to begin soon and is hard to tell how the styria crisis is going to affect things, but it is certainly going to have a delay in the schedules for the next round of p5+1 talks. .. white people have a lot of hesitation even against cruise missile strikes on limited

sites. so diplomacy remains the best option on the table. this is a critical period for all parties to finally make progress for the situation on the ground with centrifuges and becomes more challenging some time next year. so with that, let me open up the floor to your questions. there are a couple folks on this side who have microphones. i just ask you to raise your hand, identify yourself and we will start here on the stage. please, let us know who you would like to answer your question. >> from enterprise service. this question is for mr. albright. i wonder if you can clarify for me what are we supposed to be watching for the breakout capability in iran, and is the assessment that they haven't been able to advance those elements of the program or that they are purposefully flowing it down or doing it?

thank you. >> the breakout capability is something they can do at any time. they can decide we want to make the weapons grade uranium in facilities and do it, that they are not and that can be for many reasons. but i think one of the reasons is they think if they want to make the weapon grade uranium they would probably suffered an attack at least from israel. so in that sense they are detoured. they may also not feel the need to do it. the man not have any -- as daryl mentioned the haven't made the decision to build the nuclear weapons but they see no need to do it. in terms of what we are watching is we may reach a capability where they can do it without being detected in a timely manner because obama said -- president obama said he wants to prevent iran from getting nuclear weapons and he hasn't been very clear about that

means. but one of the things is as iran goes to do it, he wants to have some strategy to stop them. and what we are looking at is well, if you are going to do that, have that as your policy than it is a lot easier to stop them if what we are talking about is preventing them from getting within great uranium come in the sense of making nuclear weapons. and so, you don't want to have a policy that says look they've got into weapons-grade uranium or may be enough for one or two bombs. we don't have any idea where it is. and then the u.s. is going to stop elon from turning that would increase uranium into a nuclear explosive device or take three months or two years. but there is no mechanism that can be toward them from doing that. again, getting into this question daryl is raising yes, you can destroy the entire country that the policy is to

prevent iran from getting nuclear weapons it is a lot easier to destroy four or five nuclear facilities that are involved in a breakout than trying to in essence bring iran to its knees and surrender in a sense and give up this weapons-grade uranium that they have. so what we want is lending they have a capability in place that what allow them to break out without being detected. and -- >> [inaudible] >> no, it would be potentially of secret centrifuge site. and again, we are looking at it in a policy framework. this isn't an argument for war. what we do is try to design things that would prevent military strikes. that we don't see that as any way a desirable option. but the u.s. government has laid out a position that it wants to prevent iran from getting nuclear weapons and inevitably that brings in the military options and what we are trying

to think through is what does that mean and when does it not work so optimally and that is when we came up with this idea of looking at the critical capability because we did that if they reach a critical capability to break out in secret, then that affects the ability to implement this deterrent. >> if i can pylon for one second because this is an important question that is not well understood or articulated. for the most part the administration said that and iranian nuclear weapon or the move towards a weapon is unacceptable and the president described it as a red line moving towards the weapon. during the presidential d date last year obama had a wealth of free statement about that he would not allow iran to get a break out capability. it wasn't apparent how he operationalize that in his mind, but based on statements that he has made and others have to

include dni clapper it appears to be the point at which iran could move rapidly at producing fissile material detected in time to stop, even if they did so at open declared facility at natanz and fordo, but those are what they did call the critical to the ability to basically - to a wedding and the fuel for the weapon in plain sight. the issue becomes when might they hit that threshold and in the worst-case scenario they might hit sometime in 2014. the issue is not whether iran therefore in 2014 will necessarily make the decision to dash for a national weapon. we don't know if they would or not and the probability is they won't. but they might. the issue is from the u.s. perspective this becomes the last moment at which the intelligence community can come to the president of the united states with high confidence and say we know when they move towards nuclear weapons. and if we lose the ability to

detect when they would move for that, then the ability to prevent nuclear weapons goes down dramatically and the military option flips off the table. so in my mind, this is very much a decision point for us. this is a decision point for win is the last time that we can -- when do we know that we soft diplomacy and for me is when they hit the technological threshold. some people don't agree. if my argument is right and where i think david is right to put that store on the calendar and same made 2014, whatever your assessment is, and say that's the amount of time i have made to make a diplomatic deal and you have 12 or 18 months. so let's get on with it. >> but as you say, there are other steps that would have to be taken for iran to build not just one nuclear weapon, but several nuclear weapons. the problem is that the iaea is probably not able to detect that because that could be done in secret it's not under safeguards.

the u.s. intelligence capability may affect that, but the guarantee that they will be able to provide to the president are going to be much lower. so that's why david is referring to a critical capability, but it doesn't mean that's when iran will build nuclear-weapons at all. that's not what it means. other questions. we have barbara slaven right here. >> from the atlantic council and monitor. david, forgive me if you discussed this before i came in. i wanted your evaluation of why iraq is slowing down. is it a deliberate on the part of the iranians not to be provocative? with the paving over is it not going to be impossible to determine what happened there? and finally there is going to be a meeting between iraq and the iaea. i've been given to understand that the iaea has seven items

that it wants to discuss with iran. are you aware of that georgia and daryl? can you give information on what they are going to bring up? >> we covered a little bit of that. >> i think they are slowing down their announcements on when it will start. they couldn't have met them in any case. they made a big statement. they've made a certain number of fuel assemblies by this august it's going to be 55 fuel assemblies and about 150 for a full load. they've made ten. and also we are not even sure, they haven't put in all of the equipment in the reactor and they've depended on foreign procurement for that reactor and it isn't clear they have everything together for that reactor yet. and again, we don't have a lot of information and the iaea can just look at the reactor and see

what's there. the reactor isn't finished. its overall school and i think they are being more realistic and announced the delay. i think on parchin, we have watched this de date and are trying to figure out what is going on. we don't know the tests done in that chamber. the iaea said, and we looked at three possibilities of what could have happened inside of parchin, and we don't know which of those three it could be. typically people who have been attacking the iaea on this have been picking one and going after it, but the iaea never said that's the test that happened there. so we don't know if there was nuclear material involved. it may -- the only statement that is clear is that there were highly explosive tests or the obligation is high explosive tests related to the development of nuclear weapons. and so therefore, we don't know

if you can detect anything. and with the amount of work that's been done i would get a low probability. i mean, i think people over rate what environmental monitoring can do. it's a very powerful tool, but i can tell you the successes have often did because of the mistakes of the adversary. and so, you take an example in iran where they detected things that somebody called electric. they didn't detect anything in the facility. there were several buildings. one they cleaned up the very well, repainted, redid surfaces on the walls. it didn't affect anything. what happened is iran for got to redo something in another building and didn't cleanout the ventilation ducts and that's where they found it. so iran knows the domestic. from our point of view, next time this came up with a actually took down a facility

that was related to the military dimensions of the program. and the just removed it. and then they created a sports complex. and in parchin, we don't know what they are doing. it's very suspicious. and i'm not optimistic that the iaea -- one is asserting there is nuclear material there that will be detected, and if there is, that iran has done so much on the site on whether you can detect it. >> [inaudible] >> well, no. ivies you have to move on. you tried something else. you look at the research center, procurement information. and then there is a lot of compelling information that allows you to ask a whole series of questions about what happened at the site. and so why did you have to -- if iran does something the blocks you you don't just keep throwing

yourself against a wall. you move your sell for around it and that is what needs to happen. one of the issues the iaea raised is the set explicitly this time they do want iran to talk about procurement in terms of the possible military dimension. iran had announced about a year or two ago that it wouldn't talk about procurement anymore. so they do want iran to reverse itself and be willing to talk about procurement. and that is one of the ways to get around some of these walls that have been created. >> okay. just three quickly, barbara. we have other questions. >> the report talks about what they need to accomplish. >> an example would be they've been asked -- and again, the iaea makes mistakes. i personally think they made a mistake asking to go to parchin in such an explicitly because given the history, it was almost guaranteed that iran will start repaving everything and moving

things down. they should have thought this through a little more deeply. but on the question, they i think are trying to get iran to sit down and negotiate. and these statements are important. one was look, we are investigators. we aren't going to tell you everything we know. what kind of prosecutor would ever go in and retial all the evidence to the accused? and so, iran has said until you give us all information, we will talk with you. but again, parchin is an example. we ask to go there and suddenly there's all kind of construction activity. so the iaea is making it clear yes we on this investigation and to solve this that there are certain conditions we need net and one of them as don't expect us to tell you everything we know, because that is part of our investigatory tool to find things out. >> okay. why don't we move on to the next

question? yes, sir. right in front of you. >> michael, former state department. george, i would like you to elaborate a little bit more on your last comment. even if one is able to negotiate a big, big deal, how one could sell that in their respective domestic political context. we have seen in the eye iranian case where a particular leader or faction is seen as making progress that others will come and pull him down and prevent him from moving forward. you suggest that's the same thing facing president obama perhaps in this context. how do you deal with that? second, in the negotiations themselves. the experience over the years of american iranian interaction has shown the importance of personalities, if i can put it that way. in terms of the personal

characteristics of the lead negotiators and the interlocutors whether the quick and whether they fit with one another. i have heard one negotiator described as he's just mechanical. he's not human. >> to what difference will this make for instance. >> great to see you, mike. reactor pakistan years ago. selling an agreement in the u.s. context, well a couple things, yes. i think it's very important and people here have done it or are doing it to map the sanctions that are there. and the u.s. has had national sanctions on iran since 1978.

kent katzman and others have done volumes on the sanctions that say you need to understand those that the president in a sense unilaterally with presidential authority could waive because that gives them more discretion. as distinct from those the would require the additional concurrence and under what terms because the sanctions are written in different ways in terms of, you know, whether the president can do it with an affirmative vote by the congress or whether there is some day negative vote by the congress and you need to figure out just how much the president could do even if he didn't get support and have that in mind. also some of what iran needs in the deal is if the president can deliver. the question do we accept that there is in richmond and iran. in the declaratory sense, he can do that. but ultimately, to provide -- a lot of what concerns the

european union sanctions and so there's some autonomy although the u.s. congress has written some sanctions where the u.s. will sanction our european allies if they are creating extraterritorial sanctions, which are around the world people are not wild about but sometimes it can be effective. you have to map that. but fundamentally i think the president understands the republicans are never going to applaud anything he would do. the issue is how hard they will fight. there is nothing he would do that they would really support. but are they willing to at least not fight all of it or how hard would they be willing to fight would be the key issue. and there is one of the ways in which israel comes in nasa is important because if he reaches

an agreement that addresses the realistic israeli concerns in a satisfactory way, that will change the dynamic in congress not because republicans would be, you know, supporting obama or whatever, but because they would be getting other messages. this is too important, don't mess with it. so i think that's part of how you sell it. but ultimately of the deal is big enough, as colin said, that allows the president to then go out and use the bully pulpit that says the alternative over time was war. the country doesn't want that. iran is ten times bigger than syria, etc., three times bigger than iraq in terms of population. that was the path we were heading on. i've got this deal, you know, other governments have supported and the military supports and so

on and so forth. these were the two choices. if a faction and house of representatives doesn't agree with anything i do and wants to block this the turn to people. i think that he could use the bully pulpit if it's big enough that something incrementally he can't. the last thing on personalities. i know the ivory -- iranian has great and challenging news and summary of the foreign minister is one of the smartest, funniest people i've ever met in a professional way. i mean, he's hilarious. extremely whitty and absolutely brilliant. and i don't think that he believes it is in iran's interest to have a nuclear weapon personally. and he was involved in the 90's in building conference with the saudis and others. he was a leader in that period where the iranians or improving their relations.

but it also means that they are very formidable negotiators because like some of the predecessors, they are not dumb and they are not a theological. i know from she appointed predecessor he said they may not be smart but i trust him. whereas these guys are really smart and he's not so sure. and so, in terms of how it's going to be to deal with them, we have to be short on our game and if you try to do stuff that is unfair and unbalanced they are just going to be civil to slap us around the had rhetorically. and it's going to be important to have somebody that is on our side that has a sense of humor. again, barbara knows them too. you have to feel like an idiot first of all because you are not getting the jokes, you are not laughing. come on, that was funny. so we need to have somebody with a sense of humor.

>> as explained by john stewart at the state department the other day. >> we will have another panel on comedy and diplomacy and international affairs at some point. before we get to a quick lightning round of questions because we are running out of time and i will last a couple questions up ones and ask the speakers to briefly address them. i'm going to ask a variation on the previous question to colin about sanctions. we talked about the need to assess what sanctions are in place and what the president's options are in terms of relaxing the sanctions. but there are some members of congress who've been advocating there should be yet another tougher round of sanctions approved by congress. the house passed a bill a couple months ago. the senate might do that. they argue that is the approach that will work. some of them want sanctions that don't allow the president to weaver authority -- waiver

authority. what are the problems and how that makes the deal more difficult. >> i agree mostly with what george said about the challenges but i also think one of the big challenges that you elude it too is the congress could do things in the interim to make it even harder. so it's hard now. it's really hard now and i think it's only possible in the context of a big deal which is what i said that congress could do some things the will make it even tougher. in particular they may have certain legislation in a very inconvenient way so i suspect there's negotiations of timber. there's maybe syria strikes and we will see the senate act on a version of the house passed which is a defacto trade embargo against iran that would be very significant and how that plays into the national disputes between rouhani and the others will be kind of kick started by d.c. reed in operation -- syrian operation.

but the other issues i think our that there is a lot of momentum in the congress to strip the presidential waiver authority and that's a problem because it limits the a devotee of the president to spend the implementation of sanctions for a certain period of time either eight offense measured approach that ties the president's hands on that. it also makes it difficult for the president told the national coalition to get there because its ability to waive certain sanctions of their parties is an inducement to encourage them to cooperate and some other area. last but not least there has been talking con chris -- all the way up this is 3-cd -- of only passing the sloping loopholes that too tight and not just in iran's program but in human rights, democracy, women's rights, minority rights which are all goals but effectively communicate to the regime unless the regime changes, we are not going to lift the sanctions. so anything that is put into a major piece of legislation on the program which also includes requirements that certify that

iran is a human rights respected jeffersonian democracy before the sanctions get lifted is a vote for war with iran. and i think that people in congress are starting to wake up to that. but if they are, i hope they heard what i just said. so, it's not just important to get the congress on board at the end. it's to not have them make it more difficult along the way. >> dad is an important point. we are going to take a couple or three questions here. one question each quickly. and then i will have each of the speakers try to handle them. yes, sir. >> from the u.n. association. i wonder if the panelists can expand on the potential will for the u.n. above and beyond the iaea and even the security council if you will action by the u.n. general assembly, actions by the u.n. secretary. given the problems we are having in syria where we have had a rejection by the administration of the u.n. action.

>> would it help in the negotiations if we require israel to clarify its nuclear posture and if it turns out they do have nuclear weapons forcing them to get rid of them? >> behind you - recognize the association greg tallman. >> this is a question for george and colin. if indeed the supreme leader is convinced that the ultimate u.s. objective is the regime change and of course this is in the supreme leader who thinks this, aren't we on the wrong track and how the administration is handling syria by citing the iranian victimhood in the past and that on occasion they needed the perpetrator of the attack and continuing to insist there is no role for iran at that table for the geneva could discussions in the future.

>> good if the tough questions. why don't we start with george and then colin. >> on the question about the u.n. and the secretary of the general assembly my imagination is limited to see a positive role and a big problem in the u.s. congress as we just talked about. i would keep the u.n. as far away from it as possible. on the question about, you know, what it called for israel to clarify its capability, a, that wouldn't happen, b, it would be counterproductive. there is a reason that israel has declared that it's never had nuclear weapons and why egypt for example has never said that it does but talks about on safeguarded fissile material is that all of the countries in the region would actually be under more pressure to acquire nuclear weapons or to resist if israel overtly had the capability or tested, god forbid, the iranian

are not insisting them to be part of the negotiation. and so i think we should leave it aside. now if there is a diplomatic resolution to the issue or if iran is bombed over this issue, much more attention afterwards can be focused on the capability. and that may be a good thing. people say iran made a deal to get rid of what was worried about. now why this in israel, number one. or number two, wait a minute you just went to the war over iran. but what about israel. so those can happen leader. but in terms of a diplomatic solution i think it is basically on related and should be left unrelated. last on greg's thing on syria. what the administration is trying to do and what rouhani is trying to do so far is to not let what's going on with syria get in the way of what they want

to pursue on the nuclear channel and by literally. i think obama has been very cautious, the iranians husbandry cautious in this way. we are never going to agree on syria. we will always be on opposite sides because they have a profoundly different interest than we do. so that one seems to me to still be manageable and both sides seem to be doing a pretty good job of trying to kind of walk and chew gum at the same time. >> i'm not going to comment on the israel issue. george covered that will. i think expanding the current talks to include more u.s. involvement is not a good idea. the key five plus one is plenty big and as the members of the security council. i think that he isn't to make it bigger but to make it smaller. that is a sustained by little conversation the and the united states and iran is the only way

it gets done. they can endorse it and modify it but it's only going to get done in a quiet room with a very senior officials. on the serious issue, look i think the moderates have reasons to cut a deal on the nuclear issue a and resolve some of the pressure and sanctions and isolation is completely separate from syria and themselves are trying to downplay the criticality in the calculations. i think that the americans tried is advertised in this relatively limited in its duration and scope will make it easier for them. it looks like it's and that the regime change will make it harder for their competition with the irgc folks that want to play a role. i think there is a valid to in terms of the discourse of the obama administration to say something about the u.s. experience in the iran iraq war. my personal view is something along the following lines would be a good idea to be in someone's speech, kerry, obama.

we were wrong in the 1980's and look away when saddam hussein used gas against his own people in iran. and al-assad is wrong today to look the other way when he does the same thing to his people. we have shown that to our mistakes in the past like our involvement. we can own up to it. we are strong enough to survive that. and what help rouhani and others who are making the argument that iran is the biggest victim, can't look the other way in the context of its values and the weapons to get sali degette helps them on the margin to make the case and removes the argument from the opponent that we are hypocrites. so that's what i would be advocating. i don't know if it will happen or not. last but not least, i hope and i suspect that the administration is thinking about that after planning for syria not just in terms of how to use the strike on the diplomacy in syria but how to minimize the collateral damage of the strike on the iran diplomatic track and potentially even leverage the strike to have some conversations with the

iranian on a whole host of issues. i don't know that is happening but i hope they are and think they should. >> on the u.n. involvement i think i see the two potential roles. certainly on the u.n. security council should strengthen the sanctions. i talked about illicit goods. more needs to be done to make it harder for iran to buy the goods it needs for its nuclear program. and maybe in the distant future year, will be able to go out and buy these things like what say for example brazil can do for its centrifuge program. i think trying to strengthen the role of the u.n. panel of experts, the sanctions committee to be able to better implement the sanctions and also to and goods that are banned to iran would be very useful. on the israel question, i think

the deals that were discussed in the 2003-2006, at least starting to deal with this is really -- israeli question, they're needs to be a broad discretion in the middle east about arms control. >> they're already is. there is the agreement to have a conference on the destruction and we know what's happening with that. so if we are going to repeat that, fine. >> i think it was done in the context of the resolutions after the war of 91 and it led to a cool series of actions that i think were positive and were not destructive as the nuclear weapons free zone de date. there are ways to give it that can encourage this discussion that doesn't create this conflict that can't be resolved. all right i want to thank everybody.

we are out of time today. it's been a very important discussion. as i think everybody was saying the on iranian program is advancing but that diplomacy is going to have to be much more sophisticated and creative, energetic and even as the process in the middle east proliferates. david albright for the remarks and comments and insights and thanks everyone for being here and more information on the carnegie endowment website as well as the arms control association website including our new briefing book as the iranian puzzle. thank you. [applause]

>> [inaudible conversations] more coverage this afternoon with a discussion on the of devotee of internet service providers to place restrictions or varying charges on data.gov usage and whether they have the authority to regulate the service providers.

>> own personal opinion, and this isn't based on the opposition fonts' and the own personal opinion is that even if the punitive strike at this point could have an important psychological impact on the civilian population. and again, the radicalization that we've seen develop over time but was actually stopped for some time because of the positive development in syria is now starting up again as chemical weapons are being used and there is no response. so, my own personal opinion is

that if there is nothing else and i do not to agree with a limited strike but if there is nothing else, psychological impact even sending a message is very important. >> we want to get your thoughts on how you would like to see your members of congress vote on a resolution authorizing military force in syria on tonight's town hall. and military leaders they cohost a panel discussion on the impact of innovation on the

national security and how innovators and defense professionals can learn from each other. it's hosted by the center for strategic and international studies in washington, d.c. and it's 90 minutes. >> good evening everyone. we are about to get started. hello and welcome to this panel discussion with the young professionals and foreign policy and disruptive thinkers. i am air again by the director of the young thinkers. >> i am a programming manager for the young professionals and foreign policy. it's an organization with almost 10,000 members and the location is not only here in washington, d.c. but also in new york city, london and brussels. across all of those locations they are working to foster the next generation of leaders in the foreign policy and national security.

and you can find out a whole lot more about it on our web site, livepfp.org. you could also find us on facebook, twitter and instagram. one of the things we enjoy giving is partnering with other great organizations. >> disrupted fingers began in 2011 ncnb ago and we feature the chapters in ashbel, toronto and d.c.. our mission is to innovate in the defense department and other agencies by connecting military government leaders with the entrepreneur is and creative thinkers to provide the tools and the networks we need to bring our disruptive thoughts into action. we bring these organizations to get there today because we both share a common belief that tomorrow's leaders in a foreign policy and national-security are going to meet the trade of entrepreneurship to change the organizations and agencies.

>> the first is my colleague to my right christian cornet will be live tweeting that even the and she will also be using the hashtag for the two organizations. you can use that to hashtag and during the q&a if you don't want to ask a question of the microphone you can tweet it is ecdt. she will be asking them from her microphone for the panelists. it's my pleasure to introduce the moderator. beth is the director for the leadership and organizational studies of the office of the secretary of defense. she has been with the department of defense since 2004 since she joined the presidential management fellow and also worked in afghanistan while she was there. prior to her time, she worked in the public at the private

sectors. i know you had a chance to read her biography on the web site but we will mention some kind of website. she had a fellowship in san francisco and worked in silicon valley and most recently created an online community of the federal workers where they could share their stories about their experiences during the 2013 furlough. thanks so much for being here. now all over to you. >> thanks for having me at the ypfp of which i am a very supportive family and to disruptive thinkers. i should thank csis which plays home to a lot of these defense and to the audience for taking the time to come and learn. i.t. this is an area of inquiry which is very open to people that want to make a change and

to make this kind of investment speak to that commitment of yours. let me first praised the event organizers for bringing together a really diverse and interesting panel of which i think reflects the ki design elements of innovation itself which is diversity. and here on the panel you have read their biographies on the web site, but we have many different perspectives and experience is represented from the civilian world and the military world, from industries, from development and also the folks that are taking some time to study innovation to stand back and reflect. i really appreciate that diversity being so acted upon. to set the scene i was going to make a couple of assertions. one is that you are all here because you are committed to a

national security in the united states. and maybe even more poetically to a peaceful and globally connected world. my second assertion is that you are interested in responsible for or at the very bare minimum, you are certain somewhere deep in your gut that innovation is an imperative for the companies, governments, organizations for their own security but also to be prosperous. even if you have no clue about how to go about innovating in this case, you are here because you care about. my fair the assertion is you don't know for sure the answer to the question was posed by the event organizer. innovation and national security, do de mix. if all of these things are true,

then we are in great shape because these are absolutely the necessary ingredients for having in mind blowing conversation about. you have the passion, the deep curiosity and the commitment to learn to read so i'm going to offer this channel to you and the panelists that we have a different kind of conversation in washington typically sees and that conversation is driven by a were curiosity and commitment and we show that by asking great questions. in that experience i was googling today and found a fantastic quotation from some and i never heard of but apparently he's a very famous american poet and also translated dante's de mine

comedy. he said a good question is never answered. it isn't able to be tightened into place but it is a pc to be planted and towards the hope of the training the landscape of ideas. i thought there was a nice scene for the way the we go about learning more about this topic. just in case you consider yourself a little less public and a little more street fighter i found one from bruce lee musette wise man can learn more from a foolish question danny fulton learn from a why is the answer. please ask questions and if you forgot how i will step in to help. with that i am going to turn it over to the panelists. each of them will have about five minutes to introduce some

ideas on to the floor, mabey share your take on the question that has been posed to all of us and then we will open it up for discussion. with that -- you want to go all the way down? >> thank you to the organizers. this is an interesting even for me because i know none of you, i know none of the supporters or sponsors of the panel but i'm happy to be claimed by either group has a disruptive thinkers and professional and i feel very welcome. i will be very quick. very simply, i believe and i hope the national security innovation is mixed in very well there are lots of of varying constraints about that and i want to talk about those particularly in the q&a period. let me throw out a few examples in the development space where

innovation is moving forward with a degree of intention of the that we haven't seen in the past to kind of spark your interest in that area and talk about what the landscape means for the young professionals in the foreign policy. i think if you look at the last two administrations in the emergence of this thinking and the development of diplomacy and defense when i talk about development i assume that this is supportive of the national security said the innovation that occurs in the development is going to advance our national security. so i will stipulate that up front. the second is these will all come from usaid experience of our diplomatic of the movement throughout the way in the development if you look at the practice and if you look at the non-governmental organizations academic philanthropist they see

innovation, new uses of technology and application appropriately in the form of mud space as ongoing and increasing. i wanted to start with a quote from the administrator who i believe this issue of bringing new science and technology approaches to the development will be his legacy. he said at the aspen institute last year that we need to break out of the top down institutionally driven model of development and adopt an open source development model that in powers for people everywhere to travel to the to tackle these challenges. it enables the system of free enterprise to connect to one integrated global economy in the way that protect the opportunities of the vulnerable and poor populations to survive and thrive. that is a long quote usually on a big powerpoint i usually have people read it rather than read it to you. they are open source development

and actively involved in those people in their own development aided by the advances in science and technology at the benefit of the poor populations and formidable populations as a leadership guidance we are getting. in the examples one of the things that we have disturbing is look at big problems of development and are a program called grand challenges for development have put out what are the cases where we need to see the day scalable solutions that will affect millions of people and we have sort of started but the problem is and then opened up our process to solve the communities with atm academia or the private sector with the donor community. number one is the solution that you are offering scalable, does it have the ability to change

millions of people's lives and is it adaptable in the environment and not a replication of something that we do in the first world and try to retrofit it into the developing world. number three is a sustainable which is a question we should ask about any kind of development engagement. it's the difference between providing assistance and doing development. member for does it take advantage of the 21st century technology? there have been challenges that have been issued. they are called saving lives. so what interventions can happen close to the birth of what could have survivability of both mother and child. all children reading by age five what innovations can create more literate population speaking all voices count is on accountability and then powering the agriculture so those are the grand scale of values and

scalable results. the second area is what we call development innovation ventures which again we script of the things we are looking at in the development innovations ventures are wide open and giving it's a continuing competition for ideas. some statistics on that over 3,000 applications for development innovation that have been received since 2010. interestingly 70% of the development of innovation ventures are new applicants to aid savitt isn't just going back to the sink from of the community. there are now 60 solutions under way in the country's. it's getting about 70 cents of partnership from the proposing coalitions of the folks being brought together and the solutions are coming from all places. have come from the nongovernmental organizations,

30% from the private sector, about 13% from academia and i don't know the other 2%. that is the category. third i am the most familiar with because it fell in the area of work i do in the agency which historically has been democracy and the governments and then conflict management mitigation. many of you are familiar with the policy on tough psd that said the government of the united states should have a strategy to address the atrocities and that human rights abuse around the world and what can each agency bring to the fight. one of the things we're doing is called the challenge on the it's called www.dtechchallenge.org coast by humanity united and we

put out fight challenges. and i would just list them quickly. what are the ways we can identify the spotlight and detour inadvertent and unintentional third-party enablers on the prevention? so the folks that are either in the multinational corporations or the banking system or transportation insurers who may be supporting that actors who are responsible for contributing to the mass atrocities. so how do we spotlight that and verify and try to detour that at second how can we build greater chance of evidence to capture evidence where the mass atrocities or the human rights abuses have occurred. third is how can we get better productive capabilities in communities are countries that are vulnerable between the communities at risk how we get it into the communities where there isn't the infrastructure

for the secure communications it seems like the bad guys have all communications the need but who is helping those who are at rest to communicate with each other. this comes out of the experience of the then deputy administrator who is the director on the nfc of the rwanda genocide and looking at what it was proposing to do with what training we were doing, what kind of programmatic response we have in this case it could have been written 20 years ago. have there been some kind of advances in technology we can bring to bear and thus was born the technical challenge. it stands thinking from the practitioner on its head. we are no longer going to define the problem and script the solution and then contract to

the contractors for the guarantees. this is how we would like to characterize the problem. what we would like to do is identify the problem and the challenge and the barrier and put it out to the communities. the complexity of the challenges and the solutions lie well as side of the typical disciplines that are usually entered into by the young professionals historic please be yet economics and political science, what ever. what does this mean for young professionals with the policies i have five. the hiring public, the employees

already think that you are totally technically savvy whether you are or not. so they think that you are i-podded, i-padded and if not then you realize that your competition is a generation raised on the interweb or whatever it's called. second, it's getting much more important for the development of how critical and analytical skills because of the problems the globalized technical need to develop a fairly sophisticated conceptual capability. and we can talk in the q&a about how we go about doing that to the it's like to get smart now. there is a way to do that but you have to be more intentional i would say. we need to be aware of how much the environment has changed. i remarked by the time i started my career 20 or 30 years ago big

government flows was the dominant place for the world bank and other donor agencies that accounted for most of that assistance. now it's not just development organizations but in the height of the military, 21% of the official development assistance came from the department of defense to the that is just in the united states. the larger flow that is an official of systems. bigger coming from philanthropists and direct investment from the chinese. other official development assistance in 2001 was about a billion dollars and by 2007 was $21 million. that is significant and just to the situation of the aware of the diversity of players in that space. that means the skills that we traditionally trained the development practitioners have also changed. you have to be much more in the private sector, the non-governmental actors, academia. if we are going to look for solutions that are open source

we have to get familiar with how do we deal and what are the cultures involved in these others? and then fifth, the good old this doesn't change the emotional intelligence and ability to play nice in the sandbox and the ability to work with people who are different than you but not just work with them, honor and incorporate their ideas and give them your ideas in a collaborative way because that is the only way that we can really get to the solutions that we need. >> a great. thank you, neil i've been to turn over to ben to share some remarks. and i think we have just seen how hard it is to stick to five minutes because there is so much to talk about and so much to put out on the table. so the challenge is yours. go for it. >> thanks. i'm going to practice my remarks to say everything i have to say now and for the rest of the afternoon and evening isn't represented at the part of the navy and is in my own personal capacity. i am a big fan of asking for forgiveness rather than permission and i think implicit in that is a requirement and a

praise claimed that one of my friends is here that is that execution is the new innovation. innovation is one of those buzzwords around the dod and going around the government in general and seems to be a mind set that it's all about ideas to get the right ideas and things happen but things don't happen unless somebody takes those things for action and actually execute on them. in the military what i see is the junior officers and the jr listed returned from the war are the ones taking on these actions and making things happen. i think part of this is because people who are sent into an environment that we were not trained for, not because we got poor training that because the war that we had to fight there was no training for. if the infantry officers and marine corps and others on the ground were trained to fight another steve on steve actor in the standard military operation. but when they got there they were faced with the defeated building a country from scratch or two countries from scratch.

25, 26-year-olds in charge of developing an entire community within the culture of religious and economic standpoint had to think on their feed and create solutions for that. in the environment the had a lot of leeway to do that in those cases. .. >> and other own time, money and pollution are making things happen. i give you a couple of examples. one of my friends is in the

marine corps resource start a company called military traveler. anyone can go round and if they're traveling from one end of the country to the other can log on and see every single phone number to every single important base information that they need. if they need to go to the commissary, if they want to see move. another friend of mine created a site called military lounge which is basically an online social media platform. we are seeing other organizations drive upward junior people are taking ideas and pushing them into action. to more i'll mention is the forum which i've had in honor of leading tension officers who put together a weekend like event in october, on this day that tries to turn its on its head. so rather than hosting the standard dod top level people and generals who for the most part say the same thing and the talking points, lead the conference wonder what just happened. we are bringing some of those entrepreneurs from active duty

and veterans aside are making a difference. left the marine corps after being special forces and start a nonprofit in africa, bringing water to the impoverished area. 80, i think -- and katie, she was until, i think a company doing stuff with talent here in d.c. these are 31, through two-year-olds who are making an impact at a young age. they will be at the defense entrepreneur's forum as well. the second thing is my current position, an organization formed by the chief naval operation to get people outside the normal structures of government and give no ideas to navy, people who weren't institutionalized and an assistant to bring ideas and see technology that our generation sees is changing the shape of the battlefield and putting them in demonstrations for complete access in the quick way. getting back to my initial thesis, i think that those in our generation are the ones want

to make a difference. difference. were not out there just to make money or former company. we want to solve a specific problem. with the entrepreneurial mindset that a lot of us have the we can go out and do. i would include you in your own organization, was in a military, government or a large company or your own company, take an idea, run with it, get buy-in. if you don't come if it's good enough get stakeholders on board, take action to make it happen. if you fail, learn and move on. if you don't, go with that success and see we go. with that, i would love to take your questions later on. >> thank you. hi, everyone. i am leon shahabian t. i cannot live thursday right before major holiday and there's this kind of turnout in washington. what's going on? the city has changed. thanks for being here. what an interesting topic. i think i finally figured out why i was asked here to speak but i'm the only guy in town who doesn't have a twitter account

or whatever it's called. [laughter] funny enough. we're here to talk about innovation. i've been with layalina productions, we started about 11 and a half years ago right after 9/11. and, yeah, we make tv shows that air in the arab world the air here and get millions of viewers and we have a lot of fun doing it. for storytellers. what we do is classified by the state department as public diplomacy, by dod as information operations, and by other agencies with smaller initials, something else. but we are in many respects producers who prefer to be behind the camera, not in front of it. but he we are. i love the idea of execution being the new innovation. since he quoted bruce lee i feel compelled to quote -- not

shakespeare but will smith. he said in the late '90s, some have hopes and dreams, we've got ways and means. there's a lot of dreamers and a lot of poli-sci classes who want to come to this town. the ones that end up here are usually the a students. and yes, we may not be the sharpest dressers or, you know, maybe hollywood for ugly people as my colleagues in hollywood call it, but here we are. believe it or not the people in this room, as if i was happens with events that csis, a few years from now they will be senators and congressmen and positions of power, a lot of bras, et cetera said it. so we are here on thursday evening right before holiday. i'm going to stop talking, and let's have a conversation.

>> so, i'm under instructions to moderate a little bit of a discussion among the panelists, but i think we all generally agree that the more interesting interactions are with all of you. so when i thought i would do it is throw out one observation, or one question that came to my mind as i listened to you all, and you can take a stab at it and then we'll open it up. is that fair? so this is actually a question that i was kind of forcing me to scratch my head as i was thinking about this event, and that is, how do we think about the relative roles, or importance, in innovation between ideation, year, the creativity peace? which i think is where a lot of the initial focus goes. and implementation which ben,

you really focus on. when i was in school they defined it as three concentric circles. the desirability of the solution, right, is there a demand for it? the economic viability of the solution, which is can you make money? is their economic model behind it? and the technical feasibility. can it be done? and that i think is really interesting in terms of this question because it brings all of those pieces together. the easy answer would be the iht -- the idea generation is more fun. but ben really highlighted the execution peace. and i wonder if the panelists might reflect on their own experiences across the spectrum and then maybe we will open it up to some thoughts and questions from the audience. >> i think execution is scary

for a lot of us because in many cases it involves failure. and none of us want to fail, right? we are all in d.c. or other or decisions that don't really reward failure, or allow us opportunities to fail. i think when you get in the mindset of trying things and learning from them and really embracing the 80% solution mindset, you get a lot of value out of that. you also meet people. and i think one of the things i've learned most from my time running disruptive thinkers and performing data and being part of the rapid innovation so is that relational networks are really the thing that drives a lot of these solutions forward. in the military we love widgets and gadgets, things that look cool and fly around and go fast. but this e-mail marching orders right now are payloads over platforms, which makes perfect sense to me. i would argue the perfect payload is the person, the brain. the most important -- potent and best weapon system created.

the human brain and the ability to get it without humans to get people to room and get some synergy, and for people in room and maybe five or six at their skill sets and distraught the ideas back and forth and all of a sudden the individuals are far more together than ever were by themselves. the teams around 10 or 15 organizations are looking in my case how to do manufacturing on the ship, find out that somebody is doing it and you get lessons learned from him. maybe you stumble that someone else comes in with project management. when you're executing up against the government of bureaucracy and hit a legal application all of a sudden you need a lawyer who knows how to make the system work for you. you develop this network of people that doesn't anticipate once your project is done. you can go to new projects and reply up on that network later on. you slowly have the self replicating ad hoc organization that percolates and creates more power in and of itself.

and so i think when it comes to execution we have to focus on the fact that failure is a possibility, that from that failure can, great gains and we shouldn't be afraid of that. >> other comments? >> well, innovation, national security, in this town if you want to be read you have to write fiction, right? so the best fiction writers do with national security are now writing about national security institutions that exist mostly illegally, but are staffed by people who used to be in the government, that are aided by people who may be junior enlisted folks that went and innovated and were entrepreneurs and made billions and have their layer in vegas or something and want to give back. instead of giving back to the institutions are helping to set up small cells of people who are

doers rather than people who are frustrated within the bureaucracy. the list of authors who are creating these worlds include tom clancy and others. so clearly some of the best informed minds in national security, the ones that write the books that everyone else reads are talking about creating a new type of institution, and institution that is complementary to government effort, but is not limited by a lot of the rules and regulations and bureaucracy and everything else who is associated with, you know, a well-established government. the longest government on the face of the planet, we may be a young country but we have the longest lasting government. so yeah, we have institutions and we have rules and there's checks and balances, and a lot of times it may not be the most

innovative organization to be in, and it may be frustrating for young people, and a lot of them leave and do interesting things. and it's a challenge to how to keep the best people still interested and willing to play within the sandbox. of course, this was said by someone who doesn't have to play in the sandbox. that's what i can talk about it, because i don't go through the same frustrations bad government and military go through. hollywood or the d.c. version of it, nonprofit production company. so with that, would rather just entertain questions. >> we will unsure get to some of the issues about the system and the organizations that support or hinder innovation. i know that was one of the questions, the leading questions in the advanced training.

any other comments? >> just to pick up this idea failure. organizations generally don't like to fail. governments like it even less, principally because there do with other people's money and governments in washington don't like to fail because the stakes are so high. you get noticed in a bad way for failure. i was watching folks you're probably familiar with organizations. i was watching a video today, and again, some sound something like we like to fail to learn quickly. and so this is a place where innovation and national security don't really mix. and i think my response to that dichotomy is, you know, the interesting thing about this documentary was the date. 1991. so 14 years ago talking about failure with the governments

not, it's not something we're going to go out and about. the way i think about this problem is to start small, to build our risk tolerance by experiment where we can fail fast, that we can create safe environments. so with the objective of learning. i think the american people understand that as long as we're not putting billions and billions of either money or people at risk. >> great. so it is about 70 and imac and the event -- why do we open it up to the floor and i would just ask that if you're at the table you make sure your mic is on to ask your questions. and if you're not at the table, i will try to repeat it. any questions? sure, go ahead. >> hi, everyone. i'm a defense policy analyst, and my question for you, you had a quote that ended with we have

the ways and means. i wanted to ask, do we have the ways and means? if we do, who is we? because i think the question of age and influence is something that we feel as young people, a lot especially in government, in that we don't have it. but i want to see what you thought of when it comes to asian influence, innovation, where do we stand, where are we going? isn't going to improve? do we have the power to improve it? and what you think on that. >> well, it's the first time someone has called me serve. [laughter] all right. you do have something that no other generation -- looking at him and me, not these guys. but no other generation before you had, and that is you don't have to write a letter to the editor. you can have your own publication. you don't have to call in to a

radio show and wait for an hour. you can create your own radio show online. all you need is a feature phone. you know, there's cool ads. you can go to scatter radio.com, create your own way to show. go to a football game after high school, and say, here's me at a game that no one is broadcasting, and here i am live -- i don't know, what the right tactical worthies, but you can broadcast the game. you know, your friends around the world can listen to you, the ones that are not watching that high school football game. and he used to be that there were flowcharts in organizations. and so and so reports to so-and-so. so-and-so reports do so and so. those who part of every website. you know, when websites first

started, organizations would put up their flowcharts. you don't see that a lot. maybe some governmental offices still have that. it's obvious what took from a powerpoint and just put it on the web and so-and-so reports to so-and-so. but there's never been a better time to be a young person in foreign policy. it the hierarchy has been pancaked, if i can say that. and yeah, it's probably a little more frustrating to be doing this inside the government rather than outside, but you have a lot of tools at your disposal. so you can either hope and dream, or you can say i have the ways and means. it's totally up to you. you feel entrepreneurial? do you feel the benefit outweighs the cost? because if you write something and you slide it under the door of your supervisor, or supervisors supervisor, high

risk reward category, and but if you have the time, the energy to put something new together, people will read it, especially if it's, you know, has good character development with it. never assume that the only time you should be allowed to speak is when you hit, you know, you get the promotion or you get the office instead of a cuba. no. -- cubicle. you have to somehow send out spent if i could piggyback on that. one of the things that really came to focus for me was there were a lot of organizations that i wanted to exist that didn't. so you have to go out and make them yourself. i think in d.c. and in bureaucracy especially, and i'm

going to steal a phrase your but there's a soft bigotry for junior folks, junior all enlisted. i've run into admirals have set a complete surprise, or unpleasantly surprised at the level of effort these junior officer or putting forward. which is a backhanded compliment. if he didn't expect we could produce these things. if you see an organ session that drinks entrepreneurial civilians with innovative military people, go do it. get people together in your living room over a book club a talk about policy issues, and then they tell a friend. someone else tells a friend, and a year later he has three chapters across the country. josh started and what, 10 years ago, now it's 10,000 young people. that is taking an idea and running with it. if you have an idea for a group, just do it. one of the things i want to do in my own organization as we must suppose to be the center. with very stovepipe organizations that have a hard time talking to each other.

this isn't going to be disrupted. just our a book club and say we will look at military history. i want to meet for an hour every month, meet people i talk over a good discussion answer fostering these relationships. if i have a problem or an idea i can go to the experiment haitian department and i know this guy from a discussion two months ago from the book on whatever. we have that relationship. we cannot do something with. my advice is, if have an idea, try it out. see what happens. if it fails, learn from it. >> i work on national secret policy at the heritage foundation. my question, something you raised earlier that struck a chord. i think it's fair to say that generally, particularly in the defense world when i hear the phrase innovation, it tends to do with systems.

and theirs as well very for my with an overwhelming focus on time and systems and seeing that as the future of defense systems. and in a sense i think we have kind of taken a human away from that equation. so how do you think we should continue to do the individual, the human and the innovative sense as technology changes and as we find our relationship with those tools different? i'm thinking particularly with the way we even talk about people who fly and i know the people who do this don't like to be referred to as own pilots, for example. >> -- drone pilots to speak we did a trip up to mit and happen to visit with their human gesture lab. one of the things they're working to do is to make computers adapted to humans and not make humans adapt to computers. perfect example is the keyboard.

the interface, the mouse was very optimized for the computer itself. what about systems that respond to human ergonomics? what we do to make the interface more directed inward? what you said about us focusing in dod in the military on which it's and physical -- widgets, it reinforces to me the need to come back to the human and the weapon system. human performance optimization. look at areas like nutrition and areas like physical fitness. and even all the things coming out from dna or the mapping of our genome, even getting the inkling of understand what the true capability of humans are. there's so much potential there to optimize us as true capable people. i'm not saying we're superman but instead of spending $100 billion over the next fighter jet, what if we poured $100 billion into human performance art disease reduction or whatever that would optimize us as the ones who have to use the systems?

so i'm all on board with the human focus of innovation. is that your question? i don't know if that's answered it. >> i think just as an extra tack onto that, i think also when i was curious about is just in terms of how even talk about innovation. i think that he seems to be increasingly stepping away from the individual. and the reason that i think that, i've kind of wondered, thought about that before, when i think about the strength of traditional that we refer to the superiority of the american soldier. as you are very well familiar with everyone else, not just the equipment. and using that framework in the future not just in the military but elsewhere. >> i think you're absolutely right. >> [inaudible]

>> my question would be, you seem very clear about you try to go and do something, try new things, but as opposed -- [inaudible] could you explain sort of the difference between us that a great idea, i'm going to do it now, versus why institutions sort of even exist, the skills, why do we even have to scale up? sort of talk about, you know, that place and as for my

reputation -- [inaudible] >> i may need to repeat the question. it's going to be hard to do it, but basically the question is around the tension between the kind of individual and innovating impulse, to be totally a letter rating -- a letter rating. and institutions that we innovate in, added to that the kind of imperative scale to paint the picture on the path to how you'd scale, how that seems in some ways to create tension with his individual impulse. is that fair? do you want to take a crack at it? >> i think you know, the first place i would start is thinking

about what you know about the particular culture of the organization you're operating in and listening to the system that you're in and see what the tolerances are for disruptive thinking, or innovation. i would think that in any institution those thinkers tend to stand out and those are your potential allies, your mentors. i don't think the nature of that innovation, you can't do it by yourself. you can do in a small group but you will be better in a somewhat larger group just because of the nature and complexity of the problems you're dealing with. i think those two things, where's the culture in the nature of property with? do they have tolerances for horizontal communication, informal networks? what was said before by colleagues here is that this generation in terms of the whole idea of technology enabled canneries of practice, in affinity groups, governments are

filled with affinity groups. and they don't generally, very low bars to doing that. so i would start there and i think it really is highly situational dependent in terms of the organization itself, how far you can go in that space. >> i think for the military specific, the chain of command exists. there has to be those levels of influence, especially comes to combat operations. another phrase comes to mind and that's the subordinate admiral nelson used to great effect in his previous campaign but also the battle where he was killed. his subordinates were able to execute his mission command orders basically flawlessly and still win the battle. a modern-day example of that for me is general mattis entrance what he did in the initial drive up a racket for the on when he was commanding general ever asked her to really believe in the initial subordinate i think one of the things i want to

create is this groundswell of innovation at the dod lower levels such that when they do get promoted and five, 10, 15, 30 years, we are playing the long game. they will be the ones at the 4-star level, the colonel level, lieutenant colonel or even senior level who understand the innovative mindset and will allow their subordinates to truly use their talents. right now we do live in a bureaucracy and we have to live within that. i'll go back to the google model. at the 20% time but it's not something a but he gets to do. you have to prove value that the 20% you are using for google is a return on investment. if you have some creative thing you want to do, you have to sell that to your senior leaders and/or to make accountable. i think with the initiative that a lot of us have, we can do that. we can show true value. want you do that it softens the playing field for future people to follow on. chain of command is important but there are ways to help soften that leadership and trust

really will make that. >> to be very clear, i don't think any of us are advocating doing away with the chain of command. that's one thing that we will say. but just to mention, i mean, the general who is known, you know, for his exploits later in his career, in gulf war one, t two,o be a new captain, he had a battalion. they were trying to see how soft baghdad was. out of his own initiative he said i'm just going to keep driving. and he went all the way, and he called headquarters and he said i think i'm going to stay here overnight. they said no. no, no. , i think i can pull this off. the war ended earlier. the headlines were, u.s. tanks

roll into baghdad. our military is blessed with more entrepreneurship than most militaries. most of the work is in the arab world and what we like to say is that u.s. army staff sergeant has the same entrepreneurial/ability to get things done without getting someone to sign off on it. so the military is nimble because it allows people to think on their feet, especially in combat settings. especially in combat settings that there's no manual you can dust off the shelf and say, all right, what happens when communism we go into the country and there's a lot of issues that we weren't anticipating? case in point, you have young officers who were able to think on their feet and it works. so we're not doing away with the chain of command. we want to be very clear, you know. we still have a lot of billy to

get things done. >> if the moderators committed to offer 2 cents, i would just say for the folks, for civilians who were in these large institutions, i'm reminded of something that jaclyn said, a social entrepreneur who started acumen. we brought her to the pentagon as part of an innovation series called new ideas at osd. in any case she remarked on how on the phenomenon of good people gain, being or feeling stuck in that position. so there is something to that, right? i think what's interesting to consider is how being indo systems kind of teaches you new ways of doing your work or being you, even in the civilian world. it's a very permission-based system. we learn over time to act first.

win, you know, before you ever worked, where the work, you might just gone ahead and done it. so one way to kind of put soft pressure on those, that tendency to learn new ways of operating in a very safe way, just ask myself, what would happen if i just did it? is asking permission first necessary question to be educated about where the boundaries are of appropriate, you know, behavior, right? but often i find people say yes more often than they say no. it's better to put your ideas out there because it's usually an audience for this kind of thing. >> on that note, there is one issue, i think we need to talk about the innovation.

that is the prison situation. really, i think this is a significant issue -- [inaudible] a number of issues for a number of stakeholders involved. [inaudible] i've been doing my fair amount of research into this, and really -- [inaudible] which ultimate what led to this whistleblowing situation. i would like you more about innovation in this particular area. >> do you have a specific question that the panelists -- >> how can we sort of promote a sort of, you know, the issues need for national security, but in a way that does not harm people in the ways that we've

talked about. >> okay. >> i don't think he is a whistle-blowers am not going to take this question. i think you can innovate without putting your national security interest in danger. id for. >> i think, i'm not an expert on this like can't offer a good opinion. i think there are pitfalls, technological revolution and with the advent of the internet, there will be major consequences. it's something to be mindful of. and i think the democratic process will sort it out. unfortunately i can't say more. >> on kind of a different vein of that topic, i work in the defense department to we can't bring our cell phones into work. there's no wireless internet.

they are talking about -- [inaudible] not only can we not outsource outside the basic research, but you can't into our coworkers about some of the issues. so how do you innovate where everything is classified? and the classification is therefore very good reasons. >> [inaudible] >> that's a great question. [laughter] >> well, i've never been -- all i will say is that overclassification is bad. [laughter]

and things that are sensitive but unclassified like an oxymoron to me. i can say that because it's not my sandbox. so figure out what's really important, protect it really well, and everything else, just put it out there. if it really needs a national security imperative, use all the means at your disposal to make it safe. but the idea of putting so many silos, not my cup of tea. >> i just want to offer a story that one of my two favorite stories that demonstrates this culture of secrecy. so typically a idea gets asked to go to an agency events and you go to some low-slung building in arlington that has a

very innocuous names like united technologies, or something like that, and i will go in and outside my name is neil levine, i'm the director for humanitarian assistance and a guy was say hi, i'm bob. [laughter] you know, so i'm sure bob has really good information that he invited me to this event. there's probably an ongoing professional relationship but there's no business card. there's no last name. there's no kind of interest beside a one way of extraction of information from time to time. but as i just happen a number of times, i don't think it is a good answer to but if you lock down your ability to communicate with each other, what happens is those folks at that level are only talking to each other. it doesn't bode well for kind of problem solving on the level of complexity we need. the reverse should be too. i believe there's a way to do

that and still protect the nation's secrets. >> we will hopefully provide a mindbending perspective and this is a director quoted, not directly quoted by paraphrasing a guy named andrew. in 20, 30 years time will probably be directly interfacing with computers, with probably putting things in the brain and will be talking to them and whatever. called a polygon or whatever. -- polly anna. you as a government employment classified information in your brain right now, what are the procedures going to be when you hook yourself up to a random machine to have a competitive advantage that everyone of your civilian peers are having? what kind of firewalls will we have to create? does that create a disincentive be a government worker when you can use the same resources as somebody else? that doesn't answer the innovation question but technology is going to keep

pushing the boundaries of what classification needs. and when you connect to the internet or you connect to the computer and it's in your brain, how do you deal with it? so you guys can think about that, trying to get to sleep tonight. >> there's a very provocative build on what ben is talking about. computer stainer over at the pentagon and talk about revolutions and technology on the battlefield. one of the things i walked away from was exactly what ben was talking about that, over time as technology has advanced. competitive edge with the government once held in this area is being eroded because of the openness of the civilian society. that will come at a cost. and so the question is going to be how can government continue to do their job and resist the

direction that technology or the civilian world is pushing at his? on an individual level there may be ways for you to collaborate and ways that your office might not do by habit, that are still confined within the rule. in the spirit of the book club, just getting a bunch of smart colleagues to spend an hour and a classified setting trying to solve a problem. spent if i could say one more thing to can piggyback on what beth said. a story about silicon valley, some you may notice that both of those have innovation quarters but the recent silicon valley really tries was because the state of california i should does not have -- basically in boston if you work in company x. you cannot discuss anything if you leave the company with company y. in california can do that. you have a lot more cross-cultural interaction.

form a new company with a personal intellectual processes to develop something new. i think secrecy is the boston ma where's the culture of openness and announcing which make everything unclassified, not at all but we need to think about the levels to which we are classifying things and does it inhibit national security? are some areas where we can open things up to more collaborative environments like a super portal that would be a online travel site. you can go tonight is up or down. that would be shift because you're opening up to people don't have a need to know. has to be done carefully but collaboration does lead to superior results if done properly. >> thank you for the cybernetics. i really enjoyed that. i wanted to ask a question more about the here and now, and question has to a couple of facets to it. what is the hope for disrupting

the current hierarchy? specifically that the man in the government. i think of, for instance, we mentioned ted talks order. you might've seen doctor barnett's talk about reforming the department of defense change it into a multifaceted department that could handle usaid response like -- microsoft but we don't destroy but you create roads. what's the value of that kind of thinking? and also is that even the right kind of thinking? does change need to come from within the government or from without? >> destruction is coming is the retirement of the baby boomers and it's going to be huge. it started a few years ago and between now and 2016 a lot of departments will have changeover up to 50% of their total, you

know, employees. so that is a huge change. and if i were you guys i would be worried how am i going to retain all of their expertise once they are not here, and once there are people my age were looking up to them. >> i don't want to take a position on dr. barnett's -- we're going to host them at ndu and a couple of weeks. i think but it goes to a big makes me think about usaid in general and the ability of strategic thinkers and big think to go want to challenge kind of a conventional wisdom and whether there are enough platforms. it's hard to imagine that there could be more robust intellectual life here, but it

does exist between certain kind of boundaries of what is seen as polite debate here. i guess there's always, in disruptive thinkers is kind of the idea with the conversations that were not having could be had. and so one of those conversations that i think about a lot is we talk about the 3-d world but we choose as a society to i think underinvest dramatically in two of the three things that we say are central to our national security. and so where does that discussion take place? it's going to get even more difficult as resources are greatly constrained. the same time, who plays what role, who is best suited to play the roles the government is asked to play, whether that is this agency, combination of agencies or combination of

private and public roles. i think the think tanks do that, there's a natural space for that to occur, but again it is sort of only exists between a band of debates state i think i'm kind of optimistic that things are changing right now and only -- i'll use the navy as an example. admiral richardson who is now the chief of naval reactors, when he was the commander of the submarine forces, began an initiative tactical advance of next generation and it brought together a group of like 15 or 2010 officers to develop the next generation of a submarines bridge. they created a completely new concept of how to run a sobering. they took that idea and moved into actual ideation production for next generation of submarines, taking those ideas. guys like the rear admiral who is now japan. people like this and admiral greenert who stood up.

vice admiral conard, those guys really get it and they're trying to get innovative ideas. the blessing of the challenges we're facing right now is that people are forced to look outside existing systems for solutions. that is our saving grace. that they're going to start looking to us to hopefully come up with solutions to we have to be ready to pounce on them when opportunities present themselves. there are so may things aligning right now for us to take advantage of, you've got to find those people and they would be those antibodies to want to crush anything that doesn't fit with the status quo. you will find this advocates who have gone through the brains, understand the system and help shepherd your ideas through. i think you take advantage of it and find those people they can be your mentors and the guidance. i'm kind of an optimist despite all the other things i'm going to try to put junior opposition. they are making an impact right

now. >> [inaudible] >> a lot of time when we join up with larger companies working on contracts for the intel community, and i'll keep it safe, we have engineers on site and wha would bring them in andp innovate solutions to the next generation of programs. you come up with a really fantastic ideas. they understand how it works and thait doesn't work and what nees to be done to fix it. but we can't government those ideas because that's not what the contract for the new generation is requesting. it's like the old kind of constant way that's working and that's what they request. if you have an innovation that works better, that's not what they're asking for.

i'm wondering if you guys have seen some examples of how you can overcome those structural challenges if you will. >> have them submit a proposal. an unsolicited proposal. if whoever is running the contract likes it so much, they may actually get it out. don't assume that the people at the top are getting the same information that you are getting. >> i think is also a kind of contracting where you basically described the end state that you want. and then let the proposer propose how they can get there. i don't know if in the delivery of that proposal, whether new innovations that were not present at the time of the proposal was written would be accepted, but i think this way

to contract that. it really does go to serve how you approach problem-solving and what you can do within allies opportunity do that. it's generally pretty, it's a rule-based system but there are rules that are kind of designed to build in at least some innovation. i think the knowledge of that is a very narrowly shared is part of the problem. >> way in the back. >> i feel compelled to ask the next question, because i'm in the exact opposite side of the. we write the old requirements that are difficult to meet with the innovative new ideas. [laughter] and that's where i really can kind of phrase this into a question because one of the battles that we thought him, i love sitting down with contractors and talking because it seems like, can apply to me this question.

there's an old culture among those who have been around for a long time and retired to a three times. half my team is fought in vietnam. of not sharing information. ssummary of the pushes over the last i would say, maybe not 10 years but the recent history of army procurement has been stopped on industry have to do things, let him into the. that has been interpreted as don't talk to industry. let them figure it out. and so it gets very still fight. industry at this moment creates these ideas and have no real method inject it. we have seen, i'm sure true with navy, some of these very rapid and unique inject. it's a great on ramp, and great stuff has been built and fizzles out and dies because it doesn't have a legitimate requirement behind it to carry it on. i guess my question would be, for those have more experience at higher levels, what do you

see really is the bridge from the government side to come we can't stand -- can change statute or regulation. what innovations have you seen that allows to bridge that gap for contracts? >> i can't answer that because unique examples but one thing when you do better jobs of this procurement is taking a system of systems approach. in a given program, large pro-come with multiple components, we usually optimize each individual component separately and sometimes give them to different companies. but when you put them together they don't talk to each other. there's a problem so you need to create a conduit whereby the organizations who are responsible for create the systems are working together to create the best as all. it goes back to the 1980 u.s. olympic hockey team. you have a team soviets who were all-stars in the all right individual of the best of the best but you have this team of scrappy u.s. guys who work

really well together. they may not be individually the best that has a system worked together better as the individual. because of the procurement process, there's a lot of reasons why it's done this way but doesn't produce the results for the system as a whole. i think we need a better job of procurement of recognizing all these interactions and letting the warfighter be truly involved in the decision-making process. i'm not talking about the '05 and '06 warfighter. usually every single day it's the one complaining and moaning about it because they're pointing out this system. and have to log into two different systems because they won't talk to each other. it takes 10 minutes to download. you have to get this on the ground expertise integrated directly with those contractors but that would be a fundamental culture issue. i don't know if it will ever happen because it would shake up that we do procurement. if we wanted to invest system we have to come at it with that

approach. >> it's a great question because it sort of leaves you to is the problem in the system or is the problem in the people. while the procurement, speaking generally and once unfamiliar with is if there are rules that allow you to do several things to break through this attitude of not sharing. number one, you can publicly request information that goes out the campuses. what's out there? what he working on? what you think would be of interest to us? open, transparent, full participation a loud. you can do bidders conferences. you can come as long as you keep between the four squares of what you said in writing and you share that on an equal basis, you can identify who the parties are. once a protected procurement of sensitive, procurement goes off, once an award is made you can

work closely as a partner. we call it grantees and contractors our partners. and my sense is if your guiding -- if your guiding principle is by for the american taxpayer they want a good program that represents the best thinking. so this idea of holding back information for solutions and letting others figure it out runs counter to what that would be. >> right here at the table. >> one of the things we touched upon among the question is a tension between innovation and silicon valley is necessary bottom up. in government is more top down. large corporations the same way the government more so because of legal political and command control. with the new technology and boomers retiring, transformation of government is going to come. if you were to imagine a certain transformation at the government

what would you want it to be? or a chicken finger and change the system in a way you manage -- you imagine to make a better, what would you want it to be? >> okay -- [laughter] >> we are at csis, and just go i was an intern here, working on a blue ribbon commission to look at what's going on at d.o.e. this is pre-9/11. this is protecting my age. i will not disclose when. and a lot of the dysfunction within d.o.e., the reason why the leadership chose to go outside the agency to bring stakeholders from throughout washington and say guys, help us, was because in the '70s it was politically expedient to say we have this crisis, this oil

crisis, everyone who is working on energy in any way, shape, or form across 20 plus agencies would be under one roof we talk to one another, and we can say we're doing something about the oil prices. and, of course, a lot of institutions and organizations that had their own, supreme court, history, were merged rather suddenly. and here we were right, okay, in 2000, looking at something that was done wrong but fast in the '70s and trying to figure out why my comment this organization has had growing pains that are older than we are, how do we address it? fast forward a few years and we have another instance, similar merger that is politicalpolitical ly expedient to do so at the same time. alluding to the department of homeland security.

so long story to tell you, you know, if that were to be organized or reorganized, and these things take time, and yes, politics is in place -- involve. it has to be involved. i would like a government that given a lot of retirement and given a lot of necessary belt tightening, figures out what are some things that we no longer need to do. and, you know, now you get into turf battles and was willing to give up any of their responsibilities and many of their prerogatives. i don't have an answer to that, but i will just say it's not just the executive branch that

has this issue. these turf wars also happen on the hill. and the hill besides the shape of the executive branch. so be patient. but there are, you know, there's a force of less money to go around. someone has to sit and think and we are talking about, how many ships should the navy have? right? that's an ongoing conversation. there's less money, budgets are going down, a lot of people are going to retire, perfect time to sit and think. >> just a couple of suggestions. and i don't think these are down the road. these could be implemented fairly quickly. i think in terms of this idea

about what would you change to promote innovation and get more bottom up, i think it's far too hard for people to move around the government and in and out of the government, as it is structured now. many of you know, are veterans of the pmf program that is redesigned to move you around. i think you said in the first five minutes, we are very stovepipe and we don't talk about every bureaucratic organization have some degree of the stove piping. stovepipe in case you deep knowledge but it also creates independent cultures, career paths, but for a lot of the complex problem we need much more cross politician, cross-fertilization. ..

picked up degrees i think powell in the thirty-year career spent six years in the classroom. nothing equivalent on the civilian side to make life-long learners. in this in the development field that kind of experience is going to be needed in term of promoting innovation, not just for young people, but the entire people working on it. >> i'm kind of a fan in the current system. it's evolved over the past fifty years. and to snap your fingers and

?rap over again and have the points from there. i think discussions like this and things we're trying to push is going to move the evolution naturally toward a more perfect equilibrium. the dod will lag behind the rest of the society. we don't have iphone. we have e-mail and pretty fast internets. but we still have access to the internet. and we're changing slowly our personnel policies and stuffs. i think any evolutionary process is going to have significant points in change. there may be some dips in that. the trajectory we're on in a democratic system is almost the best we're going get. we need people to push, challenge it, poke the bear almost and make them prove they are valuable and put the market forces above the individual point out the flaws and force them to change. that's a long proposition.

our system evolved for a reason. a lot i don't like. but it's that much harder to prove what i'm have candidating for is more beneficial. >> we're a couple of minutes before 8:00. we started a little bit late. maybe the last question. stoked last if there's a burning one. >> i appreciate that. hopefully my question and comment will tie it together. my name is -- [inaudible] my comment and question is -- [inaudible] what we have all the themes tied together, perhaps is, you know, innovation -- [inaudible] then we also mention that the -- [inaudible] john at whole foods introduces

concept of it. i think it's very clever. the analogy, i would offer, if the innovation stretch across the internet whatever sources a lot of people the associated with -- so the analogy i offer is the ice berlg. so the iceberg -- what you see is only a small portion of it itself. you argue that the water around the iceberg is the vulture -- it's the cool sexy stuff you can see. the bit underneath is holding the iceberg up and occupy a vast majority of the mas i would submit that this is these are the processes in innovation. it's the management, this is the training, this is the education,

this is the administration and all of these other elements that are connected with innovation. it's effectively now a system. so we talk to promote or maybe -- [inaudible] a little bit with encouraging a growth or expansion with society's system qo quotient. what are ways you can shift them in ways of the gadget and transcend to the idea that innovation is everywhere. innovation is pervasive in our system. it's within the financial system or the administrative system. there are better ways of doing it. and how do we integrate a growth in the systems quotient as john described it to make these processes and make people excited about the processes and not necessarily just the

products that are typically visual or typically gather. >> i'll simple sincerity say develop and encourage relationships between people. when you die, when you're on the death bed and the people you will probably remember the most. your friends and family. when people ask a influential person it's a teacher or family member. it's somebody they know personally. if you can foster a culture of relationship in your organization, that will inherently great those innovative organizations that rely on people as the foundation for everything you do. i like the iceberg analogy. i would go back to where i started in term of what is important for young professionals looking. i think what lies blow the surface. i'm not a tech guy. i was impressed by really good

design that solves the problem very practical, but i don't claim to know a lot in the tech field, but critical thinking and how do we go about solving problems is one of those skills that lie blow the surface line. the second, i think, is appreciation of diversity we don't have the answer and have to go places where thinking is different than our own. things we disagree with and take on a viewpoints that are were uncomfortable with in order learn. the third would be, as i said before, emotional intelligence. and the fourth is what i'm looking at now, which is leadership. we talked about you said there are beacons, there are places, folks that are natural allies, mentors that you should seek out that -- want to talk to you, i think, and they're going want to listen to your ideas. >> one more question. okay. >> actually, i have a question. [inaudible]

i'm running the twitter right now. i was wondering if the panelists could give their personal opinion on what the most important short-term barriers are. or short-term problems facing innovation for our national security? >> i think the fact there's fear to spend money on innovation even though it will have long-term results. i've give an example. it was brought up to me today. specific program managers are afraid of applying led technology because in the short term it costs more. they're evaluated on a one-year time frame for money. even though the system is a lifetime of system that led light will save thousand of dollars in man hours and replacement costs. that's not what the program management is evaluated on. they stick with the systems that aren't going to be optimized. the fear to spend money to save

money in the long run. >> to piggy back on that. i come from industry even in industry innovation finds a long time to end up in the gadgets. let look at car, cell phones have been you -- the 2014 models are starting to advertise there's a cell phone holder next to the cup holder. it's not technological innovation. someone said i'm designing a car. i'm going cut a piece of the dash. [laughter] this is industry; right? this is a bailed out industry from detroit. we're competing with the best of the best; right? it's a mind set. or look at tablets. they have been ubiquitous for a long time. but legacy systems like airlines and car manufacturers are just starting to put them in to --

adopt them. if industry cutting edge competing with a lot of other competitors internationally takes this long to bring these technological innovations and adapt them in their product, the government, which is a monopoly takes a little bit longer. so the biggest challenge that i see, thank you, that was a great question. how do you still do -- but find a way to rush the market or whatever the appropriate terminology for the government. technologies or even just nontechnological innovation that could help make your product our service better. >> i would simply say i think we covered it earlier. the bigger span is this -- biggest is the fear of failure and not being able to learn from failure. i think that goes through

government in terms of personnel systems, in terms of being able to admit when a program isn't working. and the risks are so high it jeep dpiezs careers and programs. it jeep diazs your ability to continue working. how did you learn in life from people patting you on the back or people saying that was not the best way to do something. here is a better way? you'll have another chance to prove yourself again. that's a practice we take from our personal life. we don't apply it in our professional lives. because the constraint are so great. >> before i turn it over to erick. i want to remarking on one key point which i'm going take away from this, which is that, you know, the title, innovation and national security do they mix? is almost daunting in some ways. it sounds like you're trying to

solve a big problem big important problem. what i am coming away with is the emphasis they i heard from the panelists and the impetus from the questions we've heard from you on the importance of the human dimension. on the relationships. on the individual commitment. on the almost the ornate desire to be playful and collaborative at work. and this is wonderfully simple. on the suggestion that we've heard from the panelists to go to the workplaces and just do is incredibly powerful in its simplicity. i want to thank the panelists for letting me lead here a little more optimistic about this and for the great questions

from you all. thank you, again, for allowing me to be a part of it. i'll turn it over to priscilla and erick. thank you. how about a round of applause? [applause] ic we all have a greater understanding now about the challenges, more importantly the opportunities for innovation and national security and foreign policy and while we may have more questions and answers right now, asking those tough questions among a group of people like this is really the first step in bringing about the innovations that we desire. >> i would like to thank everyone yps, csis, c-span, the moderator and gate panelists for being here and contributing to a great conversation. we really appreciate it. and i hope that you can join us at cities around the corner at

119 19th street. we'll try to continue the discussion in a more informal setting. have a great night! [applause] [inaudible conversations] more live coverage this afternoon with a discussion on the ability of internet service providers to place restrictions or vary charges on data usage. and whether the fcc has the authority to regulate the service providers. hosted by the new america foundation. that's live at 3:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. and also live today at 3:00, over on c-span, the brookings institutions hosts a panel on the use of chemical weapons in syria, and the u.s. response. this morning at the carnegie institute former deputy assistant defense secretary talked about how u.s. military strike on syria might impact nuclear negotiations with iran.

>> there is no one iranian elite view on syria. they are deeply divided. the moderate allies have basically made the case that all use of chemical weapons are -- is important. they have not generally assigned claim to anybody either assad or. it's called to be solved through the u.n. they have taken a fairly sexual sedate tone. they basically said the opposition did this. and if the americans strike syria will light israel on fire. it's a standard argument. i wouldn't believe it's struck syria five times since 2007 and the iranians have done -- nevertheless, it is a threat. so i think the syria issue generates friction between the moderate faction and the hardline faction i believe has an interest in trying to spoil

the successly. it will be a huge test when the military strike happens. i think in the aggravate we help convince that iran is the united is syria about the option on the table to prevent them from having nuclear weapon which could add to the effect and push back against the notion that hard liners advance that the united is a paper tiger. it's serious about using military action. i think it would make the argument. in the near-term it would put them on the defensive, i think. by potentially allowing the adversary to paint him as soft and weak in the face of western aggression. the answer is we don't know what the effect of a strike would be, but it certainly will create a wild card in the diplomatic relations. thanks. that entire discussion available on our website, c-span.org. president obama is overseas this week arriving in saint

peters berg, russia this week following a one-day stop in sweden. he's meeting with world leaders at the g120 summit. the focus is on growing the global economy. the topic of syria is surely going to be addressed during the two-day summit. for more on the agenda and what is going on behind the scenes, we spoke with the white house reporter. >> what is on the agenda for the president this morning? >> guest: basically a series of g120 things. there is a formal arrival meeting. and in between that he'll have one on one meeting with another world leader japanese prime minister. earlier this week president obama spoke with prime minister and i would expect to hear japanese endorsement against syria today. >> guest: what do you think? the senate foreign relations committee voted 10-7 to advance

the military plan for syria. what does that give the president heading to the meeting with the other leaders? >> caller: it gives them a little bit of momentum. i think the vote was closer than the white house wanted. i think it was 10-7. i think they were hoping for a bigger margin. the press secretary sent out a statement but we didn't hear from the president himself. it gives him a little bit of momentum as he tries to promote his plan with the world community which is the main topic of the g20 this week. >> host: yesterday he was on stockholm and it's my credibility on the line. it's the international community. what was he hoping to accomplish by delivering the line? >> caller: he doesn't want to be alone. the united nations has been skeptical of taking action and so is nato. there was a feeling that president obama was isolated on the issue earlier this week. he's trying to put the own use on the world community. we outlawed the treaty against

chemical weapons. we have proof syria has done this. it's time for the international community to step up. he's looking for allies before he takes on an action that could be risky. >> host: here is the "new york times" headline. europe on sideline wait for the next move on syria. who is he talking to besides japan, who can he count on to give the united states and give the president some sort of endorsement about going forward in syria? >> caller: he has two other specific bilateral meeting on the schedule tomorrow. one is with the president of france who endorsed the military strike against syria. that's another international ally. he's meeting with the president of china. i think china has been skeptical an on syria's side in the past dispiewt. i'm not sure he's going to get much help from there. as much help as he can, he specifically got endorsement from the sweet issue prime -- swedish prime minister

yesterday. he's looking for as many friends as he can before any military action is taken. >> host: he's not meeting with russia's president, he canceled that meeting. >> caller: yes. >> host: could there be a standoff between the two? >> caller: yes. the leader of twenty plus major countries in the same place, they are obviously bound to run in to each other. president putin is the host of the g20 summit which is in russia. there's no doubt at some point president obama and putin will meet on the sideline of the g20. i fully expect them to talk and syria be one of the topic. >> host: do you suspect there might be some awkward moments between the two? [laughter] we have seen it happen in the past. >> caller: i'm sure. it's not a very comfortable relationship. you have to look at any pictures in the past these two have had. there's an obvious infriction there and hidden by syria about edward snowden case. there will be awkward moments. they have to deal with each other. they will go forward with it.

the winkle in the sweden meeting yesterday. the swedish diplomat who saves thousand of jews during the holocaust disappeared to the soviet union giew log. his family asked the obama administration for russian help in trying to find out what happened to him. that's yet another issue going to be thrown to the fire on u.s.-russia relation. they have a lot to talk about. it's obvious they will meet at some point over the next couple of days. >> host: there are tensions with other leaders besides the russian president as well. the nsa program, brazil, and mexico, upset about reports recently they are being -- will the president address those concerns with the leaders? >> caller: more than likely. brazil also raised -- complained as well. i'm sure the topic will come up. it came up yesterday in a news con friday. he went to the defense of the n sergeant a surveillance system

saying we're looking for possible terrorist links. we're not listening to everybody's phone call thes or e-mails. a lot of other countries have complained about the nsa programs. it involves basically spying on other country. the other thing president obama said and repeated yesterday that other countries engage in this kind of activity including so countries protesting the u.s. program. some of that may come up as well. i fully expect some world leaders to talk to president obama about the nsa surveillance program. >> host: this is day two of a three-day trip for the president. stockholm yesterday. what happens on day three? >> caller: tomorrow he'll have those meetings i mentioned with the leader of france and china. they'll be another -- i believe another working session of the g20 and closing ceremony. president obama will have a post g20 news conference tomorrow in saint peters berg, russia. i believe it's scheduled to start at 9:45 eastern time. i don't have any -- a lot of issues were talked

about will surface again then. >> host: do you up is the president will have something to come home with from the international community when it comes to syria? ing? he can say help him convince lawmakers on capitol hill? >> caller: well, he's hoping to get as many endorsement from other countries as he can. like i said, i suspect he'll maybe get help from japan. i think the president of france will reaffirm his support of military action. he's got help from sweden. i suspect several countries want to weigh in on syria. he's hoping to get as many countries as he can to sign off. >> host: all right. david jackson "usa today" white house reporter. thank you. the science actually doesn't tell us what to do. it tells us what we think is going happen. we have to make choices about that, and because one of the implications of simon's line of argument is that the earth is always changing.

we the societies can change and adapt in many ways. and of course, we don't know that necessarily the case with the climate problem. there may be something we can adapt to, but if you take that idea that societies can adapt. it leaves us with the question of even if we can adapt is a kind of world we want to live in with the extreme heat, the drought, the sea level rise? so many things we care about are being endangered by the changes that are happening. we have a choice about this. paul on "the bet" sunday night at 9:00 on "after words." booktv's book club is back this month with "this town". read the book and see what other viewers are saying on our facebook page and on twitter.

executive from energy drink producers red bull, monster, and rockstar testified earlier this summer about their company's marketing strategies say they don't market their fract children and teens. this summer the american medical association calls for a ban on energy drinks to those under the age of 18. pointing to health concerns posed by the drink's caffeine content. it's two and a half hours. are you doing anything with those things? is that an exhibition? are you going show us your -- you are? okay. let me just explain to the witnesses and to the faithful audience. it's hard get -- [inaudible] around here, and so it always comes down to -- often comes down to a single member is missing or not

findable that everything stops. and the whole room tries to get that person, find that person. and so that's the situation we're in now. if she is found, and does vote, which i don't think will be probably, then we'll -- i'll have to do another vote, make your life even worse. however senator durbin is here. senator blumenthal and senator markey will be here. i'm going -- what i want to do -- because those three have been so incredible in this whole subject. they put out a report -- the three of them, which is this called what is all the buzz about? you understand what, i mean, by buzz. it's a different kind of buzz.

and they did this some months ago. it's a fabulous report. it's about targeting marketing to adolescence and things which shouldn't be targeted or marketed to them. i'm going make my statement and listen to my leader, richard durbin who has been working very strongly as i indicated on this. i'm going turn the gavel to senator blumenthal. not because i want to, but because the thought of him having the gavel presiding over something in which he and senator markey have been so committed, so dedicated for so long is the only proper thing to do. so i will fade to the distance, and you will forget that you heard me or saw me. [laughter] so my statement. today's hearing is going to look at the product that has been growing very rapidly in popularity in the last few

years. it's not congress actually i'm talking about. it's energy drinks. energyies. energy drink companies have aggressively marketed their product on television, social media, and event sponsorship. public health experts have been raising serious disturbing questions about these drinks. they're asking whether we should be letting our children drink energy drinks, and whether energy drink companies should be able to market their pockets -- products to children and teens. two fairly basic questions. in the meantime, if you watch tv every other tv sad either about a car, which is fine. or about one of the drinks which is less fine. i think these are important questions, and i'm going to be listening to those who are asking some of them. so here are two facts about energy drinks. as energy drink marketing and sales increase, there has been a

surge in energy room visits associated with energy drinks. in the first six months of this year, poison control centers received 1,500 reports involving energy drinks. more than half involve children under the age of 18. so these are two frightening statistics. pediatricians and other medical experts have been saying that high level of caffeine founded in the drinks, many pose health risk to young people. again, that's scary stuff. inspect fact, they recent clinical report published by the american a academy of pediatrics dates, quote, rigorous review and analysis revealed that caffeine and other stimlabt substances contained in energy drinks have no place in the diet of children anded a las -- adolescents. that's what we're hearing from

the pediatricians. and just last month the american medical association approved a resolution endorsing a ban on marketing energy drinks to children and teens. nay don't do that often. they did that on this. that brings us to the question before us; how are companies marketing energy drinks to younger people? what are their techniques? are they listening to the medical experts or increasingly worried about what the drinks may be doing to our kids in is there any talk back and forth? two members of the committee along with senator durbin have been leading the way in examining the marketing practices of major energy drink companies for a long time. and i honor them for their work. their investigation found that while energy drink companies say they do not market to children. they are frequent targets for

energy drink marketing practice i. we know that. similarly marketing expert at the rudd center on food policy and oh obesity at yale university have raised concerns about energy drink marketing practices that are reaching teens in high percentage real toif adults. for example, disturbingly many are sold in large, nonresealble containers. holding two to three servings that encourage high volume consumption in one sitting. clever, isn't it? helpful, it is not. to explore the nature and extent of energy drink marketing efforts reaching children and teens the committee recently requested information from leading energy drink companies about marketing practices that reach young audiences. the information we received from the companies along with publicly available information supports the findings of senator

bloomen that, markey, and durbin. a number of companies are using marketing techniques highly appealing to teens. deliberately appealing to teens. we know that some companies sponsor athletes as young of 13 or 14 years. and make them a public face for the company. these young athletes are featured wearing the logo of company and photographs and videos on the website through social media channel. the question i want to get in the hearing is whether it's responsible corporate behavior. today we'll learn more about the issues from public health and marketing experts as well as several leading energy drink companies. in the next few weeks, as i understand that the institute of medicine, the department of health and human services with other leading health agencies are convening public panel to review the health effect of the drink. in my judgment, this problem is crying out for that kind of

credible scientific review. i'm glad it's happening in the immediate after math of this hearing. without further cause and provision to senator blumenthal, i would like that call on senator richard durbin from illinois. >> thank you very much, mr. speaker. i want to commend chairman rockefeller and senator blumenthal for convening the hearing on an important issue. i want to thank you for allowing you to make a statement. ten years ago most of the people in the room would never heard of an energy drink. well, times have changed. by some estimates, the sale of energy drinks has risen by 60% over the past five years. energy drinks are now a common fixture in grocery stores, vending machine, and convenience stores. i would really challenge anybody in this room to go to their favorite gas station and stand

at the cash register. it you cannot reach an energy drink as you stand there, i'll be shocked. throughout illinois whether it's chicago or springfield, they're as close to the register and consumer as possible. the sale of energy drinks has grown so is the alarming evidence they pose potential health risk and the energy drink market has grown to the current size because it's marketing to children. scientific studies have concluded that consuming large amount of caffeine can have serious health risk such adds seizure, heart arrhythmia, and in some cases death. and our audience today is wendy. she's the mother of a 14-year-old who died in maryland after consuming two 24-ounce cans of monster energy drink. i met with her. it's a heart breaking story. scientific studies have concluded that consuming these

drinks are dangerous. organizations committed to the well being of children, such as the american academy of pediatric, american medical association, national federation of state high school associations, and the ncaa discourage kids from drinking energy drinks. in fact, the american academy of pediatric stated energy drinks have no place in the diet of children. recent article in official aarp journal said quote, given the unknown level of caffeine and attitude of energy drink. there's significant risk associated with energy drink consumption and may outweigh the benefit and adolescent consumer. warnings may be echo by a recent sam is a study. found between 2007 and 2011 emergency room visits doubled from 10,000 to 20,000. if in the first six months of

this year, the american association of poison control centers, the first six months, have already received 1,575 reports related to energy drinks, 988 of those reports over half involved children under the age of 18. many of the health concerns about energy drinks are due to the high level of caffeine, and ingredient that act as stimulants. the fda currently limits the level of caffeine in a soda to no more than 71 milligrams of caffeine in a 12-ounce can. compare that to 240 mill glams of caffeine in a 24-ounce can of monster energy. as we all know, most energy drinks are not solid in 12-ounce cans. they are sold in 16, 4, even 32-ounce containers. these are two monster and rockstar. 24-ounce cans. just one of these cans contains

240 milligrams of caffeine. these cans are sold in convenience stores right next to the gatorade and soft drinks. one of these cans contains the same amount of caffeine is almost seven cans of soda, which we have displayed on the table. they contain 35-milligrams apiece. they are restricted and regulated. this one can contains more caffeine for sale next to. keep in mind that some adolescents consume more than one energy drink in a 24-hour period and each of these drinks contain not only caffeine, but additives and stimulants such g.i. n -- the ingredients have been used for years, energy drinks combine them in new ways and higher doses. on top of that, energy drink companies urge people to, quote,

chug down, throw it back, pound it down. when it comes to their products. to consume them before, during, or after political activity to enhance performance. as a result, younger and younger people in america are exposed to higher and higher levels of stimulants in a short window of time and new ways compared to how people traditionally caffeinated hot drinks or beverages. nowlet get to the issue of morphine. across the board, makers of energy drinks say consistently they do not market their products to children, senator. but then you hear about the examples of energy drinks being distributed where teens hang out. sporting events, concerts, local parks, even s.a.t. prep courses. you can go to their websites and see that energy drink makers sponsor athletes as young as 10 years of age. you can't see the coverage from where you're sitting. it's a publicly indication put

out by red bull that makes energy drinks. they rein cysting they don't market to children. take a look at the cover! that's a 12-year-old boy on the cover. lopez is a motorcross athlete. he's been signed by red bull to promote their product. do you think he appeals to older people? he appeals to kids his own aijt. that's what it's all about. so senator blumenthal, senator markey, even senator rockefeller. we were all veterans of the tobacco. we were fighting in the same war. remember when the tobacco companies used to tell us we are not interested in kids? we knew better. we knew if they could get them hooked early on it would become an addiction. and one hard to break. we're getting the same run around from the energy drink companies. they are open, openly advertising to kids and denying it. companies use highly effective tools to reach kids, video games

on their websites, social media, flashing ads and claim tone crease attention, staple stamina, and health. they don't market to children, but we can see they do and sadly, sadly it's working. according to a 2007 study, 35%, one out of three, eighth graders recently consumed energy drinks. and 18% drank more than one day. here is a photograph from an event sponsored by monster energy as part of the monster recontour. i think you can see it there. it moves across the country to identify talented athlete including children under the age of 12. the photograph features kids as young as 7 years of age who won the local competition that was sponsored by the monster beverage company. it's hard to believe that claim of monster, red bull, and rockstar they don't market to children. look at the obvious marketing

going on right now. when energy drink makers say they don't noorkt -- market to children, maybe they mean not under 12. it clearly suggests marketing to children. i want to make a separate point. i'm deeply concerned about marketing to adolescent between the age of 12 and 18. i've been through the battle before. we talked about tobacco. i have been through the battle when a 16-year-old kid from lincoln illinois wanted to get -- went to the local gas station and bought the stimulant pills, energy pills. the poor kid died from just taking bill pills you can buy over-the-counter at the gas station that contain the chemical. the companies know what they are doing. they have kids with disposal income, swayed by advertising, and can hit hooked on the problem. they stated concerns about the health risk of highly caffeinated beverages for

children. they adopted a policy supporting a ban of a marketing of energy drinks to adolescent under of age of 18. i joined with senators bloomen that and markey to urge them prohibiting marketing toed adolescent up to the age of 18. it provides an opportunity to discuss health and marketing when it comes to the energy drinks from kids. i look forward to working with the public health community and the industry. the responsible element in the industry to take the necessary steps to protect our children and adolescents. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator durbin for totally focused presentation. you are at your best. i want to call on senator thune, then we'll proceed as i indicated before. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you for holding this hearing, and i want to

extend a witnesses on the panel. we have seven today. i can't remember a time when we had seven withins on a panel. i'm sure it will be informative and lively with all the cans there on the table, energetic, i would say too. but let me say that ensuring the health of our children is a priority for all of us. so we all take that responsibility seriously. the energy drink industry are markedly fast growing with the sales reaching $8.6 billion in 2012 which was twelve time the leaflet a decade ago. the rapid growth is contributed to closer scrutiny of the industry and the product. concern about the level of caffeine in energy drinks, the possible effect on children who consume the products have prompted several studies in investigations. while it is entirely appropriate to exam these issues, we should also consider the broader context regarding caffeinated products. caffeine has been consumed for

thousand of year. i'm sure most of us on the committee in the senate take advantage once awhile to get through the day. it's found in beverages such as coffee, tea, cocoa, or chocolate. when i hear it may be added products to chips and mash mellows. i have to wonder if the fascination has gone too far. some of the witnesses will note certain other energy drinks will contain other stimulant in addition to the caffeine content and raises additional concerns. i look forward to the witness' discussion on the point as well. the industry shared with the committee that most commonly sold energy drinks contain about half the caffeine of a similarly sized cup of coffee house coffee. for example, we're tholed a typical 16-ounce can of one energy drink contains 180 milligrams of caffeine by comparison. my understanding is that a 16-ounce cup of coffee contains 333 milligrams of caffeine.

most adults can consume up to 400 a day. children can consume between 45 and 85 of caffeine per day depending on their weight. if you challenge the statement that children should not consuming highly caffeinated energy drink. i look forward to hearing the steps the companies represented here today are ensuring their product are safe as well as the effort of the undertaking to make sure the products are marketed appropriately. protecting health of our children is important. it's important rely on good science, careful investigation, and accurate evaluation when assesses the possible health rsk of energy drinks app other product. given the context regarding the safety of caffeine and sometimes significant use it also seems appropriate that any discussion of the scientific determination about safe level of caffeine should exam the consumption of caffeine from a variety of products not just energy drinks. i hope the testimony within the larger context.

wheelchair, thank you for the hearing. i look toward to hearing from the withins. thank you, senator thune. i ask consent to place this in the hearing record. i don't hear any objections or would i have been? senator blumenthal, would you come forward and share the list of witnesses you have? and very proud of the work you have done. mr. chairman, thank you very much for aloing me to testify. >> thank you, senator durbin.

i would like the witnesses to come forward, if you would, please. dr. marcie beth schneider. dr. schneider is a pediatrician here on the american academy of pediatric. dr. harris from yale university rudd center on food policy and obesity. dr. william r. spencer. dr. spencer a legislator from new york. he's originally from virginia.

mr. rodney sacks. the chairman and chief executive officer of monster beverage corporation, and amy e. tailor. vice president and general manager of red bull north america. mrs. janet wiener. chief financial office and chief operations officer for rockstar incorporated. and dr. james r. cough lynn. he's the president of cough -- we welcome you. we are very, very grateful to you each for being here today. this hearing is another step in the effort that senator durbin, markey, and i have lead to call attention to the health risks

associated with energy drinks. i began my own involvement with energy drinks that combine alcohol with their product. and when i was attorney general at a group of my colleagues to successfully urge the fda to ban alcoholic energy drinks for the obvious reason it resulted essentially in energized drunks. the effort to call attention to the potential health risks involves a marketing practice, you've heard them described here. i will have questions about them, and clearly we are concerned, and i know that the panel will address each of the witnesses will address these issues, not only the health risk that result from huge amount of caffeine in the drinks that endanger particularly young

people with problems ranging from cardiac arrest to liver and kidney damage, and result in the doubling of emergency room visits that are related to energy drinks. but also the marketing and promotion practice is that involve -- you've heard the use of adolescent athletes and sometimes children in promotions, websites, and social media making use of children, making use of video games and other activities designed to appeal to children as well as s.a.t. tests preparation and a variety of activities that seen very problematic. and so i'm not going to go on at this point with what i think the panel will be discussing. but simply to call attention to

a number of the areas that we think are important. and are for this panel to assess. but i would just finish by saying appeal to the more responsible element in the industry. the more responsible company to set a model and provide an expanse. because voluntary compliance, for example, the american beverage association standards and practices would be a good step, and further action is necessary, certainly we would consider it. i want to thank both of my colleagues, senator durbin and senator markey for their work on the issue and most particularly now senator markey for the report what is all the buzz about which has been handed to the record. an important and compelling document that we worked on

together. and i want to ask senator markey if he has any remarks at the opening of the hearing. >> thank you, senator. thank you for your work. i thank senator rockefeller and senator thune for having this very important hearing here today. over the last few years a class of caffeine-laced beverages popular with teens and known collectively as energy drinks has taken the marketplace by storm. the products promise improved athletic performance, more energy, better hydration, increased concentration and enhanced alertness that collectively zap and make consumers better at life, at lettics and performances. energy drinks have been linked to severe adverse health effects between 2007 and 2011, the number of emergency room visits related to the consumption of energy drinks has doubled.

this data is particularly -- when examining the we they market the beverages especially to teens. early this year, senator blumenthal, senator dour durbin and i held up a the issue for examination. we believe the spotlight belongs on this issue. senator blumenthal referred to the report, what is -- "what is all the buzz about ?" it goes to the heart of this issue. this focus on teenagers, focus on younger people. senator durbin made reference to smoking. it's right on the money. it's exactly what is happening. we can't kid ourselves about the direct correlation that exist between the marketing practices

and the inviced use by younger people of these beverages. we survey the practice of the makers of the fourteen commonly sold energy drink brands including three companies today. our report found while many of the products do not engage in traditional marketing through tv, print, and radio, they are very active in social media, and sponsorship of sporting, music, and gaming events that promote brand recognition in a way that clearly appeals to young people and often promotes unhealthy and quick consumption. the companies are adamant their target market consistent of adults, but with their heavy use of promotions through facebook, instagram, twitter, and other teen favorite, they are in fact marketing to every single teenager in this country. that's what this hearing is all about. senator blumenthal and senator

durbin and i are going to continue to focus on this issue because we do think that there has to be a dramatic change in the marketing practices of this industry. i thank you, senator. >> thank you. let's begin with you, dr. schneider. we'll just go across the table. >> good afternoon, chairman rockefeller, ranking member thune, senator blumenthal, and member the commerce committee. thank you for inviting me to speak this afternoon. my name is dr. march see schneider. i'm honored to provide testimony on behalf of the 60,000 american of the aap. i'm a physician in the specialty of pediatric and the in private practice in connecticut. i have an incoming exiktive committee member of the aap section of the adolescent health. whiling serving on the committee of nutrition i coauthored the report.

the aap published the 2011 report to raise awareness of the danger of energy drink consumption in children and adolescents by educating pediatricians who could in turn educate parents and kids about the risk of consuming energy drinks. we also took action recognizing wide spread confusion between energy drinks and sports drink. after an extensive review of the research and scientific data available, the conclusion within the aap's clinical report, was quote, energy drinks have no place in the diet of children and adolescent. unquote. another area of concern was that marketing played a consistent role. what distinguishes an energy drink they contain caffeine, an addictive stimlabt with many side effects. these include cardiac side effect.

anxiety, irritability, restlessness, high speech rate, motor activity, increase attentiveness, stomach secrete more fluid, people get dehydrated and temperatures rise. energy drinks have been imply calletted in seizures, we know that stimulants restrict blood flow to the entire weed including the heart, the brain, and particularly the impact of the developing neurological system of a child or tairnlg is a grave concern. they are at risk for physical dependence. caffeine for up to a week. in addition to caffeine energy drinks contain other stimulants substances such as a protein taurine. the plant exboth of which make the caffeine more potent.

the other stimulant have been noted to have negative side effects a sense of nasha, vomiting, diarrhea. it's been associated with having having aal bleeding. the adverse health effect of energy drinks are increasingly bringing consumers to the emergency room from 2007 to 2011, sam is a reported the -- they doubled from over 10,000 in 2007 to over 20 sthowrks in 2011. almost half of those were among patients from 12 to 25. in addition, the poison control exposure report skyrocketed from 672 in 2010 to over 3,000 in 2011 and 2012. energy drinks are reportedly consumed by thirty to 50% of young adults. you also heard this afternoon

that 18 fortunate of eighth graders are using these emergency one a day. the public needs to fully understand that the component for addiction over consumption, intox, and death. the marketing and labeling of energy drink products playing a significant role in increasing health risks for young people. first the marketing of the product aims to entice young people and enter payment without appropriate information. second labeling is very confusing. some delineate the amount of caffeine, taurine, others lump them together under an umbrella of an energy blend. third, the association of energy drinks with sports and physical activity results in confusion and poses great safety risks. sports drink provide energy through carbohydrate, elect lites and used to replace the fuel lost during physical exversion. stimulant substances have no

nutrition vawm. -- value. as an analyst of medicine i have encountered -- to consume energy drinks and shocked to learn that the health risks. as i conclude, i would like to submit the following five recommendations. first, caffeine and energy drinks should be actively and strongly discouraged for young people. children are not little adults. their bodies are growing, their bodies are developing, their minds are growing and developing. sleep and a well-balanced diet are all that young bodies need perform the daily task. the message needs to be reinforced and especially as physicians. second, given the health risk, public education is necessary. caffeine in combination with other stimulant ingredientsing is what makes these energy drinks a grave concern.

.. >> associated with energy drinks. again with, it is an honor to provide testimony today on behalf of the aap. i would be happy to answer any questions that you might have. thank you.

>> thank you, dr. schneider. dr. harris. >> thank you, senator blumenthal, chairman rockefeller and members of the committee, for inviting me to participate in this important hearing on energy drinks and use. my name is dr. jennifer harris, and i am senior research scientist and director of marketing initiatives at the rudd center for food policy and obesity at yale university. i have been studying food marketing to children and teens for the past ten years, and i also have an mba and 20 years of experience as a marketing executive and consultant. today i will describe how energy drink companies reach and target teens, why beverage industry marketing guidelines do not address public health concerns and how companies could protect minors from the harm caused by their products. i would also like to refer you to my extensive written testimony. in 2010 we began to study

youth-targeted marketing of soda, fruit drinks and other sugary drinks, but what we learned about energy drinks stunned us. energy drink brands such as 5-hour energy shots and red bull spend more on advertising than any other category of sugary drinks except soda, and their tv ads often appear on teen-targeted networks like mtv and adult swim. in fact, teens see more energy drink ads than adults do on tv. all brands are active in social media that teens share virally with their friends including facebook, twitter and youtube. red bull and monster energy are the number five and the number twelve most popular brands on facebook. energy drink brands often promote teen athletes and musicians and sponsor local events where they provide free samples including to minors. and most energy drinks are sold in convenience stores where special displays encourage

impulse purchases, and minors can easily buy them without parents' consent. we recently updated our marketing analysis and found that these practices continue unabated and have become worse. new products are being advertised. several brands doubled their advertising spending in two years, and social media fans increased by two to ten times. and this marketing is very effective. while sales of most other beverage categories have declined, energy drink sales increased by 19% in 2012 reaching $8 billion. you've heard that pediatricians are concerned and so are parents. three-quarters of parents agree that energy drinks should not be marketed or sold to teens under 18. the american beverage associationing and energy drink manufacturers have responded to these concerns. today you'll probably hear from members of the panel that

caffeine is safe for all ages and that manufacturers comply with aba guidelines for responsible labeling and marketing of energy drinks. but many energy drink manufacturers do not belong to the aba, and not all members comply with these guidelines. further, the fda has not determined that the concentration of caffeine and the other stimulants in most energy drinks and shots are safe for the food supply. you'll probably also hear that these companies do not market their products to children, but the only marketing that aba guidelines specifically prohibit is advertising on children's television programs like nickelodeon and marketing in elementary schools. the policy does not address advertising to children 12 years and older or most common type of energy drink marketing including social media and sponsorships. the aba also suggests that energy drinks not be marketed as sports drinks, but companies

continue to sponsor sporting events in high school athletes, athletes -- athletics and explicitly encourage use during physical activity. clearly, more needs to be done to protect teens. at a minimum, energy drink manufacturers should not advertise in media that are more likely to be seen by teens hand by adults, and -- than by adults, and they should establish age restrictionings. they should not engage in marketing including youtube videos and smartphone apps which disproportionately appeal to teens. they should not distribute free samples to minors, and they should comply with their own guidelines to not market energy drinks as sports drinks. but teens represent a significant growth opportunity for energy drink companies. teens are highly vulnerable to marketing influence, especially when it exploits their peer relationships and their desire to appear cool, daring and grown-up, making them an easy

target. if energy drink manufacturers continue to evade the issue of marketing to teens, the fda, the ftc, policymakers and attorneys general have the authority to establish and enforce restrictions on energy drink ingredients, labeling, retail placement and sales to minors. such regulations would be widely supported by parents, the medical community and others who advocate for children's health. thank you, and i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you. dr. spencer. >> thank you. good afternoon, honorable senators, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen. thank you for allowing me this opportunity to testify on the marketing and sale of energy drinks. i am suffolk county legislator, dr. william spencer, from huntington, new york. i was elected to the legislature in 2011, and i am part of a legislative body that represents

1.5 million people. i currently serve as chair of the legislature's health committee and am a member of the suffolk county board of health. the powerful energy drink industry generates over $7 billion of revenue a year and spends over $100 million per year in the advertising here in the united states. due to the growing reports of adverse effects in our county related to energy drinks, the board requested that i look for potential avenues of legislative action. a poor public health message has become pervasive. recent ads that you mentioned earlier include the catch phrase "zap the nap." the message to children who are frequently overscheduled and under constant pressure to succeed is to ignore the body's natural signals of fatigue and hunger and use a stimulant instead.

these beverages are marketed as a quick and easy way to relieve fatigue and improve performance. their illusion of energy is high-dose caffeine acting as a stimulant to the central nervous system. these marketing tactics and messages are embedded throughout our children's lives, even in their early sunday morning cartoons. over the years we've seen that marketing has doubled recently as indicated by the e.l. rudd report. in our 24/7 social media world, commercials, sampling directed at children have taken the power of control away from parents and made our children vulnerable to an industry with a cool, seductive message. i discovered that an unlevel playing field existed, and most participants did not know -- parents did not know about the dangers associated with

ingesting energy drinks. in fact, many parents think energy drinks are akin to sports drinks. i have personally witnessed a parent dispensing an energy drink to her 10-year-old child at a swim meet, and she had assumed incorrectly that she was helping her child to hydrate. there has been a lot of action around the country, as you have indicated. we know in 2012 manatee county, florida, banned the sale of energy drinks in its school, indicating that the drinks made the children restless and unable to concentrate in class. it's also been reported by some of the other members that that there's been a dramatic increase in emergency room visits. so far what i have reported is what i have read and heard, but i'd like to share with you what i have personally seen in suffolk county. energy drink companies sponsor local events for children as young as 10 years old.

samples are being distributed to local theaters in my legislative district to children standing in line as young as 12. energy drink displays are positioned next to video games in local department stores. and most recently along memorial day after our legislation was passed, we saw energy drinks being distributed at a parade in se reville, new york. finally, and probably the most egregious act, is that direct mail of an energy drink with a sample packet was sent to one of my colleague's on the legislature's 16-year-old child. i believe we have a responsibility to protect the public and our vulnerable children. i believe in the importance of free commerce and the right of businesses to conduct business in an unfettered way, but they cannot be allowed to imperil the public, especially our most vulnerable: children. after an exhaustive effort in

suffolk county, we passed the first in the nation modest regulations prohibiting the marketing and advertising of stimulant drinks to minors, prohibiting the distribution of stimulant drinks to minors in our county parks and also embarked upon an educational campaign. this, for me, is about protecting our children. some children, as many as 1 in 100, have underlying heart defects that may make them susceptible to life-threatening conditions when exposed to even a recommended sample of numbering drink. energy drink. there are responsible members of the industry that i have met with, but in conclusion, although they may be responsible, there are a lot of members who are not part of the american beverage association that may act on their own.

what i am asking today is that if the products are not recommended for use in children, then we should not allow them to be marketed to children. please or consider restricting the marketing to children under 18 years old until we can find that these drinks are safe and not habit-forming. thank you for this opportunity. >> mr. sacks? thank you. >> thank you. good afternoon, mr. chairman, ranking member thune and members of the committee. my name is rodney sacks, and i'm the chairman, chief executive officer of monster beverage corporation. monster is and has always been committed to insuring that all of the ingredients in its energy drinks, including caffeine, are safe and in regulatory compliance for their intended use. the formulations of our energy drink line have been and continue to be overseen by our

chief scientific officer, a professor of pharmacology at a major university, who's been part of our team from the outset. indeed, we have extensively and continually analyzed the scientific and medical literature relating to the safety of caffeine and other ingredients in our products. since 2002 more than 9 billion cans of monster energy drinks have been sold and safely consumed worldwide, including 8 million in the united states. the safety of caffeine and other ingredients in monster energy drinks is well established by an overwhelming body of generally-accepted scientific literature published by reputable third parties including major governmental and other authoritative scientific and medical bodies. mr. chairman, the level of caffeine in monster energy drinks is about half the caffeine per ounce of

coffeehouse-brewed coffee. monster energy's 16-ounce cans, which represent more than 8% of monster energy -- 80% of monster energy drinks sold, contain approximately 160 milligrams of caffeine from all sources per can. a 16-ounce medium cup of coffee from starbucks contains approximately 330 pily grams -- milligrams of caffeine. dunkin donuts, seattle's best all have more caffeine per ounce than monster as do many iced coffees and other cold coffee beverages. the presence of the u.s. marketplace has not increased the consumption of caffeine by teenagers and young adults. consumption data from the usda shows that caffeine consumption in the u.s. has remained rell thetively stable over -- relatively stable over the past decade despite the introduction of energy drinks. these conclusions have been

confirmed by subsequent research including a study commissioned by the fda in 2009-2010 which showed that teens and young adults ages 14-21 do not consume high amounts of caffeine and that their source of caffeine is mainly from coffee, soft drinks and tea. the fda study noted a prior survey that concluded that only about 0.9% of 14-21-year-olds are regular energy drinkers. a study released in this year by researchers at penn state university further confirmed that coffee, tea and soft drinks are the most significant caffeine sources in younger age groups, not energy drinks. while the company believes that its products are safe for all consumers, the company does not market monster to children and has never done so. for monster's introduction in

2002, the company has included an advisory statement on every can that monster is not recommended for children. monster was the first energy drink company to ever include such an advisory statement in its labeling. monster considers the primary demographic of consumers of its energy drinks to be young adults, primarily males, and its brand initiatives and brand image are directed towards this population. the company does not focus its brand initiatives on young teenagers. to do so would undermine the credibility of the brand image in the eyes of young adults. it has long been the company's policy not to sample monster at k-12 schools. the company has also told its network of independent distributers to refrain from any marketing activities for monster that target children or k-12 schools. the company sponsors a variety of athletes, music artists, events, tours and shows to promote monster.

the company's primary marketing involves motor sports that are aligned with monster's brand image such as nascar, motocross, offroad truck racing, formula one. the primary demographic for such motorsports is adults, not children or young teenagers. for 2012 one of the company's most significant marketing commitments was to nascar can has a median viewership age of over 50. other sponsorships include smaller commitment toss actual sports such as athletes who compete in events like the x games. the average age of x games viewers is in the early 30s. the company shares your commitment to protecting the health and safety of consumers, including children and teenagers. the company strives to be a responsible corporate citizen, and we believe that our marketing practices reflect that. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the safety and marketing of our products. thank you, i look forward to any questions you may have.

>> thank you, mr. sacks. ms. taylor? >> mr. chairman, ranking member thune and members of the committee, my name is amy taylor, i've been with red bull for 14 years and responsible for red bull's marketing strategy and initiatives in north america for much of that time. let me thank the committee for the chance to appear and testify today on behalf of red bull north america about our marketing policies and practices. first, let me say something about our company and product. red bull created the modern energy drink company in europe in 1987 and launched in the u.s. in 1997. red bull is now sold in more than 165 countries. health and regulatory bodies all over the world have concluded that red bull is safe to consume. it is worth noting that our 8.4-ounce can of red bull contains 80 milligrams of caffeine which, despite perceptions, is about the same amount of a cup of coffee has in

homebrewed situations and half as much as that of a typical coffeehouse cup of coffee. red bull has 85% of our business comprised of the sales 8 and 12-ounce cans making us unique within the category. we have a long history of cooperation with legislative and regulatory bodies to order -- in order to insure the lawful marketing and safe consumption of our products. we are pleased that the fda is looking into the safety of caffeine as did health authorities, for example, in canada, europe, australia and new zealand. we are participating in the fda process and confident that it will confirm caffeine is safe for consumption even for teens. but we have always marketed ourselves as the adult premium product within the category. our marketing policies and practices have evolved in the u.s. for strategic reasons. as an example, we made the decision in 2011 to focus our marketing more narrowly at the core demographic of

18-34-year-olds to leverage our strengths versus competition. our positioning is reflected many our can design -- in our can design, packaging, pricing and core marketing messages as well as the content, timing and placement of our advertising and communications. while we focus on adults, no company can insure that its marketing materials will only reach a particular audience, and people of all ages and demographics may be attracted to them. yesterday we submitted a letter to this committee which we will now respectfully ask you to include in the record. >> without objection. >> thank you. we are publicly announcing for the first time voluntary commitments relating to the labeling and marketing of our product. we make these commitments to provide more information to consumers so they can make informed choices and to further differentiate our product as the premium adult energy drink. our commitments are as follows: red bull will continue to label its energy drinks as

conventional foods rather than dietary supplements, we will also declare the total caffeine content per can on our product level, we will not sell energy drinks with a caffeine concentration in excess of 80 milligrams per 8.4 ounces or with more than 110 calories per 8.4 ounces. red bull will not encourage or condone the excessive or rapid consumption of its energy drinks. our marketing will not say that more caffeine or large larger sizes or higher concentrations of caffeine have a better or stronger effect. we will not make claims using language specifically targeted to those under 18, nor will we buy advertising targeted by audiences where more than 35% of viewers are under the age of 18. we will not feature child or teen-oriented characters in our advertising and promotional activities, red bull will not market or sell its energy drink products in k-12 schools or other institutions responsible for this group. and we will not sample in or

within the immediate vicinity of such places. red bull is also prepared to adopt two additional commitments if producers of other sugar and caffeine-containing beverages are willing to do the same. we will agree not to sell containers larger than 12 ounces, and we will agree to report to the fda any adverse events reported to us by consumers that are alleged to be associated with the consumption of our product. we understand that childhood and teen obesity is a major public health challenge and attracting more and more attention. to the extempt that sugar and -- extent that sugar and caffeine are viewed as contributors to this problem, we are interested in being a part of the solution which includes the entire industry. the energy drink sector is only a small part of a much larger universe of caffeine and sugar-containing drinks that must be a part of the solution. we believe that large can sizes are a primary contributor to the

problem, and we think this is an area where we, together with the industry, can play a constructive role. in closing, it's relevant to note that in every age category, including teens and children, 93% of caffeine consumption comes from sources other than energy drinks. still, we are pleased to be here to participate in these discussions. red bull is proud of its commitments that it is making today. they enable consumers to make informed choices, and they differentiate our product as the premium adult energy drink. thank you, and i'd be pleased to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you very much. ms. wiener? >> good afternoon, senator blumenthal, senator markey -- >> you might want to turn on your -- >> oh, i'm sorry. >> push the button. >> aha. thank you. okay. good afternoon, senator blumenthal, senator markey and ranking member thune and members of the committee. my name is janet wean or, i am -- wiener, i am the chief

financial officer for rockstar inc., the manufacturer of rockstar energy drink products. i'm also co-owner of the company. i thank the committee for inviting me to speak at today's hear, and i welcome this opportunity to discuss our commitment to the safety of our products and the responsibility of our brand-marketing practices. i believe rockstar represents a model of entrepreneurial enterprise that has grown from an ambitious idea into an american success story. energy drink cans like ours are extremely popular in the growing product categories having sold more than 34 billion units in the united states since 2000. i would like to speak about rockstar's commitment to consumer safety. rockstar's commitment to consumer safety is the company's number one priority. the use and levels of caffeine within our energy drink formulations have been determined based upon the consensus of an independent, highly-qualified expert panel led by dr. john duel at the university of kansas medical center to be generally recognized as safe, the acronym

is g.r.a.s.. rockstar contains other ingredients consistent with fda guidance and safe for consumption. the expert panel commissioned by our company has concluded that there is no expected safety concern associated with these ingredients alone or in combination from consumption of rockstar energy drink products. at either 160 milligrams per 16 ounces or 240 milligrams per 16 ounces depending on the product, rockstar contains far less car teen than a 16-ounce cup of starbucks' house blend which contains 330 milligrams according to the web site. the difference in caffeine levels is important to keep in mind insofar as coffee and tea, rather than energy drinks, are the most significant sources of caffeine for americans including teens and children. the fda commission report on

caffeine consumption among the u.s. population indicated that teens and young adults age 14-21 years consume on average approximately one-third the amount of caffeine as people over 21, a level that has remained constant even as energy drinks gain in popularity. further, the report found that energy drinks contributed only a small portion of caffeine consumed by teenagers and that the most significant source of caffeine for both children aged 2-13 as well as teens age 14-17 was coffee, tea and soft drinks. researchers at penn state and the diet assessment center likewise found that energy drinks were minor contributors to overall caffeine intakes in all age groups. as outlined in greater detail in my prepared statement, recent analysis have called into question two of the most-cited sources alleging energy drink risks. for example, a july 25, 2013, report commissioned by the

american beverage association noticed that the drug abuse warning network, samhsa -- referred to as the d.a.w.m. report, this is the emergency room report -- findings rely upon extrapolated sample data which can skew the reported national statistics regarding emergency room visits associated with energy drinks. additionally, as the aba has recently noted, the the authors of the area letter paint an inaccurate picture of caffeine use and safety ignoring the vast body of robust and reliable scientific evidence that has for decades established the safety of caffeine at the levels present in energy drinks including for younger consumers. a copy of both the associates' analysis of the d.a.w.n. report and the aba's response to the area letter have been submitted with my prepared statement to the committee. i would like to speak about rockstar's labeling and marketing practices. rockstar takes pride in the fact that its product labeling is as

transparent and clearly defined as possible. on its product labels, rockstar has for many years included the following information: ingredients in our product, the amount of total caffeine per serving as well as the total caffeine from from all sources per container, a consumer advisory statement that reads not recommended for children, pregnant or nursing women or those sensitive to caffeine. an example of rockstar energy drink's label is attached to my prepared statement to the committee. like other foods and beverages, rockstar energy drink products comply with fda regulations related to consumable products and as part of its commitment to consumer safety, rockstar has voluntarily committed to provide serious adverse events to the fda reported to us by consumers that are alleged to be associated with consumption of rockstar products. rockstar has long committed to refrain from marketing its products to children under 12. in addition to our clearly-labeled consumer advisory, the rockstar energy

drinks are not recommended for children, we also do not promote our products to children via our company web site, nor does rockstar currently market or sell its products in k-12 schools, including high schools. the target demographic is 18-35 years of age. rockstar engages in events and athlete sponsorship and promotion in action sports, motorsports and live music events that target the 18-35 age group. in conclusion, i wish to thank the chair and the members of the committee for providing rockstar with this opportunity to discuss our commitment to product safety and responsible marketing practices, and i look forward to answering any questions you may have. >> thank you, ms. wiener. mr. coughlin? >> mr. chairman, ranking member thune and members of the committee, my name is dr. james r. coughlin, and i -- >> is your, is your microphone on? >> i pressed it a couple of times. >> there you go. thank you.

>> and i want to thank the committee for the opportunity to provide testimony today on safety of energy drinks and caffeine. i am an independent consultant in food toxicology with over 35 years experience in food, nutrition and chemical safety. i have over 30 years of experience on health and safety issues surrounding caffeine be and caffeine-containing products, and i am currently serving as an invited planning committee member for the workshop on caffeine safety being convened next monday and tuesday by the institute of medicine at the request of fda commissioners. there are three thicks i'd like -- things i'd like to address to you today. first, caffeine is naturally present in plants such as coffee, tea, cacao, and it is also added to such products as soft drinks, energy drinks and medications. the common ingredient in energy drinks is caffeine, and the

majority of mainstream energy drinks contain comparable amounts of caffeine as the same size cup of coffee and only about half the caffeine content compared to coffeehouse coffees. second, health outcomes of caffeine have been extensively researched for decades, and the weight of the clinical and scientific evidence demonstrates that moderate caffeine intake is well tolerated and does not adversely effect general health outcomes. in human clinical studies, caffeine has shown no adverse effects on electrocardiographic parameters and does not show that caffeine triggers cardiac arisk my yas even in consumers who have pre-existing arrhythmias. however, caffeine does produce a very small elevation in systolic blood pressure which lasts only a few hours, but this effect is limited to those people who do not regularly consume caffeine. what's important to understand

here is that this effect on blood pressure is minimal or nonexistence after repeated caffeine ingestion. and many long-term studies of caffeine consumption from various products including coffee which is the largest source of caffeine have shown there is no increased risk for hypertension, arrhythmias, heart attacks, cardiovascular disease or even all-cause mortality as has been shown in a series of recent studies. lastly, the primary sources of caffeine in the u.s. consumer ors of all ages are coffee, tea and soft drinks, not energy drinks. and despite the entry of energy drinks into the marketplace, the mean caffeine intake of the adult population over the age of 22 remains steady with past estimates of about 300 milligrams per day. this was determined in that study you've heard others talk about, the fda study that was publish inside 2010. this study, sponsored by fda,

also showed that teens and young adults age 14-21 years of age have an average daily consumption of only about 100 milligrams of caffeine which is approximately one-third the amount of caffeine intake compared to adults in that study. and, again, this caffeine intake is primarily from coffee, tea and soft drinks, not from energy drinks. in april of this year at the american society for nutrition conference, researchers presented a dietary intake survey which investigated caffeine consumption patterns in the u.s. population collected during 2010 and 2011 among other 37,000 consumers of caffeinated beverages. results showed that mean daily intake of caffeine from all beverages was about 165 milligrams for all age groups. combined. caffeine be intake was highest in 50-64-year-olds, and that level was about 225 milligrams per day. and intakes were lowest in

consumers less than 6 years of age at about 36 milligrams per day. for energy drinks the study showed the percentage of adolescent users was quite low, less than 10%, and that energy drinks were only minor contributor toss overall caffeine intake in all age groups. in summary, i believe that restrictions on the sale or promotion of energy drinks cannot be supported from a clinical or scientific point of view for three main reasons. first, caffeine from mainstream energy drinks represents only one of many sources of caffeine, and coffee, tea and soft drinks collectively contribute the majority of caffeine in the u.s. diet. second, the caffeine content in mainstream energy drinks is comparable to and often less than what is found in various coffee be products -- coffee products. and finally, caffeine intake has been established by decades of careful clippal and scientific research to be safe at levels found in commonly-consumed

beverages like coffee, tea, soft drinks and energy drinks. thank you for your time, senator. >> thank you, mr. coughlin. i want to begin my questions, and then if ranking member thune returns, we'll go to him and then senator markey. and thank you all for being here, again, appreciate you taking the time. we have contrasting points of view here. i want to reiterate my thanks to senator rockefeller for giving us this opportunity to have a hearing and really the beginning, i think, not the end of what has to be an open and honest discussion. and, you know, i must say that i find the denials of marketing to children to be difficult to accept. and i know that, mr. sacks, you've of said that the company -- and i'm quoting -- does not market monster to children and has never done so. and that claim has been made by the industry repeatedly, but the

facts and common sense show that the marketing and promotions and pitches to kids have been open and blatant and relentless. and i just want to cite here and ask you about the monster army. and on your own web site, you say the monster army is monster energy's athlete development program that supports athletes ages 13-21 in moto, bike, skate, surf, snow. athletes from all over the world are invited into the program to represent the monster energy brand. and be then on the monster army web page, the program is explained with the following statement: most companies spend their money on ad agencies, tv commercials, radio spots and billboards to try and tell you how good their products are. at monster we choose to support

the scene and our athletes. every athlete is the monster army -- every athlete in the monster army is an important piece of the monster energy brand. recently, monster revised its age requirements for sponsorships to be athletes 13-21, but in the past you've sponsored athletes as young as 6 years old, and i've displayed an example here of a 6-year-old reserve and an 11-year-old major in the monster army. i have a hard time accepting your contention that monster has never marketed to chirp. to children. that just defies what i've seen and heard and what most people in america have seen and heard. >> mr. chairman, i think the monster army program is exactly that, it's an athlete

development program. the children that you have shown on boards i don't have personal knowledge of, but they were there with the permissions of their parents. this we regard as an opportunity to allow athletes to develop so that, ultimately, as a feeder system there is no organized feeder system for action sports. and in this way we do work with athletes until they can develop and ultimately turn professional. we have over 90 athletes that have gone through the monster athlete system and have turned professional and are riding. our current world champion, ryanville photo, started in the monster army. so we are encouraging the development of athletes, we are developing our own team of athletes. ultimately, when they really get exposure is when they go professional, when they turn older. the amount that we spend on in this program, senator, is very little in the relation to our overall marketing budgets.

so we do still say that we don't market to children. this is a development program. does it reach young children? yes, it does, with their parents' permission. as you indicated, we did change the age limit to limit this to 13 and above, and we received a lot of irate parents who value the program as being an opportunity for their kids to participate in sports and develop. >> you're saying that these 6 and 7 and 10 and 11-year-olds are part of an athlete development program, but the marketing is to 6 and 10 and 11-year-olds. and, you know, i ask you whether, in fact, this marketing is not intended to reach those young people. >> i don't believe it's intended to reach them in that sense. if you look at the web site,

over the whole history of our web siteless than half a percent were under the age of 13. it's a handful compared to our marketing, our consumer base. it is simply not our focus. and, but ultimately there's an important development program that we use. >> let me ask you, if a tobacco company -- and the analogy has been drawn to tobacco because tobacco in the same way had a feeder program. they didn't use those words, but they marketed to 6 and 7 and 11-year-olds because they wanted to develop smokers. if tobacco companies put a cigarette in the mouths or hand of one of those children, their testimonies of marketing to children -- denials of marketing to children would be laughed out of this building. i'm hard put to accept that whatever the percentage in terms

of your investment in that marketing that it was unintended to reach young people that age. >> i can only repeat that our demographic is young adults. we regard this as a part of the way we adopt the brand platform which is a sporting platform and to develop young athletes as they go through and eventually progress to the levels where they do become professionals, and they do start competing in the major events. >> let me shift to a different area. you're aware that the american beverage association of monster, rockstar and red bull, and you're all members, includes in its guidelines and i'm quoting here: energy drink products should not promote energy drinks for mixing with alcohol, nor should they market energy drinks to counter the effects of alcohol consumption.

should not promote energy drinks for mixing with alcohol and not marketed to counter the effects of alcohol consumption. now, monster energy produces a product that's called cuba-lima which is compared on its web site to a very popular alcoholic beverage, cuba libre, and we're going to put up here these ads and promotions. on the web site, there appears the following -- and you probably can't read it here, but it's there in the smaller print: as legend has it, a buzzed-up cuban hears his country has been liberated, holds up his drink, yells cuba libre, and the famous

cocktail is born. as big fans of the drink, we decided to make our own, substituting our tried and true energy brand for the alcohol and adding a squeeze of sweet lime. we know it sounds crazy, but don't knock it til you try it. you're going to love it, because it's a new kind of buzz. doesn't that marketing violate the american beverage association standards? >> no. quite the opposite. it's actually intended to be a nonalcoholic version of the drink. it's to appeal to our consumer graphic which is adults, and it's simply a nonalcoholic version. the storylines we generally use at monster are intended to be light-hearted, a way of communicating with our consumers. but this is intended to be, not to encourage consumption or mixing. on the contrary, it's intended to substitute for it --

>> so your contention is that this marketing tactic is a way of telling young people don't drink? >> absolutely. we, we do not encourage the marketing particularly of that particular drink, you know, for mixing at all. >> so the glorification of cuba libre is a message that young people should stay away from alcohol? >> not a message to young people. it's a message to our consumers including adults that just, this is how it was born. we're trying to just tell people how we came up with the drink, how to do something that's fun and different. it's very light-hearted. that's the intention. >> let me call your attention to the nitrous line, monster nitrous line was renamed the antigravity line is displayed here, and i'm quoting: we

supercharged our monster energy base, then injected it with nitrous oxide for a unique texture and buzz that's bigger than ever. this is no whip hit, in quotes, but it will whip you good. now you know the phrase whip it is a slang term for a practice popular among teenagers of using a pressurized canister such as a whipped cream canter to get high by inhaling the nitrous oxide pressurizing the can. like a lot of drugs, whip-its are not really good for you, and they can cause hearing loss, liver and kidney damage, brain damage, central nervous system harm, other kinds of physical and emotional damage. is that in any way related to the use of nitrous ox side or other drugs? >> no.

again, it's just a light-hearted way of just communicating. that's the, our marketing team, they're probably more familiar with the term than i am, but it was just intended to be light-hearted. i just don't believe that's encouraging anything. it's just saying this is no whip-it, it'll give you a good energy boost. that's all we're trying to say in talking the language of our consumers. again, it's light-hearted, it's unintended to mean anything other than that. >> my time has expired on this round of questioning. we'll have at least one more round, and i want to yield to ranking member thune. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. coughlin, critics of energy drink industry frequently cite a report by the substance and mental health services administration or samhsa stating that the number of american emergency hospital visits involving energy drinks doubled between 2007 and 2011 to more than 20,000. and i'm wondering how you interpret those findings. >> senator, the -- i'm familiar

with that report, it's been mentioned several times today. i don't believe that report because it's only a snapshot of emergency room visits, doesn't really get at any causal relationships between energy drinks or the ingredients in energy drinks and the reason that the individual showed up at the emergency room. there are many limitations in the report. there's -- when someone comes to the e.r., there is no indication of how much of any specific product they drink including other products that may contain caffeine. the report points out that over half of the young adults who reported to, you know, for whatever reason they needed to report to the e.r. actually admitted to the use of alcohol and drugs of abuse, and i actually think they probably

underreported that when they arrived at the emergency room. and so this snapshot, this 20,000 during this period from 2007 to 2011, there were actually 136 million visits to the e.r.s by individuals, and so a 20,000 -- equal to 20,000 we call it in the clinical world is not large number, and i think there are limitations in this data that just never seem to come out. >> let me direct this to the folks on the panel representing the the various energy drinks. the drink ingredients often include things other than caffeine which has been pointed out such as guarana, taurine and vitamins. how do you test your products in the formulation of the ingredients in your products to insure that they're safe and that there are no negative health effects from those?

>> i'll take that question. there, am i on? okay. yes, thank you, senator thune. rockstar has an independent expert panel that reviews our key ingredients and use levels in rockstar energy drink products, all the beverages, and they conclude unanimously that the intended use of the ingredients after investigating -- and these are using peer-reviewed, scientific papers as a basis of their opinion -- and they investigate them, and they say that the use of these key ingredients alone or in combination in rockstar's beverages is generally recognized as safe based on scientific procedures established by the united states food and drug administration. so we rely upon our scientists to vet our products and make sure that they're safe. as we said, safety is our number one concern, consumer safety. >> any of the others care to comment? ms. taylor? >> yes, senator. i think it bears, it's worth mentioning that there is no

source of any other stimulant or no source of caffeine in red bull other than the caffeine itself. so i think that bears mentioning. and then red bull has a long history, of course. i would cite the european federation, european food safety authority which is the rough equivalent of the united states' fda completed a ten-year review of the ingredients of red bull and concluded there was no synergistic effect amongst the ingredients in red bull. >> when you, when you develop and implement your marketing campaigns, there's been a lot of discussion about who you're targeting with that advertising. how do you insure that energy drinks aren't marketed to children? again, any of the drink -- reps. >> i'll take the question. i think that we look at the demographics and the type of sport to try and portray the personality and image that we

are trying to set for the brand. we do so, and our principal platform where we spend probably well over half of our funds are on motorsports. but like any sport whether it be basketball, baseball, football, the audience is a very wide audience, and the audience is going to comprise children, the audience is going to comprise teenagers, and the audience is going to comprise older people than our demographic. but we look at the demographic, and we generally try and focus on the sports that are most appropriate for our target demographic. so you can't exclude other demographics. and if you look at some of the sports that we do sponsor, we've given some of the statistics, one of the sports that people sometimes cite as it's an a action sport -- the average age of the viewers of the x games which is the premier platform for action sport is the in the 30s. so, yes, you will have younger,

your teenagers at that event or watching the event. but that's how you generally try and do it. you simply can't have a magical wand and cut off anywhere whether it's on, whether it's actually viewing or what's on tv. and so we just try and get to sports that really represent our brand lifestyle. as i indicated in my remarks, i think it would be very difficult for us and we would alienate adults and older teens, young adults if we would try and target our marketing and focus on events that were primarily attractive to young teens or children. it just doesn't -- wouldn't work. there's just no way you can exclude them. nor do any of the beer companies or alcohol companies exclude them when they advertise at normal sporting events. >> one of the issues that surfaced with regard to energy drinks has been their classification either as nutritional supplements or nutritional beverages. it's my understanding that while red bull has always been classified as a traditional

beverage, monster and rockstar have recently switched from marketing their products to traditional beverages. and i'm wondering why that change was made and what are the impacts of the change both with regard to the companies and to the consumers. >> i can answer that for rockstar, of course. in the fall of -- oh, thank you. in the fall of 2012, rockstar the company, for competitive reasons, decided it was preferable to include nutrition facts panels consistent with fda views and product reformulation. rockstar energy drink has always, since 2005, displayed the caffeine content of, per serving and per container on all of its beverages and will continue to do so. rockstar will continue to comply with the adverse advanced reporting even though not required to do so. rockstar is volunteering to do that with a nutrition panel going forward. rockstar is very proud of its

record in food safety. thank you. >> mr. sacks, you want to comment on that distinction? >> yes, thank you. senator thune, when we originally launched monster in 2002, we got advice from our legal, you know, regulatory attorneys, and they told us that our products qualified to be labeled both as a supplement because they contained sup laments that supplement the diet and also as a conventional food because the ingredients we believed were g.r.a.s. and exempted as safe. based on their advice, we elected to label the products at dietary supplements. we included a warning label right from the outset, as i indicated, and we continue to do so. at that time most of the other energy drinks were also labeled as supplements. over the years and in the more recent years, many of the energy

drinks' labels have changed from the major beverage companies as well. and earlier, towards the end of last year, early year, there started to be a lot written in the press about the fact or the suggestion that monster was being marketed as a supplement in order to somehow avoid the regulations as a food. we felt that that was unfounded, there was just no basis for it because we felt our product was equally qualified as a food. and as the industry tended to and other competitors tended to move to be a food, we just felt there was just no purpose in staying a supplement, and we then notified the fda, and we made the change. the change didn't result in any change in our formulations. we do, we had a different type of warning label about consumption on our supplements. we then elected to fall in line again with the industry. we provide the caffeine content of our product per serving and per can. and also continue to have the warning label that our product should be consumed response by

and not recommended for children. so it really has been a nonevent for us from that point of view. >> mr. chairman, my time's expired. thank you. >> thank you. senator markey. >> thank you, senator. ms. wiener, your company has indicated in testimony in previous letters to senator blumenthal and senator durbin and to me that all of your marketing practices are intended to target individuals 18-35 and that you follow american beverage association guidelines to to not promote them to children. so my question to you is, does this individual who is shown in one of your facebook albums appear to be in your target marketing demographic? >> we looking at child -- >> yes, the child. >> -- that is holding a skateboard and an energy drink. >> that's correct.

that's not in your -- >> no, it's under 12 years old. >> so this child is wearing and holding rockstar-branded paraphernalia and a can of rockstar energy drink at what appears to be a company-promoted event. and your company has posted this on its facebook page with the tagline "a rockstar fan for life." so i see no reason why we should not conclude that your company is intentionally promoting its products to children like in this in order to make them consumers for life just like this facebook promotion says. you know? hook 'em early, keep 'em for life. be a rockstar for life. huh? makes a lot of sense to me as a marketing promotion. why would we not think that this is not part of the corporate promotion plan that you have? >> well, senator, first of all, this is a single instance amongst a huge amount of

marketing campaigns, but i will address this single photograph in the following manner. one, it is highly likely that that child is accompanied by his parents. in today's society it's hard to imagine anyone permitting a child to, with the degree of danger associated with children being alone, it's difficult to imagine that any child under the age of 12 is wandering around alone at an event. >> well, we -- i'll tell you what we'll do for you, this is just one of many examples which we've found, and we'll give all of the examples to you. >> i would like that, thank you. >> so you can sees the not an isolated incidence but is a pattern of conduct in terms of using children as a way of making these kids think of themselves as rockstars for life. now, mr. sacks, in your testimony and in your past correspondence with myself and senator blumenthal and senator durbin, your company as well says that it does not market to

children and stated that monster energy complies with voluntary american beverage association guidelines that instruct that energy drink companies should not market to children. so i, you know, i was listening to your conversation with senator blumenthal and making reference back to smoking and how the smoking, the tobacco industry actually has a product problem, and it's this, that as a couple of thousand people die each day from having smoked, the tobacco industry has to find new customers. and it turns out that replacing those customers is not easy since statistically if someone reaches the age of 19 and has not started to smoke yet, they're highly unlikely to ever smoke. so that's a real marketing problem for an industry, huh? your old customers are dying,

and your new ones can't really be influenced after age 19 or 20 to tart up. start up. and so, obviously, getting younger kids to start, you know, has always traditionally been part of the marketing strategy. so my question is, obviously, based upon what appears to be kind of a pattern where we're listening to arguments made about how hard it is to segment out these younger kids, that they're kind of part of the larger population, but yet we know that that's a where a big part of all these problems are. ..

>> i think that we took the steps to write to them and to communicate to them. >> what is it you tell them to don't want them to do with your product? >> we want them to not market -- >> what is the penalty they pay if the do market to the kids? >> ultimately there is a penalty that -- >> what your company withdraw the distribution of the product by the companies if they did market to children? >> we would have to look at the

time and what our rights would be. >> you can create your own contractual rights. so if these third parties did distribute to children, but to withdraw the product from them? you could put that right in the contract. would you be willing to do that? >> these excess on long-term contracts. >> how about a new contract. would you agree for a new contract that would not be allowed to be marketed to children? >> i think that in the new contract we will look at discussing this going forward to the >> do you actually know if these third parties market to the children or not? do you have that as information inside of your company? >> is one of the instances that we found that they have done. and we took steps to terminate those and that they shouldn't fall that marketing practice.

>> so you do know what is going on with these third-party distributors and you are monitoring their activity to make sure -- >> we are far more aware of it now and i think that was not done as strict in the past. we are trying to monitor -- >> the key is what is the penalty the distributor would have because obviously they have a lower level of concern about your corporate reputation. so what would be the penalty? what would be the price they would have to pay? do you have any thoughts about that? >> i think it is a written morning and i think it would be -- the way we could deal with it would be to look at not, you know, working with them to provide some sort of marketing and contribution to marketing, which you do all the time.

>> would you agree to require them not to market to the children contractually as a part of receiving access to the product to the companies to distribute? >> i would be favorably inclined to see what we can do. we have existing contracts with -- >> i am talking about new contracts, not old ones. would you be willing to include in those the requirements that there wouldn't be distribution? >> yes i would. >> would you, ms. taylor? >> we do all of our marketing and sampling directly through the field force. >> ms. weiner? >> and all future contracts going forward, yes that would seem to be an agreeable calls. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator markey. let me ask mr. sacks and

ms. weiner would you be willing to make the same commitment that red bull has made most especially the commitment not to encourage or to condone excessive or rapid consumption of energy drinks? that is among the commitment that red bull has made. would you be willing to make the same? >> if you would permit us to study the commitments we have just heard them for the first time. >> let me ask that one in particular. the commitment not to encourage or condone a excessive or rapid consumption of energy drinks. >> i don't believe we do that currently -- >> the you would be willing to make that commitment. >> i believe it sounds like something -- we do not encourage the rapid consumption as it is, so it wouldn't represent a change for us so consequently i do not see that it would be an issue. >> so you do commit to that? >> it seems to me that -- >> mr. sacks?

>> what we have looked at is being a light hearted, but we have taken them and we would be prepared to make that commitment. >> would you each be willing to meet the commitment that you wouldn't say that larger sizes of caffeine or higher concentration of caffeine is better or have a better and stronger fact, and i am quoting again from the letter. ms. weiner? >> that would seem on the face to be a reasonable commitment, yes. >> mr. sacks? >> i believe you would be reasonable looking at the context and the marketing, because i don't necessarily follow that high concentration is necessary to read it all depends on the ultimate level that is consumed

>> would you all come and that he will not use six or e 11 or in other words under 18 any of your marketing or promotions. >> i don't believe that we what commit to not use anybody under the ig. the product is safe for the teenagers and there is no reason why the teenagers should not be a part of to consume the brand or to be at least before. >> we get children us 12 and under. >> rock star has not been recommended to children and why that we mean under 12. according to the independent

expert panels it is the key ingredient -- >> it doesn't add to the appeal to a six or seven-year-old. i don't agree with that number one most of our teenage -- to say very firmly that red bull has not and will not ever market to children. we do believe the consumption of energy drinks for teams is safe but as a matter of strategy and differentiation we've chosen and 18 to 34 as our target demographic and that to which we are committed to that is particularly over the last two years. >> i want to see that i welcome the steps that you've taken and i don't have time to go through each of them asking mr. sacks and ms. weiner what they would be willing to meet that

commitment for some but not to others. i would ask you as a part of your written response to some of the questions i'm going to be putting into the record that you indicate whether you are willing to commit to the same conditions and restrictions that red bull has adopted in its communications to this committee. and i recognize you have not had the time to study them. >> red bull has commented that the tiffin detector and produce their product in 8 ounces and 12 oz cans. rock star and others market their drinks and 16 oz cans predominantly. we have two servings per can. the caffeine in rock star is between 160 to 140 milligrams per container. i want to make this clear that a coffeehouse coffee contains 330-milligram pills of caffeine in the 16-ounce container.

and at the same coffeehouse you can buy an espresso shot that contains 75 milligrams per ounce of caffeine and throw it into that coffee and wind up in that 16-ounce cup with over 0,000 milligrams of coffee and teenagers frequent these coffee houses every day of the week. they are some of the biggest consumers of these coffees at the coffee houses. it's important for this committee to understand that the largest according to the report and the largest intake of caffeine by teenagers is not coming from energy drinks. we are unfairly accused of being demonized in this sense and to look at caffeine we must in all fairness look at caffeine that is coming to the teenagers and then further to the point the expert panel of the consumption panels in the report and other

data and the research, the literature, the expert opinion they have no problem for 13 to 17 consuming the product some to be this and the old saying a picture is worth a thousand words with a coffee manufacturer or coffee retailer and coffee meeting the standard. in the types of ads that we have seen today we have heard this argument ad nauseam if i may and i mean no disrespect. i don't want to press you here which would be unfair if you haven't had a chance to read the

letter. would red bull be willing to make a commitment that would place a label on its product stating not recommended for the consumers under 18-years-old. >> we do not feel the would be inappropriate move. we do have a label that reads it is not appropriate for children and we stand by that. >> that's the reason i'm asking about 18-year-old psp and the reason we wouldn't label our product for those under 18 is the fallen. red bull is safe for teen consumption so we believe would send the wrong message. the other reason is that we believe that we have the advantage of good time here in the sense that the fda is getting ready to undertake the savings of caffeine. and if differently from the past they were to conclude that there was an issue for the consumption of caffeine by teenagers and if

the industry of caffeine producing beverages would therefore agreed to limit the sale of their products of those under 18 then we would be part of that larger solution. suppose the would be a conditional response. >> i want to give dr. snyder and dr. here is an opportunity to respond to what you have heard so far. dr. schneider. >> looking at these drinks, the big issue is that it's not just the caffeine that we are looking at. it's caffeine and other substances and the drinks. it is the portion size and we know that it in practice on basically every system within a child's body. and it's now i would be hard pressed to say it's okay with 12

versus 13 verses 14. and my favorite picture is they are 14-years-old. some of them are -- they look like they are sick and some of them look like grown men with beards. they are not all the same. the lessons are growing, their bodies are changing, their minds are changing and it can affect the caffeine on this group it's not addressed in a lot of the adult studies. so many of the studies on the adults that look like children are far fewer and there are many more concerns because their bodies have other tasks to perform. as part of the aap which includes adolescence as part of that, i feel that is really important to understand that these contain caffeine and other substances that put hinchey a caffeine is even if it is labeled with some of the other

components that ultimately deutsch that number. that is why we look at it in a little bit of a different. i do not believe that any of us need a certain degree as adults. they don't want to do anything addictive in terms of children. they have a whole host of a variety of medical issues. it is a substantial proportion of the population at this point that is growing and has things like attention deficit disorder where they may already be on stimulants. the focus in schools. these kids are actually at a substantially higher risk of taking one stimulant that they have been medically prescribed in the dosage that we know what they are getting and it's very clear it is a prescription and it is written with a certain

number of milligrams but we also know those kids can then use other substances and other stimulants on top of it and they are concerned about the health effect for that particular group which is actually also a growing group. so i think again the take-home message is from my perspective with these drinks have more than caffeine in them in general that are part of the well concern. we don't want kids using anything that is addictive that could possibly cause them to die. we know that parents i think really mean well. the parents need education. i have had more than one opportunity where parents are giving their kids energy drinks. parents of two to 4-year-olds before they went on stage were getting their kids energy drinks. i don't think these parents were doing anything that they thought

was wrong. i really believe that these parents thought they were just getting their kids more energy to get caffeine and caffeine toxicity gets looked at any milligrams per kilogram. if you are a little you weigh less. you can be 14 and 200 pounds or you can be 14 and we 50 pounds. so its distinguishing between 12, 14 f-15 isn't so clear and i think that education of not just -- it's not just labeling. it's education. it's having a label that actually for parents would say something important here that i need to take a look at this label and understand that you know, my teenager -- my child -- maybe they shouldn't be drinking it. so number one, making it illegal squier in terms of what the content is. number 2i think really just making sure that the marketing that there is a little bit of a different strategy. and then my hope is that as people get more educated we need

more research to look at for their impact which i think we are all 100% in agreement on this panel that that is something that we want to see. but again, looking to say that these strengths from the view of the american academy of pediatrics should never be consumed by children and not just by children that children and adolescents which is what the ap representative >> dr. harrison? >> i would like to make a remark on the marketing. if you take marketing 101 you will learn that it is aspirational. so if you are showing an 18-year-old in the ad you are appealing to a 15 or 16-year-old who wants to be grown up. so i think that that's one thing to recognize to if they are including 16-year-olds in their ad they are appealing to younger kids. another thing is that we have

heard about they can't control who sees their marketing. that simply isn't true. for example, monster's website is indexed for teens. that means teams are likely to visit the website than the population in general. so it is appealing to teens and we can see that with the data i'm sure they also have available. i would also like to say that there are other ways to not market for teams. for example, facebook. if you could walk anyone under 18 been able to access your facebook page, that is what alcohol companies do and that is what captain crunch does and says it doesn't market to adults. so it is definitely possible. we haven't talked at all that

the mobile marketing. but that is where the mobile marketing is going in the future. so not only will the kids been able to access this marketing on the internet. they will be able to access it on their phone. the company will be able to know that the child is going into a convenience store and they can send them a message about an energy drink and that just shouldn't be allowed and the companies can stop it if they want to. >> thank you. i apologize that i have to leave to preside over the senate. i am going to turn the questioning over to senator markey for his final round and thank all of the members in the panel for the cooperation in your information and testimony i'm sure will be continuing this conversation.

thank you pity at the end of the hearing when senator marchi is adjourned and the record will remain open for one week for additional questions and responses to thank you. >> i thank the gentleman. we have pulled on more kids from rock star as we are going along. you can see that it's not just an isolated -- >> may i respond to that? what we mean by rock star. the word rock star, i want to tell you how we mean that. this means someone that is very successful and is a winner in life. our accounting firm does a great job and you are a rock star meaning you are a boxcar.

what i'm trying to differentiate is the concept of the term rock star and how we mean it. we aren't encouraging the drinking of the product by having -- >> you do not have to be dick tracy for that culture and much of life is just monkey see in the monkey do. you can't teach from a bar stool with a year in your hand and smoking is that with a cigarette in your hand but putting these kids of on the web site as younger kids. it makes it more likely that it's just part of what you should be thinking about doing.

and so let me just say that it wasn't isolated. >> we are also promoting a healthy lifestyle. what we're doing is indicating that we think that young people should stay away from dangerous things and they should be physical, exercise, be engaged in physical sports. as a mother i can tell you -- >> it's not just about pedaling caffeine to kids. it's about the creation of a marketing culture that promotes the consumption of a combination of stimulants that can have significant damaging consequences for the health of children and adolescents. that is all but we are really talking about here today. and having kids like this up on the web site is helping to create that culture. red bull testimony states the company is, "committed to

promoting active and healthy lifestyle choices. but on instead -- instagram people take a sleeping pill, and drank and let the battle began. do you believe taking sleeping pills and washing them down with energy drinks is a healthy lifestyle choice? >> no. as adults we get so many different messages that are not great. hopefully you would look at that and say that's really not what i'm going to do. you are responsible, educated, and you are going to look at it and it's not coming to me what you want to do. the concern is an adolescent looking at that is very in

impressionable. it's a very impressionable group of kids that have a lot of signing power. so that would be my primary concern. >> so would you agree with dr. schneider that is not a healthy lifestyle? healthy lifestyle? >> i will take it one step further. it's not consistent with the strategy that shouldn't be message so that will be addressed. >> again it is all a part of the culture. and we are in the hearing dealing with that and we try to be obviously clear about the message on the committee that we just all want this to end. it has to end. and we don't want any more games to be played with regards to the mixed messaging.

we are talking about 13 and 14 and 15-year-olds. not pretending that if they can't abide year or drives a car they can do most of the things that society we aren't going to be and the society treats them as children and we'll understand why because they are so highly congressional and creating the artificial line of 12 years of age basically it defies what dr. schneider was talking about which among several things is a great variation that can exist. do you want to add something dr. schneider? >> one of the things that shows up in the research on kids and stimulants becomes number one the beginning of an addictive pattern. so for me looking at this i see two things that are addictive on

the same page. i think that is one thing that really appeals to the kids. and certainly when they don't want to be promoting stimulants, seeking behavior and promoting other addictive behavior that wouldn't be a good message. >> did you want to get in on this? >> thank you. i think it's important to also realize that we have representatives here that are major players in the industry. but every day there are minor players that are popping up and not playing by the same rules. so even if we could get the industry to come to some sort of a consensus, we still need a level playing field that all of the players have to abide by. one of the most striking things i hear when i have hearings and my legislative chamber in the county was the idea that these items are safe.

and i think that we have to be careful of the semantics. when you look at caffeine, caffeine appears in nature, on the plants and as a natural insecticide. the point of caffeine is to prevent insects from eating the plant. so we are taking something that is a function in nature as a stimulant used to have a toxic impact, and we are using it in a human model. and what i am concerned about is when we hear the testimony the caffeine consumption has remained stable. but a massive increase in the emergency room. it's we can challenge some of those visits. still when we see the number of tenfold going from 2,005 to 2008

we here twice, and from 2008 to 2011. there is something going wrong. of the caffeine consumption remains the same then it means there has been a shift from soda and coffee to energy drinks and i think that defies the logic to not believe that there is not some sort of relationship on this alarming trend. >> and it is an alarming trend. what we are talking about our marketing practices by these companies and other companies that are clearly aimed at children and adolescents. what we are saying is stop it. we are saying stop it and we are trying to basically use these illustrations as a way of getting that message out. we want to see the safeguards that are put in place and that there is no ambiguity that we are hearing from the industry

including fees of lawyers that try to take it and just any agreement we reached to make sure that those kind of safeguards are put in place. so, ms. taylor, your testimony says that red bull believes in teaching moderation in consumption. this is an instruction on your site to pound the 20-ounce can of red bull. the question is that teaching moderation when you see pounding 20-ounce can of an energy drink. >> when we talk about moderation the emphasis is in the fact that began 85% of the sales on the form of the eight and the 12-ounce cans, and i will answer the question this is not the language that we see to be sued for the brand. and i would say partially for the reason that you are pointing out but additionally it isn't appropriate for the leasing of our brand. as a premium player and it is an

example of the nature of the commitment that we are making today and drawing the line regarding language around excessive consumption. i will admit this conversation can be subjective and casual language and the common social media to be it will take them to determine exactly what we are talking about the example you provide here as well as the example behind you are not on brand for the red bull and also covered in the commitment we made today going forward. >> would you agree that that is not a proper message to pound a 20 younce cannot red bull or any other product? >> i don't believe that we can afford such language in our marketing. >> do you agree as well and that rapid consumption of energy drinks at that level that 20 ounces is not a good thing to be advocating? >> with each of you agree to

remove any references that would be encouraging people to assume that at a rapid rate your energy drinks? ms. weiner? >> i would agree i don't think that we have any such language. >> let me just keep moving forward. would your company commit to putting the social media restrictions in place so that individuals under the aegis 18 are not in indeed with unhealthy promotion of your beverages while browsing the social media sites? >> we wouldn't believe the would be inappropriate message for us to send in a couple of different reasons. red bull is safe for the consumption. our target demographic as you know is 18-34 and we have been quite crisp about that especially the last two years where we have a strategic shift but the other reason is the we believe that there is nothing harmful on our social media site for that age bracket and frankly it's quite positive and

inspiring and now that we have made the public commitment that we have made today, we believe the language that you have pointed out will be changed and will be in our commitment today. so to restrict the visitation of the site from the population would simply send the wrong message. >> that's important for us to know because we are looking at 13, 14, 15-year-olds different than you are. we think they are still on the target audience for any product and we do not view them the same way that we view 18 and 19-year-olds. these kids are still in in grammar school for the most part. it's a completely different audience. so, what you commit to putting social media research in place so that the individuals under the age of 18 are not inundated with the and all the promotion of your beverages while browsing the social media sites? >> no, currently we have a

caveat where we've restrict from 13-year-olds 12 and under that is not to get involved -- >> but not 13, 14 and 15-year-olds. >> it blood appear that these things are operational but i don't think people are looking at the other side of the claim which is 40 is the new 60. this is a phrase you hear a lot of one of a mature adults. my own dentist watches the x games and can't get enough to speak to the point exactly the independent panel has illustrated no issue for the consumption of the product safely. in combination these ingredients have been demonstrated on the consumption of the 13 to 17-year-olds. >> may i say this i know that 60 is the new 40. but i can just tell you that it's not accurate. [laughter]

13 is not the new 18. it to say that there isn't is to say that authority year old and 60-year-old is the same and whether you like it or not, certain things have to weigh down a little bit more than you would like to. and highlight -- actually i like the ed markey 2.0. actually it's a majority in the senate so that is a good thing. that is a very good thing. but we are just honestly trying to be, you know, let's be honest about this. we are just two different species in terms of their level of maturity to with them all

together and to pretend 13 and 14-year-olds don't belong with younger kids is just completely wrong. they are very impressionable and i just continue to be a little bit dismayed by the willingness of the industry to lump those younger kids and with the older teenagers because that's really where i think the problem is in most people's minds and the industry is kind of oblivious to the concern knowing they're being targeted in the same way that you really want to get a kid hooked on cigarettes at age 12, 13, 14. that is the impressionable age when they are just trying to do what everyone else is doing. >> our target demographic is 1835. to ensure that your marketing -- >> but i want to assure you that we have taken the appropriate steps as a responsible company to excessive.

>> mr. sacks? >> we would be happy to do that. >> would you put in place the social media restrictions for those under 18 with instructions to rapidly or excess of whea consumed products? ms. weiner? >> as i state we do not currently suggest people rapidly consume -- >> so the answer is yes? >> i did say to the entire population our target demographic as well -- i would say from 13 to 95 adult rapidly -- >> ms. taylor? >> we will not include that messaging going forward. >> mr. sacks? >> [inaudible] >> all of companies today stated in the testimony in a previous communication to the members of the community the company does not intend to promote to children. this question is for each of the company's please respond yes or no. will you commit to placing a label on the product indicating

it isn't intended for children under the age of 16, yes or no? >> no. >> we are not prepared to make that commitment. >> mr. sacks? >> no. >> will you commit to contractual language prohibiting distributors and any third party enter from promoting the marketing for sandlin to children, ms. weiner? >> as mr. sacks discussed, we also have contracts in place that we would be unable to modify -- i'm talking about future contract to d'aspin can you repeat for the future contract? >> what to include binding and contract language and future contracts prohibiting distributors and any third party into came from the marketing or sampling to children? >> we are speaking of children 12 and under? >> again, i would like to make

it under 16. i would say under 16. >> we cannot agree to children under 12. >> distributors are not prepared on our behalf. if we put that in writing and make it legally binding. >> mr. sacks? >> going forward we would be prepared to put them in the contract. the distributors are people that we have a contract with and not other third parties that they should not [inaudible] again as defined up to 12 and under. >> some of the testimony indicates consumers are often confused in the marketplace on the differences between sports drinks that contain electrolytes for the rehydration and energy drinks that contain caffeine and other stimulants that are purported to improve athletic performance. the athletic association and the national federation of state high school associations have both stated in letters to

senator durbin and blumenthal beatifies athletes to avoid energy drinks or other stimulants because they may be detrimental to the health of athletes and are not effective forms of fuel or hydration. and i ask for unanimous consent to enter those letters into the record. people start with a scientist but i would like the companies to answer as well. would you agree the student athlete associations that energy drinks shouldn't be promoted as sports drinks that would improve athletic performance for you? >> yes. >> dr. harris? >> yes. and i would like to know what they mean by not promoting them as sports drinks because almost all of them are related to sports in some way. >> we are going to get to that dr. spencer? >> absolutely.

>> mr. sacks? >> i think there is a distinction in some of these drinks. we have a lot of energy drinks that contain the electrolytes at the same level as far in gatorade and poweraid. science confirms caffeine at the labels we have in our products do not have a diuretic effect and do not affect hydration. so, again [inaudible] and energy which doesn't which we don't market as a sports drink or having those benefits. >> so do you agree with the ncaa or the high school associations that stated in letters to senator durbin and myself for the athletes to avoid energy drinks or others because they

might be detrimental to the health of athletes? >> we don't have large amounts of electrolytes in them. again i'm not sure what drinks they are referring to because we have a certain line that is different but we also -- everybody is entitled to their recommendation. however, we don't believe there are any concerns about our product being run by that demographic. 9 million cans have been consumed in the more than 90 countries around the world and we don't have any health that has been proven to be attributed to our product that everybody is entitled to the product they choose to base de mix a you see the national federation of high school is entitled to their opinion that they are wrong? >> we respect their opinion but [inaudible] >> ms. taylor? >> with the information in front of me and what you have read to us i would disagree. but if we are to give a statement on behalf of the company we would need to review that in greater detail and

compare that against the science behind our product. >> ms. weiner. >> i would respectfully request time to evaluate that and bring it to the science committee for a review. >> thank you for that to the it's important that we just divide this question between that which has obviously included in the product of the electoral lights -- electrolites and make energy boosts but don't have that kind of energy. so we have to decide the question. and again, i would ask to give each of you a chance in writing back to the committee to tell us if he would divide that question between the two kinds of drinks multiple kinds of drinks than you might be marketing. and i will come back to you dr. harris said that you can make your comments on the issue of what it is that we should be concerned about in terms of these products.

>> my issue is with the marketing battle of the associations would see today and the marketing does imply that these products enhance sports performance. so i am just trying to understand what the commitment is to not marked in these drinks on sports drinks. what is your concern that they may not be pledging to do then you would like them to do. the energy will be consumed. all of the sports sponsorships they promote in my mind seemed to be promoting the drinks as appropriate so i just want to

understand that. >> could you divide the question in the other types of energy drinks that you are promoting that you think are consistent with the goals that young athletes should have and those that are of concern to the high school association? said dr. harris -- >> there is no relationship between the marketing and the sports and promoting the drink as it is being used for those sports. every company promotes sports with it's their company, but it is coca-cola or pepsi. on the other side i think that what she's saying flies in the face of the literature and scientific research that they shouldn't be drinks before sports or in connection with sports.

we have studies, red bull and everyone has studies and there is no suggestion that these drinks are dangerous in those circumstances. we have had no evidence at all. and again there are over 50 billion energy drinks consumed in the circumstances -- does the american beverage association say energy drinks should not be marketed as sports drinks. do you disagree with the american beverage association? >> that was approved before we became a member. what we say is and our understanding of that is that was before they understood we had drinks like rehab which controls the electrolytes. that is in the relation not portraying sports, but it's being -- it is comparing energy

drinks to sports drinks like gatorade and power aid. but that is not something that we have endorsed. >> ms. taylor and weiner do you agree that energy drinks should not be marketed as sports drinks? >> yes our position as we do agree and we are a member of the aba and sports drinks by definition in the industry are companies like nielsen etc are defined as electrolytes beverages, hydrating and that isn't appropriate for our positioning. >> ms. weiner? >> as with monster, rock star who joined aba after these rules were in place and there are only four companies that agree to these rules. and i would like to point out there is no fda or regulatory extinction between energy drinks and sports drinks. that is a business term and

industry term. that's not an accepted food and drug administration term. all the rocks or drinks are labeled with a caffeine content and there is no attempt to promote them as other than caffeine beverages, period. >> speaking from our perspective and the members of the american beverage association and these are voluntary guidelines. mr. sacks doesn't feel bound by the voluntary guidelines. that is helpful for us to understand because obviously if guidelines are voluntary but then individuals can make a decision not to abide by those guidelines, then it really does underline that we are voluntary and so then you begin to question what the regime is that there is in fact compliance. >> those are industry guidelines and they are in flux on the american business association that will confirm that those are not. they will confirm that those are

in flux right now. >> meeting the guidelines are -- >> the guide lines between energy drinks and sports only because the fact it is an industry standard. this has nothing to do with the food and drug administration. it's a technical thing you put something on the shelf in the store. put it in the sports drinks section or the energy drink section. >> i appreciate that there could be an ongoing and a vigorous discussion going on in the american beverage association that has gotten to these standards given the new members that have joined. but they are all standards that our party we standards which they believe were accurate when they were put on the books. i guess i'm going to bring the hearing to a close. but just to tell you this we are going to be returning to the subject. and we will be asking you to

very strongly reexamine your policies especially when it comes to kids. and i'm not talking about the 18 and 19-year-old spivvy it i'm talking about the younger kids and what your policies are and what protections you are putting in place because we will be revisiting this. and we are going to be looking for real results to ensure that the lines are being drawn and that we are protecting those who are the most vulnerable in our population. so i would be encouraging each of our company witnesses when it comes to marketing to children and adolescents not to rely on the semantics but to focus on safety come to focus on those that are most impressionable and to make sure that protections are being put in place so that when we return you will have a strong body of evidence to prove

to the committee that your actions are consistent with protection of people in this society that we want to see that protected. i have to rush over there to the senate floor. i think all of the witnesses for the testimony. the hearing is adjourned. >> [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] mufasa audience doesn't actually tell us what to do. it tells us what we think is going to happen. and then we have to make traces about that and because one of the implications of the line of argument is the earth is always changing. we, the societies, can adapt and change in many ways.?>?>?>?>?>?> that was with the climate?>?>?>> problem. it may be something we can adapt to. but even if you take that idea that these societies can adapt

easily if leaves us with a question of well even if we can adapt is this the kind of world we want to live with the extreme drought and heat and the sea level rise. so many things we care about are in danger by the change is happening and we do have a choice. coming up in about five minutes we will take you live to the new american foundation for the discussion on the openness of the internet

members of the senate intelligence committee met behind closed doors with obama administration officials including the deputy director of national intelligence and the deputy national security adviser about 1 feet to whether they are authorized to use military force and syria. senator mikulski a member of the intelligence committee spoke with reporters following that briefing. >> did they make a compelling strike for the -- case for the strikes? >> [inaudible] [laughter] too many microphones here. i think that what we heard today made a compelling case and remember that it was used by the

al-assad regime to be the next step has to be what is the way to the grade the ability to ever do it again. i have more questions about that. as a military strike to that? there were other things required with the boots on the ground and the country getting involved in the regime change. but there i was ten years ago. i voted against the iraq war because of places like this. i was convinced that there was no compelling evidence on these things and that they had nuclear weapons. i was right about that. i do believe that today there was compelling evidence presented that saddam hussain they used nerve gas against his own people. now the next question is what is the best way to deter him from ever doing that again, and i

think this is a problem that the world needs to get involved with pity we need to know that if there is a military strike but we are going to do and what will they do. i know the missions that said that they would support us. is this a schoolyard bully where they say you go hit him and we will hold your code and get lemonade or are they involved in this as well? where are the students around the world and the demonstrations and berlin and tokyo what are we doing and then where is the u.n.? i know they are waiting for their report and while they are waiting for the report on the nerve gas the have refugees so who is going to pay the bill not only for what is the consequence for the military strike but as we deal with this serious crisis.

i want to hear where the world is and our best course of action. >> when you see pages like the front of "the new york times" today do you have a concern about the makeup of the opposition? >> i've always been concerned about the makeup of the opposition. we don't know who they are, we don't know what they are and i don't know what their intent is in terms of the future of government country by country, the arab spring has sent the flower of democracy so we have been concerned about who is the opposition. i'm sure there are a lot of dedicated people in the opposition that would be space and free. that is a great goal, but there's also other kinds of infiltrators. so this is not about the opposition. but this is about syria and where you have the serious situations you already have

2 million refugees and you have your nerve gas. that could be a great solution but it has to be along with other solutions. >> has president obama talked with you directly on this issue? >> i have been involved in all of those -- i've been involved in the syria discussions long before the nerve gas and i have been involved in every major principle call. today we are doing this hearing and at 1:00 i'm going to go over and be part of a bicameral meeting to see what they have to say in the house and the senate. i am doing my due diligence to decide how i will vote that will be in the best interest of the united states for the public and the weapons of mass destructions and syria and around the world.

so state-owned and i would be happy. >> thank you, senator.

behinded in the sphwoarnt era. principles that ensure our communications networking connects everyone, everywhere. that our networks service open platforms that allows each of us to access the contented of our choosing. and new competitors can actually compete on a level playing field with incumbent providers. and ultimately that a digital divide marked by sober owe economic is not perpetuated. the values that underlie the prin. s the benchmark known as common carriage states back over a century. they aren't new and the fcc need to reinvent the -- wheels. we'll discuss what an mod --

21st cinch i are communication. in joining me in the discussion today are matt wood, policy director at free press. steven, national organizer for the center for media justice. -- did i say it right? from aarp. and an agree from con tell. and susan crawford professor school of law. fellow as a roosevelt institute, codirector at -- former special assistant to president obama and author of captive audience. susan, i'll turn the floor over to you. after of which we'll proceed to a conversation. >> thank you, sara. welcome to everyone to the new america foundation for hosting

is. there's a stray of issues in communications, policy and law. and a lot of shiny object and confusion. it must be released to the special will the journalists in the crowd here. the case being argued on monday at the dc circuit is -- -- does the u.s. government have any role to play when it comes to ensuring you being use, open, world class, interconnected reasonably priced internet access? does the government have good reason to ensure that facility in america? i believe it does. both for competitive reasons because asia in particular countries are adopting industrial policies, pushing toward exactly that end.

and also because we have an obligation to ensure a thriving middle class that can help this country remain strong for generations. so this case being argued on monday that we'll discuss today is situated in history for two powerful reasons. it's an attack on the idea that the government has any role in ensuring open, world class, interconnected reasonably priced high speed internet access. and it's an attack on the idea of both at administrative level. whether fcc has delegated authority from congress to do what it did in the open internet role that we'll discuss, and administratively that attack is very strong, and it stems from some elaborate legal gymnastic that many people in the room are highly qualified to talk about.

and they'll talk about it in detail, if you want. that's all about policy. the decisions made by the fcc were made against the background of a assumed legal authority. we'll get through those policy decisions one way or another. they'll get decided. that is the administrative level. what i would like that highlight this afternoon is the profound -- profound attack this case represents on congressional authority to say anything about high speed internet access under the commerce laws. each talk has just one message, and so i get one thing that you will remember today. that one thing, that is so important that the d.c. circuit must firmly squash verizon first amendment claim that any oversight of its high speed internet access service would be

uninstitutional. the d.c. circuit must stop the argument in its tracks. verizon said that any its capacity. when it's wearing the hat as a high speed internet access provider. it's the same as "the washington post. and that any effort by government to constraint its ability to slice and dice and prioritize and make deal with content providers about that high speed internet access could be found -- should be found uninstitutional under the first amendment. now, verizon pleasant plane -- plenty of good reasons to make this astonishing and laughable argument. it's an attempt to constitutionalize the regular purpose communications networks. they want to move questions about the oversight of those networkses out of the political

realm. out of the realm branch congressional delegated power to the fcc over to the courts. and make sure that there's a roadblock, a institutional roadblock to any oversight. they seek remove any threat of oversight over high speed internet access. we have seen it before. exactly the same claims were made by companying seeking to remove regulatory oversight. even then telephone companies didn't have it to claim that the first amendment would bar any oversight or regulation of their transport activities. verizon's goal to make it sound like a serious, legitimate constitutional argument. if they get there, it is a win. if it sounds serious, it's a win for them. it's going make some court, they're hoping it's the supreme

court, someday, they'll make the argument over and over again agree it's a serious question. oversight of high speed internet access or any general purpose, transport networking raises constitutional questions about speech. and they'll pivot and say, well, in light of these serious questions you can't possibly defer to what the administrative agency, in this case the fcc has done to exert oversight over us. they will repeat this over and over again. this laughable argument. it happened with health care. keep saying it and hope that someone believes you there's a institution -- constitutional claim at issue here. i'm here to tell you the government has good reasons to oversee the operation of these general purpose transport networks. these reasons are so good, and verizon's claim is so absurd that it's important that the d.c. circuit make a plain statement.

remember why we have the first amendment. it's to keep government from directing the content of messages from favoring certain point of view. but is the likelihood that government in the net neutrality order at issue in the particular case or any other arena of communications policy over a general purpose transport networking is actually suppressing speech or attempting to favor certain messages over others. i'll tell you the likelihood. it's zero. it's not going on here. there's no suber fugue, no attempt to sensor. fifty years ago those same arguments were made by segregationists saying the lunch counters were being subsidized to organize sit in. they rated a paragraph fifty years ago. they were disgraceful at the time. here, sure, everything subsidizes something else, but

there has to be some lines. scalia said it clearly ten years ago that the policy for would claim that everything is related to everything else. there's a line and the transport networking is not subsidizing the speech that travels over us. it's certainly not subsidizing messages. understandable messages by an audience which with it does not agree. it's not going on in this case. the d.c. circuit needs to slam the door on the first amendment argument decisively. what verizon is really trying to do in this entire case is protect its profitable position. it wants power to squeeze profit everywhere. both at the interconnection point with other networks, and in the last mile by prioritizing and discriminating with respect to traffic. but economic loss is not a first amendment injury. verizon is free to speak any time it wants to about

anything. merely allowing other people's speech to cross the lines is not enough to compel speech. luckily in a supreme court decision, justice roberts made that clear in the context of the solomon amendment case. we're hoping the d.c. circuit pays attention to that. verizon is not being singled out. these companies who are at issue in the open net order are regulated entities who provide wires and transmission line and use rights of way to provide general purpose, communications, and u.s. house hold. yes, there's a line between regulated entitieses and applications that use the internet. that's a line. it doesn't mean that the regulated entities are singled out as speakers for the messages. the sidewalk is different from the conversation. and right now we're worried about the sidewalk unconstrainted power to rise up

and make more money by picking and choosing the particular conversations in which to prove. importantly government has plenty of goods reasons to prefer open networks to private to ensure access just as our vote system was the envy of the world when it was build. and make sure our infrastructure is world class. indeed, the first amendment and its protect -- its protection of dissertd and the freedom of the press is demine -- demeaned by verizon's argument in this case. surely we have not forgotten where it came from. we have common sense. verizon is not a newspaper being forced to support news it opposes. it's trying to use the "miami herald" case. nor is it wearing the hat a television distributer exercising editorial discretion over which stations or programs to include in the repertory. that's another case it's trying to use, a turner case from

1994. left its own devices verizon providing high speed internet access would like to choose programs and channels. so this claim has a crucial timing element to it. chicken and egg aspect here. it has to be swell muched before it comes true on the own. study has shown that open transport communication networking to all of society far exceed the short term benefit the carrier of extracting deals that help their stock price. this is not about regulating the internet. it's about regulating internet access. and congressional authority to do so. so some of the d.c. circuit has to make it clear. or we risk giving up on oversight over a basic networking input in to absolutely everything we do. we need to reclaim the regulatory ideal, which unleashes human cap that is stunted in the country. it won't be disruptive to those on the top who have educations.

it will be true though that failing to do so risks wreaking havoc. we have a shared purpose as a nation. we empower the wrongly disfranchised. it's our collected interest to get it right. this case is part of the story. er have risen is clearly wrong in making that argument. i look forward to the d.c. circuit explaining why verizon is wrong, slowly, clearly, and methically. and i hope the argument on monday is illuminating in that with regard. thank you for listening to me. i look forward to hearing from everybody else on the panel. thank you. >> thank you, susan. for the compelling examination

was core issue. i would like to turn to you, matt, and let you give us a bit more context and background on the case. where we are, how we got there. and turn the other panelists for to give them the opportunity to explain what all of this means for them and their constituency. >> sure. thank you, sara. it's great to be here, as always. susan has done a usual brilliant job framing the case telling you what it is not. it's regulation of a communications networking. and i love that line about the squawk for the conversation. we have had a regulated phone networking for awhile. it in some ways still do. that doesn't mean the government or anybody is regulating what we say to each other on the phone. it means there is a basic guarantee of openness and access, universal service and affordability for that line that connects us all. so that's a net neutrality isn't. it's not content regulation. it's not regulating the

internet. people will try the tired line on you today. what it is is a simple statement that century of principle that the person you pay to ship something can't mess with the content what they're carrying for you. simply saying that contrary to verizon claim ifp can't edit your e-mail messages. they can't tell you which website you can go to and which you can't go to. they can't say you can use some applications and services but not others as long as they aren't harmful to their networking. you should be able to use any. we like that when you pay us twice, we like it when you pay us for cable tv service and internet access. wouldn't it be nice if we could keep you from roadway lying on the internet access piece for your video and keep the second check coming every month for tv services?

it's something they have tried to do. it's the genesis of the case we have today. it basically ran from 2007 to 2010. finished up as this one was quick -- kicking off at the fcc. it's not hypothetical. i want to do it today. you hear it talking about about it panel like this. slightly fancier in places like aspen. we should be allowed to quote, experiment, more money flowing to the coffer not only from the people who pay them to deliver content. i pay -- sthiem say. for that internet connection. and they want to will have the ability to charge also google or facebook or netflix or whom every more importantly the smaller companies not quite as well heeled as those guys. they want to charge them for getting the content and creating additional revenue stream and monotizing in all those ways. how does that get us to today? what are the open internet rules

that are under challenge in the court this week actually do? how well do they live up to the principle which they should do is keep the isp, the continue wit itself from interfering from the message it's carrying for you. they do a decent job, i guess you say. there have been no complaints or high profile adjudication with the fcc. that means there's no need for the rule? i think it shows that the rules have worked. nay kept the word on the worst gate keeping and worked to constrain some of the behavior. you hear them talking about saying boy wouldn't it be nice? apple called face time available to everybody who got wireless service from at&t. you can have it as long as you pay up for unlimited voice minute and paying on a metered basis for the data. a lot like the content model. you pay us twice.

then you're free to go and substitute something else for it as long as that check is guaranteed and as long as we're getting paid as a carrier two or three times. go off then and innovate and have fun. only once they have discriminated against the competitive content. the innovative application that might take away some of their legacy business. lots of open internet advocate were not satisfied with the comprises. i'll touch on three quickly and finish as a third one on the authority piece. which is as susan said maybe not as compelling but very important in the face. it will come first most likely in the case. it will consider why the fcc has the authority to adopt the rules. the first comprise we did not like was the wireless disparity we talked about in the past. the fcc has different rules that apply to wireless and wired

networking. the way it plays out on a wireless networking, the carrier has no obligation to uphold nondiscrimination principles. they can basically say we feel like charging you more because we can. try to stop us. that's allowed or at least conscioused by the fcc rule but not encouraged. they also said that the wireless carrier would not block applications that compete with their own services. think of something like skype or google voice. those are protected. other applications like a video applications, a music app, a social media app can be fair game. not just for discrimination but for blocking. that's a first problem of wireless disparity. second problem i'll talk about even more briefly. there are a lot of loophole in the fcc panel. i hate to talk about the fcc and incomplete definition they might have left. they worked hard make the important statement and preserve the principle. things like --

it might set off nightmare. third way in which the order was unfire to us and lot of us is the authority basis and susan touched problem it. i'll try to turn it over to the all-star panel to talk about the real-world implication of the authority question and not get lost in the dry legal part. what the fcc has done for the last decade or more is continue down the mistaken path of saying the interpret and internet access services more precisely are not really transition service. they're kind of like a transition service. but they are also different enough that we don't have the same kind of authority over something like a telephone networking. we have some authority. it's very much unclear as to

what the authority is. i wouldn't say that's necessarily a wrong argument or a bad legal theory. t not the cleanest the fcc has available. the question in this case really on the authority issue is not will it be the end of a line for the fcc? they have other options available to them we think they should have taken a long time ago. if might be the end of the regulatory twilight zone which broadband internet access service and broadband telecommunications services have lived for the better part of the last decade. that's with a we're going see as the argument plays out and the judges finally render a decision sometimes later this year or early next year if it slips that long. does the fcc have the authority of claims over networking management practices or try yet again? the problem it's not only something that effect the neutrality. it's given a --

are available for service to people. and most importantly so constituency and commune have access to the world class modern communications we need even as the technology and the content changes. that's more than enough from me. i'll stop there at and if i miss anything and got anything wrong about the comprise made during the exciting -- i guess might be one word but tense time at the fcc three years ago. [inaudible] >> with respect i had as commissioner clyburn and i will admit her team, her legal team was involved, and the consideration at the fcc's order that i was primarily responsible for representing the commissioner as the order and

had discussions with our fellow commissioners. the chairman's office and the staff. i want to take it back and broaden a little bit about what was going on at the time that we were considering the fcc order. first, there was wide public support for the commission to act. to do something. why is this? well, i think it was because folks began to realize how important it is to have access to the internet as we all grown to love it. to be able to access video, voice alternative. to be able to surf the web, the idea that they would have to pay more to reach us. how is it going to change what it is consumers were doing every day with the internet? in addition there were the economy growing around the internet.

it's expensive to reach consumers. here is an alternative to reach consumers in a new and exciting way. many of the staff had grown up consider during the internet age. i began work in mid '90s. i remember when you couldn't attach anything to an e-mail. i remember when we used to talk about whether or not you provide voice or video service over the internet. the idea we have got ton this place, i think, we were humbled at the fcc. we wanted to be sure that we were taking steps to protect consumers, but at the same time the rules won't be so onerous we would alter or stop new innovations that could happen that would benefit consumers.

to spend time and money putting together a national broadband plan. how can we get high speed internet access all americans? that's affordable and they also provided in that act 7.2 million to build broadband in america. to make sure that all consumers would have access to this new, exciting service. they recognized that very much like electricity service had been when it first began. here are ways with we create economic opportunities. the president included an opener internet policy in the presidential platform. the broad decisions were going on. the importance of an open internet going on. i think the commission wanted to

ensure that one consumers have access to it. they have the opportunity speak. they have the opportunity reach competitive opportunities. and at the same time we were humbled with the position we were in, and we wanted high level rules that would provide this. we knew that, yes, it wasn't going please everyone. and perhapses that meant that we got to the right comprise and everyone was happy. i have a different hat on. i represent the the trade association representing competitive carriers, and the drimtion principle in the open internet order and the rules are important. the commission laid out clearly in the order how it is that large isp who also have alternative services, video

services, voice services have an incentive to discriminate against competitor. so small companies that are trying to compete over the internet and offer alternative service to consumers would be put at the disadvantage without the rule. that's the perspective that i wanted to provide both from my old position and new position. i'm happy to be here and continue the discussion with you all. >> thank you. we'll want to hear more about how your current members and the people today are put at the disadvantage when we don't have certainty about how the communications networking and the public networking hang together and serve everybody and the kind of benefit crewmembers can provide. no offense to businesses i think important are the real people and community impacted by the rule and lack of certainty about the communication feature. that's why we are excited to have marty and steven here. a powerful voice on a lot of

issues that are in play here in washington, but especially on this issue as well. and on the impact that lack of affordable and can have on all american but aging populations who have as much as anybody for these services that don't always adapt to the newest service instantly and need do have some kind of certainty in the changing technology landscape. please, marty. whatever you would like that share. >> thank you very much. thank you new america foundation, and colleagues here for the great opportunity to talk about potential impacts to the 50 plus populations regarding the decision that the hearing next weekend in imminent decision. aarp is non-profit nonpartisan organization with a moip of 47 million. we hope people turn their goals

and dreams in to possibilities. real possibilities. we hope the community and fight for the issues that matter most the families we believe such as health care, employment, and income security, retirement planning, affordable utility, yes, and protection from financial abuse. broadband service many of you in the room are much more specialist experts than myself. i can tell you that at aarp, we see broadband as a successful connector for the 50 plus population. we understand that by all people have a fundamental need to stay connected to one another or be part of a wider community. being convict -- connected is particularly important for the 50-plus population. older adults find out later in life many times that there are more potential opportunities

after the age of 50 than before. such as becoming an entrepreneur, starting new business and coming up with the dreams and goal they wish they had thought of. and proceed with when they were twenty now after a life full of work. they have an opportunity to engage in that. the 50 plus population in this country is growing very rapidly and projected to increase by 21% by 2020. and those over 65 growing by 33% by the year 2020 which is just a minute away. all the communities in all of this nation really need to go to work and find ways to keep the large and vibrant growing 50 plus population not only engaged but also connected. we would like to talk about the technology infrastructure and broadband and the implication and the impact of this population. we know that lifelong learning opportunities are very high on the list of the 50 plus

population. and they get an opportunity study in local institution of higher education and intergeneration access of public school. access to public services offered by federal, state, and local government where information on critical, life saving and life enhancing benefits are online now, and those populations of those adults who have no access or who have limited access really value broadband and the internet to getting to those benefits. and again, i mentioned the access to entrepreneurial and small business start-up opportunities very important. let's talk quickly so we can move to questions and answers about how we see this rapid technological change happening in telecommunications. aarp believes that the tblg

evolves they cannot be obsolete. they must move and transition with the technology. there is no stopping point. there is no tipping point. they must move as a technology evolves. we know that the classification issue is at the core or the heart of a lot of distress right now regarding the hearing next week in other telecommunications issues. the fcc has so much more authority as opposed to the information service. so we try to help our members understands the difference. but networking neutrality aarp support an open internet. we support the consumer's right

to access information openly. without discrimination of content or service. we are numberly supported in that camp. we believe that policy makers shoulder in that consumers have a right to use the internet connection to access the or receive or any lawful content or services they choose over the internet. and that consumers should have the right to attach any device to the operators' broadband networking sloption that device is not damaged. aarp is very supportive of the fcc's role as a gate keeper over this very critical, vibrant, rapidly changing technology and its infrastructure. we believe that the fcc has a role and must be maintained and

protected. brond band is no longer the fledgling technology of the 80s and 90s needing the near -- nurture of a restrained touch of regulation. instead broadband technology and what the internet represents right now is a full-grown robust technology and industry. it's critical to our nation and its the public interest of our nation and critical to our 50 plus population and quality of life issues as all of us age. we feel that the public for it patience, its encouragement, and a great extent subbization of this great innovation broadband deserve a federal communication commission whose role will be to protect, strengthen, universal

access not only connectivity but of the content and services that the internet will offer. >> great, thank you. we'll come back to you as well. i want to get sara in and everybody else. last but not least, steven marty talk about broadband as the basic communication platform today. no longer something fledgling. what does it mean for communities who don't have access? what kind of impact do we see when we don't have equal and affordable access for every population not just the few who afford to buy it from verizon when they claim it's there are. thank you, matt. >> first of all, thank you for having me on the panel. it's an extreme honor to be on the panel with so many folks that i have the deepest amount of respect for. i'm humbled to be here. so i'm here with the center for media justice, and but i should be truthful who i'm here representing are the 160 member

of the media grassroots networking. t a networking we coordinate with membership across the country. for us the open internet has an impact to three areas. we know that it's vital to the health and well being of the communities that are represented to our networking. which are communities of color, rural communities, low-income, poor and working class community. it's vital toward their health and well being. it's important? protecting the public interest and the same vulnerable communities that without these protections can be priced out of the vital infrastructure or sometimes real candidated toward a second class internet that impact their ability to effectively communicate in the 21st century economy. and lastly, we see an impact the open internet is vital in

protecting a platform that is democracytized our communications, and really provided us an effective platform for us the case is about control and ownership of this vital infrastructure. these are preexisting tension of community of color, poor and working class communities are too familiar with. one of our networking members young people's project an organization in -- they run a has and digital for children and elementary and elementary school and high school. they know how critical the skills are to a quality education. and they're engaged in this trying to connect education to digital literacy because it's so vital. around jobs broadband has been the engine behind economic development.

t an interesting study done in the msdz naacp. took a look at the broadband in the mississippi delta and analyze zip codes and look how many were in the zip code. and zip codes that had 4 to 7 broadband providers there were about. 278 businesses. in zip coz with 0 there were seven. it's no surprise that at zip codes dove tailed over with rural communities or communities with color. what we learn from the struggle when we lack agency over the critical community suffer. the case in the fight for an open internet is our fight. t directly tied to all of our other fight for community health and well -- trying to look for more ways to

make more profit which is natural corporations. when profit making inevitable belie conflicts with the public interest. profit making usually wins out. it doesn't have to be this way. networking neutrality is a prin. that protects the public. when it erodes we face an internet system that preys on the public. we look shortly after the fcc imply meted the rules. they came out with a tiered data plan. you pay $40 and get what they call unlimited web browsing and you can get unlimited youtube for a little bit more. you can get additional websites. we see this tiered structure that is very similar to us when we think about cable. metro pcs was a back then. think about the experience

experience we're inviting people in when they don't have the vital protection response when corporations are in a position to pick winners and losers, the losers tend to be the most vulnerable communities. without an open internet, we are denied yet again one more platform and arguably for us in our day and age the biggest platform to express our opinion that reflect the best interest of our communities. this is relevant now more than ever at the president and congress debate what actions to take in syria. it's important pot-friendly we to call for peaceful intervention to hear the iraq veteran against the war. and challenge the -- i think a lot about in the particular issue a lot of companies that are against

networking neutrality are the -- it's a vie tallet platform that allow us to just in conclusion i think those are the three pieces we see as important. we need an open internet for the health and well being. we need the open internet for to protect the public interest and protect those most vulnerable. we need the open internet as a platform. >> thank you, steven. that was very compelling. i want to take moment and broaden the scope a bit. and think about the worse case scenario that susan described

earlier. the court would just sort of issue a sweeping ruling that said the fcc has no authority to regulate -- i can start off by flagging the universal service funds and i think that probably marty and an agree could add to this. but what we're seeing in work at the fcc and trying to broaden the scope of the funds things supported within the universal service funds to include broadband service in the context of lifeline program which provides a discount for we have seen calls from groups across the country to expand the program to allow the stand alone broadband. we have also seen a sort of

inability or at the fcc to work and extend those regulations to include broadband within the lifeline. i know, we have gotten there partially. but to actually sort support broadband. so i know there's lots of -- the scope of the regulatory authority over traditional telephone companies involve more than nondiscrimination. able to charge whatever you want for whatever kind of services you want to provide. it becomes another private service that some people get access to. some people don't. and it's all the --

positive externally all the great things that happen for society because we have things like a post m system and we have the federal highway system in america. we have got communications networks. that huge competitive advantage for the country is whittled away. we have a few people more affluent who will be to be get access to still second class networking but better than the less well-off will. new businesses won't be able to rely on a common interface. they risk having the rug pulled under from them. all kinds -- every social policy goal we care is internet mined by not having universally available world class connected internet

access. we won't get that without having some oversight. left to the own devices get what we've got which is status quo and deeply profit-driven enterprise. >> i also would like to empathize. i think it's been mentioned by a couple of people on the panel already. there are still pockets of populations in the country that have no access a very limited access. to even great phone service. not to mention even broadband, internet, and so forth. so the minds of the fcc as a gate keeper, as a preserver of public interest in that respect would already turn communities strug ming to survive with no providers to probably what i would like to say waste lands.

because economic development doesn't happen populations who want to continue to generation after generation that's not going to happen. we have places in the country it was out in fcc. the gate keeper of public interest role. the places may never get service. and those places with limited service would a different time in attracting the profit-driive provider to come to the community. so i want to speak to the population don't have what we see in washington, d.c., and other urban areas in this country. >> well, as you know is that congress had that concern already. and devoted money toward building project so they could have access to high speed internet service, and we also know that a commission who has a statute that hasn't been updated since 1996, looked at section

254 which occurred a year and a half ago put together a pilot program for broadband internet access service for low-income consumers. relied upon piece of the statute that are relied upon in the open internet access case to do that. you know, has a project ongoing right now so they can turn the lifeline program in to not just a voice subsidize program but also a broadband subsidize program. as you indicated there, yes, the commission already permits the subsidize for purpose of packages so it's a consumer both a voice and broadband package. it and with subsidized. televisions still the same amount of money the subsidize is. it's not apparent there are a lot of companieses that are currently offering that service to low-income subscribers in the lifeline program. even if it shut down the first amendment case.

congress still has authority it can delegate to the fcc. if they somehow limit the authority that the fcc already have been delicated and have to go back to congress, the commission has to go back to congress in order to be able to ensure that low-income consumers can be served, they can get access to brond band internet access through subsidize. it's going take awhile for that to happen. that's a concern. if they don't shut it down and uphold it. the 706a authority and 706b authority. the language in various portions tied back relatedded to the service of video, the service of void and the 230 provision relied upon by the fcc. so i would even go stress beyond what susan stressed. they need to uphold the fcc at

this time, the fcc has to go back and redo the amount of time that would take the fcc and the amount the political pressure that the fcc would feel from the public and from the companies. there are many other things they need to work on including finishing up the pilot project and making sure they have access to broadband internet access service. i'm in an interesting generation. i'm old enough to have gone to school and at times when i didn't necessarily need access to the internet but but i was on the first person on my block growing up in los angeles to get a computer and have a dial up connection. i was the go-to person for every

query. but nowadays, when i go back, my cousin lives with my mom now, and she she has the cable connection at home. she needs it. she goes to college. my cousin next door in high school regularly on a daily basis utilizes her computer to finish her homework. for me the doom day scenario is more about what the impact going to be people in their homes out in communities, and this is infrastructure being utilized. i helped my mom complete her taxes online. helped family members look for job online and direction. t everyday survival stuff. and i think angie is right. we have to keep moving forward. the authority question, what is interesting it's a critical question.

every time they seem to do something. the carriers don't like it they respond by saying the fcc doesn't have the authority to do that. we have seen that recently. we compete -- completed our networking with part of a campaign to lower the cost of phone call from prison and the fcc did an amazing job in thank you. what are the carriers saying? they department like it. they were saying the fcc has no authority. the arguments come up time and time again. any time the fcc tries to do something. so, yes, it's an important question. but come on. thing, you know, without really

questioning an agree's obviously true statement it will tie the commission up in notes politically. i want to go back to the point and get past the same old song. people will say sometimes the fcc does that and the right thing they'll be sued. heavens. they get sued no matter what they do. a lot of advice at the time of the open internet order drafting was get sued for the right thing. do the strong thing. the right thing. and you're going get sue nod matter what. if the fcc choose to do -- would be a political fight. put that aside for a minute. the net neutrality. if you talk about the knot your company that members have to tie in to navigate the current system we have that they can't necessarily interconnect with the words susan talked about. they can't dwoact a verizon or comcast or somebody else and

guarantee they can send traffic to one another based on nothing more than the technology they're using for the type of facility a copper wire or cable wire. but, you know, providing the same service. they are providing a vital service we need for our economy and society. yet it's i think your company who have to deal with the regulatory arbitrage and the game that the incumbent play to make it as difficult as possible. >> it does seem like it's the same old song. what matt is referring to that congress did provide for provisions -- [inaudible] the commission should regulate the same way it's regulates that

that dpitional tdm service. they do not want to interconnect with competitive carriers, and they want the commission to treat it as though it's going to be all over the top and internet peering will take care of the situation. and our position is that this is not internet peering arrangement. they are voice product that are managed services just like tdm is managed today over the carrier's networks. in fact, they all advertise their voice over internet protocol service is not deemed cared over the internet. we continue to have that fight with them. there's a lot of spill over the arguments you have seen before. you see again, proceedings after proceedings. and the commission how to treat services. tie up in knots in order to

enact consumer protection. occasionally we find out the consumer for example an interconnected voice that hasn't been covered such as a recent case on slamming. who knew that -- without your permission, if you file a complaint at the fcc. they're going dismiss it. they haven't said that the claiming rules apply to interconnected voice service even thoan they apply the it makes it difficult fur for the member. we are concerned about exactly what step the commission will take. what authority they have been the court to ensure there's a level competitive playing field. why is important to consumers?

they have voice, innovative service. i want to see the provision continue. >> angie, you mentioned in your earlier statement that you highlighted the wide spread political and social support. back in the day of the original drafting the internet order given the regulatory arbitrage that matt highlight and your story highlight and the fact we're seeing more and more moving away from traditional and in to phone system delivered over the internet, we're seeing a shrinking of a base of companies and entities these rules are protecting. as we transition over this sort

of reaching a critical moment. i'm curious where are we now when it comes to political and social support in and have we missed the moment? >> i think there's a lot of confusion. there's confusion what you said, sara. the numbers actually show not much of the services actually over the internet right now. the use of it tran mission technology. it country mean it goes over the internet. my sober is trying to a spend of lot of time trying to correct. as it turns out, there are some folks that are choosing to have their voice product over the

internet. that's great. we want to encourage that. we think it's important. it's also true they're continued to be voice product for consumers. well over -- they are choosing it and all business consumers do. that's because business consumers they need to absolutely make sure they have good quality of service. and the internet is a best effort networking. it doesn't offer the same kind of guarantee that the telephone networking has transitionally offered. and it's so important for so many consumers. ..

the lack of certainty and definition from the commission respect his continues to be a problem. and sometimes it isn't even a problem the perceive. you have enforced a gross looking at the planning world and going we can't handle this complaint. one thing else i should have mentioned, most likely the state could be there because so many states have deregulated voip services. so where's the consumer supposed to go? how is the consumer going to be protect it from this? so it is important that the

commission, you know, that they address issues head-on. the politics are hard. it's been there before. i've also been in the situation where i'm taking the chairman office to make the hard decision and this is that it's very helpful to have the grassroots and the consumers say we want these protections and it's so important for the commission to do its job and protect consumers , especially in light of the fact that there are about 50% of the state that had deregulated. the sec is the last agency that can protect the consumer. >> i just want to thank angie for the clarification, but also highlight the necessity and the dire situation we have, aarp and other consumer advocacy groups, particularly with the state legislators, who don't have the best information.

they may have the best lobbyists that the carrier can provide, but they don't have the best information and they get a lot of conflict in information as to where their authorities began unworried and and where the fcc is able to step in and what its role will be in terms of being a stop to. i just want to speak up for the consumer groups button at the state level were dealing with legislatures and getting these mixed messages about the fcc's role and that the state of oc don't worry, deregulated. the fcc will be there water washing and they are doing everything to make sure the fcc will not be there. >> state regulators were confused by what saw them people are confused. i think it goes back to something marti talked about earlier and maybe we can finish

there with final thoughts before we start taking questions. one of the benefits is that as many experts experts in the audience if not more, so i'm interested to hear what questions. is this confusion that stems from not lack of earner care about these issues, the simple disbelief is suddenly consumer protection don't apply. i can call anybody on my phone i want to. what you mean i can't do that with an e-mail or a website? i would that be different because the technology has improved or changed, why would a fed may not have the same rates economically speaking and from an internet freedom standpoint, why can't it go and find that because the isp has the right to choose which sites they can go to. as for a lot of the confusion comes from and where it's been so successful it might be in the waters for people. >> it also makes you smile because from the consumers respect it, these are general transport networks. we're supposed to pick up the

modern-day equivalent and do whatever we need to do. it should be world-class, always supposed to be number one. and yet steadily at the state level, local level, federal level, all of that structure is being removed in this case is absolutely central to that very well thought out campaign. the problem is this is a shell game. maybe it's not going to the internet, but it's going to the same type provided by the same guy. everything keeps moving around and redefining and yet it shouldn't be that difficult. this is the basic general purpose communications network. it should be treated that way, but without clear congressional authority, and by the way strong rules from the state who can pick up the phone. the sec can pick up 300 million phones. there's a very important role to

play. we've got to get them back into the position. without the opportunity to move the ship around and i am hopeful that whatever happens with the fcc's legal gymnastics on the open internet rule itself will see a wholesale move towards this as an important social policy issue for the entire country. >> you have state commissioners who are engaged on this issue and we need more of them. the organization that represents the state utility commissioners, the president to gather task force stress release their white paper on the cooperative federalism and state work that can happen with new network. i encourage you all to go to their website, look at the paper. we need to have more discussion than how we have disengagement of state come in the state commissioners, state legislators and the fcc are working together to ensure there's a level

competitive playing field so we all have options this consumers, whether residential consumers or business consumers and we all know the competition is one of the best ways to protect consumers and offer innovation and lower prices than they need asic consumer protection in place this season is talked about, mardis talked about the absolutely ensure folks get the kinds of guarantees service to it always had, they rely on and they don't have to understand the legal distinction when using the internet versus the wireless, versus a wired phone. >> what i would add really quickly is part of what we've tried to do with the media action grassroots network is really bring the grassroots voice to a lot of these places, not just the fcc, but the state level. a lot of member organizations in california and the unsuccessful campaign they are to stop the deregulation bill. we need to also be able to organize people and those

stories do not provide the technical distinctions, but share with the impact is to everyday life. so for folks up here in the inter-web, feel free to have a set. i admit is where it's at. >> with that, we can open it up to questions. speaking of the inter-web, we have some folks monitoring the twitter feed, so will try to at least get one or two questions from the twitter feed as well. earl, i think you're handling a. >> thank you very much. earl thompson. he seems to me the panel said in a great job of presenting some things here. there's sort of an elephant and the brim and you clarify for your audience a tremendous amount of people who address this. the reality is angie kamin mentioned that it's been since the 96 act this was done. i'll remind everybody that 96 act was written 60 years after

the 34 act and congress did know about the event. there is a lot done in the 80s and 90s on the internet. i would maintain the statute does address the internet and i think it would be helpful for listeners to lenders and that in the event you get past this first amendment argument and in the event the fcc goes down at 706, which it did they probably should, the reality is the fcc was given the tools by congress to address all of this. and i would like you to maybe educate the listeners on the fact that in the event the court strikes down the rationale put forward by the sec, all is not lost. you could go back and address these things as they been done before. i feel like everybody is tiptoeing around the fact the fcc got itself into this box by basically defining what eng rightly points out dissent in over i.t. is somehow a lead

their grasp and they sort of scrambled around the edges, looking for provisions of law that they can point to and say we didn't give it all away. we just gave away the important stuff. maybe you can talk about more hot title ii, title iii and title vi might apply in the event that the fcc went back and revisited their definitions. >> absolutely. i did not intend to tiptoe around this. the service is first at bat for cable modem service and then they did that for dsl service. so that is one option. the commission can go back and look at those decisions and say now, we are going to classify the service as a title ii service and it clearly has all the authority it needs and can even price regulate if it wanted to. it also could do other things. i thought of classifying broadband internet access

service coverage to classify the position under title ii and make it available on a wholesale visa to competitors and creating more vibrant competitive market for broadband services. so that other providers could offer an open internet service to consumers. so i think all of that will be very politically difficult inside the beltway if that's what the commission would he left to do. it's very hard to speculate exactly what the court would say if they were striking down what it is the commission have relied upon. but yes, there's a series of decisions that occur in the prior commission under prior administration. they left it in the position that it was in. the fcc that i was a part of made the decision not to go forward with the reclassification. it has an open proceeding as part of that discussion and i

think one of the reasons is that it's just too hard to do it. there is such an outcry that it shouldn't do that, that it should go this particular route and see what the court said. >> i tiptoed around it, but i fell like i stepped on it a few times. thank you for bringing it up again because they think it's important. it's important for people to not take this case again is somehow the end of the road for the fcc. it's just the end of this road of the regulatory twilight, where they've tried to say we have jurisdiction over broadband internet access service, but only in convoluted ways and maybe that holds up. maybe the court will find that to be the case for these rules. it just isn't good enough in our view for all the things about the responsibilities the fcc has under that act and all the rules they have to play to make sure we maintain a communication network until it is somehow disappear because the technology has changed.

>> remembers that have real concerns as a mentioned earlier about the amount of time it would take for the commission to make the decision, but the end results could be. one of the things i would hear constantly from those lobbying me on the eighth floor with any certainty. we need urgently. we need certainty. just make it vision. this puts us all back into more uncertainty. as other proceedings going on at the fcc that my members care about. special access reform and reforming, modernizing the last policies that the commission. instead, we are going to rehash this. the other responsibilities the commission being given when they had deadlines, the incentive option. this is not our preference. our preference is for the court to make a decision to come out very clearly that this is not a first amendment right, that verizon has.

and it should shut down the claim that the commission overstepped the authority that it has. it's time to move on. we need to be addressed the larger issues. take it back to what else does the commission party have come up with a verdict on and how that might impact the high cost reform. likely that you wait before is more specific provisions about advanced services. i don't think that's going to be effect they come to. we need to be having a different discussion. it is time for this to be shut down and let's do it here. should this get to the supreme court, let's hope the supreme court does it again. i'd like to point out some of us have talked about the case. the commission when the city of arlington case with the conservatives. i personally proud of that case. i was one of the primary authors of the underlying order at the fcc is a staffer and a wireless euro. i was with commission showed

roundup, upheld for purposes of jurisdiction and not just a little steps towards authority. and so, i really hope the d.c. circuit's going to look at that. they're going to look at all of the other provisions of the commission site. redefinition of a 70 sixers reinterpretation and that we can get the on the conversation and talk about other things and ensuring that consumers have access to broadband. >> go-ahead. >> first, just a discussion, but i always want to go back to the basic rents a bowl of how we're going to improve everything and if on the basic principle in

concept. for instance, equal opportunity and equity and helping the poor and everything all are commodities of good. so the internet is the same concept. why do we have to limit the small area work nor all of their areas. for instance, we have a computer. we have a phone. they have abstract debates, diverted as though the line would be not your line at all to other customers. so we don't resolve it. we have a big problem and the

reason the high rate is the problem is to have a bigger issue because they don't even allow you to use the phone. they have the phone for you to call the police. the second you can call the police, the phone line is not working. so if we don't resolve it, these issues profit or nonprofit. the fcc lived up to anywhere -- [inaudible] >> as a point of principle, our organization network believes the right to communicate blogs to everyone. you know, out there in the world and i think you mentioned the availability of broadband.

what we see is brought and is becoming more and more available. when we look at adoption rates, a recent survey published in the daily yonder, took a look at adoption rates in urban communities versus rural, we found they took a look at adoption rates are to does three, compared this to 2010 and found virtually the cap had really changed in some cases when he took a look at demographics, and actually got wider. the digital divide in some places going even though the availability is they are, but it's either unavailable or whatever mechanisms are in place to utilize the tape elegy and communicate effectively in our 21st century digital ecology. it's not there. obviously the fcc come to states and regulatory agencies play a critical role in ensuring people do develop that ability to communicate. that's what i'll say to that. >> i want to check with their online monitors. do we have any questions?

>> i've some online access over here. i want to make sure we get this question too. something that's talked up time and again. the question is, why can't the sec do this? by his net neutrality anything more than a substitute for antitrust? i was there to answer that by saying the fcc, i don't know how effective they are at doing what they're supposed to be, but we are talking about procompetitive policies, but it's about more than that. it's about universal service and deployment and adoption issues and things marty and stephen have talked about. the communication network functioning for everybody. competition is a great way if you can get it to improve services for people, but it isn't the only thing we should have in our toolbox and it hasn't been enough in the current dominated space resulted as he talk about the second rate

that works are often relegated to hear. >> not only to antitrust suit the subset of social policy issues that attach to communications network like internet access, but also inherently looks backward and only protects competitors. it protects competitors. he would've got a marketplace for these guys don't want to compete with each other and they divide marketplace is all the place. so it would be looking backward. the ftc cannot pay you have to enter a market in order to serve people who are radically a search. only asked anti-regulatory policy does not think to create a system of cross subsidies and everything else that needs to happen and which is where we should be. the sec estimates using the tumor protection role. when it comes to making take

regulatory tools, only the expert administrative fee can do that. >> it also wouldn't prevent tearing b.c. you can offer any kind of service you on and collect basic communication service. >> with facebook on the front page. >> i want to get back to the elephant in the room. i'm a little bit out of touch, but a couple years ago the fcc lost the case. if the fcc -- are they going to be with you or is it going to distinguish? how serious this is congressional issue?

>> some people say the second case, like once more let's do it again. the understanding of what sections of in a act means. we've established -- a tory -- so that's the approach being taken by the sec. the elephant in the room was right not rip off the mandate and call this communication service under title ii. then you can forbear from applying all kinds of things. we don't want to be done high-speed internet access provision, but lisi scratcher statutory structure clear. the point would be a political argument is absolutely right. silly problem is not having enough representatives in congress reader understand this

issue or stand up against a mortgage you more campaign contributions. do you think that's where is. so with the fcc tried to act aggressively, there is a real risk the budget would be cut in half because the lobbyists. if you want to talk elephants in the room, that the elephant in the room, the problem of congressional ability to stand up to it ever happening. >> elephants and donkeys. [laughter] >> the commission is relying a couple additional statutory provision that were not in the original comcast i should note. >> additional questions? >> let's keep talking about the hall of fame. doesn't the fcc has the

authority to make the reclassification if they so chose him go from title i to title ii? at least to be able to make the reclassification, isn't that under ability right now? >> they do, but they have to have a reasoned basis for doing so. it will go to court again, but it's clear from the decision that the commission has that authority to do that, but ms be able to explain why it doing that. >> her and asked back in 2005 said that the sec is correct in his determination, just at the sec has the discretion to do this. they can effect a broadband internet access services on a telecom service and is an information service. justice khalil in 2005 didn't agree with that. he said the fcc got it wrong. they have to read it to say that the telecommunication service, something that let's you and me

some information together is exactly what the internet or internet enabled or whatever term you want to put on it. it's telecommunication service even though there's information writing over the top of it. people who want to say it conferred the sec on the merits of this classification was vision are just not reading it the right way. >> okay. we have time for another question. i see earl has a follow-up. >> i was just going to add that, you know, in fairness i would put all the burden on congress. really the fcc could do this. that's what they are created do. they have plenty of justification as the discussion of voip over the internet versus ip enabled services talks about. i mean, the real problem is they're just not willing to do it. the fact the fcc is left

unclassified now for the last 15 years, what is the status of a voiceover internet protocol service i think gives you a pretty good clue as to where the problem lies. the agency is very reluctant to tackle that issue for precisely the reason they can't explain what is the difference between the trains missions serve as an ip-based service. there is no fundamental technical difference. so with all deference people who say congress would cut the funding, as somebody who spent 10 years up there, i can say that none is likely to happen if the fcc made a principled stand as some might think. >> so let's be optimistic. the d.c. circuit to something very clear. whatever that is. they'll give everybody a roadmap about what to do next and what principles need to be invoked. >> i think we have time for one

more there in the corner, patcher. >> for those of us who are not super familiar with this incredibly nuanced issue, i am wondering what kind of communications products are killer and the graphics are, but first and do you have to educate citizens about that and give them a pathway for action? >> public knowledge for something i could yesterday about what is net neutrality. look at public knowledge.org. i wrote a book about this code captive audience which does put this and explained in an approachable way. frankly that's one of the problems. this is deep learning curve here. a lot of acronyms and people get used. >> a great resource at free press that added to the internet.com espial will have lots of information as this revised up.

people said that's the old issue and it's really not yesterday's news. this just as vital today as it was three years ago, 15 years ago when the sec started struggling with isu. the appeal to common sense is about the best we can do. should your communications capabilities be changing because today you can send an e-mail? is it really that different or do you still want the ability and the right to send your information to whomever you want? otello behar to draw the internet even though we've tried. it's easy for people to understand these are tools they need as much as ever. steven said people rely on these basic necessities. that's a rising number of server time and we need more and more access to information to keep up in this economy and keep up with our families. >> i just want to say hopefully very quickly. again, i want to emphasize what i say to the commissioners themselves and other audiences.

the fcc that the commissioners have to begin to say very proudly said that state utility commissioners, legislators and everyday citizens can hear them say that there are mixed messages out they are and that they exist for a purpose, the fcc does admit they are not stopgap that many indian street are telling these policymakers and that people will be harmed because of this misinformation and i think the commissioners need to be more vocal to more diverse audiences than letting them know with her role as and why they were created in the first place in the statute they operate under. >> i will offer up in terms of our national network. we host some of the conversations called digital dialogues, where we take it issues, deconstruct them and connect them to the broader social justice issues are the issues people care about on the

day today. some members have developed interesting tools to help break down the issue. one thing that comes to mind in particular people's production house, an organization in new york produced a video called internet is serious business. if you look it up on female, is produced by youth to explain how the internet functions, but also look at the issue about network neutrality. they also in partnership with the media literacy project produced the doubt and toolkit, which looked at how mobile functions, mobile been an issue in relation to net tetralogy this relevant as a lot of folks don't exist necessarily for folks who are exclusively wireless users. and lastly, when net neutrality was a big hype and issue a couple years ago, our network reduce what we call the remakes of foreign she song called regulate, which is specifically looking at trying to explain

what the whole proceeding was about. so you should look at a. >> i was going to say i think we are hitting the firm stopped now. i noticed the room getting a little restless. i think we will find it they are, but will be around if anyone has any additional questions for us. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> will take a deeper look into

some of the issues that the fcc agenda. just got got worse and more so, including the 2014th spectrum options, the 9/11 emerged the network called first met and that you rate programs that president obama says should exclude the high-speed internet within five years. "the communicators" airs saturday night at 8:30 eastern on c-span. all this weekend will bring you encore presentations of q&a here and c-span 2. tonight at 7:00 eastern, and if you're a congressman bob ney who served for 11 years before resigning in 2006 amid corruption allegations.

>> my own personal opinion this is not based on opposition, my own personal opinion is even a community strike at this point could have an important psychological impact on the civilian population. again, the radicalization developed over time was actually

stop for some time because of politics development is area is now starting up again as chemical weapons are being used. my own personal opinion is that if there is nothing else than i do not agree with a limited strike, that there's nothing else but the psychological impact of sending a message is very important. >> again, would like your thoughts on how to does see your member of congress put on a resolution authorizing military force in syria. we'll take your phone calls, facebook, sentries tonight at 7:00 eastern on our companion network, c-span. >> this is a talent for slavery throughout the colonial. , but i didn't realize how bad the jim crow movement had been after the war in the early 1900 that i found a real shock.

that was one of the two cases decided by the supreme court of the native states in 1815. if you google grandfather crow come you get jim versus oklahoma. this is an oklahoma case that deals with some restrictions on voting. during that case as well was a case involving a law passed in 1908 or the legislature, changing the charter in the city of annapolis to restrict voting by african-americans. now they're free and they've been voting they've applied only to the city, not to the state elections. they tended to vote republicans said democrats in power in the state government and in the city wanted to restrict this. you couldn't vote in annapolis under the sneaking away at the

unless you have $500 worth of property in the city, unless you are naturalized. no women voting and all in 1808, so it doesn't matter. or unless your grandfather could have voted in january 1st, 1868. in 1868, voting and annapolis is tied to the 1867 constitution of maryland, which allows voting only to white males. so if your grandfather wasn't a white male and couldn't vote, you couldn't vote. no matter the 15th amendment in 1870 in annapolis if you couldn't vote in 1868, you couldn't vote in 19 away.

his hour-long speech was the first in a series of events organized as the a restoration as a way to raise awareness about the law and the marketplace exchanges, which begin open enrollment october 1st. ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome death in a come executive director of the clinic foundation. mayor d'amico, and the 42nd president of the united states, william jefferson clinton. [applause]

>> good morning. good morning, everyone and welcome to the clinton presidential center. we're extremely pleased to have you all with us today and we are honored to host this event at the clinton center. today, president clinton will deliver remarks on help your policy and the affordable care act. throughout his public career and now through the work of the clinton foundation, president clinton has been a champion for increasing access to health care and improving health systems for everyone. before we begin, i'd like to acknowledge a few of our special guest dinner ideas this morning. first, the governor of arkansas,

to make cb. [applause] attorney general, just in the daniel. [applause] senator david pryor and barbara pryor. [applause] speaker of the arkansas house of representatives, dv carter. [applause] president pro tem of the arkansas, michael lamoreaux. [applause] and all the elect officials from around the state of ark who trained us today. i'd now like to introduce, mayor ray d'amico. just last week, mayor of 41 other students began classes at the clinton school of public service. the first school in the nation to offer a master of public service decree and she was recently elected president of the student body. they are tell us a bit about yourself and why she has invested in timely interest in

today's important subject. [applause] [cheers and applause] >> good morning. there is no topic timelier than the one being discussed today and it could not be a better spokesperson making this discussion. both president and secretary clinton have been working for decades to lay the foundation for something like the affordable care to be possible. we've all seen the numbers. millions of americans are without health insurance, which is having dire consequences on the hulk and well-being of our great nation. i am a student here at the university of ark clinton school of public service. like many incredible classmates here, i'm still on my parent's insurance and grateful the affordable care to my parents have granted me the possibility. however, i will turn 26 this

year will need to purchase land health insurance for the very first time. for me, this is an absolute necessity because i have a preexisting condition. i was with type one diabetes and need insurance of my life to ensure on the sale to control this condition and remain healthy. on october 1st of this year, the clinton school will be hosting in rome affair assist individuals in signing up for health coverage through the affordable care act. for so many people like myself, our options are one a minute and now they are wide open. for millions like me, this really is a dream come true. i came to the clinton school of public service to learn from and continue the work of president clinton to make arkansas, the united states in the world a better place. from his governorship in arkansas, to his presidency come to the wonderful work during his post-presidency but the bill, hillary and president clinton foundation has created a remarkable record.

he stabilized the economy, work to address climate change, provided us with the self and classmates with opportunities to save communities and countries through americorps and continues to work for peace and prosperity around the world. i speak for myself and from my classmates when i say it's an absolute honor to continue the legacy of president clinton to the nation's first public service decree. having access to health insurance that is both affordable and covers my preexisting condition is that will allow me to continue my studies at the clinton school of public service and pursue a career in public service upon graduation. i sincerely appreciate the work of president obama for getting the affordable care act accomplished at all the work is that clinton has said over the years to improve the health of people in arkansas come united states and the world. i also want to thank arkansas governor mike beebe and the members of the air can the legislature. and a bipartisan way, they developed a pass and innovative production model that others

dates can better and more possible replicate. it's now my great honor to introduce the 42nd president of the united states and the person for this great graduate program is named. president william jefferson clinton. [applause] >> thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. governor, senator, mrs. pryor, speaker carter, senator lamoreaux, governor mike daniels, all the other officials here i'm a friend of any heirs. first, i want to thank mara for her introduction and for sharing a little of her story.

today the work my foundation does some help here in america largely concentrates on the issue of childhood obesity and the role that plays in dramatically increasing rates of type two diabetes, the kind you get from living. but we can never forget it that there are people like mara who were born with the condition of type one diabetes. it's an enormous percentage of health care spending because of consequences that we bring to the other people who bears them and their families. they can shrink rather than in previous are gifted young people. thank you for being here. i worked today in health care is

mostly, as i said, trying to contain and reduce childhood obesity and trying to improve health care of the baby boom generation so we don't bankrupt all the rest of you. but around the world, i work with people who have no money, no health system, all the things we take for granted. however, all this work began when i was an attorney general worried about the quality of health care in arkansas nursing homes or when i was governor, trying to deal with the fact that there were still substantial numbers of rural communities, where people had virtually no access to health care, wherewith not possible to deliver abv safely, where the infant mortality rate was well above the national average. ..

about the current system of health care, how it works, how it compares with what other people and other countries pay for health care and what kind of results they get. what changes are actually occurring now and are going to occur in the future. so i have done something unusual for me. i actually wrote this whole

thing out. [laughter] i'm going to try to use very few adjectives, explain how it works, what has been done, what has to be done, talk about the remarkable work that has been done in arkansas, thank you to the governor and the leader of the house and senate, and bipartisan coalition here. and what lices ahead. and i'm going argue as best as i can that we're going to be better off whether we support or oppose the health care reform law, where we like it don't. we would be better off working together to make it as well as possible to identify the problem and fix them. instead of to keep replaying the same old battle. that's my belief. i hope i can persuade you that's correct and we should support leaders like the governor and the leaders of the house and

senate here. all over america, we're trying to figure out what is best for the people and get the job done. in 2010 nearly a 100 years after president roosevelt first opposed affordable care act said for all americans. the congress adopted and president obama signed the affordable care act. the bill was design to address the problem of the health care system. the ebbing the record their cost and lack of coverage. it does sew in a way that improves and not weaken the quality of our health care. before the bill passed, just 84% of the american people had insurance coverage, we were spending almost 18% of the gdp. 17.9% of our national income on

health care. that's about $2.5 trillion. other countries at our income level cover everybody and do it for far e less costs between 9% of gdp in japan, and 12% that's the netherlands and wises land with country like germany and france in the middle. the difference between 17.9% and 12 is $1 trillion a year. $1 trillion that could go to pay raises or to hire new employees. or to make investments that would make our economy grow faster. or to provide more capital to start small businesses or expand others. or to support diverseing and

strengthening agricultural. you name it. $1 trillion is a lot of money to -- our competitors in a highly competitive global economy. it would be worth it if we got a trillion dollars that are -- but that's not what the research shows. it shows we rank first by a country mile and our north carolina we spend on health care, and no better than if all the survey 25th to 33rd among all nations in our health outcome. health care costs keep wage down, business profits down, economic growth down. accounted for 60% of the personal bankruptcy filings before the economic crash. and every single year for an entire decade now they have been

going up at three times the rate of inflation. man feeing themselves and higher premium and higher copay and higher deductible. the cost was so high for several reasons. almost everybody pace health care providers for each procedure. a medical device to our service. not for the overall quality of health care. in most state, insurance has almost no competition. in 80% of our states, one or two companies have 8% of the market. therefore there's little constraint on limiting prices or their ability to not cover people with preexisting conditions. or to do so at unaffordable prices. the paperwork cost of our system, because there are so many different people paying in to it, are incredibly high.

about a dime on the dollar higher than the next both expensive country in the world. that's a lot of money. and we all pay for that. we also pay more for drugs than people in other wealthy country. about $70 billion a year more. as i said earlier, our lifestyle has lead to a higher of preventable problems than citizen of other countries have. especially diabetes and the conditions related to it. the affordable care act is designed to address all of these issues. by making health care coverage available and more affordable to all americans. by improving health care delivery and paying for it, based on its quality, not the number of procedures performed and products provided. and by creating more affordable options for uninsured people and small businesses. that's what arkansas government

and the legislators are leading the country, i think, in bipartisan efforts. the law generated a lot of opposition, as we all know. it's been -- attacked from the left, believe it or not, not having a public option. that is for leaving the insurance company with two larger role in north health cares and attacked from the right for increasing the role of government in health care delivery. people who are already insured have been told they were about to lose what they have. small businesses have been told they'll be priced -- [inaudible] poor people without coverage have been told they won't be able to asphord it when it comes. in congress, there have been votes to repeal the law. but no real alternative presented to fix the current system. opposition has been fierce in many states which matters

because states are given a very big role in implementing this. something i like. they are eligible for a substantial increase in medicaid funding to provide coverage to workers with lower income. and funds that create and run health care marketplaces. designed to allow uninsured citizen in small businesses to shop for policy that are adequate and more affordable. several states declined to participate in either of the medicaid expansion or the marketplaces or both. leaving money on the table for other states. and the health insurance marketplace to the federal government to set up and run. now as i said, i think we should all work together to implement this law, whether we support it or not for several reasons. number one, as i try to demonstrate nothing is better than the current system which is unaffordable and downright

unhealthy for millions of americans. it gives states a program designed to work best for their them. number three, not cooperating means states taxpayers will pay for this and the money will go somebody else somewhere else. with consequences, which i will outline. number four, the problems with a law threne are -- there are some. you can't change a complex ecostructure like american health care this much without creating some problems. well, there are some. they can best be solved if we work together to fix them. number five, this does give us a best chance we've had to achieve nearly universal coverage, provide higher quality health care, and lower the rate of cost increases, which we have got to do in a competitive global economy. and finally, it is the law.

[applause] i think we have -- [applause] we have all got have an interest in trying to faithfully execute the law. to get one of these elected job you actually take an oath to do that. [laughter] so i'll dot best -- dot best i can in plain language to say how the law works, what happens so far, what has to be done now, what the unsolved problems are. and why we're better off working together to fix those problems than continuing to fight to repeal the law or even worse, to make sure the implementation is a failure. several provisions of this law -- let's talk about where we are now. several provisions of the law have already taken effect. as a result, more than 3 million young adults under 26 now have health coverage on their parent's plans.

6.6 million senior pay less for prescription drugs as the law begins to close so-called doughnut hole in the medicare drug program. 105 -- million americans have seen the limit -- the lifetime limit on their insurance coverage abolished. and preventive care is less costly for them. 17 million children with preexisting conditions -- 17 million can no longer be denied coverage and charge higher rates. [applause] almost 26 million women and almost 26 million men -- 27 million and 26 million men have been extended preventive benefits with no cost sharing including mammogram, cervical cancer, cholesterol and blood pressure tests, stop smoking

program, fluid and pneumonia shots, free natal care. 12 million people have received rebate from insurance companies because companies must spend 20eu880 to 85% of your premium depending on the size of your pool on your health care. not keep it for profits. this is also been a major factor in keeping rate lower than they otherwise would have been. and slowing the rate of increase. total savings from rebates and lower insurance rates are estimated in 2012 to have been $3.9 billion. what does it mean for arkansas where nearly 500,000 people are uninsured? including about 25% of our working-age people. one in four. well, 865,000 people no longer have lifetime limits. more than 32,000 seniors have

senior reduction in the drug policy. 35,000 young people are covered on their parent's plants. more than a million people are eligible for preventable services without a copay. they received about $3.5 million in rebate on insurance policies. now what? what is next? in january, insurance companies and the individual small group markets no longer able to charge higher rate or deny coverage based on preexisting conditions. this affects a lot more people than you think. it is estimated that 129 million americans under age 65 roughly one in two of us are at risk because of preexisting conditions. and therefore pay some higher insurance rates. let be realistic to people who pay higher rates or can't get coverage at all are a smaller

percentage of that, but there is still a good number. i bet you everybody in the audience knows somebody with a severe preexisting condition and made them uninsurable or increase their rates. after january, these group in the most severe conditions are concentrated in to people age 50 to 64. although irresponsible young people. it's amazing what you say -- [inaudible] [laughter] they are concentrated there. they can't be charged higher rates, which is an opportunity and a challenge. i'll talk more about that in a minute. also, women can no longer be charged higher rates than men. which was a common practice. [applause] and 8.7 million of them with individual coverage will have attorney services for the first