works because one dominant health care system might want to continue the -- might want to contract with the health plan. i don't believe they necessarily lead to better choices or high-quality traces sometimes we have to really figure out what is happening at the provider contract level why health plans can't come in to the primitive strongly but i think that

underscores what our strategy has been the traditional fee-for-service is the strongest possible and to create acos that bring the best managed care to the traditional fee-for-service program but also to make sure that our managed program is as strong as possible to and said the plans to the qualities of that's been our strategy to make sure that both programs are as strong as possible, so even if the beneficiaries don't choose managed care or don't have all the traces and other parts of the country have they can still receive the same care coordination and good managed care principles that the high quality care -- >> thank you. >> you're next? i'm sorry, bill is next. >> florida has the opposite of delaware, because of words of 40 to 50% of florida is on medicare

advantage. so let's talk about that. amal, the insurance companies are screaming bloody murder. but shouldn't they have known that the whole idea of the changes in medicare advantage was to cut out that 14% bump that they had over and above medicare fee-for-service as a result of the 2003 prescription drug bill? >> before the affordable care act, we estimated that the plan average subsidies for about 14% greater than fee-for-service on average we estimate today in 2013 that difference now is 4 percent. to be phased out even further, many told us and i think told

this committee -- >> is that 4 percent given the reductions that you've just announced or that you are planning to announce? >> that's current rates. so the 2014 still proposed, but on average we are paying 4%, so they reduction has been taken from 13% down to 4%. at the same time we have seen double-digit growth in the the plans we have seen double-digit decreases in the premiums. the quality is improving and that's a great sign that we can reduce the payment system to in some quality and continue to see growth in the program. we have proposed race for 2014 -- >> we are going to break away from the last few minutes of this program to take you live to an even at the center for american progress, talking about the transition that begins this month from paper checks to electronic transactions for nearly all federal payments

including social security. life coverage now on c-span2. >> -- treasury department headquarters, pennsylvania avenue there's a room known as the cash room and for decades, the general public could bring checks to this room and have them cashed. in 1976 the room closed and now serves as a ceremonial space. there is no cash and cash room. as for today's cash it's part of the departments transition to electronic payments. most americans to receive payments from the federal government, such as social security, supplemental security and the middle-income, veterans' benefits and retirement benefits for employees will no longer be able to receive paper checks. the have two options, direct deposit to a bank account of their choice or a government issued prepaid card called a direct express card. for many it's an easy choice. they've had bank accounts their entire lives and need to set up direct posit but it's a tougher

choice be approximately 17 million adults in america that have no checking or savings accounts at all according to the federal deposit insurance corporation. it means what we called the on bank population. it's about 8% of all american households and there's an additional one of five households in america that are underbanked meaning they have bank accounts but the year's other services like check cashing services and pawnshops. this is true if you think about the population is most effective by today's change. if you think about social security benefits, nearly 1 million households at 65 or older are unbanked and another 3 million r underbanked. about 8 million american households earning less than $30,000 a year have no bank account. and merely another 10 million are underbanked. 30% of households earning less than 15,000 a year are unbanked. as are 22% of all unemployed people. so where do prepaid cards come

in? prepaid cards have enormous potential to bring millions of americans into the financial system of tremendous benefits. to make purchases without carrying cash, to save money and time by avoiding check cashing and money orders come to pay bills electronically, to give cash from atm and merchants and financial much like their counterparts that have bank accounts and a debit and credit cards. overall, the fees in the market or going down and futures are going up. target five years ago looked is not surprisingly mainstream. there's about 3 million people without traditional bank accounts today to manage their money with prepaid cards. among those households who once held bank accounts but don't anymore, 27% use the prepaid card in 2011. as the center for american progress noted in the bank room last november, prepaid cards and bank accounts are converging. as we told the fdic the adjusting who and what we

consider to be unbanked. it also means regulations should move towards treating prepaid cards like bank accounts come in some cases they already do. these cards also have pitfalls. some have high monthly fees or atm fees or transaction fees or fees for customer service. responsible for consumers to be a nickel and dime on the fees. indeed, as the recent report by the national consumer center indicated, this is even true of some state governments that use prepaid debit cards to distribute unemployment benefits. so at its worst, we have government dollars that should be going to recipients but are instead siphoned off into the financial system. it is already happens with tax refunds has the center for american progress noted earlier this week. i would like to briefly introduce the panel. melissa is the deputy assistant secretary for consumer policy at the u.s. department of treasury. in that role she covers financial assets, financial education and consumer protection issues and serves as

the executive director of the president's advisory council on financial capability. gene is the vice president of policy at the center for financial service innovation an organization that seeks to improve both the quality and the quantity of financial product services for the unbanked and underbanked. she was previously an economist at the federal reserve board, and david is the project director at policy matters ohio, an organization dedicated to building a more prosperous, equitable, sustainable ohio and he will be speaking about his experiences at the state level and on the field. at this point i would like to turn it over to melissa. >> good morning, everybody. it's great to be with you. thank you, joe, for inviting me. can you hear me okay? first of all, i just want to pause on the instruction joe made on what is happening in the cash room many years ago and

what the cash room looks like today. if he were to go into my office, you would see that i have to portraits or photographs on wall. one is of the cash room many years ago when money was actually changing hands, and the other is what the cash room looks like today, which is a beautiful, the enormous stately room in which we have many conversations like the one we are having today about the future of financial services holds for consumers. it's great to be with you and it's fun to actually hear your point that out. as you heard volume melissa koide, the deputy assistant secretary for policy at the treasury department. and my office has focused on a number of issues related to consumer policy matters. but i want to call out -- because you were going to hear this quite a bit in the remarks and give you this morning -- we are particularly interested in the emerging trends in financial services and the role of technology and the use of data and how the two developments are manifesting how consumers are

interacting with their money. so you are going to hear me talk a bit about that. so, we at treasury see the key to our work and in fact key to much of what we are talking about this morning, finding creative ways to harness technology, to empower consumers with the ability to access the needed financial products and services, and also to better manage their money. technology presents an opportunity to develop not only the new financial products and tools for consumers, but also the promise to help reshape the financial services industry in ways that are inclusive, safe and accessible and the system where the barriers to entry are low, and where consumer protections are consistent and effective. technology offers the promise, offers promising ways to safely bring consumers financial products, transaction products, savings products to those that have traditionally been underserved. one shift in technology that has had major implications for

treasury is the move from paper checks to electronic payments. the treasury has required the delivery of the federal benefit payments electronically actually since 1999. subject to the weavers with the goal of going all electronic and as most of you know in this room today it's the date when we have met that goal. and we think the time is right. compared to five years ago, americans are simply more comfortable with electronic payments. according to the federal reserve 2010 payment study, over 5.7 billion fewer checks written in 2009 as compared to 2006. illini of electronic payment grew more than 9% during the same period. direct posit has been available for decades and has proven to be easy, safe and convenient. and mine out of time ten benefit recipients true to receive

better payments through the direct positive. and for people who don't have a bank account, as you heard joe mengin, we have the direct express card as an option which is a prepaid debit card which was introduced by the treasury department in 2008. direct express provides a safe, convenient alternative to the benefit checks. we don't need a credit check or a bank account in order to use the card, and you can use the card to make payments and also add cash. we are doing away with paper checks in favor of electronic payments because it is the right thing to do for the benefit recipients, and we will talk a little about that, but but also it's the right thing to do for the american taxpayers. over a tenure period we are going to save $1 billion by going electronic. millions of people have made the switch to the direct cause it since today's deadline was announced. today, approximately 94.3% of the federal benefit recipients

are receiving their social security and supplemental income payments via the direct express card. that is from about 85% from two years ago. beyond benefit payments, we have also sought to explore how to move to electronic payments, help to move to electronic payments could help to perhaps make the delivery of the tax refunds safer, more efficient and a financial the inclusion tool. to that end, i want to take a few minutes this morning to share with you briefly some of the results from the pilot that we have undertaken. each year, the treasury males over 40 million individual income-tax refund checks each year. the majority of individuals who were receiving those checks instead of using direct deposit and having the refunds deposited into an account those individuals are low and moderate income. in fact, 60% of the check recipients are making less than $30,000 a year.

as a part of our effort to replace all checks with electronic payments and to test out the mechanisms of offering a tax account, aimed specifically at the tax filer the treasury pilot offering families the option of having their tax refund direct posited into a prepaid card that we termed the "mauney account cord." the low-income families were given the option of receiving the refund and a "mauney account card." they received one of six offerings. each a different feature that we predicted could influence to cut rates. we tested accounts with features that have the fees' versus accounts that didn't have the fees. we tested accounts that have an attached savings account against the accounts that didn't have savings, and we also tested the two different messages. one was around safety, and one was around convenience. and i am going to share with you

what we learned. the random sampling design and allowed us to understand who would be the most interested in the account, and importantly what account features would likely increase the takeout. so, what did we learn? first we learned in the internals living in the house household likely to be unbanked were likely than those individuals with bank accounts to apply for and issue the card. second, we learned that females and people living in households with children were 45% and 35% respectively more likely to take up the card of the people living in households without kids. third, the pilot shows the people living in the households with very low-income, with incomes of $15,000 or less or 17% more likely to take up the card account offer than those with slightly higher incomes.

first, the data showed that the presence of a monthly fee the participants take up and their use of the account. specifically, the 4.95% monthly maintenance fees reduced the account applications by 42%. also, those participants were offered the card with their monthly fee, versus those without a monthly fee use the card 50% fewer months and with 52% less likely to deposit the tax refunds into the account over deposit. some of the data provide several lessons for anyone interested in thinking about extending the financial assets to the payments. first, the pilot indicated that there is a consumer appetite for some of these new product. the data showing the unbanked low and moderate households were significantly more likely to apply for the tax card underscores the interest. second, we learned that product

features matter. in this case the fee structure had a large impact on the take. taken together, these findings suggest developing the right product in the fees' and features is an important step in helping to unlock the potential demand for the type of products. i believe the lessons from this pilot, from the pilot also served to inform our continued efforts to connect american households particularly unbanked and the lower income households with safe affordable products to meet their needs. the move to electronic payments significantly altered the financial landscape which i've said, and at the same time, innovation and technology and also the use of the that is radically changing the personal finance experience, and i want to talk a little about this. my office in particular is interested in exploring how mobile phone technology is transforming the way that we all interact with our money from the basic mobile banking to the more

novel innovations and payments and money management. the penetration of the smartphone in particular we think may present a real opportunity to help expand access for underserved consumers. and many -- i'm going to give it to you for those that don't. in 2012 they conducted a survey and in that survey found 49% of african-americans and 49% of latinos over the age of 18 reported owning a smartphone. at the same time, lower than a third of households making less than $35,000 per year also reported earning a smartphone. and the rate of the smartphone adoption in this group is growing fastest. a separate study found that the consumers are actually more likely to earn a smart phones than the rest of the population which we think highlights a potential for the mobile technology to help reach the underserved consumers.

smart fun applications in fact may be the next frontier in providing financial decision making tools that can be personalized to the individual. they often offer him data that helps the user makes carter decisions and also makes informed decisions and goals that they are able to achieve over time. recognizing this potential the treasury have developed several initiatives using smart phones to encourage that as a tool for improving the financial capability. one major effort last year that we undertook was the my money application challenge and i would dare any of you in the room to see that five times fast. this was a contest where we offered cash prizes for the best multiplication ideas and designs to help americans make more informed decisions. the challenge had two parts. the first was simply a solicitation content to give us

your best financial application idea you can come up with in 140 characters or less. a second part of the competition was for a comprehensive application design proposal to we received responses from folks all across the country and from all walks of life. let me share a couple of the winning ideas to give you a flavor of some of these responses and i think some of also the imaginations that americans have about how they can use their phone for their finances. the gap was the third-place winner and this proposal would help to come if developed, help make managing student loans easier and i know i would have appreciated having that. among other features, it is going to allow the consumer to put all of their student loans in one place so they can see what they are paying and they can see their rate and it also would then create pay off plan that would synch up with the individual budget, and it would reduce -- it would encourage the

user to actually make more frequent and that ultimately reducing the interest that the consumer is paying on those loans. the idea i have to know is my favorite. there is one called molah and this is the second place winner. this would be aimed at helping low and moderate income benefit recipients to better manage their money, and also achieve their financial goals. this act would enable the users to both create a budget and also to connect directly with public benefits. i think of this concept as a personal financial management tool combined with a single public benefit portal. so just imagine the value and the opportunity and the cost savings for the government as well as for the individuals using that kind of on-line technology through their phone. and then the winner of that application contest, my money

app was called crazy money that would create a game interface to help the user tracking and control what we all need help with, their impulse spending. the developer called this "crazy money." users would create a game that would allow individuals to define how much money they want to spend as impulse spending. basically set monthly goals are around that spending, and then of course using peer pressure what their friends and families know what the goals are. of course when the individual surpasses their crazy money expectations they spend, friends and family find out about it. so, those are three of the examples i think, again, help illustrate the creativity and opportunity perhaps of using mobile technology. we also believe that there is a real potential for advances in technology that can make

meaningful, positive differences in the way that consumers and track and manage and understand their money. at the treasury we continue to work with innovators and leaders in the industry from the banks and credit unions to the prepaid card providers as well as emerging technology companies who are thinking about smart ways to help consumers while ensuring protections and of course compliance. but we are also looking internally cannot internationally, we are looking internally and thinking about how the government at all levels can more effectively leverage payments to increase financial assets and financial capability spigot from the tax refunds to social security benefits, hundreds of billions of dollars are routinely flowing through the state and federal government treacly to families. beyond just the vehicle to remit payments, now was the time to consider how the government payments can be used to actively improve the financial outcomes of households.

as well as we think about how the government payments of the federal level can best do this, there's a powerful opportunity to test innovative strategies, not only at the federal level, but also at the state level where the payments are being made to the households through the range of programs and unemployment insurance and child support. how might the state's use those payment platforms to increase access to sound financial products? how might platforms be used to not only facilitate savings also to enter digit? and how might families better track and manage their money into their budget through that electronic payment method? and how might those strategies then inform changes perhaps at the federal with the federal government payments? we were excited about moving this conversation forward. coordinating with partners across the government coming in working with industries and the consumer advocacy community to explore new opportunities in this case.

so i'm now going to close. i'm sure joe is ready for us to move on. but i want to end by calling out our commitment to working around the bend at what is coming. how the landscape of the consumer financial services is changing, and how policy and regulation can help to enhance and encourage innovations were ultimately empowering the consumers. looking ahead i think there are many reasons to be optimistic about the process of the increased financial conclusion from innovative financial service providers that are designing a new and dynamic product to the continued march of technology, which is constantly reshaping the link between families and their finances. there is a lot of potential. thank you for having me here today. that concludes our conversation. >> as the panelists are assembling on the stage, i do have one question for melissa right off the bat. i want to thank you again for

emphasizing technology and innovation and outreach in your remarks. i'm wondering, this change has affected a lot of consumers who may have never had a bank account or gave up on banks, and also includes a lot of the vulnerable populations. what financial resources are out there for direct express cardholders or their families or care givers to learn about this card and how to really manage money on a prepaid card network? >> i'm happy to answer it. am i on now? so, it's worth calling out that this move to this march 1st deadline was a number of years in the making, and that was in part because there was this critical element of making sure that benefit recipients knew and understood what the potential value of using the direct express card, and also that they had the information about how to use it safely. social security payments, a lot of older americans are the ones that are receiving the payments.

they are the ones. so, there were a number of strategies the treasury has employed in order to make sure that they were well prepared for this march 1st deadline. first of all, there was direct partnership with organizations and then on profits across the country. in fact about 2,000 organizations joined us and educating adel local level as well as the national level to help benefit recipients understand how to use the product and how to use the product safely. i just want to add -- i don't know if this is quite the right spot -- but we are also about to test out some new strategies are not educating using technology, something called pay perks is about to be employed, and it is a lesson. it is an incentive device that the benefit recipient will find out about getting in essence a scratcher they will receive in

the mail, scratch it off, have a number. they will then go on line and engage in a number of financial education courses or modules, and when they do that, they then get to enter into a process to win a small cash prizes. so we are trying some of these behavioral the informed strategies to both encouraged and much benefit recipients to become more informed about how to use those safely. >> that's great. i know this is a moment of anxiety for some who may not have experience with a bank accounts and prepaid cards, so i do appreciate that. jean, i'm going to turn to you. you have any thoughts on the direct express card? >> melissa mentioned that this has been a work in progress since 1999, and i have an interesting experience of working on the 1999 initiative in the community outreach and education to help people kind of get there.

i think that the express card is a good product. it is free, free, free. you can use it at the point of sale with cash back. there is only one -- i am going to use this -- only one a free atm withdrawal per month but because you can get cash back at the point of sale you don't really have to download the entire cash all at once, so i think there's a real interesting opportunity here. as melissa said, to build the capability its an interesting product design, and i think it actually has the potential for sort of setting the stage for other prepaid card products in the marketplace and it could be a leader in moving that product field into a set of products that will help consumers sort of build financial capabilities and

get into the financial mainstream in safe products that they can use to help promote their own financial security and stability. >> what are your thoughts? >> i agree with jeanne to read the card is designed really well. the structure of the fees are very limited. if i were to be sort of nitpicking, the consumer advocacy consumer -- i think one thing that's important we encourage people, even though there is a 75-cent fee for the paper statement for using the card per month, we encourage people to do that to track their transactions throughout the month, so that's one area that i think we would have liked to have seemed free but at the same time that it is free and low-cost ink is a big fell you and i think it's important another thing, over time i would love to see all opportunity on the card in that the idea would

be for social security and disability recipients they are going to get paid these dollars over time, not just one payment per year, so the hope would be then they could build some assets. >> melissa, any thoughts on that? >> i think we all recognize that we need to fight strategies that worked to encourage savings. and i appreciate the recommendation around the savings peace. i think we have more to do to understand how to make that happen technically, and to think about how to ensure that the benefit recipients will use it and to see that as an opportunity. >> david, you have seen the government rebate cards for a while in the u.s. senate last year and some of the issues you've seen in know how you're using these cards at the state level for unemployment benefits. so how does this compare to some of the state cards that you have seen? >> this card is probably the

best public sector card that i've ever seen designed and probably the best prepaid card in the market in general. i think the biggest issue for unemployment cards in the past was there were fees for overdrafts, and some of the cards, most of the cards have gotten rid of that and there are still a few that have it. this card obviously doesn't have that, which is important, and it's a really wise choice. you know, i think the biggest issue for any kind of government card is a lot of people that are underbanked -- how to get the money of the card for freedom comes a big challenge and opportunity as well. so, the point of sale point that jeanne made is important. it is a pretty big state. the challenge is the card was a u.s. bank provided unemployment compensation card, and they have about 300 branches throughout the state and are part of the

network, so the do have some atms but just because of how we are spread out, there are 33 counties out of the 88 that do not have these banks. there are i think around 15 or so that don't have a visa plus atm either, so if you are taking out $20 you are paying $6 in fees to do it, that gets expensive for people that are on unemployment compensation. and so life and with this card, the free transaction per load is what we are arguing for for the state card, so i think this card is better than some of the cards out there for unemployment. the point of sale is important but that might not work all the time for everybody, right? >> that is a challenge. i think if you talk to some of the financial planner tide of advocacy folks, the danger is it might be encouraging folks to spend to get money off the card. so if they are going into a

convenience store or grocery store that maybe they will spend $10 when they really were not looking to do that but they want to take $20 off. >> is there any best practice at the state level that you have seen? >> i think first the national consumer center as you mentioned has great reports on the card. i think, again, at least 30 of the cards not the income operating the best you can get, and i think allowing one free atm transaction is a good approach. a lot of cards don't do that. i mentioned the overdraft is really important. and i think those are the real important features of the card. but i think also overall encouraging direct posit for those who are eligible for it is still really important. ..

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and also probably not in the same way that someone thinks about ebt payments. so, it, as i mentioned, there we have employed strategies to really encourage the pen fit, social security and other federal benefit payment recipients to think about how do you use the card in a wiser way. and it is, it is not just that it is wiser for their use, like going to a store, and doing cash back at point of sale. it speaks to the economics of offering the card products. so, while i think it is helpful to have a conversation like this where we're talking comprehensively about leveraging payments, we also have to get fairly nuanced and think about the different types of payments, how the consumer is thinking about their use of those benefit payments, and also think about the providers and understanding the economics underneath it. i think there is some, some work to do to really think through how to make the

equation balanced for everybody. >> can i answer that? i think there is a real interesting opportunity here to, really, we're at the very, very early stages of this but to look at usage patterns, the, cfsi and the philadelphia federal reserve bank did a study that looked how consumers are using their prepaid products. there is sort of u-shaped pattern where a whole bunch people use it once to pull all the money off of it and don't ever use it again until the next load. there is another set of people at the other end of that u that are using it to, as a really good transaction tool. they're swiping at frozery store. they're using it at the atm, to get 20, 40, $60 back. they're using it at the gas pump. they're using it at at fast-food chain to grab lunch. so they're really using it as a transaction device.

it is farewell to cash for them. >> hold that thought for just a minute. i know melissa needs to head back to treasury in a meeting a few minutes. i want to give the audience if they have any questions specifically for melissa. state your name and affiliation. okay. woman in the back. >> hi, i'm development client working with small nonprofits. i have a question with regard to what conversations are taking place between the department of treasury and hhs primarily with the agency for family independence and the programs that they have, particularly the grants and possibly creating an app that can be used on a smartphone for those grant participants? >> great question and, as you rightly imagined, we are, quite interested in leveraging our partnerships with other federal age sis to think about payments and leveraging them for access

and capability. we have only begun to really, the think about the conversations but i think that there is a recognition across all federal agencies, even throughout the administration that we have to do more using the tools that we have at hand to improve access and financial capability. so that is, that is on our agenda by all means. >> okay. i see, two hands. yeah. >> i'm carl posner from american health care and national center for assisted living. we're one of the groups that work really closely with you guys to get the word out to residents, about half of which have alzheimer's and other dementia. and social security switching over to electronic. we know most of them have done it. there will be some that don't. one question is, we don't tell them there will be any leniency. how gently is this enforcement being done? are they being hectored a

little bit? you know because we know it will be a process. >> nobody is, let me just say this clearly. no one's checks are going away. people are still going to receive their payments. it will be after checks have continued to be distributed because the individuals have not signed up, that we will come back to them and often couragement and assistance in getting them into the direct express card but there will be no, ending of the payments happening. >> other questions? yes, in the back. >> hi. i'm going to -- i'm with the southeast asia resource center. there are a large number of southeast asian and older adults and refugees, limited english proficient and unbanked or underbanked. what sort of strategies to reach out to population that are limited english

proficient and vulnerable? >> so i'm going to get your name before i leave and make sure that the folks at treasury who are specifically working on making sure that we are touching lots of different people with lots of different considerations, that you know who the resources are but i can say that when i mentioned 2000 nonprofits, we specifically reached out to nonprofits who are on the ground, working with people where english wasn't a primary language, in order to make sure that the details about how to use this card and use the card wisely were being conveyed. but i'm happy to give you more specifics about who in the communities you have in mind. we basically used. >> all right. in the front. >> [inaudible]. just learning about this issue. thank you. i was wondering if you could talk a bit about regulation?

as mentioned in the description, kind of how you will look at these prepaid cards versus bank accounts and what fdic or other agencies are concerned about or looking at? >> sure. now i'm happy to share. so in december of 2010, treasury issued what's commonly known as an interim final rule with respect to the distribution of government payments into prepaid cards. a number of consumer protection mandates were included in that rule. including that the prepaid cards that are receiving federal benefits must have regulations, e-protections that model what was regulation e-protections for payroll cards. so statements. disclosures and a host of other types of consumer protections you find in reg e. as well as a requirement that any cards that were

receiving public federal benefits are fdic or equivalent insured. >> great. one final question? in the second row. >> i have a question. i was glad to hear, you know, it really can be used as similar to a check where someone could just take the card and take everything off of it. i'm wondering in the studies has there been any issues with safety of it? so, let's say, for example, someone can't travel but before they were signing their check and giving their check to someone to cash they knew the money they were getting back and that type of thing. so, can they give someone their card if they can not travel to a place to do it? and it seems like, you know, that might incur more costs as well if they have to pay someone to go ahead and do that but it won't be as easy to see if they have all their cash on their, on their cards still. so i'm just wondering if

there has been any instances of fraud, you know, particularly with this, if people have to give their card to someone else to use it. >> can you identify yourself? >> i'm sorry. i'm with the national congress of american indians. >> great. >> so i can tell you that, i, that i don't, i can tell you, i don't want to give you facts because i don't know the details. but there is always the concern about many so one giving their card and a pen to somebody else or of course, the card being stolen and the pen being accessed. having said that, the types and amounts of fraud that we were seeing when we were doing paper checks were so significant, you know, there were, $7 million in federal payments in 2011, for instance. that were lost. the monies were lost for

fraudulent reasons. i want to say it was 440,000 paper checks in 2011 where we actually, the checks were either lost or stolen. it is not to say that there isn't the possibility or perhaps even the incidents of some level of fraud with the cards, you know, as we see fraud with all cards in the market but in comparison to what we were trying to offer in terms of protections, to benefit recipients, this, i think, significantly helps to reduce some of that risk. >> great. please join me in take thanking melissa koide. >> thank you [applause] >> all right. so moving on, jean, i know, cfsi has done a lot of work around making sure people can understand the features and the fees on their

prepaid cards. if you could speak to that. >> sure. so i want to now kind of step back to a higher level, and not just talk about government cards but talk about prepaid cards much more generally. so this could be the prepaid card you get off of the rack at your grocery store or that you sign up for over the internet, or that perhaps even your employer makes available to you. we have, at cfsi we have four key compass principles that service filters for how we view financial products and services out there in the marketplace. and they are to promote inclusion, to build trust, to promote success and to create opportunities. and so that idea of inclusion, trust, success, and opportunities, we have taken those four key themes and we've said, how might those apply to prepaid cards. and we used those, then to create what we call our

compass guide to prepaid cards. and there is materials out there on the tables for you to kind of take a look at. but, one of the things that we're doing is we're really sort of using those then to encourage financial institutions to sign onto the compass principles and say, yes, we will offer you products that, you know, inclusive and trustworthy and help you succeed and create opportunities for you. and, in addition, and i'm, i'm going to give full marks to melissa for this. melissa had my position before i had my position. and when she was there, she worked with the cfsi folks to create a pretty taupe of a fee disclosure box. many of you know about the kind of disclosure boxes you get with your credit cards. well, this is sort of taking that model, that nutrition label model, and applying it to the fees that you would

expect to have on your prepaid card. we have a prototype fee disclosure box we're asking industry to voluntarily subscribe to, to voluntarily use as they sort of build and design their products and services. so those are a couple of the things we're doing and i'm happy to say that actually we do have financial institutions who have signed on and said, you know, we're only going to offer these kind of products. we are going to display our fees in these ways so there is transparency in the market for consumers. >> david, do you have any thoughts on the level of transparency the consumer has had in ohio? >> i think the disclosure box is a great idea and i think if, as jeanne said it is not totally applicable to the public sector cards because most of those transactions we hope are sort of free and the public sector cards are very different than the private sector once.

ones. one thing we push for the public sector cards, when they're issued to people based on their zip code, give them three places closest to them where they can access their dollars for free. where they can pull money off the card for free. the upfront transparency can be improved on almost every financial product but i think the box is a great start and i think the role is a little bit different than the public sector cards but you can certainly build on that type of model. >> let me add one other thing and that is with respect to access to pulling money off the card. most places, with the, most, let me back off. most atms as you know are only loaded with sort of 20s. the issue issue if you're down to the last 19.95 how do you get the money off the card? especially for people with unememployment benefits and people who use that entire paycheck or benefit check, we do have to provide a way

for them to get the last dollar, the last dime off of the card. >> have you seen any good ways of doing that? >> point of sale is, i think the kind of the default option. >> well the other option, though it is a little bit, and this i think is the one area in the field where we've seen a little bit of problems with the go direct card or the direct express card, pardon me, you can go into any branch that will support the mastercard network and the tellers should be able to do that for free. that should be a free transaction once you're in the branch to give you money off the card. whether people will go in and do that for $9 or something like that. i think that is the challenge. >> right. so that is the other option as well. >> staying on that point, jeanne, you mentioned compass principles and financial institutions have been in some cases lining up behind them, what's the value proposition for financial institutions to offer prepaid cards, especially to offer solid prepaid cards with clear disclosures and transparencies?

>> well, you know, financial institutions are in business to make money. and i think, you know, we have to let them do that because, otherwise they go away and then where are we, right? so, there is a revenue stream that comes off of these cards. sometimes it's a fee stream. sometimes it's a usage stream. you heard about interchange fees. so it's, there's a revenue generation there. what's in it for the financial institution in terms of lining up behind this kind of good actor set of principles is that you retain your customers, and, one of the most important, interesting findings in our study with the philadelphia reserve bank was that, cards that don't get reloaded only last about six months, and cards that do get reloaded, can last, 12 months, two years, three years. the market is new enough we

haven't been able to follow it that much farther. but customer retention becomes a key issue for financial institutions and it's, always cheaper to keep the customer you have than go after the customer you don't have. so the other value proposition for financial institutions is, keeping your customer base. >> so direct deposit, whether it is from an employer or the government, or just the, consumer's own funds onto the card. that really changes the economics of it? >> it really does the reloading makes a big if did recognize. >> now, david, you mentioned earlier just some of the issues that occurred in the market around overdrafts. i know that has been particularly an issue in ohio and if you could speak to that. >> i think to build on what we've been talking about, if there are going to be fees and structure obviously to let the card be profitable the preference of the community is they're up front. they're not coming at the end of the month or

throughout the process because it sort of snowballs and adds up. it is very difficult to sort of do even a fee box if the fees accumulate over time and get bigger and bigger or you can be charged repetitively for things. so i think, one of the problems of overdraft, the other problem with overdraft, just, and this is speaking from my just personal standpoint. i think the, the supposition it is a prepaid card would mean that the money's loaded on it. when it reaches zero it's zero. >> right. >> i think that specifically for the public sector cards it doesn't fit because there could be interruptions in benefits. you might not get, what happens if you're at zero, you overdraft but the benefit is not coming in the next month. that is obviously a problem. the other thing is, you know, from, both sides of the aisle, i think policymakers are very nervous about the idea that, an overdraft or some kind of a line of credit, small dollar feature on a prepaid card would be taxpayer dollars that would

be sort of providing that feature. >> right. >> i think that is a real concern and has value. so i think that's the overdraft concern is really important. and i think the other just the other thing is also if atm issues are occurring, people are having trouble i think also accessing their balance. their balance inquiries to know where they're at, in terms of if they will overdraft or not. so i think the overlying point i think from my standpoint, i think zero should mean zero on a prepaid card. >> you raise an interesting point and that is melissa talked earlier about the technology. many, many of these cards you can go onto the web and look at your transactions, track your balances. you can get text alerts. you can use your mobile device to figure out how much money you have and whether or not you can afford that purchase before you go into an overdraft situation, if your card allows you to go into overdraft. so, there is, again, sort of

building on that, building financial capability for the consumer, to track their spending, to know where their money is going, to make, perhaps, more informed decisions about their purchases, as they can use their mobile devices or their pcs to kind of track where they're going. the issue of overdraft really is fraught with a lot of difficulty. the consumer community has a lot of diverse and differing opinions. david had said, zero means zero. there are a couple of card companies out there that give you what they lovingly reprofessor to as a ten cushion. one company lefts you overdraft but gives you 24 hours to fix it. if you go overdraft, they give you a text message, saying you're overyour limit, you need to get some money into your account. there are other ways to

manage these that can provide some flexibility. the key issue is, you know, does zero really mean zero and what does that mean for you if it's midnight and you're, you know at the pharmacy counter needing medicine for your kid? >> i think, you know, the direct express card has that really good feature about text or e-mail when money is loaded. when you're down on your balance. i mean, so i think people have it opt in for it but it's free. so that is a good money management feature. >> so we've heard a lot about all these different features, whether it's text alerts or the possibility of overdraft, whether that is good or bad. at what point stopping prepaid cards and being bank accounts by any other name? >> that is very interesting because, in some ways we're seeing the lines blurring, but there are some infrastructure issues that actually do prevent the

prepaid card from really sort of becoming a bank account by another name. the access to savings and savings buckets, the ability to have, the industry lovingly calls it a dual purse on your card so that you have subaccounts in he is since -- in essence these are government payments where i load on my card. there are some structural limitations. there are regulatory limitations. at least in the near term, we're not going to see that the prepaid account really starts acting like a bank account per se. >> that is really good description. there is the regulatory set of concerns. the functional concerns. the and then the other one that is not really related to public sector cards like direct express or unememployment, but how do

we deal with, let's say somebody gets paid in cash or get paid in check. that is the only way their employer pays them. they want to put money onto the prepaid card and there are fees for that. i think that is a huge barrier, regardless of the checking account spectrum that is out there, they're not going to charge to you make a deposit into your account. that is one other fix that we've got to figure out. there have been cards and banks that have done really cool things about taking a picture of the check. that can be loaded onto the card. you can take that. the lines are getting closer. i do agree, i don't think we're completely there yet. i think savings feature and savings bucket point is really well-taken. i think that makes a very big difference. but i do think that, banks are starting, it is interesting, i think a lot of bank accounts are mirroring what is successful in the prepaid industry. a lot of banks are doing the a la carte type approach for banking. you pick different features you want to paid for.

$6 for three and ten for four. you get the paper statement but don't want the overdraft. so i think that is very prepaidesque. that is very, something they have done early on. so i think they're getting closer. >> you mentioned payroll. i'm curious. are you familiar what they're doing with in san francisco with currency assess, reaching out to employers, encourage them to do direct deposit or payroll card that meets the compass prince pills? -- principles? >> no. but that is great news. they're in an awful lot of institutions that have really encouraged their employees to either go direct deposit or they are opting for a payroll. i have to say that and thank you for saying that i was an economist at the fed. i've only been in this job for two months. that's why i think he kind of tried it do that to give me some credibility here but in my role as the fed i

worked with the payroll card rules and, it was really, really important for the industry to, to get some, giveback on some of the reg e rules. like some of the monthly paper statements. david, i know you like that. let me just say when we did focus groups with people receiving payroll cards, they said, no, i don't really want a paper statement. number one, it is historical document. by the time you hit the cuttoff line and print it off and put it in the mail and mail it to me and get it in my mailbox i have moved on. i made a whole bunch of other transactions. i could still see this one woman today who said, yeah, me and my neighbors, we stand at the top of the staircase in my apartment building because the mailman delivers all the wrong mail to all the wrong boxes. how helpful is the mail

statement in that situation? they're much more likely to go online or use their cell phones to track their balances. as you think about the idea of employers moving to payroll cards as a way to cut their costs we have to also remember there is actually some benefits to the workforce as well . .

a lot of the obstacle in the situation is just a day associate with the payday and i think moving -- once they move into it and away from it to the direct deposit, by and large i think people are very happy, so i think there is a lot of outreach that most of the payroll cards have looked good and when they follow the principles and specifically with the disclosure box i think that makes it really helpful. >> going back to the prepaid cards where they are banks are doing the campaigns to reach out where does prepaid fit into that mix? >> i have to say i am a fan of a prepaid but i am a bigger fan of bank accounts and i think that

the data hasn't really supported that yet and i don't want to say that it's disapproved it's just that we don't have very much data, and if the goal is to have people have access to a sweep of the products that can help them achieve financial security and stability it's more than just a payment transaction mechanism, people have access to savings vehicles as well. so i guess what i'm trying to say is i really supportive of the initiatives because i do feel india and the products and services is going to better

service the financial services needs of most american consumers. >> i think that's right. one of the general concerns on the field is the bank accounts will be continuing as they have and have modest changes and that will be the sort of a stable for middle class and higher income folks and lower income families and be all about prepaid and have this divergence in the sort of financial market and i agree i don't think that serves the economy well. i think that serves families well. we support certainly the second chance to checking accounts, the america saves model even if people are struggling on the checking account side to may be a savings account that makes a lot sense as well and certainly supporting that, certainly having both models working

together but the biggest concern is that we have thousands of people on prepaid cards and then other people continue on the trend they are currently on. >> what should regulators and lawmakers in washington be doing to make prepaid work and keep the bank accounts available and affordable? >> you are going to come to me first? as i mentioned, when the consumer financial protection bureau had the comments we were strongly supportive of this and felt like overdraft, small lines of credit should not be on prepaid cards and, you know, it is tough to know what the market will look like five years from now. i know some of the ways you overdraft is done on the prepaid

cards can work and may not seem high in the scheme of things that the slippery slope of where that leads and the implications for the state usurp laws if people are getting issued prepaid cards from a different state how does that work and i think it is just a very bad place to be so that is one feature we would hope the regulation would address and then i think we are moving -- we had this discussion earlier we are moving to a place where prepaid is going to be under rggi and fdic. that model was moving there anyway so that is a really good place to be. >> i would like us to think about sort of the next-gen prepaid 2.0 and think about opportunities for choice. so, right now we have direct

expressed or direct positive, and direct posit we get to choose which bank york and depositing the you don't get a choice about what other cards you might want to use. so the next-gen model might be more about twice, consumer choice. i think expanded functionality is going to be important so i mentioned the multiple persons on the cards. i think that finding ways for these cards to be places where you can not only have pay or benefits deposited but also other social security fund deposited would be helpful so the expanded functionality. melissa talked about building financial capability in the model and there are teachable moments here when you log on to your web site or mobile browser to find out how much money you have in your account there is an opportunity there for building

financial capability, and i think that we have to seriously look at some of the existing rules and regulations that are out there to see where those rules are in having some functionality. right now under the federal rules, there is limited ach on some cards, so bill pay is limited on those cards. there's limited ability to sweep the funds into a savings account. so, in essence the message is then, don't save, and i am with you, david, we need to be thinking about helping people build those small emergency reserves, whenever you want to call it, so i think that there is still plenty of opportunity in the arena for the government industry community groups to be working on a improving and getting to that next-gen. >> it is really sort of looking

down the road five years from now we don't want somebody's loaded up with six different prepaid debit cards in different areas whether it is the public sector cards and then maybe they have the to employers. so i think this idea of how weak, ingalls the accounts is a really important and good one. and maybe it is just sort of, you know, sort of like you envision like a computer hard drive that has different sectors. maybe that's how we can work on some of the prepaid stuff because that becomes even more confusing for a consumer and they are more likely to spend, or potentially not spend it and realize the benefits on certain cards. >> one last question for you before i take it back to the audience. we talked a lot about the consumer side of the end of cash and the ability to have prepaid debit cards and bank debit cards and credit cards.

what about the merchants? if we are moving to an economy with less cash, who are the merchants responding to this? >> you've got the card in your wallet but you can't use it anywhere. i have to tell you a story about that, too. when the olympics were in atlanta visas came out with a chip and penn card and people had these snazzy cards they couldn't use anywhere in atlanta because the infrastructure and the merchant side wasn't there. i think we are seeing more nfc chip technology. the merchants are moving away from us white technology and any of you that have traveled in europe, you know everything is chip. joe asked me this question so i brought with me this square which if you don't know what this is, this is a device that plugs into your cell phone or

tablet and allows you to take payments ap and if you don't know what it is go visit a food truck and you had them your debit card and a swipe it. i think that technologies like this are going to be really helping merchants become -- even the mom and pop stores. if you listen to the guy that sounded square as to why he did this, he developed this because a friend of his was an artist of ago to craft sales and she couldn't sell her crafts because everyone wanted to be with a credit card but she didn't have a way to take credit card payments. so you can become a crofter and get a square. we have to think about the consumer side and also if you are buying something somebody else is selling at. so how do you bring those in to the equilibrium? >> i would like to take it back to the audience. i will ask several people to

give their questions back to back and help the panel respond. so, first we will go here on the right. >> yes, i cover entrepreneurs for the 245 tener graphics. the question i have that i didn't see mengin is talking about the prepaid mobil's base because the cash tax bill payments and people are able to pay their mobile phones and they also have prepaid cards. so looking at what kind of synergy do you see as what you are talking about on the point of sale, the point of sale right now is mainly going to the wal-mart, cvs a grocery store but there are retailers that are not on the grid but they are a huge part of the infrastructure in the community that take cash and payments for people to devotees and also what are some

of the things or your thoughts on some of the virtual payments as far as things that the duke in the emerging economies and how do you see that working as far as for debit cards? >> one more question from the audience. all right. >> good afternoon. i had my own law firm. i represent a trade group of the nonprofit credit counseling agencies that has an interest in the subject. by sheer coincidence i got home late last night from dinner and sitting in my mailbox was a solicitation from a financial services provider that i had never heard of before to sign up for a prepaid debit card, and in the solicitation was the actual card with the sticker saying collis to activate, which kind

of shocked me because i know that this was out for credit cards decades ago. as a first thought about is there a -- if they put it in the wrong mailbox is very flawed potential here i'm not sure because i didn't have time to read all of the disclosures and conditions, but i did see that you have to sign up for direct posit to get it, but still it could be identity theft question. second, it raised the question of obviously this type of marketing is beginning to go on where the consumers have the ability to analyze it which is the best one or they just sign up for the one they get in the mailbox that may have an aggressive fee structure. so i would invite your response to that kind of marketing. >> i think the mobile and virtual payment front of the bill pay ability is important, and one of the reasons that i think a lot of the under bank to

consumers who are either going to get government benefits or sort of payroll records now it gives them this ability to make the mobile payments that they don't have in the cash economy, and we did a focus group awhile ago and people were talking about utility bills that they normally have to either get a money order for which could be ten to $15 a pop and sometimes landlords are not going to accept check or cash especially out of state. so how do you transfer the funds effectively. so the bill payment mechanisms on these cards opens up i think a whole sort of new network. on the mobile phone front, i am going to confess i have an iphone but i don't know how to use it so i'm not the best person to answer that question. but i think just in terms of sort of being able to use the mastercard and visa networks for bill pay that are not credit related, i think it is a huge feature on prepaid that is really helpful, and i think a lot of folks who are going to

get sort of the direct express card are going to have the ability to do things that they were not able to do before. do you want to add on mobile? >> the mobile space is really quite interesting. one of the reasons that the fund has succeeded so much with in africa is because i will use the m word, they are a monopoly. and the united states markets are not quite developed along those lines we are struggling with some other issues in that mobile payment space. the other problem, and this again isn't necessarily unique to the u.s., but when you have a mobile payment and something goes wrong, the consumer doesn't necessarily know where something went wrong.

could be in the handset, in the software operating system, in the telecom carrier, it could be the merchant, it could be their own banks. so there's all of these different potential points of contact and the regulatory space has not figured that out yet. and as you know, there are different regulators for each one of those four or five touch points and so, we do really have to kind of come to grips with that. it is going to be an issue now and will into the future. the idea of the smaller entrepreneurs and smaller businesses being able to access and use these new payment mechanisms i think is really, really interesting and critical, and i think that in the innovation space continues. score is clearly one of those options. but we are going to have to sort of continue to chew on that a little bit. i don't think that we have that

iron out. i want to talk now to this gentleman pointed out solicitations. and again, my answer to that is i believe this is a relatively new field and other regulators haven't gotten their hands around yet, but i will say that in the prepaid space, especially for the reloaded prepayments, there are in place know your customers and customer identification protocols that are there mainly as the money laundering protocols so if there is a card that they really want you to load your paycheck on and have it be free local you have to go through your know your customer kind of scream for that but unsolicited activated cards is something new that i haven't heard of and i'm going to have to kind of put my glasses on and look into that.

>> i would say on the marketing front, too, the question about how do consumers make this comparison is the really great question. and i think that the cfci disclosure box is a good cut on that and you can see yourself taking that and looking at two different cards to make the comparison between a well, let's see i am a big person to take money out so i want a card that has slowed to know atm fees that may be a monthly fee because i can justify it and it cost me less because i know what features are years but i think as the market grows and there are some any cards even that becomes really challenging and so we have heard some folks talk about the idea that maybe there is a score but the next step is can you grade the card in terms of a number or a letter that gives for people that need access to cash this card is a doesn't do that well to see those kind of things because i think it is really confusing for the consumers out there they're

trying to compare and i think the difference especially in the sort of local economy the difference between the bank accounts are not as a start there are differences in terms of the fees and structure but i don't think that there is drastic says the prepaid cards. >> we can go on for another hour but we don't have time for that. so if everyone can join me in the thanking our panel for joining us today. [applause] and i do hope that the audience will continue joining us. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

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president obama met with congressional leaders this morning in a last-ditch effort

to reach agreement to forestall the sequestration. that meeting lasted about an hour and ended with no progress. afterwards, the president came to the briefing room to talk dhaka at the meeting expressing a sense of frustration about the negotiations. >> this idea that somehow there is a secret formula or a secret sauce to get the speaker boehner or mitch mcconnell to say you know what, mr. president, you are right, we should close some tax loopholes for the well-connected in exchange for some serious entitlement reform and spending cuts programs we don't need. i think if there was a secret way to do that, i would have tried it. i would have done that. what i can do is i can make the best possible argument, and i can offer concessions, and i can offer a compromise, i can

negotiate, i can make sure that my party is willing to compromise and is not be an ideological or thinking about these just in terms of political terms, and i think i will continue to do that. about what i cannot do is force congress to do the right thing. the american people may have the capacity to do that. and in the absence of a decision on the part of the speaker of the house and others to put middle class families ahead of what ever political imperatives he might have right now, we are going to have these cuts in place. but again, i'm hopeful about the human nature. i hope that over time people do the right thing. and i will keep on reaching out and seeing that there are other formulas or other ways to juggle this into place we can get a better result.

>> the president answered reporters' questions for just over half an hour. you can see the entire briefing any time on line at c-span.org. we will also hear it tonight on c-span. >> i was fascinated by her feminist view. remember the ladies or you are going to be in trouble, i am paraphrasing obviously, but she warned her husband you cannot rule without including what women want and but women have to contribute. this is the 1700's she is saying that. >> abigail adams on c-span's history series first lady's influence and image called mrs. president by detractors she was outspoken on slavery and women's rights as one of the most prolific writers of any first lady she provides a window into colonial america and her life with john adams. joining the conversation on abigail adams life on c-span,

c-span radio and c-span.org. nuclear security was the focus of the house armed services subcommittee hearing yesterday on capitol hill. committee members examined security improvements and challenges with the energy department's nuclear facilities including last july's breach of the white 12 national security complex in tennessee. deputy energy secretary daniel. >> i want to say good morning and welcome everybody to today's hearing on the nuclear security of the department of nuclear security administration. before we get into the hearing want to welcome our new members to the committee. first and foremost i want to recognize a ranking member mr. cooper of tennessee, my friend and colleague for many years. we look forward to working closely with him over the next two years as we carry out this important work. i'm not sure they are here but

the strategic forces subcommittee on the republican side are mr. kaufman of colorado, mr. willson of south carolina, mr. nugent of florida, and on the democrats' side, mr. johnson of georgia, mr. carson of indiana and of texas. i look forward to working with all of you as well as my colleagues who are returning for another two years on the strategic forces oversight subcommittee. this subcommittee has the responsibility for many big a critical important issues and we are going to get into one of them right now. today's hearing is a part of the committee is continuing oversight of the aftermath of the security breach at the white to security complex in july of last year. at this point the facts are well established so i won't repeat them. needless to say it was astonishing and completely unacceptable. through its hearing and closed briefing last september the subcommittee is aware of the immediate corrective actions taken in the doe. today's hearing is focus on the broad implications of the incident and putting

organizational leadership and structural failures that enabled it to occur. reviewing the testimony from our first witness panel, as well as other reports on the doe nuclear security stretching back 15 years, i am deeply concerned that we've been identifying the same problems for more than a decade. for instance, in 1999, in a 1999 report by the president's foreign intelligence advisory board, it said the dot, quote, and body to science at its very best and security at its worst, and of quote. highlighting the string of security the coke real cream problems aboard described the doe has a, quote, dysfunctional bureaucracy that's proven that it's incapable of reforming itself, end of quote. in 2002, a few years after congress created nssa to address these concerns another study by the commission on science and security found the same problems. in 2005, an independent study of nssa security conducted by the

admiral richard knees, again made very similar findings, saying the problems were, quote, they are not new, many continue to exist because of the lack of clear accountability, excessive bureaucracy and organizational stovepipes. the lack of collaboration and the cumbersome process cheese, end of quote. those reports were from 1999, 2002, 2005. so where are we today? to anyone paying attention, the answer is undeniably an aware. the assessments done after the incident showed that the exact same fundamental problems remain. regardless of the issues there is also a problem of accountability. the only people that have been fired as a result of the white 12 incident are a few guards. but no federal officials have been fired. some had carter officials have been reassigned and are allowed to retire. but it's not accountability. it is the exact opposite of what the secretary defense did after

the airforce nuclear security problems in 2007 and 2008. his demonstration of accountability and the air force as the senior most leadership is my example of a firm system of accountability. and it should be everyone's. our first panel of witnesses will help us explore what changes are needed to insure a breach like white 12 doesn't happen again. the reach the author separate independent assessments of the y12 incident at the dod and at nssa. the witnesses are major general david finan alston, former air force assistant chief of staff come strategic deterrence and nuclear integration. brigadier general sandra finan, u.s. air force commander of air force nuclear weapons center, former principal assistant for applications and national nuclear security administration. and the honorable gregory friedman inspector general u.s. department of energy. i want to thank the witnesses for appearing today and the time they've put into preparing the testimony. i know it is a labor, but we do

appreciate it. i have a longer version of my statement but without objection i'm going to offer it for the record. hearing none it is so ordered. with the bible to turn to my friend and colleague from tennessee, mr. jim cooper for any opening comments that he may have. >> thank you, chairman rogers. i look for to working with you whenever colleagues on these important issues this year. i would just like to ask in view of the shortness of time that my opening statement be inserted in the record. >> thank you, sir. in concert with that, as you all may have been told before in the hearing, we are going to be called for votes and oh-la-la all, so we are going to dispense with the reading of your opening statements. they will be submitted for the record without objection, and we will go straight to the questioning of the witnesses. the witness order will be general alston -- general finan, thanks for putting your nssa had on one last time to help the subcommittee understand these issues, and mr. friedman. we begin with five minute rounds

of questions, and then we will have a second panel after that. i will start with the questions. general alston, you and dr. augustine in reserve seem to have read the many reports and independent reviews of the doe security that have been convicted previously. secretary chu calls it, quote, the considerable body of work that has been done on the subject of the past decade come end of quote. in particular, you mentioned the review done by admiral meese in 2005. you heard me in my opening statement mention a few others, but there are many more. how do your findings and recommendations compared to those findings and all of the previous reports? >> thank you very much. stat your microphone needs to be turned on, please. >> i need coaching. mr. chairman, thank you for the question. i would say that probably the most disturbing thing mr. augustine and i found was

the recuring evidence of problems that have existed before, and when you take a close look at admiral meese's work that he did, i count about 111 recommendations that the department of energy showed us a matrix. we have grades on them. and then on a -- without doing an exhaustive detail cross check of what admiral meese found and what we were finding that during a rather cursory look at that, i would take issue with a variety of those assessments in terms of the health of those particular findings. of course, since 2005, they're have been -- and there is a lot of time over the course of those eight years, and i can't say that i saw any evidence of reaching back, so why don't know how fresh the management of the meese findings and recommendations was. and i don't of the last time they revisited that or if that

is a regular phenomenon that the do revisit all of those findings. but just a few of them that point towards culture, and things that we found to be a legacy of challenges in the department of energy, no team approach towards security, struggling to succeed in an atmosphere of conflicting viewpoints, headquarters versus the field, the side of this versus contractor, academic verses operational, union versus management and then the non-nssa elements. there has been recurring challenges as site field offices would see the need to upgrade security. we saw the lack of discipline that admiral meese vows well in terms of having a broad strategic vision for what the overall security requirements and standards should be and a sensitivity to elevate the unique features as opposed to having standardized, and security requirements being the

principal focus and the side office having to defend wanting to be different. but without discipline and strong central management of that, then folks could conceive, design, develop and deploy systems that might not be as fully vetted and ready as they knew to be, and i think that y12 is a good example of that. >> it did happen over years. did your opinion, were there any consequences and then they would lapse back into this culture or there were just never any consequences? >> we find it difficult to have traced authority of the chain of command to find unambiguous certainty that somebody was in charge of one element of security or another. because that seemed ambiguous, and because there was a prevailing notion that it is and always on and hands-off

surveillance mantra that the field of the sites have over time enjoy being distanced from the headquarters, and sort of no longer afraid and housed in another reorganization we didn't like interference from headquarters however when it comes to security i think there's benefits to having the central management that may not be true for science but i do think it is true for security. >> do you believe if there had been somebody at the top of the command chain held responsible for the findings that any of these earlier studies in a significant way by termination it would have helped eliminate that culture continuance? >> well, sir, that would be one action that could be taken but that action alone i don't think would necessarily have resulted in all of the fundamental changes that would have had to occur --

>> why? >> i think that gets everyone is attention. i showed up on the staff the same weekend that we had a were unauthorized munition transition to barksdale. a very epic failure. so i was there for three years working on that particular problem. we worked the problem hard for the first year but when we lost the chief and the secondary life was different and the entire force had to rally around not a security problem but an enterprise failure. and because we looked at this in the largest context, i believed then after spending nine months, working the problem to no one satisfaction that it certainly was an extraordinary accountability action by secretary gates, which had adair force focus on that problem in a way that we had failed to focus on it before. this is absolutely true. >> thank you very much. the chair and i recognize the ranking member for any questions he may have.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. there are lots of issues here, too much red tape on the bureaucracy and the question on contractor performance but one thing folks back home understand is what we get for taxpayer dollars, and the inspector general pointed out that d.o.t.-why we are spending something like a billion dollars a year just on the protection of the facilities. and he mentioned in his testimony that $700 million per year spent on complex white protector force of about 4,000 workers contract professionals. that would be $175,000 of compensation for each guard. that's a lot to read a lot of the folks back home with us we paid all of these people. did we get any security and results and return like the focus of course of today's hearing is the y12 facility that

we discover now wasn't even none-proofed watch less terrorist-proved. we spend $150 million a year protecting that one plan. and yet we couldn't catch to 70-year-olds. it's hard to find anybody was punished accept the lowest level guard, and it doesn't seem like this is a fair way to treat a sick to the lab of this type of want to encourage the ig and i appreciate the work of the reserve to help us understand this, but the bottom line is taxpayers need to get results for their dollars. right now in doe it doesn't seem

like we are getting those. i welcome the comment but i know the time is short. >> mr. cooper door asking me for comment. i think that you have synthesized the high points -- several of the high points in our report overtime and i might point out the safeguards and security from our perspective has been a management challenge of the department of energy for not least the last decade so this is a continuing problem. and if i may respond, subsequently to the questions from the chairman to the general alston, we have found over time, and i think the chairman phrased exactly correctly that there has been a lack of sustained effort to cure the problem. it has been a sort of short term fix and then the fix and the effort to fix evaporates overtime and secondly, if i can come security cannot be a sideline. it's got to be integrated into the very essence of the plant

like production facilities so there has to be an integrated approach from the get go. i think those are too high lights, and the issue that you have highlighted are the ones of course that concern us a great deal. as to make it shouldn't just come concern us with the tens of millions of dollars for cameras it didn't work and the alarm system that gave off hundreds of false alarms a day. where is the refund from the contractor? the best we can tell people the performance wellness, excellent rating. this is astonishing they got back such little for their money especially in the secure installation. i think the chairman and yelled back the balance of my time.

>> i recognize my friend. >> thank you mr. chairman and all of you for being here. i don't want to miss characterize my friends comments about the 80-year-old nun. it seems like he did that in a rather diminishing way. as i understand she was quite sobriety for eda and that should be taken into account. when you make the comparison about the guard being spent costing about some 175 for the taxpayers and looking at the numbers here. it's very easy for us to kind of house i just did make little jokes about these kind of things and sort of step back from the holier than thou position. it's easier from the armchair perspective to see how could this ever happen. yet in the sense that is our

job. that is our job on the committee to try to exert some oversight that hopefully will change the culture that has made a particular error and a better direction. and i know that if we really were all honest with each other we would look at this from a much larger perspective. history has been unkind to those that have tried to maintain the nuclear security. i mean, if we had done that well decades ago when we first game of this technology the soviets would never have gained that technology and there never would have been a cold or so this isn't as unprecedented. i think i remember some stories we had to drop one of our atomic bombs off the coast out of the plane and i think it is still their cities are not as unprecedented as they seem to but because they are so serious, it occurs to me that we have to

try to back up and ask ourselves why is it that there is a hallmark for us letting these kind of things be so easily secured when the implications are so profound? so, i guess i'm going to ask you sort of a question for all of the panel members. if there was one thing that you could do in this particular instance and in a broad instance of trying to help both hour civilians infrastructure and our military apparatus understand the need for more security when it comes to nuclear technology and weapons that have these profound implications, what is the one thing, general, i will start with you, that he would suggest we do. is it a mind set, is it a systemic issue? what would you postulate? >> i can tell you that in particular and i think that the doctor mentioned it as well the

cultural challenges facing the department of energy when it comes to the culture that doesn't segment security, doesn't segment safety but rather looks at them as all the essential to the mission as opposed to the trade space, that that is a very profound challenge because taking the culture head-on is a very challenging effort. a vote but we found that, and i've had recent discussions with people not involved directly with this where security is now received as, you know, we've got to go through the hurt right now and security is perceived as zapping strength and competing with science and other priorities in the department. so, i think that there is still a long way to go in a pervasive culture where every last person that is working in the

department of energy seized security and safety and mission not as separate things that need to be tended to but rather prioritize and have a common view of how important they are in essentially in the mission's success. >> i would echo what the general just said, and i think that is the primary thing you have to do was work on the culture so rather than repeat that, i think given that the culture is an issue that must be addressed i think the next thing we have to think about is the lines of authority. we have to be very clear on who was responsible for what and we have to then follow with and give the authority necessary to execute those responsibilities. once we do those two things throughout the chain of command, then we can hold people accountable but one of the continuing things that it struggled with his defining the roles and responsibilities and

then giving the appropriate authority to execute those responsibilities and that has been a longstanding issue that we really need to strengthen out in order to create accountability and ownership of the security mission. >> i would concur with what has been said previously and maybe this is too far down, but if there was in addition to what has already been said if there was one problem, and i guess it builds on what general finan just referred to, it is that we need to be sure that employees at all levels are empowered to raise serious issues and that if there is a process in place to ensure that those issues are in fact addressed. i think that applies in terms of safety and in terms of security and certainly was a problem we found at least with regards to the white 12 issue and security generally throughout the department of energy. >> thank you mr. chair.

>> i would like each of the witnesses to take a minute and a half and talk about where we are today. this is all history. what has been done along the lines if you know to carry out the recommendations that have been made. we will start with the general. >> i left over a month ago but before i left i can tell you that there was structural changes occurring within the security organization, so they were in the process of implementing the recommendations to stand up on the organization that helps ensure the standardization across the fields. they were also in the process of creating standards and criteria for security so that people in the field with no standard they needed to meet and what criteria would be used to evaluate them. there were changes that had occurred in order to bring in

what i call true security expertise. security is a special skill, and we have people throughout this country that have those skills and so we need to seek out those individuals and bring them in so they can bring that skill set. so that was ongoing. basically all of the recommendations that i had out of my report were enacted at the time that i left. >> with regard to the recommendations made in the earlier report, congressman, we have not received the final department position, so we are not -- we have anecdotal information as to what steps have been taken and we are waiting for that to occur but in the interim and the reports with the general speed and his group and what finan have done, we also issue a report on the contractor's insurance system which is the system that they

have in place to evaluate a contractor action. we intend to go back at some point in the future and look at the process and determine whether the fixes that have been committed and promised have in fact been made. >> when is that point in the future? >> i guess that is the question that i was not prepared to answer. it is a high-pressure ready for us because obviously security is essential in the nuclear weapons environment. >> i left the effort in the first week of december, and the draft recommendations which we were exposed to or not in the charter that the secretary had given us, so why don't think that it's -- time in the position to comment. let me go back to you,

mr. friedman. one of the oversight review recommendations is you, and it would seem to me that holding people accountable is what you guys to. so i am concerned about your response that at some point in the future and so on and so forth i would like a more precise answer and with that i yield back. >> we recognize mr. nugent for five minutes. >> just to follow up on the question, you do the inspection and prepare the report and you send it to the power to be, and they are the ones that have to make things accountable. am i correct on that? do you hold them accountable or to the administrators told the rank and file accountable? >> the reports in these instances,,,% to the secretary. it's ultimately the secretary's responsibility to hold the

support of its responsible. >> i would think when you took over as related to the incident in the air force or people held accountable at the upper echelons or was it just the lowest that were easy picking when something goes wrong or do you look at the culture, which i've heard from all three of you in regards to how things actually occur >> initially was the lower level leadership with the squadron commander, a couple of group commander's so there were a handful of kernels. following the installation of the new secretary and the new chief of staff i know there was a further detailed review and i got pretty to exactly what the actions were. from a distance, all i understand that general schwartz as one of his initial response of the bodies after evaluating how to do accountability in the circumstances taking in stock

not just the unauthorized movement in the nuclear weapons but also the incident that involved some components that were opened in a box in taiwan that the chief of staff and personally dealt with the general officers in ways that i'm just not personally privy to >> and experience in regard to leading the organization, somebody has to be accountable and typically when you discipline the lower ranks there are other folks because it is a culture and all three of you have mentioned that, the culture of failed leadership within the doe as it relates to security how do we -- if we were in charge for how do you fix that specifically from the perspective?

where does it finally end? >> as i elude it to in a year earlier comment, congressman, security cannot be treated as a stepchild, has a side show, it's got to be integrated into the process from the very outset, and that is one of the key issues that we found that hasn't been the place. you can call it a cultural issue and perhaps that is correct, but i think i would refer to it as a tone of the top issue. it has to flow down from the highest level of the department and permeate and people have to be held accountable. i know that may sound like the textbook sort of lessons but that is what needs to be done and it seems to me that there's been a commitment to begin that process and as i yielded to earlier sustainability is really the issue we have anecdotal information and the changes have been made, not personnel changes that you are referring to the changes have been made in the

systems. the question is will that be sustained going forward. >> it really is buying from the leadership. you can change systems and policies but if there is no one there to actually make sure that the rank and file are following the policies and procedures, nothing gets done from a positive standpoint, so, you know, we talk to them but at the end of the day, how does nssa and doe going to hold the upper level administrators accountable for the security that is important to this nation? how do you suggest that happen? >> i think it is the administrator reports to the secretary of energy in the current format and ultimately there are changes in the process as we speak. ultimately it will be the responsibility of the secretary to set a tone at the top with

regard to security and make sure that his subordinates and direct reports certainly understand his emphasis on security and desire to ensure that it's a subsequent point he can come back to them and receive confirmation that security has been treated as a priority thank all three of you for your testimony and direction in regards to what the issues are but more importantly, you have identified the people that actually have to make it happen that are not here at this point. thank you very much. >> thank you. it's astounding to me, we are not talking about and equipment side we are talking about nuclear materials and i keep hearing this issue about well it is a culture and we have more responsibility of the chain of command. nobody is talking about firing anybody. as the general said earlier,

when the secretary ran off, the secretary of the air force and the chief of staff at got everybody's attention. it just seems like nobody's talking about we have to go to those levels of responsive levity and run somebody ought to make sure the understand that security is in trouble and it's got to be a part of the system but i don't hear anybody calling for that but that's just me. mr. wilson is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. friedman nine alumni of the department of energy's i appreciate your service, a very important position and in fact it's so important, and general finan, for both of you coming you referred to the approach to oversight. can you explain why you flagged this as a concerned and why did this contribute to the failure and where did this approach come from and what has been done to fix this, beginning with the

general. >> yes, sir, it was interpreted in the security community at nssa to mean that federal personnel or not to interrupt with the contractor in executing security duties. they were only to watch them executed duties and in many cases not even allowed to interact with the contractor as they accomplished those duties. with that evil to was basically a completely federal hands-off policy that said, you know, in my federal role i can't tell the contractor what to do. ..

i'm going to come up with scenarios that i think are significant, and an uncle and asked the contractor to execute them so i can see the contractor execute those. we took eyes off, hands off. it let the contractor decide what scenarios will be evaluated. it is all about contractor self-assessment, and federal oversight was, in fact, diminish. so what happened is we didn't have any insight. federal personnel at nnsa did not have insight into the details of how the contractor was executing that mission. so that really is eyes on hands often where it evolves to. student i appreciate you raising that, because i'm very grateful that savannah river site is in the district i represent the

ahead opportunity to visit, sometimes come and to see the extraordinary personnel of gramercy trees i've seen a positive. so it's startling to me that something like this could occur. mr. friedman? >> i associate myself with general finan's remarks but i think you characterize it perfectly, but if i could take a minute and describe a specific that was in our finding, original finding. they were very, very extensive, costly cameras and detections at y-12 that was inoperable for up to six months. and just the backlog of repairs have never been addressed. the local federal officials are aware of it, but they did not feel they were empowered because of eyes on, hands off essentially. they didn't feel they were empowered to force the contractor to reprioritize the work that maintenance work is being done to make sure that detection equipment was operating as intended. it was an essential part of the

perimeter defense mechanism at the site. and that's an example of how we've gotten to the point where, as i said earlier when you to power these individuals to make sure that if have a problem like that, number one, they can bring it up with the contractor and ensure that those, the issue was addressed to a number two if it's not addressed, that it comes to the administrator pell but there's appropriate action taken. >> that's particularly startling because when we think of the new technologies, we think this is better. and so i know that your report indicates that they should be periodic in depth reviews of contracts security and certainly that would include that the equipment is working. >> absolutely. it's a vital. there's no excuse as far as i'm concerned in and about such as y-12, one of the most sensitive sites in this nation to have equipment and operable and not

treat it as a critical priority to get it back online as quickly as possible. >> and for the protection of the american people, again the new technologies we have should be used to their highest and best use. and i appreciate your efforts, all of you, to do this. i yield the balance of my time. >> i thank the gentleman, and the chair now recognizes -- i want to thank all of you for what you've done to serve and help our country. you can all jump in on this question but general, i want to ask you a two-part question. when there was the unauthorized transfer of nuclear weapons from minot, the air force really drill down and saw this as a broad issue that has to be addressed, even going so far as to reemphasizing the importance of the nuclear mission in the

air force, although it back to the air force academy, which is in my district. so could you address how that was done? and then how does that contrast with what is being done, if there is a contrast, with the y-12 incident? >> thank you for the question. what we recognized was that the air force, having been flying combat missions for such an extended period of time, and with the emerging emphasis on irregular warfare, that conventional operations and a regular warfare were elevated in their priority in terms of the way the air force resource itself and the temple and deployments, and the price you paid for that was a deemphasis in the nuclear part of our mission. we were born in the strategic attack, mindset and capability but we had lost that focus because of other competing priorities. so when you look at the professional military education

for ncos and officers, we read a says that there was insufficient and in some cases are low to nonexistent elements of nuclear in those programs so that a broad brush was, you know, once painted across all of our airmen. as opposed to just those who have nuclear mission responsibility today. because we felt it was important that everyone in air force should have a broad sense of what we are about as airmen. and so, so we attacked that and there was a lot of really attack as the look and evaluate them look and evaluated, and change those programs so that we're satisfied modules on nuclear were worthy at the level of education. but we didn't want to sort of cashier or contract out, if you will, strategic returns to just the nuclear operators. everyone needed to understand the larger context as best we could do.

now, the whole service was energized in face of this epic failure. and we considered it an enterprise fairly. this was mission failure at historic levels for us, and we look at it that way. the challenges i think y-12 situation, is we didn't necessarily find a pervasive evaluation that this was mission failure, that could be a wakeup call across the enterprise. the guys at oak ridge may be very bad mistake, but the guys that pantex or the guys in savannah river have not made a transgression. so weaknesses that might be systemic in other places with the distance that the sites preferred, we didn't witness a strong embrace to say, truly how can we ventilate the deficiencies there and see them here? i believe that work took place. i just think the self-critical capacity can be improved in the

nnsa, the department of energy to make that assessment brought and legitimate. >> for either of the other two, general or inspector general. >> i agree with what general alston stated, and when i took a look, i took look just at the federal organization and the federal assessment model contained within nnsa. and there were structural flaws in both the organization and the assessment model, which is why i recommended a complete change in the organizational model and a new assessment model to reach out beyond y-12, to all the other organizations. because it does in effect effect all paid nnsa agencies. >> again, i agree with my colleagues at the table. i would say that one of our, more important recommendations which actually sounds very subtle and based on actually unimportant, is that the lessons learned from y-12 and there was a tremendous wakeup call because

mr. cooper describes the three intruders, they could have been three people who were armed in a different way and had malicious intent, and could've been a real tragedy. so we did tremendous wakeup call. our point was, one of the points we made was it's important the lessons learned from y-12 the exported throughout the entire department of energy complex so that we are in a mode of preventing this sort of thing from happening again, not simply reacting. should it occur at another location. >> you know, the point you just made goes back to what i said earlier. that is, we have learned some real lessons at y-12, but apparently we have been hearing this call for these changes for a long time.

the thing i want to assure the folks were listening to this is this committee is not going to let this go. d.o.e. and nnsa are going to fix this problem moving forward in a meaningful way. and until they do, we're going to make them wish they had. so this is not going away. we are -- does ranking member have any more comments? we are about to be called for votes. i want to thank our witnesses for their time and their energy and their attention, and we appreciate you. we will go into recess now for a post and bring our second panel backup after votes. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

>> i don't think so, but if they do they wouldn't care. i'd like to call the hearing of the armed services subcommittee on strategic forces back to order, and apologize for the>> k delay. i think our panelists for hanging around, and look forward to your comments but i do wantte to thank you for your time and energy in preparing for this hearing. i know it takes a lot of time op and effort, and but, you know, it is important to us. so thank you for that. what i would like to do, your full statements have been inbmitted for the record. jim and i both read and.hat. kee ranking them and i both reai them but i would like to each , you to take about a minute tooer soon upsize the opening of your statement and then will go directly to questions.ch one >> i'm sorry.lo didn't introduce the witness. i thought i'd done that are thee we first that secretary davidime poneman, and honorable neile

miller, acting administrator, principal deputy administrator for an essay. secretary poneman. >> thank you, mr. chairman, mr. ranking member cooper and members of the subcommittee. we're great for the invitation to appear today to provideman. actions have taken are will take to strengthen security on the nuclear weapons complex in the wake of the july 12, wife of incident. we appreciate the interestac engagement of this committee and recognize the important oversight role that you fulfill. secretary and i recognize the severity of the problem andiden. we've acted swiftly to identify and address the issues itge review. since the y-12 incident, several major actions have taken place po to improve security immediately and for the long-term. and i will just mention inhat deference to your request, mr. chairman, just a few. we restructured the contracts or y-12 to integrate security into he line of command of the m&ojt contractor. we have re the consttract was trimmed and

new m&ot contractor's beengratee selected to manage the white of house i provided an opportunity was for their leadership and to improve y-12 secure to culture. we held accountable both the federal senior federal and senior contractor manager at headquarters and at the site, removing them from their to positions. the department's chief of health safety security conducted an independent suspension of thehea white house security operation, including rigorous force on force testing as well as nodepat notice, short notice, activitieu as directed by the secretary and they will be conducting a follow-up review in april. secretary also directed hhs to reviewt a needs extent -- all sites across the d.o.e. complex identifying any immediate security issues and follow-upens with full security inspection including force on force exercises to assure effective security measures are being implemented at those sites.i nnsa conducted in the after action to identify causesure followed by the report which i

know you heard about this morning from general finan. isc former deputy administrator task, general finan with reason federal nnsa securityeputy organizational structure and security oversight model, andwas you have heard about her recommendations which we are implementing so we can talk further about thwat during the questions. finally, we had an independent group, actually they were abou individuals, all of whom have distinguished, long careers in national security and a nuclear management. each one provided thoughtful advice on nuclear security structure, specifically all category when nuclea nuclear fas and we're now discussing their advice on how to improvevided security at y-12.the strucre, and across the nuclear enterprise. specly so in conclusion, the series of personnel and management changes that i described today have bees made to provide effective security at the white house site and across the d.o.e. complex. r wepr are working to carry out structural and cultural changese

required to secure all category when nuclear materials at this and all of our facilities. our management principles isoute about energy but nowhere is that more true than here. this degree of our nation's ofur nuclear material and technology is a core responsibly of the department in support of theisse president and in defense of the nation .true than the incident at y-12 was unacceptable and should as an important like a call for ourono in suppoomplex. the department rtis taking aggressive action to ensure the blood build of our nuclear security program across thedentd entire d.o.e. enterprisingan continue to do so. in africa department lookstire x forward to working with the subcommittee to ensure the security of the eight nation's nuclear materials. wil looks administrator and i would he very happy to answer anyt question you and members of the committee. >> thank you. eid you have an opening statement? >> no, sir. >> great. thank you. i will start offas with questios for secretary poneman. as deputy secretary of the ffpartment of energy, you talkeo

about this being unacceptable, and you just made references of corrective actions. and you talk about how you have now completed and integration in the line of chain of command some with a new r contractor. what's different in this line oe chain of command? >> okay, at the time of the incident, mr. chairman, there were two separate contracts at the site. one was the overall management ? operations contract for this --e >> you talking about the o f lif chain among the contractors, not within the department. have you altered that in anyco o way? once the contractor notifies the department of anything, good or bad, as they change from the contact person up the string been modified at all?ntractor nh >> yes, but the way the contract is structured, i will go rightbs to the part you asked. one of the things that general finan abou found in the report s there was lack of clarity, that

the organization known as in atr 70 for no clue city was exercising some authority in lineyo management over securityt activity at the site, as was activities under ourercising infrastructure and operations, the so-called double zero. that was confusing. we have ended that. we've made it very clear that the line management must go down from the administrator through the infrastructure and operations office, andc that ha removed the security organization from the.or throu their role is to develop the plan which is a staffing function and, indeed, evaluate the performance. this additional change in the field, mr. chairman, that thecto evaluation of performance under the contract was no longer done by the field which was created in general finan's review to close to the situation betweentt the people on the site between the contract and the fed.done so i think we really clarify.wa

the of the fact that actually bears on this as well as those also confused but that was so believe t created by having these two separate contracts at the site and we immediately folded theera pro-force security boots on theo ground contract under the m&o contractor just to clarify. >> under this new structure, if would have another incident, who would be the ultimate personecur responsible for security at that wide to -- y-12 site? structe if >> the line management is alwayl responsible going straight down from the secretary down to theru nnsa administrator speak walk me through.he line ma secretary -- >> deputy secretary, nnsa, administrator, the director of the federal site for the nnsa, down to company goes from that person to the senior contract official. >> and that was not the case when this incident occurred?te >> there was confusion because there were directives coming out of the any 70 organization thatt could've been confusing in termt

of where the accountability wase in perspective of people at the site. >> aside from the contract with the contractor been terminated, which was about to expirethe anyway, you mentioned thatf responsible people were reassigned.rmined, you put removed from the about to responsibilities. they weren't fired. why weren't they fired? >> the first thing wens had to o was come as you said many timesu to hold people accountable so we did that both at the site and at headquarters. the top three officials at headquarters responsible for nuclear security were removed from those positions.ple to relevant officials on the federal side at the site wereta. removed from their positions --t >> why weren't they fired?hos >> there are -- >> this is a nuclear facility. >> that's true, sir.heir there's additional discipline action that is unders. way. we have various procedural safeguards that occur in our system, and rthose are now being pursued. but important things is to get

those people out of that line. ar in our system and those are now being pursued. but the important thing is to get those people out of that one, most of them are out entirely, and we have ensure that people knew that they have lost had lost our confidence in the top two officials responsible on the contractor side were also moved. >> you heard me earlier talk about secretary gates. he fired the secretary of the air force and the chief of staff when he had a similar incident. i think that was the motto. do you disagree? how he responds to serious security violations? >> i certainly agree. the accountability is absolutely crucial. i am not deeply intimate with the details of this incident. i have the highest regard for secretary gates. but i think that the principles that he described are very much ones that we share. >> i would hope so.

i would hope that you start reflecting those going forward. that is the kind of action that sends a clear message that these lapses in security will not be tolerated. the other factor here is that this has been going on for 10 years. we have had so many studies. the folks at the top of the food chain really should have known about this before it happened. but with that, i will turn to the ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i welcome the witnesses. i am sorry that we have to be here. in a sense this never should have happened. you talk about accountability and the main contractor. they are still receiving 60% of the award fee for $36 million right after the incident happened. >> mr. chairman. >> i'm not the chairman chairman, i'm the ranking member. >> mr. ranking member, i'm

sorry. the award fee under the terms of the contract, and it's a fair question to pursue how we structure these, the only amount that was available for security was zeroed out. later they got to 40% was going beyond that. other things are happening in terms of stockpile work and so forth and the way to this fee is a bucket. we took the fee that was available to take away this and that was something we followed up in subsequent incidents as well, seeking to go back because we agree the american people should not be paying for underperformance when it comes to security. >> how much do you expect to call back? >> the numbers that you cited there, there is an episode for

the contract. >> i thought you said there were further efforts? >> there was a 10 million-dollar fee in the complex. >> immediately prior to the incident, your agency, in its wisdom, had given not an excellent rating for the safeguards and security work. he received the full 51 million-dollar incentive fees in fiscal year 2011, even though as has been testified to, it took months and months to do repairs. why did they get their entire incentive fee via this? >> this is exactly one of the deficiencies in the structure that receives the incident. the report makes clear a tendency to have their view, but have this evaluation on paper

review. separating that roll out and putting it into the headquarters would hopefully corrected. we did not see things in advance as we should have. obviously, had we, we would have replaced the cameras as we should have. i'm hoping, and i believe that the cultural changes that we are going to institute will prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future. >> with all due respect, it doesn't sound to me like you're taking responsibility. aren't you the deputy secretary, having been the deputy secretary for some time? >> yes, sir. from the moment i heard about this incident, i have been doing everything i can in every dimension to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. >> i do feel deeply responsible. >> you have been doing everything you can. question to my colleague, it was

cemented five months after the hearing testimony? >> you needlessly duplicated one question twice. it doesn't look like much effort was put into this. i know that this is just an exchange of paper. but i feel like you are taking responsibility? >> yes, i do. i take responsibility for everything that happens in the department. >> hazard pay been reduced? are you threatened in any way? what sanctions have you faced? >> mr. congressman, i am doing everything i can to address the problem. i will do that as long as i'm in this position. i will be open to make sure that nothing like this can never happen again. >> meanwhile, your department is spending about a billion dollars

a year hiring 4000 guard personnel and in some places it is a contract, other places it is a subcontract. it seems to be no rhyme or reason. if you divide the salary component of that, 700 million, that is $175,000. where's the money going, what results are we getting for this? >> my guess is that the guards are not being paid nearly that much. >> who is making the difference? >> congressman, i do not have that exact calculation. there are a number of physical assets in terms of facilities with thick walls and various permit or fences and security systems. all this of this requires an investment. to be clear, the money itself is not going to solve the problem if we don't have the clarity and

the lines of responsibility and the authorities that go with it and a cultural shift that was required go with it. it is not a problem that will be solved. the dollars are very important. we need to get all assets, but that is only part of the problem. i am not suggesting spending more money, but i'm asking about the value that the taxpayer about for this outlay. this is according to your own idea of money spent on employee compensation. >> we have large quantities of plutonium and uranium, that material is very well defended. it is of absolute paramount. >> how can you possibly say that? >> congressman, the episode that

occurred, as we have repeatedly testified in a prior hearing, it is absolutely unacceptable. it is a wake-up call. >> so how can you say was well defended? it was not well defended. that is why we are having this hearing. >> congressman, what i'm trying to say is that there are a number of additional layers of security. it is unacceptable that it penetrated the perimeter fence. that is unacceptable, it would take appropriate actions to look at these layers. including military style forces, various physical impediments, and i can assure you that there are many more layers that are defending that very sensitive material. >> so we really have nothing to worry about? there were many more layers of security left and it was fine? >> congressman, that is not what i am saying. secretary chu and i have been consistent. this was unacceptable. and it is shocking is a breach

of the security that we thought was in place. that being said, your specific question went to the actual material itself. i am only saying that it is quite the opposite. to say that we do have additional measures of protection that are needed. it is unacceptable and we have to make sure that that part gets fixed as well. >> still does not sound like he's taking responsibility. >> i would like to be very clear. i accept responsibility for this. >> what punishment have you suffered for a? >> other than attending mishearing? >> i am working on this problem, sir, as hard as i can. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i thank the gentleman. the chair recognizes mr. turner of ohio for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, i would like to thank you for your effort to try

to address this. i happen to know that you are a very hands-on secretary. you and i have worked together and i was very impressed by the fact that you do rise to a very hands-on level. that is why i think this whole problem, it leaves most of us wondering where are we and i'm going to ask a couple questions. the level of oversight where we have concerns is what i want to frame. a broad base of questions. >> [inaudible] >> [inaudible]

>> [inaudible] >> congressman, it depends -- >> it doesn't depend. it ever encompasses the scope of possibilities. is there ever a situation? >> it could, yes. >> okay. in taking that broad statement, we have acknowledged that there is a situation where a failure could result in termination due to performance. i will ask you the next step of that. i am not just asking your opinion because you are in the chain of command here. so would one of those situations beware all of the safeguards are down? where someone could get all the way into one of our buildings and nobody does? let me be clear. we had a breach where people actually died all the land. all the way to the building.

that is what i'm saying. is there ever a situation where no one penetrated this breach, but the safeguards were down it would've permitted a? that is what i would have considered. >> what i cannot do is answer a hypothetical. to it's not a hypothetical. it's very clear. you have a job that has no margin to protect these facilities. we only can talk about these situations through the application technology operated by people. and the people are subject to their performance as to whether or not it works. so if someone is not performing, even if there is not a breach, if the system is down and someone could get all the way into the building.

is that enough for them to be terminated due to performance? this committee things that we have an agency that has the responsibility for protecting this facility and we have a system where those in charge think that you don't even have to do your job to keep your job, then we don't have something that is working. if the system goes down or someone could go in and touched the touch the side of a building and no one does, due to the performance, is that the type of performance that results in termination? >> i can tell you that has resulted in removal from positions. >> the answer is yes? >> removal from positions what we did. >> that gets into a level. >> you are testifying before the committee today that if the entire security system of our nuclear infrastructure facilities went down and the perimeter of the building that allowed someone to go in and it

was a result of their performance. >> i did not say that, sir. >> please tell me opposite. it has to be true the result of someone losing their job. if not, we need to pass a law and stop oversight. because if you don't have performance to be able to protect the facility, then we don't really have protection. we do not have security. is it a terminal offense? >> you and i are both lawyers and you're asking me technical legal questions and i want to make sure that i understand. >> if you don't have clarity, the committee meets with something in the next piece of legislation that makes it clear that due to the performance of individuals, that the security system would be an offense resulting in termination. that is certainly what the american public. >> congressman, as i told the chairman and as i told you, we are always ready to work with

you and this committee to make sure that we have the right kind of laws in place. i am not trying to be evasive. there may be a very simple answer, but i am not acting as a lawyer. >> i was asking you the scope of responsibility and authority questioned. [talking over each other] >> to that level, we want to know if this has to do with the determination. >> i yield back. >> mr. secretary, is the due process we are talking about the union contract? >> i'm talking about the procedure process that and a federal employee is entitled to. >> they can have that in response to the termination, can't they? >> you terminate them and they get the process to appeal it.

>> it just seems to me like you are claiming that they have a right to go through all of this before you can terminate them. >> what we can do and what we did do, mr. chairman, was removed these people from the responsibility for anything having to do with security, immediately pending what further disciplinary action was available. the action is subject to due process. >> i think the due process wouldn't let navy to you will get into a nuclear facility. we now recognize mr. wilson's. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i share this with the former and current chairman. it seems to me that with the breaches that occurred, there should have been termination shifting persons around. it really doesn't achieve the level of accountability for something that is important. i have the perception of having actually worked here and by working here i actually had a

good feeling about the permit manner of security, the persons who are monitoring and indeed, those acting, and i felt secure and i know that the people who work there, lived there, raised their families there, they fill secure. but i am concerned about studies that there is a culture that has not stressed security. so how can we reassure people who live in these communities that do realize that they are a culture and have a lack of security and it needs to be addressed. >> that is a great question, congressman. you can reassure them by saying that the top three security officials at the headquarters were removed from their positions and the two top officials were removed and the contractor that actually has the

professional force was terminated at the management and operations facility. they were also retired and taken out of the picture. everyone in the chain of command from individual responders and the senior officials responsible we have undertaken the organizational and structural changes, we have replaced all the cameras, the wire around the facility. all of the improvements, all of the things that we should have known about what found out about the unfortunate and terrible incident. >> mr. mueller? >> i would agree that the deputy secretary has said that first and foremost, culture is going to be affected by leadership and

their attitudes toward security and safety and everything else that we do. we are working very hard and have been making serious changes to direct this and address it. especially with everything else we do. >> i am equally concerned. there used to be a lot of reliance on self-assessment that the overseers are depending upon us. is that being changed? >> that is being addressed. i think that does contribute to the problems. per the recommendations, we believe that it starts with the basements of the assessment, instead of having that ss in the field where there is a possibility of it being too close, that function includes the headquarters organization and that is going to be further subject to overview for the safety and security office.

>> ms. miller? >> i would like to emphasize that we have the sites directly reporting to the administrator. in this way, we expect security as well as other things. but mainly security to be a clear line of accountability from the administration to the site manager as the implementers of the policy that the security policy organization that the deputy secretary was referring to, those policies in order that they are issued, which is their responsibility, it is also their responsibility to assess the performance of this in implementing those it is just as clear that the line of accountability for implementing it goes directly to the administrator. >> related to that, there was a

recommendation that headquarters staff visits the sites and rotates between them. is that being done? >> headquarters staff is now both in the implementing side as well as the policy and assessment side. regularly scheduled, as well as the rotations, we have put this in and we are very conscious of the fact that people staying in one place for too long may lead to people becoming complacent. >> i think you both. i know that when the staff visits, it creates an extraordinary level of attention and i thank you. >> thank you, gentlemen. mr. frank is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary, i would like to get a few questions in here if i could. i have had the opportunity to

see hearings on this before. i have probably expressed a commensurate level of this and i don't seek to remind anyone of the materials that are kept in these facilities that are highly and technically challenged to create and weaponize, it is a much lesser difficulty and the implications are profound. i think everyone knows that. one question that i would quickly like to ask. seems like the contractors that have reported these lapses in the safety precautions were treated differently than those who ignore the warnings. is that your perspective? >> i am not sure. >> it seems to be on the ground contractors that were there, i

am told there was that there was a significant reporting on their behalf prior to these incidents, saying that we had technical >> yes, sir. some of those deficiencies have been noted in earlier reports that it's true. >> yet they were, they were handled pretty roughly, it sounds like. i believe that they are. i would like to get to another thing. the previous panel emphasized the line of responsibility. i think that's something that is almost ubiquitous throughout the entire thing. it appears that this has not been addressed effectively because the doe continues to have an oversight office under hhs and it now has a split

security between policy and oversight and programming execution. i'm just wondering how to these ensure there is an accountability for making sure the security program is properly executed at the sites? >> okay. let me just say very quickly that both involved have had their leadership removed. so they both have the appropriate accountability price. and on the second one it is a very good question. we believe that part of the problem here, as the general pointed out was that there was this confusion. the clarity down to the infrastructure operations, that is the one i mentioned. they are responsible for execution. they had to take away the interference which was coming out of the na 70 nuclear security organization and that

is all inside to have a further check. it is to have a check on the check outside it of this administration. >> is it your testimony that the line of responsibility, any ambiguities have been dealt with? >> we are in the process of implementing the recommendations and i would like to come back to this committee when i can tell you more. >> that seems a little similar to this whole discussion. >> we agreed. >> shifting gears quickly, i will ask you because we are running out of time, when you think about these breaches of securities in the future, i am just wondering one specific

question. there is a significant increase across the world with intentional electromagnetic interference, these device capabilities, which seems to me to really put the facilities at risk. and even further, the potential of the major event, either geomagnetic or otherwise. can you tell me, are we protecting the critical defense apparatus against these three things? >> congressmen, i am well aware of your thought on this challenge. what i am here to tell you is that we are addressing the threats which don't, as you

know, the fact everyone, but far beyond that. we would love to work more closely with you on the subject, the executive orders, and the presidential directive that was just part of this problem. it is something that is a problem that will take a lot of work to get to a safe place. >> okay, thank you, mr. chairman. >> sir, i would like to clarify. he stated that you are in the process of implementing this study and findings. that is not at doe. woody doing at doe to deal with the problems? >> it actually goes well beyond and will require various parts of this which has technical

capacity to deal with this issue. >> i'm talking about the earlier issue dealing with the chain of command, a report by the contractor. >> mr. chairman, those issues are among those that have been addressed by what we call the three wise men. we are having internal discussions precisely on this question of how to make sure that the larger organization works effectively in ensuring the same kind of oversight. as you know, mr. chairman, there is some material that is outside of the situation and we have to make sure it is protected. there was some confusion between all the directives that were departmental wide, and the recommendation of general simmonds. we need to be clear of those

that are binding and anything beyond that would require a way to augment or strengthen and should not be meant to confuse or distract the overall directive of the whole department. >> you have five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the testimony to both of you have given. i was reading your testimony as well. although you have explained verbally the organizational structure, it is not clear to me exactly how that organizational structure is actually in place. therefore, i would appreciate it if you could delegate to our committee staff a detailed organizational chart along with the accompanied job

descriptions. >> i am happy to do it, sir. i believe that would be helpful for me to understand the words that you have said and how it works out. how works from the previous questions asked. it is within the department and the organizational structure there. if you would do that. >> we would be happy to provide it. >> i would like to understand more completely your testimony. and i think you. >> i yield back, mr. chairman. >> i thank the gentleman. why do you think it is? you heard an earlier panel. why do you think it is that these long-standing, well documented deficiencies of this particular facility, they were allowed to go on for so long. anything that is? >> the things that we have found since the episode, mr. chairman,

even though some of these things were noticed, the internal reporting chain was broken. that was the phrase used in some reviews. you can rest assured that if we had known was actually -- >> you were not aware of any of those studies from 2002 until 2005? >> well, i was talking about the studies over 10 years and the most recent. >> after the episode, i became aware. >> i'm aware that you are aware of it. >> this is one of the ones that you are referring to. i helped former senator baker look at the episode at los alamos and i was aware that the thing that we found there was

the same kind of security mission and it was a source of challenge. but i did not realize that particular problem was still persisting to the degree that it was. >> what were you not aware of? >> i was not aware of the cultural and the situation which we found out post-talk, it had not come to my attention. if it had, i would have acted. >> who do you think should have reported it to you? >> these are very high ranking, important, thoughtful people who are making these reports. were they put on the shelf? were they given to policymakers that could implement changes? >> we should've told you about

that. >> i don't know if he would've told me. >> would ms. miller have told you about a? >> it was a 2005 report and i just don't know what happens in terms of the shelf life of these reports. we are responding to the responsibilities that we've got. we have to look at the problem and we obviously have to be fully accountable for it. we must always go back and see what has been done through time. that is why we looked at the report. >> who do you report to on security matters? >> it is the deputy secretary. >> were you aware of this study? >> i became aware of it. i joined them in 2000 and. >> okay, 2010. when you arrived then, how long was it before you became aware of this? >> i knew of it a little bit before then.

i did not become aware of the contents for probably the first year that i was their. >> you knew about it by 2011 in the midyear. did you take any action to inform the secretary that you have this cultural problem that needed to be addressed? >> i did not take any actions to inform the secretary. i did take actions to address actions. >> did you fire anyone? >> no. >> let me ask. given the studies that i have referred to, the commission did this in 2002. the chief of security clearly

should've been handed a copy of the studies. do you not think? >> that would have been on his watch to know that we have an installation under the domain of responsibility. and we now have a study that talks about these problems. does it make sense to be given a copy of it? >> would you turn your microphone on, please? >> i would assume that those reports come when they came out, would be reported through the department contemporaneously. >> and the relevant person would have been the chief of security, wouldn't it have? >> the organization was different at that time. >> what i am saying is that i do not know who is the chief of security in 2002 or 2005. the same guy has been there for 20 years. the guy who is the chief of security now it has been the

chief of security at the department of security for 20 years. all of these installations fall under his responsibility. my thinking is that if the report comes out and says that we have a flawed cultural security problem, but that should have been presented to the chief of security. no remedies were taken to the equipment and the other deficiencies in that system. who did the chief of security report to? >> he reports to the secretary and the deputy secretary. >> okay. >> just to be clear, that person does not have authority over this. >> why not? >> because that is the nature of the problem. in other words, we need to make sure that it runs the straight through. >> so you are responsible for the line of authority? >> was the secretary fired? >> no, sir. >> i recognize mr. cooper.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i think we are talking about hhs? >> yes. >> i think we are talking about those that have been there. i was interesting because in 2013, just a few days ago, he talked about staying in the article that he believes nuclear arms complex operated better while directly under the energy department's defense program prior to the formation in 2000. i think that he means by nuclear agency, he means our agency. it is a pretty amazing charge from someone you praise and trust. it has been there a long time. we all rely on his viewpoint a

lot. we we're wondering if nsa should have jurisdiction here? enough we have taken a step backward sends 2000. .. there's no question about the. i also was not present. i saw the news reports obviously but that's not reflective of view of the department. >> well, let's forget the politics were second in the view of the department. right now the department doesn't have a lot of credibility in the security issue. here's a guy who's been a loyal public servant for 29 years was trying to stress the viewpoint and it might be politically correct. it might m not be officially supported by the top brass, but this is coming in a, part of the organization that you respectn h and trust, this question, even

the function of nnsa, and, off course, the commission will be o established. this is a problem. >> congressman, we have, all of, us thought long and hard exactlt about what's the best way to doo security going forward out of this episode. ha will continue to dooi that.it we are going to take advantage of the great wisdom of the three continui and we always encourage and continued questioning attitude and not be complacent about what we are. we have no grounds for complacency so we will keep wora working as hard as we can to get this problem fixed.. .. >> observe the chance to keep working at the problem. i'll dig in terms of if i deserve. and trying to address the problem. i feel that's my responsibility.

>> you have hard time the of circumstances that might even lead to levels of state and responsibility. >> that don't mean to imply that. the problem could not recur bride changing the structure and that all the individuals accountable. again, we will continue to tear everything we can turn the confidence of this committee. >> maybe you could answer with the average card, protective force member makes and when you divide out, one pattern $75 going teach position under the how much taken pay, benefits of the votes actually getting into this amazing some.

penlight federal judges. their pay like congressman -- i assure you, able be five months. we will get that to you, sir. >> thank you. >> we don't have anymore questions. the one thing i want to point out, lest through a plant -- we should just abolish the in essaying a backstabbing everything doe. the foreign intelligence board

ght tthat the m and body to science at its best and security atis its worst highlighting the string ofs t recurring security problems fai, dysfunctional bureaucracy that has am proven it is incapable of performing. the thing and be take away from this is yet to be capable of reforming yourself. we're serious as a heart attack. be expected to be remedied. we need to know specifically the you're willing to terminate people that at doing that job. the chief security officer might be idealist, but we look at serious reforms in the line responsibilities so that if -- and the help we don't ever have another instance like this, but you can show us so we can see

exactly who is irresponsible and that they were dealt with in a prompt and appropriate manner. >> we not only except by wellcome working with you in this committee and exactly that dimension. we very much agree obviously, there are continued concerns we need to address. we complete the agree accountability is a critical part. however, we don't just have a people problem. we have a structural problem. we have a cultural problem and we need to fix that. accountability, culture, cleared the lines of responsibility, authority to go with that and with your help hopefully we will get the place where we never do

experienced this kind of episode again because it is something that is absolutely as we said from day one unacceptable. >> thank you. >> additional questions. who will keep the record open for ten days. i asked you submit questions in writing and as the responses in writing. >> this hearing is adjourned. >> thank you.

wife now jerry marks from actress and public health advocate ashley judd on women's reproductive health. she's speaking this afternoon at the george washington university school of public health and health services. she is a challenger to the kentucky republican senate minority leader mitch mcconnell in 2014. she is rumored to be a challenger. the school of public health and health services demon lynn goldman will make remarks and moderate the question and answer session. this will start in just a moment. live coverage on c-span2.

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>> we are live once again at george washington university school of public health and health services for remarks from ashley judd, actress and activist. she is rumored to be a potential challenger to kentucky republican leader it mitch mcconnell in 2014, but today she will be speaking about women's reproductive health. we expect this to get underway in just a moment right here on c-span2. a quick reminder of some of the other programming coming up on the c-span networks to read this afternoon the supreme court releases odierno of the oral arguments on wednesday's case challenging section 5 of the voting rights act, the provision in question requires all or parts of 16 states with a history of discrimination to clear up any changes to the election law either with the u.s. attorney general or a three judge panel of the u.s. district court of d.c.. be of audio of those on the internet on c-span.org. the court has released them this afternoon and you will be able to listen to the proceedings tonight at nine eastern.

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[inaudible conversations] >> it appears will be a few more moments be before we hear from actress ashley judd this afternoon. while we wait, sequestration of course is a topic that everyone is talking about today set to go into effect sometime today. earlier today president obama left with congressional leaders

of the white house that lasted for about an hour. afterwards the president came to the white house briefing room and spoke with reporters. that lasted for about half an hour he answered questions and earlier we spoke with a reporter from the tampa bay times to discuss how education, social and military programs could be affected because of sequestration. >> joining us on the news right now from the tallahassee bureau chief to talk about florida and halvey could be affected. first and foremost, thank you. tell us tell your state is preparing to date. >> well, good morning, pedro. governor rick scott was in jacksonville yesterday to more about the possible effect that the sequestered could have on the preparation readiness for a natural disaster because florida is very reliant on the national guard. let's talk for a second about

the pillars of the form of the economy. they are all tied -- >> steve of the tampa bay times. we will leave this year and go back to george washington university for remarks from actress and activist ashley judd >> good afternoon. my name is lynn goldman, the dean of the public school health and health services at george washington university to its extreme pleasure that i welcome you here to a very special laughter noon at george washington university. i'm thrilled to see so many students, faculty, alumni colleagues at supporters with us. i would also like to college friends and colleagues joining us over the life webcast triet and if you are tweeting use the hash tag gwha, so it's #gwha. [laughter] people of my generation -- the

world celebrates women's national holiday certainly since that time we've made tremendous progress when it comes to women's rights in terms of atomic political and social achievements but at the same time, women's health disparities continue to affect the lives of millions. poverty, poor access to health care, inadequate nutrition and water afflict women and girls across the globe. this is a paradox that we cannot and we should not tolerate. now more than ever we must focus on conducting research and developing programs, policies and interventions that provide solutions to these gender based problems. particularly proud of the work of the global women's institute at george washington university. this university wide initiative promotes and supports the rights of women and conducts research education initiatives and advocacy campaigns and particular the institute is identified of violence against women as a signature issue. according to the u.s.

government, in the u.s., 1% of women every year 1.3 will experience rape or attempted rape. almost half are raped before the turn the age of 18. over a lifetime, one of four or raped, one of five beat him by a partner and one in six stalked. men are often victimized as well also in much smaller numbers. these impacts are devastating. psychologically as well as physically. we need to develop and support efforts in the u.s. and worldwide to prevent rape and partner violence to support all, women and men, who have been the victims of these terrible crimes. in the u.s., we've made enormous strides in promoting equality for women. when i was in college i did not dream of ever being the dean of the school, nor someday that we would have so many women who are heads of states. we've had women come secretary of state, even as a presidential candidate, women in positions like members of the senate,

governors and ceos. when i was in medical school, women were actively discouraged from going into certain some specialties like surgery and in a generation before mind there were hardly any women in medical school at all. so we have seen so much progress. but as they say when we come along way we still live a long way to go. i do believe along with the new rights we have, we also have responsibilities. and particularly, the responsibility to care about the circumstances of women everywhere in the world. we cannot turn a blind eye to problems such as sanitation, global patrician come immunizations or other basic public health measures cash that could improve conditions and that are denied to so many women across the world today. the situation with regard to women's health and globally leaves much to be decided. one of the life expectancy for birth of women in the high-income countries was 83, it was only 59 of the lowest income

countries. that is an average of 24 years of life lost. the epidemic of hiv/aids is hitting women very hard along with the issue of pediatrics transmission for mothers to these and we know it isn't necessary for a needy to be born with aids today. we have measures used to prevent that. martelle become a death around childbirth is an enormous public health problem in most of the world. killing 287,000 women in 2010. with the rate in low-income countries, 24 times higher than the rate of maternal mortality in the u.s. today. we know how to prevent this. we should be presenting this to read most of us are aware breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for women and in other developing countries but cervical cancer, which is preventable through vaccination against hpv, the human papillomavirus and screening test is a large cause of death

worldwide. 80% of death of cervical cancer today occur in developing countries. and this is all due to the lack of vaccination's but also screening programs. last but not least i wanted to say little bit about cardiovascular disease, a leading cause of death among women certainly in the u.s. and a cause of death that often goes unrecognized. one of our own faculty in this university lost his wife deutsch to a heart attack that was not recognized. women often manifest cardiovascular disease and we are less aware that we are at rest. so that even in the u.s., we still have a long way to go in terms of achieving health parity for women. but i am proud to say we are doing a lot of wonderful things of the school of public health and health services in this area. to mention a couple the new chair of global health is conducting research in nepal critical to the maternal child

health. he is developing interventions that a community level to reduce air pollution by cookstoves, which have been shown to cause poor birth outcomes and poor health especially for women and children. our new share of prevention and community health is here today and alan greenberg the chair of epidemiology have devoted a good part of their career to researching hiv/aids. dr. greenburg is the director of the district of columbia, center for aids research, a multi institution average addressing the hiv/aids epidemic here in d.c., which has most of you know has among the highest rates in the world and the highest rate in the united states and professors have made remarkable progress in addressing women's health issues, for instance, the

professor studied the health problems affecting minorities living in the united states and has developed recommendations to reduce the rates of teen pregnancy comes sexually transmitted diseases and other serious health problems that disproportionately impact such a group. the professor i know this year, hello, she's executive director of our jacobson institute of oneself and she's conducted cutting edge research how policies and walls in the united states affect access to family planning services including their ability to obtain low-cost contraceptives such as the health. at the university level, we have the ibm mcmath who is here with us today. she spent her career research and nutrition and sustainable food policy and heads up the university's urban food taskforce. the task force partners with teachers and others in the community trying to get at children before they developed the worst eating habits so they can develop in a healthy way and

so that their babies can develop in a healthy way as they grow up and they have with us today in the front row the founder of the breast feeding a friendly university project. she's made a tremendous progress educating about the importance of breast feeding from maternal and child health to be as a pediatrician it is hard for me to understand why we even need to talk about the breast feeding from the initiative when this is so basic and fundamental to the health of infants. but i am proud that we are becoming a child friendly campus and we are providing opportunities for the students and faculty and staff to be able to breast feed as well as collect their milk. so we have come a long way, but there is still so much that needs to be done. so, that is why it is such a delight to introduce our guests ashley judd. many of you know her from her award winning acting career, but she is also a tireless advocate

for women and children around the globe. now i am finding myself in a unique position as introducing her while i have her mother, naomi in the front row, and i'm sure that much of what we see here today in terms of a remarkable career has to do with her. she has graced the covers of countless magazines, has been the subject of newspaper and television interviews bringing awareness to issues closest to her heart such as gender inequality and poverty alleviation of. she was also the subject of free award winning documentary is that air and more than 150 countries worldwide on vh1, the discovery channel and the national geographic channel. in 2002, she became an ambassador for psi helping people in the developing world and yet she joined them and as a board member in 2004 and has visited the slums brothel

schools and clinics at psi programs target. and i asked naomi judd if she were introducing her daughter what would she say. one thing she said is she was struck by the courage that ashley judd shows involving a visiting these places where women and children are living in some of the worst health conditions, conditions that are very difficult to experience, very difficult to observe, requires a tremendous amount of courage to be willing to go out and do that work. she has visited thailand, cambodia, honduras, kenya and many other countries in what's been a passionate effort to understand the root causes of poverty, social injustice and inequality. just recently she received a master's in public administration from the harvard kennedy school. she also earned a moderate doctorate from eastern kentucky university in 2009. please join me in welcoming ms. ashley judd.

[applause] >> good afternoon. well, there's what, four southerners and here? [laughter] good afternoon. thank you so much, dean goldman and as far as i am concerned class is over. i am totally daunted by the intellectual capital and life experience in this room and students, let's go to the student center and have some coffee. [laughter] eye injury pleased and honored to be here today. this has been a date five years in the making. again that? based on my longstanding friendship with professor, we had the pleasure of travelling to india together in 2008, spending a really extraordinary emotionally grueling as well as

an aspiring free weeks visiting grassroots programs that helped lift the poorest of the poor out of some of the worst conditions that we have in our fragile and a beautiful world. so thank you so much for issuing the invitation those years ago. amends for the delay. [laughter] and it's a pleasure to be here. i would like to thank my mom for being here, too and i typically speak extemporaneously and i don't keep notes. fortunately that stuff stays pretty clear up in my head but there are some additional folks here today, and i thought i'd better have my notes in case i get stuff wrong because my mother will know. [laughter] so i appreciate you coming to make the trip with me. later you can tell me how it is you get -- i have a dog that on strike. she only wants cheese. [laughter] just a little bit on how i got started in this beautiful work.

and then i very much want to sit down and hear from the students. you are going to be the ones who create the current and future solutions that in power the health of all people around the world, particularly girls and women. i want to know your thoughts. what are we doing? improved sanitation, who is going to invent that we let? what do you think that won the prize of the gates foundation? what are your thoughts on women who were trapped in sexual slavery and transactional exploitation do we work with them and they're vulnerable situations to try to immediately protect their health while simultaneously working on both demand and supply evolution? what are your thoughts on that both practically and morally? who knows what else will come up? but i will just tell you a little bit on how i got started. i became aware of child survival and maternal mortality as someone that's been blessed all her life with a rich narrative

about family history. we have a lot of counties in kentucky and we visited the counties which our people come and other would-be graveyards over in lawrence county and i would see tombstones of babies and was devastating because to me they were my cousins or whatever and i learned that the was scholar of or a drinking source and then i would see the mothers that dhaka and matching up those dates and then i learned more, so for example might triple great-grandfather from martin county kentucky who was a civil war hero for the union cause and settled the amputation was prisoner of war three times a remarkable fellow his third wife because the second wife died in childbirth and he had five children and he needed another quick and he got a good one. so i was aware of that growing up and then i had the privilege and the honor has been full of it is as being sensitized and

educated about all of the preventable deaths that occurred of children under the age of five, malaria, pneumonia, things for which the rtc solutions. so, i loved being at the university of kentucky. i was in the sorority which was great fun. but i had this thing going on at the same time and i became aware of what was happening in south africa with the apartheid government because there is a wonderful couple in the music business actually south africa and they were activists against the racist regime and they were about to be placed under house arrest again and they decided that there would be better for them and the effort for the racial equality if they left south africa today managed to flee before their house arrest and the smuggled out of the country with them. records and actual records of

speeches given by a fellow called a desmond tutu, and because they had been in the music business they settled in asheville and my mother and my sister came to know this couple and a spotted a little something and they loaned me those records and i started to connect my christian values with social justice. those records made me cry. they just let my soul on fire. then i started listening to youtube. a great record came out and they were on the cover of rolling stone, and i started studying the notes and learning about amnesty international and interpreting the lyrics in a particular way where the streets have no name, to me that sounded a bit like heaven, and at the same time, the board of trustees of the university of kentucky had a meeting talking about divesting from the racist apartheid government and a

wonderful guy that's give an incredible service to the commonwealth of kentucky is beloved by our people and also served as the commissioner of baseball when baseball was an agreed and jackie robinson began to play and made a really unfortunate and probably quite generational remark about why are we talking about this any way? is it just a bunch of ends down there any life and the it is on paper at this university of kentucky and it might be the oldest continually running student paper in the country and if i am making that up go with it because i like it. and we had a member of our press corps and he wrote about it in the student newspaper. i was so devastated someone representing my university of the public institution had said something like that. so i immediately hooked up with the african-americans are ready is and i spent time in the kitchen with my surrogate mother barbara who was african-american and explained to me what race was really liked and both

kentucky and the country and i started to lead the campus wide box outclasses and the sheets we were using as a welcome pledges and all that kind of stuff i started saying things you for your service, please retired and the governor published a wonderful memoir around the same time and he was signing books in downtown lexington and my friends are standing in line to have their books signed and i was in line with a sign saying -- and then i joined the peace corps and i dropped out so that is the short story triet [laughter] my sister used to say to the show was hauer you are going to squawk and we will get to the sanitation thing in a second. and i loved that idea to buy would go anywhere but yemen. i'm still scared of yemen. i hear that comco is the worst place to be a woman. i've been there four times but i hear that yemen might be worse. i was willing to do anything until i realized hollywood was probably a younger woman's game

and if i didn't give it a try in my ear early 20s i might later have a regret in life and that if i got started fully invested in service work that that would be my life pass without exploring the creative part first. so why did it the 22-year-old astana we stopped returning calls. hawken of the emotional immaturity. by the way i've made my immense to the entire organization and all of his children multiple times. and i always loved the peace corps volunteers when i travel and unfortunate to meet with ministers and heads of state and carry these narratives we are going to talk about but a boy can i pick out a peace corps volunteer across the room, good people. you ask some fantastic staff how many local dialects? three. you ask the peace corps volunteers and they are amazing. so i went to the other john gall, hollywood and did my thing

there and had instantaneous success much to my own i wouldn't even say supplies i didn't know until they looked back on it last year. it all happened so very fast. i remember when i was going i was talking to a family friend and i was so frightened. amazingly i was raised with some of the greatest voice of her generation right in my own home yet i didn't have an hour to education and i didn't know what it meant to be an actor so i was scared pick i was nervous talking to this family friend i said i am still going to do a lot of service and health advocates that women need access to accurate sex education and a half access to a full basket of family planning choices that are right for them and i went on to list the other things i was going to do it and he said if you are going to be an actor or save the world? in 2002i was sick and tired of

being sick and tired. i didn't know what was wrong i just knew something wasn't quite right and at that time it turns out i didn't even notice i was one of the highest-paid women in the history of hollywood, that is how little it meant to me and i like to say adjusted for inflation not including the graybill's legs they were insured is the rumor and i am pretty sure they were. you can tell what is a health crowd, they don't get the joke. [laughter] kids, looker up, she was foxy. [laughter] i was working on the film and we were doing a lot of consecutive night shoots so i was doing shift work as my loved one calls it, glorified shift work and i came home exhausted. i was waiting for the shower water to get hot and i literally fell asleep on my feet. have you ever done that cramming for an exam, checking the footnotes on your ph.d. dissertation?

at this point that sounds like the nice way to spend a year. so i fell asleep standing like that and i jolted awake just so surprised and discombobulated i got in the shower and the water was ice cold, san francisco top water, it's cold. and was the second or fourth time i had done that and i got into this big pity party for myself like pity party table of one, and i had the gift of getting over myself. something snapped inside of me. i got sick and tired of my own, you know, pity for myself. and all of these statistics that were still in the peripheral and debate to -- periphery of my mind came to awareness. like how dare i be so pitiful standing in the cold shower when 1.3 billion people with whom i share this planet do not have access to safe drinking water. how dare point and i thought how dare i feel so sorry for myself

when 2.6 billion people don't have an appropriate place to go to the bathroom. when children under the age of five die from upper respiratory infections that i can go to the doctor four. when my sister and i would sit and compare our mosquito bites and compete to see who's for bigger and check our tamim and i would see her vaccination shot, when we had been inoculated as little sheldon against diseases that otherwise could have killed us. and that very same day, and coincidence one has said is god's way of remaining anonymous, i got a letter from population services international asking if i would help represent to north america the urgency about halting the hiv/aids crisis worldwide, and also that very same day i got a call from bono because no talk is never complete without talking about bono.

did you all of his talk? she's amazing. he's the real deal. so bono and my great friend called me up and as i like to say started harassing me and said, you know, we know who you are. we know who you are in your soul and you care about this stuff. you're sole cares about poverty in america and food and security among our children. your soul cares about the growing income gap and about our national security and the effect that in approving global public health can have on securing our borders and creating markets for american goods to replace a jabber i'm going to scotland because we are smart like that and they harassed me more because that's what they do so well. so i said to my friend bono called and he wants us to do this thing and a traveler and the midwestern states we are going to kick off with lawrence buffett and lance armstrong is going to be there and we are to

talk to the heart of america about the hiv/aids emergency and our opportunity to engage in creation worldwide. can we go? he said absolutely. so we got on the bus and went all over the midwest. as president truman said when you give americans the facts, they do the right thing and that's what we tried to do. we then to churches and bus stops and stuff i love doing. that really feeds me and gives me a lot of energy. and that trip was the birth of the one campaign. so i'm very pleased to have the privilege saying i was there at the beginning of the campaign. i am an alumnus of that experience. so basically i quit my day job and got into this full-time to read when i started to travel with psi and was under the guide as a mention of the hiv awareness but none of these problems exist in isolation. just as all of the solutions are holistic. and as soon as i was visiting people who are hiv positive in

brothels i said why do girls and women end up in brothels, baseline, gender inequality. and so, sure we are all these years later, and i am now going to sit down -- are you bored? are you glad you're out of class? this is enlightened self-interest being here because this is your lecture of the week. welcome, dena, back to the stage and let's start having some conversations. thanks for letting me share a little bit. [applause] >> i think perhaps some of the things tweeting said [inaudible] i'm sorry for the noise. the sound department is -- how

is that? >> okay. we will use of this. that's better, isn't it? we are going to start with questions from students and we are going to ask that those that have questions lineup at the microphones so that the questions can be clearly heard by everybody, and then i won't have to repeat them. i was very moved by those words and very interested in hearing about this trajectory that taken in your life in a way of returning to the path he would have originally taken which is interesting to i think many of us have that kind of experience in public health where there are many ways people take to get to the same place. but again, i asked your mother about hewey and we talked a little bit before hand, and one of the things she mentioned that i thought was very interesting is the fact that apparently in

your family there was a history of people that had been involved in health, nurses and others, and the kind of influence that might have had on you early on. >> we grew up with a very strong nursing tradition, and of course i am free proud of that. and it also has to be said that there is that tradition of nursing because other jobs typically were not available to women. nursing of, schoolteaching, etc.. that being said, i think seven nurses in our immediate family. i grew up with my mamaw, my dad's mother is, this is all kentucky stuff, sorry. you've got to get to the nana and the mamaw strait. anyway, i had a great aunt and she was a nurse in the second world war and my great uncle was a little cranky because she had a higher ranking than she did and he had to show that difference. so yes. and then mom and dad split up

when a sister and i were free so she found a way to earn our living as a nurse and a had a great passion for public health. so it is a part of to be our. to connected to the breast feeding thing if you can see the link my mind makes we have far too many uninsured children in this country and it's a drag on the economy and reduces productivity and also it is just emotionally difficult for families and its very shaming for kids, too. there were times mom was in school and i stayed sick, loan because that is all that was available for us to do. she absolutely did the best she could command the whole family did, but that is just what a growing up in a single-parent home with a paycheck that's not equitable does to kids. >> one of the things i've been struck by in the last couple of years is the extent to which

this issue, particularly of women's health and women's reproductive health has somehow entered the political arena. and dr. wood to is here on our faculty is actually somebody who had bet the food and drug administration and left the fda several years ago over issues related to the plan b decisions, and then more recently we have a set of decisions that didn't 100% make sense to all of us. but then also, the attitudes that still seem to be present about issues like rape, and i think that as women we have to talk frankly about those issues because we are so impacted. i am the mother of a 16-year-old daughter and there is nothing that worries me more than those statistics, and knowing that i want her to be a strong and independent person, to be that kind of woman, and at the same time the risks that she and her

friends have every day. and, you know, how we as public health professionals can help to educate and get the society to face this for what it really is, which is a health issue. i don't know if you have advice for us. >> you have no idea how much advice i have. i am trying to identify where to go with this. i appreciated that you included that in your remarks to a i've been aware of gender violence my whole life, being a survivor of gender violence, and yet i was astonished when i went to graduate school and i started to do a deep dive on the numbers here in america how prevalent rape and attempted rape is particularly among the young people. am i correct that it's one of three college students, college women? so that is a lot of us in this room, that is one-third of us in

this room and i think part of what is important in addition to how the shape of the narrative is that we all have the courage to talk about it because, you know, we are as sick as our secrets and the shame keeps us in isolation and when we find that shared experience, we gather our strength and hope. so, for example, you know, i am a three-time survivor of rate cuts and about that i have no shame because it was never mine to begin of, was the perpetrators shame and only when i was an empowered of old and had healthy boundaries and the opportunity to do helpful work on that trauma was labeled as a okay that perpetrator was shameless and they cut their shame on me today i gave it back and it's my job to break my isolation and talk to other girls and women and i see some people crying which is a good thing and that's one of the reasons i have the passion for

and ability -- i am not saying it doesn't hurt because i lose my faith and i try so hard in hotel rooms that people next door are like do we need to help her, but i have the resilience to the gender violence or get to face the reality of child abuse in this country and abroad because i am that kid, i was that kid -- >> we applaud your courage. thank you for being as outspoken as you are. [applause] stila i know there are a third of us in the story but would tell the exact same story of the had the opportunity. >> exactly. >> we have an open microphone. and our students come any of our students if you have any questions -- i see one coming up. >> i can't wait to hear from the college republicans. [laughter]

>> we do have them and in fact in this building they are very welcome. believe or not -- >> that's not a joke. >> believe it or not come here the college republicans and college democrats actually work in the same space. steppe what a concept. [laughter] >> i know, they talk to each other. it's fabulous. we are hoping to set an example for congress. [laughter] >> sorry, i am not one of the republicans. >> what is your name? >> crystal, public health student, master's student, so i was one of the ones that the doctor told us to come. [laughter] by was also invited so it isn't only for that reason. >> so how am i doing? >> amazing. >> so the question is yesterday and one of our class is what dr. sparks, we were talking about kind of the difference that, you know, what feminism

was in the 70's, during the suffrage movement and now and how it's kind of dormant but still alive. do you see what we could do to kind of give that extra push that, you know, when is it the time for us when into makeup and also not us that our partners, our husbands, our fathers, our brothers, our cousins, because the feminist movement is and just about women, but kind of sharing of that bond. so how do you see us trying to kind of like bring that light back into the movement because, you know, my sisters are going to college but they are like we are not feminist like you. i like yes you are because you are going to college. [laughter] >> that's a great place to start. how do you define feminism. we could spend the rest of the day just talking about that. to me is very simple. it's that we are all made in the image and likeness of our creator and we are all sacred and we are here to love each other and the equal to the it's

very simple. >> i think that what has happened is that word has been used in the media to denote something. that a lot of women don't want to identify with an even women who are very strong women, very educated leaders come and maybe it is not even the word that's so important, but what people are doing. >> there is a great book called a little effed up, why feminism is a dirty word and it's by a woman your age, julie come and i don't know how to pronounce your last name, zellinger i think. she heard my essay last year called the conversation, and it was my first experience with something going viral. it was quite extraordinary. i wrote this in 22 minutes in a nightgown underneath of red blood tree. i think it channeled from a higher power. and i knew that there was a sort of movement with this, but when

she published her peace in forbes, she had all of these different textures and dimensions and it made me aware of the book she had written. i would highly recommend it for your age and anyone. it's a really superb book. >> thank you. next question? >> my name is ellen bonaparte and i'll student here. i just returned to school to do global health after many, many years of doing other kinds of academic work. some of the millennium development goals will a few of them be met and most of them not? and right now there is a conversation going on about kind of leaving them aside and moving on to other goals so all right we didn't meet gender equality or we didn't make maternal mortality, but let's do something else next time around. and i was wondering what your thoughts might be on whether we should sustain the efforts with

the goals that we have yet haven't reached or whether we should move on to something else. >> i'm sorry. i'm so sorry. i was giving my mother i kisses. >> i want to make sure everyone in the room -- does everyone know what the millennium development goals are? good we are doing our job. [laughter] >> well, what ever we nicolette, we must continue to pursue gender equality. we must continue to pursue eliminating maternal mortality. i was able, because miracles do happen to do some original math and in graduate school, and i ran some numbers on the number of unintended pregnancies that will happen among women in the democratic republic of congo who

would prefer to have access to modern family planning. between what was then 2010 and 2015, that code word of women of reproductive age alone will have 89 million babies. so we must continue to pursue and accomplished a millennium development goals. >> thanks. estimate it's kind of interesting of the goal setting process is difficult because if you set the bar to low and just easily meet them and then people are not really stretching. and so, i think it's possible some of them won't be met if they are challenging enough it is going to be hard to meet them all. >> it's progress, not perfection. and i really love what melinda gates is doing on the family planning and her great hash tag on twitter and slogan "no controversy." when we allow girls and women to have accurate sex education and we teach abstinence and the ability to reestablish abstinence is one has already been sexually active we all have

the opportunity to meet that personal decision and reestablish abstinence. being faithful to one partner, correct and consistent contraceptive use and access to the type that is right for each individual and couple, and then i made up and added the d years ago and this is so important, delay of sexual debut, delay of sexual debut. that takes appropriate conversations at appropriate times with the appropriate people. and the idea that we can prevent unintended pregnancy is so important because abortion then becomes obsolete, and that's absolutely the goal and what is desirable. islamic that sounds really good to the mother of a teenager sitting here. [laughter] next question. >> my name is laura hoffman. i'm a graduate of the bachelors here in public health and i'm

now an attorney. i work with community health centers. but my real passion lies and global health, and i spent the summer in lebanon and beirut with women who have been traffic to and were now in a safe house. no matter the work we did and the stories we heard, there were stories about how oh-la-la in lebanon, for example, would prevent women from obtaining their passport back once they had entered into the country. their employers had taken them away. so i was just curious about your experience of all the places that you have traveled about the intersection between public health and the law. >> absolutely. it's diabolical. it's diabolical, and i'm very glad congress reauthorize the violence against women act, and that was the trafficking victims protection act, which up to ameliorate some of those double standards within american law. you know, too often we victimize the victims. and in terms of internationally,

that's why i referenced that none of these problems exist in isolation, and the solutions are also holistic. health is the building block of all sustainability. when a girl was healthy, she can go to school. she can stay in school. when she has her period and there is a latrine and there is what she needs for her hygiene, she can stay in school. and then for every year a girl stays in school, she has her first child at an older age. she has your children. obviously her earning capacity skyrockets each year she stays in school. she contributes to her family, her community. it's a way to lift nations out of poverty. and yet, when you have laws like you referenced -- because the girls are still very vulnerable in that situation, right? so lack of awareness about their civic -- their right to civic participation, land ownership and tenure.

there's an incredible woman i met in a brothel in nairobi, young hero ackley and she ended up there because when her dad -- know, when her mother died of hiv because the dad had sex outside of the marriage, and then her dad died, her dad's people came in and kick her off the land because she had no legal right and where does she end up? in a brothel and she was pregnant with her second child while still breastfeeding the first when i met tirso changing oh-la-la is incredible and there are good organizations like the quality now, and women for women international who helped and i appreciate your bringing that up and that sounds like an amazing twin public health and an attorney. so good for you. >> thank you for that question. >> if you're interested in knowing more about sex slavery in the united states i highly recommend looking at the polaris project website. it was started by two kids at brown. i'm telling you guys can change the world.

it's amazing what you can do. they didn't know how difficult it was to pass laws in congress and they got the original trafficking laws passed in this country. and they were largely responsible for the victim, the trafficking victims reauthorize -- you know what i mean but of course that is the one thing that will end up in the paper, write? [laughter] so i highly recommend it and catch on. i would even suggest asking if you could go visit their office. it's a very inspiring place right here in d.c.. >> wonderful. and possibly a place that takes in terms. we have a lot of students interested. [laughter] yes? >> good afternoon. i am meredith waters, a current senior undergrad studying public health, and i know earlier and throughout the conversation you've mentioned how important your faith is to you, and wondering how we can harness that to improve health globally and also what challenges you encountered especially regarding sexual and reproductive health and as someone who is a religious person.

>> wonderful question. i love your question. yet that's one of the things i did want to talk with you all about, because it's hard work. you know, and i don't mean that it's just hard work in terms of the hours that we put in and cognitively the uptake. it's emotionally hard work. it's hard to be with people when they are suffering even at -- and, you know, i've been taught that it's abusive to point out a problem without pointing out a solution to it and i am really clear that my work in america and abroad i am just a surrogate for the people who are doing the grassroots work. and for some reason people are willing to tell me their stories. i received their sacred narrative, you know, which goes back to the beginning of sitting around the fire, you know, telling our story. ..

we so wanted to come on to america with me. that is a death for me, like a spiritual death. i fire god. lose got. of understand got. there's always something that

brings me back whether it's a recession with a friend or the spiritual director, a piece of scripture, poland, encouragement from another person doing this work. and that is what i, because i don't want any of you to burnout , the tragedy to burn out, you are too good. one of the great public africanas sinister and by the way. i would have been terrified not gone to the hollywood. went back and rant and a bowl of husbandry in fish from renfrew of africa and then begin country director of the most of the contras in the world, democratic republic of congo speaking of religion and faith, and when we first met in an international retreat some years ago we were talking about exactly this, how you survive and not burn out. she says public help is my religion. so whatever works for you, work

it. >> yes. >> zillow. >> i. >> fellow kentucky in. fellow. >> uk grad. >> your coming home with me. i am from eastern kentucky. that's what that was. and i am finishing up. i also felt inspired by the election, which is what made me want to pursue public health, just seeing the health disparities that plagues our hell's announce. and that is wanted to ask, and a lot of the agenda a class as we talk about the best way to address gender inequalities overseas. is it top-down? you start with government?

grass-roots? i just want to know, you know, what your thought is. >> is both. it's both. >> thank you for that question. thank you for sharing that. i think we have another one. >> hi. i am elizabeth burnett, mph in maternal and child seldom afford said this summer to travel to india. we were there for two weeks. i -- i was struck the whole time by the amount of garbage in india. i just couldn't -- i would like a the morning and go to bed at night and this could not get over it. so my question is, how do we get anyone to care about they're health when the first thing that they need to care about or that they probably care about is the dump of trash the to separate in front of the house in a slump or that they don't have running

water. to me that seems like the base, and if we can't get that, then we can't expect women to care about getting to school or anyone to care about giving their children the right nutrition, just wandering through your troubles what you've seen and we about to run that. >> my thought is that you found your pick and you should stick with your paid. what i mean by pages, we all have to find the thing that makes this mad and the thing that gives us the fire in the belly and the passion and the stamina to stick with it. and that comes from another goodies to kentucky and, my godmother. heavyhanded my faced. and although she lived in san francisco and had it pegged as a pet. some of her fans your friends are like, was that all about. and cs like, it's my take. it became the slogan for, this is my thing. and this sounds like garbage has

become a thing. go with it. price of go with it. >> and i agree with you about the garbage. i have had the privilege to sit with literally three generations of waste pickers and piqua's took them. it was one of the most bonding and when i left the grandmother heard me and said, you will always be my granddaughter because he sat here and pick twisted knee. it was things like separating if there was a little piece of copper. girls and women disproportionately participate. there is some really great stuff going on with them organize and waste picking, and particularly in central america. >> i just actually the other day watched wasteland from brazil.

>> when i think of her name because i blocker name now because i was so an offer that i was intimidated about give you the name of a professor who has expertise. >> i was in her office. we need to bring the anxiety down. i was trying to do a matrix. of course. >> you people have that effect on us. you do. you do. >> probably a little bit of anxiety is conducive to learning. >> not that much. it's like choking up. >> the question. >> my name is britney salzburg. a former student, now actually a pollster. i work for solyndra lake and lake research partners. we do a lot of public opinion researcher on these issues. this has been so fabulous. i want to go back to what you said earlier of sexual violence

and the importance of speaking out and naming the violence for what it is which i agree is important and critical to this movement. i was wondering what you thought about situations in which the survivor or in some cases the victim, the person that it is still happening to is dependent on they're perpetrator in such a way that speaking out is possible. this happens a lot in the u.s. military. >> absolutely. absolutely. >> that is an issue. >> we are better than that. earlier better and that command has to stop. >> right. so i guess my question is, the you have any thoughts, particularly about policies or how to address that issue specifically? >> such a great question. for miller to familiar with military sexual trauma. first of all of what identify there are multiple ways in which a girl is dependent upon a perpetrator, economically and then there is that we'll of

violence and control. if you don't know what to watch it go online. it shows because what we're talking about is a spectrum of violence. there is the subtle, the covert, and then it travels the spectrum, obviously, to the lack of respect for our bodily integrity and sexual autonomy. and if we can start here this identifying and collectively agreeing that that is, in fact, a former gender violence, we can start disrupted here so does not have to progress all the way to such extreme physical violence. and trauma bonding is perhaps the most under discussed part of this. i think that there is some understanding that if a woman is dependent upon her abuser for income or for what feels like

the protection for children, that is a concept that we get. but when a woman is psychologically bonded with her perpetrator and lives in that extraordinary cajun fear, i think there is more victim blaming that goes on there, and that is part of what i am really interested in. is there anybody doing work on that and iran? have i inspired you to? and then, you know, i actually had the abcaten to direct something in november. it was about military sexual trauma, and i was so pleased. the premise. five shorts, and it is called call me crazy. my particular one was about a veteran who has ptsd from military sexual trauma, and i was able to learn a lot. most of it extraordinarily dismaying. and i highly recommend the documentary called the invisible work on the subject and really

celebrate their courage because, you know, there are women who are raped and our military, and they are charged with infidelity in there not even married. says another has been some progress in congress. senator gillibrand has been helpful. but when the investigator, the prosecution, the defense, the jury, and the community is appointed and controlled by her superior, we make no progress. and as bad as i am that women are not permitted in combat my first fear was there will be more rapes because there will be additional attempts to control women i appreciate you bring it up now we are better than that. i know women in the military you don't go to the bathroom of the middle of the night because sexual assault is so common. and this is unacceptable in the

united states of america. so thank you for being up. and you are going to be a part of the solution because you brought it up. >> you now have the responsibility. >> hi. and epidemiology expert. >> cool. i love epidemiologists by the way. [applause] i mean, i get the slam-dunk education about malaria by one of the greatest in the world. i just love y'all. >> it's good. its members to read its facts. so going back to the sexual violence and gender violence, i am actually a survivor. what we talked about earlier, the one in foreign college campuses, and i -- sorry, i find it hard because, like you just said, women get into power. women learn more, and then they're constantly brought back. and how do we keep ourselves going?

like that -- how the like constantly wants to us do more and prevented from happening again, yet feel pushed back. i am glad that you spoke openly today because i felt less alone. and i know that is with a lot of people, and it is the 1-and-4 because of my senior year in college i could count in my graduating class. it was a small school. i can literally count israel started talking about it. and it should not happen on a college campus because there is the statistic that if you don't go to college are less likely in that age group have an assault, and that is messed up. >> that is so messed up. you put it well. >> thank you so much for sharing that. thanks to you for sharing so openly. i can see some many faces around the room. i know that it helps us all with being able to open up and to, as you say, you know, be able to face that and not push it back.

it is so important what you said about not pushing it back. thank you so much. >> well, what comes from the head goes over the head, and what comes from the orchestra to the art. the greatest journey we ever take is that 18 inches that connects the two. >> i. my name is cassandra, and i am a graduate of the school global health program. and i worked at the fda right now. there are so many questions that i have, don't even know where to start exactly. you're the first famous person i ever met. hello. [laughter] my father is still a levity. [laughter] >> that hockey poster? >> i guess maybe my question might actually be for the first. and i say this because hearing all of these stories about women placed in these positions of violence as victims really disturbs me, and that think this should be your pay because if

one in four students that are female of being abused, these people that are the aggressors are the boys on campus here, all the young male students. i mean statistically was going to do except people around them. and if you look at the premier you're talking about feminism and being interested in gender studies and learning about empowering women and people. they're all women for the most part. why are we not using our resources here at the school to appeal to more young men to become part of the program? become more active. honestly. >> it's a good point. interesting that the next person at the mike is male. [laughter] >> if you. >> i think it is a good point. >> i would just mention a mentoring violence prevention program. are you familiar with that? mvp. it is an initiative that reaches out to boys on campus, and men on campus who have a lot of

social capital and teaches them about that spectrum of violence and how to use their voice to disrupt within their peer group because all we're talking about the smell test-mail alliances that isolate and diminish the voice of girls. and so i would suggest that you take a look at the mentoring violence prevention program. it's wonderful. >> man squeeze in another question? and sorry. so, my question is -- and destroyed to go ahead and wrote that. [laughter] what kind of resistance are obstacles and you met from women , either cultural, social, economic. i mean, what have you personally experience and your work that maybe you have got an opposition from women? >> for example, female genital mutilation. sometimes there are very strict cultural ties to that. >> sometimes women are tasked with enforcing some of the rules

in society that are difficult for women. and for whatever reason, i just think, you know, out of fear, perhaps, that the dollar goes outside of the status quo she will be harmed. i think it's also not a concern of the protective. but they often have that role of being in the first line for all their children of enforcing whatever roles there are in a society, and sometimes it does seem paradoxical that it is actually women who are, you know, communicating this. >> money talks. money talks. i mean, i was -- one of my minors was cultural anthropology, as it was called at the time. and that does not mean that there is a place in the 21st century for harmful traditional practices such as female general mutilation. when i say money talks, one of the things that has been

effective is to take the female general lee letters for whom this is a cultural legacy and initiative responsibility and give them an alternate striven come and then all of a sudden they don't have to rely on it for they're survival and they're thinking is open to changes. so that is just an example of economic and empowerment. and then, you know, when you ask about my personal experiences, i would refer you to that essay, the conversation because that is absolutely how i experienced -- and as part of the deal, right? is divided caulker. no, my god. there was this horrible thing recently. all little -- i have -- i got my family of origin and my family of choice. she was telling me about something that she heard in our small, rural community. it was opposed this said, maine, don't bother to try to

understand women. women understand each other, and they hate each other. are you kidding me? and strong female to female alliances are so important. i would encourage you to cultivate them as if your life depended on it because it does. eventually had surgery which worked extremely well. thank you got i have not done six since then, but i had this horrible extended repeated chronic sinusitis. turenne's steroids. at puffy face. and then all the sudden women everywhere are saying it was so contradictory that i either had plastic surgery and look better had not had enough and i look bad. i mean, it was just nuts, and that's when i read that as a. i would refer you to that. strong female-to-female alliances because life does

depend on it. >> i'm sorry. did not see behind. >> hi. i'm casey. i'm a freshman year. i grew up in just the suburbs, the regular suburbs under the statistics like one in three women will be sexually assaulted . to me that was just a statistic. it never was in my face. and i come to college and so many of my female friends come to me. sorry, i'm a little nervous. they come to me and they tell me how they have been sexually assaulted. and this is the first time where i -- it's face-to-face. i am dealing with it, but so few of them, led none of my friends who have come to me and told me that go to the proper authorities, go to anyone for advice. they just deal with it. at the university we have such great resources that they can go to. house proctor's, the crisis centers. so many resources, but none of them seem to want to go to it. and my question, first of all, why did not want to? second of all, what can i in the

position that they put me in committee to try to help them? >> you can ask them why they don't want to go, and you can take a bite and integrity yourself. >> yes. i think, you know, all of this need to encourage, seek help. and i do think as far as we have come, even in the u.s., is so ingrained in us, is something like that happens to us maybe people are going to think we did something because it. >> well, most responses are not victims center, and it sounds like to have some good resources to that are. i have the opportunity to be familiar with the san francisco's center for child abuse prevention, and it really is a national model if any of your interest in such. please check out. the great professor, madeleine albright's daughter, katie, is one of the moving forces there. and they are creating a facility so that when of victim comes forward she is only interviewed

once, and every person who needs to be a part of that process is there because retelling the story is free traumatizing. there is the rape and then there's the right after the rape and the idea that the investigator, the social worker, a case manager, all of the police can all be there and it is handled with the appropriate sensitivity as the person tries to de-brief something that is so dramatic, that is how we should move for this. and then more people will feel comfortable. it is difficult, but they will feel comfortable sharing their story. a personal anecdote, a friend of mine's daughter was gain-raped. she obviously was absolutely wild, absolutely wild with her grief and horror. she did all the things a shootout with the right things. she took her daughter to the largest room. you know, she told one series of caregivers and then the staff changed and that she had to tell the story again.

and then there was all this stuff about insurance and all this crap and then the police showed up. she had to tell the story again command at the end of the day they said, oh, you're in the wrong county. and her mother did not press charges and she goes to the three boys are. q could not put her child through that. >> a number of people are at the microphone. i think only a few more minutes. and so what i am going to do is try to up hopefully if we can move quickly,. >> i just interrupted. >> you did not. you are the show. each of u.s. gear question briefly and we will see if their is a scene. give one answer. >> this is perfect. let's go. >> site. i am a graduate of the master's program year and a doctorate program now. i have a wonderful opportunity to work on the project.

my heart and passion is in central africa. my question is, as someone who has also traveled to the condo and has experienced the years of oppression within that country and has talked to women, it is a common theme, using rape as a weapon of war. how do we address issues around child survival and mortality when people are faced with conflict and political instability? >> love that question. >> all right. >> fostering democracy in helping countries build democratic institutions. in the yakima national democratic institute, for example. after right these down. >> i was thinking the same thing. >> hi. i am an mba student in global health. my question is that brett the valve and sexual violence against women, violence against women in general is always related to improving gender equality and improving things

like that, but i feel like racism is never really brought into the realm. and for minority in america it is so completely intertwined with that disparity. yet people are so reluctant to talk about it that if they do talk about it it is in such an abstract and unhelpful way that we never get to the root of the problem. w address something that is so integral to summon a minority woman in the country of a subject that no one wants to bring up? >> thank you. >> hi. i am a master's a public health student. i get nervous sending notes on my phone. >> i am a lot more nervous than y'all are. i promise. there are people here don't give a rat's you know what about public health. >> we have been talking a lot about violence. and in our maternal child health class we just talked up the life course perspective. we have been focusing on violence on college campuses.

obviously it is groups that go to a much earlier phase and life. how do you propose adjusting it from a life course perspective and just dr. diaz told us a story in baltimore related to violence and teen pregnancy there. the young man felt like they needed to pass on they're dna essentially because violence was so rampant in their communities that it was causing high rates of pregnancy in your mind. >> hi. my name is sylvia. i am health policy student at the miles-per-hour program. my question is a little more domestically focused because that you may be running for political office. not asking you about that. >> is there an elephant in the room. >> i am wondering what your perspective is? right now we're living in a country that is extremely polarized politically. i am wondering how we sort of a dress and move forward on some

of these underlying issues of poverty such as racism, gender equality, income inequality, education disparities in wealth disparities, how do we really to really in this climate address these issues and move toward? thank you. >> a wonderful question. how you make that into one question? [laughter] >> and dying to see what you do. >> wow. there is definitely a very powerful theme that has emerged through the course of our time together, and that is violence against women. and i appreciate your awareness and your passion and your understanding that when girls and women are constrained in any way through they're health, educationally, economically, they cannot reach their potential, and neither can their families and society. so that definitely is a theme. with regard to camino, i am all for our country showing or might

to. i am also for us showing arrogance. our compassion, and the of brilliance and the idea of democracy. there are things that we can do to help failed states strengthen their institutions and to foster democracy. the carter foundation is very good at that. the national democratic institute is very get that. and as i said earlier, someone piffling, the answer is both from the top down and from the bottom of. you know, everyone talking about a place like the condo, which is an intensely mineral-rich country, it is all about abusive mineral extraction. there is such a legacy of corruption that literally the officials don't know how not to be corrupt. so, you know, what is your pick? could government's directive get it. it is crucial. it is crucial. and then i really liked the life

course perspective because the average age of entry into prostitution in the country's wealth. and all of them are survivors of sexual abuse, whether it is incest or stranger abuse. and so we have to start disrupting that immediately. you know. and my mother is here. we talked about the status of a lot. nobody was bad and wrong. it is just the way that things were. a lot of love and our family, and some things did not work for well at times. i lived alone for two years growing up in two different states. a live in a rural farm house in tennessee by myself. and i realize, that's not working so well, some right to live somewhere else and i jump from the fine print to the frying pan into the fryer. he put $40 a soda of the upper left the state. in kentucky and about myself in this apartment. no one ever noticed.

not a guidance counselor, not a teacher. one neighbor who reached out to me. she said to my think of something not under our. itouch seat was rich british she had cinemax. and she listened to me after school. so it is about recognition. is about voice. this is about victim center policies, and it is ultimately about empowerment and gender equality. that does include eliminating racism in all its iterations and guises. >> all i can do at this point is thank you. you know, it has just been wonderful to have you visit with us today. the work you do on behalf of women and children everywhere is fabulous. we do have something for you, little thank-you gift. school of public health. it's not much. it's something. >> thank you so much. >> thank you so much.

>> thank you. [applause] >> i hope he will come back. the daffodils are fixing to bloom in kentucky. >> look at that. >> i know what to do with this. >> don't wait five years to come back again. >> i will not. >> we have the building coming out. come and visit us there. and it our great appreciation. i think that what you have shared with us is a personal and wonderful and well-informed and it as it's been fabulous. >> the key for having me. i appreciated. [applause] >> standing ovation from the mother. >> thanks, everybody. thank you. i am going to call your kids. it has been a pleasure and i admire you for what your doing.

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the supreme court is the general lee study of the oral argument in wednesday's case challenging section five of the voting rights act. the provision in question requires all or parts of 16 states with the history of discrimination to clear any changes to they're election laws

either with the u.s. attorney general or a 3-judge panel of the u.s. district court of d.c. we have linked the audio on our website, and you will have an opportunity to listen to the proceedings tonight on our companion network, c-span, starting in 9:00 eastern. >> this morning president obama met with congressional leaders at the white house to discuss solutions to avoiding the sequestered. the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect today. no agreement was reached as the president and lawmakers began to shift their focus to the march march 27 deadline when government funding is set to run out. earlier today a chair of the house armed services committee talked about the impact the automatic spending cuts would have on contractors and companies doing business with the pentagon. here is a look. >> i have never in my lifetime seen such a lack of leaders and truth telling emanating from the white house and from our commander-in-chief.

senator reid and the democratic leaders, for three years, have not passed a budget, and we have given them a pass. you have given them a pass. i was watching general of vienna this morning. he said he has been chief of the army for a year-and-a-half and never had a budget. that same thing goes for the chip commanded -- the chairman of the joint chiefs and all the chiefs. these men who have dedicated their life to protecting our nation, we put them in these very responsible jobs and give them no financial support, no direction. sequestration was the president's idea over a year ago. when we tried to fix it he said no. if you do anything, i'll veto it. then during the campaign he said, it won't happen. then the last couple of weeks he has come out and said its armageddon. the world is going to end. last couple of days he stopped

and said, no, just trying to -- he has played all kinds of roles in this position, and when woodward, a respected journalist, tried to lay out the truth, he was crucified, vilified, and i don't know what extent this white house will go to, but is got to and. we have done cutting our defense you know, we are fairly intelligent. we know that we can cut to sense out of the dollar of government spending. every family knows what to do that. but while we cut those $0.2, $0.50 has come out of our national defense for every dollar we as bad. the president has talked about a balanced approach and will even address the real problem is. we're telling the president and the speaker of the house, when you walk out of that meeting this morning did not plan on cutting our national defense one

more sense -- send. >> at one point steinbeck had to write a small paragraph that said basically, people are asking what happened. this is after his wife joins him in seattle. everything -- and he says meat is elaine n. john. it is not charlie and john. somebody must've said to him, hey, where's charlie. he disappeared. steinbeck wrote about a page in half of legal tablet saying, the blast would happen to charlie. well, when my leader joined me in seattle, charlie took his third position in the family thing. he is fine. well, obviously that never appeared in the book because what they did is that editors went in and just expired is to entirely. almost 30 days of her presence with john on the west coast. there were not camping out. there are now studying america. there were basically on a

vacation. >> of french journalist contends that john steinbeck took so many liberties with the truth and travels with charley that it cannot be classified as nonfiction. more with the author of dogging steinbeck sunday at 8:00 p.m. on c-span today. recently the nation's governors gathered in washington d.c. for their annual winter meeting. during their closing session governors heard from tv personality dr. ross, cartier-bresson surgeon. he warns against smoking, sedentary lifestyle, an obesity in the country. this is just over 40 minutes. [applause] >> thank you. appreciate your reminded me to mention that i live in new jersey. [applause] i work in new york. i pay taxes everywhere. it is a great honor to talk a little bit today about a theme that i think will interest many of you because it has huge

budgetary implications. but thought i would also speak very personally about what you need help -- may be able to do in your own lives. i had a great honor spending a few hours with your spouse is yesterday would give me a lot of insight about what she does a word about. it will come up eventually in the future. let me start off with a little bit of my background. i am a cardiac surgeon. as to practice medicine at columbia university in new york presbyterian hospital in my specialty areas is a replacement therapy. i learned through heart transplants, developing these technologies, you have to give people bad news a lot of times. and what you learn to do is give them bad news by telling them the truth, but you keep their respective the same time. that is our biggest challenge a state leaders. and part of the mission that i have for today is to give you some points that may be viable as you try to establish that ability to give people news they don't want to year, whether it is about addiction issues, their weight, the budget the you're going to have to deal with and still have them remember

energetically you're on the right path. this is my office. it will -- it looks like many of your offices, and quite certain, and oftentimes you're lost in that domain, but i've been able to focus on a few things that they might be able to pull us out of that storm. the first is that state responsibility and in my opinion personal responsibility needs right here in the ways lines of our nation. and there are a lot of reasons i say that command will present some numbers to support this, with a fundamental debate actually is the role of the state for several of the individual when it comes to health and this is how many folks view their citizens. start lying around having a beer , yet when we try to get state involvement and try to pull those pieces together, this is what it often looks like where people are pushing the dork as hard as they can, but the doors on opening because they're not reading the sign. and when we try to allow legislative solutions to some of these problems which are above as well. how do you find that balancing act? i think their is a tight rope that is walkable and a very safe

way, but it mandates that we understand a few fundamental principles about how we message the health of formation. remember, when i speak about health to my it's not just about medicine, it's about life. ironically of us have ancestors have lived in small towns and communities where there was always a leader. that is what you are. and there's always a healer. and healer played an important role, not during surgery or giving you poseur herbs but they played a role giving you a place to be heard. it's about life. and that moralistic view of the role of health that drives this because none of us can establish or expect to live in a healthy state if it is not a wealthy state, but the converse is true as well. you can't have true wealth if you're not happy. espanola a ton with oprah, as jack mentioned. at that about 80 shows with her for the course of my career and learned a few interesting insights that allowed her to be so successful that i think will color and the lines of this debate as well. first off, people do not change

what they do based on what they know. the change with a debased and how they feel. and when we appreciate that insight we begin to think differently about delivering certain messages. we will give you some examples. secondly, the message was delivered with caring energy because it does matter how the hear the message and finally and most importantly, if you remember nothing else ramada said today, we have to make it easy for people to do the right thing. sometimes that means passing laws, rules, regulations that allow that to effortlessly happen, but we have to grease the road to success so that people can slip down it more eloquently. 20 percent extra energy is required to thinking, with a new idea. the reason we automate our lives as big as we don't want to spend that energy wastefully, so we don't bother thinking. it is not because people are dumb or foolish or misguided. it is our natural human desire not to have to reinvent the wheel every day which is why i think we can do things to make it easier did the right thing. let me show you one slot on

numbers of mortality. this is an estimate, pretty good estimate on premature mortality causes. some of the systematic, some environmental. look at the purple part of the spirograph, medical access. that is the reality that about 10 percent of the time she not have access to health care you don't have a doctor. it's like having a ship full of oil pulling in to a document that tanker route is a big as the coastline it inadvertently spews oral across the bay. that is expensive to clean up. that is what happens to be blunt have access to care. it costs more because it is much more difficult to pick up the pieces. the red area is a major category that we will focus on, which is behavior. let's start off with access. on the show we have gone around the country doing free screenings. i think these are very scalable, very affordable, sponsored by

local health care facilities. they take 15 minutes and let me show you a quick video what that experience is like. >> from our very first day we have had one simple mission for the show, to empower you to take control of your health. we try to accomplish that every day here in the studio. each year we also hit the road to bring our message directly to you. this year we launched our biggest program ever, helping thousands of americans get life-saving screenings. now this year we have embarked on our most ambitious campaign yet. we created the 50-minute physical to bring life-saving screenings to everyone. and instead of focusing on just one city, we're going nationwide. philadelphia, pittsburgh, washington d.c., tampa, portland, and a related stop, kansas city, missouri.