>> when you say they've been waiting for the parliamentary process to be done, does that mean that they are working for civilians blessings. are they waiting for the general and the military to support that effort? >> i think what happened is the parliament to get the issue of the relationship with the united states. as you know there's been discipline of on both sides, the parliamentary committee is coming out as a & or will, and i anticipate will have the parliament framework for how this relationship will move forward with two different countries with some share interest and interest are not shared and we will try to work a week for word. >> but you are optimistic that we will see some progress on

that. >> yes, ma'am. >> that was the question? >> yes, ma'am. >> one of the other things we heard about on the trip is the importance of the cooperation that had gone on in the past, on the border between the afghan pakistan troops in avoiding the border incidents, and obviously that situation seems to have deteriorated since that time. can you talk about where we are in those relationships and whether there is hope to get them back on track to restore the kind of communication that can allow us to avoid those border incidents? >> senator, even in our worst days in the last several months when we were unable to talk about the reopening of the ground line to kick indication, and a lot of friction and statements in the press on both sides, even in the worst days, our brigadier's and colonels and

majors were meeting as we tried to coordinate better to avoid the tragedy that happened in late november. so it's actually been the one area where i can tell you we have not been humbled. it's actually gotten better under this crisis get the tragedy of the pakistani soldiers that were killed by friendly fire, so it's been better in the effort to preclude this from happening again we are seeing that on the ground and not just the -- >> yes, ma'am. as soon as we get hit from the other side of the border, we are calling them to the pakistani military and the communication channels are more mature it's not perfect, i don't want to make this look like it is all okay we get a lot of friction along the demarcated border in

some area that same time it's the one area that's held in their and everything else kind came off the track and it's the one area we are making progress on. we exchanged sop for cross border operation or excuse become a near border operations. so when we are operating near the border, they are the shared standard operating procedure for how we will communicate. >> at merrill mcraven, i also want to say what i'm talking about the visit to afghanistan, we visited one of the special operations command one of the villages along the pakistani border, and was very impressive talking to some of the young men who were serving and hearing their enthusiasm for the work they were doing was inspirational. so thank you very much for that.

>> i am pleased to see the navy is considering enhancements to the virginia class in new hampshire will pay a lot of attention to what is going on in the virginia class subs because they work on the shipyard, but can you talk about the work that's being done there and are you confident there that the investment over the submarine technology is to be what is needed and that capacity will allow us to be able to do that is important? >> yes, ma'am, so don't lead you astray i prepared to take that for the record. what i can tell you though it is particularly as the navy begins to build or refurbish submarines we are always part of the discussion. so there is the version the glass or other clauses of the navy has been exceptionally

helpful in making sure the new special operations capable of your incorporate into the submarines because the navy seals and special rations forces work of the submarine's quite often. stomachs before. we will then submit that question for the record and get a more detailed explanation. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you senator shaheen. mr. mansion. >> let me say to both of you as an american in the west virginia i appreciate your service and i very proud of what you do for the country. i'd like to dillinger a few things. as you know what the present we have i've been very open about that but with that, what you'll do is unbelievable, and what i would like to ask starting with general mattis is i know that now we have 150,000 contractors compared to 94,000 men and women in uniform. do you know the percentage of

the contractors that would be x military, how many of them were military, sir? >> i wouldn't even hazard to guess i would take the question you mean of the americans to the airports i stopped the soldiers of fortune if you will going on the front line in afghanistan i ask also can any of your x military, almost to the t100%. and this question if it hadn't been from the contract in the trip to do with a higher salary would you still be in the military? almost unequivocably, yes. >> something tells me something is wrong, and then when i hear people talk about cutting back the threat of defense and weakening playing political football with this week and cut back on the contractors and basically put a certain amount of that towards our men and women in uniform and in our budget i just noticed admiral,

your request. we waste more money with contracting than you have asked for almost half of your budget. and to me we can strengthen our men and women in uniform, strengthen our military by basically drawing down what we do and the amount of money that we spend on contractors, and i don't think that should be a political football. that is just common sense and west virginia. we say we are going to strengthen the people that are on the front lines and not spend so much money attracting our best and brightest when they get their ten years and they are dropping over. i don't know if you all can speak on this and if you want to meet with me privately on this, but to me when i go home people ask me what are we doing, why are we spending so much money trying to rebuild a nation in afghanistan that doesn't care for us that much and doesn't want us there and we talked about all of the -- we got more people of our so-called allies calling americans since february

than we do al qaeda and all the terrorists. and i don't know, a general comment on this admiral, what you believe, how can we to better strengthen your budget and do the job that we are allowing the contractors to do now and do it much more economically? is that doable? >> sir, i will tell you the budget i have right now meets all the means for the u.s. special operations forces for fiscal year 13. >> as long as you have contacting support. if you didn't have that contract and support and we asked you all to do the job that maybe they are doing, could we would more effectively and efficiently? >> the contractors play a very vital role, and no one should diminish the role that they play. it is expensive, but there are places and times where having a contract force works well for us as opposed to putting the units for military to do with it is a training mission or security guard mission etc. there are some places where you would rather have the uniform of

the three then contractors. so i don't want to speak to the total size of the u.s. government contracting force what i will tell you as the inappropriate balance between the contractors and the contractors do a good service. islamic as a civilian life and disturbing is when i was over there and i've been there twice now and i talked to the different military and i said when are you getting out? are you going to reenlist? no i'm going to meet three times more. that's disturbing as a civilian taxpayer and a lawmaker and going home to west virginia to explain that our best and brightest are going out because they are going to go right back into the same job in a civilian in the for making three times the pace that they were asked to do as a military. >> we get some of the problem early on the special rations community after line 11 where we saw the number of our seniors who looked over the fence if you will not with the contractors

were providing and decided to make that lead at the time. however i will tell you our experience in the special operations is most of those folks regretted that move, and while that is only anecdotal in terms of their service like until you the few that did get out and while we have a trend we were able to correct that through appropriate bonuses and pay, but the fact of the matter is when we were able to correct the trend and we talked to some of those soldiers sailors and marines in a lot of them said we prefer the service and by the way when you look at it from a cost-benefit analysis we talked earlier about the retirement benefits with me to do you are better off staying in the military over the long haul because the retirement benefits and package is very sound and good so a lot of these young fellows really just didn't do the basic calculations early on. >> as you know, i'm troubled by this, but also, our presence now

with the turn of events in afghanistan and understanding now we have slowed or basically stopped the withdrawal of our troops now because of the violent situation we have or the unstable situation. is that slowing down or still on course to draw down general mattis? >> we have not stopped it. we told the first 10,000 out. we have the plan coming in and i think i will have on the first of april for the next 23,000 to come out which would pull out -- >> are you talking about just our men and women in uniform? of contractors. >> that's correct. sponsor contractors we could keep the same or beef up? >> if i may ask this congenital, and by sorry because i know time is limited, how many contractors to be still have an iraq >> under the u.s. military, sir, probably i need to take it for

the right but it's around 500. they are doing training, there are people who can teach iraqi is how to use the new artillery piece that they bought for the united states or the new tank. there are people who do that -- >> i know that we have said that we pulled out as a military we pulled out of iraq, correct? >> yes, sir. >> but we still have contractors doing the job that they would have been giving if we let the military in, correct? >> i have about 200 military personnel that serve under the office of the security cooperation and iraq that is a lieutenant general who is under the ambassador in the transfer of the equipment and he has gotten several hundred instructors, and i prefer not to take them out of the ranks. i need them in the serving units. >> i know my time is up but if i could finish up by one to as a west virginia and people in west virginia that separate the military as strong as any state

i know of, we believe that we could strengthen your position in the military position and men and women in uniform. and by being responsible with the budget. it would come off the backs of the contractors that we build up coming and i want to make that very clear. we do not, and nor would i ever voted to weaken the military. i would strengthen the military but i would deplete the amount we spend on the contracting to do that. >> thank you very much, senator mansion. senator shaheen, you have the additional question. if not -- >> i do, mr. chairman, not quite 12. we have a minute. >> we have more than a minute if you need it. >> i know. i'm just kidding. general mattis, i would like to go to syria for a minute, and they understand that there has been a number of questions this morning about the opposition in syria and who they are, but i would like to raise a question about the weapons and the

stockpiles that are there. earlier this month last month senator john brandt, collins and i sent a letter to the administration to raise the specific concerns about the threat of what happened to both of those conventional and chemical weapons, and according to a recent report, syria probably is one of the largest chemical weapons programs in the world. so, there are two concerns. first is what happens if the weapons are left on secure, could the potentially disappear and be used throughout the region? second, obviously is there any suggestion that assad might use these weapons against the people of syria, and i wonder if you could comment on those. >> yes, senator, i can. in the conventional weapons the large stockpiles are certainly

of concern out of the conventional weapons the biggest concern i have for the shoulder launched antiair missiles and you understand the danger. on the chemical weapons you are right to characterize it as one of the largest stock piles in the world. if left on secure, it would be potentially very serious threat in the hands of lebanese hizbollah flexible because they are in close proximity to it at the same time, they are not easily handled. obviously it takes the train troops to do that so i'm not saying that it is a fait accompli if they're left on secure automatically someone can grab them and use them. they may end up drawing themselves. but, if it is going to take an international effort when assad falls, and he will fall in order to secure the weapons. i don't think he will use them on his own people, but that is

speculation, and we haven't seen any effort to use it yet, but we are watching very closely. i think that what would stop him with the international condemnation and call to arms if he used the chemical weapons. so right now that is purely speculation, senator. >> given our experience in libya, is there -- should we be more comfortable that in syria those are likely to be better secure than they were in libya? >> i think perhaps better secure until assad falls, and then we have to see what force discarding those retain control or not. speed is there any planning underway to have the international community might address those weapons.

if it falls in terms of coming in and making sure that they are secure? >> i'm sure that would be part of the planning of the international community moves towards taking action would probably be a key part of the planning. >> but there is nothing underway right now that you are aware of? >> i would prefer to speak privately with you about that, senator. >> thank you very much. >> if i can just follow up. >> mr. chairman -- >> to both of you why would say you will probably have more responsibility with the men and women's boots on the ground and defended this country than any other branch right now. with that being said, where do you see there greece we have as the united states of america? >> in the near term, sir, and i am centcom focused, but i look at north korea, look at china, you pay me to be a little broader than just centcom, but my biggest concern is iran.

that is the nation that with four different threats its nuclear program or its enriching uranium than it needs for peaceful purposes, and as the u.n. efforts to try to monitor, but the long-range rockets and the ballistic missiles they can use in whole other nations at risk from the mediterranean and down into the gulf coast gulf cooperation states. they've got their maritime threat which mckibben bellicose about closing the streets and the they've got their mois, their quds force led lebanese hezbollah. that sort of thing as they fight the chateau war. i think iran is the biggest threat, senator. >> i would agree it is probably the biggest threat i don't think that we can take out by of the ball in al qaeda or the violent extremist networks that are out there as you look at al qaeda senior leadership's most of

which remains in the finale of the minister tribal areas but to begin to see the franchise as and al qaeda arabian peninsula and al qaeda in the islamic plant in mog read and what they are doing in terms of north africa and the other dhaka the franchise movements this is something we need to continue to pay particular attention to because that cancer continues to grow albeit at a slower rate. >> and i will follow-up as a support we should be giving you and the resources that you are going to be needing to meet these threats and keeping america safe. i would hope that he would be forthcoming and probably in that private setting that we could sit down and see how we can best make sure that happens. but thank you for your service. i appreciate very much. >> we will stand adjourned with our thanks to both of you for your testimony bit i had to leave here for about an hour to

deal with the israeli press ministers and senators and the main focus is that meeting is now much of our concern these days some your identification of iran as the great number one threat that we face and with all that we will stand again due to adjourn whatever men and women who usurp. thank you. >> [inaudible conversations]

the head of the u.s. agency for international development testified on capitol hill today about his agency's budget and foreign aid. u.s. aid falls within the larger $51 billion state department budget. this hearing in the senate foreign relations committee is an hour and a half. the committee will come to order. i want to think chairman kerry for allowing me to chair this hearing. i want to welcome the doctor back to the senate foreign relations committee and i want to first on behalf of the committee and on behalf of all the members of the senate express our deepest condolences on the loss of congressman donald payne and our sympathy goes to his family.

i don't know of a more tireless player on behalf of the foreign aid in the systems in the humanitarian efforts for to the continent of africa better than congressman donald payne. i had the opportunity to serve with him in the house of representatives, and he was always a champion for our involvement in africa and around the globe for the right reasons, and he will be sorely missed in the congress and the united states. so i want to complement usaid for naming fellowship for his name. i think it is a fitting tribute to the work that he's done throughout his career, and again we offer our deepest condolences to his family. today's hearing we have the u.s. aid administrator dr. shaw with us to provide testimony on usaid fiscal year 2013 budget request. as you know, i believe that our international development assistance is a critical investment in america's national

security. i recognize dr. shaw and his team has made tough choices in this year's request, and i look forward to hearing more about those in our discussions today. it is a budget to protect america's security interests and the leadership on those encouraging more efficient use of taxpayers' dollars to the limit with defense and diplomacy as one of the critical prongs' the help ensure america's national security the foreign relations subcommittee with international develop and foreign assistance i know firsthand how smart investments and or the development projects not only the right thing to do with even a bit on the stability of americans do not understand how the work of the state department and usaid affects their lives aside from the humanitarian and moral of years of improving lives in the world's places files like to underscore how our development

assistance overseas expands export markets and strengthens our domestic job market. we have an economic interest in what we do globally as far as our development assistance is concerned. i will continue to chip in programs that bring greater transparency and good governance to the countries in which they are implementing and applauded the administration's efforts to redouble our own and government transparency. good governance is a critical part to our international involvement objectives. also hold that in powering women is one of the most critical tools and toolbox to fight poverty and injustice. the field in planning and d.c. must be a central part of all of these programs. if anyone's assertion that women's empowerment should take a vaccine to any other so-called important priorities. i put on that list my efforts to encourage reform. many women around the world are

doing the agricultural work and not getting the benefits of it. of the land reform is a critical part of our objectives. i want to praise dr. shaw, with your release last week of the new usaid policy for gender equality and female empowerment, which makes and tikrit engender and including women and girls central to all u.s. international assistance. this policy, which updates guidelines that were over 30-years-old recognizes the integration of women and girls is the basic effect of international assistance across all sectors like food, security, health, climate change, science and technology, economic growth, democracy and governance of humanitarian assistance read it aims to increase the capacity of women and girls, decrease inequality between genders and also to decrease gender based violence. secretary clinton pointed out more than 15 years ago women's rights are human rights. and nothing is more fundamental in life and i will continue to oversight and advocate programs under the jurisdiction of the

subcommittee to receive appropriate funding and rigorous implementation with regards to these priorities and look forward to working with the department to achieve these goals. america's's active engagement abroad serves our economic and strategic purposes but is also rooted on our national values. on a bipartisan initiative of the presidency emergency plan for aids relief also known as pepfar we have battled the spread of hiv in africa today in junction of the global fund to fight aids, malaria, tuberculosis over 4.7 million people receiving aids treatment, 50,000 in 2003. focus on global health as well as the critical issue of food security under the initiative of feed the future highlights the administration commitment to creating sustainable solutions to the fundamental development challenges. with more than $15 million spent in the development programs of afghanistan since 2002, usaid

provides the largest bilateral civilian assistance programs in the country and with that money and effort in afghanistan has achieved some notable development we should give credit to the men and women of usaid where credit is due. standing next to the services and basic education and the internal infrared mortality rates and the systems, new women owned small medium enterprises all of these success stories underscore that when executed properly and in close alignment with afghan people the united states can make a huge difference in development. challenge now to learn from these lessons to focus on what is necessary, achievable and sustainable, given limited resources in the changing political and security environment in afghanistan. i have continuing concerns that achieving those standards is increasingly slipping out of our grasp. our civilians are operating in a very challenging environment and that assume considerable risk in support of the president civilian military strategy for afghanistan.

.. >> investments of diplomacy and foreign aid commerce of the interests. secretary clinton put it last week in her testimony before the committee, this is a down payment on america's leadership in a fast changing worldment rather than slashing america's international affairs budget, we, in congress, should work with the administration to focus on reforming the international affairs budget, especially to

ensure that u.s. foreign aid is used more first timely to continue a great impact. i look forward to working with you and your team and look forward to your testimony. with that, i'll turn to senator lugar. >> thank you, very much, chairman, and i join you in your praise and memory and both of us, i know, had the privilege of being with don payne and his brother in institutions abroad and other instances of his service in the foreign policy of the country and in africa. we'll miss him. a special joy to welcome you and admire you very much, your willingness to under take this awesome responsibility. thank you for being before the committee today.

as i emphasized to secretary clinton and her hearing in the committee last week, received budget testimony amid continued challenges here at home with the unemployment rate for americans at 8.3% nationally, 9% in my home state of indiana. our national debt has grown to more than $15 trillion. this scenario brings great pressure on the country's financial obligations and places the economy at some risk. in this context, the dollars available for a global developments will necessarily be limited. the task before us today is to ask whether our government uses those dollars as efficiently as possible to achieve the most benefits for u.s. foreign policy and development goals. our foreign assistance should be targeted as sustainable development promoting self-sufficiency and produces demonstrable results.

ideally, also supports strengthening of democratic democracies and promote the rule of law in those democracies. as the path allows nations to rely on the world stage, it's important we be of assistance. the administration identified global food security, global house, and global climate change as the highest priorities for our development assistance this year. historically, there's been broad support for the united states' participation in international efforts to feed vulnerable populations, combat infectious diseases. i'd be interested to learn from the administration the degree to which our food programs have engaged our own farmers and are highly regarded research institutions to achieve greater productivity and higher yields in countries struggling with food and security. the administration's expansion

of global health investments beyond those established in pet farms raise several questions. the priority of the global health initiative combats and preventing infectious diseases, or is it building local health infrastructures and capacity? how is the agency setting priorities? what ways are policies moving to country ownership? what is our strategy and timetable for turning speedometers over to re-- responsibilities over to recipient countries. as administrator shah knows, i had misgivings about the new global climate change initiative, which under this budget receives $47 #-- $470 million. i raised questions about a number of specific projects proposed under this initiative, especially in the sub category of adaptation. my trn csh concern is usid is

asked to devote resources to a politically determined objective rather than maximizing development impact. in other words, if there were not a climate change that will not yield significant global climate benefit, and the own literature does not seem to make that claim. the benefits of the projects are meant to be local, and if that's the case, we should be applying rigorous standards on that basis through every development dollar spent. hunger and disease are so fundmental to the human condition and are so ob instructive to the advancement of societies that in most cases, development goals are apparent.

adaptation projects under the climate change initiative have a weaker connection to basic developments and the results will be more difficult to measure. my intent would be to ask the general accountability office to examine the program, standards applied to it, to other projects yielding results that justify the expense, especially at a time of diminishing resources. in closing, as i did with secretary clinton last week, i'd like to express appreciation to the men and women of usaid who tour under very difficult and sometimes threatening conditions to carry out our nation's programs abroad. they are dedicated for service and willingness to serve. i look forward to hearing the administrator and further discussion, and i thank you again, mr. chairman.

>> thank you, ranking member, and members of the committee. i'm honored for the opportunity to be here, look forward to your guidance and discussion on the president's fy-13 budget request. i also want to take a moment to recognize representative and we are proud to support a modest fellowship to help improve our efforts to build a diverse work force in partnership with his efforts and ideas. two years ago, prawsm and secretary clinton asked us to elevate development as a core part of our national security and foreign policy strategy. we recognize that this work is so important that it has required us to do things differently. it has required us to be more responsive to national security

priorities, more effective in security context, while being more result oriented and efficient in achieving core development results in food, security, health, water, sanitation, education, humanitarian assistance, and resilience to climate change, and democratic governance and basic respect for human rights. in fy-13 budget request, we believe we've made tough choices, choices leading us to focus on concentrate on investments to generate the most value for every taxpayer dollar that's invested. in priority areas like food and health, we have taken extra efforts to cut programs and reallocate resources to those specific countries where we think we can get the most results for every dollar that we invest. our maternal health program, for example, reduced to 24 priority

countries in order to support those places where the burden of disease is highest and where we can get the most results. our feed the future health program closed out efforts in kosovo, serbia, and ukraine to reinvest resources where we think we can generate the biggest impact. this approach has been hallmark of our us aid forward reforms. the president issued a policy directive on global development. the secretary and i launched the qddr, and out of that came the u.s. aid reform package. those reforms involve investments in science and technology and lowering the cost structure of doing our work and starting to see real results from that. new technologies that, for example, help babies breathe and save lives in the first 48-72 hours of birth in very difficult settings already making a big difference. we focus more on monitoring and evaluation and the american evaluation association

recognized efforts and called them a gold standard for the federal government and suggested that other parts of the federal government may also take a similar approach. we're proud of that, and this year, we'll be publishing more than 200 independently peer reviewed evaluations on our website so american taxpayers and everyone else can see what results we're getting for the resources we invest. fundamental to our reforms, we've changed our model of partnership to work more directly and effectively with faith based institutions, with private sector companies, with universities that have technology and ideas to add, and most importantly, with a broad range of local institutions, local civil society groups, local businesses, banks, and more directly with governments. these efforts are designed to help us be more efficient, and to provide one example, by restructuring our education program to work directly with local institutions, we brought

the cost down by almost 55% and allowed us to build twice as many schools for the same amount of money which results in more girls getting an education. this budget includes a focus on the top priorities. top aid budget requests a $770 million investment fund to support and provide responsiveness necessary to respond to the situation in the arab spring. in front line states, we continue to implement our reforms focused on accountability, making sure that we are making our work and the foot print of our work sustainable and doing what we can to ensure that those societies and countries have a pathway to success without long term u.s. assistance and engagement at current levels. in each of these areas, we believe as you have mentioned that there have been significant results, and the challenge will be ensuring they are sustained

through a broad international partnership and more domestic investment and responsibility. our core priorities are also represented in this budget. the global health budget request of $7.9 billion is the largest in the budget allowing us to achieve goals we laid out in very specific terms. the president's program for aids relief treats more than 6 million patients, on a path to put 6 million patients on treatment while obtaining commitments to ensure we reach every pregnant woman as an international community that's hiv pos five of drugs to prevent trance mission to children. we'll be able to meet program objectives in the malaria program in which we've already seen more than 30% reductions in child mortality related to what i believe is one of the most efficient global health programs out there. we believe there are major new

opportunities on the horizon with the introduction of new vaccines and lowering of cost in terms of saving children's lives and saving mothers' lives, and we're focused on achieving opportunities in a results oriented manner. our food programs really remitted a new way of doing -- represented a new way of doing business over the last two years. feed the future helped to work in nearly 20 countries to expand access to agricultural development and has done so by engaging local u.s. institutions that have technology to add including u.s. universities and farmers' groups. the program is now generating specific results. in haiti, there's rice field increased by 170%. in kenya, we note that 90,000 dairy farmhouse holds experienced income increase of more than $14 million on annual basis, and bangladesh, first time in three decades, today has

enough rice to feed itself. overall since feed the future was launched, we've seen in the 20 target countries and agricultural productivity increase 5.8%, more than eight times the global average of 0.7%. because of a more structured and results oriented focus on nutrition, we see the rate of child stunting in the programs go down. it's those results that we hope to speak more about and deliver more effectively and more transparently through our overall reform efforts and through these initiatives. i want to close by thanking our staff. we asked our staff to do extraordinary things and some very challenging and work in dangerous environments. we appreciate you mentioning the issue of how many of our staff have lost lives or partners that have lost lives. the most telling moment for me permly this past year was at the end of a conference we held, the first one since i've been administrator with the mission directors, leaders around the

world, and they were in, and we talked through the reforms and initiatives and this more results oriented approach, and at the end of the conference, a number of stood up and said that they were -- they were committed to take reforms forward even though it often means more work, and it often means more uncertainty and changing the way we work because they saw value in it, and they saw by doing so we could genuinely become the world's premier development agency and the country deserves an institution that performs at that level. thank you, i look forward to your questions and look forward to learning from you. >> thank you for the update, and i join senator lugar and complementing the dedicated people you have working for you under the difficult circumstances. i had a chance to meet with mission leaders, and they are incredible people, and i applaud you for the people working with you on this. i want to talk about the overall budget problems.

you certainly put a good face on this, but the truth is, the budget's tight. it's basically a no-growth budget, and you have to make difficult decisions. you want to be more efficient, and we all do, and your examples were impressive. but you're moving forward with new initiatives, arab spring, initiative there, additional resources made available in soaferl -- several other areas. last year in a speech you made to the center of global development on the enterprise, you mentioned by 2015usaid could graduate from assistance in seven countries. can you just give us an update as to, with this tough budget, and i'm one who would like to see you have a larger budget, with this tough budget, what types of programs are likely to

see the -- might have to be compromised in order to meet the highest priorities that we have knowing full well that efficiency can only take you so far? >> well, thank you, senator. i think this budget does represent our best effort to focus on concentrate. we have cut or reduced significantly more than 165 specific programs. we've made real reductions in each area where we worked to concentrate resources. i mentioned maternal health where we shut down 20-25 country programs in order to reallocate the resources to places where the burden of disease was higher, and where we felt we could generate more lives saved with the investment of the same dollars,. we have -- we're on path, as i mentioned in the speech, close out a number of our missions in panama that can take on the costs of doing what we were doing, and that transitioned to country ownership and

responsibility as a major part of the strategy, and we don't think of those -- we think of that as success when we're able to achieve that outcome, and there are 11 more missions where we are actively reducing our expenditures, and we'll go down to zero as the countries take on more responsibility. part is a geographic focus and reallocation. many of the results oriented initiatives by focusing in places where the problem is most acute and solvable are investing resources in africa, perhaps at the expense of regions and geographies, tradeoffs we have to make. some are around different issues and topics. we have reduced in this budget commitments to certain parts of the environmental portfolio in order to focus on delivering human outcomes in a clear and specific way, and when we're forced to do that, we try very

hard to make sure we work with our international partners and explore whether others can take up the burdens of those costs and programs so that the benefits don't go away, but this -- we've had to make tough decisions in this budget. >> well, thank you. the administration said it wants to make aid more transparent, a goal that i know senator lugar and i both agree. transparency is important so that we can trace how the funds are being used. part of that is to deal with the corruption in countries around the world and to protect whistle-blowers who can help us in making sure that our funds are being used for its intended purpose. can you just give u.s. an update as to how you are proceeding on advancing transparency in usaid and our goal of more sustainable governments where the funds are actually being used for the people? >> well, thank you. i think this has been an area where we've really tried to move from being seen as intransigent

in the global community to being the world leader in the global community. we have signed on to join the international aid transparency initiative, which is the premier entity that sets standards for fiscal transparency and investment transparency and announced that in south korea recently. we launched the foreignassistance.gov websites putting our obligations in the public domain for every country by sector so there's clarity of where the resources are going. we're testing different strategies to use our website and different programs in country to expand transparency, and i would highlight the new pakistan country website that lists every program we support in pakistan. it has a ways to go and can be better and relaunching the site completely this june, and i think that will improve transparency so people can click through and see every program we have everywhere. we'll be launching an evaluation

data base so all program evaluations are made public within three months of completion of program. no effort to edit those independently conducted evaluations. they will be part of a public data base, and by the end of this calendar year, we'll have 250 evaluations. it will be the largest and most significant repository of real evaluation data on programs worldwide of any institution. we're proud of doing that, but we have a long way to go and staying focused. >> thank you. keep us informed when there's initiatives. there's a great deal of interest. i mentioned in the opening statement the initiative on gender equality for focus on women and girls. would you just bring us up to date briefly as to how you're integrating that priority into all usaid programs? >> sure. we launched a new policy, as you

mentioned, just last week, that is a combination of more than a year's worth of work to ensure that we integrate gender programming in everything we do. the challenge has not been knowing that that's the right thing to do. the challenge has been for this field for decades operationallizing it, and this was the first operational policy issued in the last three decades by usaid to achieve that goal. in agriculture, health, education, countering trafficking and persons, and all of these areas, we'll begin measuring with specificity the impact of our programs on women and girls. for example, in agriculture, we've launched a women's empowerment index which is a sophisticated and appropriate tool for actually generating data on how programs help women and where they don't, learning why, and exploring what we can do that m i think those kinds of measurement policy tools make a big difference. that's just one part of the sweep of activities that's being coordinated by our new gender coordinator and the office they

represent, and i think it's making a very, very big difference. >> thank you. >> mr. chairman, are you going to hold the record open for questions for the record? not a statement, but i had similar questions. >> yes, we'll be holding up the record. >> thank you. >> thorning. -- thank you. senator lugar? >> dr. shah, you mentioned advances made worldwide, and i recorded these, very dramatic increases in the country. let me just ask you the fundamental question. one of the great disputes in the past is resistance to genetically modified seed, and this has come, perhaps, because of european influence on some african countries we found, but that influence was such that productivity increases were diminished, and in case of bad

weather, many disastrous. i'm curious how you have overcome that resistance which is still the case in many european economies. it's that with german farmers and even in ukraine. there's holding to the thought this generally infects the soils, the waters, or as environmental hazard apart from a boost in nutrition. can you describe really your success or how you have moved in this case? >> okay. thank you, senator. we have, as we've discussed previously, been very focused on using all appropriate available technology to help in particular vulnerable small scale farmers, most of whom, 70%, are women, improve production of food, and we know that's directly correlated, productivity with improved human outcomes and

child nutrition. the strategy is one 6 just engaging partnerships with countries so today we're actually testing both hybrid, conventional, and transjenic technologies on the ground with countries on their research stations at their leadership. i think once african scientists and scientific institutions develop their own products that have a broad range of technologies, they ought to have the capacity and the regulatory awareness and ability to make their own judgments about what technologies are appropriate as opposed to, you know, taking guidance from outside partners, whether it's the european partners or anyone else, and i think we've seen in places like tans tanzania where we've been engaging that way, a change in the mind set and eagerness to use improved seeds that are currently mostly conventional improved, but yielding real results, a more than tripling of

may fields in western kenya, a number of new seed varieties in tanzania ready for introduction, a slow and steady process, have not overcome it completely, but focused on ensuring farmers have the tools and technologies that help them escape technology. >> i appreciate that. i have an emotional bias on the subject. my own farm, we're getting 400% more production in corn than my dad did 50 years ago, and i've seen in my lifetime the change on the same acreage with change in seed, fertilizer, and other agricultural methods. now, that change worldwide would make enormous difference in human kind, but you have an influence right now to be able to make it through those breakthroughs. i'm pleased there is good data, but more power to you in moving ahead there just in a humane way. i am curious on the health

front. to what extent as changes occur there that are wonderful for people, our institutions changing in terms of recipients of usaid support in health? you see the building of institutions that will continue the work after usaid no longer has a flow of cash coming in, and i know you're working on this, but what sort of markers can you give us of progress? >> well, this has been a central part of our health strategy and entire strategy in working with countries. i prep this before we up vest directly in local institutions for the purpose of building up their capacity and experience in delivering services and using new vaccines or new improved bed nets to save kids' lives, we do a rigorous assessment to make sure we can vouch for the accountability and resources to

ensure they are not lost or stolen and generating results. that said, i think the big defining trend in global health over the next 5-10 years are countries taking more direct speedometer for providing -- responsibility for providing health services to their populations. we can play a role in starting the process. we're focused on doing that. there's some countries doing an effective job of that. one success is afghanistan. seven years ago we made the determination to work to build up the capacity of the ministry of public health there. today, there's data showing over the last eight years, afghan's seeing the most rapid reduction in maternal fatality than any country on the planet, reduction in child mortality, and has a ministry essentially in charge of their health system. they still need a lot of help from outside partners and for securing finance, but that's the pathway to stainability and people would not have thought

eight or nine years ago when it was not, you know, when they had no capacity to do this, that this would have been one of the biggest success stories in the global health arena. >> well, i hope your reports will give data about this so-called stainability in afghanistan, and for that matter, in iraq, where we still have a program that's important opposed to somebody being absorbed in the war efforts and sort of lost in the process in terms of its continue newty. i would ask just one controversial country situation now. ..

be able to leave for the international staff. they are still remaining outstanding issues where work and career. with respect to the remainder of our programmatic approach, we remain focused on trying to make sure that his successful and responsive to the critical needs but in a context where we're really trying to work through these issues as a condition to continue that overall approach. >> senator menendez. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. shah, thank you for your

service. i have to be honest with you. i don't understand and i know you answered last year when i raised this question with you, so you have to do better this year than they answer you gave me last year. because i wanted to see. and that is my concern about what is happening in light of the american caribbean. as in many regions of the world, where usaid works, the absolute level of u.s. assistance to the country and the caribbean has begun to decline. however in latin america, unlike africa, south and essential asia and the middle east, so too has the proportion of u.s. aid going to the region. so that is a compounding factor. between fiscal years 2008 and 2012, u.s. assistance to the caribbean fell from 2.1 billion to approximate 1.8 billion, 13%

decrease since 2008. assistance in latin america is also decline proportionately. latin america never sees 8% of the laterally prior. she doesn't eat received 10. looking over this year's request, i went to what i see. the spending request for esf is down 7% from last year and a whopping 21% from 2008. even direct assistance to guatemala is down slightly, even though the "miami herald" schottenheimer and asked the president whether his country had the possibility of being the next somalia and knowing that the drug cartels and the other essential american governments as well. so i know you told me in response to my question last year, this has only gotten worse

, that's your theory of budgeting is the best bang for the buck, but not if that means ignoring the areas where some of the neat is the greatest. when i look at the western hemisphere, our own front yard, i'd like to what is happening in undermining these countries to the narcotics trafficking. i look at the resurgence of health issues that were once carried like tuberculosis and i see the rise of it. of course, helped disease know no borders. when i look at the question of undocumented immigration that we debated in this country and think about what creates the movement from either die or economic necessity or civil unrest. when i see the movements that are anti-democratic in the region, continuously challenging their citizens in terms of a fundamental right, and the list goes on and on. i don't quite understand what it is that the administration does

not see that maybe i am not thirsty. so my question is, what is your justification in this regard and how do you rank the needs of the region versus the need of other regions? what indicators did you consider when making these types of cuts in your budget? and if we start there, maybe out of a sense of how you came to your conclusions. does this not a budget i can support. and the final point i will make and then get the balance of the time for your answer within that context as well, i know that esf accounts took a hit, but i see what she did to the account for democracy programs in cuba. we have an american citizen languishing in castro's jails and so our response is to cut the democracy program in cuba. is that a deal we made that we are going to cut the democracy program in cuba in response to

an american who is sitting in jail? we are going to get anything for that? because of the west to send the wrong message at the end of the day. whenever in the world, and banco popular:, cut our democracy assistance programs because the disapproval of the regime. here you're cutting it by 25%. a significant. so it makes me feel better if you can. >> thank you on the senator for the comment. i will take them in order. our approach overall is to do our best to maintain core results are achieved in one given the overall budget situation and this was a budget and is presented as a budget that has a real reduction in overall foreign assistance within the 150 account. within latin america, our number one priority has been security and mexico, central america,

program like rc have seen real and significant and sustained increases year an year this frustration that are significant and would like to continue on that path and transfer the number one priority. we have experienced savings that have come in large part from esf in places like colombia or peru, where columbia was the second-largest program whereby our criteria of country readiness, country willingness to take on the cost of implementing programs, basic levels of per capita income and revenues at the country level, we are able to transition this effort to domestic responsibility. and we believe that it's an appropriate trade-off to make an effective part of the pathway vision for success, most notably panama where we can close on the question. >> but with respect, dr. shah can you talk reducing my question country and country.

it can't only central america america in its present challenges today are the equivalent of a colombia or some of the other examples you cited. >> for central america and honest review and come back a specific numbers. i think we have maintained a commitment in their budgets and in some areas we have seen significant increases. we look at the region overall, because of the significant growth in latin america, because many countries are making the transition to donor themselves, like so, we believe the criteria are applied in an effective way. i'd had in places like guatemala and el salvador with a 10 priority countries for initiatives like feed the future, global health initiatives, in some cases that doesn't necessarily come with the tremendous gravitational investment, but it does come with additional support for improving the quality of the programs for making sure we bring partners like wal-mart to those economies to help a farmer

set of poverty in a sustainable way. we see some very real results and what is in guatemala is a real example of a receive 15,000 farmers move out of poverty and a serious reduction in rates in the western highlands and those are sort of model initiatives. even though we can do them at lower cost because we are building real partnerships with others that can sustain it. but with respect to cuba and i know my time is short, i would just say we didn't take any proposed reduction because we're urged to buy an external machine. we are presenting a budget we think we can implement effectively and we recognize and have done quite a lot, especially to her state department to try to deal with the situation and have taken some extraordinary steps to support his situation and family and we hope to see him released and continue to ask that objective. >> i were close. just say it's remarkable to me that you can sit there and tell

me that at a time of greater repression, at a time when two hunger strikers whose only crime is speaking out against the regime had died, at a time of the women invite attack by security forces, at a time in which a recent round up of 100 peaceful protesters ended up in jail, do we reduce by 25% are democracy program in cuba. i don't know how the metrics -- how you figure the metrics, but those metrics to work. >> senator corker. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. shaw, thank you for the work you do and let us know about which you layout. if you look at growth around the world, the developed countries are we read that growth is taking place in the developed countries faced lesser growth happening. as we watch them at the other powers around the world and the way they invest in developed countries, much of that is done in a way that furthers their own growth also.

i'm just wondering if you look at these investment and the developing world coming to be given any thought as to how that might benefit our own country in a relationship that allows shots to be treated in our country? >> thank you on the senator for that question. i think we also studied carefully some of the models to countries like china has deployed to essentially position themselves aggressively in what are going to be the emerging markets of the next two decades. it is worth noting that in africa are your 15 to 17 countries that have been growing at six or 7% annually for more than a decade. you have a common market that is larger than the market in china. and there's very clearly serious than port and business opportunities on my comp appeared the same is true even in lower income populations in asia, where we ain't locally at the bottom two, three, 4 billion

people in the world represent a real significant emerging market. a lot of what we've done in public-private partnership in nature efforts and initiatives have been designed to help american is dictations participate in development, both to generate concrete specific results and to innovate and create business models that will help them serve them in some cases profitably, very low-income communities to date that will be the emerging markets of the future. in ethiopia, for example, we worked with pepsi to help them build out a supply chain to reach 30,000 sheep beef farmers, most of whom are women by growing chief peace, they are able to then have a product, a hummus products were still selling commercial markets, but half of the total product will be packaged as a ready to use nutrition pace provided infinity programs to vulnerable children

in that region. that is a good example of the partnership that achieves concrete result and allows for positioning and engagement in this market. with procter & gamble with a major partnership to help them develop and sell to low-income communities improved products to purify water. in some communities in asia and africa, that's a major product and they have some unique take knowledge he can do that and generate really great results. so we have tried to adapt the way that frankly the whole development community has traditionally thought about partnering with the corporate or in your entry to engage in a more creative and results oriented approach to develop new business models, new technologies, cheap soma now comes the lower costs and create a countervailing system to what we see in some other countries.

>> it would be great over time to develop some metrics that we could see results in that regard and i thank you for certainly the focus. we noticed in -- in the budget i know this is something that's been very bipartisan as far as support grows comment that you set a pretty ambitious goal of increasing the number of people from 4 million today to 6,000,023rd team and not the same time reduce funding from 5.1 billion to 4.5 billion. so you have a substantial increase in your quote over 2 million get a reduction in all of us need to be focused on the amount of resources we're putting into these programs. i just wonder if those two are lining up for the goal is overly ambitious. >> wasted at this very carefully. people if this is an achievable goal that the budget request remake for global health, with a

significant efficiencies in the program as we both reduce the cost structure of doing our work and importantly is the cost of providing antiretrovirals has come down very significantly and continues to go down, we believe this is an achievable goal. we'll hit the 6 million target. we are 4.7 million right now, having exceeded previous expectations already and we believe will have the resources to continue to really beat the world and a global effort to address the transmission of hiv from pregnant mothers to children and the transmission so we can get both committed to a situation where we have a generation that is free at hiv/aids. we are very committed to the subject goods and making sure that institutions like the global fund that has been important places for us to leverage our dollars with other donors can continue to be successful when we present a budget we think can achieve

that. >> senator lugar in his opening comments refer to the climate change adaptation of $407 million. it is kind of curious with all the other issues pursuing right now, with what exactly are we prepared to do with the $407 million would affect to rethink it's going to have with our aid programs? >> well, thank you. first of resourcing for the climate change program overwrought clute adaptation, but also includes an effort to improve access to energy and an effort to address deforestation and do that in a way that creates business opportunities for local populations and sources of income. on the affectation in particular covers a broad range of activities. but some of them such as creating climate resilient agriculture, for example i think are going to be very important

to a very directly delivers specific results for specific outcomes. other activities are designed to really hope countries develop their own adaptation strategies to drier growing conditions to mark a slick the one we saw in the horn of africa to resilience efforts, sometimes that may include getting insurance to pastoralists communities vulnerable to climate chunks are helping farmers in bangladesh with the floods. so we're trying to find alignment between her feet the future program, climate change initiative and help the person we trained a point resource is towards the type of things they do deliver specific development result in a logical manner. >> so it's more about the ad community getting people to plan for weather trends? is that which is saying quite >> i'm sorry -- >> it sounds like it's really a developing country trying to get farmers they are to look at

weather trends taking place place@agriculture crops accordingly. >> those are examples. with a really exciting partnership with nasa called serviette that allows us to mary's, the observation and by their collection systems with the reality of what is happening in certain parts of the rope that are vulnerable to climate shocks for extreme weather event and plan for and adapt to that. so that is interfere with copious links programming. i know that it's a technical term, but it is helping communities protect themselves against what we know what is happening which is more droughts in the horn of africa, more floods in the delta and bangladesh in those types of situations. >> if it is oriented -- i know my time is up, i would suggest a title change are sent to insert a sense that a different signal

when you first hear it and what you're talking about obviously fit it is described as you just said, very much in the agriculture affairs for senator lugar and others have talked about. i know my time is that. but for detecting more detail. thanks for coming. >> senator shaheen. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here and for your efforts on behalf of the country around the world. i know that senator cardin raised the concern about investing in women in the importance of doing that. i notice something secretary clinton is committed to and i have been to support the belief that invest in women is one of our best development strategies if were going to get the most out of our dollars. and the hope is that we are coordinating these programs for making those investments across our development efforts. so i wonder if you could talk a little bit about how usaid staff

in contracting agent is our hot accountable, what kind of metrics you have for integrating gender throughout all of their planning and budgeting, throughout program design, throughout implementation and monitoring. >> sure, thank you so much for the question and not comment. you know, we really to believe an understatement and third decades of strong data to substantiate the point that if you can effectively engage women in development solution coming to get better results, more sustainability, markets in school, malnutrition and the structure of what you accomplished becomes easier to accomplish and more sustained over time. for that purpose really helped put together a national action plan for women, peace and security and we've introduced a new gender of women and girls policy that will make sure we do exactly what you suggest, which

is established metrics and measures in her major programs to be able to assess other efforts are preferentially focused on limiting growth in whether we are seeing results from that. >> can i just interrupt you. i'm sorry, so that effort is underway now? metrics and underway yet. or in the process of developing those? connector to every hour we were going. most areas faced many are putting this together and are steadily going in now. some examples include a major effort in using mobile phones and mobile banking to help people who otherwise are not connected to a cash economy but to have a mobile phone use that tool to connect better to receive financial services as part of the economy. we believe and have established targets to make sure they preferentially targeted and reach women and are seeing that make a huge difference in haiti where there's more than a million banking transactions,

the majority of which have been convicted of a woman on mobile phones that previously did not take account access to finance. see mr. genistein in kenya and other asian countries. prioritize that effort. an agriculture program we launched the power and back so everyone of her 20 feet to future will report on the extent to which their programs empower women farmers and it has been highlighted as a best practice in the field because it doesn't just measure women's incomes, but also relative standing compared to men and position in decision-making in their communities. and our civil society and democratic governance programs, we are taking the first together at the state department to ensure that we are a we are identifying women leaders of ngos and civil society organizations, providing support as appropriate, but also bringing them into the embassy fold in using the diplomatic resources to allocate their

standing country. these are just another broad range of actions that it is the get as detailed as making sure there's better lighting and safe spaces for women in idp camps from the get-go to arguing partners. so i'm very excited about the person that will generate concrete and real results and we have a lot of detail would be happy to share with you in more detail as well. >> great. thank you very much. while we are talking about women, obviously one of the issues that's very important to women whose family planning, international family planning remains a controversial issue. we are under clinton -- former president clinton and bill gates before the committee last year and i had the opportunity to us than what we could do to try and get beyond the controversy and

recognized that family planning is actually very profamily, pro-women. it is important to saving the lives of both women and infants. i wonder what experience you had in your position to date and whether you have any thoughts about how we can make this issue less controversial and more supportive of what women and families need around the world. >> well, thank you. i also look forward to learning your thoughts on not for bill gates and president clinton. but at the end of the day, we note that her history program support and family planning has been one of our most successful areas of work. we do not, as you know in any way support or fund abortion or any counseling related to abortion. we are very strict controls on that. we sing country after country a common pattern that gives you to

a place where you have a puncture have a better democratic and that is a significant reduction in child mortality and we know when that happens people and families invest more in kid, get them in the school and it becomes a pathway out of poverty and that is generally followed by a long-term and more effective approach to family planning and reducing total fertility rate in countries in the combination of those things has been a major part of development success story in nearly have a success story we see around the world. it's incredibly important. we've seen a number of programs that affect the spacing reduces maternal and child mortality by 25% and we think they're a relatively noncontroversial race to achieve the outcome, simply as part of having trained community health workers and missing people visiting homes in making sure kids nonartists have access to protein and nutrients

engage in just the facts related to the effectiveness of that approach. and pakistan, which helped train more than 22,000 health providers and seen significant and positive results in terms of producing the birth cohort year on year as a result of that effort over a number of different years. >> thank you rematch. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. shah, thank you for being here and for your contribution. in the first of all startups at the parochial interests of the night and i doubt if you know the answer but if you check it out and let me not appreciated. there's a program called the peanut chris program which is the support program through usaid does a five-year contract ends at the end of this year and is reviewed for extension. there's a number of universities that are participating in the program and have recently had

related a micro toxin known as aflatoxin intended to the decline in human immune us stand than i'm making a major break through and turn that around. so my interest to be to find out what the status of the review is and what the agency gains of what has been produced so far if you wouldn't mind. >> certainly. and you know, that is the next in the valuation currently underway. we'll try to restructure entire research strategy and agriculture the security and this is part of that review. i will explore the league details and come back to you on that. i want to know that certainly aflatoxin is a critical issue that we have expanded our focus on under the new strategy and we also would note that the sum of our other mechanisms, we have been working when it a group in georgia that is producing peanuts as part of -- a peanut

paste tight nutrition product for some of our food aid as they make a shift to include more high nature hand, high-protein prepackaged foods that have an impact on helping kids survive and overcome the cute child malnutrition in certain settings. but i will explore the details. >> at the risk of grandstanding, i wasn't going to bring that up, but since you brought it up, the minute program and georgia where my mother was born and they are making the packets between nutrition to somalia and kenya right now during the difficult tryout and it's a three and a half ounce peanut paste the fortified vitamins and it's a remarkable and produced by not-for-profit. give it the purdue center is for practice when you on that note that we are not for profit georgia. would you explain to me the role of usaid and the rule of cdc?

>> sure. thank you, senator. i think from the beginning it was established at the support countries to develop health systems and systems for expanding access to affect the population and have a very focused, disease specific disease control model. so initially the approach was cdc did what it does best which is at the genealogical analysis training and field workers identification of the structure of an epidemic and develop and what the host country at the strategy to address hiv/aids and usaid does what it is done best, which is support service delivery, development of a long-term sustainable health system, inclusive of financial models for that will help it sustain over time. over time the reality is those lines of word and now both

partners to outlaw. when i started, certainly the degree of overlap and duplication was pretty extraordinary. i went to complement tom friedman and time of course the cdc's chief. but we've worked very closely with them to try to improve our coordination and countries to make sure beginning to a much more efficient approach to the provision of services and ensuring there's more country ownership and local responsibility for seeing the program through and it's been hard. it's been challenging work, but i think we are seeing results because we see situations in kenya where it has been extra resources, we are able to expand resources considerably by bringing platforms together across cdc and usaid to be more integrated about delivering services to affected populations. >> is that specifically for you

isolate antibodies to hold the key to fighting the disease in kenya? >> that is part of a usaid program with an outside partner called the international aids vaccine initiative that is held to identify some novel antibodies that we think will be an important breakthrough to try to actually get a real hiv/aids vaccine. >> the reason i asked a question in a message scientific guy or a doctor of medicine, but it seems to me that that sort of cdc will send a usaid wrote. how much collaboration do you do to make sure your network and across purposes or duplicating the purposes. >> we do quite a lot of collaboration, just being perfectly honest, jordan u.s. government from an entity airstrip at how much coordination we do. i think it's necessary because their these areas of overlap and partnership. but at the end of the day,

especially i research and development and technology efforts of which that is a part, we work with cdc, but also the nih and its actually the sort of hug within the federal government for supporting those types of activities. so when we would do work against that goal, we do it with complete short review of programs against a malayan strategy. and i think that is what you are seeing the big efficient use of the program and then i hope the first create new opportunities for this is the patient coverage and impact we believe we can achieve the constant budgets. >> i commend you and dr. frieden and a lot of that is because the countries are doing more delivery and ours is the retrovirus and tested in a lot of cases. but i appreciate what to do an have to talk to you more when i get a chance about the comparable roles because i think your program provides a great

service and help open the doors for the night as the americans i'm a nice populist who should. >> thank you, senator. >> semantic games. >> thank you, senator cardin. just to follow one of the line of questioning for center isaac sin. you can see we have a great partnership on the subcommittee and faq join senator lugar and no pain by expressing my regret it deeply knowledgeable about africa and a great advocate, both for your work and usaid and the work all of us try to carry forward in b.c. human needs in africa. and i think the administration has been true visionary and innovators. you've really brought a level of energy and focus in the difficult budgetary times championing usaid for it has been difficult but his progress and procurement. i also think in areas of

initiative have been able to see in africa with her speed to feature the global health initiative as senator isakson with reference to you been able to reduce the total cost. i'm grateful for what you've done in improving transitions. if i could, i'd be interested in asking how we will continue to make the global developments in this difficult budget times and what in particular we can do to fight technology solutions to the complex challenges of development. in february at a white house event and patient pants and take knowledge he doing out a request for applications solutions network. it is my understanding is part of initiative to harness cutting-edge at american universities to implement new solutions to development challenges. senator the commission previously dramatic increases in

agricultural production and output on his farm in just a few decades we are seeing comparable advances, potentially in africa and finding. can you describe how this out to further help usaid's innovation agenda while also helping universities here at home? and how this particular budget request advances science technology and innovation to usaid? >> that's a long question. i know you can handle it. >> thank you, senator kearns. thank you on this range of issues. i think the basic premise around your question about how to read/write the most significant transformational result in annapurna or budget are going to be tight is that we have to lower the cost structure of doing our work and we have to literally invent new solutions that make extraordinary things offer. that happened a couple times in our history in the 60s and

70s the green revolution as senator lugar has the right talk to me about happened in part because of great new technologies created by scientists. in that case, dr. norman for the period in the 80s, the usaid worked to create more rehydration solution, which then have saved 11 million children because it basically took the power to save the life out of the hands of a doctor and put it and it turns out that it's a much more effectively to save children's lives. we basically believe we're on the cusp of an era of a whole new range of technological scientific break recent innovations that will do that again, whether it's orange fleshed sweet potatoes that have kids about river blindness because it has more vitamin a borscht had more yields and what his audience to climate shock or some things that come straight out of u.s. universities. one of my favorite examples is a

cpap advice, but it's an airway pressure device that would normally cost thousands of dollars and a group of students at rice university invented one that costs $160. that is going to save countless kids life in the first 48 hours after birth in very difficult environments around the world. so with that as a motivation, we launched this request for partnerships with u.s. universities and institutions we did it basically saying we want to find more dramatic game changing cost reducing technologies and innovations and approaches that will help us achieve the outcomes we said we're going to achieve with the investment of taxpayer dollars. we've seen on three webinars we've had more than a thousand people express interest. every time i've gone to the u.s. college or university or the passion students have. i said that fell outside of minneapolis a few weeks ago and

students there had read her entire counter trafficking of persons program that had student ngo had dirty gone out to the partner country in uganda and handle these ideas. we're not going to fund every idea, but we want to engage the power of american innovation and the innovation empowers american research and institutions and universities to really change what is possible and development. they sent the secretary feel strongly about and we've done it before in our history and we can do it again in a way that is responsible, cost reducing and hopefully inspiring to students across this country. >> thank you. i am eager to work with you and carry enough forward and hopefully that will be a part of the budget submission that will not just be sustained, but contribute to the success in the development efforts. he worked on with many others, not least dr. joe biden on drawing attention to the humanitarian crisis in the horn of africa appeared recently it has been downgraded largely due to u.s. and other multinational

aid. i'd be interested in update on what the current status and what assistance is needed and how the learnings from this particular cnn are going to be implemented and how this ongoing humanitarian issues are reflected in your budget request. >> as you point out, more than 13 million people were affected because of the worst drought for the six decades when it's a chance to travel with dr. brighton and senator frist, we met a young woman who had to make a harrowing choice because she had to walk with her two children for 70 kilometers to safety at the dock refugee camp and actually had to choose which child she could physically take forward because she could not physically carry both on the dangerous and difficult track. it is extraordinary the stories we heard and conditions people were under. in that context, the united

states, the united states and americans can be proud for nearly 60% of the global response. we put in place efforts that were both informed by prior experience, targeting children who are most vulnerable and at a time when the u.n. was estimating up to several hundred thousand people might die, we are able with their international partners to do some innovative things, some of which i can talk about and some of which i can't, to make sure we access and very tip of cold environments not convinced the efforts help save tens of thousands of lives look at specific about your mission's done and we will know very soon. i think what we learned from that is that we put in place some pain of the early warning system that allows us to predict where these types of disasters will happen. we observed that we need to be more aggressive about taking those predictions and create an international consensus to blame for the year ahead to get out in front of disasters before they

strike. that is both were doing in later this month we are organizing the international community and a ropey silly plan for the year ahead in the horn. but others more than 700 million people at risk. we accept because of the current estimates the rings will be poor again. we expect some ups and downs in things to get worse before they get better. we want to see as much burden sharing across the international community is possible to watch when rigorously for the things we get that worked in the things that didn't work so they can be even more effective at saving lives this year. i also think that most of this work is good in her eye to, the international disaster assistance account and i think the committee for support of those budgets. but then they can put on that point by saying at the same time the saudi extraordinary disaster, that afternoon we had a chance to see some of her feet the future programs working. we saw kids receiving orange fleshed sweet potato and the

impact that made under health and livelihoods. we heard from farmers in a research station were given scientists the winner tripping me out in the western part of kenya having estimates are intended about four and half million people didn't need assistance because improvements in agriculture of the last few years. and that is the trend we really want to be in a consistent focus really take hold of the next decade. >> thank you. thank you, dr. shah. >> dr. shah, you mention specific violations which are very important as it related to her famine relief, but also all of our programs. see the futures initiative of the obama administration. he dimensions of the time in your testimony on dealing with nutrition and also to gender issues and women. i think it would be helpful for us if you could give us how we can evaluate progress made on

feet the future, which are ejected sorry. i know you've done this, but if you could provide that to the committee as the progress you believe we make and feed their future in the short-term and long-term it would be helpful for us to have that information. i would encourage you to provide as much specifics about the results because it is important not just for us to feel good, but helps us provide the support he needed the united states for these programs, but also encourages stronger partnerships , not just other governments, the private entities when we know what we do has her consequences for mothers to make a decision on which out to make his heartbreaking. we all can do better. so the more specifics you can get us, the better we will be. i want to ask you one or two more questions before we conclude in turn to senator

lugar. afghanistan. we haven't talked a lot about afghanistan here. very concerned about the safety of our workers in afghanistan. what we see oecd reports that the afghan people expressing not only lack of interest and with the united states is doing, but the fact that even though we are the largest donor of it, they don't believe for doing anything to help them. i do not know how we continue a program without the support of the peep on the country. so i just really want you to be able to, what does best in the safety of our workers and those working with us in afghanistan and that it needs to be our highest priority, protect the message d. >> thank you, senator. i appreciate your expressing such a strong commitment to the safety of our personnel. as you know, we pulled our personnel from specific technical assistance rolls over

where we felt they were exposed to undue risk given the current situation environment that will only be putting them back in after ambassador crocker is convinced on a case-by-case basis but that is an appropriate situation from the about their safety. we also know that later this month they will be the implementation of the decree around the afghan public detection force. we have worked hard over the last 18 months to make sure we reduce the need for private security contractors. today my than 75% of usaid programs do not acquire public security contractors for 25% do we've been working actively with those implemented partners to make sure they have a pathway to safety and security as they were to complete programs in transition on to afghan host country institutions. we will stay focused on the safety of our u.s. direct hire staff in the safety of our foreign service national -- the

afghan nationals that really do take incredible risks to carry out this mission and do it in a visible and transparent manner. i'm also glad in your opening statement you made reference to some of the accomplishments of the program. it has been my belief that we have done a better job in the past two years or so of aggressively communicating some of the specific advantages these programs have had to the afghan people. the fact that longevity is increased for afghan women pay nearly two decades. the fact that health services have gone from 7% to 64%. but there is 79 kids in school, 35% of whom are girls compared to when we started to work it was just a few hundred thousand in the dugout a hundred kilometers of road and see during your annual growth rates of nearly tempers on. we know the situation needs to focus on him would've been very

aggressive about making it more sustainable and have a number of different approaches they've been taken of the past two years to enhance sustainability, including working at the afghan government to increase their own domestic government which has gone up fourfold and will continue to rise as they assume are direct responsibility. but these are important results and if they are the result of the crude because their team has been there and taken risks and focused on delivering those outcomes. >> our involvement in haiti pretty much parallels your leadership at usaid. since we were about before, but since the tragedies. can you just give us a brief update as to the capacity at the haitians civilian authority to take on responsibility to maintain the progress that has been made to international assistance? >> sure. well, we have seen an

accelerating process in agriculture, access to financial services through mobile phones, improvements in how common the cholera epidemic which was so devastating as down well below international norms and standards. we've been working aggressively to help the new president, president bartoli built the capacity to assume greater responsibility. they've been through a long process that had effective democratic election of the new president coming to parliament, but it has been a slow process of building the institutional capacity in the haitian government to effectively take on all of these responsibilities. that is why we will continue to work with them as a partner, consulting and seeking guidance on when they want to hold hands and do activities and programs together over the priority is to be as it has been the peppers to get people at a settlement and that it tends into homes, a more directed effort to get the job done as quickly as possible and

discussion, dialogue and partnership. i would also say in the context of the role for dirt has been under discussed in the context of haiti, but our partnership with coca-cola to reach 20,000 farmers and create gingrich's value chain is a good example of what is possible when we work effectively with the private sector we are now seeing new announcements by marriott to build a hotel in port-au-prince in the opening of an industrial park in the north that can create nearly 60,000 jobs in most of the kinds of partnerships with a neighbor to build together with our haitian counterparts. >> thank you. senator lugar. >> i just want to thank dr. shaw for a very informative testimony. i have no more questions. only accommodations for the hearing. >> let me join again senator lugar and the complement to her wetness on the work you're doing and your agency is doing in furthering u.s. object is in a very difficult environment.

the record will remain open for one week from questions by members of the committee. i would have said she was honored as promptly as possible if questions are propounded. i'm a fact, greatest amateur. thank you. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> i believe it is yet possible that we will come to this country not send late because we were born here, but because of the kind great and good land to

you and i wanted to be and that together we have made. that is my hope. that is my reason for seeking the president yet the united states. >> the leadership of this nation has a clear and immediate challenge to go to work affect his late and go to work immediately to restore proper respect for law and order in this land and not just prior to election day either. the mac energy secretary steven chu testified about the obama administration's energy policy in proposed budget. topics include the yucca mountain nuclear waste facility, gas prices and energy research.

this house appropriations subcommittee hearing as an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, everybody. i would like to call this hearing to order. secretary chu, i would like to welcome you back once again to the subcommittee. i understand through the grapevine that today's your birthday. is that correct? and that it is also your wedding anniversary. [inaudible] we appreciate your being here of course in your here today to present the administration fiscal year 2013 budget request for your department. your request totals $27.2 billion, a $1.5 billion increase at $1.5 billion or 5.7%

increase from the fiscal year 2012 enacted level. nearly one third of that increase comes in one program. energy-efficient t. and renewable energy. your request is painfully thin ice specifics and we need to know why this funding is both necessary and it wouldn't use of taxpayer dollars. given that consumers are angered by higher gas and oil prices and one major energy source can rustle energies substantially cut from last year. how is your budget delay to the real world outside of washington were energy costs are eating up family budgets. on top of that, the public's faith has been shaken by revelations and many under the jurisdiction that of wasted tax dollars and create markets for various renewables that cannot be sustained for federal support. artificial americas post the reality of wasted dollars under

mandeville economy, which exist to type the city. we know all too well the problems the loan guarantee program to stay so far. salonga has become its public face. we do not know what will be the next two to fall, but with great reason to be concerned. back home, many people are frankly disgusted that some of these investments have been wasting. they now seriously question the proper role in government -- proper government role in energy markets in the levels of risk that you and those subordinate to you have taken over the past two years. the allison reported that don't guarantee program noticed that the failure rates of the program to date has been less than some had it. i respect the expertise and judgment of mr. allison and the need to do political damage control on loan guarantee opportunities for whatever

purpose will not be painted with the same brush. the loss of public confidence is difficult to calculate. are there lessons you learned from this? energy projects fail in the marketplace. we know that appeared at the political directions are behind any project selections in our affairs to be justified. you may have seen a report by the "washington post" in figure 14, that is much as $3.9 billion of your funds are properly influenced by appointees. not the white house that show that the election-year budget -- that the election-year is not dictating this budget spending plans. i put yucca mountain in the same box. the administration is facing billion dollars to accommodate them under read, mind you not on any sound scientific ground, which you yourself have that,

mr. secretary. now your budget request contains funding for projects to implement some blue ridge is commission recommendations. recommendations which congress has not left either in whole or in part. as a current law, the land is for waste disposal at yucca mountain. we need to hear from you if the administration is proposing any legislative changes to authorize the recommendations. i am more positive note, you would make tough decisions to support the nuclear security programs at the nsa, decisions which this country has been gaining for some time. nuclear security programs are the most vital mission within your portfolio. i have significant concerns about the administration's recall for reduced military spending, we showed last year that our national security can be sustained and even improved with less money. they will be the

administration's task to show that your fiscal year 2013 request does not sacrifice our strategic security for budgetary savings. and together, the administration and conference has supported small -- development of small modular reactors, another positive development as was the recent groundbreaking for two nuclear trees in georgia. history secretary, last year we vessel the database together a budget for your department. i am proud of our product and i want to thank my ranking member once again as a former chairman and ranking member for his many contributions, you sound advice, experience in the very essential institutional memory. our joint task this budget cycle is no different, finding the right balance of investments firm is critical to with an eye towards those who protect our nation and yes, create

private-sector jobs, sustainable jobs and opportunities, not jobs which rely on government largess. i hope you will be able to explain today how the budget request before us does just that. secretary chu, please ensure they're in record questions the record and any supporting information requested by the subcommittee and and a form to us no later than four weeks from the time you receive them, members who have additional questions for the record will have until the close of business tomorrow to provide them to the set committee office. without a charge of a ranking member for any comments you may wish to give. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. i know my entire statement will be entered into the record. thank you for your kind words and reciprocate the group this morning that i am blessed in life, obviously for many, many reasons. one of them is to serve on the subcommittee because all of those together want a strong

nation, a good solid energy policy as well as the economic development that can fall from an investment in our water into structure. and you have done a great job in bringing us together and begin resolving differences in making sound judgments. i appreciate that very much. dr. chu, i also congratulate you on your wedding anniversary and birthday. had this anniversary would be just one day before my cents per day, so i congratulate you for that. ..

read little or no merit to the department fostering technological advances or breakthroughs for products they will not ultimately be manufactured domestically. the government can drive policies however ibm as i have said before very concerned about making sure the department exercises strong leadership in fundamental management reform. the need to be forthcoming in the department of energy. if not, it will significantly cut up the chance that the successful energy policy. i know contract and project

management seem tedious and dole. i certainly am tired of encouraging more year after year administering administration after administration and believe you are the seventh secretary of energy i of question on the topic. i continue to be appalled that the cost overruns and schedule slips of the department of energy's major construction projects. in 2009 the subcommittee had a hearing on the department's continued appearance on the gao high risk list, a position it has held since 1990. given the challenges in the last year of the major construction projects i fear that not much has changed, and i do hope you can provide assurances today that you are taking significant strong actions to get in the department of the list. the chairman has areas of concern particularly the decision and actions.

i speak for myself when i indicate i share his concerns in that regard. i would also add my very serious reservations about the inclusion of 150 million-dollar requests within the nonproliferation budget request. i hope to hear from you and others in the department why when coupled with a transfer authority request for fiscal year 2012 the department is providing you with $300 million in taxpayer money is a good investment and not a bailout. mr. secretary, i do look forward to hearing from you today about the fiscal year 2013 budget request that will help address energy and national security challenges. none of us will always agree but certainly as a member of the subcommittee and longstanding, i know we can work through our differences in a cooperative and bipartisan fashion, and again, mr. chairman, i appreciate you yielding the time.

>> thank you very much, mr. visclosky. mr. rogers? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and you and your ranking member for the great work. you're doing good. mr. secretary, happy birthday. happy anniversary. welcome. this week the national average price for a gallon of gas is $3.50. a jump 20 cents over the last month. 40 cents more than this time last year. the increasingly unstable middle east of belligerent iran to register with all its exports shut down the street at par most. meanwhile, china's rapidly growing economy is driving up oil prices through increased demand. while the state-owned enterprises are securing contracts are not the world. monopolizing new foreign services. once again, energy security, a

key to the economic prosperity and national defense is the focus of public debate. the congress has set a very strong message that we must have balance in the expansion of conventional fuel. coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear. to provide energy today with investment and to the renewable energy power our future. and while the president has repeatedly mentioned his support for a similar all of the above energy policy, this budget proposal and the recent denial of the keystone exfil pipeline seem to insinuate that this administration is not serious about responsibility and responsibly diversifying our energy portfolio. instead, this budget request for doe coupled with the budgets of the epa seemed merely a continuance of this

administration's political posturing. and diversion of scarce federal dollars to the favor sectors at the expense of the others. in particular, coal, important to my region of southern and eastern kentucky and our country's most abundant energy resources has remained squarely in the head of ministration's crosshairs or extinction. although your budget tries to hide it, your proposal significantly rows back investment and carbon capture, carbon storage, and the advanced energy systems programs that will allow our country to more efficiently use of fossil fuels already at our disposal. instead these funds have been shuffled around, to support the president's projects including a proposed 500 million-dollar increase for the energy efficiency and renewable energy program, which is already funded

at 1.8 billion. furthermore, as the epa rules out its regulations and flushes out a proposed greenhouse gas rule, these aren't the funds are vital to developing the new technology necessary to comply with the administration's own control standards. essentially, the administration has created a catch-22, demanding that industry invest heavily into new technology in order to meet strict standards, while cutting off the funding for those investments. is a systematic dismissal of coal, the outcome of which will be thousands of lost jobs and more expensive electricity for american citizens while their tax money is thrown at and viable solutions like the solar panels. combined with wonderfully the strategic petroleum reserve after last year's sale in order to create the appearance of

savings, i fear your budget reduces our energy security in real terms. obviously my colleagues and i have serious concerns about the administration's policies as they relate to our energy security. however, i would like to commend your department for its efforts through nsa to maintain the strategic arsenal. i would welcome you to expand upon how your request which include significant reductions, ensure our nuclear capabilities and our secure, thoroughly modernized and continue to be a sufficient deterrent to their enemies. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. brank member of the full committee. >> i also want to welcome secretary chu to the subcommittee for the opportunity to discuss the fy 13 department of energy budget request.

i bet you had better things to do on your birthday and on your anniversary but we will be brief. the president's budget request for the energy department is a sensible proposal that carries on our investments and important national programs in defense, science and energy efficiency. this proposal represents a further investment for many programs that are the building blocks for a more efficient and independent energy future. this fy 13 budget request contains a small increase for the naval reactors the tall figure increases for the nuclear weapons activities such as modernization as well as nonproliferation programs. while the increase for the weapons activities is less than what was outlined in the budget document of the few years ago. the funding seems adequate for fy 13 to make our capability. however i understand the of administration is working on a plan to establish the requirements beyond this proposed budget. i applaud the budget request for

the healthy increase and important domestic programs such as energy efficiency. the energy efficiency and renewable energy program would be increased by more than 520 million over the fy 12th enacted level. this initiative funded under this program are in britain to establish and maintain our lead in both the manufacturing and deployment of new energy technologies as well as making its existing technologies more efficient. the budget request also continues adequate support, adequate spending for the cleanup and the nuclear weapons site in washington state which is funded through the environmental management program. i want to work with the subcommittee and energy department to make sure that the cleanup succeeds at a reasonable cost to the taxpayers. however, i must express my disappointment that this budget continues to reflect the administration's decision to shut down the yucca mountain project.

it is my opinion that the decision conagra's made back in the 1980's to use yucca mountain as our national nuclear waste repository distill all of the land. again, i want to welcome secretary chu back to the committee and we look forward to your statement. thank you. >> thank you. mr. secretary, thank you for being with us, and we welcome your remarks and the statement of course will be included in the record. >> [inaudible] is that better? >> yes, perfect. >> thank you. german, ranking member and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the department of energy's fy 13 budget request. to promote economic growth and strengthen our security, president obama has called for in all of the above strategy

that develops every source of american energy. the president wants to fuel our economy of domestic energy resources while increasing our ability to compete in the clean energy race. the department's fy 13 budget requests 27.2 billion guided by the president's vision. our 2011 strategic plan, hour in not inaugural review. its ports, leadership and clean energy technologies, innovation and nuclear security environmental cleanup. decades ago the energy department support that the technologies that if happened to america's abundant shale gas sources. today our investments can help advanced technologies that will on like the promise of renewable energy and efficiency. the budget request invest approximately $4 billion our energy programs. it advances programs from solar to offshore went to the carbon capture utilization and storage

to smart green technologies and helps reduce dependence on imported oil by developing the next-generation biofuels, advanced batteries and fuel efficient vehicles technologies. the budget request invests 750 million in the nuclear energy program to help develop the next generation of the nuclear power technology including small modular reactors. it also includes funding for the continued nuclear waste which aligns with the recommendations of the blue ribbon commission on america's nuclear future. as we move to a sustainable energy future, america's energy resources will continue to play an important role in our energy mix. the budget request inputs $12 million as a part of a larger r&d initiative by the department of energy, interior and epa to understand the minimize potential environmental health and safety impact of natural gas development through hydraulic tracking. the budget also promotes energy efficiency to help americans save money by saving energy, and

its sponsors are and the and industrial materials and processes to help the u.s. manufacturers could cost. to maximize our energy technology efforts in areas including batteries, biofuels coming electric grid technologies we are coordinating research and deployment in the basic and applied research programs and to encourage them in check during implement of clean energy technologies, the president has called for extending proof in tax incentives including the production tax credit. as industry, commerce and the american polemic critical energy decisions it's also important that we adequately fund the energy information administration. competing of a new energy -- competing in the new economy requires the country to harness the resources including american ingenuity. the budget includes $5 billion to the office of science and supports basic research that could lead to new discoveries and help solve energy challenges

these funds support the science, basic energy and advanced computing and more. the budget request continues to support energy frontier research centers which and to sell specific scientific problems to unlock the new clean energy development. it also supports the existing energy innovation hub and proposes the new hub in electricity systems. we are bringing together of our nation's top scientists and engineers to achieve game changing results. additionally it includes 350 million to support research projects that could fundamentally transform the way we use and produce energy the high risk high reward research projects that if successful could create the foundation for an entirely new industry. in addition to strengthening our economy, the budget request strengthen our security by providing a $11.5 billion in the national nuclear security at a

demonstration. as we begin the nuclear arms reduction card with an s.t.a.r.t. tree, the science, technology and engineering capabilities with a nuclear security enterprise will become even more important to sustain the u.s. nuclear deterrent. that is why the budget request includes $7.6 billion for the weapons activities and $1.1 billion to the naval reactors program. additionally, it supports the work to prevent nuclear terrorism which is one of president obama's top priorities includes 2.5 billion to implement the key nuclear security nonproliferation and arms control activities. finally cut the budget request includes $5.7 billion to continue progress in cleanup the nation's cold war nuclear sites. the budget request makes strategic investment to promote prosperity and security. at the same time, we recognize the country's fiscal dillinger is cutting back where we can. we are also committed to performing our work efficiently and effectively. countries around the world

recognize the energy opportunity and we are moving aggressively to lead. this is a race we can win, but we must act with urgency. thank you and i am pleased to answer your questions. -- before mr. psychiatry. we have votes in the 4:00 timeframe and we will try to stick to the five minute rule for the members to be aware of. mr. secretary, our committee has long supported and this has been bipartisan by the efforts to keep the world's best science and engineering work force here at home and to keep our position as the world's top in a bitter. we also need to think one step further by making sure we don't just invest the newest technologies that we then manufacture them in the united states after all the cutting federal funding to support the research team of ten people at home so our company can support of thousand manufacturing jobs

overseas truly misses the mark. mr. secretary, beyond the advanced manufacturing program your budget proposes, how are you working and this is very much in line with the ranking members' comments to ensure that federally funded research and development conducted at american university's our laboratories and companies then lead to manufacturing and jobs here in these united states. >> mr. chairman, first i couldn't agree with you more. i think that if we invest in research and american universities or national labs for companies that we would like to see not only that research leads to discoveries but research leads to manufacturing in the united states because that is where we will see the future prosperity. the department of energy is working in a number of ways. first when their issues are having to do with the generated

by the department of energy we are looking at what means we have to say if you support the company or research what are the means we have at our disposal to make sure that it doesn't go to the highest bidder. >> what are those means? >> i will tell you one example. we supported some research on why a company based in america of in putting them in affecting ability to drive the cost down. it was a successful program but decided given what was happening in china that they were going to get out of this business and we were taking steps to make sure that that generated by the american taxpayers would have controlled but again it doesn't migrate to this mix we did migrate? what's the reference to china? we know china is aggressive in

this area. >> if we made substantial investments what we do to protect that property? >> what we do is look at the legal means we have so i've been told by my people for example no , if this intellectual property is sold somewhere else, the united states will look at what means we have, but respectfully the department of energy has been in business for quite a long time. cubin the secretary for a couple of years. this is news here. we are represented by a lot of incredible talent at all the national laboratories and they've been coming up with some pretty ingenious ideas. what is to prevent that ingenuity and innovation to be

sucked out of some of our labs and find ourselves confronting challenges based on cheap labor and manufacturing base in places like india or china >> well, mr. chairman, what has happened in the last ten, 15 years is a growing realization would take the industrial side of what we do for granted but also an appreciation of how important it is we remain a technology leader were especially high-tech manufacturing address on the intellectual property that we generate here in the united states. >> you had it up one of those laboratories. and god bless you for doing that and the investments we made in a variety of innovators and people

under your area of responsibility. what was to take -- what prevented them from the denver region from migrating rot? what could we take if indeed it is possible in the global economy? too when we support the development of an idea, we can in principle look at the steps and we are doing this increasingly. we have the ideas first, we are raising the interaction between the private sector and the united states and what comes out of the universities and national laboratories. in addition to that, if you are supporting research, we are in discussions if you support this research to the u.s. taxpayer money, how do you begin to say all right, we don't want to see this finnegan go to the highest bid. these are complex things we are looking at. >> we shouldn't be looking at

it. >> how are you acting on a? the horse is already out of the barn. have we come up with a lot of ingenious ideas and innovations and patents and they are being marketed by our global competitors? >> the government doesn't have complete control over certain things, so when a company picks up an intellectual property and develop a set, depending -- >> we just don't want them sitting at jobs outside of beijing especially if we as taxpayers have made these types of investments. >> is a set of reasons to encourage american companies to set up manufacturing in the united states. those set of reasons include

provisions on whether they can use research supported by the department of energy but they also quite frankly include issues having to do with the climate in the united states, the fiscal policies. >> we know the climate here, and it's not to our benefit at the moment, so let me yield to the ranking member who threw his opening statement shares very much my concern here to the i mean, he can speak from an industrial base that has been stripped of a lot of its assets. spriggs before mr. chairman. i have a couple of questions and we have five minutes on the first round. i would associate myself with the chairman and am very concerned by the provision for the stimulus bill in 2009 but it applied only to the infrastructure investment and when credits were used for energy programs, much of those facilities and products were imported. i'm told we have lost one

production facility possibility for solar. i produce more steel. i don't, my workers do, and my district and any state in the country and the tendered 50 important because we don't make it here i get furious and appreciate the last time we had a discussion, you initiated the conversation, and i appreciate that there is a purpose now at the department about making sure that the intellectual firepower that you have is going to be used with the goal of making sure goods and products of manufacturing. i do appreciate that. the question i have on manufacturing to follow up there is a proposal for the manufacturing demonstration facility. within the 2013 budget. and again, on first blush i think that is a good idea. the concern i have is about the last three to five years the department has established the

bye yo energy research center, energy innovative hubs, the energy frontier research centers and industrial assessment centers, clean energy regional application centers, manufacturing energy centers. and the obvious question is do we need that, do we have too many centers, are we dissipating our efforts? >> i don't think we are dissipating our efforts. first, you name a lot of centers, so let me start with the center for -- >> i'm just saying why do we need them in attracting -- >> fair question. but the focus on that. >> those centers specifically are centers in which you work with american companies, and they're almost like incubator companies. i toured one, it was a carbon composites that was done in conjunction with zero courage, where you have companies and you test the new manufacturing methods, so these say we don't

know what this is going to work or not, and you have a facility that helps develop new manufacturing methods that can enable them to produce the carbon composite materials, which it will be the material of the future but to produce it will be cheaper so that you can actually buy it in american products. these are american companies that use this and say we are going to do experiments maybe these companies can't afford some of the stuff but here's a facility this like an incubator house. come and we will help you get started. those are examples of the facilities which i think are applicable to helping keep manufacturing in the united states. spec two last questions. last one has to deal with management but in the 2011 report by a solfeggio they did indicate that the department has

made progress towards many of the recommendations relative to the watch list. but also suggested that the mattis knees to commit specific resources and things to its contract management problems. you still have nsa as well as environmental cleanup, 60% of your budget on the list. further, the national academy of sciences issued the report that talked about serious management issues or hampering the work weapons laboratory. at the levels of mistrust calling the relationship dysfunctional, what actions are you taking a relative to the academy for of the report in that year and year out. >> the office of science is now off the watch list and if you look at the recent record, it is on top of the budget and that is

existence that one can develop a very complex multibillion-dollar budget sent carry them through on projects. and so, when i knew that when i walked in the door of the concerted effort to export those to the environmental cleanup. one of the things level very briefly said is a strong common denominator especially in complex projects for example nsa were the wtt is you don't come do the custard construction unless the dwellings are done. you will invariably find out this is not a government project this is truly in the private sector as well. we find out that, to this, you should have done more design before you start the instruction, so one of the

things -- so a lot of the things the you see things and producers of the but there's no concerted effort to make sure that you progress further along the first budget estimates that also are very reluctant to put shovels and the ground until you know what you're going to be doing >> in light of the national academy, i would ask if you -- >> i would love to tell you about that, but for another day estimate of a chairman, sharon rogers. it provides 60% roughly of the nation's energy electricity today. if we went completely deaf on hundred miles an hour, developing other sources you are still going to need coal and for the foreseeable future.

it's an abundant source we have that we call it to the speed, it's relatively. is this administration is content on shutting off the use of coal and the mining from the purpose of generating electricity. the epa is issuing regulations almost every day and the most recent mats ruled that the issued there's no way any technology capable of meeting those standards. and so consequently, there can be no new coal plants because of that rule among others. and at the same time, the epa is demanding new technologies for

compliance with their regulations you are cutting the research of would develop those technologies for to do this seems to be incomprehensible. we of the government of the cost purposes. the fossil energy research and development program in your department has played an important role in improving existing technologies and what inventing entirely new ones. your request for funding is cut for fossil energy r&d 20%. $120 million cut. the request kutz advanced energy systems by 45 million, that's

almost half, and it cuts cost cutting research 40%. in essence, on the one hand the epa is saying you can't build a new plant because you don't have the technology to burn coal for the way we want it done and you're saying the i'm not going to give you money to find ways to burn the coal the way that you would like. help me out here. am i confused? >> mr. congressman, i have to say that i'm very much supportive of developing the technologies used because of the what does a lot to be able to use gas and coal in a clean way. we believe it is important to develop those technologies not only in the united states but in the world where we are going to be doing if kohl will be around for a long time, and we

recognize that and i think the congressman had this summit and heard me speak about that this morning to how important it is that we continue that research and part of the issue in the budget is there was a lot of money rescinded and some of the carbon capture sequestration projects were purchased between the government and private sector, and what we are trying to do in the path for what we see as a viable platform is that there is the use of carbon dioxide which will further our research in capturing carbon dioxide not to be used in the oil recovery but also a as we pump the carbon dioxide from the ground we will learn a lot about what is going on and at least the industry is seeing eye

understand we are still interested in that and so we are trying to work with industry and reprogram some of this and we have interest in having the carbon capture and the sequestration part which will tell us a lot and help sequester in the short term in five or ten years we're going to learn a lot from that. >> you are proposing to cut the funding. you are going to cut fossil energy research and development 21%. you're kidding advanced energy systems almost half, cost cutting research by 40% all the while increasing funding for all the other research programs other than call. notably 500 million-dollar increase for the renewables program which is already funded at 1.8 billion.

how do you explain that? that is contrary to the answer you just gave me if i understood you correctly. >> as i said, we do support the research. >> and why are you cutting it? drastically if you support it that is a funny way of supporting. how are you supporting it other than with money? >> we are supporting it with money, we are supporting it with trying to work with the utilities companies in these projects. >> there's been lots of applications for fossil energy r&d. i don't think there's been any of them approved.

>> loan guarantees, i'm sorry. >> i think the loan guarantees are the ones where these are -- we are working through them. these are very complex issues that we have the money and we are working through that and these are complex issues and i would like to see that money he used. >> if the ranking member. >> can you bring us up-to-date on the yucca mountain? >> as far as i know, what is happening is that this is before the courts and we are awaiting the decision of the courts three islamic we understand that affect the court's ruling and we believe that this still is the wall of the land you have to start forward how much would you estimate it would cost to get the project back on in a moving forward direction?

>> and would have to give but the one that certainly it supports the orders perceived but i can get back to you on the details. >> we understand it's around 100 million to get started. tell us about your blue ribbon commission of recommendations to they have on nuclear waste? >> with the recommended is first as we all do they acknowledge we have to solve this problem and it's very important we do solve the problem. one of the important things they noted in that they spent about two years many meetings so recommend them that one of the things they noticed that other countries have done it in a different way notably sweden and finland has gone a different way, so what they found was --

>> can you tell us what those ways were? >> sweden's about a private type of company. maybe the closest thing to that but it's not officially in the department of energy that they know if you can convince the people that this can be done in a safe way that there are economic benefits, and what could have then let's pick you and you like it or not it's going there, it turned out to be three competitive bids for the right to put the spent fuel in these types and so it was a competition that kind of was completely in reverse and fact losers, the people who did not get the side actually have some side benefits, but there was a serious competition to say we

see economic benefits, and if you do this in a safe way, you can control the downside. we actually have an excess of that in the united states and the active place in carlsbad where it's been operating for 11 to 12 years, roughly in that period of time, great economic benefits, no accidents, it's being done in a very safe way and it's been economic prosperity for that region. >> you know, in my home town in washington, we have a big shipyard and nuclear-powered submarines have taken off the ship of the submarines and sent over to mr. simpson in idaho, and they are supposed to send it on to yucca mountain. there is agreement here. this got up to the level of the top level of the clinton -- i guess it was the clinton

administration, and there is a time i guess it is like 20, 25 this has to happen or idaho will no longer be obligated to receive the waist. so the fact we are letting this go on and on and on is a big mistake and i voted to go to yucca mountain and i think that is the longwinded. it hasn't been changed. i think you are going to wind up, i think the court -- i can't believe the courts are going to sustain our position. so you better start looking at these alternatives configuring of how you are going to get yucca mountain moving forward. you can't just declare something in the executive branch that is no longer the law. you have to come to congress and get it changed. that hasn't happened. >> the was another important recommendation to the commission

is it is up to congress if congress wants to change the law we would be bling to work with congress to do that. and we take the obligations very seriously. i think it is 23 through kotler if you have to be prepared and by 23 throop 07 you have to be in shipping. those are very serious obligations. >> thank you. mr. lewis? >> thank you mr. sherman. doctor, thank you for being with us. i can't help but scratch my head about the fact that we are able to acquire someone of your background and talent to serve in this capacity. to save them least to be taken from the committees like this, if you are willing us to serve we are very much appreciated. your background as well known at a nobel prize winner in the arena of physics, but beyond

that you're celebrating or anniversaries and other things. deride holds a doctorate of philosophy as understand in physics from oxford university and beyond that she served as chief of staff for two stanford university presents as of the definitions. it's got to be interesting to hear you talk about at night. [laughter] alana o.s. for sure she would not have admitted me. [laughter] i must say, your service is very much appreciated. but beyond that, the panel probably doesn't realize this, but yucca mountain has for all these decades essentially been in my district, and in the early days it strikes me that unless we learn from this most recent

history we are bound to repeat the disaster of yucca mountain. i was fooling around with a figure earlier thinking we'd spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $9 billion in the yucca mount catastrophe, it's closer to $14 billion. in connection with that in the early days of yucca mountain all the politicians who want to solve this purportedly were supportive of yucca mountain as the location. especially when those producing jobs in the local economic community. then you move forward and lo and behold there's controversy around the subject, and all of the politicians free in spite of the brilliance of your first baseman tom earlier and the concern we have is we must solve in the environment that is a political environment and lord knows if we are not careful about learning from the past, we are bound to repeat it.

we will spend billions of dollars again for another location, following mattis mountain, and lo and behold what will happen? one way or another we have to think through the politics if we are going to make serious progress, and it ought to help you we're defeat to work your way through that and i can't say that we have done this very well up this point. one of the conditions is to set up an atomic arms that says get it out so you can have three competent people take a very professional what is in the best interests of the youngest states and solving this problem so that is certainly one of the recommendations right now it's up to congress to wait out the considerations and decide. that is one of the clear.

we are struggling with this reality. it was not that long ago that others in the arena where i serve for the government was located, we all supported i just please don't located next to. so, between here and there, i would hope that your people would work for a closely or have an independent commissioner otherwise not just work effectively but to get results of the other end. thank you. >> thank you. >> mr. sharon, welcome again. a lot to do but to the question of the technology transfer and jobs. i visited many of the federal

lands and it didn't get the department and, distortion and the modernization efforts i know the committee has done a lot to make sure that we fully fund that come also. this issue about the mur and delete the government funded research is not related to the department. nasa has 17,000 patents and we could go through the list, but there are -- and i think the administration has been doing work in this regard i know the white house has required all of the departments to work on this question, technology transfer in jobs and that energy is working hand-in-hand with the commerce department and national innovative market place to give american manufacturers a first run at many of these

opportunities but this is a serious issue you've got conflicting issues and as a scientist he will appreciate the fact that it is a conflict in issue in which scientists want to have a broad interaction around inventions and new ideas and new approaches in the scientific community. at the same time we are in economic competition with other countries. and so, you know, making all this information public, making it available feeds to our economic competitors getting an opportunity to work off of the fruit off the tree that we planted with american tax payers dollars, and with the issue here of taking patents or research has taxpayer funded and the new widgets to be made here in america. so regarding a chart 2015, which would be the discovery of

american jobs act which will focus the country on this question, because one of the well-intentioned personnel told me directly he has for passage as he tried to build these products here in america but he got a better offer elsewhere. all of the research was paid for by american taxpayers' dollars but those jobs are some other place and there is a what we need to work on in this regard, and i think that i'm a big proponent of research. our lives are a tremendous asset. i worked with the chairman and mark simpson and others, and i was just amazed that the work that had been done by the thousands and thousands of ph.d. on behalf of the american people. but we want to make sure that the job is created stay here and there is a lot of work we have to do in that context and the

congress just to be involved because we are going to change some of the senatorial, statutory alignments. i think they've required that if we are going to tax someone who's working every day in my district and invest it in some three smart people who will come up and they are going to make -- they will go in the commercial market and make a lot of money. that's great, we want the job that emanates from that to at least be somewhere in the domestic united states, and one of our 50 states saw that the whole country benefits from this, so whether it is an mri your lazy eye surgery or whatever to do to all of this is at the base government-funded research and we have to find a way to mn to the committee of the jobs that emanate helpless revegetate -- reevaluate. take a look at the with

suspicion. it's not obviously catching stone by bad in a common in their future but we do have to work together in this regard to an estimate mr. simpson whose name was invoked a couple minutes ago. >> i'm glad to see someone else brought up yucca mountain first. actually, well i don't know that i'm not going to bring it up to read a couple quick questions. first it's interesting when you mentioned the wit and the carless area and how that's created jobs remember back to the beginning congress have to force it on carlsbad? it wasn't readily accepted by the people of mexico who pursued several times and so sometimes these things have to get done one p or another which has been the issue at yucca mountain obviously. has the department embraced the blue-ribbon commission recommendations? and if so, well it require

legislation to implement some of those provisions, and if so, will you present that to congress? or will it be done by the administrators such as closing yucca mountain? >> i think it's very clear that congress will have to play a very key role if it wants to amend the nuclear waste act, and so that was very clearly stated in the commission. it would take an amendment of the nuclear waste. >> it depends on what part you are talking about. for example, one of the recommendations is the fee collected from the power generators and those are a considerable amount of money and three-quarters of a billion years and they recommended some fraction of the fees start to go to this organization that set up because it takes away from every

appropriation and puts on a more professional basis and can start with a small fraction but will let that began because that money is clearly collected for that reason. spec that would require an act of congress. >> i would love to work with congress, and deciding what congress would be willing to accept. that's one example. another example is the blue ribbon commission points out you would want the story sites and you would want internal sites. >> don't let this turn into a some samples where we go out in the make of these recommendations and then nobody pushes it forward. if you're going to push it forward, put forward and work with congress to get that done. along the lines what mr. rogers was talking about, 50 prez at of electricity by coal, 20% by nuclear power. when i look in your budget devotee increases in the real

energy of which is a small part of the electrical portfolio, and cuts in the other area that's producing most of the electricity, and i am frankly disappointed that we were seeing reductions in the small modular reactors this is the new ground we were going to go on to but we are seeing reductions in that arena and other things, so it seems to me like there's an agenda to push a green the high-technology that doesn't put hydrocarbon in the air, and if you are really going to address, you better at nuclear energy and it doesn't seem like we're doing that in this budget. that's the first time i've seen a retrenchment in the administration advancing the energy. the talk is there a budget doesn't reflected. spaghetti to know very well, and

where we could do good and in the center of those will play an important part. spinach is they will play an important part. you testified you intend to you have the authority to do that at the nuclear waste policy act to oversee the presidential determination to handle the materials together? frankly i don't want to see the defense nuclear waste be orphaned and left at places it currently is. >> i agree. >> how do you plan to handle them differently? >> they are different, number one, and we have responsibility now for both of those were the government report has the responsibility to handle both of

those. one is they are different in the respect that if you look at -- if nuclear power is granted be part of the energy mix in the 20th century, there is going to be that requires more attention but it's not to say that the others are not important. >> thank you, mr. simpson. >> thank you, mr. sherman. thank you, mr. secretary for being here today. it may surprise you but i think you actually put forward a fairly reasonable and on responsible budget. i wanted to just clarify a few things. you referenced. can you tell me china is of

course a very special the emerging economy growing in the emerging economy, and the other two largest, japan and germany i guess would be the third and fourth largest economies after china and the u.s.. what are the r&d budgets that they've put forward? >> well, off the top of my head, i can't really say exactly how the r&d budgets are, but i can say that china has a very strong commitment to those industries which china deems would be an important part of their economic prosperity in the future, and for that reason, that is why they are investing in many -- they want to diversify nuclear reactors and they are investing -- bigger the biggest employer

of wind and solar in the world in their country, but they also view that as. >> i was just hoping i could get a sense whether or not others would agree so much more similar to us. and i think all of the really test emerging economies would quit doing more or nt than we would be doing. but all you need is a bill to discuss at another point. are and become some of our. i guess we now have 46 of those. standing for. or for measuring with the output of those senators is.

>> yes, sir. we are the most stirring a very thorough review of the department how each one is doing because we so the ones that are working effectively, we would like to continue, the ones that are not we are going to have discussion to respect what is the period of time to begin to account well. >> every year in their ressa rot,. we wouldn't have been functioning effectively an