a nuclear weapons capability. it was the primary gateway for the countless foreign fighters who infiltrated into iraq and killed american troops. assad and his lieutenants have the blood of hundreds of americans on their hands. many in washington fear that what comes after assad might be worse. how could it be any worse than this? the end of the assad regime would sever hezbollah's lifeline to iran, eliminate a long-standing threat to israel, bolster lebanon's sovereignty

and intelligence and inflict a strategic defeat on the iranian regime. it would be a geopolitical success of the first order. more than all of the compelling moral and humanitarian reasons, this is why assad cannot be allowed to succeed and remain in power. we have a clear national security interest in his defeat, and that alone should incline us to tolerate a large degree of risk in order to see that this goal is achieved. increasingly, the question for u.s. policy is not whether foreign forces will intervene militarily in syria. we can be confident that syria's neighbors will do so eventually if they have not already. some kind of intervention will happen, with us or without us. so the real question for u.s. policy is whether we will participate in this next phase

of the conflict in syria and thereby increase our ability to shape an outcome that is beneficial to the syrian people and to us. i believe we must. the president has characterized the prevention of mass atrocities as -- quote -- "a core national security interest." unquote. he has made it the objective of the united states that the killing in syria must stop, that assad must go. he has committed the prestige and credibility of our nation to that goal, and it is the right goal. however, it is not clear that the present policy can succeed. if assad manages to cling to power or even if he manages to sustain his slaughter for months to come, with all the human and geopolitical costs that entails, it would be a strategic and moral defeat for the united states. we cannot, we must not allow

this to happen. for this reason, the time has come for a new policy. as we continue to isolate assad dip diplomatically and economically, we should work with our closest friends and allies to support opposition groups inside syria, both political and military, to help them organize themselves into a more cohesive and effective force that can put an end to the bloodshed and force assad and his loyalists to leave power. rather than closing off the prospects for some kind of negotiated transition that is acceptable to the syrian opposition, foreign military intervention is now the necessary factor to reinforce this opposition. assad needs to know that he will not win. what opposition groups in syria need most urgently is relief from assad's tank and artillery

seizures in the many cities that are still contested. homs is lost for now, but iglib and hamla and cusair and derra and other cities in syria could still be saved. time is running out. assad's forces are on the march. providing military assistance to the free syrian army and other opposition groups is necessary, but at this late hour, that alone will not be sufficient to stop the slaughter and save innocent lives. the only realistic way to do so is with foreign air power. therefore, at the request of the syrian national council, the free syrian army and local coordinating committees inside the country, the united states should lead an international effort to protect key population

centers in syria, especially in the north through air strikes on assad's forces. to be clear, this will require the united states to suppress enemy air defenses in at least part of the country. the ultimate goal of air strikes should be to establish and defend safe havens in syria, especially in the north, in which opposition forces can organize and plan their political and military activities against assad. these safe havens could serve as platforms for the delivery of humanitarian and military assistance, including weapons and ammunition, body armor and other personal protective equipment, tactical intelligence, secure communications equipment, food and water and medical supplies. these safe havens could also help the free syrian army and other armed groups in syria to train and organize themselves

into more cohesive and effective military forces, likely with the assistance of foreign partners. the benefit for the united states in helping to lead this effort directly is that it would allow us to better empower those syrian groups that share our interests. those groups that have rejected al qaeda and the iranian regime and commit to the goal of an inclusive democratic transition as called for by the syrian national council. if we stand on the sidelines, others will pick winners, and this will not always be to our liking and in our interests. this does not mean the united states should go it alone. i repeat -- this does not mean that the united states should go it alone. we should not. we should seek the active involvement of key arab partners such as saudi arabia, jordan and qatar and willing allies in the

e.u. and nato, and most important of which in this case is turkey. there will be no u.n. security council mandate for such an operation. russia and china took that option off the table long ago, but let's not forget nato took military action to save kosovo in 1999 without former u.n. authorization. there is no reason why the arab league or nato or a leading coalition within the friends of syria contact group or all of them speaking in unison could not provide a similar international mandate for military measures to save syria today. could such a mandate be gotten? i believe it could be. foreign capitals across the world are looking to the united states to lead, especially now that the situation in syria has become an armed conflict, but what they see is an

administration still hedging its bets. on the one hand, insisting that assad's fall is inevitable, but on the other, unwilling even to threaten more assertive actions that could make it so. the rhetoric out of nato has been much more self-defeating. far from making it clear to assad that all options are on the table, key alliance leaders are going out of their way to publicly take options off the table. last week, the secretary-general of nato, mr. rasmussen, said that the alliance has not even discussed the possibility of nato action in syria, saying -- quote -- "i don't envision such a role for the alliance." the following day, the supreme allied commander, admiral james stavridis, testified to the senate armed services committee that nato has done no

contingency planning, none, for potential military operations in syria. that's not how nato approached bosnia or kosovo or libya. is it now the policy of nato or the united states, for that matter, to tell the perpetrators of mass atrocities in syria or elsewhere that they can go on killing innocent civilians by the hundreds of thousands and the greatest alliance in history will not even bore to conduct any planning about how we might stop them? is that nato's policy now? is that our policy? because that is the practical effect of this kind of rhetoric. it gives assad and his foreign allies a green light for greater brutality. not surprisingly, many countries, especially syria's neighbors, are also hedging their bets on the outcome in syria.

they think assad will go but they're not yet prepared to put all their chips on that bet. even less so now that assad's forces have broken homs and seem to be gaining momentum. there is only one nation -- there is only one nation that can alter this dynamic and that is the united states of america. the president must state unequivocally that under no circumstances will assad be allowed to finish what he has started, and there is no future in which assad and his lieutenants will remain control of syria and that the united states is prepared to use the full weight of our air power to make it so. it is only when we have clearly and completely committed ourselves that we can expect other nations to do the same. only then will we see what is really possible in winning international support to stop

the killing in syria. are there dangers and risks and uncertainties in this approach? absolutely. but there are no ideal options in syria. all of them contain significant risk. many people will be quick to raise concerns about the course of action i am proposing. many of these concerns have merit but none so much that they should keep us from acting. for example, we continue to hear it said that we should not assist the opposition in syria militarily because we don't know who these people are. secretary of state hillary clinton repeated this argument just last week, adding that we could end up helping al qaeda or hamas. it is possible the administration does not know much about the armed opposition in syria, but how much effort have they really made to find out, to meet and engage these

people directly? not much, it appears. instead, much of the best information we have about the armed resistance in syria is thanks to courageous journalists, some of whom have given their lives to tell the story of the syrian people. one of these journalists is a reporter working for al jazeera named nir rosen, who spent months in the country, including much time with the armed opposition. here's how he described them recently -- and i quote -- "the regime and its supporters describe the opposition, especially armed opposition, as salafis, gentlema jihadists, mum brotherhood supporters, al qaeda and terrorists. this is not true but it's worth noting that all the fighters i met were sunni muslims and most were paez. they fight for a multitied of reasons -- multitude of

reasons -- for their friends, foyer their neighborhoods, for their villages, for their province, for revenge, for self-defense, for dignity, for their brethren in other parts of the country who are also fighting. they do not read religious literature or listen to sermons. their views on islam are consistent with the general attitudes of syrian sunni society, which is conservative and religious. because there are many small groups in the armed opposition, it is difficult to describe their ideology in general terms. the salafit and muslim brotherhood ideologies are not important in syria and do not play a significant role in the revolution. but most syrian sunnis taking part in the uprising are themselves devout. he could just as well have been describing average citizens in egypt or libya or tunisia or other nations in the region. so we should be a little more careful before we embrace the

assad regime's propaganda about the opposition in syria. we certainly should not let these misconceptions cause us to keep the armed resistance in syria at arm's length, because that is just self-defeating. and i can assure you that al qaeda is not pursuing the same policy. they are eager to try to hijack the syrian revolution, just as they have tried to hijack the arab spring movements in egypt and tunisia and libya and elsewhere. they are trying, but so far they are failing. the people of these countries are broadly rejecting everything al qaeda stands for. they are not eager to trade secular tyranny for thee cat i can -- theo cat i can tyranny. the other reason we are failing in egypt and libya is because the libya of nations, especially the united states, has supported them. we are giving them a better alternative. the surest way for al qaeda to

gain a foothold in syria is for us to turn our backs on these brave syrians who are fighting to defend themselves. after all, sunni iraqis were willing to aaally with al qaeda when -- willing to ally with al qaeda when they felt desperate enough. but when america gave them a better alternative, they turned their guns on al qaeda. why should it be different in syria? another objection to providing military assistance to the syrian opposition is that the conflict has become a sectarian civil war and our intervention would enable the sunni majority to take a bloody and indiscriminate ra very long against the -- revenge against the alawite majority. this is a serious and legitimate concern and it is only growing worse the longer the conflict goes on. as we saw in iraq, or lebanon before it, time favors the hard-liners in a conflict like this. the suffering of sunnis at the hands of assad only stokes the temptation for revenge which, in

turn, only deepens fears among the alowites and strengthens their incentive to keep fighting. for this reason alone, it is all the more compelling to find a way to end the bloodshed as soon as possible. furthermore, the risks of sectarian conflict will exist in syria whether we get more involved or not, and he we will at least have some ability to try to mitigate these risks if we work to assist the armed opposition now. that will at least help us to know them better and to establish some trust and exercise some influence with them. because we took their side when they needed it most. we should not overstate the potential influence we could gain with opposition groups inside syria, but we'll only diminish the longer we wait to offer them meaningful support.

what we can say for certain is that we will have no influence whatsoever with these people if they feel we abandoned them. this is a real moral dilemma but we cannot allow the opposition in syria to be crushed at present while we worry about the future. we also hear is said, including by the administration, that we should not contribute to the militarization of the conflict. if only russia and iran shared that commitment. instead, they are shamelessly fueling assad's killing machine. we need to deal with reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. and the reality in syria today is largely a one-sided fight, where the aggressors are not lacking for military means and zeal. indeed, assad appears to be fully committed to crushing the opposition at all costs. iran and russia appear to be

fully committed to helping him do it. the many syrians who have taken up arms to defend themselves and their communities appear to be fully committed to acquiring the necessary weapons to resist assad. and leading arab states appear increasingly committed to providing those weapons. and the only ones who seem overly concerned about a militarization of the conflict are the united states and some of our allies. the time has come to ask a different question: who do we want to win in syria, our friends or our enemies? there are always plenty of reasons not to do something and we can list them clearly in the case of syria. we know the opposition is divided. we know the armed resistance inside the country lacks cohesion or command and control. we know that some elements of the opposition may sympathize with violent extremist ideologies or harbor dark

thoughts of sectarian revenge. we know that many of syria's immediate neighbors remain cautious about taking overly provocative actions that could undermine assad. and we know the american people are weary of conflict, justifiably so, and we would rather focus on domestic problems. these are realities. but while we are compelled to acknowledge them, we are not condemned to accept them forev forever. with resolve, principled leadership and wise policy, we can shape better realities. that is what the syrian people have done. by no rational calculation should this uprising against assad still be going on. the syrian people are outmatched, they are outgunned, they are lacking for food and water and other basic needs. they are confronting a regime whose disregard for human dignity and capacity for sheer

savagery is limitless. for an entire year, the syrian people have faced death and those unspeakable things worse than death and they still have not given up. still they take to the streets to protest peacefully for justify. still they carry on their fight, and they do so on behalf of many of the same universal values we share and many of the same interests as well. these people are our allies. they want many of the same things we do. they have expanded the boundaries of what everyone thought was possible in syria. they have earned our respect, and now they need our support to finish what they started. the syrian people deserve to succeed, and shame on us if we fail to help them. mr. president, i yield the flo

floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

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the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: there are life experiences that depend on where you grew up. in my part of the world, the midwest there was a rite of passage that seemed so commonplace we never questioned it. it was the air raid siren coming off in the middle of the night and your dad saying we've got to go into the basement, there's a tornado warning. that was part of my life and i didn't think twice about it.

it happened every year. sometimes not in the middle of the night, sometimes in the middle of the day. but we became accustomed to it because that was what happened where we live. when i was elected to congress and then to the senate, i spent my time visiting locations where tornadoes had struck. all over my state. so i've seen my fair share of tornado damage in the midwest. but i have to tell you what i saw on saturday was extraordinary. i went to southern illinois to two towns, harrisburg and ridgway. they were hit the previous wednesday by what is known as a stage 4 tornado. stage 4 tornado is a tornado with winds up to 175 miles per hour. that is a tornado so violent that the winds from what i'm told were even greater than hurricane creant and -- katrina and hit this tiny town in southern illinois and i looked at the devastation afterwards.

you expect obvious casualties in a tornado. you expect to see the trees blown down, the siding off the house and the shingles torn off the roof. and occasionally a window blown in. you look at this poor mobile homes which don't have a chance in a tornado and they're usually ripped and thrown. but in this tornado, houses that were built on a slab were lifted off and tossed in the air. i met a lady who was driving away from the devastation of her home -- incidentally, these photos here are fairly indicative of what we saw in the devastation there. and i asked her about her experience. and it turned out that she was really lucky because she had set the alarm for a quarter to 5:00 to to go to work that morning and she said she got up and started getting ready and then heard the sirens outside. she said i went to the bathroom, got down, my face first on the floor, and grabbed the sink to hang onto it and she

said seconds passed before the ceiling caved in on top of me. luckily, she said it didn't reach me, i was pinned underneath and i waited and waited and finally, 15, 20 minutes later somebody started hollering is anybody in there. i started hollering back. they said keep talking, we're going to get to you. took them an hour and a half to are bring her out of the wreckage and she scaipped with a few scratches and bruised. she was one of the lucky ones. it turned out two of the homes across the street had been blown on top of hers. turned out across the street a 22-year-old nurse at the local hospital had been killed by that same tornado. i had never seen this kind of tornado in this kind of damage in my life. i'm told it happened one time before, in the history of our state. i also have to tell you that the response of the people there was what makes me proud to be from that state, and to be part of this great nation. from the very minute that this devastation took place, people started coming toward the

devastation to try to help. there was some amazing stories. the volunteers that helped this lady out of her -- the debris of her home at the nearby coal mine, they have a rescue team that is sent in when there's danger of a mine disaster. they've got hard hats and breathing equipment and all the right extrication devices and tools. they came rushing to the scene, coal dust all over their faces, digging right into the wreckage pulling people out. that story was repeated over and over and over again. the heroism and volunteerism didn't end that day. it continued all through the time i was there and even to this day. a special kudos to the american red cross, always first on the scene, always performing a valuable and important job as they did in southern illinois. i went over to ridgway, which is a town 24 miles away, and for some reason, this god-awful tornado skipped from harrisburg to ridgway and did little damage in between.

but it lit down again in ridgway and ripped through that town. about 400 homes were damaged in harrisburg roughly, and over a hundred in ridgway. some of the scenes that i saw there were amazing. there's a catholic church there, that was 100 years old. it was the most -- sturdiest structure in town by far. had people been given enough notice, happened early in the morning about 5:00 a.m., they might have said the safest place is the church. well, the church is gone. two things are left. a doorway for the church and the altar. everything else has been obliterated. a lot of pictures taken by people of that altar still standing in the rubble, not inoperation to -- an inspiration to many, perhaps a message there were certain things spared even in the worst disasters. this that town, too, at the fire department, met with the mayor and all the volunteers and thing one thing -- the one thing about being a volunteer after a disaster, i guarantee

you won't lose weight. everybody brought in the food. all kinds of food from every direction, pies and takes and chili and hot dogs, a fellow came by, had his barbecue operation set up. a huge operation, and he was just cooking like crazy. but it was an indication that everybody wanted to be pitching in to help. so i want to thank all those engaged in the rescue and cleanup work at every level. the illinois emergency management agent under governor pat quinn, the governor has been there twice, john monken, the director of the agency, accompanied me on this trip. the sheriff's office, the local disaster agency people, all the volunteers, the red cross, a group called operation blessing, which showed up -- i'd never heard of them before. i bet they've been around though. because they knew just what to do. they came in and said every religious group or volume tire

group, come check with us. we'll send to you a place you might be needed. as i walked through the wreckage there were volunteers of every age from little kids to elderly folks with rakes in their hands picking up trash and getting it off to the side and trying to put people's lives back together again. the scores of volunteers just made me proud to represent that great state and the people living in it. there are several things we need to talk about as a result of that disaster that cannot go unsaid. i know it's not considered politically correct now to talk about the state of climate in america, but i'm going to, because you see as stand here today, mr. president, we have had 274 tornadoes already recorded in america this year. 274. at this time last year, 50. and this tornado that hit my home state -- and i might say the fo tornado that hit joplin, missouri, last year -- were

extraordinary events. the weather patterns are changing. the weather events are more frequent and more severe. that is a fact. are we ready? are we prepared for it? are we doing everything we can? and the simple and honest answer is "no." first, we need to acknowledge the obvious, and i know i'm walking on dangerous ground here, but the climate is changing. to go from a situation last year where a year ago we had the worst-recorded blizzard in the history of chicago, followed four months later by the most rainful ever recorded in one hour, to this situation with 274 tornadoes so far this year and literally scores of people killed -- six in harrisburg, many in kentucky and tennessee and other places -- it is an indication that weather is changing, the severity is change, and we need to be honest about t we need to get beyond

the political argument into the world of reality. there are things that we are doing, i sincerely believe, that are affecting the world that we live in, affecting the melting of the glac glaciers, affectinge wernl patterns all around. as long as we continue to take the politically convenient rust ignoring that, then feature generations are point a finger of blame at us for failing to acknowledge the obvious when we might have had a chance to make a difference in future lives. that's a fact. secondly, i held a hearing, mr. president, and i brought in not government experts, but experts from the private sector. you know who knows more about weather events and damage than anyone in america? the insurance industry. and i brought them in, property and casualty insurance crns and asked them the -- insurance companies, and asked them the same question. is weather changing? they said, it's obvious. why do you think certain businesses are taking their

business out of certain areas in america. we're trying to cover ourselves. we're profit-making people. and if we can't see a way to set up a reserve for potential weather disasters, we start backing off of coverage. it's been done. major insurance companies have walked away from places like florida because of hurricanes and because of violent storms. then i asked them a question about whether or not the united states government was adequately prepared to shoulder the burden that comes with these disasters. and the burden does come, particularly those uninsured, we end up as a government helping them. i don't begrudge people that. i'm going to ask for help for my state. ever senatoevery senator would. when the bowles-simpson commission sat down to determine how much we should budget each year for disasters, they come up with the people in the private sector said was a totally

unreasonable formula. it basically averaged ten years an put an additional cost-of-living adjustment on it. they said the future is a geometric progression in covment cost. as the storms become more violent, we are not thinking about what we should do to deal with it. we also need to think about ways to warn people about these disasters, before they strike. we live if a new world. in the old world we lived in going back how far i can't say -- maybe a century dushed -- yn on a century outside. it warns people and they respond to it. but in this day and age, there has to be a better way. let me suggest a few. in some counties in my state, the disaster agency has on record all of the telephone numbers of all of the residents. if something is coming, your phone is going to ring, too, not just the siren outside that maybe you don't hear because

you're sleeping or because the television is too loud, but the telephone is going to ring, too. that is something this we need to make standard across this country. so there is a way to reach everyone. i don't know this, because you know i'm a liberal arts lawyer -- what do i know about these things -- but it seems to me that we ought to be able to deal with some mechanism on a cell phone that says that you will receive a notice when there is a warning going out of something disastrous on the way. i think that that ought to be doable. and i'm working with people in fema and others to talk about that pofnlt the point i want to make is this, mr. president: i think we have an obligation to reopen a conversation which we've walked away from. there's in the a chance that we're going to pass significant legislation on this floor 24 --n this floor this year when it comes to climate change. there's little chance we'll get a majority here -- maybe not 60 -- to acknowledge that it's a

problem we can do anything about. for us to ignore this is to ignore the obvious. things are getting worse. future generations are see even more challenges than we do today, and those of us with the responsibility to serve and lead need to at least stand up and engage the conversation. engage the dialogue with the american people about this. i urge my colleagues all across the political spectrum to take a look at the reality, stop turning your head and looking away. what's happening out there with our weather patterns is something that needs to be acknowledged and something we need to respond to. mr. president, one other thing i'd like to say is that as i go home, the tornado was the first item of discussion, but the second: gasoline prices. i go through the suburbs of chicago friday night and see a gasoline with gas at $4.09 a gallon. it got a little more reasonable when ience wit i went to deep sn illinois. those of us who have been around

know this isn't the first time. i can dust off my springtime press release that i put out every year expressing outrage with the oil companies for goo gasoline price increases. it happens every spring before easter, usually after all of the politicians get red in the face and run out of things to say to the oil companies, it kind of moderates in may or june and then get ready again, it goes up again in the summer. the oil companies even when investigated by the major agencies, can't be found to have engaged in some collusion, though it seems passing strange that the same gas stations town after town watch their prices go up in lock step day after day, week after week. there are those who think they've got a good, quick, easy answer and can't understand why the rest of the world isn't cheering them on. they want to drill their way out of this situation. they believe that if we find enough oil in america, gasoline

prices will come down and we're going to find ourselves oil-independent. by last measure, the united states has about 3% of the world's reserve of petroleum. we consume each year 25%. drilling our way out of this is physically impossible. yet that doesn't mean we shouldn't look for new, environmentally responsible and safe sources for oil. here's the record. domestic oil production in america is at the highest level in eight years. you'd never believe it hearing speeches from other side of the aisle. in 2011u.s. crude oil production reached itsz highest level since 2003 and we're now drilling more than ever before. the 234u78 number of oil-drillis sat a record high quadrupled during the last years of the obama administration. the u.s. now has more rigs at work than the rest of the world combined.

let me repeat that. between oil and gas drilling rigs, the united states gnaw whs more rigs at work than the rest of the world combined. those who are saying there is lack of effort don't note obviousment we keep adding more. the administration announced new offshore oil and gas development program. they want d.o.d. it carefully you after the b.p. spill of two years ago. but it will open up more than 75% of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. last year americans relied on -- less on foreign oil than any time in the past 16 years. even the american petroleum institute agrees that american producers and refiners are producing more oil and reducing our reliance on imports. the american petroleum institute has said that without these two factors, today's prices might be even higher. we simply cannot drill our way to lower gasoline prices. the president has proposed an approach to this that is

balanced and it's an approach with a vision. it gets beyond a press release of the moment or presidential campaign rhetoric. the president recently announced new fuel efficiency standards for cars and light-duty trucks that will serve americans $1.7 trillion and reduce oil consumption by 2.2 million barrels a day by 2025. mr. president, my wife and i drive a ford fusion hybrid. i looked at consumer reports. it's still rated very highly. we get over 30 miles a gallon. the prius does even better, more than 40 miles a gallon. i can tell you, i don't believe our family makes any sacrifice when it comes to comfort and safety when driving this ford. the administration has also finalized the first-ever national fuel efficiency standards for heavy-duty trucks, vans, and buses. that'll reduce oil consumption by over 500 million barrels.

the department of energy will make $30 million available for new research competition to find ways to harness our abundant supplies of natural gas for vehicles, too. there is no magic bullet that can bring americans lower gas prices. not drill baby drill and not the keystone x.l. pipeline in and of itself. senator hutchison stated that the keystone x.l. pipeline would transport 830 barrels of crude oil to refineries in kansas and that aisle would provide americans with 34 million gallons of gas a stay. her statement doesn't quite match up with the testimony of the oil companies. cang disaoil production uses less than half of its current pipeline capacity to the united states. there's plenty of room for canada to ship more right now without a new pipeline. existing pipeline capacity would allow for 4.2 million barrels a day of crude oil to be transported from canada to the

u.s. however, in 2010, canada exported less than half of that, 1.9 million barrels a day, with existing pipelines. even doubling canada's current production levels would not fill the keystone x.l. pipeline or bring an additional 830,000 barrels a day to gulf refineries in the texas region. 830,000 barrels of crude sumly can't produce 34 million gallons of gasoline. even the best refineries could produce only about half that amount of gasoline. i might also add, mr. president, that one of the things that is troubling to some of us is when the trans-canada company was asked in a hearing in the house by congressman i.d. markey of massachusetts whether the oil coming down from canada in the keystone x.l. pipeline would be used for domestic consumption in the united states, he said he couldn't make that promise. so this argument that this pipeline is going to reduce gas

prices, first, that pipeline is in the future. second, there's existing pipeline capacity that's unused. and, third, the company that's transporting it, will make no promise that it be used in the united states. it may not have any impact on our gasoline prices whatsoever. we just can't drill our way or pipeline our way out of this problem. one pipeline isn't going to solve the problem. drilling in pristine areas is not going to solve the problem. we need a coordinated, balanced approach. trying to walk away from the heightened campaign rhetoric into a rational discussion about an energy policy for america, a balanced policy, one that is respectful of our environment, provides the energy we need for economic growth and also looks to innovation and green energy approaches that will create new businesses and new jobs for the 21st century in america. mr. president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

wil