over the last few years. we have a focus on innovation and science and technology. last year we opened a partnership with seven american universities, developed in innovation laboratory puna those laboratories are producing new technologies and insights like a telescope that the transnet would be interested and i'm sure but it takes an iphone and connect it to a plastic microscope and allows you to take a photograph of a blood smear and then runs the software to diagnose malaria and hopefully someday tuberculosis, taking laboratory diagnostics out of treatment and care and in the context we work would be a major cost readers are and will allow us to add to the list of success stories in terms of serious disease reductions and difficult parts of the world. ..

for women and, girls, and i've just asked you maybe in written responses to tell us a little more about the progress that you're making with respect to those issues, and particularly, how investing in gender-equality is helping to reduce poverty and create opportunities around the world. in particularly in learning more violence against women all over the world. i know, it's work ongoing and i would like to hear more about

that in the written response. in my last response, thank you for helping the country improve order delivery and sanitation. i know, the great success they are having, and thank you, again for your leadership. i yield back the negative ten seconds. >> the chair of the asia subcommittee is recognized. >> thank you, ma'am chair. i want to emphasize something he said the u.s. is most generous country on earth by far in providing aid around the world. i find it particularly annoying that we oftentimes have to hide a source of that aid, which is the american taxpayer, because we might offend some people who let's face it hate america. we should proudly and prominently display and in fact

trump the generosity and the goodness of the american people. if it offends someone and turn the aid down, fine. we'll give it to somebody else. we would appreciate it. as chair of asia and pacific subcommittee, a couple of questions. one on indonesia and one on china, and one on vietnam. i believe the millennium challenge account, the sustainability economic growth mission is how all of our foreign assistance should be modeled. because in a number of cases it's proven to be far more successful than many of the foreign assistance programs administrated through usad. on indonesia, 2006 indonesia was named eligible for the mcc threshold program, which seeks to reduce corruption by bolstering several key antecorruption institutions couldn'ting the supreme court and the anticorruption.

last frel 100 in 2011 to 118 out of 176 countries polled. relative to other countries polled, indonesia remains in the, quote, cluster of countries with significant corruption problems, unquote. considering the have have been in a few years now. how they helped fight corruption and some of the challenges you are confronting in meeting your program goals. as i understand in the particular case, indonesia has been reluctant partner in implementation which questions the sustainability of the program once the mcc leafs. can you discuss the particular issue and how they are working to address the problem? thank you. >> corruption is a major obstacle to economic growth, and we have absolutely zero tolerance for corruption.

let me say that, you know, all of the countries including indonesia was selected because their paths of corruption indicators. and we look in term to see if in fact corruption is -- [inaudible] we know that despite the effort to cut down on corruption often exist not only in indonesia and the partner countries. with e know it exists in developed countries. we look in terms of -- [inaudible] do they honor contract? go they abide by the rule of law? are the judges independent from the, you know, executive branch of government? are they creating the environment for businesses to squeeze? we look for trends to make sure they are creating a very friendly environment for businesses to succeed. part of $600 million is to help the country to fight corruption primarily by helping with opportunities in the countries. in fact, they had to do a

special to set an mcc affiliate in the country. previously all aids with final directly for the government. we don't give not even a dime directly to the government. the president agreed the entity had to be approved. >> let he cut you off there. i have two other questions. one on china, usad requested money for china for support funds for china. you know, right now they owe an estimated $1.7 trillion of u.s. debt. they hold over $3.25 trillion in cash reserve. how do you justify that? we have a $16.8 trillion debt. relative to vietnam, we had a staff last month -- the human

rights record unfortunately is not good, an unfortunately many argue is getting worse. it's been requested an $18 million increase other the past year. how do you justify that? so you fifteen stoakdz answer both questions. >> okay. with respect to china, we don't provide any support to the government of china. the $4.5 million is to help community improve livelihood. and there's absolutely no correlation or flow to the chinese government whatsoever. with respect to vietnam, i would note that the compared to this fy '12 reel number, the fy '14 request is an overall 12% retucks in the investment there. and the focus there is to maintain our support for the hiv aids efforts as well as to

support civil society and in particular people with disabilities nice to the die yox and mediation. >> thank you. >> thank you. we'll go to mr. ill -- elliot. the ranking member on the committee. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like consent to insert my statement to the record. i want to talk about some of the things, you know, in this difficult fiscal environment, some reflectively turn to the foreign assistance budget the first place to make cuts. i think that's regrettable. i want to say that. i think it's important. i want to commend the administration for the proposal, the programs -- millions of taxpayer dollars and harm and agricultural market in the country we are trying help. secretary of agricultural said the reform initiative will have little or no effect on the american farmers. i would like to say a few more words. i would like ask doctor to

comment on the administration's plans to structure a food program to make them more efficient and affordable. i want to say in terms of global health, i was pleased to see the increase in funding for global health programs usad especially for. farm. i think it's very important. and i think many of the reforms pursued by usaid and the state department based on the mcc model. i think that's very good. i'm interested in hearing your thoughts about how mcc can address my long standing concern about how we work with countries that lack data on the respect of score cards. i've been -- disappointed in mcc's handle of kosovo not a member of the u.n. because of the dependency on the u.n. they were left with many failed

boxes. essentially keeping competing for exact or threshold program. i thought it was unfair to europe's newest country. i recognize mcc'sw llingness to accept that it's unclear how mcc uses the information to calculate a country's scores and like the rest of mc consideration's process there's nothing transparent eat the approach. i hope they address the problem so in the future countries in closet vow's positions will be evaluated and able to compete the same way as other countries. and the last point before i ask you to answer the questions. congress has been appropriating unprecedented sums for the palestinians. and the palestinian authority for the past several years. it's important for maintaining semblance of stabilitied in the west bank and it's palestinian relations as well as the humanitarian reasons. but it's no coincidence this increasing u.s. assistance has occurred during the ten years of

prime minister, the man had great respect for the emphasis on budget transparency and other aspect of good govern mans. he resigned last week. we anticipate an replacement will be named soon. i want to take the country to urge the president and the palestinian considering appoint someone to continue the positive aspect of fie yacht's approach without continuing budget transparency for the palestinian authority will not be possible. so i'm wondering, first, dr. shaw, we meant. many times. i'm an admirer of yours. i support the administration like chairman. i support the plans to restructure the food aid programs to make them more efficient and i fordable. could you elaborate the potential taxpayer savings to generate. do you believe it will have any impact on the mesh farm impact and has dod signal their concern about the proposal in regard to the impact on military readiness

and deployment capacity? >> thank you, mr. chairman ranking member. thank you for your leadership across the range of these issues and the extra effort you put in to help us do our work better and more effectively. with respect to those food reform proposal, it's geared around the absolute intention to reach four million additional children without spend additional resources. we recognize these are difficult budget times and the fy '14 is total 6 percent lower than the f imrrks '12 request. with respect to what is happening right now and why it's urgent. because of the incredible need -- limited flexibility we had in the program has been absorbed in the context. as a result there are many other parts of the world somalia, the drc, reverting kids from programs supported through the more flexible, local, and region procurement program back to the

more restrictive title ii program inspect in context of that we are having to reduce services to thousand of beneficiary. we bereave we need the flexibility and studied carefully the impact on american agricultural. the truth is over the last decade, this program has been sliferling up because of the changing cost structure of the effort. we used to shoplilft 5 -- ♪ed this is less than one-half of one percent of the total value of u.s. agricultural export and proposing a diminishment from 85% to 55% in terms of tide u.s. commodity as part of the program. there have been more than a dozen studies that have validated the efficiency gains of taking this approach in a number of respects, and we believe this will help us renew the partnership between american agricultural and humanitarian communities to maintain american food security and hunger around the world. thank you.

>> thank you. mr. the chairman will indulge me. i mentioned it's a testament to mcc many of the reforms being pursued by usaid are doing it on large part on mcc model. because the benchmark should be the hall mark of the foreign assistance programs. i commend you for that. i would like your comments on kosovo. it's ban long standing frustration of mine. >> congressman, thank you. when kosovo became invent in 2008 presented a challenge for us. we simply did not have a lot of indicators from the indicater companies. but 2008 we worked very closely with all the indicators agencies that provide us that administration. and today we have more information about closet -- kosovo than in the past. the only is [inaudible] able to get supplement information directly from them.

worked with them closely to make sure what needed to be done. and the good news and the bad news, congressman, is they have graduated to the higher income bracket in the last two years. if they continue to make that progress, nay may not be eligible for a program. but we work with them and i'll be more than happy to work with you, congressman, with a we need to do in the future with cases like this one. >> thank you. i want to work closely with you on that. before i relinquish. i would like to just add my voice to mr. smith's commentings about cutting tv funding by $57 million. it's extremely shortsighted. and i really think that we have to sufficiently fund our effort

to treat and eliminate turk tuberculosis. i wish you would take that to consideration. >> thank you. i wanted to go just for a minute, to this issue of food aid reform, and ambassador shah, i'm encouraged by the reform proposal as one that had been made in the prior administration as well or been suggested. i remember talking to andrew about your predecessor in your position. about some of the challenges that he had and his feeling that had is both hands tied behind his back. as he shared with us at one point, we had a devastating food crisis in africa, and in asia, he said food often gets there after everyone is dead. he was clearly very, very per teshed by the sirngzs and the --

circumstances and the delays. one of the things that he said eat shipping costs as he was commenting on the reality in the burdensome way that the system operateed. when it takes months for food aid to arrive, or when you have a situation where you have seen the united states dump food in to markets that undermine local production and drive the population in to deeper poverty, it really gives you pause in terms of our current method of operation. when i chaired the africa subcommittee, we had the president of mali here. about a decade, probably, ago. and he testified how it was undermining his farmers and how it was undermining -- how agricultural subsidies were undermining his society.

you know, there's aing negative impact on the western agricultural subsidizes it has on african farmers. and we need to be responsible here. and the framework for your proposal, i think, has been found to save time, money, certainly lives, and i think it promises to reduce the deficit going forward over the next ten years by about a half billion dollars. so i was going ask you a question, and this goes to the issue of aid to refew agree from syria. i think that the requirement of u.s. ship recently delayed a food shipment to sir yap i was going to ask you about that. >> thank you, mr. chairman, thank you for your very strong and effective leadership on this topic in particular. you know, the syria crisis has in fact precipitated in urgency

around the need for this reform. both because in opposition controlled part of syria, food -- traditional food convoy would be targeted. we had more than 150 deaths across humanitarian workers in that context, and because we used what limited flexibility we have in and around syria, it's been effective in that context, we have eliminated our capacity to use that same flexibility in places like somalia and the drc. so all of the basic points you have made, i think, the core rash tell me for the effort. we know we can get a 30 to 50 percent cost reduction. we know there's an 11 to 14 week shipping delay in pursuing the traditional model. we know ship cost increased by a factor of more than 3 over the last decade. which is why the met tricks have fallen to 1.8 metric tons. as a result american leadership

on the issue around the world has fallen. today we service less than half of the beneficiary we did when president bush and andrew made a version of the proposal ten years ago. i also want to validate and highlight the challenges of the practice of monotizing food assistance. when we try to support a wonderful partner like care or world vision or catholic relief services in the democratic republican of congo by shipping food from here to there, giving them the food, and sell precisely the market they are using the cash to help farmers produce value. they create strong disincentive and, and frankly, lose 50 percent in the value in that case of the resource compared to what we spent buying the food on this end of the world. so there's a strong consensus around a data-driven approach here. we try put the proposal forward in a way that manages and maintain the important coalition

required to renew american leadership on hunger. >> let me bring up one other issue. i'm deeply concerned about the growing number of land seizure taking place in the philippines. property rights are important to economic security. but in term of economic growth. i see the request for development assistance in the philippine includes an increase of 6.6 million for a total of 87.7 million. will any of these funds be directed toward securing and protecting property rights. if not, why not? >> it is our intention is to ensure that we work on the range of those types of issues and the context of the programs. i'd have to provide more specific details, perhaps in writing. >> i'll be in consultation with you. >> thank you. >> mcc has $4 34 million in the impact with the philippines. that's nearly two years in to implementation, and i appreciate

your commitment to rages the land seizure issue with the government there. s not an issue of commitment to rule of law that is central to your mission? >> mr. chairman, it's important, the rule of law. and we have communicated our concerns to the government. it's extremely important for economic growth, and i know they are committed in the fight against corruption, but also they need to do something different on this one. and base order the conversations we had with them, they understand the problems and they are willing and committed to find solutions for this problem. thank you for your effort. we appreciate it. we are going to go now to dr.. >> thank you.

thank you for being here. as a doctor, i recognize the important work usaid does. particularly in the global health initiative and through the pet work sending important programs that have really relieved human suffering. obviously one of the emboles of both mcc and usaid help the countries that were interacting with become self-sufficient. and that always one of our goals. my conversation with the government of india and the state of california as we're looking at the issue of food security and helping india feed its own population. i was astonished at the amount of food -- that occurs in india. upward of 40% of the food get lost. in a nation where hundreds of

millions go to bed hungry every night. a lot is around issue of cold storage and issue of lack of infrastructure of taking the food and moving to market. i would be interested in hearing from either one of you on some effort working with the government of india to improve both the storage issue and then the movement issue. >> thank you. i'll address a few of the points. with respect to the food security and india. what president obama visited during the state visit, he launched a partnership for an every green revolution with prime minister. and that partnership was designed to have both countries partner along technical and other lines as opposed to having the united states make significant investment. plenty of resources in the agricultural sector. as a result of that, three things happened. one is there's been a much expanded technical exchange across the university. some from california like davis, along with partner of university

in india. many of which we have a stro role in helping to scare develop decades ago. the indian government tried to pass legislation to allow for american companies like walmart and others to be involved and specially professionalizing the food chain and creating and bringing the technology and logistic capability of the company to address exactly the issues you raise, like cold storage and reducing post harvest losses. we have been a technical partner in the effort. between u.s. aid, usda that's moving forward. the third and final thing, there are a range of technology partners in india that joined the effort and actually partnering with the united states investing their own resources in tackling hunger in subsha sub-saharan africa. we think it's a role. bringing some of the technology and business toss partner with

us on the challenge in sub-saharan africa. >> about 40% of mcc's investment are tried to primarily to help the countries become secure. so for example in agricultural, we not only training farmers how to become self-sufficient but providing them with at love opportunities. we are -- [inaudible] and last year we completed five impact evaluations with our countries as the department training. and we're seeing great results. in the past, most development agencies issue in the outpostand outcome of the as a result of former training. what we are learning is take one step further and, for example, in el el

the in nicaragua they increase the income by 30% inspect in ghana they increase the income significantly by 40 or 50%. we know it's difficult to do to see if our investment are increasing household income. which is ciflt to do. but we're going to know more in the next two or three years. we have seen great result with the department of our program. >> i think that's exactly what we should be doing; right. as we help people and countries become more self-sufficient, obviously we help save lives. and we help promote our democratic values. it also is good business sense, doctor, as you pointed out. we have technologies the university partnership that are occurring, you know, with the institution at uc davis as well as with our entrepreneurs and innovators. certainly we can take what we're doing here and export that and

help other countries. i look forward to working with you. i yield back. >> we'll go. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. let's -- before we can have an honest discussion, people need to face the reality of what our fundamental are here in the united states. we're going -- dr. shah, do you know what the proposed level of deficit spending is? why the administration in their budget -- not foreign aid but overall? no, you don't. and do you know? at least, we're going spend -- we're going to at least expend billion more than taking in. we have been doing it for five

years. if that's not corrected within a short period of time we won't be able to do any of these things you're talking about. so whatever we are in order to do our responsibility here, we need to be confronting that basic truth. how do we do that? yeah. it's a trillion -- not a billion. excuse me. a trillion. a billion billion. so before every expenditure we're talking about, we need put in front of this is this worth the united states borrowing this prune this money from china we're going to spend it. that's what we're talking about. talk about borrowing money from a foreign power probably china or japan in order give it to someone else. if we can't hon ally an that. we shouldn't be doing that

project, that's for sure. i personally believe that we need to restructure aid considering this. so our aid is no longer developmental aid. he's doing a great job in that he's insisting on with the organization changes in the fundamental status quo that created the hardship of the countries rather than giving the aid, which will then not do any good at all because the way you do thing it is will go back to what it was. ..

a couple questions on specifics this year. dr. shah, you visited china last week and were involved in a new working group on climate change that was announced. you were to cooperate in developing these new queen technology projects. we have been giving it china -- borrowing money to get to china for these technologies. is that over or does your announcement mean we are going to continue giving aid to china that we are actually borrowing from china? >> thank you, congressmen. to clarify, sir, i wasn't in

china and am certainly not a part of that but i would also highlighted that our request with respect to china is focused on the to that community. >> thank you very much. that is a good answer. let me just announce right here that we shouldn't be giving aid to countries that are hostile to the united states or can be seen that their governments have committed actions that have supported international terrorism. that's why, mr. chairman, i would -- i plan to offer an amendment to whatever bill comes to the floor that suggests that pakistan should get not 1 penny of support for anything until the doctor, the man who helped us bring to justice osama bin laden is free from the pakistan the mengin. the american people need to be

outraged that pakistan is holding him in the first place after giving safe haven to osama bin laden, the murder of 3,000 of our citizens. but for us to give them aid on top of that is absolutely unconscionable so mr. chairman, i will be offering an amendment and until he is free we shouldn't consider giving them 1 penny. there are other countries that are hostile to us and we shouldn't be giving money to those countries while their governments are hostile to the united states. thank you. >> thank you. now we go to lewis from florida. >> thank you very much. i want purse to the first of all thank you to the panel and preface my remarks first by saying that i do believe that foreign aid has a good purpose when it spent correctly. so with that said i do want to

talk to you about afghanistan because from what i have read and what i have heard is that much of the aid that we've given and i'm not even talking about the military now it's been very wasteful, it's lined the pockets of bad actors, it's been used for bribery, it's made folks there more reliant on the united states and less reliant on themselves. so in that regard, i would like you to comment on that but i want to ask you some questions that you could also comment on. who is in charge of the development in the world? you can use afghanistan as an example. is it the military who seems to be doing similar functions? is at the state department do

you measure your outputs if you build a school day you actually determine whether anybody is getting educated? and how would you avoid the kind of waste that we have heard about in afghanistan and the future? >> thank you come congresswoman and for the practice because foreign aid is less than 1 percent of our budget and for that we believe that we deliver critical national security results and economic opportunities that sustain american leadership around the world and will for decades. with respect to afghanistan i want to step back for a moment and articulate that i believe the collective development investment in afghanistan has created some basic conditions that allow our troops to come home and for us to aspire to a stable and secure country that's not a terrorist threat to us in the future. we've seen the rates of growth from nine to 10% over the last several years. we have seen it more than tripling electricity access due

in large part to our specific investments including helping the afghan utility company use mobile payments to increase their own generation of revenues by more than 300%. we've helped build 1900 kilometers of road that will contribute directly to economic cover kennedy and business investment and today there are 8 million kids in school including 3 million girls when there were zero in school under the taliban. the fastest most significant reductions in child that and maternal that during childbirth anywhere in the world over the last decade have been in afghanistan, they've been verified by independent studies that were released last year and create a basis for some degree of stability as we look ahead. that said, sustaining these gains in the context that we are in and fighting corruption are absolutely our priorities. i was on the call earlier this week and we have a very tightly integrated civilian military plan, and we need to have that

integration. the military has matched any civilian development and it's far exceeded that investment so doing together is critical to being able to deliver these results and being able to fight corruption. last year we brought together the international community to pledge stands apart from afghanistan but also to implement what we created as the tokyo mutual accountability framework and if afghanistan doesn't meet the criteria on a free and fair transparent elections on fighting corruption and recovering assets from the kabul bank crisis on efforts to protect rights for the women and girls including the 25% in the parliament then we will pull back our aid and assistance and we will do that in concert with more than a dozen other international partners, and it's that kind of a serious conditional accountability framework that we believe is the best way to make sure that we sustain the gains and allow the troops to come home and

recognize 2% of the total afghanistan investment that is represented by development will ultimately play a larger percentage impact on whether there's a stable future for that country and a terrorist threat to us. >> alladi yield back mr. chair. >> mr. ted poe of texas. >> thank you for being here. dr. shah, after the sequestration to place, the administration notified the military that they were going to cut the tuition assistance program. congress rectified that in the continuing resolution and the program as you know helps military who are currently on active duty to finish their education. it helps them and the military and of course the state of readiness. but at the same time after sequestration to place, they

notified congress that $41 million would be sent to pakistan to help pay for scholarships for pakistani students. as u.s. seems to me we don't have the money to help our own military go to school because of the sequestration. after it takes place we do have the money to help the pakistani kids go to school kid i can tell you this hasn't sat well with a lot of folks. can you walk me through this decision and why was made and if we are still going to help those students in pakistan? thank you. >> thank you representative treat i appreciate your comment on these issues and on transparency and results reporting in our portfolio work as well. i will say that sequestration has affected the u.s. aid and foreign assistance as severely as any other part of the budget and we are recognizing and dealing that every day that

there's been more than 70 million-dollar reduction to our food aid and assistance and more than 400 million-dollar reduction to our economic develoent assistan and more than 70 million-dollar reduction to the operating expenses and we, like many other parts of the government are putting in place strict measures to achieve the required savings in the context where 75% of the staff are in the international. >> specifically on the money that we are sending to pakistan for their students to finish the vegetation. the budget has been reduced significantly in pakistan and in fact far more than the sequestered amount as well as in many other parts of the would

presume that was well before fy 11 and 12 and let me come back to you on that. as you know why filed a bill called the transparency and accountability act and what it does is ave the foreign aid evaluated to see if it's actually working. i was surprised to learn until i filed the legislation that over the years the foreign assistance never evaluated the programs help those that don't work there is still giving money in some cases because none of this has been evaluated. the legislation did pass the house last year andt senate didn't come up for a vote before the end of the year. could you weigh in on transparency. maybe the bill, maybe not, but the whole concept of americans

sending of them the company to other nations and americans want to see if the money that we are sending to the government's etc isn't working with you just weigh in on that concept of transparency and accountability. >> it is essential and i want to congratulate you on your leadership on that and also express our strong support for the bill in particular the version that passed in the house. the administration has made the first-ever commitment to the international aid transparency initiative and daniel and bayh are leading the charge to ensure a battle with our assistance is very transparent enough context. both of us publish all of our financial data on the financial assistance - board which is an online web site. the mcc this year published a series of important impact and evaluations and we have put more than 180 high-quality valuations on a slight where you can down load it on and have and look at the projects in both cases ad

looks at the import and result in many cases and in some cases it shows the programs do not work in our case we adjusted and made more than 50% of the programs that were adjusted based on the initial the foundation data. and i know that they have the same kind of learning approach that allows us to be better and more effective and how we do our work. and so we are all very supportive of this move this administration has tried to leave in this space and we have used modern technology to help us be more transparent in any other prior aministration ever has on the development and humanitarian assistance. >> thank you. i was going to have you weigh in on that but my time is up to the the thank you. i yield back mr. chairman. say three. >> thank you. we are going to mr. snyder of illinois. >> thank you for sharing with us your experience and insight and

priorities. let me add the emphasis of the importance of the work that you do and the fact that you are focused on the mission on the selectivity and deciding where to apply the resources and the accountability. it's very much appreciated. one of my areas of c anee the middle east, the region as having a lot of challenges in particular but in the 80's and the palestinians with the announced resignation of the prime minister. wherever he goes i would be interested in your sense of the impact that is going to have in our aid in the region. >> thank you for that question. the secretary spoke to this specifically and indicated that we are moving forward with a process that he believes can deliver a positive outcome overtime and other aid and assistance in this region is

very tied to that process. currently the priorities are building a private investment partnerships that can create economic activities and some hopefulness and alternative path forward for many in the region. we continue to pursue both humanitarian assistance and the west bank as well as support for the palestinian authority. the way that the structure that program has very careful partner vetting so we know who we are giving resources to and who we are not. it has a very specific degree of financial flows that were helped put in place whereby resources essentially go to the bank and first payoff debts the the public the telephony in authority has. as we have a high degree of confidence by we will be vigilant about making sure that the protections the we build will continue on and of course that will continue to be a condition on our continued movingnce.

forward moving on the institutions that he started to build and the frameworks that were going to be provided for us and potentially a future state? did those continue to get the development support that they needed in the ways you outlined holding people accountable? >>bsolutely. and in fact while we do and have had a lot of confidence these have been institutional efforts. every year we go through a process to ensure that these institutional checks are in place that we are building these institutions in a rigorous way and that we can track and trace our resources. so it's important that has replacement abides by those principles and standards for those principles. but if they can't, then we will not be able to go forward with what we do. but we have every reason to believe that this focus on building strong transparent credible institutions paying off the debt that is a crude and doing it in a transparent way will be able to be the hallmark

of this relationship. >> great. to shift gears i am going to go ck to colleags question bause what you are doing with mcc help us understand a little bit more the impact that is having and moving forward how we will make decisions to maintain effectiveness in the high return on the investment that you are making. >> all reports to the development we use the evidence decision making process these. really accepting the american values and it's the investment for the american taxpayers. its once the investments are made we have the most valuation on the monitoring to make sure that the investments are producing the desired results. we do in addition to what's been done traditionally buy most

agencies we go one step furter and we did a very thorough evaluation by the parties. that is in fact the investments that have been made on the increased income and we are also seeking what needs to be changed as a result of what we have seen from the independent evaluations i think the most beautiful part of the whole process is we are learning and building evidence about what needs to be changed and what is working and what is not working, that informs how we should design and implement the future programs as a result of this impact that we are learning and a half we hold our partners accountable. all of the programs are owned. we have the two ameri on the ground. be responsible. they want to replace the investment in the private sector. we have to become self-sufficient.

let me tell you, i was in tanzania last weekend i saw the work that has been completed. even by the ameran standards both are very complex projects. but you know what, they are being done on time and they want to prosper. there are investment opportunities because these countries are also creating the investment climate that is very conducive of the american companies so there are great partners and they are the future and the future. >> thank you very much. i yield. >> , of pennsylvania. >> gentlemen, thank you for what you do. you are withextraordinary men. i appreciate that. doctor come if i could for a

moment, as a prosecutor handling cases my theory was follow the money. would you explain to the tax coverage house specifically you follow the money and see what is spent because there is a perception out there that we why are millions of dollars over to the government intotheir account and that material background i think it is very important. the united states when i started the amount of money that we provided to the foreign government was 9% of our total expenditures. that compares to all of our organizations around the world where their somewhere between 60 0% iterms of how they do that. we have since moved up to 14% still orders of magnitude behind other partners but in a more direct specifically.

when we do hdo successful countries -- will result as not being able to move forward with partner indirectly in the country. but even more importantly, most of the resources that we provided were on what we call the fixed amount reimbursement agreement which means countries have to implement a program come and voice the cost of a incur and send the invoices and and we do a third-party monitoring because the activity conducted effectively and then pay the bill forward on the initial agreement we may have made. in addition to that, it is difficult to work in settings like afghanistan and elsewhere. if we do that people also use the geospatial monitoring data and third-party monitoring to further verify that the resources are being done in an effective way. there is a misperception we provide a lot of direct assistance to the governments of afghanistan. in afghanistan almost a great majority of our investment goes

that is labeled and thate to the world bank trnd called the afghan reconstruction trust fund that has been studied by any number of partners including harvard and mit and is found to be very effective at but tracing and tracking resources and ensuring that it delivers the real results by no you touched on that a little bit. do you care to elaborate on that a little bit for me? >> a couple things to be the number one, we don't transfer a single line to the government directly. and all payments are made directly to the vendors. we have the international fiscal agents and pay the vendor is after all the projects have been completed. we are very careful with american taxpayers. we don't want to spend a dime of corruption on practices. so, we do have a workshop that we teach to a lot of our affiliates, how to take apart

op line, anonymous client come strictly to the ig if in fact there is some kind of corruption. but we have control to make sure that american taxpayer funds are not spent on these practices. >> i believe i read through a conversation if you have a process whereby you inform the respective countries or entities that there's a time period by which the proceeds or the aid me stop because there is not improvement and because there isn't an initiative on the part of the government would you explain that a little bit, please? and doctor, if i have time i'm going to touch on that. >> we hold our partners accounted that the commitments are made for five years. if they don't get it done within five years, the untypically they lose the funding. but we expect the partners to

continue to commit to good economic governance and continue to be committed to the space governments and in some cases for example in malawi about a year-and-a-half ago they did not abide by the same commitment that helped them to qualify for the contract and the project was suspended and after the new president came in and she complied with the requests including from her constituencies. do they have such a program? >> absolutely. it's by more than fivefold relative to the prior administration. we have been very focused on accountability in thaontext and in fact just this past weekend we pull together all of the international partners for afghanistan to use the afghan accountability framework.

in the resources of the afghans or do not do a certain number of things and that is a hallmark of 80 effectiveness. >> thank you for being with us today i want to thank the state as well for the vital under appreciated role of providing humanitarian relief to the syrian people. they remain focused on helping those in need at protecting the aid workers. you've heard here today that concern about the organization is groi. i would point out the article that sparked much of the debate in putting others because it hasn't been getting that much attention by the flower

purchased by the united states which has helped result the shortage of bread. food rations have been distributed. 168,000 people are under the provide blankets. 145 hospitals funded by the united states and this is all something we should be proud of. it's the right thing to do. can you tell us how you are working to strengthen the relationship and enhance our reputation with the people? >> thank you very much for asking that question. we are addressing those needs in three primary ways.first, we dod mick visible hour humanitarian assistance whenever possible. in fact in this context one thing the article didn't capture is that we worked with the syrian opposition council to create television content and radio content we use and communicate in the opposition in

the controlled areas highlighting the efforts. we are not at all concerned about highlighting the extent to which america is providing this assistance and we are seeking to do that. what we try to do ioid consequences and attacks on our humanitarian partners. many of these and putting people like the syrian american surgeons are taking tremendous personal risks and we know they are being targeted. they're then 143 deaths among the personnel in and about hospitals who are trying to provide critical surgical support to people that have been armed because of the brutality of the assault regime. there's beenmo than -- other deaths of u.s. workers and others, so that safety considerations in mind, we are doing absolutely everything we can. furthermore, the sec to be announced this past weekend an acceleration of our direct support fothe syrianopsicil of d

$50 million of investment is designed to help with our partnership deliver basic services provide everything fro garbage and trasheval to helping to restart electricity grids and provide generators in the field and those are the types of things that we also believe ought to be programmed into america recognized standing with people in opposition. it's been absolutely right. i appreciate you highlighting that. in the last short time ati ve, there are -- it gets frustrating sometimes thankfully to hear some of the criticism of foreign aid, this false choice that we are given that we can invest in the schools abroad or year we can invest in the infrastructure abroad and infrastructure here. it is a false choice. you pointed out our entire budget is less than 1% of the

overall budget. but put aside, both of you, you are a good example, too. you work with the poorest countries in the world. he went to that application of the thousands of projects of. tell me in a short time that i have left why do you do this? why does it matter so much for us to be engaged the way we are every place in the world? >> i would say very briefly this is in our core national security we've seen this over and over again it's in our national security interest of pakistan but as a nuclear power and out to go through what we believe will be the first civilian election and hopefully peaceful transition of power they experienced post independent. it's a national security of afghanistan to bring the troops home and as daniel has spoken about it in our national interest. >> i only have a couple seconds left. speak to that, please.

some of the same thing. it's in our national interest. if you look at the countries that were assisted by us they have become our major trading partners. we do the same thing. many of the countries that we arlping to they are going to be our major trading partners in the next 15, 20, 30 years. it's about creating jobs here and it's also about increasing the dividends and at the same time also helping those countries and creating the best partners in the future so it is in our national interest and it is about our security. it is about our prosperity. ..

when i have the mother struggling to send her child to school, at the university, where they have to pay out of state tuition, and she said they can't do it. we have $41 million going pakistan, it's a hard sell. to ask people in this time and this economy and our country that we're going give this aid to them, but you're getting laid off because of sequestration in our country. and i think of the words of ronald reagan, unless a nation ts own financial economy house in order, no amount of aid will produce progress. we have been doing this -- i don't want to say a game. our policies have been going on for over thirty five or forty years. longer than that. i've been paying to attention to

that. i see at love improvement but i a see a lot of stuff going in the wrong distribution. i reonatehe word that we send aid but we don't want to tell them where it's coming from. i stand with him in putting a red and white blue flag on any aid it goes over there whether it's a bushel of bheet -- wheat or corn it was produced, paid for, and sent by the american people. because to go down the path we're going down, it's a hard sell. when i go back and face the people at home, and i know you are doing a job that you talk about putting forth the effort to expand economic development in el elsa nicaragua, the econoc development in this country is not going well.

i'm reverberating the frustration i hear at home. you talk about the transparency, the accountability in these programs. and you were saying you run your organization like a business. and doctor, you talk talk about you're at the top of your organization. who hold the person at the top of those accountable when we come up with the fraud, the waste, or abuse? who answers to that? it really wasn't a question you can answer. it's more of rhetorical. i guess my question is, what direction do y se t american gont going in as far as foreign aid? what should our role really be? are we looking at economic development? are we looking at, you know, just giving foreign aid as a form that becomes more of a foreign welfare in which case it does no good. >> i believe in the president

has spoken about this very consistently, and this budget reflects that these are tough times. we have present our budget 6% lower than it has been for that purpose. we also believe that foreign assistance should be create should be at the core what we do. the single mant reflection of that principle in this budget has been sent to congress by the president is food aid reform proposal. if has bold and important reform embedded in to allow us to reach additional 4 million people whevingie $500 million of mandatory budget savings. it allows us expand the effectivenesses of our effort saving more lives in difficult situations while moderating and having as secretary vilsack noted, no significant perceptible impact on american agricultural produce and value.

we know that we can do a better job and when we can, some of these programs are six decades old we want to work with you to have a reform approach that allows us to be more effective and efficient. we want to be able to go back to the american taxpayer and say however we conducted our mission, our priority was getting the most value for money . >> i'm going to cut you off. i appreciate you. i hope you pair the programs down. if you can jump nor the next remaining few minutes -- seconds. >> my colleagues and i have two different purposes. we both promote world youth interest worldwide. we work with countries that are poor -- countries that embraced american values. countries that have taken responsibility for their own growth. this is what we believe would be the future trading parter in that. they want to place aid on the best -- [inaudible] countries that are committed to

reform, which is difficult to do. but countries that are creating the best climate that would help american businesses in the long-term. we need trading partners. like i said earlier the countries we support in the past are the major trading partners. south korea, between the two of us, we do over $100 billion trade investment-related activity. >> i appreciate your time. my time has expired. we'll go to mrs. karen bass of california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. for holding this hearing today. i appreciate it very much. i want to thank both of you for your excellent work from your organization. i wanted to take an issue with my good colleague from california who said we shouldn't use tax dollars for development but only for emergency aid, and both of you, i think, have been doing a great job todayings planing the work of your organization. i'm going it ask you in a minute to give example of specific

project instead of the 10,000-foot level. i disagree with the part we should only focus on american aid. i believe the work of both of your organizations leads to us what really leads to preventing the type of emergencies that take place. and i think that he was just referencing that. i think the example of korea is a wonderful example, and i see that future in africa. mr. shah, i would love you to talk about feed the future, and africa's long-term goal. our long-term goal, and i first want to thank you for sending can can how this is about business relationship between the united states and africa. so if you can both give an example how the work of your organization leads to us in the long-term not needing to have the level of foreign aid that we do now.

how development leads to that with a specific future example and mr. if you talk about the port and rional integration in africa. >> thank you. with respect to feed the future, there was a program that president obama asked us to create and implement in order to move people from depend sei to self-sufficiency using a grairl to address extreme poverty. we implemented the program in nineteen countries. focus our effort cut and eliminated programs in 23 other countries. in each country we work in, they adhere to a set of commitment and reform. some of which to increase domestic expenditure on agricultural in 10%. some of which to avoid export bands in the sector so there can be more trade and investment. as part of the effort last year rick santorum brought along the american industry and said what can we do accelerate and got

companies to invest $3.5 billion of agricultural investment to the country. today we are seeing the result. significantly swriewing access to improved variety. >> i thank you. i saw an example in kenya of the u.s. companies essentially lending their scientific expertise as well as product that is helping kenya move forward. thank you -- [inaudible] we're building infrastructure in the country. we are able tow spend about billion dollars to expand the port. they have been able to get additional investment for -- [inaudible]

as a result of our investment increased significantly in the region. i came back from tanzania we created a major road that linked it with kenya. it's being used by other countries in the region. there are assimilating trade investment activity. unless you build infrastructure with the country, you know, the water and the energy and the roads and so forth. it becomes extremely difficult for some of the countries to compete globally. they are competing today. working with my good friend to help the countries to become secure. to give an example we are building the infrastructure for th irrigations they are providing the department training. in ghana we're building schools, the training is provided in bio of states. we are working with a partnership to make sure they become self-sufficient.

we are -- [inaudible] very much involved in -- [inaudible] >> i appreciate that. we had a breakfast this morning talking about it. one of the things we scriptedly hear from african countries they want to move beyond aid. it's about trade to the extend that the countries are developed around the world. that is more business for our countries in the united states. thankthank you very much. thank you. we go mr. cook from california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. previous question was asked about the corruption in afghanistan i want to -- i was

impressed with the military, impressed with the afghan army and some of the aid programs that have been -- corruption is big problem. i know, that this kind of a wink wink nod nod when you start talking about the poppy and the drug situation, which almost colombia fifteen or twept years ago. i'm a seneca at this and i'm surprised the ways things turned out in colombia. because of the political situation there, and this variable can you address that the poppy, they're talking about this year is going to be a bumper crop over there again, and whether money that might be intended for other programs will go to support that underground economy is which is obviously very successful.

>> thank you for your visit to afghanistan and taking the time to engage with our u.s. aid tam and look at the project. it's part of an important shared civilian military effort to help degree of to allow our troops to come home and poppy is a huge challenge. we have seen ups and downs. the core driver we have learned this peru, colombia, other areas we had successful what are call called alternative agricultural or alternative development. the core driver of getting people out of the economy to the legal one is making the opportunities in the legal way more economically rewarding. one of the major areas has been in agricultural in afghanistan.

we help with improving. we yield, for example, bringing more high value agricultural. working for export opportunity to the gulf and other countries in the area. and one of the few things that has been effective at getting people out of poppy and the other areas is creating the market and economic opportunities that are safe and legal and financially fiscally rewarding to small older producers and small businesses there. we have seen real progress in the setting. but, you know, it continues to be a major challenge. >> thank you for that answer. can you also address the fact that i was under the assumption, which is dangerous, the poppy was going to the western countries but now the big market or part of is russia. somewhat open and if you can address that bereavely too. >> sure. that's accurate.

part of our approach is to help manage and bring much more transparency to and fight corruption at border crossing. both for combating poppy trade for revenue flow for that. but help the afghan government -- so they can domestic revenue replaced aid over time. as they take on the steanlt of the effort on the own. all the things go together and cause a focus on regional trade and that brings quickly to trade and customs. >> thank you very much for answering my question. i yield back. >> we'll go to jerry connelly of virginia. >> thank you. welcome to both of our panelists. it's a great honor to be the last questioner out of eighteen. mr. shah, the foreign assistance act was written in 1961, it's

fifty two years later, i heard you talk about the need to ort of revisithe way we do business, the goals that maybe were relevant a half sefnlg i are ago but less so today. i assume by extension from the remarks you would be amenable to rewrite of that act? >> absolutely. we -- i believe secretary kerry in front of the panel also implied an enthusiasm to see, you know, new authorizing legislation go forward. >> you are familiar with the effort our former ranking member and former committee member and i undertook and in fact introduced legislation in the previous congress? >> yes. >> doindz from your remarks you committing to the agency and yourself to working with us on

that reform legislation as we get ready to introdpiews in this congress. >> yes. >> okay. we really want to work with you. we see it -- we hope will -- and logically align the goal and directive. you know, i have the privilege of -- if you can call of that having been one of the only surviving human beings who wrote the last foreign aid authorization bill that became law in 1986. i was a staffer in the senate. if i were the administrator i might like the existing law. there were over 250 objective and priority and goals and everything wells. else. we added to. i'm not sure it's a good way to go forward. i very much welcome your statement.

i don't want to see that. we are trying to be partner with you on a legislative tend enable the agency to go forward. thank you. thank you. i look forward to working with you and your team as we move forward. we are getting ready to introduce the bill. i've already talked to the chairman about hopefully at least having some hearing, perhaps, about aspect of it and see if we can't try to do it in a bipartisan basis. what is your understanding? real briefly if you can share

that with us and tell how you coordinate? how do you make sure if you're pulling out of country they're not getting in standive reason for withdrawal and how do you make sure that we don't have resources competing against each other or contradicting each other. in a structure way. let me echo secretary kerry on this one. as secretary kerry noted publicly and privately. we have the same -- to do that we have a broad range of tool and capability that can be applied in setting in afghanistan. and so mcc, the broad range of capabilities that u.s. aid has through different programs including food for peace which has been an important part of the conversation, opec, the overseas private investment which are playing a critical

role on energy earth are important component of that. we seek to work together toward that ultimate and singular and exact same mission. daniel can speak to examples we can work hard to have an integrated approach in the field as well. [inaudible] countries committed to investing in the constituency. this is the next emerging market. we have score card system in which they have to pass many of the score cards in the three in order to be considered for the program. but in terms of coordination, we work very closely. we talk among the basis.

many of the projects are well coordinated. in some cases like georgia. the water part we have begun earlier by u.s. aid and what they have become. [inaudible] more over the same thing. we know we are doing the infrastructure for water and the providing the department training. we work very closely making sure we don't duplicate each other. we compliment each other. >> thank you. mr. chairman if you will allow me thirty seconds since i'm the last. >> mr. connelly, i will allow you several minutes. >> you are wonderful, mr. chairman. thank you. two points i would like to share with you. one, the enthusiasm expressed by the chairman and the ranking member for the food for peace reform notwithstanding, a word of caution somebody who has been

writing and supporting foreign assistance for over thirty years the coalition support for foreign aid is fragile. there are political aspect to what you prose with the best of intention could damage that fragile coalition. i strongly urning you and the administration to carefully vet that as you go forward. because you may win the battle and lose the war. you heard on this committee people express, well, we can't afford foreign aid. i agree. but there are lots of people back home, you know, a lot of americans are under the impression we can balance the budget by cutting foreign aid. you hear it all the time at town hall meetings. it's a fragile coalition getting both to appear to support what you are doing.

we have to have a better narrative of success. of sixty years of making the investment. what works and what doesn't? give us success stories we did talk about. that's why we have to do it. it isn't always self-evident it's in our national interest. we can repeat that. but there's a certainly strain of icelationism that has been with us that doesn't accept it. the more we can point to ethics here's what we are able to go in reducing poverty in improving food production and ending this cz or that disease and creating

a market of economy that is now a full fledge member of the international committee. those are very important success stories especially if we can tie them to the investment we made in the respective agencies. thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate your graciousness. >> thank you. ly remind you, it's only 45% of the food for peace account they're talking about. so it's a comprise that these gentleman are suggesting. and that is in the budget a comprise that will make that far more costly to the overall budget. so again your other point was those concerned about the cost. this is a reduction in cost. those concerned about the humanitarian impulse here. it gets the aid there faster, more efficiently, and does not depress the local markets that impact the local farmers. so i just want to take a moment to thank both of our witnesses

indicate to you both we look forward to working together not only on food aid reform but also on greater transparency greater effectivenesses and we thank you, again, for your willingness to testify. we stand adjourned. he joins us discuss the latest news out of syria, that the government likely used chemical womens against -- weapons against opposition forces. at this point, i think it is fairly clear that chemical weapons were used. i'm not 100 percent confident of that. but based on the various intelligence reports we have seen we what is being sorted out used by whom extensively and the

exact situon ow did that come to pass? did it happen in some other way? the details are still very murky. watch this interview with adam smith at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. glmpleght this weekend on c-span, before saturday night's white house response dinner, we'll show collected dinners from the past three administrations. starting saturday at 3:00 p.m. eastern and our live coverage of this year's dinner starting with the red carpet arrival at 6:15. the dedication of the george w. bush museum.

>> an act of faith. i dedicate this library with unshakable faith in the future of our country. honorable lifetime to lead brave and noble as the united states. god bless. sunday morning at 10:30. c-span booktv this weekend, twice awarded the bronze star donovan camp bell, the leading of part of american history tv sunday at 4:00. they convened a hearing to exam how drought affects water supply and the energy sector. witnesses from the interior department and the national

oceanic and atmospheric administration offered recommendations on how to mitigate the impact of drought on community. >> the meeting will come to order. senator mor cow i sky is trying to juggle, particularly a hectic day, as you know, with activity on the floor. lots of committees. she urged we start. we'll have her opening statement when she gets here. my friend from nevada is going introduce a witness who is especially important to him after the opening statement. we'll proceed at this time. this morning we'll look at drought and impact to the energy and water sectors. water without access to water, the world as we know ceases to exist or at least to run

effectively. last year was the warmest on record. it exceeded $35 billion. that's a very substantial hit for our economy to take. in addition to last year's drought, the country is seeing increasing numbers of extreme weather events. unfortunately it seems that drought is almost become part of the norm. if and for the future. drought impacts everything from farmers to power plant operations and everything in

between. water is critical resource and yet so often it seems to almost be treated as an afterthought. in my home state of oregon, oregon people are seeing severe drought in the region. the bureau of reclamation told me experienced secondest driest january through march on record. this is a dire situation. this area is one of the thorniest water sheds. with how you deal with drought. you saw if in the "the wall street journal" article ran on drought spotlighting what was going on. the bureau of reclamation will be a key player in the work to address drought conditions and solve the long-term resource

dispute and other such places across the west. and we have always worked with the bureau in a bipartisan way and we are going continue to work with them in that fashion to meet our goal. water is also critical resource for generating electricity. it's obviously needed for generating hydropower and critical for cooling in many other types of thermo electricity. for these applications, water must not only be sufficiently available, in quantities but also be cool enough to allow the plants to run safely and effectively. that mean that climate change poses a double threat. some of the facilities potentially threatening water availability and sufficiently cool intake water. recent history demonstrated the power sector to drought and high temperature. 2001, for example, severe drought in california and the pacific northwest resulted in significantly reduced

hydroelectric generation causing high prices throughout the west. high temperatures have also curtailed generation. 2007 the tennessee valley authority had to temporarily shut down the nuclear plant because the intake water temperature were too high. in 2012, mill stone nuclear plant that powers half of connecticut had to take 40 percent of the capacity offline for almost two weeks because the cooling water was getting from long island sound was too warm. in the same year, the plant in illinois had to get an examination to use intake water 102 degrees instead of shutting down during a heat wave. the situation in texas may demonstrate both concerns and some of the collusions. -- solution.

it doesn't require any water at all. power on the spot market with prices hitting an incredible $3,000 per megawatt hour. consumers felt the impact. the following summer it was hot, dry in texas but caused less disruption thanks to the steps i mentioned their utilities had chosen to adopt. important goal of the hearing is understand the risk to the power sector and the strategy for mitigating those risks. senator mor cow -- murkowski we are glad you are here. let's have your opening statement and senator hell leer will introduce a witness that is important to him. and also, after senator heller has done that.

senator franken and machin want to. we are going to wave the rules and going all out. senator murkowski, heller for the introduction, franken, and machin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the opportunity for us as committee to focus on water. we talk a lot about energy and energy technologies and all the great things that are going to move us to the new energy future. how we address the water issue is key. if we don't -- if we fail to appreciate the an ex sis between energy and water, that is really too our detriment. in my energy 20/20 proposal i

made to all colleagues, we have one chapter on the energy water an ex sis. and i think this is critical for us to review and i appreciate the opportunity to do so. i think we acknowledge that energy and water resources are the foundation of the economy. they verbal to the future in international security. all form of energy production, destruction fuel extraction, and fuel refinement require water or effect water resources in some way. every aspect of extraction, treatment, convey yens, and use of water as well as is -- it goes both way. energy use by the stance is vilgtly regionally which is important to understand as we look at the impact of drought on a regional and local level. to improve the relationship between energy use and water use, we need a lot more

information both regarding water and energy. specifically what i would like to do, and i outline some of this in my energy 20/20 to identify all existing federal research authority and activity that are currently authorized to address the interdependency of energy and water assistance. that perhaps at this time are not actively doing so. ensure that i facility to multiagency effort to develop water independently indeed. ensure that the dod or doi develop planning tools to ensure that water and energy interdependency are coordinated and authorize a coordinated research investment by multiple federal agencies and the development and implementation of certain energy water technology. these technologies should address the interaccident sei of water and water system and multipurpose water in energy system planning.

again, mr. chairman, appreciate the focus that the committee is giving this. thank you to government witnesses for appearing before us today. i hope we can ped iro the near future with legislation. i long forward to hearing from the panelists this morning. >> thank you, senator muir ask murkowski the r&d recommendation hold a lot of promise for bipartisan cooperation. we are going to work together on that. senate heller will do an introduction. and my colleagues make opening statement. >> thank you. thank you for allowing a topic. i agree with the ranking member to be critically important. water and energy i can't think of two more important issues facing us. it's my pleasure to welcome and introduce to you nevada's pat mill roy. i want to note, mr. chairman, i didn't say pat milroy of

nevada. we are possessive. we are grateful for the work she'd done. on behalf of the water authority. and myself senator reid and myself are very friendships and we both appreciate the relationships we had over the last cup the of decades. pat is a general management of the las vegas valley water district. let assure you she has a seller reputation that proceeds her. she incredible challenge job of managing water resources. she's been at the helm during the incredible land boom that ushered in the turn last entry and shepard the water authority during the challenging economic times. the gravity of the job has been comp bounded by the scarty of water. as pat will explain in the testimony, and over appropriated and drought trickle colorado

river primary source of water for southern nevada people. pat implemented innovative water efficiency and measures. struck agreement with neighboring state. and definitely negotiated treaty with mexico. all the while pat suggested in the las vegas valley. pat is a leader in her field. well respected be i her fear. she's the first woman president. serves on the board of directors fur the national resource association water resource foundation. she'll share with the work she's been involved in. i want to thank her for being here today. i look forward to her testimony and all that are here today. thank you for taking time and those in the audience listening to the testimony. >> thank you, senator heller. we know she is important to you and senator reid. we're glad she's here. senator franken. >> chairman wyden, ranking member, thank you for holding

this hearing. i think it's a extremely important topic that effects so many sector of our economy and i want to commend you forgiving it the attention it deserves. as we talk about drought it's important we talk about chiement change. which we know is going to result in our nation facing more extreme weather conditions. last year was a remarkable year. 2012 was the hottest year on the record. being beating the briefs record by a full degree. which is actually alarming. the impact of the drought were felt throughout the country. more than 70% of counties in our country were considered disaster areas. we are going to hear today about the effects of drought and water shortages on the energy sector.

last year we saw serious effect on the ag sec story. secretary vilsack estimated the impact to be around 50 to $60 billion. shipping on the mississippi river was also seriously impacted. in fact water levels dropped to the point that seriously interfered with our point to transport ag churl good to the market. the water got so low that shippers had to send barges down the mississippi half full with soybeans which makes them less competitive with the brazil beans. in minnesota, we explored about a third of our soybean crop. so this serious issue for us. there's the issue of wild fire. we heard testimony here when the chief testified before the committee last year i asked about the link between forest

fire and climate change. we're seeing longer fire season on average by more than thirty days. wild fires are larger, cover more area, and more intense. the chief told us the scientists thought that climate change was increasing the size and intensity of wild fires in extending their season. these are serious issues. i would like to thank the chairman and ranking member of holding this hearing. i believe we need to come together, democrats and republicans to hold a series conversation -- serious conversation about climate change and the affects and droughts are clearly one of those. this hearing goes a long way to begin that conversation. thank you. >> senate machin, thank you, senate franken. as i indicated before nobody on the committee put in more time than you and senator.

we are happy to have two champion on this. senator machin, welcome. >> thank you, mr. chairman. madam vice chairman. [laughter] let me make sure that i'm not a scientist. i do think that the climate change is a world -- woe are totally responsible. it is a world contributor, if you will. i would like to start by acknowledging how lucky we have been in our down have relative abundance of fresh and clean drinking water. it's one of the things that i think all of us can take for granted until it's taken away from us. some of the good people of my state of west virginia had that happen to them last summer. and we do have an abundance of good water. but when we were without water due to the storm and you would not think about that. none of us thought about that. it knocked out our power and we could not have our plants up and

running. so people went weeks without water. it had a tremendous affect on them. and surely brings the issue like availability of water to the forefront. and it has in my state, unlike never before. there are two types of water usage that are discussed. we have water withdrawal and we have water consumption. it's important to understand the difference because a lot of power plants in west virginia have an awful lot of power plant. our energy users withdrawal a low of the water. they don't consume that much. and what, i mean, by that, people think if we shut the power plant down. we wouldn't use all the water. we don't consume that much water. we withdrawal it but we only consume about 3% what we withdrawal. so our biggest consumer of water is irrigation for agricultural. it consumed about 81% of the water we use everyday.

and somewhere around 3 to 4 billion gallon a day. that's 27 times the water consumption as much as any power plant. twenty seven times. i want to point that out. keep in perspective. because it seems to me that we have to look at all the option which is are on the table here. and maybe there are some options in improving in the way we irrigate land. saving water is important. we need to figure out how do that. and electricity power is at the center of the question. we are looking right now at using mind water. recycle water. which we think is a good use of a resource without withdrawing. we know when we save water, we save energy. when you save water you save energy. you strong to fump, move it, or do all the things and that's another energy water an ex sis we have to look in to. i think there are many things that go in to automatic of this. i hope we're broad enough to

look at everything. >> thank you. >> thank you senator machin. we're going exactly what you said in conclusion. look at everything. your subcommittee, in fact, touches almost every everything you have for us, and of course, they are dray dramatically effected by droughts. we know it so well because of the devastating affect of the drought we saw in eastern oregon. and you have industry jurisdiction over mining. you have both ends of it. we will work with you. senator sanders. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to apologize to the panelists. i have to run. i want to concur with which senator franken said. drought is one of the manifestation we're seeing in term of climate change, flooding, extreme water disturb, heat waves that are take people's lives all over the world. i have to say, mr. chairman, i think when history looks back at the particular moment, our kid

and grandchildren, great grandchildren are going ask where were we? why we were not moving aggressively to prevent the problems existing today that we know are only going get worse in the future. it's one of the important issues that have not gotten the attention. >> we are going to change that, senator sander. thank you for your leadership. we are going to our witnesses now. you can see the enormous interest here in the panel. you also have the good fortunate of having senator not a member of the committee. but member of the environment and public works. thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, member of the committee. i'm mike, commissioner. i'm pleased to provide testimony.

on a personal level it's a pleasure and privilege to go before the committee and work with my former colleagues on the committee staff. it's also an honor to be here with miest steamed colleague and expert in the water resources. the highlighted testimony much of the wears, california, rockies mountain, remain in a state of moderate to extreme drought. they anticipate the reality of an arid western climate. it's why reck clay make was created. recognizing the drought can never be eliminated and may become more common in the future, it now leveraging the existing project alongside new neshtive and enhanced water management that helps guard against. my statement today will summarize the activity and result we're achieving. first in the area of water operations. it was constantly work with our contractors to adjust operation plans to mitigate the water of water shortage.

in california central valley jan through march the criest and april is provide nothing relief. these actions income schedule available storage, diversifying supplies, and crurkting -- providing tense of thousands of additional water supply to the project. second example concerns the colorado river. drought has been norm over the past ten to twelve years. a number of operation agreements have been executed to incentivize operation and increase amount of water stored if lake meed to delay shortages in the lower colorado river basin. the most operational is 3:1. the historic arraignment between united states and mexico signed last year. another example include the river base in oregon. serious drought conditions are

plaguing this in 2013. the other species need sufficient river flow. the situation also pits the neats against agricultural economy. they worked with the services to develop a new operational plan this year. to maintain protection for fish while allowing irrigation operation to spread during the year. a second area is water part. it provides the foundation for the effort to achieve a sustainable water supply. they are saving an estimated 616,000 acre feet a year. the current goal to save 790,000 by the end of 2014. about $2 30 million of federal funding has been funded since 2009.

a project finished construction since that time eight ohs expected to be depleted this year. recycled water in 2012 providing durable dprowt resistance supply. it acknowledges the an ex sis between energy and water use. in addition to saving water they conservatived 40 million kit will cat. in insulating our country from doubt in the sort short or long-term. study crurkt and main -- project when authorized by congress. as mentioned in the written statement. in critical water short basin.

basin dam in the an mouse river system. and expansion of the reservoir in california in the region which is water short. third, high cro power impact. drought impacts hydropower as much as water supply. it equates to less energy. since 2001 reduced water available resulted in 11% less average energy production from reclamation facility. the colorado river system. they responded to the issue by installing more -- a program promoting new unexisting facility. overall they worked collaboratively upgrade in new unit. fifth and finally reclamation for drought relief. a standard until the testimony before the committee last week within the reclamation emergency drought will be backed as an

important tool to prepare for an respond to drought. as a committee aware, the authority for title i and iii of the act expire at end of 2012. 2014 budget seeks an extension of the budget through 2017. in conclusion, i would note that the problem of doubt is best addressed proactively through collaborative planning, flexible operating agreement, and targeted investment. mr. chairman, i'm ready for questions at the appropriate time. >> very good. thank you. let's have our next witness, dr. roger. -- no. >> good morning, chairman. ranking member, and member of the committee. my name is roger. thank you for inviting me to speak with you today about drought and the impact. drought is part of the american experience from the vivid event of the '30 and '50 to the present and one of the driest years on record. with the most extensive

condition since 1934. costing -- threaten congress on the mississippi shipping lane and reduce today drought codictions exist for most of the west. they demonstrate how dry conditions and high temperature can effect the energy sector through the independence on water resources and provide lessons to the future. specific example of impact drawn from the night of parer in across the country follow. if 2007 during the southeast drought power plant' from atlanta to really a they face blackout as water shortages force the energy to cut itself. the severe drought lasting through 2009 threaten the cooling water supply. including well known brown nuclear plant.

the drought in texas and across the south reduced power plant cooling reservoir to record low level. the manage of the aspen petroleum pipeline placed several request for short and medium range seasonal temperature update to help inform the decision about energy production. doubt impact can persist over multiple year. in california from 2001 to twch, the ratio of hydropower fluctuated. at 10 the colorado basin is journeyed going the second driest twem of year period. to make up for the alternative power. these events potential -- for managing risk of the water interface.

seasonal and year to year climate affects water supply. as a lok ahead we know the physical driver of drought in the u.s. are linked to sea surface temperature in the tropical, pacific, and atlanta ocean together with the local land conditions and weather. important feature of the drought included rapid expansion of dry condition from 28% in may to 60% by july. and in some region drought expected to be more severe or prolonged with increasing temperatures. during the past two months conditions improved across some of last year's intense drought area in the north industrial plains, upper ms. valley and southeast. a forecast for west and south

texas. several are now below 50% of normal with some below 25%. california and oregon are experiencing the driest and third driest springs on record and forecasting a little or no perspective of improvement after april. recent snows in the mid rockies brought water shed above 85% on the eastern section of the basin. but with snowpack above 65% in southern rockies including rio grand great lakes water level forecast to remain well below long-term. they were not snowpack 50 to 75% of the first of march. the national drought outlook provided as an appendix.

to ensure support for the sustained monitoring and data collection the activity will build on the department of commerce, signed in december 2012. it will build upon successful partnership such as the climate bureau of reclamation. the western water support team representing twelve federal agencies was established to support the water counsel in the western govern mans in coordinate to help the nation's energy resilience they will work with the partner to improve the regional outlook for the weather conditions. understand which energy sources

and plans in particular drought sensitive location and the link between regional climate groundwater recharge that help support economic activity over the long-term. engagement among federal agencies is critical and they are played a role in leading those. information in the testimony is drawn from the many federal state, triable, and private partner including the center as the river forecast center, the national drought mitigation center, and university of nebraska. and lincoln, the u.s. corp. of engineer, water smart, the water census, the western governor's associations, and state clienttologist. thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. >> thank you, doctor. welcome. >> welcome. giving you the first. >> thank you, senator. chairman member of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to testify on the very important topic. ..

in 2002, after only two years that they're not a team year drought, we went from having a