>> host: you are watching "the communicators" on c-span. we are location in las vegas at ces international 2013 at the las vegas convention center. here is some of our interviews we did this week. we are joined by representative zoe lofgren democrat of california. representative lofgren what are you doing at ces? >> guest: interestingly enough this is my very first trip to ces.

be on a panel about immigration which i did this morning and this afternoon i'm going to fly fun so far. >> host: what was your role in the panel and what was your point of view? >> guest: well the problems with our immigration system and everybody sees it from the situation they are in so the technology world that people that got their ph.d. in to start a company here but that doesn't any sense. for the farmer you see that your migrant farmworkers don't have their papers and you are going to have to file under and if you are chucking crabs in maryland you see that the season is going to be destroyed because you don't have workers so the whole thing is a mess and i have hopes that we will have a reform effort that is really top to

bottom and bipartisan. >> host: representative lofgren you represent a lot of high-tech companies in silicon valley. what you hear from them and what do you see as the solutions to these problems? >> guest: it's not so much in h-1b problem. i'm not suggesting the h-1b program should be repealed. it does need reform. does have structural problems that can lead to underpaying immigrants to the detriment of the american co-worker but the real answer is permanent residents. we are competing on a worldwide stage and if you have got some hotshot that just got his ph.d. in computer science from stanford, she is getting offers from all over the world and to say you can stay in some limbo for six years is not really competitive. so what we want to do is for people we want to have stay here , to create jobs, and that's not just in the tech field. it's throughout the economy.

you need to make it easy for people to stay and start businesses and grow american jobs to help our economy recover. >> host: what is the atmosphere and the climate for potential immigration reform in congress and perhaps the administration? >> guest: on the democratic side we have been working on immigration reform for quite some time. we. we have not had that enthusiasm on the republican side, but here is the deal. in november mitt romney lost badly and part of the reason why was because he got under 30% of the vote among the asian voters and under 30% of the votes among latino voters and analysts have devised that is partly because of the republican posture on immigration. so really, the republican leadership needs to think do they ever want a republican

president again because these are the fastest growing demographic groups in the country. it so they have to join us and do immigration reform. we are happy to compete for voters on some other subject. let's come together, reform the system that needs it so much for the good of our country. host glenn this is a priority for the dash goes. >> guest: it's something i've been working on for a long long time and i just -- there is a decision that the republican leadership needs to make. i can't make it for them, but i am hopeful that they will decide this is a good thing to put behind them and they know that we can work together to make it so. >> host: representative zoe lofgren what else do you hear from your constituents in the silicon valley area about washington and? we have heard from some people that it's two different worlds. >> guest: it's interesting

because in the bay area there aren't very many republicans. i mean there is not a single republican house member in the bay area and there is not a single republican in the state senate or the state assembly. anybody that has to identify their party as a democrat and that reflects the constituency, not just the elected officials. so when i come home people can understand what republicans are doing and i find it difficult to explain it. [laughter] you no, it's an area that supports freedom. it doesn't want to manage somebody else's religion are somebody else's life. it's an area they voted to tax themselves we could have better health care and better schools.

they look at washington and don't understand the fight in a lot of ways. >> host: specifically when it comes to technology related issues, do you hear anything that your constituency wants? >> guest: there is concern about innovation and the role that the current law has in the area in stifling innovation. that is difficult to remedy. we had a bill that i ended up not voting for last year having worked on it for 12 years that really didn't do what we had hoped it would do. we have got an overarching scheme on copyright enforcement that is probably not that positive in terms of technology innovation. i am sure you all remember the sofa brouhaha last year. we stop the overreach from the

copyright board that the -- i'm not talking about the company's. i'm just talking about individuals who are inventing things and creating things feel that there is a problem in terms of the copyright regime and we come together and make sure that it works in the internet age. that something i'd like to work on and i will be introducing bills. i don't know if they will pass the first session of congress but a lease to get the discussion going. >> host: when you walk around here at ces do you see a lot of your constituencies? >> guest: oh sure. i've run into a lot of people already that i know in one of the people walking around said do you want to go go to go to xyz company from your district? i say i go companies all the time. this afternoon i'm going outside the hall to another hall to visit the startups including -- in to see what's coming out of it. >> host: and, they couldn't

afford the rent here? >> guest: yeah so they have the tiny booth in the start of ideas and in a couple of years some will be able to afford to be in this hall. >> host: representative zoe lofgren from california. this is "the communicators" on c-span. and ces international is held every year in las vegas. it's one of the largest trade shows in the world, about 100,000 people attend this every year. is focused on technology. "the communicators" is here doing in interviews and looking at some of the new technologtechnolog y. here some are of our programming. former congressman tom davis what are you doing out here in nevada? >> guest: i am out here with deloitte and speaking at one of the conferences here and trying to enjoy the show. >> host: what is deloitte? >> guest: deloitte is a accounting firm and consulting

firm the largest leading consulting firms professional services firms in the country. >> host: since you retired from congress is that what you have been doing? >> guest: that is what i've been doing, doing consulting. i have got a couple of members talking about the fiscal cliff and to talk about what is happening or not happening in washington and he tried to let people understand why why it's the way it is. for people who don't understand how washington works, sometimes we try to do demystified for them. >> host: tom davis is there particular angle to legislative policy when it comes to tech companies such as we are seeing out here at ces? >> guest: they are conflicted because they tend to be on the social side, the social issue side with more of the democratic policies on and abortion and gun rights. doesn't mean we are urbanized but on the economic policy

obviously it's very free trade and is not a union type of operation or more market-oriented on this. they are conflicted between the parties on this so the politics in the bay area is the predominant force for people's political alignment. in my area i had a huge tech corridor out there a little bit different in the regulatory issues and the like so i think they are conflicted like everybody else. the tech workers tend to be a little bit more obama than romney but it's a swing vote once you get away from the circle of issues. >> host: when it comes to your service in congress, did you push tech issues at all? >> guest: absolutely i push them. i did a lot of legislation that area. people were afraid to touch it because it was the tort liability and were afraid to

make corrections because of something went wrong and they improve the product we could have liability. there was limited liability in place there and i was one of the co-sponsors for a bill we had on shareholder derivatives if we protected these companies from those lawsuits and innovative companies, we could get into some of the property issues, intellectual property issues and government procurement issues. government is not a very efficient procurement technology. i wrote the last cybersecurity law that goes to congress called fisma federal information security act and i was a chief author that so i was a prolific legislator in those areas. rochkind across party lines. >> host: . >> host: speaking of the government procurement process, does it work currently especially when it comes to technology? >> the problem of government procurement, will give an example combat put an addition on my house about a year ago and i didn't have to worry about

advertising it. i didn't have to worry about small business set asides or minority set-asides and didn't have to worry about protests and i got it done efficiently and it works pretty quickly. didn't have to worry about the buy america acts. all these bells bells and whistles that try to basically look at other government policies as a procurement part of that instead of just looking at getting the cheapest goods for the cheapest price for the taxpayer. as a result of that it's a very efficient way to pick your goods because we said too many public policy goals within the procurement system. so the answer is it doesn't work very well. >> host: is there one set of technology tools that the government uses in each department's? >> guest: that is one of the difficultdifficult ies that policies aren't always congruent and agencies have their own stove pipes and they don't -- there is no entered connectivity between government agencies and creates a lot of inefficiency.

in the office of management and budget should be overseeing these issues and refereeing between the different agencies but even within agencies people are procuring different systems that don't integrate very well and as a result of that we spend billions repairing them and billions of dollars sometimes doesn't repair them. it's a major bureaucracy the way that the people work in their own legacy systems. they don't coordinate with anything around them. we do the same thing that the government the incentives to save money. you don't get the benefit. it goes to ever spend their budget somewhere else. the incentives and government don't make it very efficient without somebody at the top coming down hard on them and saying for the good of the order over seeing the game's. >> host: but isn't it up to congress to make the system, to create the loves?

>> guest: heaven help us if you leave to congress that the the executive branch that's failed to do that. the executive branch has the authority within it to do that should it choose to do so. one thing the legislative branch could give the executive branch is reorganization authority. were president reagan had it. peaked reorganized the way he wanted to you have to bring the congress for an up-or-down vote without an amendment because when congress can't amend that you get these jurisdictional battles and you end up with the department of homeland security. you design a thoroughbred and you end up with the three homes camel at the end of it. >> host: is the nature of government. it operates openly and transparently. the bigger your budget the more powerful you wired. the business is the opposite. you can make a quick fast decision. you can make a lot of mistakes with this and you can make a lot of decisions. in government you tend to put off those decisions. >> host: tom davis used to chair the government affairs

committee. >> right, government and oversight. >> host: and he represented also a tech area tysons corner in virginia. does congress understand technology? >> guest: some members. people like darryl issa who are profusely efficient and area. he built his a tech company and made hundreds of millions of dollars. aces like the population as a whole but understanding the technology and how to use it is different than understanding its applications and understanding government policies that will encourage innovation and encourage efficiencies versus policies and disparate intellectual policy rights. congress coming down one way or the other could have a huge effect on discouraging innovation. tax policies can encourage or discourage innovation. our immigration policy right now where someone comes over and gives a ph.d. in the kick them out of the country and make them go to their own country where

they compete against this doesn't make since when the people who know the way the world works. congress could do a lot and you don't have to be efficient on your iphone or black very to understand the application to touch policy and what makes it work and what doesn't make it work. >> host: what is your area of expertise? >> i do a lot of the i.t. area and also -- even if you have the right policy and government making it work basically is very tough. the implementation of that if you will very difficult. we take a look at what the policies are and make them highly integrated to make them work. we are the largest merger and acquisition firm in the world in terms of advisory and we bring that to our government so when you are trying to get efficiencies and trying to accomplish the same goals with less people and fewer dollars those are the things we excel at that as i said before that sometimes the incentives are government are such that y.

would i do that? i have fewer people in my budget goes down or i know company that has software that basically test software much faster, 10 times faster than government currently does it but he don't need the people to do it. you can test quicker and faster but the managers say what does this do to my people and how do i protect them? a different set of incentives in the private sector does because of the monopoly so change comes hard. >> host: over the past couple of years we have seen google and facebook and their washington offices grow exponentially. we did an interview with the executive vice president of samsung earlier here at ces and he mentioned that they have one person in washington. would you recommend to a panasonic or a sony that they beef up or keep their washington offices strong? >> guest: microsoft didn't have much of the washington office and until all of a sudden the feds came after them on

antitrust issues. you get the sec going on something else some in congress passes some longer hold business goes out the window and they recognize, some companies need that but the reality is that today there are so many conflicting interests that somebody if they happen at antigen washington will write the rules to benefit them and that can undo your business plans. so yeah i would say to sony even companies that come out of countries that don't have that kind of tradition, we are a full democracy where lobbying is embedded in the constitution. these countries are little bit different so they are a little late to the party on some of them. google has been successful. they have learned the hard way that if you don't have that washington presents and the tendency of a lot of these tech -- we don't need the government let us just innovate on our own.

that is great in theory but all of a sudden the rules change in your out the window. >> host: what do you miss about congress? >> guest: very little. i had a lot of good members that the dysfunctionality right now i'm a lot happier on the outside i left voluntarily and i left undefeated and unindicted which is away want to leave a place. i was termed out as committee chairman and i've been in leadership for two cycles and three cycles as committee chairman and ranking member and a sub of any chairman. >> host: you ran the congressional campaign successfully to times. >> guest: that's a pretty good run so it's time for me to do something else. i didn't get potomac fever. potomac fever where people have to stay in washington and the only known cure for potomac fever is -- i was ready to do something else. i respect the people who have stayed there trying to make the most of the difficult situation but it's time to move on and do something else.

>> host: this is "the communicators" on c-span and we have been talking with former republican congressman tom davis >> host: up next on "the communicators" an interview with the ceo and chairman of panasonic north america. now on your screen as joe taylor who is the ceo and chairman of panasonic north america. mr. taylor we are here in las vegas at ces international. what products is panasonic debuting? >> guest: peter first, thanks for having me and second the interesting thing about what we are doing here today is not just introducing some new consumer electronics but really rolling out the new image of panasonic globally and that is a company that is almost 100 years old, $100 billion it has a portfolio product far beyond consumer electronics. >> host: such as? >> guest: our b-to-b space is

really growing for us. we have major market shares in the avionics industry in flight entertainment automotive industries far beyond speakers and radios, complete multimedia interfaces and navigation systems. we have sports and entertainment venues as well as a large energy business and these are things -- shame on us but we haven't made people will aware of them even though we are 100 years old. >> host: mr. taylor we are aware of panasonic televisions and panasonipanasoni c cameras and things like that. you have a brand called your tv. what does that mean? >> guest: your tv is the latest innovation. people want their content the way they wanted when they wanted. they want to be able to communicate with each other. they want to use twitter and they want to see youtube. they want to shop. we are enabling that in a custom

fashion on your tv. so we use facial recognition and voice recognition. you walk into a room and you say, my tv and immediately the screen shows your homepage. it's really the coolest thing. >> host: is on the market? >> guest: it will be on the market this spring. >> host: oled and 4k, what do these terms mean? >> guest: is the latest term and high-resolution. 4k is four times the resolution of what you have on your hdtv at home. it's got the same qualities as digital cinema that you have been seeing around the world. when you see a movie that's 4k resolution we can bring that into your home. oled is another technology for display so we had crt's for many years and those were the big old boxes and then the next one of plasma, l.e.d., ltv in the next is oled which is much more

organic and o stands for organic l.e.d. and it's literally paperthin and we can bend it. it's also the most amazing thing. you have to go to our booth and see it. >> host: when you say organic what you mean by that? >> guest: we use phosphors rather than semiconductors as the activating agent so it's much greener, much lower energy consumption than any display on the market. >> host: joe taylor what happened to 3-d? 3-d televisions were all the rage last year. >> guest: i don't think anything happened to it. 3-d is still developing. there is more content coming out all the time. i think the biggest impediment to 3-d still remains the glasses and i think as 4k develops i think the future for glassesless glassesless -- that doesn't even sound right, 3-d without glasses. that future becomes for eminent and i think you will see an

explosion in 3-d. >> host: in your keynote here at ces international, to topics that you brought in. the cloud and energy efficiency. what did you talk about? >> guest: well the reality is they are both kind of related. the cloud allows those ways to collect, store and analyze data in ways that we have never done before. so as it relates to energy but every device that is plugged into your home can be connected to the cloud and send data. as we analyze this data we have new ways of helping you save energy in ways that we never dreamed possible before. we can manage entire homes electrically in the most efficient way than you could've ever imagined. we do that through the cloud. the cloud provides many opportunities that but in the end the cloud is a big server. all this data is coming in and now we have ways to analyze this

data in a very usual fashion. >> host: what about apps? does panasonic use apps? >> guest: we don't make any apps but we create operating systems that are open so that apps can be developed. you mention your tv earlier. the operating system for your tv is very open architecture which means app developers around the world can create these similar to smartphones today. >> host: joe taylor you are the first north american ceo non-japanese, correct? >> guest: i am. >> host: what's it like raging the two cultures in the prison -- business cultures as well? >> guest: i don't know if i want to answer that question. no, it's been very interesting. it's been very challenging and i would say if panasonic waited 50 years for me they should have done a lot better. >> host: i want to ask you about u.s. jobs with panasonic.

how many people are employed? >> guest: in north america right now we have approximately 15,000 employees. >> host: 15,000? in what capacity? >> guest: everything from manufacturing to sales marketing engineering and r&d. it's a complete range of jobs you would expect in any major corporation. >> host: when it comes to r&d expenditures, do you have a set amount or a set percentage of put towards r&d? >> guest: we don't structure r&d that way but it ends up to be kind of a percentage of revenue. but it isn't budgeted that way. we look at r&d is the spy business and businesses that are growing spend more on r&d and businesses that are growing or that we don't anticipate to grow perhaps spend less, but we have six r&d sites in north america along. >> host: is the north american market unique? >> guest: we like to think

it's unique. but what is unique about north america and what can't be disputed is roughly it constitutes 25% of the world's gdp. it is by far the largest market in the world. the united states itself is the only developed nation on earth whose population is still growing so from that standpoint it makes it a very very interesting market. something in common with emerging markets and of course the most competitive marketplace in the world. >> host: joe taylor thomas time do you spend on regulatory and policy issues in washington d.c.? >> guest: as little as i possibly can. we have the whole organization of people who are very capable of dealing with that very frustrating process. i'm very happy to let them do their jobs and stay his distance as i can. >> host: as a north american chairman you have to be aware. >> guest: of. >> guest: i am involved in i'm aware and it's a mess frankly.

it's just a mess. it makes it very difficult for business. businesses can deal with anything but uncertainty. it's very difficult to make investment decisions and expect any kind of return on investments when you have no way to predict the future. our difficulty right now as there there is there is no consistency or certainty in our policy decisions and in fact i think it has become well beyond politics into ideology and there is no compromise in ideology. so it's difficult as a business person today. >> host: joe taylor what keeps you up at night when you think 10 years down the road about what's panasonic will be, how people will be watching tv and how your products will play? >> guest: when i think about 10 years in panasonic i don't necessarily think about how people are watching tv. i think 10 years from now you will see a very different panasonic than what you see today. i think you will still be

watching panasonic displays of some sort but i think panasonic will be much better non-for non-consumer-products then consumer products. >> host: why? >> guest: our growth, our sustainable profitable growth no question my mind will come from the b-to-b space combat from health care in these markets that we are just scratching the surface in terms of technology application. >> host: will panasonic still be manufacturing televisions? will television still be in use? >> guest: probably old people like me will still be using the word television and i think displays will still have the prominent role in the home for communicating content and information. >> host: joe taylor concha chairman and president of panasonic north america. this is "the communicators" on c-span. "the communicators" is on location in las vegas at ces